Midnight Metamorphosis

by Deborah E. Kehoe

  My father and I had gone away to the mountains together for some additional element training. My father was an elder on the Elemental Committee. As an elder, he and the committee were responsible for making decisions for all Elemental families in our city.

  My father was not the head of the committee because he was only able to control two elements, Earth and Air. However, holding two powerful elements is rare, so that has given our family a level of prestige that we wouldn’t have otherwise had.

  We live in a nice house and have a lot of land for training.

  My father didn’t always have time for getaways, so I had been surprised and pleased when he said he wanted to take a weekend trip together. Of course, I couldn’t leave my schoolwork behind, so I was trying to catch up on homework before my training this afternoon.

  “Son, before your mother died, I made a promise to her.” I kept my face relaxed, but inside I jolted from excitement. My father never talked about my mother. She died when I was small, and any reminder of her could set him off on a really bad mood.

  “She wanted you to have a normal childhood, for as long as possible. I’m afraid that with your 13th birthday next week, that time has come to an end. I need to explain to you the journey that we are about to take. The mission that we have been given.” My father frowned and took a step further into the room.

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise, my eyes tracking him. Journey? Mission? Since my 12th birthday, when I inherited my powers, I had been on a strict training schedule. Working daily with my other friends at school, switching instructors when I quickly outgrew their strength. I had thought that I would go on learning those powers and then, like my father, eventually work towards being on the committee.

  My father looked out my bedroom window and I followed his gaze, noticing the wind gently moving the leaves in the trees. He shook his head slightly, straightened his shoulders and faced me again. My eye was caught by movement in my peripheral vision. The tree branches started to bend in the wind, which had suddenly increased, showing my father’s agitation.

  “You know of the prophecy?” I nodded my head. We learned about the prophecy when we were children in school. A female child born of an Elemental and Seer will, on her 16th birthday, gain powers so huge tipping the power balance between our kind. Those powers would be so strong that she will be able to send the powerful Daïmon, Avdar, back to his dimension.

  At my nod, my father started pacing the room, his shoes making no sound on the thick carpet. He turned, facing me directly. “Mathis and I have been talking about what to do about his daughter Avery. She and her mother have disappeared from Oklahoma City, and he has lost contact with them. He’s very worried.” My father stopped and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Diana, his wife, was supposed to wait for him to return, but since she’s gone, he’s not sure if the Daïmonids have caught up with them.”

  My father and Mathis had been close since childhood. When Mathis first met his wife, Diana, my father told me that it was he that Mathis confided in. Since the separation of the Elemental and Seer kind, it had been against the law to even walk on the same side of the street as a Seer. Mathis, with my father’s help, met his wife secretly, eventually falling in love. When they decided to face their parents, intent on telling the truth about their relationship, their parents were horrified. Diana’s mother, a great Seer, had a vision many years ago, which foretold of an end to peace between Seers and Elementals. Until that vision, we had lived together in cities, cohabiting and living side by side, friends with each other. Because that vision was so vague, the heads of the two families, Seer and Elemental, made the decision to separate, discouraging their family members to no longer be friendly with each other.

  The reaction of their parents was so drastic, that with my father’s help, they made plans to run away together, assuming new names. The prophecy that everyone had kept secret, you see, had possibly begun. Diana was pregnant with their child, and in order to keep them safe, they had to run.

  At first, Mathis, Diana, and their child were happy, but their life wasn’t easy. Mathis, having three elemental powers, had been counted on by his family to raise them out of poverty. Diana had inherited only the ability to tell if someone was telling her the truth, which was a small power in an otherwise strong matriarchal line. Their positions in society had been very different. After Avery was born, they were happy for a time, but Mathis’s guilt over not helping his family started to eat away at that happiness. There were also factions within the Elementals that wanted them caught and tried. Wanted their child to be raised in a controlled setting and watched until she turned sixteen. The fact that they couldn’t settle anywhere didn’t allow them to keep jobs for very long. As soon as they felt hunted, they had to move, and move quickly.

  Mathis had secretly kept in touch with my father. He convinced Mathis that if he came back, he could rise up in rank to become very powerful, and in that way, he’d be able to protect Diana and Avery. Maybe someday, he could bring them back home. So, when Avery was six, Mathis and Diana decided that Mathis would return to the Elemental community and work towards that solution so they could all be together again. Unfortunately, when Mathis showed up without his daughter, the Elemental and Seer Committees refused to advance him, even though he was very powerful. He had to work to gain the Committee’s trust and respect. Years went by without his family by his side. He was now a powerful Committee member, as was my father, and they were still the best of friends.

  My father paced towards me, “We will be moving to Dover, California, where Diana’s sister Brenna just moved. If Diana and Avery make contact, the committee has decided that you are to be her Guardian, ensuring that she reaches her 16th birthday.” My father looked at me nervously, rubbing his hands together. “If she is the girl prophesied, our instructions may change, but right now, we are just going to keep an eye out for her. Are you ready? I can’t stress enough the importance of success. This is our family’s chance to prove ourselves. Do you understand how important this opportunity is for us?”

  “Yes, sir.” I nodded my head, my heart filled with pride, thrilled to be a part of such an important mission and prove myself to my father. “Sir, you can count on me.”

  Chapter 3

  Avery

  Ana and I exited our 2nd period Biology classroom talking about the subject of the term papers we were going to have to write. Unlike in English class, Ana showed a real excitement for this subject, talking rapidly waving her hands around in enthusiasm. I rolled my eyes, it was not my favorite subject, but I nodded agreeably when she looked at me for a reaction. Ana looked so pretty and unlike the kind of plain girl I had first met, that I looked more closely and noticed the color in her face. Wait, what? Movement on her arm had me glancing down at it in surprise. I could’ve sworn that the freckles I had noticed on her this morning were gone and she now had a peach tint to her skin. She was actually quite beautiful. I noticed a guy walking down the hall stare at her, and just about walk into a pole. I nudged Ana and laughed. I thought she’d laugh too, but she looked really uncomfortable and stopped talking about our Biology class. Then I noticed a kind of crazy thing; the freckles that had disappeared came back and seemed to swirl slightly. The peach tone to her skin disappeared and turned a normal beige tone. She was still sweet looking, but not a knockout like she was two minutes ago.

  “Ana, what the heck just happened to you? It’s like looking at two different people!” I grabbed her arm and turned it over, looking at her normal freckled skin. I realized something strange had just happened, but her skin can’t change colors can it?

  “Hurry, up, we’re going to be late to meet up with Summer.” Ana pulled her arm away from me and brushed off my question. She picked up speed leading the way to the cafeteria, following another one of those stripes of black running along the wall of the building. As we got closer to the cafeteria we joined up with another hallway that had a red stripe running along its walls. The black stripe and the red stripe led
into a large room that was the cafeteria. The red stripe on the right, the black stripe on the left, until they joined together on the wall facing the door we had entered through in a wave of black and red. Dover High Fighting Lions was scrolled around the wave, with a picture of a snarling Mountain Lion painted in the center.

  “Avery, over here!” My attention jerked away from the snarling lion on the wall. I looked around and saw Summer waving to us from the front of the food line. I smiled and waved back looking around. I saw a small table out of the way and Ana and I went over to take our seats. She and I had both brought our lunches and didn’t need to stand in line to get hot food. I glanced over at Summer and waved at her to come join us when she was done.

  As Summer walked towards us, I noticed that her stride was long and smooth and even though every student she walked past tried to catch her attention, she ignored them all, carrying an overloaded tray and dodging and weaving through people like it was an obstacle course.

  “Let’s go eat outside,” she said, and kept walking past us through the doors, without a hitch in her step. The cafeteria opened directly out onto the center quad. There were tables scattered around, and a few large trees, providing shade to sit in. She headed towards one of the trees on the other side of the quad. As she sat down on the grass, I looked at the tray of food she carried.

  “Hungry much?” I joked. Her tray was full of what looked to be every food item served inside. There was a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, a turkey sandwich, some chips, an apple, and a large brownie. This was not a plate of food that you thought you’d see a tall, blonde Amazon girl with the perfect body eat.

  “I’ve got practice later,” she said shrugging as she reached for half a sandwich. Ana had told me earlier that Summer was the star forward on the Dover High girls’ soccer team. “So, what’s your story?” she said to me as she took a bite. I repeated the same two sentences I had told my first period English class. Summer swallowed her bite nodding slowly and look over at Ana. She frowned slightly and asked, “Are you new, too?”

  “No.” Ana gave a frustrated growl. “Summer, you and I have gone to school together since you moved here a few years ago.”

  “Really. Well, that’s just strange.” Summer looked at Ana as if trying to place her then glanced back at me and shrugged. “So, you’re living with your aunt, right? Where are your parents?”

  As I was about to answer, the cute boy from home room walked up, his hands shoved into the pockets of his blue hoodie his gaze on me. Next to him was another boy I hadn’t seen before. He was just a little bit taller than myself, with blonde hair and green eyes. His hair had gel in it creating little spikes around his head. He had a huge grin on his face and I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

  I looked back over at hoodie boy. “Hey,” he said with a casual nod and I smiled ducking my head to look at my lunchbag.

  “Hi.” I said quietly, glancing at Summer to see her reaction.

  Summer seemed surprised to see them both standing there, but shrugged, turning to me, “Sugar, these boys are Cole,” she nodded at the boy in the blue sweatshirt, “and Ben.” She smiled up at Ben and patted the ground beside her. Ben sat down and reached over for the other half of her sandwich. “Hey!” She swatted at his hand.

  Cole still stood there looking down at me. Summer said, “Well, have a seat! Avery was just about to tell us how she ended up at Dover and why she was living with her aunt.” Cole took his hands out of his pockets and sat down on the ground next to me. Uncomfortable, I noticed he hadn’t brought any food to eat.

  I opened up my lunch bag and glanced inside at a wrapped sandwich, some chips and a couple of sugar cookies. I wanted to avoid their eyes while I thought about what to tell them. Talking about my mom’s death was really hard, but I knew people would find out some way or another, so it might as well be from me. “Well, my mom died in a car accident a few days ago.” I choked up as I said the words and Ana reached over and touched my hand. I tried to smile through the knot in my throat.

  “I’m so sorry Avery, that’s rough.” She said softly. I glanced down at her hand, which was still lightly touching mine. Her freckles swirled and then disappeared. I noticed her hand was turning a soothing yellow color. She noticed me glance down, and quickly removed her hand from my arm. There’s definitely something different about this girl, I thought.

  “Thanks,” I said, battling the tears forming in my eyes.

  I didn’t want to become emotional so I took my sandwich out of the bag.

  It was cut in half so I offered the other half to Cole, “It’s just turkey and Swiss, but I’m not really hungry if you want half.” He smiled slightly and took half of my sandwich. When he looked down at the sandwich to take a bite, I snuck a look at the piercing in his eyebrow. It was a silver bar with some Celtic scrollwork in the shape of a shield. He caught me checking out the piercing and raised his brow at me again.

  Embarrassed to be caught staring again, I quickly looked away and thought about the last time I saw my mom.

  I walked into the kitchen pulling my sweatshirt down over my head. My mom was at the stove, scrambling a couple of eggs for breakfast. She reached over and laid her hand against my cheek, then reached back to help me pull my hair out from under the neck of my sweatshirt. Smiling, she turned back to the eggs pushing them around in the pan.

  “I have to run up to Chandler today to deliver some kits to a store that’s going to start selling them.” She said, turning to split the eggs between two plates on the counter. She set them on the table and sat down in the seat across from me.

  Taking a bite of my eggs, I chewed cautiously, my stomach churning with dread. At least once a week my mom and I had this conversation. “If anything happens to me…” We both started the sentence and trailed off smiling nervously at each other.

  “I know you think it’s stupid, but I really want you to take this seriously.” My mother pointed her finger at me and swallowed her eggs. “Yesterday I heard from someone I used to know, from before your father left us. He said that they are coming.” At those words, my skin prickled.

  “Who’s coming?” I asked the question, my voice cracking. Why I asked, I don’t know, she never gave me a straight answer.

  My mother and I exchanged a look until I glanced away scooping up another bite of my eggs. “OK. They’re coming.” I repeated, my voice skeptical. My mom had been paranoid about people “coming” for us, for the last few years but no one has come and I’m starting to believe they never will come, but I kept playing along in order to take that nervous look out of her eyes.

  My mother nodded in relief. Her eyes relaxed and she pushed a curl of her brownish red hair behind her ear, her mouth tilting up in a half smile.

  “This trip to Chandler is going to be my last trip, but those kits should generate some income for a little while.” She said.

  After a few years of working as a waitress my mom started making survival kits for hikers. A backpack containing bandages, dried food packets, thermos, survival blanket, ponchos, work gloves and anything else you’d need to survive the end of the world. All of her paranoia has started to pay off and some of the local stores have started picking them up to sell. She nodded towards my backpack leaning against the wall by the door.

  “My contact said we have a couple of days, and we need this money. But if something happens,” My mom stopped talking until I looked up from my plate and looked at her. I tried not to roll my eyes. Here we go with the secret spy stuff. Her “contact” is a mystery to me, but mom brings him up when she’s trying to make a point. Before I had decided if I wanted to raise the subject about this contact, she gave me a fierce look and then changed subjects abruptly, looking down at my hands. “Where’s your ring?” She asked sharply.

  I looked down and cursed inwardly, fumbling in the pocket of my jeans until I pulled it out. I jammed it on my finger, twisting it until I got it over my knuckle. I looked back up at her and winced. My mother isn’t very sentiment
al and I’d been surprised when she had given me this ring a couple of weeks ago.

  As usual, she hadn’t told me too much about it, just that it was my great-grandmother’s and the ring was really important. I twisted it nervously and my mom reached out and grabbed my hand, stopping the movement.

  “Don’t take it off again,” she said, gripping my hand tight enough that the ring cut into my finger.

  “Ouch!” I exclaimed, trying to withdraw my hand from hers. “OK! I won’t!” I shook my hand out and my mother relaxed back into her chair. What was that all about? I wondered. My mom’s paranoia seems to have gotten worse, I thought.

  I pushed my chair back from the table and stopped by her side. “Mom, I’m sure everything is going to be fine. Stop worrying so much.” I said, trying to reach down to give her a hug, but she shrugged me off. My chest tightened with hurt, but I pushed that aside. My mom wasn’t ever going to be the type to hug. I don’t know why I even tried. I have a few memories of my mother when my dad was still with us. She smiled a lot and I felt so loved, she held and hugged me a lot back then, but that was a long time ago. I held a breath and let it out slowly trying to ease the tightness in my chest.

  I put my plate in the sink and went over to the door to pick up my backpack. Trying to ease her mind, I smiled and unzipped it to show her the extra set of clothes I’d put in it the other day.

  “See, I’ve been listening to you,” I said, pulling a t-shirt out. My mom smiled in relief and I felt a warm glow of pleasure at making that smile appear even if just over a t-shirt.

  “I’ll see you later.” I said with a slight wave and walked out the door.

  I had been halfway listening to my teacher ramble on about the Louisiana Purchase when the door opened, interrupting his monologue midstream. The principal, Mrs. Kendrick, stood at the door with a cop next to him. I hunched my shoulders in panic when the teacher looked over at me and waved me up to the front of the room.