The Tempering (The Mackenzie Duncan Series)

by James, Adrianne

  It was then she felt a harsh painful tingle throughout her body. It wasn’t a feeling of limbs falling asleep but something else. The fire that had been stationary in her arm flamed hotter as it crept up over her shoulder and began to lick at her collarbone, then down her chest and up her face, seemingly at the same time. The tingle grew more intense deep within her bones, as a buzzing rang loud in her ears, also. The burning, tingling, and buzzing all rushed through her body until she was entirely consumed. Then, as if it had never happened, the flames were extinguished, and all was quiet. There wasn’t a rush of cooling relief, nor was there a grand finally of pain. It just stopped.

  She looked back to her arm, through water-laden eyes to see what couldn’t be. She slowly lifted her arm higher to get a better look. Before her, Mackenzie watched as her muscles and tendons and veins began to re-grow and knit back together. Her skin sealed itself over the newly healed muscle tissue, starting at one end and working its way to the other. It almost looked like a piece of fabric being zipped up, leaving no trace of any wrongdoing behind.

  Not knowing what else to do, she stood, and then forced herself to look away from her now perfectly healed arm. Totally confused but not wanting to be in the dark any longer, she walked home hoping a good night’s sleep would put everything in perspective.

  She was fooling herself. Nothing would ever make sense in Mackenzie’s life again.

  Chapter 2

  It had been a rough night for Mackenzie. Not only had a ridiculously large wolf attacked her, but also something strange had happened to her, and she hadn’t a clue what. Follow that with a sleepless night and the music from her neighbors pounding through the walls, the few hours of sleep she did get did not leave her rested. In fact, she felt worse that morning than she had the night before.

  Mackenzie groaned as she tried to roll out of bed. Everything inside of her was aching. She had never felt so sore not even after her first 10k back in high school. She may have been overweight, but she loved to run as much as she loved to eat. Just the thought of eating sent a wave of nausea through her. Knowing she wasn’t making it into work, let alone class, she decided to call the manager.

  Rolling over just enough to reach the phone on the bedside table, she squinted at the tiny dial pad before punching in the number to the coffee shop. Her hands were trembling so that just holding the phone was difficult, let alone pushing the tiny little buttons.

  The phone rang at least 10 times before it was answered. Worrying that the length of time it took them to answer meant they were swamped, she braced herself for a bad conversation.

  “Cafe Crimson, Can you hold please?” Susan, the manager, answered. She sounded stressed as she put Mackenzie on hold before the question could be answered.

  Mackenzie listened to the school’s fight song play on loop for at least five minutes. She could feel her eyes growing heavier with each passing moment and continued to shake her head to wake herself up. Just a few more minutes, then I can go back to sleep.

  “Thank you for holding, How may I help you?”

  “Hey, Susan, it’s me. I am not going to be able to make it in to work. I’m so sick, it isn’t even funny.”

  “Sick? Mackenzie, we are swamped and it is not my fault you decided to go to the game and party last night. Hangovers are not an excuse to call out of work. If you’re not here in the next hour, you will have to look elsewhere for employment.” With that, she hung up the phone.

  Mackenzie lay in bed for a few more moments, trying to process what had happened. It wasn’t as if she called out of work often. Hell, she had never called out of work before. But she knew that finding another job half way through the semester would be near impossible and she relied on that paycheck to survive. Sure, she had some money squirreled away, but it would only last so long.

  Deciding she needed to go to work, but knowing she would never make it through the whole day, she dialed her friend, Jordan’s number.

  “Do you know what time it is?” Jordon whispered in a groggy voice.

  “Sorry, would you mind taking notes for me in Lit? I won’t be making it.” Mackenzie knew her voice sounded horse. Her throat was sore and scratchy.

  “You won’t be in class? Really? You’re missing class?”

  “Yeah, I’m sick and I have to go into work but I can’t see me making it much passed that. I will call you later tonight. I can probably pick them up tomorrow.”

  “Okay, no problem. Feel better and try not to cough in anyone’s coffee.” Mackenzie hung up the phone and lay in bed a moment longer.

  Finding the strength to stand up and walk to the bathroom to get ready for work seemed harder than climbing Mount Everest for the amount of energy she had to use. Opening the bathroom door, she rested against the frame for a moment before slowly moving to the sink, holding onto anything that could bear her weight. From there, she half-walked and half-fell onto the closed lid of the toilet. She tried to turn on the water in the tub to clean herself up using a washcloth.

  Before she could complete the task, a wave of nausea passed through her. Flinging herself onto the floor, she opened the toilet seat lid just in time to expel the small amount of water that was left in her stomach from the previous night before promptly collapsing to the floor. Then everything turned dark around her.

  ~*~

  A loud banging sounded throughout Mackenzie’s small apartment, startling her awake. Taking in her surroundings, she realized she had fallen asleep in the bathroom, lying on the floor in front of the toilet.

  Standing, she felt whatever bug had invaded her system must have gone because now she felt wonderful. More than wonderful, she felt better than she ever remembered feeling. She was well rested, and she felt like she had so much more energy than normal.

  “Be right there!” She went to the sink to brush her teeth to rid herself of the foul taste in her mouth. She paid little attention to her reflection when she opened the mirrored medicine cabinet to grab her toothbrush. When the cabinet door clicked shut, she did a double take.

  Dropping her toothbrush into the sink, Mackenzie grabbed both sides of the reflective glass and pulled her face as close as she could while still able to focus on herself. Staring back at her were not the blue eyes she had looked at every day for the last twenty years, but the same yellowish-green that she had seen reflected in the wolf’s eyes the night before.

  Not able to look away from her eyes, time lapsed without her realization. The knocks on the door resounded through her apartment yet again. Pulled from the magnetism of her eyes, Mackenzie began to exam the rest of her body. She could find nothing else that was out of the ordinary, except that she had full control of her arm, and there wasn’t even so much as a bruise left from the horrifying attack.

  Her gaze returned to the mirror and her curious-looking eyes. She began thinking of any illness she may have ever read about, heard about, or had seen on those crazy doctor shows. Nothing could account for a change in eye color and what she could only assume was regeneration of her arm tissue.

  The banging at her door hadn’t stopped, reminding Mackenzie that someone had been waiting for a while now. Leaving the mirror and the question of her mysterious eyes behind, she ran to the door to stop the incessant pounding.

  Swinging the door open revealed a very irritated looking woman. She stood a good five- foot, ten inches and her long blond hair swung behind her. Jordon’s hands were on her tiny hips as she waited to be let in.

  Stepping back to allow her friend to pass through, Mackenzie noticed for once she wasn’t looking up at Jordon.

  “Where have you been? I only agreed to take notes for you once, so you’re welcome for the extra notes, even though you weren’t considerate enough to ask for them.” Jordon looked around the apartment, as she always did. Jordon grew up with the best of everything, even though her parents didn’t have anything themselves. Her family would eat on less than fifty dollars a week just to make sure she had the designer jeans she wanted, or let their car b
e repossessed just to buy her a two thousand dollar prom dress. Jordon never saw anything wrong with it. In her opinion, parents were supposed to provide and sacrifice for their kids. She just didn’t understand how anyone could have parents like Mackenzie had. That’s why she befriended her to begin with. Part of her felt bad for the girl, the other part really just wanted to study the effects of such a horrible childhood for a psychology paper. After the paper was complete and Jordon had her A, she just couldn’t walk away. Mackenzie knew it was because she felt bad for her, but she didn’t really care. She was used to that kind of friendship, but at least she had someone to talk to.

  “What are you talking about? I called you this morning. I didn’t ask you to go to my other classes.” Mackenzie was truly confused. They only had the one class together on Fridays, why would she think she was asking or expected her to go to her other classes?

  “This morning? Try two days ago. You called on Friday, today is Sunday. Sunday afternoon to be exact. What have you been doing? And what the hell is up with your eyes?”

  “You’re crazy. No way has it been two days! I was sick, tried to take a shower, puked, and fell asleep.”

  “You mean you have been sleeping for more than 48 hours? Seriously, your eyes?”

  “I have no clue what’s up with my eyes. It must have something to do with whatever made me sick. I feel fine now, but something is still going on. I wonder if that wolf had some kind of weird disease or something.”

  “What wolf?”

  Mackenzie began the tale of her long walk home. She told Jordon everything she could remember and by the end, Jordon was looking at her as if she were insane. There were no wolves in Massachusetts.

  “Honey, I think you should see a doctor. Between the hallucinations, the eyes, and sleeping two full days, something has got to be wrong.”

  And for once, Mackenzie completely agreed with Jordon. She had to be imagining everything. There had to be a logical explanation.

  ~*~

  Mackenzie opened the heavy glass door and stepped through. She never liked having to see a doctor. Not only did she not like the poking and prodding, but also the fees were insane. For the first time she was glad for the Student Health Fee she paid at the beginning of the year as it covered her appointment.

  The room was meant to be inviting. The chairs that sat in lines were colorful and looked to have a fair amount of cushion on them. The walls were painted a soft yellow and framed pictures lined them. However, the one thing they couldn’t mask with some cheery colors was the sterile odor. The scent told everyone that this was a clean environment, but this time it made her nose itch whenever she breathed in. It was stronger than she had remembered from other doctor’s offices. Maybe the college just used extra strong stuff to combat the myriad of germs that the student body managed to carry.

  After checking in with the receptionist, Mackenzie took a seat. The magazines on the table next to her provided entertainment for the first fifteen minutes, and then boredom hit and she began to fidget. Finally, a nurse stepped out from behind a thick wooden door.

  “Mackenzie Duncan?”

  “That’s me.” She stood and followed the nurse back. She set her things down on a table in the room and proceeded to get her height and weight checked.

  “Let’s see, 165 pounds and five foot eight.” She began writing in the chart in her hand.

  “I’m 5’6”. I have been since I was 12.”

  “No dear, see here?” the nurse gestured to the height portion of the scale, “Five Eight on the nose. Perhaps you grew and just never realized it?”

  “I grew, all right.” In her mind, she was adding yet another symptom onto her list of weird and wacky things to ask the doctor.

  The nurse left Mackenzie alone in the room to wait for the doctor on duty. She slowly walked around the tiny space, looking at all the pamphlets and posters that advised the students of the dangers of drugs and unprotected sex. It just so happened that when the door opened and the doctor walked in, Mackenzie was holding a pamphlet titled ‘You Got Drunk and Wound up in A Stranger’s Bed. Now What?’

  Scrambling to put it back in the pile where she had found it, she ended up knocking the whole stack over. Before she could even chastise herself for her clumsiness, she reached out and caught most of the pamphlets, righting them before picking up the few that fell to the floor. Quick reflexes were not usually in her repertoire.

  “Ms. Duncan, nice to meet you. My name is Dr. Mallson.” The older gentleman held his hand out for her to shake. She glanced down at it quickly, before placing her hand in his. She wasn’t sure why she was so wary of him, but there was something that told her not to trust him.

  “Hello.”

  “So, what seems to be troubling you?”

  Mackenzie took the few steps to the bed and hopped up. But when she hopped, she went a few inches higher than she had intended, which made landing on the bed much louder than she expected. The bed let out a groan and slid slightly along the floor, bumping into the wall.

  “Sorry about that,” she said with a slight grimace. Embarrassing moment number two in all of twenty seconds. The day just kept getting better and better.

  “Don’t worry about it. How about we just talk about what brought you in? Did you see any of those you would like to take with you?” he asked as he nodded toward the pamphlets on the table.

  “No, I think I’m good without them, thanks. I came in because I was so sick over the weekend, that I don’t even remember it. Apparently, while I was throwing up I passed out and didn’t wake up for a few days. Oh, and my eyes. I have had blue eyes my whole life, up until this morning, that is. Oh, and I grew two inches over night.”

  “Can you remember anything from the night you started to feel ill?” He moved to the wall beside the bed and pulled down a tool that looked like a little thin hammer but with a light shining out of one end. “Look straight ahead.”

  As Dr. Mallson started to point the light in Mackenzie’s eyes, she tried to recall all the details of the attack. She also wasn’t sure she should tell him. He wouldn’t believe her anyway.

  “I was at the football game, got in an argument with one of the Final Boys and left. When I was walking through the park, I thought I saw something, got scared, and ran. I did fall and bump my head though. You think that has something to do with it?”

  “Well, I don’t see anything wrong with your eyes aside from the color change. You can make an appointment with your optometrist, if you would like. As for the sickness and fatigue, we can run some tests. Mackenzie, when was the last time you were sexually active?”

  Mackenzie laughed at his question. She could count the number of times she had sex in her entire life on one hand, and none of those times had been even remotely recent.

  “Not for a long time. About two years ago.” The doctor made a note on his paper with a little grunt, as if he didn’t believe her. She watched as he scratched down whatever drivel he thought important enough. The sound of the pen on paper as he was writing down what were most likely lies irritated Mackenzie’s ears, much like nails on a chalkboard. She didn’t stop to wonder why she could hear each stroke so clearly; all she thought about was ripping the pen from his hand and throwing it across the room.

  “Ms. Duncan, for me to help you, you have to be honest with me. Now, if the sex wasn’t consensual, we can get you any kind of help you need. But you must tell me the truth.”

  Not only was he lying about her on paper, he was calling her a liar to her face. Mackenzie’s temper flared and she jumped from the bed and knocked the file and pen right out of the doctor’s hand. The terrified look on his face snapped her back, making her realize what she had just done. Grabbing her coat, she hurried out the exam room door.

  “Sorry!” She yelled out just as the doctor made his way into the hallway to watch where the disturbed young girl had gone.

  Chapter 3

  Three weeks had passed since Mackenzie ran out on the doctor. She still didn’t
understand why she got so angry. The more she thought about it, the more she realized he was doing his job. She wanted to return and apologize, but she just couldn’t bring herself to face the embarrassment. She did, however, take Dr. Mallson’s advice and schedule an appointment to have her eyes checked, not that it was any help.

  The optometrist told her to see her general practitioner after testing her eyes and finding nothing wrong. Apparently he didn’t listen well either because she told him the doctor sent her to him. In fact, there was not only nothing wrong but her eyesight had improved to better than 20/20. She was now able to see at thirty feet away what people with normal vision had to be at twenty feet to see.

  With her eyes still the strange color, Mackenzie decided it was time for some real research. Being at Harvard had its perks besides a degree no one would turn away. The university had a library that held every law book, every medical book, and any other book one could think of.

  Standing at her desk, she tripped on the strap of her purse that had been sitting on the floor. She threw her hand out to catch herself on the shelf, but when her hand grasped the wood, it cracked. Growling in frustration at the broken shelf, she cursed the old piece of furniture. She didn’t have the money, or the time, to deal with anything else.

  Losing her job after her two-day Sleeping Beauty act had hurt. No amount of begging received any sympathy from her boss, and no one else in the area was hiring. She knew because she had gone to every store, restaurant and bar hoping to find something but not one job was available. Her funds were dangerously low and while she knew she had enough for rent for the next month, she wasn’t sure if she would have enough to eat and she really didn’t want to have to call her mother for help. She hadn’t called once since she left home and calling to ask for money was not the best way to make contact. She had to fight her mother to convince her that she was responsible enough to attend Harvard. Her mother thought she should go to the community college down the street first to make sure she could cut it, as if getting into Harvard wasn’t an academic accomplishment enough. That was her mother, so very supportive.