"Can you toss over the photo squares?"

Setting down the stack of pictures I was thumbing through, I picked up the small box and ripped off the slippery paper ribbon already stripped of adhesive squares before tossing it across the bed to Reese.

She caught it with her usual happy grin. "Thanks!"

"Mmm hmm." I turned and aimed the wad of paper at the trashcan, my foot bobbing to the music pulsing from the stereo.

Reese's bedroom was an eclectic mixture of childhood nostalgia and teenage angst, the vibrating bass testing the tape that held up memorabilia. We'd already twice picked up the movie poster of the film I never did see. There was a fishbowl sitting on the middle shelf of a bookcase, acting as bookend to a long lineup of novels interlaced with Little Golden children's books. The fancy-tailed goldfish didn't seem to mind the loud music, making me think it was used to the volume-induced ripples. Reese's other pet, however, was another story.

"No Sergeant!" she scolded. She vaulted up after the young gray and white tabby as it frantically latched onto a curtain when the song's tempo shifted. "Bad kitty!"

Amused, I watched my friend struggle to catch the longhaired furball as he somehow managed to twist and leap for the bookshelf, spindly legs moving fast to stay inches ahead of her reach. The water in the fishbowl sloshed when he sprinted across the shelf above, brushing the books to make them shift. The book on the end was knocked to the floor. It landed cover up.

Hmm, Pokey the Puppy. I noted the cover illustration of a white and brown spotted pup searching for his pudding. The gold sheen of the book spine caught the bedroom light to remind me of the twin golden brick smokestacks at sunset. Reese captured the cat by the scruff of the neck before he could make it under the bed.

"It's okay, sweetie," my animal-loving friend soothed, pulling Sergeant Snuggle-Tails into her lap as she sat on the bed to gently cradle him. The bell on his collar jingled when she jostled it, scratching his tiny chin. The cat gazed up with large amber eyes, tongue darting out to curl over his nose after she poked it with a finger. "That's my pretty boy. Do you want a treat?" Reese set Sergeant on the floor where he twined between her ankles.

I picked up the stack of photos again, giving the cat a quick salute when he stared my way and meowed. At ease, Snuggle-Tails.

"This is a nice one of you two." I held up a photo of Reese and Dandoy stooped over a fallen notebook in front of her locker. It was a candid shot, taken by Trevor, who had gotten hold of the camera.

"Yeah," my friend said, smiling as she dropped a few treat pieces on the floor for Sergeant. "Aaron was trying to help, and Trevor was being an unhelpful ass." She laughed, taking the photo from me. Using four photo corners, she positioned it next to the one I took of her standing with Trevor in his hockey uniform. "I can hardly believe the autumn dance is tomorrow night! This week has simply flown by."

"I know what you mean," I agreed, rummaging through the stack again while Reese searched through the standard-issue stickers that came with the scrapbook.

It had been nearly a week since Micah confessed his love for me. Sighing, I withdrew a Ninja Turtle Band-Aid from my pocket and stripped it from its paper sheath. It would look more appropriate on the page than the remaining stars and flowers from the sticker sheet. Reese picked out the next photo, giggling as she recalled another memory, and I found myself missing Micah. Which is silly, I thought, balling up the bandage wrapper to toss it into the trash. It had only been an hour since he dropped me off at Reese's. He'd gone to check on the valley's defenses while we spent the evening working on her scrapbook.

She was still happily chatting as she turned to the next blank page. "Isn't it epic you get to go to the dance as well, Roara? You should come over again tomorrow afternoon and we can do each other's hair. I can't believe Micah finally asked you out."

I gave her a smile and nodded. Yep, the dance was tomorrow evening. However, it didn't have quite the same luster since I learned my true age. I should have been in college learning the essentials of the fashion industry so I could fulfill my aspiration of taking a seat in my mother's company, not going to some high school dance. But despite my shifting perspective on life, I wasn't going to act all mopey in front of my best friend. A sidelong glance at the bedroom door where the lavender-colored dress she had bought at my suggestion hung made my smile genuine. She should be happy about going to a high school dance.

"Has he kissed you yet?"

"What? Who?" My attention jerked back from the dress.

"Micah!" Reese exclaimed, her dainty eyebrows lifted. "Who else?"

I fidgeted as I studied Aaron's gold and white school jacket that Reese was snuggled in despite the fact it had to be eighty degrees upstairs in her house. My thoughts briefly touched upon Alex's coat, folded and stashed at the bottom of my book bag. I shrugged and gave her a shy nod.

Self-conscious, I fingered the light-colored scarf I was wearing about my neck. Yeah, kissing was all we were managing to do, though it did seem as if I was becoming more resilient as time wore on. Micah could increasingly touch more of me without leaving red trails, with the exception of more delicate areas—like my scarf—covered neck. That it hadn't gone beyond kissing was probably due to the fact we were still uncertain how much my body could handle of his electrical nature.

"I bet he kisses well," Reese offered with a suggestive giggle when I didn't say anything further.

"I suppose," I answered thoughtfully, recalling the rush he had given me last night when he pinned me to the ceiling. Considering neither of us had any previous experience with being intimate with another person, we weren't doing too badly.

But what am I doing, really? I reached for the photo squares, wondering about my eagerness for the physical aspect of our relationship as Reese turned down the music and raced for the ringing landline. Sure, I cared about Micah. More deeply and soundly than any other person since my mother. But did I love him?

Digging with a fingernail at the next photo square, I became frustrated when I couldn't pry it loose while Reese's voice droned in the background, talking with her aunt. Apparently her babysitter had backed out at the last minute, and she was in desperate need of somebody to watch the twins. Seemed like our scrapbooking session was getting cut short.

Giving up on the photo square, I set the box down and grabbed my book bag. Reaching around my trig book and digging deeper than the aura dampening cloak I always carried with me now, I pulled out Alex's coat. The rich navy material reflected the bedroom light. The more I explored myself as I continued to experiment with Micah, the more I was convinced I experienced love differently than everyone else.

Smoothing the coat open, I inhaled deeply, taking in the faint scent of falling water over sweet moss that cascaded from the folds. The more time I spent with Micah, the more I seemed to carry his stormy scent with me, and as I slipped my arms into the coolness of the silk-lined sleeves, shrugging the coat on over my lightweight camisole, the two scents mingled. Of course it wasn't as good as having their arms wrapped around me at the same time for real, but still...

Snuggled in navy with the collar turned up, my fingers pressed to my breastbone where I could just make out the phantom presence of my souls, like two sleepy doves as they rustled in their nest.

Hanging up the phone with an exaggerated thump, Reese turned with a look of teen-angst. "I have to go over to Trevor's to baby sit," she grumped, though it seemed that she couldn't keep from smiling when it became apparent she'd noticed how happy I was all of a sudden, sitting there in a state of semi-bliss.

I let out a sigh. Oh to be able to feel like this all of the time... I closed my eyes, then reopened them to offer, "I'm not doing anything Sunday afternoon. We can get together then and finish your scrapbook."

"I'll have to check with Mom, but that sounds good." Reese walked over to the radio and silenced the beat.

* * *

At Reese's prompting when I left, I took the alley behind her house instead of walking along the main road. Micah was supposed to pick me up at eleven, but since we stopped early, I decided to make the two-mile trek home on foot.

I could have called him, but I figured what was the point? I was within the protection of the valley, and I was a big girl. I didn't need someone to escort me twenty-four seven. And besides, I'm on BruLagoon property. I drew Alex's suit coat tighter and buttoned it up to keep out the evening chill, its length brushing the backs of my knees as I walked.

The house Reese's family rented was one that the BruLagoons owned. Their quaint two-story home, painted mint and white, sat in the bottom corner of the BruLagoon estate along the main road. The rest of the estate—where Alex lived—was hidden in the woods farther up on the hillside.

Hefting the book bag higher on one shoulder, I squinted at the night-darkened hillside to my right as my shoes crunched over loose limestone strewn about the paved lane. The occasional chirps of a cricket were few and far between and the evening had turned chilly enough to induce goose bumps.

I jumped at the shriek of a field mouse being abruptly cut off when whatever had snatched it silenced its cries. Probably an owl, I deduced by the soft sound of large wings beating the air. My attention was drawn farther ahead into the tree line where the sound of wings rose high and went silent as they caught the wind, and my curiosity was piqued at the sight of a faint glow rising through the autumn-thinned canopy. A structure of some sort? The roof appeared to be a glass dome, faintly lit from below.

I noted the lack of tall grass just up ahead. There seemed to be a trail leading that way. A gap in the greenery just wide enough for one person was highlighted by a streetlamp. Against my better judgment when I reached it, I found myself stepping onto the trail and climbing the hill among the trees, hands out in front of me while I tested my footing. Shadowy, dew-wet ferns leaned into the path to make my legs damp. My calves burned as the hillside steepened. The rich aroma of decomposing earth rose underfoot to saturate my senses as my shoes dug in for traction.

My vision wavered, almost going black before returning when I shook my head, and I took a breath in surprise as my clairvoyance rose out of me of its own accord. It merged with the surrounding nature to become almost omnipresent—me, the half-blood, with the elements running quick in her veins. I was sensing the warmth in the earth without touching it, the minute movement of the roots there, drinking, growing. Ferns and leaves shivering at the caress of a breeze. My humanity was the only thing holding me back from becoming totally submerged in it. Feet slipping, I stumbled backward.

Breath hissing inward, I surged forward with a burst of strength. Ever since I had come through my detox-transitioning, the natural world had begun to take on a different flow. I longed to be...free. Almost hungry with the need to shed myself of my physicality so I could not only enjoy the feel of wind across my skin and water while it trickled over me, but I could be the blowing wind and make things wet like water.

A sound of agitation slipped from me again, and I blinked rapidly as my connection with the earth slipped away. I fought with my hair as a sudden gust blew it across my face. A part of me almost mourned that my physical body was holding me back.

My next exhale came out as a puff of dampness as I climbed higher and higher. What the heck was I doing? This isn't smart, I chided as the increasing darkness of the woods enveloped me more with every step, the ground becoming slippery with roots. I considered calling up my spectral sight when the pathway became non-existent. I was wading through waist high ferns. Crap, maybe this wasn't a path at all? It could very well have been a deer trail.

But despite my fretting, the overhead rustling of wind devvis on patrol boosted my confidence and kept me going, and moments later a glow over the next rise encouraged me onward. I was heading in the right direction.

My hand brushed over the roughness of a sizeable oak, searching its thick bark for a finger hold, and with one last burst of strength to bring myself up and over its enormous root system, I stopped to lean my fatigued body against the tree while I stared out at a flat spot of land carved into the hillside. Finally.

Adjusting the book bag's strap on my shoulder, I tucked my hair behind my ears and sized up a rounded structure of polished steel and glass and architectural prowess that rose in the clearing. A greenhouse. I noted the flowering plants silhouetted by yellow light from within. Calla lilies. The same type of flower that had graced my bathroom and our kitchen when I first arrived, flowers Alex sent.

Stepping away from the oak to weave through the remaining trees until my legs were clear of the audible swoosh of greenery, I moseyed out onto manicured lawn. The breezy roar of the forest shifting around me went abruptly silent as I walked across the clearing, the howl of reassurance dissipating to trail off into the distance. An uneasy thought went through me: the patrolling wind devvis had left the hillside. My gaze went to the dark, now silent sky. They had definitely gone.

Maybe to check on the rest of the valley? Concerned, I fidgeted with the bag's strap some more and lifted my gaze to the greenhouse. At about the height of the surrounding trees, the tall glass panels of the outer walls were capped off with a dome of Neo-Classical proportions, polished steel beams bent and crisscrossed to provide triangular glass panels—a few stained red—the structural means with which to fill in the dome. The only obvious entrance, for which I was currently heading, was a porch-like portico. It gave the impression of a grand museum entrance.

Good cheddar. I lifted my chin to size up the ten-foot high overhang as I walked between Corinthian Columns as thick as the oak tree at the edge of the clearing. Six columns supported the portico roof, my footsteps echoing on the cement foundation. Looking beyond the building, the weather-eaten ruts of excavation equipment furrowed the earth to lead out of the clearing, crossing the hillside diagonally to disappear into the trees. They testified to the fact that this glass Parthenon hadn't been built very long ago. Although the thickness of the grass in the clearing and the amount of calla lilies deceptively suggested otherwise.

I could hear water trickling inside. Curious, I tuned out the crackling sound of shifting tree trunks on the hillside above the greenhouse, the disturbance causing a trace amount of crumbling hill to roll across the portico's foundation. Slowly, I walked over to place my palms on the glass door and peered inside.

My gosh, the glass is so warm! And it must be at least two inches thick. I noted the distance of a flying insect as it skimmed the inside surface in front of my nose. A honeybee?

The buzzing insects dotted everything inside, and despite the wonderment that filled me, nothing could compare to my joy when I saw what rose to spread its branches in the heart of this garden-under-glass. The one thing that kept me spellbound, frozen to the spot, even as dirt tumbling down the hillside reached my ankles. "A peach tree," I breathed, fogging the glass.

At the center of the large greenhouse dome a cylindrical glass chamber rose. Measuring several feet across, it soared vertically to meet the curved roof. A round opening in the building's peak provided ventilation, the promise of fresh air for which the silvery leaves reached, their appearance almost translucent. Or at least, I supposed it to be a peach tree.

The trunk was waist thick, its color dark but not black. A paper flaky surface covered it as if it were a second layer of bark, and as I fingered the polished door handle, I studied a digital screen to which I assumed one pressed a palm to unlock it. Only my familiarity with peach blossoms led me to believe this was a peach tree.

The poor girl was so top heavy with them, large as teacups and white, that if it weren't for the other two smaller trees planted on either side, her roots would've given out. The other two trunks were intertwined with hers, their green foliage mixing with her silver, each a different species of peach meant to cross-pollinate. All three were in blossom over a carpet of moss spotted with white and cream and mauve petals despite the fact it was early fall, as if time held no sway behind the two-inch thick glass. A bright sphere gave off yellow light from its hanging cage—the light I'd seen from the alley.

I placed my palm experimentally onto the pad, and the lock mechanism sprung open with a hard click. Coded for my touch. Interesting.

I closed my eyes and willed my sight to shift as I wondered about the constant breeze swaying the plants inside. Perhaps there was a wind devvi in attendance? I would be able to better spot them with my spectral sight, as their ever-shifting body would be lit with kinetic light.

A splintering crack on the hillside jerked me from that thought, finally making me turn and look up. My transformed eyes went wide in surprise as I watched the sharply lit, kinetic jostle of trees toppling over, one by one. The air was alight as though embers were bursting up when they hit the forest floor. At the top of the hill, where the trees once stood, a gathering of yellow-brown light teetered on the edge of the slope. It then spilled over, flowing to the bottom with a smoky, liquid quickness. The erosion that followed as a result shot sparks high into the air, the crumbled earth tumbling with the fury of a pounding rain. Upon reaching the bottom, the descended light rolled toward me, its swirling, shimmering appearance akin to the ethereal apartment creature, only this time colored and given more substance. It glided across the short-cut grass with a deadly focus. Transfixed on me. Stalking me.

An umbra! Heart in my throat, I flung the door open and ran inside.

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Lions, and Tigers, and Umbrae, oh my! 
VOTE if you're ready for an Umbra encounter :)