Shifting Fates Read Online Free Page B

say. “Thank you to Nimrah for getting the gas for the stove. Thank you to Kit for the beautiful lights.”
    “Thank you to YOU for getting us food,” Kit says.
    “Thank you all for another year together,” I finish. “I love you all.”
    “Love you all,” Kit says.
    “Love you all,” Lily and Logan say together.
    “Love you all,” Nim says, and he’s looking straight into my eyes when he says it.
    His black eyes are too dark for me to understand. Pensive, desirous maybe. I picture his body, strong and naked, the way it is after he shifts. Something catches in my throat and I cough to get rid of it. I know what he wants me to think, and I don’t want to think it.
    The others fall to, digging into the hearty dinner, but Nim waits a moment before picking up his fork. My eyes move to my plate and I begin to eat.
    “Delicious ham,” I say, after the first bite. “Perfect!”
    “I want ham every dinner,” Kit says, shoving a fork of steaming meat into her cheek and talking all the while. “I want a ham as big as my whole plate!”
    “I could eat a ham as big as this table,” Logan says.
    “Remember how we got this table?” Lily said. “Nimrah was the one who found it.” She is cutting her ham delicately into little pieces with her knife. I don’t think she’s had a bite yet.
    “I remember!” Kit scoots forward in her chair so that she’s sitting on the edge. “I remember! I remember Nim fell into a big puddle of poop!”
    Lily’s face turns bright red, but Logan and Kit burst into bright peals of laughter. Nim leans back in his chair, a half-grin on his face. He’d lost the big wooden spool coming down the subway track as he rolled it down a slight slope. It had wobbled and dipped as it balanced on the subway track, and Nim had tried to catch it before it rolled forward into the sewage puddle ahead of them.
    Of course, the spool had caught on one of the train ties and Nim had flown straight over it, landing headfirst in the muck.
    “I would have caught it too, if you hadn’t been screaming at me so much not to fall in,” Nim says.
    “I was trying to help,” Kit says.
    “Hey Kit,” Logan says. “If I’m ever in a fight with a bear, help the bear .”
    Kit scrunches her face up for a second before she gets the joke, and then she falls off of her chair in a fake agony of embarrassment. Then she scrambles back up and quickly goes back to eating.
    “I was only little,” she says, twitching her freckled nose and taking another huge bite of potatoes.
    “You’re pretty damn little now,” Lily says.
    “Lily, don’t swear in front of Kit,” I say half-heartedly.
    “I am not little! I’m eight! I was only seven and a half then!” Kit pouts for a moment, and then her face breaks out into a huge grin. “Nim smelled so much like POOP!”
    “Stop talking about poop!” Lily cries. “It’s dinner time!”
    “Hush,” I say, becoming aware of how loud we’re getting. “We shouldn’t shout here.”
    “Hush,” Lily repeats. “It’s dangerous.”
    “It’s okay,” Logan says. “Besides, we’d see the lamp flash if there was anything coming near us.”
    “Is it still plugged in?” Nim asks, frowning suddenly. “I thought we unplugged it from the extension cord. When we were testing the Christmas lights.”
    Logan blinks.
    “Oh, I guess we did unplug the cord, didn’t we? Lily, plug the cord back in,” he says.
    “Say please,” she says.
    “Pretty please with a dingleberry on top.”
    “Gross!” Lily crosses her arms.
    Nim leans over and plugs the lamp into the extension cord. It flashes once, and everyone goes silent.
    Kit’s eyes go wide and she brings the back of her hand to her mouth.
    “Do you think—”
    Another flash.
    “Shh,” I say, and the air could shatter like crystal around us now, that’s how tense we are. The lamp is flashing, flashing. Kit sucks her pinky finger in terror. I can tell she’s trying not to whimper or give us away.
    We’re all sitting