“Andrew will be very happy to hear that I have told you the truth. He has been needling me since the first week. But you understand why I couldn’t give up the hope I had that you would accept me and not turn away because I was different.”
Timothy seemed to have wound down. His head was bowed as if afraid of what I’d say. He was staring down at his hands which were clasping each other nervously. My heart went out to him. Again I felt the urge to throw myself into his arms, but he was something weird, a shape changer he’d called himself. Not human.
I sat in silence, taking it all in. I had run out of questions for the moment. My head was hurting. I needed a cup of coffee, but I didn’t want to get up and walk downstairs. I might keep walking if I did that. I might find myself searching for Andrew. Except Andrew was a pooka, too. Or sort of one.
“So Andrew isn’t a pooka?” I asked, confused by that point.
“No. A pooka is born. The bite only allows longer life, not shape changing. Andrew has no more than a small residue of my magic.”
“So, if you bit me, I wouldn’t be a pooka. I’d be the same as I am now.”
Timothy looked up and stared at me. His eyes a moment before had been full of agony, but I saw hope blooming. The darkness around his iris turned bronze. He looked as he had that day in the Sandors’ house when I’d first met him.
“Do the Sandors know about you?” I burst out.
“Yes.”
“And Simone?”
He nodded. “I have a few good friends whom I’ve known for years, well, much longer than that, actually.”
“Does Danny Franco know?”
“No. He’s a man who interviewed for the art gallery management position. He comes well-recommended, but he is not someone I’ve known for a long time, nor do I plan to tell him. I hope whatever you decide to do, you will not offer this secret to others. This has to remain between us, or even in this time period, the village, or city we live in, will come for Andrew and me with torches and arrows. Or, I perhaps, guns.”
I laughed. “Who would I tell? I’d be committed.”
“There is that,” Timothy said, smiling. He stood up and walked over to the door. A button I hadn’t noticed had been placed on the wall. When Timothy pushed it, I heard a bell ring. Someone answered and Timothy said, “We’d like some coffee, please. Anything else, my dear?” he asked, turning to look back at me.
I shook my head. How did one swing from crazy to normality so quickly? I guess he’d had years, or even centuries, to practice that. Shape changing was hard enough to understand, but living hundreds of years . . . Wow. Incredible.