The Girl With the Icy Hair

3

Aura sat bored staring blankly at the chemistry homework that sat on the desk in front of her. She shifted in her uncomfortable plastic chair as she turned her head to look out the window to watch the sun sink below the horizon. She remembered back to when she was a little girl standing alone in the forest. Aura remembered how powerful she’d felt when she’d first changed. Now she didn’t feel so powerful. Aura’d rather do anything than her work, and she continued to daydream about that fateful trip. Many happy years had passed since that time at the Monte Vista campgrounds. Memories swirled in her head. Aura remembered when they’d first returned form the trip and had tried to fix her hair. Nothing could change its color, and it’d always remained a sparkling blue. She remembered going to school for the first time, and all the mean things kids had said about her. She remembered how her first crush, Josh had told her he could never like her because she was a freak. She stewed about all the pain that her terrible gifts had caused her. Finally, she picked up her pencil. Focus, she thought. However, Aura did anything but. Her thoughts kept wandering back to that crazy time among the whispering trees. Before she’d realized it, an hour had passed.

“Aura! Time for dinner,” her mother called.

“Coming, Mom,” she answered. Slowly, Aura dragged her thoughts back to reality and distanced herself from her memories. She walked downstairs into the kitchen where her mother and Drew were waiting for her at the small, round wooden table. A small piece of fried chicken sat steaming on her plate sitting next to some green beans and mashed potatoes. Aura sat down in her chair just as Emma approached with cups of ice water.

“Aura!” Emma jumped and yelled sharply, causing her to spill the water all over the table, floor, and Drew. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop reading my thoughts?” Emma scolded her harshly.

“I’m sorry,” Aura apologized. “I wasn’t thinking about it and my mind just roamed a little bit.”

“Well I really wish you could turn it off,” Emma huffed under her breath as she fetched a dry towel from a drawer next to the sink to clean up the mess.

“I’m not a cell phone mom!” Aura glared at her mother. “I’m a human being.”

“Well human beings don’t read each others’ minds and levitate,” Emma retorted sharply. “I don’t know what you are anymore.”

The malice of Emma’s harsh words bit into Aura like whips. She felt as if she was being rejected by her own mother. She sat quietly and quickly scarfed down her food trying to contain herself as tears welled up in her eyes. The bites of chicken burned her mouth but she didn’t care. She just wanted to be out of the kitchen as soon as possible. Scooping up the last of her vegetables with her partly bent fork, Aura stood up, dropped her plate into the sink, and rejoiced at the sound of shattering china. Emma and Drew immediately looked up at her, and stared with shock as she walked calmly and steadily from the room. Walking alone up the stairs and through the dark, narrow hall to her room, she began to wonder if there was a greater destiny planned for her than to be here, trying to be normal when she clearly wasn’t. The more thought she put into it, the more she realized that it had to be true. I should head back to where this all began, she thought to herself. I have to go back to Monte Vista.