Midnight Metamorphosis

by Deborah E. Kehoe

  Chills raced up my arms as I quickly grabbed my bag, my mom’s words from that morning entering my head. Had something happened? I could hear all the other kids start whispering as I walked up the aisle to the front, but I only had eyes for the principal, who had a worried look in her eyes.

  “Avery Anderson?” When I nodded, Mrs. Kendrick clasped my arm and led me outside the door of the classroom. The cop followed and huddled next to the principal. She had taken off her uniform hat and had it under her arm. She awkwardly reached out and laid a hand on my arm in what was supposed to be a comforting gesture, but I reached for the strap of my backup shrugging off her arm.

  “Is it my mom?” I asked quickly, my heart hammering inside my chest. “Did something happen?” Before the cop could respond, Mrs. Kendrick nodded.

  “I’m so sorry honey,” she said trying to reach out to give me a hug, numbly I allowed it for a minute until she turned to look at the officer and gave him a nod.

  “Your mom was in a car accident this morning. I’m so sorry, but she didn’t survive.” The officer spoke softly and I glanced at the ground, her words repeating in my head.

  “Where?” I asked glancing up quickly, the tears in my eyes clouding her features. I flashed back to the conversation with my mother this morning and her statement about someone coming after us. I should’ve paid more attention, I thought as I brushed the tears out of my eyes.

  “Avery, your mom was in Chandler at a stoplight that malfunctioned. All of the lights turned green at the same time and multiple people were injured.” Through the tears in my eyes, I could see the cop looked confused.

  “Did a lot of people get hurt?” I asked with a tremor in my voice.

  “Just one other, seriously, a man on the side of the road was hit by flying debris.” The officer’s voice faded when he saw the question in my eyes.

  “There was a wild wind storm that kicked up suddenly. We think that contributed to the malfunction.” The officer continued to speak to the principal as she asked a couple more questions. I realized that they had grabbed hold of my arm and were leading me down to the main office. My legs were trembling, and my mind was racing as I tried to grasp what had happened.

  My mom had been right? Was there a connection between someone trying to get us and this accident? I focused when I heard my name being repeated a few times and a hand patting my arm.

  Mrs. Kendrick had steered me into her office and was asking if there was someone she could call. I remembered my mom’s instructions and told her that I could go to a neighbor’s apartment. After giving her a phone number, she called and reached Mrs. Gonzalez who was going to come to school and pick me up.

  I reached for the tissue she held out to me and wiped my eyes.

  When I came back to myself, Summer and Ana’s faces were shimmering with tears, and Cole had put his sandwich down in his lap. I cleared my throat feeling a flush rise up my neck. I sniffed and wiped the tears quickly from my cheeks as I tried to casually go on, my voice trembling as I started. “My mom left me a letter saying I had an aunt in Dover, so I hopped on a bus and got into town yesterday. I didn’t even know I had an aunt. My mom never talked about her, but she seems pretty cool. She has that shop off Main that sells tea and stuff.” I stopped speaking because Summer and Ana both nodded as if they knew her.

  “Your aunt is Brenna Cameron?” Summer asked. She looked like she was about to say more but Cole gave Summer a direct look and she said instead, “My mom is a fan of her tea’s.” She smiled as Ana nodded in agreement. “Anyway, if y’all don’t mind, let’s talk about what happened this morning in first period.” Summer looked at Ben, “did Cole fill you in?”

  “I’m sorry I missed it. I was in the Nurse’s office this morning. The season starts next week and I needed to pass the physical.” He shuddered comically and continued, “So, everyone was in slow motion? How’d you do that?” He looked directly at me while grabbing Summer’s apple and taking a bite out of it.

  She smacked him in the arm again and said, “Hey, I have practice later!”

  “Me? I didn’t do anything!” Shocked, I looked around at the group. “I was just standing there and then the room just slowed down. Well, except for the four of us and did you notice we were all lit up like a spotlight was on us, too?” It was weird, I agree, but why would they think I did anything?

  I noticed Cole checking out the gold ring on my right hand. “I saw you twisting that ring around your finger when it happened, can I see it?” Nodding, I tried to tug the ring off my finger, but it wouldn’t come loose and I gave up tugging on it.

  “Sorry, I can’t get it off my finger.” I told them about my mom giving me the ring a few weeks ago, and when I mentioned that it had been my grandmother’s, Cole sat up a bit and reached for my hand. When he touched it, I felt a small shock again and it turned loosely on my finger, and he pulled it off. “Weird,” I said, “I haven’t been able to get that off since my mother died.”

  “What does the GC stand for?” he asked. Cole was turning the ring over, looking intently at the engraving.

  “I’m not sure, I think it’s someone’s initials, but she didn’t tell me whose.” I said and held out my hand for him to drop the ring back into it. “It’s nice to have something of my mom’s. We didn’t have a lot.” I could feel myself tense up against the tears that were welling and rushed to put the ring back on my finger. There was a flash of light and small bolts of electricity flew out and zapped the four of them. I jumped in astonishment. What the hell had happened!

  Ana gave a small squeak, scooting back on the grass, but Summer moved closer saying, “What the heck?”

  Cole shrugged it off, looked at Ben and said, “Cool.”

  Ben agreed with a nod to Cole saying, “Awesome!”

  I didn’t know what to say other than a shocked “sorry!” and thankfully the bell rang for fourth period.

  Chapter 4

  Avery

  I stopped at the sidelines and walked over to the water cooler. As I filled my cup, I watched Summer take a pass from one of the other players and run up the sideline. Wow, I thought. She’s amazingly fast. Summer moved the soccer ball from foot to foot, making it seem as if the girl guarding her was standing still. A defender came forward to block. Summer pushed the ball to the right and whirled around her, coming out of the spin behind the defender, receiving her own pass. She touched the ball quickly with her right foot and drilled it into the net with her left. Some girls cheered and a few came forward to slap her on the back acting like her speed was completely normal. I yelled out a cheer and Summer looked at me with a grin.

  I was trying out for an open spot on the team. One of the midfielders broke her leg at practice yesterday by stepping in a gopher hole walking to her car after practice. When I told Summer that I used to play soccer, she suggested that I come out to practice and talk to the coach. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, I mean, I hadn’t played in a few years, but the coach ran me through some drills and talked to me about my conditioning. My skills were a little rusty, but Summer told the coach she’d work out with me and help me get back into shape.

  Summer ran towards me from the end of the field and I filled a cup with water and handed it to her. “You’re really fast!” I said.

  “Yeah, speed runs in my family,” she said as if that run was totally normal. She drank the water down quickly and pointed to the football field where the boys’ soccer team was practicing.

  “Check them out,” she said. I followed her gaze and noticed Cole setting up for a shot on goal. Ben, the goalie, was hopping from side to side, mouthing off to him. I could just make out his words, “You know you’re not going to get one by me, Cole. You might as well quit trying.” Cole grinned and flicked his fingers out at him, a dust devil, filled with fresh blades of grass, twisted towards Ben as Cole took the shot, the ball sailed towards the right corner of the goal. Ben, his t-shirt whipping around him and blades of grass slicing towards his face, took a giant leap from
the opposite side of the goal. He shouldn’t have been able to save that shot, I thought, but he swiped a hand out and palmed the ball, scooping it back out towards a player on the other side who dribbled it back into a line of players waiting their turn to shoot. As he turned back towards Cole, I could’ve sworn I saw his eyelids fold up together over the center of his eyes, but he blinked and it was gone so I thought I must’ve imagined it. The wind died down, and the grass settled back onto the ground. Of all the strange things about that save, what struck me was that Ben made it while not wearing any gloves. I said as much to Summer, she grinned and said, “That boy has great hands.” The way she said it made me wonder if we were still talking about soccer, but the boys’ soccer team did finish last year with a 12-0 record, so I let that comment slide, figuring I’d get the full scoop later.

  I saw Ben and Cole laughing with each other, and when they high fived I noticed their hands stuck together slightly. Cole said something to Ben as he pulled his hand away, wiped it off on his leg, laughed, and walked back to get in line to take another shot.

  As I turned back to Summer, about to comment on how fast the wind had blown up, our coach blew his whistle and we fell in line behind some other girls to run a couple of laps to end practice. Boy, I need to get in shape quickly, I thought, breathing heavily.

  “Avery, stop by my office tomorrow for your uniform,” the coach said. He was marking something off in his notebook. “You’re on the team.”

  “Sugar, I knew you had skills!” Summer nudged my arm as we ran down the track and I smiled at her, but as she passed by me my smile died.

  This was the first time I’d felt happy in years and it took losing my mom for me to feel this way. I mean, I know that I can’t live in the past, but I feel so guilty! It was nice to just be normal. I sighed and picked up speed to catch back up to Summer, who was, of course, leading the girls around the track.

  After school, when I didn’t have practice, I started working in my aunt’s tea shop. The shop not only sold tea, tea pots, cups, saucers and other tea items, but also had a few little garden tables where you could “Come Sit a Spell” and have hot or cold tea and a snack. The overall feel of the shop was very soothing and feminine, but there were shelves full of books and magazines that customers could borrow, so we had both female and male customers frequently stay in the store for an hour or so. The tea bins were full of Darjeeling, Chamomile, Earl Grey and other familiar brands, but there were also special mixes that Brenna created out of different plants, herbs or flowers from her garden. We had regular customers who came in weekly for Brenna’s special mix of Sleepytime or T-Eaze. The purpose of the first was obvious from the name, and the second was to help soothe muscle pain or arthritis. Brenna promised that she would teach me about herbs and their natural properties for healing when I showed interest in her special brews.

  It was a Thursday afternoon in mid-October when I opened the door of the shop and entered, the smell of black tea and vanilla soothing my senses. I glanced to my left and noticed a customer at the bookshelf with a book in his hand. Usually at this time of day we had several customers, and a couple of regulars sitting at a table, but the shop was empty and Brenna was not there. This was unusual when there were customers in the store. I walked toward the counter and lifted up a latch. A section of the counter swung open, allowing me to step behind it. I bent over to set my backpack down on a shelf under the counter. When I straightened, I jumped, surprised to find myself nose to nose with the man who had been standing across the store when I entered. He was average looking, with brown hair, and was about six feet tall. He was wearing black slacks and a white button-down shirt, which in itself wasn’t that unusual, but he was also wearing a pair of sunglasses and black leather driving gloves. The store was dim from the late afternoon sun, and typical of Southern California weather for October, it was in the mid-eighties outside. The glasses and gloves struck me as slight overkill on trying to look cool, but it was California, I thought.

  His nose, being an inch from my own, startled me and I took a step back. Not liking how close he was, I loudly asked if I could help him with anything and he tilted his head slightly to the side and didn’t answer. Even though he was wearing dark sunglasses, I felt his gaze run up and down my body, ending on the gold ring on my right hand. The ring started to get that tingling feeling, like it was a battery charging up. I moved my left hand over to touch the ring and twisted it. I asked again, “Sir, is there something I can help you with?” My instincts told me that he wasn’t here to buy tea. I backed up a step.

  “I am looking for Brenna Cameron, or her niece?” he said making a long hissing sound when he said the word niece. He leaned forward over the counter as he spoke, his breath smelling of sulfur. The counter was about a foot and a half wide, a pretty large barrier between us, but I felt threatened by his intensity. Just as I was about to respond with a sharp rebuke, the chime on the door jingled as the door to the shop opened and Cole stepped inside. He glanced quickly around the store and walked to stand behind the man at the counter.

  “Cole! Is it time for us to head to the movie already?” I raised my eyebrows at him and kind of jerked my head towards the man in front of me. I had no idea what Cole was doing here, but I was very glad for the surprise visit and hoped he didn’t mind I was using him as an excuse. “I just need to wait until Brenna comes from the back, then I’ll be ready to go.”

  If Cole thought my behavior was weird, he covered his surprise well. “It’s cool, we have time.” He said looking intently at the man standing in front of me. He moved slightly to the side, removing his hands from the pockets of his sweatshirt and flexing them.

  The stranger stepped away from the counter and faced Cole, like two gunslingers in a western movie. He stood with his hands away from his body, and a humming energy filled the air. I saw Cole clench his hands into fists and the ground rumbled. A teapot that was sitting on a burner behind me shrieked, steam rising out of its spout. Scared by the abrupt sound of the teapot, I jumped, and a yellow bolt of energy shot from my hands and hit a bookstand across the shop. Books flew, and a few pages littered the air. I gasped and started to lift my hands, when I noticed the steam from the still shrieking teapot whirl around the stranger’s head and neck, turning them red with heat. The man gave Cole and I a calculated glance, turned, and raced from the shop, the bells on the door chiming his exit.

  Cole relaxed his hands and went to the door, turning the sign from Open to Closed and locking the door.

  “Are you ok? Did he hurt you?” He spoke urgently as he walked quickly towards the counter. Brenna entered the room through the door to the kitchen, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel and Cole and I both jumped. She paused in the doorway, looked at the books littering the floor of the store and at me, pushing my hair out of my face.

  “What happened?” she asked in concern.

  After I lifted the shrieking teakettle off the burner, I flipped the latch on the counter and stepped towards Cole. “Did you see that? That lightning bolt, or whatever? I think that came from me!” I exclaimed. Since my first day of school, there were little things that I had noticed and tried to overlook about myself and my new friends. Ana’s skin changing colors, Summer’s speed, Cole making the dust devil on the soccer field, Ben’s leaps and grabs in the goal, and the little bursts of power coming from me, or my ring. I grabbed Cole’s arm. “And you, too, Cole. The steam from the kettle wrapped around that man and burned him! Did you do that?” I said tightening my grip on his arm. I turned it over, looking at his hand, trying to see if it looked different than my own.

  “You..We did this?” I stumbled over words as I tried to figure out how I could have shot that lightning bolt out of my hands.

  Brenna looked at Cole and at his nod said, “Come on honey, let’s sit down, I think we need to tell you a few things.”

  “I think so, this is some crazy stuff!” I said rubbing my shaking hands together for warmth. “How is it possible that I have- and Cole has
the power to make things explode, and the steam!” Brenna explained that there was an entire world of Others. “My family, the Camerons, were witches.” At my look of shock, she quickly explained. “Not the witches you see kids dressed up as for Halloween, but Seers and Spell Makers. Powers in our family follow the mother’s line and well, we gain them when we turn sixteen.”

  “Sixteen?” I ask, back to that first day of school and my class appearing to freeze. Wow, I thought, I did that?

  Brenna nods and continues. “Before sixteen, the extent of our powers are a mystery. We have a normal childhood.” She stopped when I gave a huff. But when I waved a hand she continued. “On the eve of our sixteenth birthday, at the stroke of midnight, we have our transition, in a kind of trance. It’s different for everyone, but when we wake up we have our powers. Some are more powerful than others.” Brenna shrugged modestly.

  “Like your knowledge of herbs?” I asked.

  “Exactly. I’m very happy to create teas that help people feel better. Your mother’s talents were in being able to see the truth, a kind of human lie detector. A useful skill, but not too powerful. I think your mother and I were a little bit of a disappointment to the family line. You see, your grandmother, my mother, was one of the strongest Seers the Cameron family had seen in the last century. She had been able to make true predictions of the future.”

  I remembered how my mother would always know if someone had the money to purchase her survival kits or was trying to take advantage of us. I felt proud that my mom had a useful skill that kept us alive and gave us an income over the last few years, and I said as much to Brenna. She hugged me gently in response.

  I turned to Cole and pointed a finger at him. “How do you fit into these Others?” I asked and Cole gave a slight grin.