Lair of the Lost Girl

There are some jobs for which "don't bring your work home with you" is sage and reasonable advice.

Actually, I suppose it's good advice for all jobs - it's just more feasible for some than it is for others. I promised after my poor brain-damaged midget kitten that I wouldn't bring home any more heartbreak cases, but I knew somewhere inside, even as I said it, that it wouldn't last forever.

( Hidden, for length and rambling..... )

Casey, are you here?

I don't know where you are, or even if you read this thing anymore. No one has heard from you in like a year or more. Even after they pulled you out of school, I still saw you around for a while, but then you just vanished one day and no one will tell us where you went or what happened. And there are so many things I wanted to tell you, and on top of that stuff has gotten kind of weird here, and I could really use my best friend right now.

I'm sorry to hijack your blog like this, but I don't know how else to reach you. Besides, if you didn't want me to do this, you really should have changed your password sometime between seventh grade and now. And I guess I'm not really that sorry, since this might maybe let me get my words out to you.

There are so many things I wanted to say to you, Casey. I just never got the chance to. Either the time wasn't right, or the time was there but I couldn't find the words, or I was just too damn much of a coward, or something else interrupted, and look at me even now I'm spilling out words like a volcano erupting just trying to find a way to avoid saying any of them.

I never told you I had the 'Phage too. Yeah, how unlikely was that? Don't worry, I didn't catch it from you - if anything, I think looking at what you wrote that I had it before you did. Mine just progressed slower. They think I got it from working at PetSmart, since apparently I'm a genuine, bona-fido dog girl. (That's the closest I can come to humor. It's better than 'life's a bitch and so am I,' at least.) I wanted to tell you, I swear, but my mom was just so ashamed - I think she still believes I did this as a personal attack on her, to make the family look bad - that she made me hide it. And you know how good we are at hiding things in our family.

Anyway, for the longest time it just meant that I either had to spend all my allowance on Nair, or suck it up and wear long-sleeved shirts all the time.

And, well, you know why I had to do that most of the time anyway, too. But I'm not here to talk about that, or him.

Anyway, what I wanted to tell you was that you weren't alone, and that it isn't always bad like it was for you. The 'Phage, I mean. I'm sorry your transformation was so painful and so rough, but it doesn't always have to be like that. I thought that might make you feel better. Growing fur doesn't hurt at all, and it's kind of soft and pretty, and it feels a little bit like velvet. And for the longest time - like a year or two - that's all I had.

I guess I'll admit things got tougher last year when it spread to my face. It's not quite Bride of Wolfman bad, and it hurt a little, but really it's no more than I already knew how to deal with. And I can smell so much now, and it's amazingly cool to be able to sense this whole secret world that no one else even knows is there. And it twisted my back and my arms a little, but at the same time, I'm stronger than I ever thought I could be.

I never had the chance to tell you how good the Ocean County Arboretum smells in May after it rains.

I never had the chance to tell you that you should have said thank you to your mom when she took you to the doctor that first time. You never realized how lucky you were, that she wanted to help you make it through your change. Not that it didn't suck, I'll grant you that. But your mom is pretty cool, and she's been kind of a mess since you took off.

I never had the chance to tell you that they've set up a 'Phage research center about 20 miles from here. The doctors there are majorly creepy - not in a 'Show me on the hideously disfigured Frankensteinian doll where the man in the white coat touched you' creepy, but still.... I'd feel a lot better about my sessions there if I had someone to go with. Don't worry, though; I swear if you write back I'll never tell them where you are. I could never betray you.

I never had the chance to tell you how beautiful you were. Even before you transformed. You were always trying so hard to hide, but I never understood how you could even think that was possible. You talk about how you became a daffodil in the middle of the lawn? There was no becoming, chica - you always were.

I never had the chance to tell you that I loved you.

I hope you're safe, wherever you are. I hope you're happy, and that the sky is wide and the breezes carry you far, far away from this stupid town and all its toxic baggage, and that you've found some way to be at peace with every part of yourself. But I hope you think about me sometimes, and that you look here once in a while. And if you do - please, tell me you're okay?

Love,
Lauren

(has Becky gone completely mad? Not quite - check out the backstory here, here, here, and here.....

I love living in a college town – though, to be honest, that’s a grotesque understatement when it comes to Boston and its suburbs. I love living in an area where, as far as I can tell, there are more colleges than there are grocery stores. People come here to get an education, then stick around and raise happy, educated, intellectual families. While there are the occasional exceptions, it seems like everyone here is a slightly-overeducated intellectual.

( On the other hand, that’s not always as good a thing as it may seem to be on the surface… )

Here's the thing about wings that none of the comic books tell you:

They hurt. They hurt like nothing you've ever felt before in your life, and there's a whole hell of an ugly duckling stage before you wind up turning into a beautiful swan. If you ever do.

They just show you those shiny pictures of beautiful people standing proudly with their giant angel wings spread out behind them, smiling beatifically as if to say, 'You little people may gaze upon my sparkling magnificence for 3.4 seconds before I dramatically leap away to something far more important than you.'

(If I ever smile like that, I hope someone puts a bullet between my smug, melodramatic eyes.)

The comic books don't tell you what happens between your guidance counselor handing you a copy of Professor Charles Xavier's annotated and updated version of 'Our Changing Bodies' and your swearing-in ceremony to the Secret Order of Super-People (which, for the record, is probably neither secret nor super). But I will.

Most of the people who get infected with the Phage wind up more or less useless, to tell the truth. Oh, the media love to trot out that story about the Olympic runner from Kenya who wound up hybridized with a cheetah (and didn't that throw a monkey wrench into all of their rules) and a couple others like him, but for every one like that there are a hundred crazy cat ladies who wind up with what amounts to a serious body hair problem and maybe, if they're lucky, slightly better night vision. And even so, they're still worlds better off than the ones who wind up, say, with chitinous bug plates keeping their spines from ever bending properly again.

Not me, though. My doctor says I'm on my way to becoming "fully flighted and functional." Maybe 2% of the human population of the world has been infected by Bacteriophage Plasmavirus chimeriae; of them, about 10% become avian hybrids, and of them less than 10% wind up able to do anything with their wings other than create a decent breeze on a hot day. Making me.... well, making me someone who maybe should have paid better attention in math class, but no matter what the exact odds were against this, I'm Highly Unusual. My doctors say I'm lucky. I think I'd give anything to have it go away.

Do you want to know what it's like to grow wings? Imagine the worst growing pains you ever had when you were a kid, and then multiply it by a hundred. I've grown six inches in the past two months, as my bones hollow out and stretch to accomodate my new mode of transit. It was bad enough being taller than all the boys when I was in eighth grade, but I have no idea of how I'm going to find a prom date now - none of the guys in school are tall enough to do anything much other than stare me in the sternum.

Not that there's anything to stare at. That was the second change; my boobs have vanished completely. Fuel for the growing wings, my doctor said. They may redevelop once my metabolism equilibrates, he said. That's just what every sixteen-year-old girl wants to hear.

And the wings, at least, are growing at a scary rate. I tried to hide them at first, but carrying a backpack over the ridges started to hurt like acid and fire, and before long even t-shirts got too painful. The skin hasn't split quite yet, but it's likely to any day now, and in the meantime I've got what looks like twin mountain ranges about to burst out either side of my spine.

And if anyone ever tells you that they eat like a bird? Punch them in the face for me. Nothing makes a girl stand out in a high school lunchroom like eating your own weight in reduced-cost student lunches. The number of simpering cheerleaders who hover around me as I chow down on sloppy joes and jello cups, cooing about how they just *wish* they could eat like that, but, like, one french fry makes them *soooo fat* has grown exponentially over the past two weeks.

This is my life now. Braces to support my shins as they stretch and thin at alarming rates. Caftans so my shoulderblades don't break through the skin and expose my wings early. Calcium supplements and protein shakes and muscle spasms that snap my arms back like clothespins. Like it or not, everyone knows who I am now. I stand out like a character on an After School Special - our town's very own Phage case. And last week, in the middle of this, my guidance counselor decided that the best way to cheer me up was to let me know that Victoria's Secret has decided to publicize their Angels line with Real Winged Girls, and they're soliciting Phage survivors for their runway shows.

I wanted to be a librarian. I wanted to spend my life safely in the shadows and the back rows, and she thinks that telling me I have a chance to prance around on television in my underwear is going to make me happy?

And yet.

I look at the comic books now, and they seem a little different. And I watch the red-tailed hawks that nest near the library's chimney, and wonder if it's their fault, and what it feels like when they launch so effortlessly into the air and what the wind feels like beneath and around them. And the sky is so vast and wide, and the clouds can hide anything....

I could lose myself up there, I think.

(Confused? Part one is here)

I often tell people that one of the best things about being a relief veterinarian is that I don't have a boss that I have to answer to. I go from clinic to clinic, and I do my best to follow the policies at the clinics I work at, but ultimately I set my own schedule, I make my own plans, and I do my own thing.

That's not quite true, though. I do, on some level, have a boss. And while I don't have to answer to her often, when I do it's always an adventure. And usually not the fun, lighthearted, wacky sort - more the kind that build character. If you survive. And today was an answering-to-the-boss day.

I'm not sure why she picked today, but I've learned not to question her in these matters. Or in any matters, for what it's worth. I drove as far as I could (she's very picky about not allowing cars on her property, for obvious reasons), then parked in an empty lot, snugged my scarf and gloves tighter, and started walking down the path that led from there, alternately grumbling about the thoughtlessness of folks who schedule meetings in the dead of winter and thanking my lucky stars that at least the path was more clearly marked than the last time I had made this trip, and that I was at least making it in daylight.

Over the river, through the woods, turn left at the giant cliche - I'll say this for my boss. At her age, she has become rather... hidebound. I tend to think of it as a blessing, all things considered. I followed the path to its inevitable but still impressive end, handed my coat to the omnipresent "assistants," and, gritting my teeth (I am American through and through, and we have spent the past three hundred years refusing to bow to anyone as a matter of principle), I went down on one knee. "Majesty, you sent for me?"

The Queen of Air and Darkness laughed, a sound that had more in common with icicles and bells than any human noise. "You may rise, my pet."

I hate it when she calls me that. It feels uncomfortably close to truth. I stood, still carefully keeping my eyes towards the floor. Some things truly aren't meant for human eyes, and while I don't know for certain that looking directly upon her will melt my contact lenses onto my corneas, it's not a risk I'm willing to take. "Is there aught you need of me, Majesty?"

I don't set out to talk like that on purpose around her. She just... seems to bring it out, whether I want to or not.

"It has been seven years since you first swore to serve us. Do you recall? I believe that was the original term you agreed to serve, was it not?"

I nodded wordlessly, praying that, since my contract was technically with the Bright Court, I wouldn't wind up riding a white horse at the end of a parade to Hell. Not only would it be the platonic ideal of No Fun, the time of the great ballads has gone, and my name doesn't scan very well anyway.

"So. Your service is done. If you so wish. Is that your wish, mortal? Do you want to be free?"

"Um... is that a trick question?" Eloquent, I know.

She laughed again - it's good to know that, if all of my other skills fail me, I can still list 'amusing to fairies' as a lifetime accomplishment - and shifted on her throne. "No, my pet. While we are not above the occasional prank or misdirection, we keep our oaths. You have kept your part of the bargain, and we shall keep ours. So I ask again - do you wish your service to the Courts to end here?"

I closed my eyes, doing my best to think clearly in a hazy, uncertain situation. To be free of this - isn't that what I had been counting down towards, ever since the first day I realized that my student loan exit counselor had pushed me into a Special Service condition that most new grads weren't offered, and that he hadn't been joking? No more burn scars (my hands were still stiff from the last visit to the dragon barn), no more bite wounds from werewolves and weeks spent drinking wolfsbane tea and watching the moon nervously. No more manipulative boggans, no more attempts to explain that dryads are outside my area of service. No more patients talking back to me. No more nightmares about things with too many legs and mismatched shadows that try to suck me in as I work on them.

No more unicorns. No more tiny leathery wings scalding my fingertips as I coax them from their shell. No more free laundry service in exchange for keeping the brownies' stable of fancy show mice fat and healthy. No more wild kelpie rides.

I opened my eyes again, seeing the edges of the carved and gilded throne swim and start to fade before me, the chamber slowly shifting back into a cold, empty cavern.

No more magic.

I sank to my knees again, shaking my head, and surrendered to the inevitable. "No, Majesty."

"I thought not." There was gentleness in her voice as well as humor, as she rose. Her touch on my eyelids was as soft as rose petals, as cold as the first breath you draw in a blizzard, as she renewed the glamour that let me see their world. "Serve us well, child."

Seven more years. That's all. Then I'll stop, I swear. I said it last time, but this time I mean it. I think.

(Happy Rabbit Hole Day, y'all....)