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hands appeared at the end of her wolf legs. But nothing else seemed to be changing.
    I looked, horrified, at Marco. His normal head emerged with startling suddenness from his wolf body. But the rest of him had not changed. He looked down at himself and cried out in terror. “Helowl. Yipmeahhh!” It was an awful sound, half human, half wolf.
    This was worse than I had feared. I figured they could be trapped as wolves, like I had been trapped as a hawk. But they were emerging as half-human freaks of nature.
    They were living nightmares.
    Cassie ran from one to the next. “Come on, Jake, concentrate! Focus! Rachel, bear down, girl. Picture yourself human. See yourself like you’re looking in the mirror. Fight the fear, Marco!”
    I saw Marco roll his human eyes up and stare at me. His gaze locked on me. It was like he hated me. Or feared me. Both, maybe.
    I didn’t move. If Marco needed me so he could concentrate, that was fine.
    But it sent a shiver of disgust through me. I suddenly saw myself as they all must see me: as something frightening. A freak. An accident. A sickening, pitiable creature.
    Slowly, slowly, Marco began to emerge. Slowly, slowly, the human body appeared.
    Rachel, too, and Jake. They were winning their battles.
    “That’s it, Jake,” Cassie urged. She held his hand tight between both of hers. “Come back to me, Jake. Come all the way back.”
    I watched Rachel. She still had a small, shrinking tail. Her mouth still protruded. Her blond hair was still more like gray fur. But she was going to make it. The clock must have been fast. A matter of five minutes one way or the other had determined their fates.
    I was glad they had made it. They were all human again.
    “We did it,” Jake gasped weakly. He lay on his back on the pine needles. “We made it.”
    “That was close,” Rachel said. “That was way too close. It was so hard. It was like trying to climb up out of a pool of molasses.”
    “I’m human again,” Marco muttered. “Human! Toes. Hands. Arms and shoulders.” He checked himself all over.
    “Ha ha! That was
close!”
Cassie exulted. She gave Jake a hug. Then I guess she felt self-conscious, because she ran over and hugged Rachel and Marco.
    They were all laughing, all giggling with relief.
    “We’re okay,” Jake sighed.
    I was happy for them. Really I was. But suddenly I didn’t want to be there.
    Suddenly I desperately didn’t want to be there. I felt an awful, gaping black hole open up all around me. I was sick. Sick with the feeling of being trapped.
    Trapped.
    Forever!
    I looked at my talons. They would never be feet again.
    I looked at my wing. It would never be an arm. It would never again end in a hand. I would never touch. I would never touch anything …
anyone
… again.
    I dropped from the branch and opened my wings.
    “Tobias!” Jake shouted after me.
    But I couldn’t stay. I flapped like a demon, no longer caring that I was tired. I had to fly. I had to get away.
    “Tobias, no! Come back!” Rachel cried.
    I caught a blessed breeze and soared up and away, my own silent, voiceless scream echoing in my head.

CHAPTER 12
     
    I t was late when I returned to what was now my home.
    After I was first trapped in my hawk body, Jake had removed an outside panel that led into the attic of his house. I flew in through the opening. It was a typical attic. There were some dusty old cardboard boxes full of Jake’s and Tom’s old baby clothes. There were open boxes of Christmas lights and decorations. There was a chest of drawers with a top that had been scarred by something or other.
    Jake had opened one of the drawers in the chest and packed it with an old blanket.
    It was nice of him. Jake has always been a decentguy. In the old days he used to protect me from the jerks at school who liked to beat me up.
    The old days. When I still went to school. How long ago had it been? A few weeks? A month? Not even.
    There was a Rubbermaid dish in a corner where no one was likely to