Part Two: The Sibling.

No matter how long she'd been staying with Mikey, or how often he had parties, she could not bring herself to join them. She just could not be sociable.

"Why not?" Mikey had asked her. "They're just people. What are they gonna do to you, steal you for Barnum and Bailey's?"

She glared at him. "That is NOT funny."

"Ah, jeez, I was just kidding, Rahab... why the hell can't you lighten UP?"

"Why don't YOU get off my case? I don't FEEL like meeting anybody, and I HATE these stupid parties."

He stared at her in annoyance. "Okay," he muttered. "If you wanta hide from the rest of the world the rest of your life, then that's YOUR thing. Just don't expect me to hide along with you, okay? I've had ENOUGH of that."

He left her and went back to join his guests. She unfolded her arms and sat heavily on the couch in her room, which Mikey had respectfully alloted for her private use. Not that he wanted it that way, but he had become resigned to being Rahab's occasional-and only- visitor.


Mikey had another guest arrive a few days later, who spent most of the daylight hours in the other guest room, and only came out after she went to bed. She could hear them talking quietly out in the courtyard through her window, which was open to catch the cooling night breezes. She cautiously peeked out from behind the drapes, and saw Mikey on the patio, deep in conversation with a duplicate of himself. The guest was sitting with his back to her, but as she stared, he turned and looked around at her. She quickly ducked in, heart pounding, and climbed back under the covers. The conversation continued as though nothing had happened. She lay a long time before curiosity overcame her shyness, and she eventually went out to the courtyard.

They stopped talking when they saw her. Mikey looked up at her in mild annoyance. "I thought you were going to bed."

"Well - I changed my mind," she said haltingly, glancing at Mikey. "I - ah..." She found herself looking into a face very much like Mikey's, yet not so much a duplicate as she had thought. "Aren't you... going to introduce us? "

Mikey shifted uncomfortably. He gave her a long look, and sighed in resignation. "This is uh, one of my brothers, Rahab."

Her hands went to her hips. "Well, I figured that one out! What, is his name Rahab, too?" She added a nervous laugh.

She was met with silence. Mikey was slowly shaking his head at her. His brother said nothing, but his unusually pale eyes were far too direct to denote timidity on his part, and his mouth snicked up just a little to the right, in a kind of permanent smirk. It was a hard looking mouth, as though it wasn't given to smiling much.

Her enthusiasm faded under his expressionless scrutiny. She glanced nervously at Mike, who showed no support. Her hands clutched at each other in front of her, and she backed away a little. "Well, I guess I'll be running along... um, nice meeting you, brother of Mikey..." She waved weakly, and scuttled back into the house. When she climbed back int bed, she could hear them talking as though nothing had happened.

She didn't answer Mikey when he spoke to her the next morning. He playfully tweaked her long braid. "C'mon, it was nothing personal, babe. He's just that way. He's not into politeness and protocol, but he's honest."

"Yeah, I noticed... I don't think he likes me much," she muttered.

Mikey grinned. "Oho, I wouldn't say that. If he didn't like you, you'd KNOW for sure. He just doesn't know you, that's all. Plus, I don't think he's ever seen anybody quite like you before. You caught him offside, that's all." He sniggered. "He was really freaked."

She smiled. "Really?"

His grin faded. "Uh, well... sort of. I never told him about you, because I know how much you want to stay invisible."

"Oh, thanks a million."

"Hey, you SAID you didn't want me telling anybody you were here, remember?"

"Hm. If more people like him came around, I'd change my mind." She patted his cheek playfully. "He's an exception."

His eyes unfocused a moment. "You really think so? I mean, are you SURE about that?"

"What is THAT supposed to mean?"

"It's just uh, if you knew him, you'd see the humor in all of this. I mean, you know, it's not like he's tryin' to win any popularity contests... know what I'm sayin'?"

She frowned at him. "I don't get it, Mickey."

"You don't get it..." He rolled his eyes. "'Course not. I always haveta spell it out for ya, don't I? Let me tell it to you straight, so there's no misunderstandings here. My brother is a loner. He didn't come out here for company, he came out here to kick back for a while, and he doesn't want anybody bugging him, not even YOU. Got it?"

"Sure," she shot back. "I get it. I think you are just being a little paranoid. Maybe a little possessive jealousy is involved, eh?"

He opened his mouth. "Wha-at? I don't think so! What possessive- who's possessive? Possessive of WHAT?"

She folded her arms and cocked her head at him. "Heh, I thought so. You ARE jealous."

"I am not jealous."

"Yes you are."

"No, I'm NOT." He let his breath out in a huff. "Don't flatter yourself!"

"Huh! I'm just being observant, Mickey... what are you worried about, anyway? It's not like he'll even give me the time of day, anyway."

"Anyway." Mikey echoed, mocking her. "And stop calling me Mickey!"

"Sorry. Mick."

He gave her a searing look, and stalked off.



The sun was beginning its descent when she got out of the pool. She wrapped a towel around her, sarong style, to stop the drips, and lay on one of the chaise lounges. She closed her eyes and relaxed, letting the sun's heat beat on her skin. Then she felt odd, and looked up. There was no one around, but she felt eyes on her. She got up and wandered around the perimeter of the pool, and peered into the shadows under the stand of palms at the far end. It wasn't until she looked toward the guest room balcony that she saw who was watching her. It was Mikey's brother, draped in a deck chair, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, holding a drink steady on the other.

"Oh, hi..." she said casually, in spite of the adrenaline rush at unexpectedly seeing him right above her in full daylight.

He nodded an acknowledgement. "You lookin' for somethin'?"

She raised her shoulders in a little shrug. "Not really, I was just... wandering around."

"Just wandering around, huh?"

She nodded.

"C'mon up," he said, tossing his head at the stairs. He took a pull at his drink, his eyes on her, as she carefully climbed the stairs. "What was your name again? Rahab?"

"That's right."

He was silent a moment, as he continued to study her, as she looked him over. He didn't seem any bigger than Mikey, but he seemed to take up a lot more space. His mouth snicked up a little more in a near grin. "S'matter?"

"Uh! Well - I was just wondering what you were staring at, that's all." She pressed her lips together self consciously. It wouldn't do to be rude to this one, she thought, but he gave no indication of annoyance as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, mouth ajar.

"Well, you're just easy on the eyes, that's all." He drained his glass and set it down at his feet. "So. Where're you from, that I've never been?"

"What?"

"Where are you from?" he repeated slowly, leaning forward in his chair.

"I... don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know? Or you don't wanta say?"

"I don't KNOW, really." She shifted her feet nervously.

"You got ants or something?" He pointed to a chair near his. She pushed away from the railing and slowly came over. She switched her tail aside and sat carefully, knowing he wasn't missing a thing.

"Nice lookin' tail y'got there," he said.

She curled it absently around her lower legs. "Uh huh."

"You really don't know where you're from, or maybe you'd rather forget?"

"What's your name?"

"Raphael. Or maybe you'd rather not talk about it?"

"Raphael? Is that your real name or -"

"Why don't you want to talk about it?"

"Talk about WHAT?"

He gave her a long look. "Where you came from. I think you already know what I'm sayin'."

"I SAID I didn't know, okay?"

The silence afterward seemed louder than her retort. When she looked up at him, he was stroking the side of his upper lip thoughtfully, eyes lowered.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to yell, but how many times to I have to say it, to get it across to you?"

"Get it across to me? Get what across to me?"

She sighed in sudden weariness. "The fact that I don't know where I came from, okay?"

"Uh huh... all you have to do is tell me it's none of my business, and I'll shut up. That's all. Thing is, O Rahab the Mysterious, is that I'm not really into playing games. If you want to play games, that's fine with me. You can sit here and B.S all afternoon, or we can get acquainted, it's your call."

"My call? What do you want me to say?"

"Say whatever you want... and maybe I'll go catch a few zees," he said, grinning faintly.

She sat still for a moment, and pondered what he said, but she made little progress, since her thoughts were muddled and confused. He was giving her odd messages, and it was difficult for her to interpret.

"Listen," she said at length. "I'm not so good at speaking my mind. It's not an easy thing for me to translate. There's a lot of internal arguments going on."

He squinted at her. "Why is that?"

"I don't know."

His chair squeaked as he shifted again. He scratched his temple with a forefinger. "Maybe I'm scaring you, huh?"

"Scaring me? Well- uh... may-maybe."

"Kinda sorta?" His pale eyes were studying her again.

She sighed heavily. This conversation was dragging, compared to the thoughts that flitted through her head like startled sparrows. He didn't seem to be much of a conversationalist, but at least he didn't fill in the silence with a string of witty remarks. She noticed he had an expression on his face that resembled Mikey's, one she was all too familiar with. She suddenly jerked her head at him. "What do you want with me, Raphael?"

"What do I want with you?" he said after a moment. He gave her a broad grin. She could see he was missing a couple of teeth. "You don't realize who you are, do you? Or what you are..."

"What are you getting at?"

"You have to ask?"

The anxiety was setting in again, making her stomach hurt. She shoved her hands between her knees to keep them from trembling, but she realised her nervousness would not be lost on him.

"Hey, c'mon, " he said quietly. "You can talk to me. I can relate to you better than anybody else, can't I? We're in the same boat."

She flinched, and hugged herself, throat tight.

"S'matter?"

She leaped up and backed away from him, though he had spoken quietly and hadn't moved. She didn't look where she was going, and fell backward off the deck. She landed in the palmettos, that scratched and bit her as she struggled to sit up.

Raphael's wide eyed face immediately appeared over the railing above her. "Oop, you okay?"

"NO!" she shrieked. "I'm NOT okay, I'm-" she looked at her torn hands. "I'm bleeding..." Her voice faded to a weak wail.

He leaped down to help her out.

She wanted to scream and shrug him off, but she was too distressed to protest anymore, and allowed him to pull her out. She'd lost her towel on the spiky plants, and he retrieved it for her.

"You're not hurt, eh? Just a few scratches." he said, eyes lingering on her thighs.

She glared at him as she hastily wiped her nose on the towel and wrapped it around her waist again.

"I WISH you would stop looking at me like that!" she snapped.

"Why? Don't you like being looked at?" he said softly. "Hey, I wasn't meaning any offense, okay? I meant it as a compliment, that's all."

She sat weakly on the bottom step, and heaved a shuddering sigh. "I guess you know what I mean when I say it isn't easy being this way..." she said after swallowing the knot in her throat.

He lowered one brow in a look of puzzlement, but said nothing.

"You know... um, being a biological accident? I WAS somebody- I was-" the throat knot was coming back again. As she struggled to speak, he squatted down to her level, facing her, and looked intently into her face. She covered it with her hands, but he gently moved them away. She didn't try to pull them out of his grasp, though she could have done so easily. She shut her eyes tight, to block him out.

"What d'you mean, you WERE somebody?" The proximity of his voice made her open them again.

She looked into the pale eyes. "I was... once. Not anymore. I'm not anything anymore, I have these opposing thoughts going through my head all the time, those that are mine, and something... but it's dead!" A chill went through her, in spite of the desert heat. "It was dead, I just thought..."

"Who's dead?"

"Its consciousness is mine, it confuses me..." she went on as though she didn't hear him. "Graduate, Biochemistry... up all night, too many days in a row, learning how animal cells mutate, I figured it out, but I didn't write it down! I was in some sort of temporary state of wierdness... couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, and I forgot to feed the iguana..." She swallowed hard against the hysteria rising in her throat. "She was my iguana, I loved her, but I forgot to fill her water dish... and I found her dead! I killed her, because I was so caught up in this STUPID research." The words were spilling out of her now, not caring who was listening. "I had this idea that I could bring her back to life, you know, like Frankenstein? There were these cells...that wouldn't die, they just kept on going... There wasn't enough serum, so I used some of my own... and I gave her this transfusion, and she started waking up, and moving around, and..." She fell silent,and trembled.

"You revived her?"

She stared through him. "Yeah... I revived her. She started growing, and thinking, and doing things, imitating me...she walked around and talked to... myself. I WAS talking to myself, the woman in the dirty lab coat, her hair all tangled and matted, staring at me with crazy eyes... watching me look at my green, clawed hands... and falling, hurting myself, clumsy, my body was changing, turning green and blue and white, that was me! It was like I was looking in a mirror, but the image wouldn't match. She- the old me- sat in a corner and laughed at me, while I tried to feed myself and put on clothes. One night she tried to stab me with a carving knife, and chased me around the apartment while we both screamed... then there were lights outside, people yelling and banging on the door, I jumped out of the window and into a tree. She tried to follow, but she couldn't jump as far as I could, and she fell... and hit the ground very hard... the police that were outside ran to her and looked at her. Somebody said it was suicide, and they put her in a big plastic bag. I was too scared to move, I stayed there up in the tree and watched the police until most of them left and I ran away. I ran a long time... I chased the sun... I'm not making sense, am I?"

"You're doing all right," he said calmly.

"I am, huh?" she said, blinking at him.

"Sure. You're here with me, and everything's fine."

She felt the fear melt away, as if she were waking from a bad dream, and the frightening images of the screeching, scarecrow woman faded. "It's kind of rough laying this all on you. It's just that I feel like an accident."

"You're no accident." He reached out and stroked her cheek.

"Not an accident? What are you saying, that this was all planned?"

"Maybe it was."

"You mean, like fate."

"Yeah. Fate... karma."

"Karma? What are you, Buddhist?"

"Something like that."

"Geez." She inspected the scratches on the underside of her arm. "I don't know what I believe in, anymore."

"Something tells me it won't take long for you to figure it out."

"Figure it out... what am I, a human in an animal's body, or something different altogether? Human, animal, animal, human... spirits and bodies united? Do I still have a soul? Or did I really die?"

"Hm. You look pretty healthy to me," he said.

She came out of her reverie when she realised he had kissed her. Startled, she reared back, hands pushing against his chest.

"What, you didn't like that?" he said in mild surprise.

She put her hand over her mouth to stifle a nervous giggle. If she had been able to blush, she would have. She sobered again. "No, I mean, that's not it. You- you're going too fast."

"I am?" he looked puzzled.

"You're going too fast," she repeated. "At least for me. I need some time- let's just take it a little at a time, okay?"

He released her reluctantly, and gazed at her a long moment, then pulled a dry leaf out of her long, lizard-white hair. "No hurry, " he said at length. "I take it you're interested, though."

"Yeah..." she said, and smiled at him.

Next section... Rahab 3

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