*Elentari*
“Good morning starlight,
The sun is shining bright,
Let the rays hold you tight,
Until you can embrace moonlight.”
I woke up to the sound of my mother's singing. It made me feel as if she were really here.
“Echo, turn off the alarm.” My voice is groggy, still half asleep. The device clearly didn’t hear me. “ECHO, turn off the alarm.” I managed to get out. I heard a growl that I couldn’t tell if it came from my stomach or outside the door. The step-witch banged on my door.
“I thought I told you to change that blasted alarm tone.” Lyssandra, my stepmother hissed. Normally, I refer to her as my step-witch. I never knew why my mother's voice bothered her so much.
“I thought I told you you'd never erase my mom.” I snapped back. I always had this feeling like she wanted to pretend my mom never existed. It annoyed me. Whenever I got passionate though, she’d back down and almost whimper. “You’re married to my dad. You’re the step-witch that wants me to pretend you gave birth to me. You will never be able to replace her. I’m not like you. Stop trying to make me your perfect little girl and leave me be. I wasn’t interested when I was five, ten, thirteen, or even now. So do me a favor and go fly a kite.” I rebutted. I almost felt angry. Her expression changed as she looked through the cracked open door at me. Unbenounced to me, my normally sky blue eyes had turned violet.
“How could you say that? I’ve been here since you were born. She didn’t raise you, I did. I raised you with your dad. Why do you make me fight so hard? I’ve only ever tried to be a good mother to you and you shun me constantly. It’s so hurtful.” Her voice turned pitiful but didn’t sound sincere to me.
“I have no idea who’s done what. My illness is caused by trauma and includes amnesia. You’re manipulative as all get out and I can’t trust you. Serenity doesn’t either, so save it. I’ll be graduating next week. I’m 18 tomorrow. I’ll be out of your hair and you can stop pretending with me. I can see right through you.” I stated dryly. She wasn’t fooling me.
I heard her huff and stomp downstairs. It almost sounded like she was sniffling, trying not to cry. I don’t think I’ll ever understand her. She sulks about the fact that I won’t let her replace my mom and tries so hard. Sometimes it feels like she annoys her hellspawn because she’s trying so hard to convince me she’s a good mom and loves me. It kinda makes me sick sometimes.
I’m nothing special. Not to me anyway. Most people avoid me. I’m not popular, but I’m not the most bullied. I just am. The green of the school is littered with people of varying ages. The high school is on our local community college campus, so we can take college classes while taking our regular studies. So there were people from 13 to beyond middle aged around. This also meant my school dress code was a bit more lax. We could color our hair whatever color we wanted. I dye my hair often.
My make-up, when I bother to do it, is considered colorful gothic. The blue of my eyes, I’ve been told, makes the smokey style pop. Today I have a black base on the crease of my lid with what looks like thick winged eyeliner. A baby blue sparkly shadow on my eyelids and over the creamy black shadow to create a cool look. My lips are outlined in black with a liquid matte plum lipstick. My skin is a tan that most beach barbies would kill for. My hair is shoulder length. It’s not curly but not straight either. I have to straighten it most days or it’s a frizzy mess. The roots at the crown of my head are pink while the rest is blue and purple. For now, anyway. My shirt is a baby blue crop top with black skulls on it and a white spaghetti strap tank underneath it. I have a short pleated black skirt with chains and black-footed leggings finished off with four-inch high-heeled boots that have zippers up the sides and faux buckles that end just below my knees. I’m only 5’4” so I need a height boost. I’m not into showing off the goods, but I am into looking my best.
Blackbriar blaring in my headphones, I walked through campus to the building. I don’t sing along. I get funny stares when I sing and I don’t like the attention. The last time I did I found it wildly uncomfortable. People stared at me and seemed hypnotized. Across the way, a boy yelled out my name but I couldn’t hear him. Apparently, he really wants to talk to me. He runs to move in front of me so I see him and he doesn’t startle me. The first time someone startled me was the last. I let out a scream and, coincidentally, at the same time, some glass broke and more than a few people had headaches for days.
“Hey Silk. It is Silk today, yea?” He asks. I nod.
“Hey Manic.” I responded, “Yea it’s me. Serenity is awake but it’s me. What’s up?” I’m trying really hard to be nice. The step-witch put me in a really bad mood. I shifted uncomfortably. He seemed to notice and started walking with me.
“Oh good it is you. I was afraid I misnamed you again today.” He states. He always tries to be considerate of me. He’s protected me a couple of times when an alter came out that even I didn't know existed. He wouldn’t tell me details either. He said when they are ready they’ll tell me, but they all want to protect me. “Our statistics final is today. Was wondering if you were good to go or needed to get an extra cram session in before classes. We could always nix the homeroom to cram, too.” He’s always trying to make sure I’m good.
I smile, this time genuinely, “I’m okay. Serenity says she’s got statistics covered.” Serenity actually likes math. I don’t understand how anyone can like it. My inner monologue is starting to get loud. I pull a red post-it note from my purse and handed it to Manic. He understands immediately, getting me to a spot on the grass to sit down and he squeezes my shoulder. I vaguely heard him say something about letting the home room teacher know I was disassociating.
I close my eyes as it makes it easier for me to concentrate. I have no idea if the eyes on my body are closed or not but I’ve never recorded myself to find out. I move into the zone, a mental space where I can communicate with and see most of my alters, or at least a shadow of them. My therapist says I have Dissociative Identity Disorder but I feel like this is something different. I don’t know how to explain it. In this zone I see some fully formed individuals and some who are shaped like shadows and so, and others that look like mist. One looks like me but is super tall, like 6’ tall. Her hair also seems to be a dark nebula made of millions of stars. Actually, as I look closer, all of them are dark nebulae with stars and streaks of color. I don’t understand it, but oh well.
A shadow speaks, “We turn 18 tomorrow. Life won’t be the same.” Another shadow pipes up, “All these teenage worries will be the least of our issues.” The one named Serenity, the only one I can see fully formed, now speaks up. “We’ll get to that after we get through today. These may be teenage worries, but our human needs us to let her do what she needs for now.” I look at her funny. She’s never called me her human before, as if she were something I’m not. “Yes, our human. You’ll know soon enough. Now we need to get you back to the mundane before you miss it all.” She looks at me and I snap out of it. I’m left in a daze. I have more questions.
‘So she’s gonna explain everything tomorrow? I wonder if I will be able to see more than just shadows of others as well.’ I thought to myself. Serenity tells me “yes” and then urges me to hurry to class. She always waited till I sat down to take over. She says there are things about us that look different and others can’t see our eyes when she takes over. I realized I only had 10 minutes to get across campus. Fuck.
*Audra*Leaving the pack house a little late, I took a look in the mirror. It was going to be a crazy day. But at least it was the last day that we would have to hide who and what we were. When Manic and I took this job we had absolutely no intentions of befriending an 18-year-old kid. We were over 100 years old. We had pups older than her. Little did I know it would be so easy to treat her like one of my daughters and watch over her. She craved a mother figure and friends, so I decided to go beyond the scope of my mission. My Alpha wasn’t happy with me about this at first, but the King and Queen seemed appreciative, so he let it go. I’m the Beta of the Moonchild Pack, one of the largest in Faerl. Our pack has always been considered the Royal Wolves of Faerl, loyal to the King and Queen and the representative of all Wolves. Each species had a representative. I was proud to be a Moonchild. I didn’t quite understand everything when I started out. This girl seemed so ordinary and plain
*Elentari*I got to class just before the professor closed the door and locked it. He was strict about being on time. I missed a test that way. If I had missed this one I would have failed. That would have been awful. Serenity came forward as soon as the test was in hand. I watched through my eyes as my body did things without prompting. She understood things so much more than I did. It was almost as if she had years and years of math behind her. Sometimes I still feel awkward about it though. The test was done and turned in and I made my way to my English class. I needed to go turn in my paper and I’d be free of that class too. On my way there, one of the hellspawn came into view. I disliked my step-siblings almost as much as they disliked me. I didn’t bother using their names to address them the majority of the time, normally just calling them hellspawn or the terror twins. I paid him no mind, but one of the shadows took over and nimbly moved me around him. He had tried to “accide
*Elentari* “What was that about?” I asked her. She shook her head and mumbled something about it not being her place to talk about it. I nodded, confused, but set to planning our menu for the final. We were in groups of 10 and made a full three-course meal. We chose a traditional Italian menu. The only thing I did that wasn’t purely Italian was a spinach salad with walnuts and poppy seed dressing. I can’t eat Italian dressing. I’ve never understood why. Minestrone Soup or salad for the first course, stuffed shells with sweet Italian sausage for the main course, and tiramisu for the dessert accompanied by a cup of espresso. This used to be one of our favorite meals to make as a family before we gave up hope on mom coming back, or if she was even alive. I was 8 years old the last time I made it with dad. The step-witch didn’t let us make it. Our team took three hours to make the meal. We plate our presentation pieces and felt good about it. “Good job team!” I praise them. We could put
*Elentari POV* This was so much for me to take in. “Who is Elentari?” I asked them. Their looks were almost as if I had asked the most ridiculous question ever. “What??” I had no idea why they were being so weird. A sing-song voice came from my mirror image, “You’ve operated as me for so long you don’t even know your own name anymore.” She scuffed her foot against the ground. “We got some work to do, girls. She needs a crash course as shit is gonna get real, real soon. Step-witch will know she’s awakened. The stupid man bringing her into the house.” I’m in a daze listening to all this. I couldn’t believe it. “What about Audra and Manic?” I blurted out. My fuzzed brain was trying to slowly click things into place, and they had given me the note. “Manic is a vamp like me.” Silk says excitedly. I swallowed hard, backing away from her a bit. “Oh, good grief you’ve read too many fantasy novels if you’re scared of your own sprite.” “Audra is a wolf like me.” Stated Lucinda, almost a
*Audra POV* Tomorrow was going to be interesting. I left the college and started driving towards my pack house with Manic by my side. My nerves were getting the better of me. “I think we need to report to the King and Queen tonight. That way tomorrow can go a bit more flawlessly. Though I don’t know if anything about this can be considered flawless.” I ran my fingers through my hair nervously. “She’s not going to hate us once she finds out, is she?” “I know when we accepted this assignment we didn’t ever think we would befriend her. I mean she’s a good hundred years younger than us. But we both decided we liked her personality and wanted to be friends. Our friendship has always been genuine and a choice. As long as she can understand that we didn’t have to befriend her to finish out our mission, it’ll be okay. I don’t think she’s so unreasonable that she would not listen.” It didn’t take much to reassure me. I sighed softly, kissing the back of his hand. “This is why you’re the calm
*Elentari POV* Everything was so much to take in. I felt like my world was caving in second by second. I slipped from the zone out of shock and started to move to my bed. All I wanted was to go to sleep and for all of this to be a bad dream. Arashi’s voice echoed in my head as I attempted to lay down telling me I had to pack before resting. I was suddenly really happy I spent the money I got from the life insurance policy on an SUV instead of the cute Prius I had been looking at. Yes, it was blue. I also paid three years of car insurance on it. The rest of my money was split into my stock portfolio that my mom set up for me and my savings account. Dividends were transferred into savings automatically and $300 was transferred to my checking each month so I could pay my phone bill and put gas in the car. It made me laugh that I was seen as the bad kid when I was the one being responsible. The spawns got money and it was gone instantly with video games and trivial crap. I started to pac
*Elentari POV* “This tastes more refreshing than normal.” He comments and looks in the water bottle. “You remembered lemon and mint!” He kissed the top of my head. “You realize it's your birthday, Starlight. I should be spoiling you, not the other way around.” This simple exchange made me happier than anyone could imagine. He hadn’t remembered my birthday in years, no one did, I handed him a plate of food and he sat down to dig in. “Good morning family!” Lyssandra says in her fake sing-song voice, “Smells like someone beat me to making the birthday breakfast.” She looked around at everyone else sitting down, and seemed like she was pouting, “I had wanted to make you breakfast as a treat.” “Thank you for the thought.” I told her. My wheels turned wondering what she had up her sleeve. “I wanted to make dad’s and my favorite breakfast. It’s been so long since we’ve had it, and it’s been years since anyone has celebrated my birthday so I figured if I wanted to celebrate, I had to do
*Elentari POV* “Lunar Guardian? Me? I’m just a normal teenager with nothing special about me. I didn't even know this existed until today. I don’t understand, Selene is real?” As I spoke the twins looked at each other, as if having a mental conversation. Little to my knowledge they were doing just that. They spoke at the same time. “We want to go with you.” Turning towards my parents. My sister pushed the book towards my mother. “If we are magical, we need training. Even though that book is my birthright, I don't want to learn from it. I’d rather it was destroyed.” At this point, I saw my sister in a new light. Almost a light of admiration. “It is not yours yet!” Lyssandra screeched. “I am still alive. As long as I live it is mine!” She reached for the Grimoire as if her life depended on getting the old book back in her hands. Before she could get to it, despite the pain it caused him, my brother grabbed it and kept it from her reach. “The book is evidence. It cannot be destroye