by E G McNally
“But you don’t understand what kind of possibilities this could mean? And just think about all the . . .”
“Let me stop you right there, I do understand. And what I also understand is that a couple of doctors want to play science experiment on my granddaughter for some journal entry or science award, but guess what. I’m looking out for my granddaughter and she is number one. I have final say on her behalf and she is not going to be participating in any experiments. Now if you’ll kindly prep us to leave so we can go home, we’d greatly appreciate it.” Grandma interrupted the three doctors and put them in their places leaving them astounded and disgruntled.
“Yes Ma’am, we’ll see what we can do to get you guys out of here.” One of the doctors spoke up, grabbed the chart and followed the other two out of the room.
Taylor and both her grandparents watched as a nurse pulled one of the doctors over nodding and saying something they couldn’t make out from inside the room. The nurse pointed at the room Taylor was in and then the phone. The doctor walked over to the phone, looked again at the room Taylor was in, spoke for a while, and then hung up the phone, saying something to the nurse. After he was finished, he returned to the room to release them.
“You’re free to go, but are you sure you won’t let us do some tests?” He tried one last time.
“We’ll think about it, but for now, we’re absolutely positive we won’t do any tests.” Grandpa confirmed, leaving the doctor with a disheartened look.
“Okay, you guys may head home then. Have a nice day.” He surrendered, allowing them to leave.
“Well congratulations Taylor, are you ready to go home without a cast or crutches or anything.” Grandpa reached over and patted her on the back. He picked up the remaining cast pieces before handing one to Taylor. “Would you like to keep them for a keepsake item?”
“No thanks, they’d just smell bad and take up space in my room, but it was a nice thought.” She responded, tossing the plaster onto the bed.
Grandpa set the other piece beside the first and helped Taylor stand up. She took a second to balance herself, no longer wearing a cast or using crutches for support, and then placed all her weight onto the healed leg and gave it a couple of steps to test it out.
“Wow, this really does feel cool. My leg feels just like new and nothing hurts. And most importantly, I don’t have to wear a cast to school, Yay.” She bounced once and then settled down. No need to press her luck, or get careless. She followed Grandma and Grandpa back out to the car and plopped into the back seat poking and prodding at her own leg. Wondering how on earth it could have healed so quickly. She thought about the stone and how long it’s been since she swallowed it. There was definitely a strange aftershock that happened when she swallowed it and she’d been having all these strange dreams ever since. She began worrying about whether something really bad was beginning to happen to her like John Travolta in Phenomenon. Nobody likes to get all sorts of cool abilities and then find out they are dying from a brain tumor.
“I bet she gets that from my side of the family. You know my sister once had cancer and after all the chemotherapy treatments, you know what happened?” Grandma distracted Taylor.
“She got better and lived a long happy life, with no . . .” Grandpa began to explain.
“Yeah, she got better and lived a long happy life, with no reoccurrences of the cancer, ever. So I bet there are just strong genes in the family.” Grandma beamed.
“There sure are strong genes in your family but you have to admit her leg healed awfully fast. Maybe it’s all the garlic you use in your cooking.” Grandpa teased.
“Well, my my my. . . There is nothing wrong with a little garlic.” Grandma responded defensively.
Grandma and Grandpa continued bickering for several hours and halfway through dinner. They finally gave up when Taylor was so fed up with the bickering that she just excused herself from the dinner table, leaving a plateful of mashed potatoes and half a chicken breast, and stormed off to her room for the night. After that they both calmed down and finished the evening watching their favorite sitcom together.
Chapter VII: Bad Press
Taylor could hear the theme song to jeopardy echoing downstairs and assumed that Grandma and Grandpa must have made up, but she was too exhausted to join them. She kicked off her shoes, pulled on her pajamas and snuggled into bed drifting off into a dreamless sleep.
She woke up abruptly, she felt a bit of unease and her stomach felt tense. It was very early, so early that it was still very dark outside, and there were no cars on the streets. Her ears hurt a little and her back felt very sore. She propped herself up on her bed and wiped the sleep out of her eyes. She was still tired, but couldn’t sleep.
Her window was open and a cool breeze was tossing her curtains about. She walked over to the window and put her hands up on the top of the open window thinking she might close it. Then she stopped and gazed outside.
She could see far down the river, and with amazing clarity. As she looked up and down the riverbank, at the dark houses she became fixated on a spider, building its pristine web. It was sitting on a green stem of a weed, growing at the far side of the riverbank, under the bridge. The wind was tossing the grass back and forth and still the spider meticulously spun its web. Each strand was connected to another strand and each strand had its own perfect place.
“Look at that, there’s some movement in her room . . .”
Taylor’s trance broke. Strangely, she could hear someone talking, but she wasn’t sure if it was about her. If it was, she had to be hearing things, because there was no way she could hear some random conversation from inside her room. She gazed around anyway, thinking there might be someone right outside, but the only life outside was a dim light in the house across the river and there was no way she could hear anyone in there. And now that she was alert, she realized that there wasn’t any way she could see the spider either, all the way across the lake, in such detail.
Something wasn’t right. She stepped back from the window and looked down thinking she might clear her head and stop dreaming. Taylor gasped as she noticed that the creature she continuously dreamt about was her. Disbelieving her own senses, Taylor jumped over to the mirror above her desk and examined her face.
“Oh my . . .” She gasped. This had to be one of the coolest dreams she had ever had. Staring directly back at her was one of the most beautiful gargoyles she could have ever imagined.
Her black eyes were larger and more pronounced, but still a cold dark black. Her ears weren’t hurting anymore but they had become long and narrow and extended like a cat’s, above her head. Her eyebrows were now just pronounced ridges of black shinny skin, and her hair was gone, replaced by ridges, forming a crown, on top of her head.
She stepped back away from the mirror and gazed at her side. She was staring in disbelief, fixated on the large leather black wings in the mirror. Feeling some new muscles she had never used before, she stretched out, and her wings opened up as far as they could inside the bedroom. She bumped a nightlight off the table, but her tail, with monkey like reflexes, swung over and curled the lamp into itself before it could hit the floor.
Content on the idea that she was dreaming, she decided there couldn’t be any harm in trying the new body out. She had wings, maybe she could fly. It was still dark out so no one would probably see her anyway, especially since she was as dark as night itself.
She stepped back to the window and reached her arm outside to grab a ledge. Once she had a hold of something she pulled herself out of the window and up on to the roof.
“Well, let’s see how these wings work.” She chuckled, then stretched the wings far open and sprung from the roof. The wings caught the wind with ease and Taylor felt instantly relaxed. She caught a light updraft that lifted her high up into the sky, far above the houses.
“Wow, this is amazing,” she couldn’t help but yelp with excitement.
Her eyes could see far, far away and with such amaz
ing detail. She wondered if she was seeing how an osprey would see, or an owl. The dark didn’t seem to have any interference with the level of detail that her eyes could see. She could hear finite sound as well. If she saw something moving she could tunnel her hearing toward it and listen with amazing detail to the little changes in the movement or tone.
Taylor wanted to fly down to the river and glide along the surface, and then thought that it might seem a little cliché, but then again who wouldn’t want to give it a try anyway. She arched her wings back and plunged downward toward the river and then spread her wings out, end to end, and glided just at the surface along the river until she had reached the next river town.
Taylor pulled away from the river and flew above the town. She saw a large building with a gold statue at the top, and a church further away that looked like an old cathedral. The cathedral looked like a perfect place to stop and admire the city. As soon as she was close enough, she spread her wings out to slow her speed and launched her legs forward to grasp the outer edge of the bell tower.
She pulled herself into the bell tower and stood up, amazed that her wings naturally folded around her chest clasping together at the nape of her neck, as if they already knew what to do. She gazed out over the city, watching as individual cars passed through the streets quietly. The sun was just barely breaking dawn when she could see lights popping on in random houses hear and there signaling life beginning for the morning.
“Oh no,” she gasped; realizing that with dawn came light and with light came the ability to be seen. She didn’t have time to head home, and hopefully she didn’t have to. Hopefully she would just wake up from this amazing dream and already be in bed, but until then she decided to retreat into the cathedral.
It was dark inside, she didn’t hear anyone moving, and so she found a stairwell and made her way down inside the tower of the church. The tower opened onto the back of a large balcony in the far end of the church. There were pews all around, and the walls were covered with stain glass windows and images of angels, doves, women, and men. It was beautiful. It reminded her of her childhood, when her mother would take her to the early morning mass and the sunlight bursting through the stain glass windows would dance with color on the walls all around the church.
She walked up to the balcony and leaned over the edge.
“I wonder if God really exists. If he does, I need to thank him.” She mumbled. “If I’m dreaming I don’t ever want to wake up. I’ve never felt so free.” She chuckled some more with a large grin plastered to her face. “What if this is real? Can I really heal myself at an amazingly fast rate? How cool would that be?” But then her smile was replaced by a nervous strain. “How am I going to hide this? If people find out about this, I’m going to become some sort of science experiment, dissected and mutilated. I don’t want that to happen, and I don’t want to run away.”
Taylor hushed her thoughts before someone stepped out of the corner and startled her.
“What are you doing here?” The young man said, unrecognizable in the dim light of the stain glass windows.
“Who are you?” She hissed, defensively.
“What the heck are you doing here? You shouldn’t be out . . . if they find you . . . who knows what they might do.” He grumbled, quickly scanning the room.
“What do you mean?” Taylor replied. She was more confused that the sight of her didn’t surprise the guy.
“Did anyone see you come here?” He quickly replied.
“No, I don’t think so. I mean this is just a dream anyway right?” Taylor was freaking out. The strange boy was scaring her.
“I followed you here, and if I did, than someone else could have.” He added, finishing up his paranoid sweep of the balcony, before settling near the back wall.
“No one knows anything about this, I don’t even know about this, at least not until now. Wait, who are you anyway?” She asked again.
“Who I am, is of no importance to you, but you need to stay out of trouble and lay low. Keep out of the press or anything like that, Major Bradshaw has an eye out for you, and you better bet he’s going to find you.” The boy explained, still hidden in the poor light, nervously glancing around the room.
“Are you looking for something?” She asked, wondering why he was so apprehensive.
“No!” He snapped. “Just making sure no one followed you.”
“You know what, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I can take care of myself just fine, and you’re giving me the creeps. I don’t need some crazy little hobo boy, sulking around in a church, to tell me what to do, not to mention that you obviously haven’t looked at me. Do I look easy to catch?” Taylor proclaimed, but actually felt frightened. The boy knew much more about what was going on then he lead on to believe, and she needed to know more about it.
“Sure you can take care of yourself. I bet that’s why someone already had to keep you from bleeding to death.” He snapped at her.
“Hey, that was an accident. Not to mention, he was probably the reason I got hurt in the first place . . . He startled me.” She mumbled under her breath.
“That doesn’t matter. What does matter is the stone.” He said to her, looking her up and down. “I can see you’ve made good use of it.” He raised his voice in agitation.
“The stone, is that what this is all about?” She asked.
“Where is it?” He remarked, moving closer to her.
“What are you talking about?” She said trying to sound oblivious. “I can’t give it to you, if that’s what you want.”
“Oh, don’t play stupid. Give it to me. You didn’t just randomly get all those powers. Give it to someone who knows how to harness them. I can keep it safe.” He barked at her, and then quieted down as he got close enough to touch her skin.
“You’re telling me that there’s more power than this?” She waved her hands over her chest.
“Yeah, but it’s dangerous in the wrong hands,” he tilted his head as he responded.
“Well I’ve got bad news for you. I can’t give it to you.” She cocked her eyes to the side, so as to avoid eye contact with him when she answered.
“Why not,” he said more calmly now.
“It’s kind of, sort of, well, inside me. . .”
“WHAT!” He screamed at her.
“I swallowed it, maybe a couple weeks ago, I’m sorry I didn’t know it wasn’t going to, you know, come out in my,” She hesitated to say the next word, blushing, “poop.”
“Crap, are you serious?” He replied, very agitated now.
“That would explain your appearance.” He said letting out a huge sigh.
“Well, you’re no use now.” He commented rather disappointed and turned around to leave.
“Wait.” Taylor exclaimed.
“So what am I suppose to do, hmm. You seem to know a lot about this stone. Why am I useless?” Taylor spit questions at him, hoping he’d help her.
“Can’t you see no one else can have it now? Once it’s a part of you it’s always a part of you. If it’s removed, you die.” He added, disappearing down the staircase.
“Wait, but what else do you know . . .”
Just then, the front doors to the church burst open underneath her, and some voices cut in.
By the time she had looked back at the stairwell, where the boy was, he was gone, and she needed to make a quick exit, as well.
“Get her . . . on the balcony!” One voice yelled.
“Don’t let her get away!” Another one shouted.
And just as she moved to jump over the edge of the balcony, something sharp hit her in the neck, and she fell. Her mind blanked out as she fell over the side, and crashed onto some pews below. The voices around her faded out as she tried to listen to the conversation. She could tell they were moving her, but that was as much as she could tell before she blanked out completely.
Taylor woke up in bed with a headache and a sore shoulder. She felt groggy and poorly rested.
; “Boy that was a strange dream.” She said, rubbing her sore head. Just to make sure, Taylor stepped over to her desk and checked the hanging mirror.
“Normal ears, normal face, check, check, and check. . . What a strange dream.” She said with a grunt, rubbing her neck in the spot where she dreamed of getting shot by the dart.
“This is really strange, weird stuff has been happening to me ever since I left Port Angeles. First that really strong pulsing feeling that no one else seemed to notice, then the strange dreams that keep haunting my sleep, then my leg, and now last night’s really strange dream. What the heck is going on? Oh and that guy Jake said is looking for me, hmm maybe he would know.” Taylor grumbled, pulling on some tattered jeans and a shirt before heading downstairs to join Grandpa and Grandma for breakfast.
As Taylor was slowly walking down the stairs, the doorbell rang, and caught her off guard.
“I’ll get it. I’m right next to the front door anyway.” She hollered into the living room. She jumped down the last few stairs and answered the door. She was very surprised when she opened the door and sudden flashes of light burst into her face.
“Snap, Snap, Click!” T.V. reporters and journalists were standing at the door and in the yard taking pictures of the “Demon child.” That’s the name people were yelling out in the yard.
“That’s her, that’s the girl.” Reporters pointed to her. “She’s the one. She sold her soul to the devil.” Someone shouted. Someone else threw something at Taylor, it splattered on her chest, rolling off of one of her new shirts for school, leaving a long trail of brown grossness.
“How does it feel to be on the side of the devil?” An old woman with brown hair and a nasty scowl asked her, shoving a microphone into her face.
“Grandma, something happened?” Taylor stuttered, trying to get retreat back into the house. But she was cut off while a couple of people jumped in behind her. “Grandma. . .” She hollered again.
Someone ran up to Taylor while she was distracted by all the cameras flashing and with an extremely sharp knife, sliced a large chunk of her skin off of her arm.