Dee’s magic is about transformation. Only she doesn’t admit that, because she’s never really allowed herself the luxury of real transformation. She is a shapeshifter. She had her first episode when she was going through puberty, which was scary enough. But her Aunt Xan was a witness, and a witness Dee was afraid of. So Dee tried her best to sublimate it. She used her powers to help her sisters rather than herself. She did her best to build a big wall between her emotions and her logic, since her emotions seemed to set off her magic without her control, which led to her alienating every boy she ever tried to neck with. She now considers herself celibate and content–well, as content as anybody can be– and working as hard as she can not to let her sisters–especially Mare–set her off.

Instead, she’s funneled the power that simmers in her into an acceptable outlet. She paints. Now, don’t get her wrong. She loves to paint. She has a studio at the top of the stairs where nobody can see it, where she lets her barriers fall as far as she can allow them to in her artwork. And she finds her vision through shapeshifting. Very early in the morning, before anybody is up(except a few college frat boys on the way home from a party and the neighbor’s dog), she shifts into other life forms and prowls her world to see it from unique angles, which she attempts to explain to Danny when he discovers her art:

“Do you know what that is?” she asked Danny as he stood considering a painting that looked like a patchwork quilt of greens and golds. “Salem Valley. See the river snaking through? And the cliffs at the edge? See the design?”

It was what she painted. The designs of her life. All experience reduced to geometrics and color, as primary as it got.

“I shifted into a hawk to get that perspective. I also ate two mice and chased a pigeon for three miles. And that one, the violet and green? It’s the flowers on Salem’s Mountain.”

He tilted his head, trying to pull a flower from the simple lines.

“I was a hummingbird to see that. Exhausting. Those little bastards never stop fighting. And a cat to see the white one. It’s a garage door….The one by your arm is the sun reflecting off the rim of Linda Rose’s trash can. I was a rat that day. Rats see a lot. And they have a passion for trashcans.”

And, of course, if I even tried to have sex with you, I’d turn into your mother faster than you can say Oedipus.”

She uses her magic to observe, never participate. Participating hurts. Participating causes grief and disappointment. The only two people in the world she’s safe with are her sisters, and they still cause her pain. So she steps back as much as she can. Until Danny shows up and forces her to wade back into the mess of life. Until he shows her she can be something different than a mother.

Not that it’s easy to convince her. After all, this is the most important chance she’s ever taken. And she has to take this chance with somebody who basically doesn’t believe in magic.

“I do have to prove (that I shapeshift), or I can’t trust that you love me.”

“Why not? It sure feels like it.” He touched noses, his eyes whimsical. “I thought it was gas, but that would have gone away.”

“Because you don’t know me. Not the real me. You have to meet her before you can decide. Now pick your favorite animal.”

“Why?”

She struggled against the tears that crowded her throat. “Because it’s who I am, Danny. It’s inseparable from the rest of me. If you can’t live with it, then you can’t love me.”

“Hedgehog.”

She pulled away. ‘Your favorite animal is not a hedgehog.”

“Of course it is. It reminds me so much of you.”

She glared. “Fine.” Pulling out the rubber band, she let her hair loose, shucked her sweater and kicked off her basic boring white tennis shoes. “I’ll be a freakin’ hedgehog.”

Of course that doesn’t go the way she’d like it to, either. She has to take the big chance. She has to make love to Danny on the mountain and see what happens. Not that I’m going to tell you. It might ruin the fun. Let’s just say that she learns her first real lesson in real transformation.