by G. Bailey
“Sorry to have frightened you,” the first one says, continuing to move forward until she’s standing in front of me. The other one hangs back, crossing her arms over her chest.
“What…” I’m at a loss for words for a moment, and then the questions start to tumble out all at once. “What is this? How did you do that? Who are you?”
“Millie Brix,” the first woman says, “we’ve been looking for you.”
Chapter 4
I stare at her in shock, the fact that I just watched her body transform the same way mine did is temporarily forgotten. “I… How do you know my name?” I ask.
“We’ve been keeping an eye on you for a while,” the woman responds, extending a hand to me. “My name is Samantha Goldstein.” Tentatively, I reach out and shake her hand, feeling numb. Samantha gestures to the other woman, who still hasn’t said anything. “This is my colleague, Josie Everhart.”
The other woman gives me a thin smile. “Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Brix,” she says quietly.
“You too,” I say, fully aware of how absurd this situation is. I’m standing in an abandoned warehouse, having just turned into some kind of fire-breathing monster, and now I’m greeting two other mutant women like it’s the most normal thing in the world. I turn back to Samantha. “What do you mean, you’ve been keeping an eye on me? Are you from the foster agency? Is this about what happened with Mark?”
Samantha beckons to Josie, who wordlessly walks over to join us. “Why don’t we sit down for a while? We have quite a bit to go over with you and believe me when I say I think you’re going to want to be sitting down when we tell you this.”
“Are you serious?” I ask. “You just show up and… and transform like that, and now you want to sit down with me and chat? What’s going on? What do you want with me?”
“Ms. Brix,” says Josie, gesturing at the now-forgotten cardboard sheet on the floor, “please.”
I look from one woman to the other, eyeing them suspiciously. Samantha is a statuesque blonde, while Josie has dark skin and the face of a supermodel. I don’t see malice in their eyes, even though I have no idea who they are or where they came from. For a moment I hesitate, debating making a break for it, but I push the idea away. I still have no idea where I’ll go, and something tells me that these women might be my only hope for figuring out what’s wrong with me.
Slowly, I sit back down, still clutching my backpack to my chest like it’s a lifeline. The other women follow suit, taking a seat on the cardboard and crossing their legs. For a minute I have the absurd feeling that I’m back in kindergarten again, sitting in a circle with the teachers as I wait for them to start the day’s story.
Samantha eyes me for a moment before starting to speak, looking like she’s choosing her words carefully. “Something happened to you just now, didn’t it?” she asks. “Something you can’t explain.”
“I…” I clear my throat, the idea of not telling her what happened flashing briefly through my mind, but I dismiss it. “Yes,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. “Something happened to my body. I can’t even describe it. It was like…”
“Like you were transforming?” asks Josie gently.
I nod. “These two guys came in here while I was sleeping. They were trying to steal from me, or… or worse.” I shake my head. “I was scared. They came towards me, and then it was like I started changing. My skin turned red. It looked sort of like yours was when you first showed up. There were these scaly things popping up on my arms, my teeth turned into fangs, my hair got thicker… and then I breathed fire.” I take a shaky breath, hardly believing the words even as they come out of my mouth. “I guess I scared them away, because they ran. I don’t know if they’re coming back. That’s when you guys arrived.”
Josie’s eyebrows raise slightly, but Samantha just nods slowly, knowingly, like she’s seen this all happen a dozen times before. “For what it’s worth, Millie--can I call you that, by the way?” I hesitate for a moment and then nod. Samantha continues, “For what it’s worth, Millie, you’re not alone in this. I’ve seen more people your age in this exact situation than you can count.” She takes a breath, as if steeling herself before making a big announcement, and then says, “The truth is, you’re a shifter.”
I stare at her blankly. “Huh?”
“We use the word shifter as a shorthand for ‘shapeshifter’,” Josie adds.
My expression must be giving away how confused I am, because Samantha says, “I get that this must be coming as a surprise to you. Up until tonight, you probably thought shapeshifters only existed in stories, right?”
“Yeah,” I say dryly. “That’s because they do only exist in stories.”
“Do they, though?” Samantha asks, holding her hand up in the beam of moonlight that’s coming in through the window. As if on cue, her skin begins to turn red again, the color deepening until her whole hand is the same shade of bright scarlet. She snaps her fingers, and suddenly her hand starts to glow, radiating white light as if it were a luminescent bulb. “Can you really say that this is anything other than magic?” she asks me, meeting my eyes with her own.
I scoot back, my head spinning with fear and confusion. “How are you doing that?”
“Josie and I are witch shifters,” Samantha says. “Yes, you heard that right--witches. We have the ability to turn into another form. The red skin, the black eyes, the magic… that’s all witch stuff, and we access it by… well, by shapeshifting.”
“So you’re saying I’m a witch?” I ask, shaking my head in disbelief. “Like Harry Potter?”
Josie chuckles. “Hardly.” Samantha shoots her a warning look, and she quiets, returning her dark eyes to me.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Samantha says, closing her hand as it returns to normal. “There are more types of shifters than just witches. Dragons, vampires, wolves, sirens…”
“And up until now, you probably didn’t know any of those things even existed,” adds Josie, tucking her legs under her. “You’re probably thinking we’re crazy, right?”
I let out a long breath, biting my lip for a moment. “I don’t even know what to think anymore.”
“Well, that’s progress,” Samantha says. “Confusion is normal at this point. The truth is, you shapeshifted back there when those guys attacked you. The fear response is what activated your powers. That happens a lot when shifters come into their own--usually right around your age. As witches, we have charms in place to locate and track the source of any new shifter magic--in this case, you.”
I run a hand through my hair, feeling more tired than ever. “This is crazy. I don’t… I mean, what? You guys show up here out of nowhere and tell me I have magic powers, and you’re acting like this is all normal.”
“That’s because it is normal,” says Josie. “For us, at least.”
I stare at them, looking from one to the other. Their expressions are frustratingly calm and casual. I feel like my life has been turned completely upside-down, like I can’t get a grip on anything that’s happening to me anymore. The rational part of my brain is fighting against all this, telling me they must be lying, this must be a joke, magic isn’t real, humans can’t transform… But the other part, the part that knows deep down that this isn’t a dream, is whispering that I might as well listen to them, that this is as good of an explanation as any for what happened to me earlier. You were wondering why you breathed fire, that part of me murmurs. You know it’s physically impossible, but it happened anyway. Who says this isn’t the reason?
I find myself thinking back to that growing feeling of being out of place, that sense of non-belonging that I’ve felt growing inside me all my life, that cool, foreign energy that I felt coursing through my body. It’s all too much, and I just want to go to sleep for about a year. But that’s not happening, and I know it. “Let’s say I believe you,” I say slowly, pursing my lips. “Let’s say I believe that shapeshifters are real, that I’m one of them. Why did you come find me? Wha
t do you want with me?”
“That’s the big question,” Samantha says, nodding approvingly. “If you thought this was like Harry Potter before, Millie, you have no idea what is coming.”
I raise my eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a reason most humans don’t know that shifters exist,” she replies deliberately. “You can probably imagine what would happen if all of society knew about magic and magical beings. Scientists would never leave us alone. There could be fighting, discrimination, full-on wars, for all we know. That’s why we let them believe we’re just the stuff of fairy tales. But there are a few humans who know about us. Heads of government, trusted members of our society. People we can be fairly sure will have the best interests of shifters in mind.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “I guess I’m with you.”
“Good,” says Samantha. “Things between humans and shifters haven’t always been peaceful, though. There was a period of time when even the humans who knew about us seemed ready to take action against us.”
“Why?” I ask, finding myself intrigued even though what they’re telling me is absurd.
“They were afraid, I think,” Samantha answered. “When we started becoming more common, it shook up relations between shifters and humans. Many of us didn’t even know we were shifters, and our abilities were unstable and unpredictable. It looked like things were going to get ugly, especially with the possibility of shifters forming an army and making a move against them. But it wasn’t like they could get rid of us, so eventually, our two societies came to an agreement.”
Josie met my eyes. “The humans founded a series of schools on every major continent, academies where newly-discovered shifters can learn to use their powers under supervision. There, they are taught how to coexist with humans, how to keep their powers under control, and how to keep the secrets of our society safe. Samantha and I are representatives of the English-speaking branch of Shifter Academy.”
“So let me get this straight,” I say, my sarcasm just barely masking my confusion. “You guys are… what, recruiters? And somehow your witchy powers told you that I had transformed, so you came here to pick me up and bring me to this Shifter Academy. Do I have this right?”
“That’s the long and short of it, yes,” says Samantha.
“Shit,” I mutter, staring down at the floor. “You guys realize how insane this sounds, right? I mean, it does. It sounds insane.”
“I know,” Samantha says, and I can see sympathy in her expression. “We realize this is a lot to put on you. The truth is. A lot of shifters are like you: orphans or transients, who either didn’t know their parents or were abandoned by them after they found out what they were. Not everyone can handle the truth of what we are.”
My eyes widen. “Are you saying that’s why my parents left me in the hospital when I was a baby? Did they know what I was?”
Josie and Samantha exchange a look, and something that I can’t identify crosses their faces. “That’s not clear to us,” Samantha says, not looking at me.
“But how did you know my name, then?” I ask. “You must have more information about me.”
“We only know your name because we sensed it,” Josie replies. “We’re highly trained in the use of our witch powers. They allow us to get bits of information about the source of an unexpected burst of magical energy. We’ve been following you ever since you left your house. That was when your shifting magic first appeared on our radar.”
I think back to the incident with Mark, nodding. I had to admit it made sense. There’s a long moment of silence as I struggle to process everything they’ve just told me, but soon it becomes clear that it’s going to take longer than a few minutes to come to grips with it. “So what now?” I ask at last, looking back up at the two women.
“Now,” Samantha says, “you’re going to come with us. The Academy is waiting for you.”
Chapter 5
I wish I could properly put into words the combination of thoughts and emotions that are swirling around in my head when Samantha tells me this. The look on her face is irritatingly calm, like she’s a parent patiently waiting for her kid to grasp a simple math concept. But my mind is a mess. I find myself thinking back to the fact that yesterday morning I was waking up at home in bed, the only worries on my mind was the fact that I had an upcoming history exam and that we were out of instant coffee. Now here I am, sitting across from two strange women with magic powers who are telling me that I, too, have magic powers.
Secret societies. Magical boarding schools. Supernatural beings. And I still haven’t even fully processed the fact that I breathed fire a few minutes ago. It’s all too much. I drop my head and cover my face with my hand, my shoulders slumping. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so tired. “You have to be kidding,” I mumble into my hands, not looking at Samantha or Josie. Suddenly the idea of meeting their eyes is too much for me.
“We’re not,” Samantha says, “but I can see that you’re feeling a little overwhelmed.”
“A little overwhelmed?” I ask, lifting my head. “A little overwhelmed? You’re telling me that you’re going to whisk me away to some kind of boarding school for shapeshifters, and you think I’m just a little overwhelmed?”
“Okay,” Samantha concedes, “fine. Very overwhelmed. But trust me when I say that with time, this will all stop being so scary. Once you’re at Shifter Academy, things will start to feel more normal. I promise.”
“You’re assuming I’m even going to go with you,” I say slowly, my eyes narrowing. “I never agreed to this.”
Josie raises her eyebrows. “Are you saying you’re not going to come with us?”
I shrug my shoulders, even though I can already feel myself making up my mind. My world has been turned upside-down already. I’m not about to shake it up any more. “Are you going to force me?”
The woman exchanged another one of those cryptic looks, and it’s enough to make me want to scream. It feels like this is all a joke, and I’m the punchline. “If you’re asking whether we’ll take you there against your will,” Samantha replies slowly, “the answer is no. We’re not authorized to do that. Even if we were, we wouldn’t be able to teach someone who’s hellbent on not participating.”
“Good,” I say, a little smugly, finally feeling like I’m getting a scrap of power back. I get to my feet, dusting the dirt and grime off my hands. God, I need a shower. “Then I guess we don’t have anything else to talk about.”
“Just a minute, Millie,” Samantha says. The women both stand up, their expressions unreadable. “I would advise you to think long and hard about this,” Samantha continues, staring at me with her big blue eyes. “It’s true that we can’t force you to come with us. But that doesn’t mean your life can just go back to normal now.”
My eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”
“For starters,” Josie chimes in, “your powers have been activated now. There’s no undoing that once it happens. Sooner or later, you’ll end up with your back against the wall again - and I’m guessing sooner, considering you seem to be living on the streets - and you’ll shift again. It’s a dangerous ability, and if you don’t learn how to control it, then you may end up hurting someone. Or yourself.”
“I’ll take my chances,” I snap, not liking the condescension in her tone.
“Second of all,” Samantha adds, crossing her arms over her chest, “you’re on the grid now, Millie, whether you like it or not. We detected your identity and your magic, and if we could do it, then others will be able to as well. Other shifters, for example, and eventually, humans, too. If our liaisons with the human community find out that there’s a rogue shifter out in the world, they’ll watch you. And if - when - your powers start to cause problems, because you’ve never been trained in using them, they will come after you.”
I swallow, feeling my confidence falter a little. “And then?” I ask, not sure if I really want to know the answer.
“And then they’ll deal
with you as they see fit,” Josie finishes. “Humans may be our allies, but make no mistake: they’re not our friends. This school is a way of protecting you from their perception that shifters are a danger to the world. If you don’t accept our help, you’re taking on the risk of living your life as a rogue shifter. And trust me when I say that rogue shifters don’t last long.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “But that’s not fair,” I protest. “I didn’t ask for any of this! Now you’re saying that if I don’t give up everything I have here, they’ll never leave me alone?”
“No,” agrees Samantha. “It’s not fair. But it’s the reality of the world we live in.”
“Besides,” Josie says, her tone gentle but firm, “what’s left for you here, anyway?” I feel like her eyes are boring a hole into me, seeing more about my life than she has any right to know.
And why shouldn’t she? some part of me asks. Look at you. You’re dirty, you’re alone, you’re lost, and you have nowhere to go. It doesn’t take a genius to see that.
True enough. But I’m not about to give up my freedom so easily. I’ve spent my life being passed from one person to another, never getting a say in it and never being in charge of my own fate. I’d rather be alone than be a prisoner. “I don’t have much,” I agree, “but I’m not giving up any more of what I have to make other people happy.” I square my shoulders, looking from one woman to the other. “Thank you for the offer,” I say, “but I’ll take my chances.”
Josie bows her head, and Samantha gives me a curt nod. “Okay,” she says at last. “If that’s what you want. You’re making a mistake, though, and I think you know that.” I open my mouth to argue, but she holds up a hand. “Relax,” she says. “It’s all right. I’ll tell you what, though…” She turns to look at Josie, who nods, seemingly already knowing what she’s going to say. “We aren’t leaving the city until the morning,” Samantha tells me. “It’s a little past midnight now. We’re going to depart from the docks on the south side of the city--the pier down by the old marina. If you change your mind--and I strongly suggest you do--come meet us there at nine AM. We’ll be going whether you show up or not. Think hard about this, Millie.”
