Birth Right

by Lewis, D. C.

  “Second shelf, behind the New York strips,” Katrina responded.

  Grasping her prize, Kiera inhaled its delicious scent deeply before going to look for a pan.

  “I only keep those around for you. You realize that I hardly ever have to do dishes when you aren’t around. So much time wasted in that menial task. If you would just…”

  “Not today Mother,” Kiera interjected. “I am in no mood today.”

  With her back to her mother, Kiera did not see the internal struggle raging inside Katrina, the slight bulging of her mouth as she ground her teeth to keep from saying something. Kiera didn't see this but she did notice that the topic had been dropped.

  “Hmm, that’s interesting,” she thought to herself “Wonder what brought that on?”

  Placing the stainless steel pan on the burner, Kiera turned the knob to ignite the pilot light. Tick, tick, tick, and then the welcoming sound of fire as the gas was ignited by the spark. The pan heated up quickly, and within moments, Kiera was happily frying her bacon. The aroma being released as it fried made her mouth salivate. A deep breath and she could almost taste it.

  “Ouch!” Kiera said with pain in her voice as the grease popped out of the pan and hit her on the arm, “I forgot the stupid grease shield.” Chancing a glance over her shoulder, she saw her mother staring at her with a look of extreme disapproval.

  Attempting to change the subject, Kiera asked her mother if there was anything interesting in the morning paper.

  “I see one of your buddies made the front page,” she said, sliding the paper across the countertop.

  Glancing down at the front page, Kiera saw the headline.

  LOCAL MAN IN CRITICAL CONDITION AFTER CAR ACCIDENT

  For a brief second, Kiera was scared to read the article, scared that it would be Brandon in the hospital, scared that her bad luck had once again reared its head. Curiosity getting the best of her, she took a deep breath and continued.

  A local man is in critical condition after a car accident

  involving alcohol. Josh Riley, 19, struck a tree

  driving his truck while intoxicated. Authorities estimate

  his speed to have been over 60 mph as he ran headfirst

  into the large oak on the corner of River and Detson.

  Paramedics used the Jaws of Life to remove Mr. Riley

  from the wreckage and he was immediately airlifted

  to Brunswick Memorial Hospital. A doctor’s report

  shows Mr. Riley as having a punctured lung, severe

  brain trauma, and a fractured spinal column. Doctors

  have place him in a drug-induced coma and are unwilling

  to comment further on Mr. Riley’s status. An inside source

  tells us that they are not expecting Mr. Riley to recover.

  This represents the first accident of this magnitude in this

  town in over 10 years.

  * * *

  Reading the article again, Kiera was stunned. “Guess Brandon got his wish,” she said to herself. Pushing the paper back over to her mother, Kiera went back to check on her bacon. “Karmas comes around,” she told her mother “He could have chosen a different path, we all have choices to make”

  Katrina's only reply was a soft grunt as she went back to the paper. Kiera's mind was racing with a thousand questions which only lead to a thousand more. While she was truly shocked by this bit of information and did feel some regret at the imminent passing of someone she had known for such a long time, she also felt satisfaction. Satisfaction that Josh got what was coming to him, that Karma had come back to repay him for all the evil he had done in his life and now she and Brandon could be free of his childish terrorism. She wondered if Brandon knew.

  Engrossed in thought, she hadn't paid attention to the bacon cooking in the skillet, and now a large black cloud was pouring from the iron pan. As her luck would have it, the cloud floated over to Katrina and did its best to envelop her head with its black mass. Katrina didn't move a muscle, she just sat there and stared at Kiera with a look of absolute annoyance. If Kiera just ate like the rest of her kind did, this would never have happened. The look in Katrina's eyes was transmitting just how silly she thought this whole situation was and Kiera could see that she was quickly losing her patience.

  Quickly removing the pan from the red-hot burner and grabbing the closest towel, Kiera saw her only option was to go over and try to wave the smoke away from her mother. Katrina just sat there, unmoving, taking everything in with her dark eyes. Furiously Kiera waved the towel in front of her mother's face, hoping to dissipate the cloud as soon as possible, the whole time hoping she didn't have to hear yet another lecture. The cloud finally began to dissolve but in the process must have given birth to offspring that thought it would be amusing to set off the smoke alarms in the hallway. Kiera silently cursed Josh Riley.

  "Even from a coma, he can reach out to make life miserable," she thought, "I never would have burned that bacon had I not been thinking about him." She knew it was silly to blame him for her inattention, but for some reason it made her feel better.

  Running down the hallway, vigorously fanning the towel, it took her about five minutes to clear the house of smoke and silence the detectors. The constant and shrill alarm had given her a headache and she really wasn't in the mood to go back and deal with her mother. Her feet felt like leaden blocks were attached to them as she slowly made her way back to the kitchen. Katrina still hadn't moved and was just sitting there looking at Kiera. Deciding it would be in her best interest to get out of her mother's presence with all possible haste, Kiera rescued as much of her breakfast as she could, drained the grease from the pan into a jar, and put it in the dishwasher. The whole time Katrina had just stared at her. Doing a quick wipedown of the area she was using, Kiera began to make her way to the sanctuary of her bedroom. Just when she thought she would make it through this disaster without having to hear any reprimand from her mother, a voice broke the silence and she froze in place without turning around.

  "The more you deny who you are, the more things like this will happen. Wouldn't it be so much easier if you accepted this and learned to use it to your benefit? I keep telling you that, sooner or later, you will have no choice. Better to do it now on your own terms."

  Standing there with her back towards her mother, Kiera thought of numerous things she would like to say in response to her mother but decided that it would probably aggravate Katrina more if she chose to say nothing and just go on to her room. Taking the first step, Kiera strained her ears in order to hear the increase in her mother's heart rate to indicate she was upset. The large muscular organ began to increase its blood flow as soon as Kiera's first footstep made contact with the wooden floor. With a smirk on her face, Kiera kept walking away, knowing that Katrina was furious.

  Eleven

  Closing her door and once again shutting herself off from her mother, Kiera sat down at her desk to check her email and grades. Navigating the university's website would teach anyone patience. In Kiera's opinion, links didn't follow their logical conclusion and she found herself wading through extraneous information that she could care less about, before she finally found her way to what she wanted. Even though this was only the second time she had had the ability to check grades online, having an actual report card seemed like an eternity ago.

  "Makes it much easier to hide your grades from your parents," she mused as she thought back to the year when she failed her ninth grade biology because she didn't want to dissect a frog. The students watched Mr. Norris put cotton balls of formaldehyde in jars, each containing one adult frog, and quickly close the lid. The frogs completely succumbed to the chemicals they were inhaling in about six minutes. The students were reassured that the amphibians felt no pain but Kiera wasn't convinced. It was her first experience with death and it left a permanent impression on her as she watched the frog gasping for air. Before she knew it, tears were forming in the corners of her eyes as she watched the light fad
e from the frog's. Since this was the culmination of the entire year's lessons, the dissection would weigh heavily on the class's final grades. Even armed with this knowledge, Kiera refused. She just couldn't bring herself to mutilate the once-living being in front of her. She knew what it was like to lose control of one's destiny and even though it was silly, she didn't want to make a decision for something else especially when forces were attempting to make decisions for her. No amount of coercion by the teacher or fellow classmates would change her mind and she failed the class.

  Kiera had never failed a class before so the feeling was quite new. She knew that she was doing what she felt was right, so, she didn't really feel very bad about getting an F, but she didn't know how Katrina would react. Report cards were still being mailed home at that time so Kiera diligently made sure she was the one to check the mail each and every day, hoping that her mother would somehow forget about final grades. Every afternoon she would rush out of the house to the front gate where the mailbox was and each time she went down there, no report card would be present. After a few weeks of this, Kiera began to wonder if it had somehow gotten lost in the mail and that if her luck was running good enough to liberate her from having to worry any further about it. The fourteen-year-old thought about it for a bit and decided that that must have been what happened and set out to enjoy her summer. Of course as her luck would have it, her grades arrived the exact same day that she decided to go spend the afternoon with Brandon, and it just so happened that her mother checked the black metal box that housed her summer's future.

  The report card was laying on the kitchen counter when she got home. Katrina wasn't around at the time but Kiera's heart fell to the floor when she saw it. She resigned herself to accepting whatever punishment was coming her way, knowing that she chose the right path. Katrina demanded an explanation when she got home and scoffed at the one she received.

  "We have a reputation to uphold, we can't afford to be seen as weak," was her response. In her teenage mind frame, Kiera wanted to explain to her mother how standing up for what she believed in wasn't a sign of weakness but instead a sign of strength and how she should be commended for her actions. But she was well aware that any attempt to justify her actions would only bring a longer lecture from her mother. Trying to look as remorseful as possible, she simply nodded her head.

  "Good," Katrina said and let the subject drop.

  "What I wouldn't have given to have our grades online back then," Kiera said aloud, smiling to herself as she remembers how annoyed her mother was at the time. "Would have made my life so much easier."

  The grades were pretty much as she expected, no real surprises except the Freshman Seminar class where she got a B.

  "How in the world does someone not get an A in that class," she said aloud with a significant amount of heat in her voice, "What a crock of shit," allowing herself the use of an ever rare explicative. Kiera didn't particularly like cussing. Perhaps one of the only things that she and her mother agreed on, was that it makes one appear to be very ignorant when every other word coming out of your mouth is profanity but it just seemed appropriate at this point in time.

  Bringing up a new window she checked her email. There were a few from the crew coming down for the camping trip. Lara was especially excited and the majority of the emails were from her. It was comforting for Kiera to know that there were people who wanted nothing more than to spend time with her. Just as that thought was crossing her mind, she saw an email from Brandon. It had been days since she had seen him. She still felt a twinge of guilt for the other night at the park, and wondered if subconsciously she had been avoiding him because of it. His email was short and to the point, as they typically were, simply saying how much he enjoyed seeing her and hoping she would be able to find the time to get together again.

  "You're probably going to get sick of seeing me," she mumbled to the computer screen.

  Suddenly infected by a bad case of cabin fever, Kiera decided that today would be a good day to go for a run. Running had been one of those activities that others hated, but which she enjoyed. It was a chance to blow off some steam and allow the natural endorphins to flood her body, giving that natural "high" that always felt so good. When she concluded a good run with a nice warm shower and herbal soaps and shampoos, it was purely divine.

  Throwing on some shorts and a t-shirt, she grabbed her running shoes and heads outside. Stepping out the front door, she was assaulted by the heat and humidity of the east coast. In the distance, the heat rippled like waves, blurring her vision. The air was dead calm but Kiera could still smell the salt from the waterway behind her mother's house. "A great day for a run," she said smiling as she jogged through the front gate to the awaiting asphalt.

  She found it funny how she hadn't run since she had been home. While in school she had run nearly every day, rain or shine. It really was a good way for her to relieve stress and clear her mind. She had also picked up meditation, this having been suggested by her therapist Dr. Murphy. She hadn't really wanted to go see a therapist, but she found out that it helped to talk to an unbiased person. Not that she could tell him everything of course, but enough to where she felt he really did care and was giving her sound advice. He encouraged her to stand up for herself against her mother. Katrina had no idea. It was better that way.

  Feeling warmed up enough, she began her run. The rhythmic pounding of her feet on the pavement was hypnotic, lulling her mind into relaxation. She imagined all her emotions being pounded into the ground with each stride, leaving only a blank mind, a tabula rasa. The road was lined with forest on each side. In most spots, the big trees had grown so expansive that their branches shaded the road from both sides, creating a corridor. The sunlight found its way through some of the foliage to hit the road like miniature spotlights, where insects and other small animals were the stars, quickly scurrying from one side of the road to the next.

  The sweat started to pour from Kiera's brow, the back of her shirt was already soaked, and even her legs were sweating, but she was completely at peace. Letting herself go, she allowed her senses their full range. She was almost overwhelmed by the variety of smells coming from the forest. She could smell the damp earth hiding under the fallen leaves and other detritus, the smell of fungus and decomposing plant matter comprising the majority. She could smell the different animals who make the forest their home, a quick whiff letting her know which ones were close by and whether or not they had smelled her. Accompanying all these smells were also the sounds of the forest. Chipmunks were chirping on their never-ending hunt to find food to stash for the upcoming winter. Mockingbirds were calling, attempting to entice a mate to carry on their genetic code to future generations. Dragonflies were buzzing, searching for mosquitoes and their larvae to feast upon. The forest was teeming with life, lower life forms that seemed to have more control over their future than Kiera did. Not allowing herself to continue that line of thinking, she picked up the pace knowing that if she allowed her Lycoan side a little leeway, she could run much faster but refusing to lose control again like she did the night with Josh Riley. She could feel the strong steady beat of her heart as it attempted to keep her muscles fully oxygenated, her lungs breathing in massive amounts of oxygen and expelling its byproduct.

  The wind blew across her face and through her hair as she ran, quickly evaporating the sweat, doing its best to lower her body temperature. Her blonde ponytail flew behind her like a pennant. Kiera felt free, like there was no care in the world. It felt good. She was a born runner and quickly covered the first three miles. Just starting to breathe hard, Kiera spent a few minutes stretching, working out the kinks of inactivity. Standing straight up with her legs together, she leaned forward and put her palms on the ground. For fun, she stuck her head between her legs, giving her an upside down view of the world. That little trick always got a funny response from the male gender. Kiera wasn't too naive to understand why, but she still always got a chuckle out of it.

  It was while
standing there that something caught her attention. On the side of the road in moist ground was an indentation, a track. A track she immediately recognized.

  Larger than her outstretched hand, it was fully formed in the ground. Four oval shaped pads made up the front and an inverted triangle the back. Each pad-mark was complete with a claw that had dug into the wet earth, helping the animal get traction. Kiera stared at it in disbelief, her mind not wanting to come to grips with what she was looking at. A Lycoan paw print and it was headed towards the direction of her house. Kiera knew that it did not belong to her mother. Not only was Katrina much more careful than to reveal any aspect of her true self to mankind, she hadn't been attending to any "other" business the night before, and this print was clearly fresh. How fresh, Kiera didn't know, but the heat of the day had yet to harden the imprint, leading Kiera to believe it had been made the previous night. Examining the print from all sides, she realized that this was a solitary print in a very large patch of earth, almost as if it's owner left the solitary imprint on purpose. For whom, Kiera wasn't sure, but this was no accident, this was a deliberate sign, a warning. Somebody or something wanted its presence known and for some reason, Kiera got the feeling that it was left for her. Nobody else ran this road and since the nearest neighbors were over 4 miles away, it was highly unlikely that anybody else would come across this print. Suddenly, fear gripped her. She felt as if something was watching her even though all her Lycoan senses were telling her that the closest living animal to her was the raccoon sleeping in the hollow oak tree 200 feet to her left. She bent down to get a whiff of the print when she heard a car coming. Already in a state of panic, her teenaged brain was attempting to decide what to do, to no avail. Looking left and right, she couldn't decide what decision to make, and finally her instincts took over. With a speed only a Lycoan could possess, she ran into the woods to hide behind an old tree.