Page 30 of Partridge in a Bear Tree

CHAPTER 17

Penny, with absolutely no visible sign of self-consciousness, simply stood up and stripped her sleeping shirt off. Ashley yelped and turned away, blushing and crushing her eyes shut, and heard the amusement in Penny's voice. "Does the sight of me naked offend you so much?"

"I just don't want to be rude! Or…rude!" There were quite a few other words that actually leaped to mind there, but Ashley didn't think discussing how hot and bothered she got looking over Penny's lush curves would help at all just then.

"Well, I feel silly standing here naked with your back to me. Believe me, people spend a lot of time undressed, or half dressed, backstage at concert venues, so it doesn't bother me at all. Seriously, Ashley, how do I do this? I don't even know how to shift. It happened accidentally last night. My partridge went 'I can do that!' and just, like,did."

Ashley kept her gaze resolutely on the floor. "Ask it if it can do that again."

There was the briefest pause and then a telltale rush of air, followed by a startled squawk. Ashley twisted to find a wide-eyed partridge standing on the floor, braced like it was expecting something to go wrong.

She was a rather pretty bird, all dusky browns with white and reddish-brown highlights on her wings. Her neck was speckled with black, her throat cream, and her beak, eye rings, and legs were all a splendid red. She was, Ashley suspected, probably twice the size of a true partridge: shifter animals were almost always larger than their true counterparts, and Ashley had the vague idea that normal partridges were smaller than an average chicken. Penny was definitely bigger than that, particularly with her feathers fluffed in alarm, as they currently were.

"That's good," Ashley crooned. She didn't think of herself as a crooner, but it was the only appropriate tone to take with a nervous bird. "That's very good. Now can you shift back?"

The partridge stared at her suspiciously, then marched around in a little circle as if it was thinking very hard. Anotherbamfof air puffed, and all at once Penny was standing there again, her bare back to Ashley.

She had, Ashley thought, anawfullycute bottom.

"That," Penny breathed, "is freaky. Let me try again." She shifted again, still strutting in a little circle, although she froze once more when she did shift, as if she'd surprised herself and had forgotten how to walk. Then, cautiously, she walked around some more, shifting a couple more times before hunkering down in partridge form and, Ashley swore, concentrating fiercely. She wondered ifshelooked like that when she concentrated as a bear. It was ridiculously cute, honestly. Animals weren't really suppose to concentrate, and the result was adorable.

Penny sat there with that intense partridgey frown for long enough that Ashley wondered if she should say or do something, but very suddenly the partridge shifted back to a woman again, and this time, she was dressed. Mostly, at least: she was in the gorgeous autumnal concoction she'd rented, although her legsand feet were bare. She looked down at herself, yelped, "Oh thank God!" and collapsed over backward on the bed in a rustle of skirts. "Oh my god, that was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Do youknowhow hard it is to get a partridge to focus on a dress?Yesit's like feathers!" she wailed in despair, clearly to the partridge, then said to Ashley, "It got so hung up on the idea of feathers it wouldn't shift because humans don't have feathers. Oh myGod.Is your bear that…" She sputtered out, giving up, then exhaled more quietly and ran her hands over the dress. "At least I got it back."

"That's wonderful." Ashley beamed at her. "Really, I'm very proud of you. That was hard and you did a great job!"

"Thank you. Can I borrow some giant-sized clothes that don't matter if I lose them in a shift? I mean, it would matter, obviously, but?—"

Ashley grinned. "But it wouldn't be a holy-cow-how-much? dress if they disappear. Yeah, of course. I have a couple of skirts that might fit you, and my shirts will be too big, but that's a look, right?"

"The skirts had better be mini, or I'll be walking on the hems. Yes, that would be great, please. Oh!" She sat up and looked down the dress, then collapsed again in relief. "Oh, good, my bra came back with the dress. I wish the shoes had, but I can borrow those big snow boots again, at least long enough to get back to the hotel."

Ashley, genuinely curious, said, "You couldn't tell your bra had come back?"

Penny waved a hand in the air. "This dress has a lot of structural boning. It was fifty-fifty on the bra."

Ashley laughed. "Right, of course. Yeah, let me get you the clothes, and then if you're hungry I'll find something for breakfast. Which means we'll probably eat gingerbread man cookies because that's what I've got in the kitchen right now."

"Not a cook?" Penny sat up again, interested, and Ashley answered as she left the room to find Penny some clothes.

"Not really, no? There's never seemed like much point in cooking for one, and even before I was running the pub I was always pretty busy. I'm capable of producing something edible in a kitchen, but only under duress. You?"

"I make two kinds of food," Penny called, though she lowered her voice as Ashley came back in with a skirt and top. "One: massive party feasts for fifty. Two: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Oh, that's cute. And it is a miniskirt. On you." She held up a denim skirt that was short on Ashley, then stepped into it, displaying how it hit her nicely at mid-thigh. "Amazingly, it fits around the waist, though. I'm now envisioning a future where I can borrow all of my girlfriend's clothes. Unzip me?" She turned to display the complicated zip-and-hook closure of her fairy gown, and Ashley found her hands cold and shaking with nerves as she tried to open it.

Penny glanced over her shoulder, a smile sparkling in her brown eyes. "Is this going to be a problem when we get to unfastening bras?"

"I will never master undoing them with one hand," Ashley whispered, mortified.

Penny laughed. "Me either, honestly. It's witchcraft. Ooh, I can breathe now, thanks." She took a deep breath and shimmied out of the dress, picking it up to lay it on the bed before pulling Ashley's shirt on.

It was slightly longer than the skirt on her. They both looked at where the hem skimmed just above her knees before Penny giggled and tucked it in. "I could have just borrowed this and a belt and I would've been fine. Okay, I'm ready for gingerbread men."

"I can probably do alittlebetter than that," Ashley said guiltily.

"You say that like I'm not happy to eat gingerbread for breakfast." Penny followed Ashley out of the bedroom, glancing around the two-bedroom apartment's open-plan layout. "This is nice. Big living room. Enough space to be a bear?"

"Especially if I push the coffee table out of the way." Ashley had, in fact, done that so she could shift back and forth as she experimented with her clothes. "Gingerbread is good, but shifting takes energy, especially when you're not used to it. Eggs and toast. Maybe bacon if I've got some in the freezer." She went to poke around, emerged triumphant, and got everything going in the small kitchen. Penny checked the fridge, found orange juice, and poured them both glasses, then sat at the kitchen bar to watch Ashley cook, and to consider the question when Ashley asked, "So how are you doing with all of this?"

"I don't know," Penny confessed. "Okay? Maybe? I guess? It's weird and I don't feel like it suddenly fills some kind of 'my god, I always knew there was something missing' space in my life. But it's also fine? It would be finer if this damn bird would stop…I think it forgets how to swallow if it pauses taking a drink, you know? But it's okay. I do think part of the reason I started playing drums was to drown it out, so it's nice to know I wasn't crazy."

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