by Alex Flinn
It was six. I’d told Magda, through the door, that if Sloane came over, she should send her into my room. I was sitting on my bed, shades drawn, lights off except the closet light. Waiting. In the darkness, with any luck, Sloane might not even realize how I looked. I wore a pair of Dad’s old jeans, larger than my own, to cover me better, and a long-sleeved shirt. All I needed was one kiss. Love and a kiss, the witch had said. Then, it would be fine. I’d be my old beautiful self again, and this cosmic joke would be over.
Finally, a knock came at the door.
“Come in,” I said.
She opened the door. I’d worked hard, cleaning up the shattered glass and paper. I had found the two petals and hidden them under the lamp on my dresser, so they wouldn’t get lost.
“Why’s it so dark in here?” she said. “What, you don’t want me to see your zit?”
“I wanted it to be romantic.” I patted a spot on the bed. I tried to keep my voice steady. “I wanted to make up for Friday. I love you so much, Sloane. I don’t want to do anything to lose you.”
“Apology accepted.” She giggled.
“That’s great.” Again, I patted the bed for her to sit. “Can we make out or…something? My dad’s on TV, so he won’t be home for a while.” She finally sat, and I put my shirt-covered arms around her, pulling her close.
“Oh, Kyle. I love having your arms around me.” Her own hands moved down the outside of my shirt and…
No. She was going for the crotch again. The fur would be a dead giveaway. All I needed was one fast kiss before she noticed it.
“Let’s just kiss a while.”
“Mmm, okay for a little while.”
And I kissed her right on the mouth. I expected to feel something, like when I’d changed the other night. But nothing.
“Ick, Kyle. You feel so hairy. You need to shave.”
I scrambled away from her, trying to stay between her and the window. “No, I didn’t shave today. I told you I’ve been sick.”
“Well, did you shower? Because you’re getting nowhere with me if you didn’t.”
“Of course I showered.”
“Let me turn on the light. I want to see.” She reached for the lamp.
The light blazed on.
Then I heard a scream.
“Who are you? What are you?” She started hitting me. I cowered, afraid of killing her with my claws. “Get away from me!”
“Sloane! It’s me, Kyle.”
She kept hitting. She’d taken karate, and it wasn’t for nothing. It hurt.
“Sloane, please! I know it’s crazy, but you have to believe me! That Goth chick—she was really a for-real witch.”
Sloane stopped hitting me and stared. “A witch? You think I’m stupid? You expect me to believe there was a witch?”
“Look at me! How else can you explain this?”
Sloane was reaching out, as if to touch my hairy face, then jerked her hand back. “I’ve got to get out of here.” She started toward the door.
“Sloane—” I went after her and blocked her way.
“Get away! I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but get away, freak boy!”
“Please, Sloane. You can fix this. She said I’d be this way until someone loved me and kissed me to prove it. We have to try again.”
“You want me to kiss you now?”
This wasn’t going well. But maybe it was better that she knew. Maybe she had to know she was kissing a beast. “Kiss me, and then I’ll be back to normal.” I felt myself shaking, the way you do when you’re about to cry. But that was pathetic. “You said you loved me.”
“That was when you were hot!” She tried to get past me, but I blocked her again. “What really happened to you?”
“I told you, it was a—”
“Don’t say it again! Like I believe in spells, you loser!”
“I’m the same, underneath, and if you kiss me, it will all be like it used to be. We’ll rule the school. Please. Just one more kiss.”
She looked like she might do it. She leaned toward me. But when I bent to kiss her, she ducked under my arm and ran out of the room.
“Sloane! Come back!” I chased her out into the apartment, not even thinking of Magda or anything. “Please! I love you, Sloane.”
“Get away from me!” She opened the door. “Let me know if you get over whatever this is.” She ran out into the hallway.
I ran to the door. “Sloane?”
“What?” She was jiggling the elevator button, trying to hurry it there.
“Don’t tell anyone, huh?”
“Oh, believe me, Kyle, I won’t tell a soul. They’d think I was nuts. I must be nuts.” She looked at me again and shuddered.
The elevator came, and she was gone. I went back to my room and lay on the bed. I could still smell the scent of her, and it didn’t smell good. I hadn’t loved Sloane, so it was no surprise she didn’t love me either. That must be why the kiss didn’t work. The witch had meant it—I had to be in love.
I’d never loved anyone, even when I was normal, never had anyone want to be with me, other than because of who I was, how much stuff I had, and how good I was at partying. I hadn’t cared much. I just wanted the same thing the girls wanted, a good time. There was time for the other stuff later.
But what were the chances I’d ever find someone to really love me now? And maybe loving her back would be the hardest part of all.
3
Good to know: Doctors can’t cure you of being a beast.
Over the next weeks, my father and I traveled all over New York and talked to a dozen doctors, who told us in various languages and accents that I was screwed. We traveled outside New York and visited witches and voodoo people too. They all said the same thing: They didn’t know how I’d become what I was, but they couldn’t cure it.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kingsbury,” the last doctor told my father.
We were sitting in an office in the middle of nowhere in Iowa or Idaho or maybe Illinois. The drive had taken thirteen long, silent hours, and when we’d gotten off at a rest stop, I’d dressed like a Middle Eastern woman, with robes covering my body and face. The doctor worked at a hospital in a nearby city, but Dad had arranged to meet him privately at his weekend home in the country. Dad didn’t want anyone to see me. I looked out the window. The grass was a green I’d never seen before, and there were rosebushes in every color. I stared at them. They were beautiful, just like Magda had said.
“Yes, I am too.”
“We really enjoy you on the news, Mr. Kingsbury,” Dr. Endecott said. “My wife, especially, seems to have a bit of a crush on you.”
God! Was this guy going to ask for an autograph, or suggest a threesome?
“Could I go to a blind school?” I interrupted.
The doctor stopped in the middle of his proposal, or proposition. “What, Kyle?”
He’d been the only one to call me by my name. There was this voodoo guy in the East Village who’d called me devil’s spawn (which, I thought, was every bit as insulting to Dad as to me). I’d wanted to leave at that point, but Dad kept talking to him until the bitter end when—surprise, surprise—he couldn’t help me. Not that I really blamed anyone for not wanting to hang with me. I wouldn’t have wanted to hang with me either, which is why I thought what I was suggesting was so brilliant.
“A school for the blind,” I said. “Maybe I could go to one of those.”
It would be perfect. A blind girl wouldn’t be able to see how ugly I was, so I could turn on the Kingsbury charm and make her love me. Then, once I was transformed, I could just go back to my old school.
“But you aren’t blind, Kyle,” the doctor said.
“Couldn’t we tell them I am, though? That I lost my sight in some freak hunting accident or something?”
He shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t understand what you’re feeling, Kyle.”
“Yeah, right.”
“No, really. I do, a little. When I was a teenager, I had a
very bad complexion. I tried every medication and preparation, and it would get better for a little bit, then worse again. I felt so ugly and shy, I was sure no one would ever care for me. But eventually, I grew up and married.” He pointed to a picture of a pretty blonde woman.
“Eventually meaning after you finished med school and made a ton of money so women would look past your looks?” Dad snapped.
“Dad…” I said. But I’d been thinking the same thing.
“You’re comparing this to acne?” Dad said, gesturing toward me. “He’s a beast. He woke up one morning, and he’s an animal. Surely, medical science—”
“Mr. Kingsbury, you have to stop saying these things. Kyle is not a beast.”
“What would you call it? What terminology is there?”
The doctor shook his head. “I don’t know. But what I do know is that only his physical appearance is affected, what he is on the outside.” He put his hand on mine, which no one had ever done. “Kyle, I know it’s difficult, but I’m sure that your friends will learn to accept you and be kind.”
“What planet do you live on?” I shouted. “Because it’s definitely not Earth. I don’t know anyone kind, Dr. Endecott. And what’s more, I don’t want to know anyone like that. They sound like losers. I don’t have some little problem. I’m not in a wheelchair. I’m a complete and total freak.” I turned away, so they couldn’t see me lose it.
“Dr. Endecott,” my father said, “we’ve been to more than a dozen doctors and clinics. At some point…” He stopped. “You came highly recommended. If it’s a matter of money, I’ll pay anything to help my son. This won’t be an insurance job.”
“I understand that, Mr. Kingsbury,” the doctor said. “I wish—”
“Don’t worry about the risk. I’ll sign a waiver. I think Kyle and I both agree that we’d rather risk…anything than have Kyle continue to live like this. Right, Kyle?”
I nodded, even though I realized my father was saying he’d rather see me dead than alive the way I looked. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kingsbury, but it’s really not a matter of money or risk. It’s simply that there’s nothing to be done. I thought perhaps with skin grafts, even a face transplant, but I did some tests, and…”
“What?” my father said.
“It was the oddest thing, but the structure of the skin remained unchanged whatever I did, almost as if it couldn’t be changed.”
“That’s insane. Anything can be changed.”
“No. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what could have caused it.”
Dad shot me another look. I knew he didn’t want me telling anyone about the witch. He still didn’t believe it himself. He still thought I had some weird disease that could be cured by medicine.
Dr. Endecott continued. “I’d really like to do some more tests, for research purposes.”
“Will they help my son look normal?”
“No, but they might help us to learn more about his condition.”
“My son won’t be a guinea pig,” Dad snapped.
The doctor nodded. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kingsbury. The only thing I can suggest is that you get Kyle into counseling, to learn to deal with this as best he can.”
Dad gave a thin smile. “Yes, I’ll be sure to do that. I already looked into it.”
“Good.” Dr. Endecott turned to me. “And Kyle, I’m very sorry I can’t help you. But you need to understand that this isn’t the end for you unless you let it be. Many people with disabilities go on to great achievement. Ray Charles, a blind man, had tremendous musical accomplishments, and Stephen Hawking, the physicist, is a genius despite motor neuron disease.”
“But that’s the problem, Doc. I’m no genius. I’m just a guy.”
“I’m sorry, Kyle.” Dr. Endecott stood and patted my shoulder again, in a way that said both There, there and Please leave now. I understood and got up.
Dad and I barely spoke on the drive home. When we got there, Dad walked with me from the limo to the back service entrance door of our building. I pulled the dark veil away from my face. It was July and hot, and even though I tried to keep my face hair trimmed, it grew back almost instantly. Dad gestured for me to go in.
“Aren’t you coming?” I said.
“No, I’m late. I’ve missed enough work for this crap.” He must have seen my face because he added, “It’s a waste of time if it’s not accomplishing anything.”
“Sure.” I walked in. Dad started to close the door, but I let it hit my back. “Will you still keep trying to help me?”
I watched Dad’s face. My father was a news guy, so he was really good at keeping a straight face even when he was BS-ing. But even Dad couldn’t help the twitch his lips gave when he said, “Of course, Kyle. I’ll never stop trying.”
4
That night I couldn’t stop thinking about what Dr. Endecott had said, about how he couldn’t help me because I couldn’t change. It made sense now—how it seemed like as soon as I cut my hair, it grew right back. Same with my nails—claws now.
Dad wasn’t home, and Magda was gone for the night. Dad had raised her salary and sworn her to secrecy. So I took out a pair of kitchen scissors and a razor. I hacked the hair on my left arm as short as I could, then shaved the rest off until it was smoother than before my transformation.
I waited, staring at my arm. Nothing happened. Maybe the secret was to get it as smooth as possible, not to trim it, but to obliterate it. Even if Dad had to pay off someone to pour hot wax on me every day, it would be worth it if I could just look a little more normal. I walked back to my room, feeling a surge of something—hope—that I hadn’t felt since that first day I’d called Sloane to get her to come kiss me.
But when I returned to the bright light of my bedroom, the hair had grown back. I looked at my arms. If anything, the hair on my left arm seemed thicker than before.
Something—maybe a cry—was stuck in my throat. I rushed to the window. I wanted to howl at the ever-loving moon like a beast in a horror movie. But the moon was hidden between two buildings. Still, I opened the window and roared into the hot July air.
“Shut up!” A voice came from the apartment below. On the ground, a woman scurried, clutching her purse. A couple made out in the shadows away from the lamppost. They didn’t even notice me.
I ran to the kitchen and chose the biggest knife from the chopping block. Then I barricaded myself in the bathroom and, gritting my teeth against the pain, I sliced away a section of my arm. I stood watching the blood ooze from the gash. I liked the raging red hurt of it. On purpose, I looked away.
When I looked back, the hole had healed. I was indestructible, unchangeable. Did this mean I was superhuman, that I couldn’t die? What if someone shot me? And, if so, which was worse—to die, or to live forever as a monster?
When I returned to the window, there was no one on the street. Two o’clock. I wanted to go online, IM with my friends like I used to. I’d gone along with Dad’s pneumonia story until school ended, then told them all that I was going to Europe over the summer, then boarding school in the fall. I told them I’d see them before I left in August, but that was a lie. It wouldn’t matter. They’d barely e-mailed. I didn’t want to go back to Tuttle, of course, not as a freak. At Tuttle, we’d treated people bad if they had cheap shoes. They’d come after me with pitchforks, the way I looked. They’d think I had some disease like Dad thought, and stay away from me. And even if they didn’t, I couldn’t deal with being a freak in a school where I used to be one of the Beautiful People.
In the street below, a homeless guy trudged by with an enormous backpack on his shoulders. What was it like to be him, to have no one expect, no one want anything from you? I watched him until he disappeared, like the moon, between the two buildings.
Finally, I stumbled to bed.
When my head hit the pillow, there was something hard there. I slid my hand under the pillow and pulled out an object, then turned the light on to see.
&
nbsp; It was a mirror.
I hadn’t looked in a mirror since my transformation, not since the day I’d broken the one in my room. I picked up this one, a square hand mirror with a silver frame, the same one Kendra had been holding that day at school. I thought I’d smash it into as many pieces as possible. You have to find your bliss where you can.
But I caught sight of my face in it. It was my own face—my old face, that blue-eyed, perfect face that was still mine in my dreams. I held the mirror close, using both hands, like it was a girl I was kissing.
The reflection melted away, and there was my beast face once again. Was I insane? I raised the mirror.
“Wait!”
The voice came from the mirror. Slowly, I brought the mirror down.
The face inside it had changed again. Kendra, the witch.
“What are you doing here?”
“Don’t smash this mirror,” she said. “It has magical powers.”
“Yeah?” I said. “So?”
“I’m totally serious. I’ve been watching you for over a month now. I see you’ve realized that you can’t get out of this with Daddy’s money—dermatologists, plastic surgeons. Your dad even called that clinic in Costa Rica where he had his last top-secret procedure. They all told you the same thing—‘Sorry, kid. Learn to live with it. Get counseling.’”
“How did you—”
“I saw you strike out with Sloane too.”
“I didn’t strike out. I kissed her before she saw me.”
“She didn’t change you back, did she?”
I shook my head.
“I told you, you have to love the person. She has to love you. Do you love Sloane?”
I didn’t answer.
“Didn’t think so. The mirror has magic powers. Look inside, and you can see anyone you want, anywhere in the world. Think of someone’s name, one of your former friends maybe…” In the glass, I could see her sneer when she said former. “Ask, and the mirror will show you that person, wherever they may be.”
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do anything she said. But I couldn’t help myself. I thought of Sloane, and just as quick, the picture in the mirror changed to Sloane’s apartment, just the way it had been the day of the dance. Sloane was on the sofa, making out with some guy.
