by Rena Rocford
Beth stood in the middle of the aisle with the only store clerk. “Is this all the makeup you have?”
“Yeah.” He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “It is March. We won’t get our first shipments for Halloween until August or September.”
“Bummer.” Her eyes scanned the merchandise before tilting her head at me. “See anything?”
I searched the products for a moment and found a couple pots of liquid latex paired with red and black paint. The picture on the package showed someone with a grotesque hole in the side of his face. Shock and awe makeup.
“This’ll do.” I picked up three. Who knew how long I’d have to cover it up. A day? A month? How many of my birthday bucks was I about to flush just to have a normal face?
Maybe I could make a prosthetic piece I glued on every day.
My life unfolded before me, gluing a piece of fake skin over my scales, trying to be normal. I’d be buying this crap online ‘til I died. I could get a job working at a costumer’s shop and claim that I was really into strange makeup. Could I ever do anything normal again? And how long would the glue last? Could I put it on and go to a slumber party? Or was another normal venue of teenagerhood just yanked from me?
Would it last through a date? I’d never been on a date, and now I never would without having some prosthetic pasted onto my face.
My face was defective.
Would it get worse? Would I break out in a rash of scales? Would I look like a dragon, or a cross between a human and lizard?
“Is that all for you?” the clerk asked.
“Uh, yeah. Um, do you take cash?” Oh, hell, do you take cash? Could I sound more like an idiot?
He chuckled. “Yes, we still take cash.”
Yup, I definitely wanted to spend birthday bucks hiding my defective face.
ou okay?” Beth asked as we left Party Center.
“Sorry, I’m just,” I paused, grasping at the air, “this whole thing is insane. Dragons? Trolls? Everything I’ve been told is a lie. That’s just crazy, you know?”
A derisive huff left her lungs. “Boy, do I ever.”
“I mean, what’s out there? So, I’m–” I dropped my voice in case some invisible hermit caught us talking, “–I’m half dragon, but what about centaurs and pegasuses–would that be pegasii? –or ghosts and wraiths? Zombies?” I widened my eyes.
Beth closed her eyes and gave a short shake of her head. Her lips moved slowly in an exaggerated no.
We got to the edge of the busy road that separated the high school from the mall. Our homes flanked the school: Beth’s condo on the left and my apartment on the right. I kept my silence, but I wanted to know more. The world was suddenly filled with all kinds of possibilities. What else had every history book lied about?
She tipped her head toward her place. “You wanna come over? We can watch the Tom Cruise horn chopping.”
I hesitated. I wanted to. I burned to know more. There was just one little problem. “I’m grounded.”
“Oh, please, what are they teaching kids these days? Violence is bad, but if you save your friend from the raving lunatic, you’re grounded?”
I smiled. “I think it was for something else.”
“So then why did you go to Party Center?”
“You gonna interrogate me, or are we going to watch some unicorn horn chopping?”
She smiled and punched me in the shoulder. I rubbed my arm. She play hit like a Mac Truck. We dodged the little traffic in the time-honored jaywalking tradition. A couple of college kids at the skate park watched us cross the street. I checked to make sure they weren’t trolls, but they seemed human enough.
But were they unicorns?
Were they gryphons? Harpies? Ooh, I bet my English teacher in Vermont was part harpy. She was definitely the flesh eating, soul-crushing type.
I wrenched my mind back to the present as we crossed the street to Beth’s place. Where my apartment building matched the dirt, hers matched cactus flowers and insects, bright reds, oranges, and yellows. Mine looked like a blob of dirt artfully crafted into a rectangle.
We climbed the stairs two at a time, and my chest tightened. Asthma or fireball?
“You’re thinking too hard, Drake,” Beth said.
“Do you have to call me that?”
“I’m sorry, does it bug you?”
“Would it bug you if I called you ‘troll,’ or ‘trollop,’ or whatever the girl version of troll is?”
Beth smiled, enjoying some private joke. “As far as schoolyard teasing, there’s nothing you can do to troll to really make it sound more awful than it is.” She looked away, her eyes dark with some distant memory. Behind her hardened rind, Beth knew all about schoolyard taunts. Then she closed up again, hiding any truth behind her cavalier smile. Her stocky frame didn’t fit with beauty magazines, but her smile was indestructible, a shield against a world obsessed with beauty.
And in my little plastic bag I had three pots of gunk designed to hide my face. I’m such a hypocrite.
She pushed open the door, revealing a well-appointed apartment. I’d been here before, but the place was nice. Really nice. Designer furniture and custom paint nice. White couch, white carpet… I found it nearly impossible to believe a place like this was in a condominium complex.
Beth went to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of cream soda. She sat in the corner of the couch opposite me, undid both bottle tops, then handed me one. We clinked the bottles together.
“Cheers,” I said.
“Cheers.”
The Legend DVD case sat opened on the coffee table. She had everything from Hairspray to Singing in the Rain, all filed in orderly shelves. Beth picked up the remote and started the movie.
After a good half hour of Beth’s fidgeting, I pulled my attention from the movie. “So, what’s going on?”
She pretended to watch the heroine rescuing a unicorn. “It’s complicated.”
“More complicated than finding out I’m part dragon and have scales on my face, making me the school freak?”
“I’m just glad you took the title from me. Maybe I can get a date to prom now.” She snorted. “Well, at least my chances are now greater than zero.”
“How many unicorn halves or Kin, or whatever, are at the school?”
“Any descendant are called Kin, not just unicorns. As for the monohorns, they have something like twelve at the school.” Beth stared at the screen, but I knew she wasn’t watching. She was trying not to think about the things Steve’s dad had said.
“Are there others at the school?”
Beth flashed me a quick smile with shake of her head. “Nope. Unicorns don’t really play well with others.”
“So, what’s the deal with them?”
“I’m half troll. They would usually kill my kind, but I’m some sort of humanitarian effort. I’m a philanthropy project. That and it’s useful for training to have a real, live, half-troll.” Her face contorted like she’d just bitten a lemon.
“I don’t understand.”
“I have most of the natural abilities of a troll. Great strength, exceptional healing, you know,” she snorted, “a solid desire to eat roasted goat under a bridge.”
I gawked at her, eyes wide.
“The goat thing is a joke, jeez. I can’t even eat lamb without getting queasy.” She took a drink of her cream soda, staring at the TV but not seeing it. The dark thoughts slipping through her mind practically played across her eyes.
“You’re not exactly vegetarian though.”
“That doesn’t mean I like to eat cute, fuzzy things for breakfast.”
“What about your dad?” I asked.
She crushed the soda bottle in her hand. Blood trickled down onto the white carpet. It had a slight green tint as it fell, but the color staining the carpet was just as red as any other blood. Beth opened her hand and pulled shards of glass out of her palm. She collected the glass in one hand, blood still dripping from the wound. The ragged edges of the c
ut closed like drops of water slipping together. The skin sealed together, erasing the cut.
She held up her hand and waved at me. “See, exceptional healing.”
“I’ve never met my father,” I blurted.
We locked eyes, and a half-smile pulled at her face, part empathy, part envy. “You’re lucky then. Mine’s an ass.”
Beth took a moment to pick the glass out of the carpet before going to the kitchen. She came back with a bottle of cleaner and sprayed it on the carpet, then fell onto the couch in a whompf of leather and cushions.
“My dad sends me a stipend to cover my living costs. He sends it through the unicorns so they can keep me in line. If I don’t get good grades and help with training, they don’t go grocery shopping.”
“That sucks,” I said. It was the understatement of the century.
“Huh. I’ve taken some precautions.” She stretched out and put her hands behind her head. “What about you? You’re dragon; that’s awesome.”
Except for the scales on my face. And how exactly did I breathe the fire? How did that work? Could I just decide I wanted to spit fire and have fire come spraying out of my mouth?
Was breathing fire bad for me? In general, I wasn’t a fan of things that make me feel sick to my stomach. I scowled.
She held her hands out, palm up. “What, you don’t like breathing fire? That was pretty awesome.”
“And then I puked,” I said.
Beth tried to hide her laughter, but it rolled out like thunder. “Right on his shoes. That was brilliant. Remind me to puke on the next guy who tries to attack me.”
I punched her in the shoulder, but it only made her laugh harder.
“Your secret power is vomit. Does that make you the Power Puker? Or the Villainous Vomiter?”
“Shut up,” I said. “Or I might be tempted into a repeat performance.”
“Try not to vomit fire on the couch, I almost like this one.” Beth rubbed the leather gently. She broke bottles in her hands when she was upset. What happened to the furniture when she was mad? Did she crush chairs for fun?
The doorbell rang, and I jumped.
Beth stared at the door. “Shit, you’d better hide. That’s probably the monohorns.”
“I hope the monohorns are here to apologize,” I said.
“Hah, I doubt it.” She waved me toward the door to a room off to the side.
I grabbed my soda and disappeared into the small bedroom.
As I slipped into a space next to Beth’s dresser, the doorbell rang again.
“Yeah, give me a minute,” Beth yelled. She stopped the movie before she opened the door.
“Miss Whitlocke?” The voice was masculine, and I trained my ear to the conversation.
“Hi, Dr. Targyne.”
“Do you have a moment to go over the charges?”
I froze. I didn’t want to hear this, but part of me was dying for answers. Were they going to talk about unicorns and trolls and, most importantly, dragons? I took careful, slow breaths, holding everything perfectly still, and focused my attention on the conversation at the door.
Something crunched in the other room. For a second, I thought I could hear Beth’s heart beating.
“Charges? But I didn’t do anything.”
“Of course not, Bethany. But you have been formally charged by Mr. June. He thinks you had something to do with Steve’s abduction. You were also seen associating with another of the Kin. An unregistered.” Metal clanked, like someone rattling a watch in a nervous twitch.
A delicious, buttery metal smell wafted into Beth’s bedroom. It smelled like my childhood: forest fires of summer; salt spray from the time my mother and I went whale watching; the first strawberries after winter. The memories flooded through me, and I needed them. I was intoxicated by the sudden idea of home. The metal rattled again, and the smell intensified.
“What have I been charged with?” Beth asked.
I inhaled, letting the memories of my life drown me in the feeling of home, a place that, in a hundred years, would hold all my past teddy bears, my books, my treasures. I saw guitars lining the walls, and in my mind, that house was in a painted desert where the sun beat down to bake the rocks. The images came faster, drowning me in memories.
“You’ve been consorting with dragons and trolls. You are aware of our laws. If you are found guilty, it will mean censure.” The man paused. “The permanent kind.”
Spaghetti, chocolate cake, my mother’s shampoo, mint along the riverbank, blackberries in summer, snow in pine trees. I took a step forward, and I bumped into a dresser. The bottle fell from my hand, and time slowed. The cream soda dropped toward the white carpet. Without realizing I moved, I reached for it. Faster than lightning, I caught the bottle. Cream soda splashed over the side, hitting the dresser.
“What was that?” the man asked.
The world cleared, coming back to focus. I blinked at my surroundings, surprised to be in Beth’s apartment.
He put a spell on me! That son of a cactus put a spell on me! How?
A sound of a foot on the custom tile in the entryway sent a shock through my heart. He could spellbind me, and he was on his way. I searched the room for a place to hide, but there was only the closet. Everyone hid in the closet, but it beat standing in the open.
“What was what?” Beth asked.
I jumped into the closet and pulled the door shut, stuffing myself between winter jackets and summer dresses I doubted Beth would ever wear. I stilled, willing my breathing to slow, and caught the earthy scents of silver and forest–all moss, decomposing leaves, and ferns.
“Oh my God!” Beth yelled.
The footsteps clomped onto the hard floors, like heavy boots.
Or hooves.
Beth cried out, and something smashed into the wall with a thump. The sound of hooves on the floor thundered into the bedroom. In a torrent of shattering wood, a curling, white horn crushed through the closet door, spearing the flower dress beside me.
“What are you doing?” Beth roared.
Adrenaline surged like fire through my veins, and with the unicorn horn just inches from my face, I slammed my whole body into the door of the closet. It parted from the wall and smashed into the unicorn. A real, live, white unicorn.
Debris fell around, me, and the scent of buttery metal grew. Waves of memories washed over me, and I shook my head to hold onto the ‘now’ as thoughts of home flooded through me again. The unicorn stood in front of me, shaking its head to get the rest of the door off its horn.
Without thinking, I smashed down on the remains of the door. The unicorn squealed, trying to shake me free. Thoughts of hunting down prey and digging my claws through hide and hair raced through my limbs.
But I didn’t have claws.
In my brief confusion, the unicorn scrambled out from under me. He shook his head, jumping back. The ruined remains of the closet door flew off his horn, smashing into the wall. The splintered wood broke apart, and I stared at my hands half expecting claws to extend from my fingertips.
The unicorn leveled his horn at me, then charged.
“Allyson!”
Time slowed as the unicorn loped toward me. I heard its heart beat almost in time with its hoof beats. As the tip of the horn came into reach, I pushed it down and away from me. The horn caught in the rug, and the forward momentum of the unicorn in full charge flipped the beast into the air. It somersaulted into the wall before sagging to the ground, limp. The smell of that buttery gold arced over me, and I caught a glimpse of the gold bracelet around its leg.
“Shit, is he dead?” Beth pushed past me.
“I don’t–” I clamped my hand over my mouth, but my whole body quivered with the need to spit fire at something. My eyes watered, and my throat burned.
Beth turned back from the unicorn, her eyes wide as she focused her gaze on me. She pointed down the hall. “Bathroom!”
I lurched across the hallway to the bathroom and fell inside as the door swung open, fl
ames erupting from my mouth. I aimed for the bathtub, but missed, sending fire splashing off the side of the tub. The inferno spread across the pink bathroom rug, consuming the fabric quickly. I grabbed a corner and threw it into the tub, fumbling with the faucet. Smoke and steam filled the room as the water sprayed onto the burning rug. The fire alarm blared to life, and putrid water rained down from the fire suppression system.
The cold water sprayed down in a nauseating downpour of filth. My abdomen went into spasms, and I was sick into the bathtub again. I clutched the side of the tub, willing myself to feel better or at least to regain control of my stomach. The heat of my fire burned at my face, baking the nasty water onto my cheeks.
And to think I almost stayed home today.
As the blaze died down, my stomach calmed. With the need to puke fire subsiding, I left the charred bathroom. Beth scrambled around her room, throwing clothes into a bag while foul water sprayed down around her. Blonde hair clung to the sides of her face, and her normally bouncy ponytail clung to her neck, a soggy survivor of our escapades.
The unicorn had turned back into a man wearing a designer suit. Even without the fur and horns, he looked the same.
Beth glared at him. “Grab the stupid unicorn. We can’t leave him in here. This water is disgusting.”
I shifted an arm under his shoulder and hauled. I expected him to weigh a ton, but he was no harder to lift than a trunk of clothes. Maybe I got superhuman strength with my fire puking. Great, I could probably drive nails through boards with my bare hands, but if I needed to start a campfire, someone would have to attack me. Oh, and I’d need a place to puke afterwards.
On the landing, I laid Dr. Jump-the-Gun down and caught sight of the gold bracelet. It hung loosely from his arm, and a part of me seethed with the need to own that buttery gold. Beth smacked my shoulder.
“Hey, snap out of it; that stupid charm bracelet nearly got you killed.”
“What is it?”
“Bait.” Without another word, she ducked back into the bog of eternal stench.