Family of the Fox, #1

by F. M. Isaacs

  My mother laughed. “You'll get them straight soon enough.”

  The mind-reading thing could become an issue, I saw quite plainly. Mom had caught that concern in my head too? I felt like my brain was spinning around in loops. But then, fortunately, I spied Jonas and Daniel.

  “I found them,” I announced. “They’re right down there.”

  The two bushes were green and healthy, but otherwise did not stand out much from their neighbors. Daniel had seemed to enjoy life as a tree so much that it was a shame that he had no awareness in his current state.

  “I actually feel guilty changing them back,” I said.

  “They don't know they're bushes.” Mom ran her hand lovingly down one of Daniel's branches. Slowly, as if she were creating a masterpiece, the plant grew brilliant and flowed into a humanoid shape. Daniel's features appeared, and he soon was whole.

  I changed Jonas back, not as artistically as Mom had done with Daniel, but at least I had performed it successfully. Both Jonas and Daniel returned with serene looks on their faces.

  “Whatever he did to me, whatever I was, I do feel very relaxed,” Daniel admitted.

  Jonas looked down at the disturbed earth at his feet. “Oh, we were plants?” He shook some soil off his slacks. “It's nice that he changes us with our clothes. He doesn't have to, you know.”

  “What kind of plants were we, Mom?”

  “Blueberry bushes, to be exact,” my mother replied. Like before, she didn't seem too put off by this fact. She had undoubtedly experienced some plant transformations of her own.

  “So I could have grown berries?” Daniel questioned, displaying great interest.

  “Yes, and we could have made blueberry pie with them,” responded my mother with a smirk. She transformed Jonas and Daniel into birds. “Now let's get back to your father and grandfather. We have to end this. And we have to save Julian. My father probably turned him into a doormat by now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  We rejoined my father and grandfather. They were back in human form and squabbling as usual. Usually their fighting was good-natured, but sometimes it got heated. I had always heard rumors that Dad had a tumultuous history with Grandpa Brian even before he got married to my mom. I filed another mental note to learn about what had transpired between the two of them, now that I knew the greater truth about both sides of my family. I bet their past arguments would have been something to behold.

  “Well, Julian, you let him turn you into a hat!”

  “I didn't let him, Brian! I'm almost powerless against a changer!”

  “But a hat?!” I could see Grandpa Brian, as usual, was enjoying this repartee immensely.

  Dad frowned. “You've threatened me with far worse transformations than that.”

  “And you've threatened me with one-way trips to very bloody bat-tles–”

  “Damn it, you two! Is this really the time for this crap?” my mother shouted. She shot into human form, changing back Daniel, Jonas, and me immediately after.

  Everyone blinked at each other for a moment. Then Grandpa Brian cleared his throat and continued.

  “Look, there's that split second of confusion when a person is changed back. You know it well. We have to use it to our advantage.”

  “Allen’s been changing for so long. He still gets confused?” Daniel asked. Even though he no longer was a bird, he rubbed his head against his shoulder, as if to preen himself.

  “Daniel, we don't have feathers anymore,” Jonas pointed out, a touch of mirth in his expression.

  “If Aldous has just been a mindless object,” Grandpa Brian explained, brandishing the cotton in his hand, “then it doesn't matter who he was before. He'll be confused when he changes back.” He bowed his head, likely recalling a similar experience. “Now listen. Let’s get as many of us out of harm’s way as we can. We just need to leave a changer here to turn Aldous back and then immediately leave.”

  “Leave?” Daniel asked. “How?”

  “Well, the changer has to be able to time travel too. That counts me out. I can't ask Corinne to do it yet, and I don't want to ask Patricia to.”

  Mom's narrowed her eyes at Grandpa Brian. “Dad, please, I'm not an eleven-year-old.”

  “So how about we do two people – a traveler and a changer,” my father suggested. “That way, in case there's a problem, one person escapes before Aldous gets to both.”

  “So both people need to be travelers, to be really safe.”

  I walked up to them, holding myself tall. “I want to do it.”

  Again, everyone looked at each other nervously.

  “Corinne, you're very new at this,” said Grandpa Brian.

  “You let me come back with Daniel and Jonas. You trusted me enough to save them and bring them here.”

  “Yes, well, that’s very different from going up against Aldous...”

  “I'll do it with her,” said Mom.

  Grandpa Brian still looked skeptical.

  “Two changer-travelers are better than one,” added Uncle Jonas.

  “Says the traveler who got himself turned into a stuffed bird,” my brother chuckled.

  “Lay off him, you house fly!” I spat back.

  “Corinne, it's okay,” smiled Jonas. “You don't have to defend me. I've been turned into far worse things.” He gave a knowing glance toward Grandpa Brian, who grudgingly smiled.

  I straightened up and crossed my arms. “I'll stay with Mom. She'll change Allen, and then I'll take us back.”

  Grandpa Brian clicked his tongue and thought for a moment. “Fine. Just be careful,” he replied quietly, regarding both of us with poorly-concealed worry. “Patricia, take this maniac.” He stuffed the cotton into Mom’s hand. “One of you take me home. I need food. I've had too much changing and fire-breathing for one day, and I'm not sixty anymore.”

  “You and Daniel have had a tough day,” Jonas conceded. “Let me take you both home to get some rest.”

  Daniel snorted. “Yes. It's tough being a blueberry bush.”

  Grandpa Brian chortled and locked eyes with my mother just before Jonas whisked them away.

  That left Dad. He remained there, just gazing at us.

  “We'll be fine, Julian,” said Mom. But her eyes told a different story, and I hated to look at them. Mom, who was good at everything, who was powerful and amazing, had doubts. I just hoped Dad didn’t pick up on her concerns.

  He moved toward her, placing a silent kiss on her forehead. “Don’t make me have to rescue you from the dead.”

  “Hey, I did it to you,” Mom responded tenderly.

  “Yes. Yes you did.” Nodding, Dad came to me next. He traced a finger across my cheek. “You are ours,” he said, and for a moment, I could imagine Lisette standing there, cheering me on.

  “Dad, really. We’ll be fine.”

  Exhaling deeply, he replied, “You will. You will. Good luck, you two. Go save the world.”

  Mom and I watched bravely as he vanished.

  In the silence that followed, I contemplated the small bit of fluff sticking out from between my mother's fingers.

  “I liked him, Mom.”

  I looked off into the distance, reminiscing once more about the time I had spent with Allen before I'd discovered his true identity. When I thought about how he had misled me, it hurt profoundly. “I really had fun with him,” I choked out.

  “I wish you'd told me about him. You usually tell me what's going on in your life, and I've always tried to be there to listen. Why didn't you say anything when you met him?”

  I kicked at a pebble that lay beside my foot. Not so long ago, I had changed my brother into one to save him from life as a fly.

  “I told you there was a man I had met. And I invited him to my graduation party, too. I wasn't trying to hide him from you that day. But he never came inside the house, and I only met him outside later. He obviously didn’t want you to know that he knew me.

  “Maybe I should have been suspicious then, I guess, but t
hat was when all of you were keeping everything about our family secret from me, too! I'm not sure that was such a good idea, even if I never did end up inheriting any abilities. Not knowing about our family didn't help me with Allen. It made me more vulnerable to him, and it could have hurt us all.”

  Mom looked me, her eyes tearing up. “You know, to this day, it still bothers me that my own parents kept everything secret from me, too. Julian and I thought it was best to do the same with you, but now I'm not so sure anymore.”

  I sighed. “I guess it doesn't matter now. Unless we go back to when I was a kid and I tell myself everything.”

  My mother ran her fingers through her hair. “Oh, Corinne. Don't ever change your life like that. One day I'll tell you how your father changed our history, which led me to change it more...and worse...” Her voice trailed off.

  “And I’ll tell you about another girl named Corinne,” she added, as quietly as death. I had never seen such pure anguish on my mother’s face as at that moment.

  Finally, her gaze wandered up, focusing on the clouds.

  I shivered, but I knew better to pry further. She would tell me more when she was ready.

  Reeling from Mom’s haunting words, I studied her fist with mixed feelings. I wanted to rip the cotton ball to shreds, but I also felt like I was losing a friend.

  “You're not losing him. He'll always be there in the storybooks.”

  “But he's a villain in the stories. Will he really still do the awful things that the book says?”

  “I'm afraid he will, Corinne.”

  A thought struck me. “Hannah really is his daughter? You know, she was the one at the party who said that he was looking for me. I wonder if she recognized him? He changed his looks a bit.”

  My mother confirmed the answer to my question. “Aldous and his wife had a boy who married and moved away, and they had a girl – Hannah. Julian and I saved her life. Talk to her. She has quite a story.”

  Breathing deeply, Mom combed her hand through her hair once more, taking on a determined expression. “Now come on. Enough putting this off. It's time to end this.”

  She stepped back several paces and faded from view.

  “Mom!” I screeched in shock.

  Her musical laughter came from the empty spot she previously inhabited. “Still here. But I think it'll give us a few more seconds if Aldous can’t see us. Come here.”

  “Where?”

  Another laugh, and I felt a cold hand clamp onto my wrist. A very slight tingle made its way through me, and when I looked down, I wasn't there either.

  “Oh my God–” I almost lost my balance. It was so unsettling not to see my legs that I had to grab a low branch to steady myself.

  “Now I have to keep a bit of focus on you to keep you invisible, so we may need to switch plans a bit. Do you think you're up to changing him back, and then I'll get us out of here?”

  I knew I could handle this transformation. And if I made a mistake, my all-powerful mother would fix everything – I hoped.

  “Yes.” I took a deep breath. “I'm ready.”

  Mom grasped my arm again. “You can do this.”

  “I know,” I replied.

  “Yes.” I could hear the smile in her voice, which filled me with pride – and this time it was my pride, not someone else’s.

  “Go!”

  I brought the cotton to a blinding glow, and, holding my breath, I pulled it into the form of a man. And there Allen stood.

  He looked around, befuddled. “What...”

  I cupped a hand over my mouth to stifle a cry, but my weight shifted. My foot snapped a twig, and Allen realized we were there.

  “Corinne!” he shrieked. “Where are you?”

  “Let's go!” I murmured. I braced for the lurch signaling my mother’s bringing us back to our own century, but, maddeningly, we remained exactly where we were.

  “Mom? What are you waiting for?”

  With a frightening smirk, Allen melted into greenish fire and shot up into the sky.

  “We have to go, he's going to–”

  Then my mother dropped the invisibility. I think my heart was about to fall out of my chest. “Mom, he can see us!”

  The flames hovered overhead, churning and twisting into a furious cyclone.

  Calmly, my mother twisted her head to focus on it. “Forget,” she commanded.

  The fireball emitted a tortured shriek and began to rain down on us.

  I tried to dodge it, but it met my skin with a painful hiss, the smell of burning flesh filling the air. “Mom!” I screamed, wildly flailing my hands to protect myself. I could see the flames hitting my mother, and I couldn’t accept we’d gotten this far only to lose...

  “Allen,” I sobbed weakly, “please.”

  Incredibly, the fire poured off of Mom without affecting her. Abandoning me, it gathered all around her body, attempting to break through whatever barrier she had up.

  Mom hardly flinched, and not once did she avert her gaze from Allen’s blazing form.

  “Forget.”

  With finality, her voice echoed through the air, and then, completely unharmed, we stood in my room.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “He didn’t really want to kill us, Mom, did he?” I sniffled, staring up at my mother. “But when you were dragons, he almost did! I just don’t know...”

  Mom sat down on the bed where I lay sobbing. She said nothing about Allen’s fiery last actions. They were acts of a desperate man, and as awful as they seemed, I understood why he’d committed them. He couldn’t stop fighting; he clung to a life he felt he deserved – to the very end.

  And that battling spirit had been passed on for generations.

  “How could you steal his memories? Why would you take that all away from him?”

  “I didn't wipe the memories away completely,” Mom said softly. “I fogged them up, so they're more like a dream.” She examined most of me, picking up my arm and looking closely at the skin. Of course, there was no sign of any wounds.

  Apparently satisfied that she’d healed me well enough, she gently placed my hand back on the sheets. “Did he hurt you?”

  I pondered her question, reliving the experience once more. “It hurt when he touched my skin, and he must have been burning me because I smelled it,” I paused, the green flames bright in my mind, “but after that, it only felt warm.” I scratched my head, intrigued. “He stopped...hurting me.”

  “Hmm,” Mom replied, her lack of response bearing much more weight than any words could.

  “He didn’t hurt you either?” I asked.

  “He tried,” she said. “But I believe you’re right. Despite what he’d said, I don’t think he originally set out to murder his own family. He was trying to survive, and he was desperate. I don’t know. We’ll never know for sure.”

  And that uncertainty, plus the infuriating amalgam of love and hatred for Allen, threatened to tear me up inside. My mind went back to being a bird tied to a perch, yet within seconds, my thoughts shifted to a beaming Allen. I swirled in his arms, dancing through the night...

  “I can’t stand the way I feel about him!” I blurted out, drawing my knees to my chest.

  Mom tapped my shoulder, nodding. “I know. I feel the emotions pouring from you. You still care for him, and I know it’s frustrating. Maybe it’ll help if you keep in mind that he almost did away with your mother and grandfather.”

  Ashamed, I stretched my legs back out and turned from her. I didn’t want to burden my mother with all my stupid teenage hormonal overreactions. At the same time, she’d been dealing with everyone’s feelings for years and I never knew.

  Slowly, I twisted back to face her. “But still, why would you take his memories?” I repeated. “Maybe he’d be a nicer person if he kept them.”

  “Corinne, we couldn't let Aldous have memories of the future.”

  “What harm would it have done?”

  Exasperated, she responded, “Look, I don't know what kind of eff
ect it would have had if he remembered everything completely. He has knowledge that he didn't have originally – and resentment for what we did to him. That could change history in very unpredictable ways.”

  “How?”

  Mom raised her voice angrily. “I don't know. Maybe he would search the globe for a time traveler to bring him back here to get his revenge on us! Maybe he would kill his siblings to make sure we were never born...”

  “You just said he probably didn’t want to kill us–”

  She stood up abruptly and stalked away.

  I was so surprised at her behavior that I remained in my bed for several minutes.

  Soon after, Dad poked his head in the door. “Welcome back!” he smiled, embracing me. “Mom said you did well, and Aldous is back where he belongs.”

  I just looked away.

  I think he saw that I didn’t want to talk about our “victory” any further. “Everyone's here. Come on down.”

  “Dad,” I queried, “why's Mom so mad? She just...”

  “You hit close to home, Corinne. Remember the rescue we mentioned who was mad at us? After Patricia brought him back to where he belonged, he waited through the decades to get his revenge. And he did quite a job of it.”

  “Oh,” I gulped. “I didn't mean anything by it.”

  “I know, I know.” He prodded at me. “How about you just come downstairs and join the family?”

  I followed him, a bit nervous to encounter my mother again. As we neared the bottom of the steps, I hesitated. “Dad?”

  He stopped, glancing back at me. “What?”

  “Is Mom fireproof?”

  He blinked at me for a moment and then continued on his way. “She’s a changer, Corinne,” he called over his shoulder. “She’s everything.”

  AS I CROSSED THE HALLWAY, something ached inside of me. It wasn't just that I had lost Allen. The added knowledge that Mom had nearly wiped me from his memory was particularly upsetting. I was the only one who remembered our adventures in detail. To Allen, I existed merely in his dreams.

  And now, he’d been dead for centuries.