Winter Solstice

Chapter 13

And it did. We weren’t even halfway finished after about three hours!

“Hey Marc!” I called to him from the living room. “I’m going to go get some more cleaner from the market!”

“Okay! Just keep you hood up and try not to let too many people see your face!” he called back.

I sighed and pulled my hood over my head.

When I was revealed to society, I was given a choice. I could either live here with my mother and brother, or move to the human world with my father. To be honest, I was so sick of this hiding myself crap that I didn’t even have to give my choice a second thought.

Always having to hide my face from others, or even having to resort to gluing on fake ears was annoying and made me feel like an outsider. No, it didn’t make me feel like one. I WAS one.

And there was nothing I could do about it. It’s not like I could just grow ears, or lose my tail. Wherever I went, I was an outside. Whether the other people there knew it or not.

It’s not just having no ears that gets people to talk about me. Even if I had ears, I know that they would still talk about my dad. I could even hear them now, talking about how stupid he is to think that he could live up to the standards of a Polaroid woman. How he should have known better and just given up.

Something shiny caught my eye and I stopped abruptly. I crouched down and looked closer.

It was a necklace. The charm was in the shape or a normal shell, but the inside/top was carved to curve in a spiral shape, to meet a tiny gold star in the middle. On the back there was an engraving:

If you can imagine it, You can do it.

If you can dream it, You can achieve it.

I picked it up and held it in my palm. It seems to be a little old by the scratches on it. But there was no other sign of it ever really being worn. Oh well. I thought to myself and clasped it around my neck.

Automatically I felt a strange sensation course through my body. It wasn’t powerful or hurtful just…strange. Like something in the air had changed around me to become more dark. Though it disappeared as fast as it came.

I didn’t pay any attention to it and kept walking throughout the market. Even though I had my hood on, I’m pretty sure some people still recognized me because I was getting some evil stares from people who passed by.

After I had gotten the cleaner, I set out on my way back to the house, not really paying attention to my surroundings.

But I should have, because next thing I knew I was being dragged into a dark alleyway and thrown against the cold, hard wall.

I cringed as I felt my ankle twist in an abnormal position when I fell to the ground. Looking up, I saw a woman in a long cloak standing over me.