Efram knows that being a Sier can be both blessing and curse, and as his 16th birthday arrives, he discovers exactly what that entails.

This story takes place in the same universe as my Were stories, the Academy, and Touching the Moon. The TG elements of this story are much lighter than in most of my other stories.

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Mrs. Dieter stood by the chalk board in front of the classroom, silently glaring at each of the students with a dark malevolence. She looked to be in her late fifties or early sixties, with her dark gray hair tied back in a strict bun.

None of the other students noticed Mrs. Dieter, which may have contributed to her hostility. Of course, it may also have had something to do with the fact that she’d died nine years ago.

The school legend is that she was in the middle of yelling at one of her students when she’d keeled over from a heart attack. There was a story about her ghost still haunting the school, though no one really believed it…at least no one but me.

My name is Efram Savoi, though most of my classmates wouldn’t really know my name. Most of them probably just thought of me as ‘that emo boy’, or even more likely, ‘that creepy kid’.

When the class ended, I hurried out, ignoring Mrs. Dieter’s glare. She knew that I could see her and that I was intentionally ignoring her, which made her glare at me all the more.

“Finally,” I muttered, thankful that the day was over and I could finally go home.

As I stepped out the front of the building, I was suddenly shoved from behind and dropped all the books and papers I’d been carrying. They hit the ground and scattered while my classmates continued walking over them as though they weren’t even there.

“Fuckers,” I spat out bitterly, trying to pick up my books and papers, cursing even more as people continued stepping on them.

“Hey, you got a problem, freak?” one boy demanded.

I looked up to see Bobby Decker, one of the biggest pains of my life. He wasn’t the popular jock that you might assume from his large athletic build or blonde hair. However, he was an asshole who seemed to enjoy messing with me.

“Yeah, you’re standing on my math homework,” I pointed out.

“Oh, this?” he responded with a smirk, twisting his foot to grind the paper into the ground.

I glared at Bobby and asked, “Now why’d you have to do that?”

“Ooops, I guess I didn’t see it,” Bobby told me with a sneer.

“Then maybe you should open your eyes,” a girl exclaimed as she came over.

Julie Fairen stood there with her hands on her hips, glaring up at Bobby without an ounce of fear in spite of the fact that he was quite a bit larger than her. Julie was definitely a redhead, not only in her actual hair color but also in her fiery attitude.

“This isn’t your business,” Bobby told her in annoyance.

“Maybe not,” Julie told him defiantly. “But I’m here anyway.”

Bobby and Julie glared at each other for a moment before he said, “Damn, you’re gonna make me late for meeting my friends. I don’t have time for this.” And with that, Bobby hurried off, leaving me alone.

“Are you okay?” Julie asked me with a cheerful smile.

I just grunted at that, trying not to look at her. Julie was a little on the small side but she didn’t seem to be afraid of anything and had taken it on herself to stand up to the school bullies. It pissed me off to have her thinking of me as some victim who needed her help.

“I’m fine,” I snapped, grabbing at my papers.

“Let me help you,” Julie said, helping pick up my books and papers. “You know, you need to stand up to him or he’ll never leave you alone.”

“I didn’t need your help,” I told her, feeling guilty at the same time.

Julie was actually one of the only people in school who was always nice to me, and the truth was, I even had a bit of a crush on her. Unfortunately, I knew that she wasn’t nice because she liked me. Instead, she pitied me and that was something I didn’t like.

Once all my books and papers had been collected, Julie said, “I heard your birthday is tomorrow. Happy birthday.”

I winced at that, almost as though I’d been struck. Tomorrow was my sixteenth birthday and I didn’t want to think about it. As far as I was concerned, my sixteenth birthday was a day to be feared, not to be celebrated.

“Your sixteenth birthday is a special one,” Julie said.

“You have no idea,” I muttered. Then I quickly told her, “I’ve got to go.”

I quickly excused myself and started to leave, only to see an owl sitting on the school bicycle rack, watching me. None of the other students who were rushing past seemed to notice the owl at all, though I wasn’t at all surprised by that.

I nodded to the owl who then nodded back before it flew off, still unseen by anyone else. I shook my head and then began walking home, taking the long way so that I didn’t have to go past the cemetery. Walking past the cemetery could be somewhat unnerving for someone like me.

Most people had no idea that the human race shared the planet with several other races that had branched off from them a very long time ago. It was believed that these races shared a similar origin, though this was only speculation and no one knew for sure.

First there were the Were, people who could transform into animals at night and who’d inspired countless legends of shape-shifters and animal people all across the world. The Touched had access to magic and amazing powers, the kind that almost seemed godlike to mere mortals in the past. These sorcerers could perform feats that were still whispered of in the stories of mankind. And then, there were the Sier.

The Sier have existed alongside mankind for longer than any remembered, well before recorded history. Our stories are told in tales of oracles and prophets, of necromancers and priests, of witch doctors, shaman, and many others. Once, the Sier were spread across the world and lived among nearly every culture. Now, our numbers were much more limited.

The Sier have a special ability that separates us from the other races, an ability that is both gift and curse. The Sier can communicate with the spirit world that exists within our own.

Spirits exist in countless forms and flavors, sharing our world though few besides the Sier are truly aware of them. They exist in different frequencies from the physical world, and often, even each other. Those of strong Sier blood can naturally sense the spirits that are closest to the physical world, though it takes an awakened Sier to do more than that.

I was lost in my thoughts for the entire walk home, though I snapped out of them when I reached the small house where I lived. An owl swooped down in front of me and flew to the front door, landing beside my aunt Cassandra.

Aunt Cassandra was tall, slender, and just on the plain side of pretty. Her light brown hair had a single lock of white strands in the front, though this wasn’t due to age. Aunt Cassandra was only twenty-eight.

“You were talking to that Fairen girl again,” Aunt Cassandra said as a way of greeting, giving me a disapproving look.

I looked to her owl familiar Whisperwing and said, “Snitch.”

“How many times have I told you to stay away from that girl?” Aunt Cassandra asked in exasperation. “I’ve told you time and time again…stay away from that family.”

“I wasn’t talking to her,” I protested. “She talked to me.” Then I sighed. “Besides, I can’t just run away screaming whenever she gets close. Everyone at school already thinks I’m weird enough as it is.”

“I know,” Aunt Cassandra said, putting a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “It isn’t easy being the odd one out. Just try and hang in there.”

After this, we went inside and I helped Aunt Cassandra make dinner. Neither of us said a thing about the elephant in the room, the fact that I turned sixteen tomorrow.

Julie had been right about my sixteenth birthday being a special one, though not for the reasons she thought. For a Sier, their sixteenth birthday was their coming of age, the day their full Sier powers awoke. It was the day when everything changed.

When we’d finished eating, Aunt Cassandra finally brought up the subject. “Tomorrow is going to be very challenging for you,” she told me gently. “This won’t be easy but you’ll have to remember what you’ve been taught.”

I nodded at that, then quietly asked, “But what if I end up like my mom?”

“You won’t,” she assured me with a worried look. “Your om didn’t know what was coming and you do.”

I nodded again, knowing very well that the path of the Sier could be very dangerous. There were very few true Sier left in the world, yet there were also many with Sier blood. People with Sier blood could sometimes see spirits, which was often not a good thing. If they didn’t know what they were seeing, they could think themselves delusional. Many of those with Sier blood had been diagnosed with mental illnesses. It could be even worse for true Sier.

My mom was one of the many tragedies that came from having Sier blood. Her father, my grandfather, had cheated on his wife with a normal and my mom was the consequence. My mom grew up with no idea that she was a Sier, though she saw things as a child that she couldn’t explain. When she turned sixteen and her true Sier nature awoke, things became much MUCH worse. She ended up committed to an institution.

While my mom was institutionalized, she became pregnant with me. I have no idea who my father is, though he could have been a doctor, orderly, or even another patient. All I knew was that shortly after my birth, my mom couldn’t take it anymore and committed suicide.

I was raised by my mom’s family, though I made them very uncomfortable. Not only was I a constant reminder of my mother’s tragic life, but I could see some spirits too and they feared I was following in her footsteps.

When my Sier grandfather was on his deathbed, he confessed his affair and revealed my mother’s existence. Aunt Cassandra had been shocked to discover that she had an older half-sister that she never knew about and horrified that she had been left without guidance. She immediately tried to find my mom, only to discover that she was too late. My mom was already dead and I had been left behind, a six year old boy with strong Sier blood and relatives who couldn’t understand.

My mom’s family didn’t hesitate to give me over to a complete stranger, as long as they could rationalize it because she was related. They were just happy that they’d found someone who would take me off their hands. Aunt Cassandra raised me after that and I was grateful to her for doing so. She was the only real family I had and the only person in the world who’d ever given a damn about me.

“Maybe I won’t awaken,” I said abruptly, giving Aunt Cassandra a hopeful look. “I mean, I’m not full Sier…”

Aunt Cassandra gave me a sympathetic look. “Your Sier blood is too strong for that. You will awaken as a true Sier. There is no escaping that.”

I nodded, having heard that before. “I’m kind of scared,” I admitted. “What if I can’t handle it?”

“You can,” she assured me. “Now, why don’t you see if you can get a little sleep before you start.”

I nodded at that and then went back to my room. I knew I should get some sleep but it was too early and I wasn’t tired. Instead, I sat on the edge of my bed, strumming my guitar and thinking about what tomorrow would bring.

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I let out a yawn as I got dressed, throwing on an old t-shirt that had seen better days and staggering out of my room. It was twenty minutes until midnight, the time when my birthday would arrive. I had to be awake and ready when that happened.

When I left my room, Aunt Cassandra gave me a reassuring smile. “Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I responded with a sigh. Then I grumbled, “Why can’t I just stay asleep?” Of course, I already knew the answer and was just complaining for the sake of complaining. I thought of it as my responsibility as a teenager.

“Because your defenses are down while you sleep,” Aunt Cassandra said, giving me the same explanation she had numerous times before. “When you awaken, you need to be ready to deal with it.”

I went to the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee, taking a long drink of it and then pouring the rest of the pot into a thermos. I would need the coffee if I was going to avoid falling asleep.

We stepped out the back door and I watched as Whisperwing swooped down and landed on Aunt Cassandra’s shoulder. In spite of looking exactly like a real owl, Whisperwing was actually a spirit. An animal spirit.
There were countless types of spirits but those who were closest to the physical world often had a symbiotic or parasitic relationship with our plane. Some of the spirits would bond to physical locations and some would bond to living beings. They would take strength and identity from that which they were bonded to and sometimes even provide benefits.

Animal spirits were ones that had bonded to animals, assuming the animals form and nature as its own. These spirits would develop an affinity for a specific species and would often bond to animal after animal of that species, reinforcing their own animal identity.

Ghosts were not really that much different from animal spirits in nature, only in the form and identity they wore. Ghosts were not the souls of dead humans as most people believe but were spirits who existed separately. These spirits would bond to a human, often drawn by strong emotions, and then feed off their emotions, memories, and identity. When the host died, these spirits would sometimes continue in the form and manner of that host, sometimes even seeming to believe they were that person.

“What kind of familiar do you think I’ll get?” I abruptly asked Aunt Cassandra.

She gave me a gentle smile and put a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll find that out soon enough. Good luck.”

I nodded at that, picked up my lantern and thermos, then walked away from the house Aunt Cassandra. There was a large woods located behind our house with a nice sized clearing just a short distance in. I went to the clearing and then sat down on the ground to wait.

It was chilly out here so I wished I’d brought my coat, though I was a little too stubborn to go back for it now. Instead, I sat beside my lantern, staring off into the darkness beyond and trying not to think of the things that might be out there beyond my sight.

Some cultures had coming of age traditions where the young men would be sent off by themselves to prove their manhood, find their totem animal, or just to meditate. The Sier have such a tradition, though ours is due for the practical reason that this is a very dangerous time for us and anyone close to us.

I didn’t have a watch with me but I didn’t need one to tell me when midnight came. In an instant, I felt something inside me change. I felt my Sier nature fully awaken.

The world opened up around me in a way I’d never imagined. Instead of just seeing spirits, I could sense them as well. When I closed my eyes, I could feel the spirits nearby, even some that were a distance from the physical plane. And after a short time, I realized that I could feel some of them coming towards me.

“It’s started,” I whispered, trying to control my nerves.

When a Sier awakens, we not only became more aware of the spirit world, our presence also becomes a beacon which draws spirits to us like moths to a candle. Most spirits normally cared little for humans one way or another, though not all. Some spirits are malevolent and very dangerous. And at the moment, they were coming towards me.

This was the point when things became extremely dangerous, not only for the newly awakened Sier, but also for anyone who was near them at the time. This was also the point when my mom went from being a girl who could see things that no one else could to snapping completely.

The spirits continued pressing closer and closer, filling my mind with their presence. They were spirits of every type, coming from different planes of existence, and all of them were drawn by my awakened power. For the first time, I could truly understand how this could drive an unsuspecting person insane.

More of the spirits kept coming, swirling around me in a dizzying array and overwhelming my senses. I fought against the onslaught, trying to maintain hold of my sanity and sense of self. Aunt Cassandra had warned me of this and had even trained me to survive this trial. The trial of the Sier.

My physical senses faded away and all I was aware of was the spiritual realm. I was no longer siting in the clearing or feeling cold. Instead, I was in a void, being surrounded by a swirling mass of spirits.

There was only one way to end this, to keep the spirits from overwhelming me and driving me to insanity. I would have to form a bond with one of them. I would have to make a familiar.

Taking a familiar was a necessity for the Sier if we wanted to maintain our sanity and control our power. A familiar…be it spirit animal, a spirit guide, or something else, gained strength and power from the bond while giving us focus and control of our power. If done right, it would be a symbiotic relationship that would last for the rest of my life. If done wrong…

Bonding with the wrong spirit could be a fate worse than death. Instead of a symbiotic relationship, I could have a voice in my head that commanded me to kill people and commit atrocities. I could end up being possessed, controlled by a spirit that used me as a meat suit to cause havoc. And the spirits of this sort would sometimes try forcing a bond on their own.

Then I suddenly sensed a particularly large and powerful spirit coming straight towards me, one that radiated a dark malevolence. I could feel it reaching its dark tentacles to me as it approached. I could feel its hunger.

Though this spirit was still a long distance away, one of its tendrils was able to reach me. I felt it probing, pushing to try forming a bond. I grimaced and fought against it with everything I could.

“NO,” I cried out, knowing that I couldn’t bond with this thing. I’d rather die. At the same time, I knew that the closer it came, the harder it would be to fight off. This thing was strong…very strong. “Go away…”

Other spirits still swarmed around me and I could even see Mrs. Dieter among them. Most of them seemed content just to be there, observing the presence that had drawn them, though several were following the example of the dark spirit and trying to force a bond.

I was able to push off the smaller spirits but the dark one was getting closer…getting stronger. I fought against it with everything I could, feeling its malicious hunger. It was getting harder and harder… I couldn’t hold off much longer before it consumed me.

“No,” I gasped, pushing even harder but failing.

Suddenly, there was a new presence, a blazing silvery light between me and the darkness. A glowing woman appeared in front of me, wielding a sword in her hand. Without a word, she slashed down through the black tentacle that had grabbed me, freeing me from the dark gasp.

“I can help you,” the woman said in a strange voice, looking straight at me. “We can help each other. You are the one I choose…” Then she held out her hand.

I stared at the glowing woman, realizing that she wanted to bond with me. Bonding with a spirit was a serious commitment, one that would last for the rest of your life. Yet for some reason, I felt that this was the right choice. Without further hesitation, I took her hand in mine.

The moment I touched the spirit, a burst of power surged into me, almost as though I was struck by lightning. It was her…her presence and power flowed into me, making me scream under the overwhelming sensations before I finally passed out.

When I came to, I found myself lying in the middle of the clearing with the sun overhead. I had no idea how long I’d been out of it, but it had obviously been more than a few hours.

“Damn,” I moaned as I sat up. My body ached and I felt pretty tired, but I still felt a sense of relief. It was over. I’d passed my trial and was now a true Sier.

Then I suddenly remembered the woman who’d saved me…the spirit. My familiar. I could feel my bond to her…could feel her presence all around me. Yet when I looked around, I could see no sign of her.

“Come out come out wherever you are,” I called out, eager to see my new familiar. However, there was no response and no appearance.

With a sigh of disappointment and a loud yawn, I picked up my thermos and staggered back to the house. I didn’t bother looking for Aunt Cassandra and went straight to my room where I collapsed onto my bed.

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I sat on the edge of my bed, taking several deep breaths as I remembered my trial earlier. I remembered all the spirits that had been drawn to me, especially that powerful dark one that had wanted to consume me whole. But most of all, I remembered the beautiful glowing woman who had appeared in front of me.

“You saved me,” I said, knowing that she had kept that dark spirit from claiming me. “Without you, it would have made me into its bitch.”

I could feel the spirit here…connected to me in ways that I still didn’t fully understand. However, I didn’t see any signs of her presence. I didn’t hear any whisper from her.

“Thank you,” I said.

At that, I felt something…something comforting. It almost felt as though I was getting a hug from within my body.

“Do you have a name?” I asked. Again, there was no answer.

After a minute, I decided that it was time to go talk to Aunt Cassandra. I was bound to a spirit so was no longer a beacon for every spirit around, but I had yet to actually see my new familiar manifest. Maybe Aunt Cassandra could help me draw her out.

I went to the bathroom and took a piss, but when I went to wash my hands, I suddenly caught sight of something shocking in the mirror. I froze, staring at my reflection, or at least the reflection that stared back at me since it wasn’t me.

“What the hell?” I exclaimed in surprise.

Staring back at me from the mirror wasn’t my face, but that of a girl. She was beautiful with long hair that was silvery white. Her eyes were a strange frosty blue that were certainly not natural for a human.

“It’s you,” I exclaimed, recognizing the glowing woman who’d appeared before me. Or at least, this looked like a teenage version of her.

I stared at the reflection for a moment and then down at myself, terrified for a brief second that I might have turned into a girl. To my relief, I was still my normal male self. I still had my shoulder length dark hair and most importantly, the boys downstairs.

“Weird,” I said, staring at the girl in the mirror again.

When I opened my mouth, she opened hers. When I tilted my head, so did she. I waved in front of the mirror and she waved back, behaving exactly as though she really was my own reflection, with the exception of the fact that she looked nothing like me.

I stood back a little so I could get a better look at the girl. She had a great figure, better than any of the girls at school. Somehow, she seemed athletic and sexy at the same time, with fairly nice sized breasts. I was no expert but guessed that they were probably about a D cup, bigger than most of the girls at school.

“This is you, isn’t it?” I asked. To my surprise, the girl in the mirror smiled faintly and nodded before going back to mimicking my movements. “Okay, this is kind of creepy…”

I tried talking to my familiar more but she didn’t respond any further. The girl in the mirror just continued to mimic my movements as though she really was my own reflection.

I left the bathroom and found Aunt Cassandra in the kitchen, making dinner. She paused to stare at me with a look of surprise and curiosity.

“Efram,” she greeted me with a smile. “I’m glad to see you’re up and about. I remember how exhausting my trial was…”

“Yeah,” I responded with a shrug, trying to act as though it was no big deal.

Aunt Cassandra continued staring at me with an odd expression before finally saying, “Your familiar…”

“I think she’s kind of shy or something,” I said, helping myself to a chocolate chip cookie from a plate on the counter. It was recently baked too, probably just a couple hours ago at most. “I can see her when I look in the mirror, but she won’t show herself normal”

“I…I’m not sure she can,” Aunt Cassandra answered carefully. I can see her…inside your body. She’s occupying the same space you are and seems to be fused to you in a way I’ve never seen…”

“Is that good or bad?” I asked, feeling a little concerned.

“To be honest,” Aunt Cassandra admitted. “I have no idea.”

I nodded at that, helping myself to another cookie and then telling her about what had happened last night. She scowled when I told her about that dark spirit that had tried grabbing me but seemed fascinated with how my familiar had appeared to me.

“That is different,” Aunt Cassandra told me when I was done. “Most of the time, you start to feel drawn to one of the spirits that shows up, one that’s compatible with you.”

“Once she showed up, I did feel drawn to her,” I admitted. “I just knew she was the one…” Then I paused, realizing how that might sound. “I mean, I just knew she was the one I needed as my partner. As soon as she offered, it just felt…right.”

Aunt Cassandra nodded at that and smiled faintly. Just then, Whisperwing flew across the room and landed on her shoulder. It was the bird spirit’s favorite perch, and always struck me as funny. When I was younger, it had made me think of Aunt Cassandra being like a pirate with a parrot on her shoulder.

“I just wonder what gift you have,” Aunt Cassandra mused, immediately catching my interest.

“I was kind of wondering that too,” I responded with a nervous grin.

When a Sier bonded with a spirit, the spirit became stronger and often gained the ability to interact with the physical world. At the same time, the Sier gained powers as well. Our senses usually became more focused and refined, and we usually gained special gifts as well.

Some Sier could see the future. Some could read a person’s mind or look into their soul. And some could manipulate probability itself. The gifts that a Sier possessed varied greatly and seemed to depend on the type of spirit they bonded with.

Aunt Cassandra could actually see through Whisperwing’s eyes, which let her spy on people at a distance without them having any idea. After all, Whisperwing was invisible to anyone but a Sier unless he wanted to be seen. Unfortunately, she usually used that to keep an eye on me when I was out of the house.

And though Aunt Cassandra rarely used it, she had another gift as well, an affinity for animal spirits that let her sense them far more easily and even communicate with them to a degree. She’d been known to occasionally bribe them to do things for her, such as having a flock of birds shit all over someone’s freshly washed car.

“Have you noticed anything yet?” Aunt Cassandra asked me curiously.

“Only the mirror thing,” I said with a sigh. “You know, it’s pretty creepy having someone else looking back from the mirror.”

“I’d imagine,” Aunt Cassandra responded with a laugh. “You might not have any choice but to get used to it though.”

I sat there and talked with Aunt Cassandra for a little longer before getting up and going back to my room. As I passed a mirror in the hallway, I caught sight of my reflection and nearly jumped again.

“This is so weird,” I muttered, stopping to wave my hand in front of the mirror. The girl on the other side seemed to wave back as she followed my movements exactly.

When I got back to my room, I sat down on my bed and thought that I should get to know my new familiar better. She didn’t seem to be very communicative so I decided to start.

“Um…hi,” I said, wondering if I should get a mirror to make this easier. “My name is Efram... I’m not sure how much you know about me yet…”

I felt a little silly talking to myself, trying to tell my familiar about who I was. I was hoping that she’d respond and start communicating with me too, but there was nothing.

I finally gave up trying to talk to her and just picked up my guitar and began to play. I had never played with anyone else and never really expected to do so. However, this was how I liked to relax and calm my mind.

While I played, I was startled to realize that I could feel something from my familiar, a sense of appreciation and interest. I smiled at that and continued to play, excited that I was getting through to her.

“So you like that,” I asked when I paused. I felt a sense of agreement from within and grinned. “Good. This just might work out after all…” And with that, I went back to playing.

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I let out a loud yawn as I walked into school. I hadn’t slept very well last night due to a lot of strange dreams. I couldn’t quite remember what any of them were, only that they were trippy.

It was the day after my birthday, and after calling in sick yesterday, I was back. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, but school wasn’t going to go away just because I now had a familiar.

I was on my way to my first class when I heard someone call out my name. I paused, immediately knowing who it was since only one person in the school seemed to even know my name.

“Efram,” Julie repeated as she came towards me down the hall.

“Julie,” I responded with mixed feelings. She was really cute so I liked talking to her, but I always had a feeling that I was being set up or about to get in trouble.

I quickly looked around, relieved that I didn’t see Whisperwing. I knew that Aunt Cassandra didn’t want me talking to Julie, but it was hard to walk away from her when she was the only one at school who would actually take the time to talk to me.

“Well, late happy birthday,” Julie told me cheerfully.

I just grunted at that. “Thanks.”

“I noticed you weren’t here yesterday,” Julie teased me. “Taking the day off for your birthday?”

“Something like that,” I admitted, though I certainly wasn’t about to tell her why. Somehow, I didn’t think she’d understand that I spent half the day zoned out of my mind while talking to spirits.

“I wish my parents would have let me take my birthday off,” Julie told me with a grin.

I gave her a nervous smile before hesitantly asking, “When was your birthday?”

“Two months ago,” Julie answered cheerfully. “My dad bought me a car for my sixteenth birthday...” Then she shrugged and admitted, “It’s kind of a piece of crap, but at least it’s a car.”

“Cool,” I agreed, wondering what it would have been like to get a car for my birthday. Instead, I got a spirit familiar and a girl in my mirror.

I chuckled faintly as I remembered trying to brush my teeth and comb my hair this morning before coming to school. It was weird doing that when I had the girl looking back from the mirror instead of myself. Still, I managed well enough.

Suddenly, Julie saw one of her friends and called out, “Hey Melanie…” She waved to her friend, then told me, “See ya later…” And with that, she rushed over to talk with the other girl.

Once Julie was gone, I continued to my first class, passing Mrs. Dieter in the hall. Mrs. Dieter gave me her usual glare before she walked through a closed door and vanished.

“I wonder if she’s mad that I didn’t pick her,” I mused with a chuckle. I shuddered at the idea of bonding her with her as my familiar. That wouldn’t have been a pleasant partnership.

Just as I reached my first class, someone shoved me from behind and I fell face first onto the floor. I didn’t see who did it, but I heard the exclamation of, “Watch where you’re going, emo boy…”

“Bobby,” I muttered in annoyance, immediately recognizing the asshole’s voice. I felt a stirring echo of annoyance from my familiar as well, which was comforting in a way. At least the two of us were on the same page when it came to Bobby.

When I got back up, Bobby had already gone, much to my relief. I never knew when he would want to stick around to keep hassling me after he was done with his little prank. At the moment, dealing with that jerk was the last thing I wanted to do.

I couldn’t help but remembering what Julie had told me about needing to stand up for myself against Bobby and the other people like him. Julie meant well, but she just didn’t understand. I used to do that, stand up for myself and fight back. Unfortunately, that just made messing with me an even more interesting game to the bullies. I could give them black eyes and bloody noses, but more of them would come at me with even more physical force.

And of course, Aunt Cassandra lectured me afterwards about drawing too much attention. I ended up learning to just keep my head down and try to avoid notice instead. It wasn’t as satisfying as giving a bloody nose in response, but it did earn me less trouble.

“Damn,” I muttered, wishing I could just cut loose on Bobby just once. Unfortunately, that would only escalate things, which was what I’d been trying to avoid.

I sighed and went into the classroom, taking my usual seat and pretending to pay attention when the teacher began his lecture. Instead, my attention wandered and I found myself looking out the window. I wasn’t sure why, but I could feel my familiar tensing up inside of me and becoming more alert.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

Then I realized that I could feel it…something dangerous in the distance. I wasn’t quite sure if this was due to my own Sier senses or if this was what my familiar was sensing. What I did know was that I felt a cold chill run up my spine along with a certainty that whatever this was, it was bad news.

I spent the rest of the class wondering what this thing was that I’d felt in the distance, as well as why my familiar was so interested in it. The truth was, I knew almost nothing about my familiar. From what I’d seen, she appeared to be some sort of ghost spirit, but something about that didn’t seem quite right. I did know that she liked music, especially when I was the one playing it. She seemed to enjoy it when I played some MP3s, but she got into it a lot more when I played around on my guitar.

Class was nearly over when a crumpled up ball of paper hit me in the back of my head. I didn’t know which of my classmates had thrown it, but there were three of them giggling. I scowled and tried to ignore them as another ball of paper hit me. I was getting annoyed and I could feel my familiar getting annoyed as well.

Suddenly, I felt a strange twisting sensation, and a moment later, it was almost as though I was looking around in every direction at once. I could see the teacher standing at the front of the class while simultaneously seeing the drop boards on the ceiling and the students behind me. It was a bit dizzying to suddenly be seeing things from this perspective. I put my head on my desk as I tried making sense of it all.

“I think emo boy is getting sick,” one of the boys behind me said, right before the boy next to him threw a ball of paper at me.

My familiar projected a faint tendril of her essence, blocking the ball of paper before it could hit me. The boys behind me threw several more small objects, but each of them was deflected before they could reach me. From their perspective, it was just as though their aim had gone bad and they kept missing. It was all I could do not to laugh.

When the class was excused, my senses snapped back to normal, leaving me dizzy and off balance for a moment. I couldn’t resist grinning though, feeling more than pleased to discover that my familiar really was capable of more than just showing up in my mirror. Even if this was all she could do, I wasn’t about to complain. As far as I was concerned, the ability to protect me from harassment was a pretty cool power in itself.

After I left the class, I went to the bathroom to relieve myself, then I washed my hands and splashed some cold water on my face. I looked up into the large mirror and saw the girl in there staring back. Even though I was expecting her there, I still jumped just a little each time. I was pretty sure that I’d never get used to seeing someone looking back from the mirror.

I might have tried talking to my familiar right there, thanking her for helping me in class, but there was someone in one of the stalls and I didn’t want to appear to be talking to myself. My reputation was bad enough as it was so I didn’t need that bit of weirdness tacked on as well.

I was just about to step out of the bathroom when the other boy came out of the stall and stared at the mirror with a look of surprise. “There’s a girl in here,” he blurted out, turning to look at me directly. I gasped in surprise and stepped out the door before he could actually see me.

“Oh shit,” I muttered, feeling shocked at the revelation that the other boy had been able to the girl that had taken my place in the mirror. I’d thought that it was a Sier thing, that since she was a spirit, only Sier would be able to see her. However, that obviously wasn’t the case. “Damn.”

I already knew that bonding with a Sier would give spirits more power, including the power to interact with the physical world more easily. Whisperwing could make himself visible to normals and even become solid when he wanted. It seemed that my familiar could be seen the same way, though I didn’t think she was doing it intentionally.

The other boy came out of the bathroom a few seconds later and saw me standing there. “Did you see a girl come out here?” He looked around and added, “White hair and really hot looking…”

“No,” I responded with a shake of my head, trying to look innocent. “I think I’d notice a chick with white hair.”

The other boy snorted and then walked down the hall while I let out a sigh. I shook my head, realizing that this could be a serious problem. If anyone could see my reflection like that, then I would have to avoid mirrors when anyone else was around. If anyone else actually saw that my reflection was that of a hot girl, then there would be a lot of questions that I couldn’t answer.

“Damn,” I muttered, starting to my next class and wondering if there were any bathrooms in the school that didn’t have mirrors in them. If not, it was going to be a very long day.

--------------------

I was dreaming. I knew this without a doubt as I clearly remembered going to bed and the next thing I knew, I was standing in this very strange place.

I seemed to be in the middle of some sort of desert with a cream colored ground that looked like stone but felt a little spongy. I couldn’t see any sky above, only an odd haze. There were also glowing pillars of light scattered about.

As strange as my surroundings were, even stranger was my body. I felt different, and when I looked down at myself I was surprised to see two mounds pushing out from my chest. I cupped them with my hands and they felt real.

“Weird dream,” I muttered, realizing that this must be because of the image I saw when I looked in the mirror.

I held up my hands and stared at them, noticing that they looked like girl hands with oval nails that looked perfectly manicured. If they’d belonged to one of the girls at school, they probably would have had nail polish on them.

My hair fell into my face, and when I reached for it, I found that it was longer than normal as well as a silvery white color. Just like the girl in my mirror.

“I see a girl in my mirror, so now I dream I’m a girl,” I commented. Even my voice sounded like that of a girl. Then I paused and wondered, “But what if this isn’t a dream?”

With that thought, I looked around again, realizing that this might be much more than an ordinary dream. After all, I was a Sier and that meant that simple things like dreams could be much more than they appeared.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” I asked my familiar, feeling her presence within me.

To my surprise, I found myself answering aloud, though I hadn’t intended to do so. My mouth opened without my willing it and I sang, “I am you and you are me and we are both together.” It was in the tune of I am the Walrus, a song I’d been playing for my familiar a short time before I went to bed.

I felt excited that my familiar was trying to communicate with me again. I took a deep breath and asked, “Do you have a name?” I hoped that this time she would answer me.

“I have had many names,” my familiar answered from my own mouth. “It is for you to choose which name we shall bear in this life.”

I nodded at that, then asked, “Is it all right if I think about it?” There was no answer so I let out a sigh. I considered for a moment and then cautiously suggested, “How about Isabelle?”

“If that is the name you choose,” my familiar answered, sounding almost amused.

“It is,” I agreed. I wasn’t even sure where I’d gotten the name from, only that I thought it sounded pretty. “I name you Isabelle.”

“We are Isabelle,” she agree from my own mouth.

Since my familiar…since Isabelle seemed willing to talk, I asked, “Can you tell me more about yourself?” She didn’t answer. “You know, it’s hard getting to know you when you won’t talk to me.” Again, there was no response.

Since my Isabelle didn’t seem to want to talk much more, I decided to explore. I walked to the nearest pillar of light and hesitated a moment before cautiously touching it.

I suddenly found myself in what looked like a high school gymnasium with a bunch of kids my own age. I looked around in surprise and confusion, wondering how I got here. After a moment, I realized that something about this place didn’t feel…real. The walls all seemed flat and short on detail, more like they were from some kind of movie than the real thing.

Then as I watched, a basketball hoop vanished from the wall while a flag appeared on another wall. None of the students seemed to notice this at all. That drew my attention to these kids and I realized that most of them didn’t look real either. Most of them looked like manikins without any real facial features. However, there was one exception.

There was a teenage girl with brown hair, holding a basketball in her hand. Suddenly, a girl who appeared to be on her own team snatched the ball right out of her hands.

“Give me that, creepy,” the other girl said.

A second later, all of the kids started calling out, “Creepy. Creepy. Creepy…”

The girl that they were calling ‘creepy’ just stood there with a look of horror on her face, and then she began to cry. “I am not creepy,” she called out, almost pleading while the others continued to taunt her.

I was horrified at the sight of these kids all tormenting this poor girl, especially since I knew exactly how it felt. I was used to being considered the weird kid at school, the one that the other kids ignored or taunted in this fashion.

“Leave her alone,” I yelled angrily.

The other students froze and then started to fade away until the only ones still present were me and the brown haired girl. She brushed her hair out of her face, revealing a single white lock of hair in the front.

I stared at the girl in surprise, suddenly recognizing her. “Aunt Cassandra?”

“How do you know my name?” she asked in surprise.

Everything around me suddenly vanished and I found myself standing in that strange desert again. I jumped and looked around, realizing that the pillar of light that I’d touched was now gone.

“What the hell was that?” I demanded.

“A dream,” Isabelle answered.

“A dream,” I responded, feeling a bit stunned. “I was in Aunt Cassandra’s dream?” I felt a sense of affirmation at that. “Then all those lights are dreams…” Again, I felt a sense of agreement.

I looked around again, seeing the pillars of light in the distance. As I watched, several of them blinked out but more of them came into being. It was a strange sight and almost awe inspiring as I now realized exactly what it was I was seeing.

“Is this you?” I asked Isabelle. “Or is this my gift?” She didn’t answer but I was assuming that this was all the result of my gift. “And why do I look like you?”

I looked down at myself and the breasts pushing out of my chest, cautiously poking one. There was no sense of being offended from Isabelle or even of being embarrassed.

“This is the dream plane,” Isabelle answered me, much to my surprise. “Your body was left behind.”

“So this is sort of like astral projection?” I asked, remembering Aunt Cassandra telling me that astral projection was a fairly common gift among Sier. There was a sense of agreement from Isabelle.

Suddenly, my entire body froze and I turned without willing it. It took me a moment to realize that Isabelle was the one moving us.

“What the hell?” I demanded.

Then I felt it, the thing that had obviously drawn Isabelle’s attention. It was the same dark and malevolent force that I’d felt in the distance while I was at school. I could feel it again, still at a distance but much closer.

“Oh shit,” I blurted out in realization. “That’s the same spirit you saved me from during my trial…”

“Our enemy,” Isabelle agreed, right before I woke up.

--------------------

I sat across the breakfast table from Aunt Cassandra, feeling uncomfortable as I told her about what had happened last night in my dream. I was especially embarrassed to admit that while I was in the dream plane, I’d been a girl.

“So that was you in my dream,” Aunt Cassandra said when I was done, looking just as self-conscious as I felt. She gave me a wry smile and admitted, “It was a nightmare about high school. As you might guess, it wasn’t a good time for me.”

I nodded at that, understanding completely. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it looked like Aunt Cassandra’s high school experience had been a lot like mine was.

“I didn’t know it was your dream,” I admitted with a grimace. “Hell, I hadn’t even realized it was a dream at first…”

“You’re a dream walker,” Aunt Cassandra said with a wry smile. “At least now we know what your gift is.”

“Yeah,” I agreed with a faint smirk.

The idea of actually being able to spy on other people’s dreams was kind of cool, if a bit creepy. Was spying on someone’s dreams the same as spying on them in the shower? I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t quite sure either.

“What I’m concerned about is this dark spirit you keep sensing,” Aunt Cassandra told me.

“Me too,” I admitted, trying not to show just how nervous I really was. That thing had nearly taken me during my trial, and though it couldn’t do that anymore now that I was bonded to Isabelle, it was still coming towards me. “It keeps getting closer…”

Aunt Cassandra gave me a worried look and said, “I think I’m going to call my mother about this. She might have some ideas about how to discourage this spirit.”

I just grunted at that, hoping that this wouldn’t result in a visit from her mom. Aunt Cassandra’s mom was pretty knowledgeable about various spirits and Sier gifts, so if anyone could figure out how to chase this spirit away it would be her. However, the two of us didn’t get along very well and I avoided her as much as possible.

“At least its Saturday,” I said, trying to change the subject. “I don’t have to go into that shit hole they call a school.”

“Language,” Aunt Cassandra warned me, more because she felt it was her responsibility to do so than because she was actually offended. “Lucky you. I still have to go in to work today.”

“At least you get paid for it,” I pointed out.

“Oh yes,” Aunt Cassandra responded with a roll of her eyes. “The glamorous life of a grocery cashier.”

“I still think you should get a job at a zoo or something,” I told her. “I mean, with your gift of talking to animal spirits, you’d be a natural.”

“Maybe,” Aunt Cassandra said with a chuckle. “It would certainly be more satisfying, but it’s not like we live near a zoo.”

When we were done with breakfast, Aunt Cassandra started getting ready for work while I went to take a shower. I washed quickly, but when I was done, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror and froze. It was strange to be so hesitant about looking in the mirror, and even stranger in that I felt so curious.

Every time I looked in the mirror, Isabelle was wearing the same clothes I was, albeit in her size and fit. This was the first time that I’d looked in the mirror while naked, which meant that this time Isabelle was naked as well. Staring at her while she was naked and couldn’t do anything about it felt like a huge intrusion of privacy, but I was also burning with curiosity to get a better look at her.

“Isabelle,” I asked cautiously. “Would you mind if I looked into the mirror?”

There was no response from Isabelle, not that I’d really expected one. Isabelle was a spirit and they had completely different ways of looking at things than humans did. I slowly looked into the mirror and stared at her naked form. As I was already well aware, Isabelle was gorgeous. And now that I could see her completely, I decided that she was even hotter than I’d thought. She had pale skin with a flawless complexion, a slender waist, firm muscle tone, and of course, perfect breasts that were full, round, and generous.

“You look amazing,” I told her.

Isabelle still didn’t respond to the fact that I was staring at her naked form in the mirror, however, my own body was. I was getting turned on and hard at the sight, and when I turned away from the mirror in embarrassment, it was then that I finally felt something from Isabelle. Amusement. Then I felt something else, something completely unexpected. My nipples suddenly felt hard, like tiny erections while my groin felt warm and wet inside.

I gasped in surprise, grabbing my nipples and then my junk, exclaiming, “What the…?”

A moment later, it dawned on me what I was feeling. Isabelle was letting me feel the female equivalent of what I was already feeling. I was feeling turned on from a female perspective. It was a bit odd since I didn’t even have the right parts, but it also felt rather pleasant. After a minute, the sensation faded away to both my distress and relief.

“So, it seems like you have a sense of humor,” I told Isabelle with a chuckle. “At least I know you won’t be boring.”

After this, I got dressed again and then went to my bedroom to play some guitar for Isabelle. I was thankful that I happened to have bonded with a familiar that liked music. Then again, maybe she bonded with me because she liked music and knew that I liked to play. With spirits, you couldn’t always tell what motivated them or why.

Aunt Cassandra left for work a short time later and I didn’t wait for long after that before I left the house myself. I didn’t have any friends to go hang out with, but I didn’t want to hang around the house either. Because of that, I grabbed my guitar and went down one of the paths into the woods behind our house.

In spite of having the woods in back of our home, I wasn’t a big nature person, not like Aunt Cassandra was. She loved going back into the trees to find peace and quiet, as well as to sometimes commune with the animal spirits. I usually just preferred to use the paths that cut through the trees and brush. They made great shortcuts.

While I walked through one of the paths with my guitar in hand, I went past a large and very old tree. I paused to stare at the tree for a moment and the old tire swing that hung from one of the thick branches. A faint smile formed on my lips as I remembered Aunt Cassandra pushing me on that very swing when I was younger.

Then I paused as I realized that I could sense something from the tree…a spirit. Aunt Cassandra had always told me there was a spirit tied to the tree, but until now, I’d never been able to sense it.

I watched in silence as a tiny woman came out from behind the tree and stared at me. She couldn’t have been much more than four feet tall, and she had green skin and hair. She watched me for just a moment before running up the tree like a squirrel and vanishing into the branches.

“A dryad,” I whispered in awe.

According to Aunt Cassandra, dryads were tree spirits, a kind that used to be fairly common a long time ago but which had become very rare in modern times. The fact that we actually had one back behind our house like this suddenly made me appreciate these woods a little more.

I continued my walk down the path, spotting a spirit rabbit that quickly hopped away. Then I felt a cold chill down my spine, followed by Isabelle tensing up. There was something close…something…dark. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t the big darkness I’d felt in the distance. This wasn’t nearly that big or powerful, but it did have a nasty feel to it.

After half a minute, I spotted the spirit. It was small, looking something like a hairless monkey with shiny black skin that made it seem as though it had been bathed in oil. Its fingers were clawed and when it glared at me, its red eyes burned with hostility. Isabelle surged inside of me, burning with a hostility of her own.

“What the hell is that?” I muttered, slowly backing away from the small spirit.

I didn’t know what kind of spirit that was, but I had a feeling that I didn’t want to mess with it. However, Isabelle seemed to have other ideas and I could feel her urging me to attack that thing. After a moment, the greasy monkey spirit turned and ran into the bushes where it vanished from my sight. I could feel strong frustration from Isabelle, followed by a sense of disappointment that actually seemed to be directed at me.

“And what do you expect me to do about that thing?” I demanded of Isabelle, feeling frustrated as well, but at her. “It’s a spirit. It’s not like I could hurt it even if I wanted to.”

Isabelle still seemed annoyed, but she didn’t communicate anything beyond that. Unfortunately, communicating with Isabelle wasn’t very easy to do. Sure, I could talk to her and she’d occasionally give me these feelings…but the only time she spoke to me was when I’d been in the dream plane last night.

A few minutes later, I arrived at the end of the path and the end of the woods. Instead of trees and brush, there was an old wooden fence with piles of rusty cars visible over the top. I quickly slipped through an opening in the fence and into the old junkyard on the other side.

Aunt Cassandra always liked going into the woods when she wanted a peaceful place to be alone with her thoughts, but this was where I came. I was surrounded by countless old cars and other scrap, things that were broken and unwanted. I suppose it said something about me that this was where I felt most comfortable.

“Broken and unwanted,” I muttered, patting my hand on the hood of a rusty old car that was missing its engine and back axel. “Just like me.”

I knew I was being a little melodramatic as I said this since I had no doubt that Aunt Cassandra cared about me. She’d gone through a great deal of trouble to help me, including facing her own mom’s disapproval over her choosing to do so.

But still, I couldn’t help but thinking of my own mom who’d completely abandoned me. Of her parents, who’d happily shoved me off on someone they didn’t even know just so long as they could get rid of me. And of course, my classmates at school. I’ve never fit in there or much of anywhere.

I felt a sense of comfort coming from within, almost as though Isabelle was hugging me from inside. “Thank you,” I told her gently, finding a comfortable spot and then I began to play. I was playing my guitar more for me than for my familiar, but I could tell that she still appreciated it.

After playing for about fifteen minutes, I suddenly realized that someone was watching me. I stopped playing and looked up to see a girl standing a short distance away, watching me.

“Julie,” I said, immediately recognizing my red headed classmate.

“Efram,” she responded self-consciously. “I was on the other side of the junkyard when I heard your guitar.” She paused for a moment and said, “You’re pretty good. I didn’t know you played.”

“Thanks,” I said, watching her suspiciously, then glancing around but not seeing any sign of Whisperwing. “Do you hang out in junkyards often?”

Julie just grinned at that. “Sometimes. It’s a good place to burn off some stress. You know, taking a sledge hammer to junk can really make you feel better afterwards.”

“I’d imagine,” I agreed with a grin.

“Just so you know I’m not stalking you or anything,” Julie assured me.

“I don’t know,” I joked, setting my guitar down. “Sometimes I wonder.” Then I abruptly asked, “Why are you always nice to me? No one else at school will give me the time of day.”

“I like you,” she answered, then paused and looking embarrassed, quickly adding, “Not like that. I mean, you’re a nice guy and all but you’re not my type.”

“I’m used to that,” I muttered with a sigh.

“I mean, you’re different,” Julie said, giving me an odd look. “There’s something interesting about you.” She shrugged at that. “And you always look kind of lonely.”

“Great,” I responded with a roll of my eyes. “I’m a pity case.” Of course, I’d already known that.

“Not really,” Julie told me. “But I am curious about you…like why you keep trying to avoid me at school. Most guys hit on me, but every time you see me you start looking around as if you’re afraid someone is watching you.”

“Maybe someone is,” I pointed out, thinking of Whisperwing and how annoying it was to have him spying on me all the time. “You know those government spies and all.”

Julie laughed at that. Then she abruptly asked, “Are you gay?”

“What?” I asked in surprise.

“It’s all right if you are,” Julie quickly assured me. “I mean, if that’s why you always try avoiding me…”

“I’m NOT gay,” I blurted out defensively.

“You’ve never asked any of the other girls out,” Julie said, trying to defend her question. “So I was just wondering.” Then she shrugged. “Then again, a lot of the girls think you’re some kind of pervert or something…”

I groaned at that, slapping my forehead. “Great. No wonder I can’t ever get a date.”

“Sorry,” Julie apologized, looking a little guilty. “I don’t believe it, but some of the girls have been spreading rumors…”

I groaned again. “Just my luck.”

“I don’t think you’re a pervert or anything,” Julie told me with a wry grin. “I’m not interested in dating or anything, but maybe we can be friends. Just friends.”

“I thought the just friends speech usually came during the breakup,” I joked.

Julie laughed at that. “What can I say? I like to save time.”

I laughed as well, then shook my head. “You know, I’ve been told to stay away from you.”

“What?” Julie asked in surprise. “Why?”

I shrugged at that, not wanting to get into that particular topic at the moment. “Friends it is,” I told her, holding out my hand so we could shake on it. “But my aunt can’t find out or she’ll kill me.”

“Deal,” Julie agreed, giving me an odd look and obviously wondering what my aunt had against her. Then she grinned and gestured to my guitar. “Now what other tunes can you play?”

I grinned at that, feeling a stirring of interest from Isabelle. Then I picked my guitar up again and began to play while Julie made a point of clapping. And though I was happy to have made an official friend, I couldn’t help but worrying about what would happen when Aunt Cassandra found out.

--------------------

I sat on the edge of my bed, playing my guitar and feeling oddly dazed. It wasn’t until I noticed the two bulges on my chest that I realized I was dreaming. I jumped to my feet, only to have my guitar change into a banjo in my hands. Without a word, I dropped it to the floor and looked around, realizing that everything in my room was foggy and fading. Suddenly, it all seemed to pop and I found myself standing in same dream plane where I’d been last night.

“Damn,” I muttered, looking around at the pillars of light which represented people’s dreams. “Is this going to happen every night?”

“You will learn to control it,” Isabelle answered from my mouth.

I nodded at that and looked down at myself, at my feminine curves. I carefully felt my breasts and then between my legs. I was definitely female at the moment, but that didn’t really bother me. It probably would have freaked me out if it had happened in the real world, but this was a dream and I knew from last night that it would go away when I woke up. Because of that, it was easy to take this in stride as just another part of the weirdness around me.

“Why do you only talk to me like this?” I asked Isabelle curiously. “Why not while I’m awake?”

There was a long pause before Isabelle answered. “Communicating is easier like this. While awake, you do not yet listen…”

“What does that mean?” I asked, but there was no answer. “You know, you really are frustrating sometimes…”

“As are you,” Isabelle responded, sounding vaguely amused.

Since Isabelle wasn’t very good at answering my questions even here, I didn’t bother asking her any more just yet. Instead, I looked around. There was a dream just a short distance away from me, and when I held my hand up in front of it, I somehow KNEW that it belonged to Aunt Cassandra. However, I was careful not to touch it since I didn’t want to go inside of her dream like the last time.

I wandered around from dream to dream, trying to guess whose dream each belonged to. I was able to get a vague feel for several of them, but most left me with no idea. I suspected that I had to really know a person before I’d be able to identify their dreams from anyone else’s. But while I was doing this, I realized that I could get a glimpse inside of the dreams as well, without actually having to go inside myself.

One dream was some sort of flying dream, the next had a couple kids playing on the beach. I encountered one wet dream which I quickly backed away from, and there were a couple that were blurry and so confusing that I couldn’t even make out what they were supposed to be.

Isabelle didn’t communicate to me while I did this, perhaps choosing to let me explore my new gifts on my own. Or maybe, she was just waiting to see what I’d do if no one interfered.

“I wonder if I can find a specific person,” I mused, faintly surprised to feel a sense of confirmation from Isabelle.

Since Isabelle seemed to think I could do it, I decided to look for Julie, the only person besides Aunt Cassandra that I even liked. At first, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and calling her name aloud didn’t do any good. Then I tried thinking about her and found that I could feel a faint pulling. I followed that right to the pillar of light that represented Julie’s dream.

“I can feel it,” I whispered, holding my hand up and sensing Julie from it. “Julie…”

However, there was something wrong…very wrong. If felt something dark and dirty in her dream as well. Isabelle tensed up and I felt her hostility. I stepped back, noticing that there was some slimy black tendrils on the ground around her dream, touching into the base of the pillar of light. I felt sick and disgusted by this while Isabelle felt angry inside of me.

“What the hell is that?” I gasped in confusion.

Then I saw it, something flickering in the edge of the dream. A moment later, a small black figure emerged from the pillar of light. It was the same greasy monkey spirit that I’d seen yesterday, that Isabelle had wanted to attack. It glared at me with its malevolent eyes and hissed before jumping back into the pillar of light and vanishing from my view. I could no longer really see it, but I could still sense it.

“It followed us to Julie,” Isabelle said from my lips. “Now it feeds on her…on her fear and life energy. It grows stronger and more dangerous.”

“Oh shit,” I blurted out, suddenly feeling guilty since I was the one who’d led this spirit to Julie. “It’s hurting her…”

“And will eventually kill her unless stopped,” Isabelle told me firmly. I could feel the anger and determination from within her.

“And how do we stop it?” I asked grimly.

Without answering, Isabelle moved our body and I found myself stepping forward and walking right into the dream. A moment later, I was suddenly standing in the living room of some house, though everything was an odd shade of gray. The walls, carpets, and furniture were all the same gray color and somewhat indistinct.

“Julie?” I called out, then paused as I heard whimpering from the corner. I looked and saw Julie curled up in the corner with a look of terror on her face. “Julie,” I started again, only to have her scream.

I felt the dark presence behind me before I even turned to look. When I did so, I gasped at the sight of a giant snake with oily black scales. Its head was raised up so that it brushed the ceiling and it looked down at me with glowing red eyes.

“Oh shit,” I blurted out, suddenly understanding Julie’s terror.

The giant snake opened its mouth to hiss, revealing a pair of very large and nasty looking fangs. Julie screamed again and it was all I could do not to do so as well. Then the snake lunged at me and I dove to the side to avoid being hit, though I wasn’t really sure if it was me who’d done the diving or Isabelle.

I felt a burning determination from Isabelle, then I felt a tingling in my hand. Somehow, Isabelle was extending some of her very essence though our palm and a silver sword appeared in my hand. I held it tightly, knowing that it was my only weapon against the nasty spirit who’d invaded Julie’s dreams. I glanced to her in the corner and then looked back at the snake. I was absolutely terrified but I wasn’t about to let this thing have Julie...especially not when it was my fault it had found her in the first place.

“Come and get me,” I said, hoping that I could bluff it into going away with a show of bravado. “I’ll carve you into pieces…”

Instead of backing away like I’d hoped, the snake lunged at me again. I lashed out with the sword and slashed its neck, nicking it but not doing a lot of damage. However, it appeared that I did infuriate the snake as its form shifted and changed, turning into something that looked a lot more like the oil monkey I’d seen before…but bigger and nastier. It now looked like an oil gorilla rather than just a monkey.

“The snakes gone,” Julie said with clear relief, still looking scared and confused but not nearly as terrified as she’d been a minute ago.

The oil gorilla snarled and charged at me but I swung the sword again, catching it in the arm and slicing deeply. I continued swinging the sword as it advanced, no longer being sure which of the movements were mine and which were Isabelle’s. Then I drove the sword deep into the oil gorilla’s chest. It staggered for a moment, then melted away into a puddle of black goo.

“Disgusting,” I exclaimed, jumping back to avoid getting the black goo on me. However, there was a powerful feeling of satisfaction coming from Isabelle.

“You saved me,” Julie gasped, getting to her feet and staring at me with a look of relief and confusion. “Who are you?”

I reached up and brushed my long white hair from my face, trying to decide how to answer. But then the words, “We are Isabelle,” came from my mouth without my intending it.

“Isabelle,” Julie tested the name aloud.

Suddenly, everything began to blur and fade away, including Julie. A moment later, there was a popping sensation and I was back in the strange dream plane with no sign of Julie’s dream. I realized that this must mean that she’d woken up.

“That was rough,” I said, dropping to my knees. The silver sword vanished, though I barely even noticed it. I closed my eyes and just took several deep breaths, still shaking a little from the fear. “That thing was…” I shuddered at the memory. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Our duty,” Isabelle answered gently.

I blinked, feeling a little confused by that. “What duty?”

“Our Sier’s duty,” she responded, leaving me even more confused.

“What do you mean?” I asked Isabelle but she didn’t respond. “What do you mean by Sier’s duty?” Again, she didn’t answer. “You know, you really are annoying at times…”

I got back up and began to look around again, wondering when I was going to wake up or at least go back to a real dream. As I did this, I sensed several more dark spirits scattered about, faint and much weaker than the one I’d just fought. However, the one that kept getting my attention was the big dark one that was hiding somewhere nearby. It was as though it was intentionally taunting me by giving me just enough of a glimpse of its presence to let me know it was near, but then hiding out of sight so I couldn’t actually see it.

“Why are you still here?” I yelled out. “I’m already bonded to another spirit so you can’t have me… Go away…”

Seconds later, the sense of the dark spirit suddenly grew much stronger. I gasped at the force of it while Isabelle tensed up and made the sword reappear in our hands. I still couldn’t tell exactly where the spirit was, but it was far too close for comfort.

“You taste of her,” a raspy voice announced, seeming to come from everywhere at once.

“I taste like Isabelle?” I asked in surprise. Then I grimaced, taking a deep breath and trying to keep from shitting my pants. “Of course I do. She’s my familiar. We’re bonded.”

“You taste like your mother,” the voice corrected, sounding as though it was sneering, sending a chill down my spine.

I looked around frantically now, feeling even more scared and confused at the mention of my mom. It was just pushing my buttons, trying to get a reaction. At least, that was what I tried telling myself.

“You don’t know anything about my mom,” I spat out angrily, feeling an echo of this from Isabelle.

There was a bubbling of black goo in front of me and it rose up, taking a form that was somewhat humanoid. It was the dark spirit, actually appearing in front of me. “She was delicious,” the dark spirit said with a cruel laugh. “I fed from her for years…until she ended herself to escape me…”

I felt a surge of terror and rage at this creature and lashed out with the sword. I slashed right through the slimy black body, which then collapsed into goo and vanished. However, the dark spirit laughed and I saw a black rope stretching from the goo and then vanishing into the distance. It only took me a moment to realize that I’d been had. That hadn’t been its real body, just some sort of decoy that it could use to taunt me with.

“You may be bound to another,” the dark spirit said, the voice once again seeming to come from everywhere at once. “But I will feast on your suffering nonetheless…” And with that, the spirit’s presence receded again as it faded back to wherever it was hiding.

I stood there for a minute, feeling terrified, furious, and confused, all at once. I finally blurted out, “What the fuck is that thing?”

“Our enemy,” Isabelle answered with a surge of determination. I could only nod in full agreement.

--------------------

I sat in my accustomed place in the junkyard, playing my guitar but really thinking about what had happened last night in the dream world. I shuddered at the memory, not wanting to think about it but not being able to do much of anything else. That oil monkey spirit that had attacked Julie had been bad enough, but the big dark spirit… A cold chill went down my spine as I remembered its voice and words.

That dark spirit claimed to have been the one who tormented my mom, who drove her into the institution and eventually to her death. It had even hinted that it had bonded to her, that it had been her familiar. I had no idea if it had actually been telling me the truth or if it was just trying to push my buttons and torment me. What I did know was that I hated that thing and was terrified of it at the same time.

I hadn’t told Aunt Cassandra about last night yet. I didn’t know what to say…or how she’d respond. Aunt Cassandra loved me, but she was definitely overprotective at times. There was the whole thing about not wanting me to talk to Julie or her family, so she wouldn’t be happy to find out that I’d intruded on Julie’s dreams and helped her like that. Add the oil monkey spirit and that big dark one and I feared that she’d try locking me up for my own good.

As reluctant as I was to talk to Aunt Cassandra about this, I also knew that I had to. I wanted her opinion on whether or not the dark spirit had been telling the truth about my mom, and I wanted to know if she had any ideas of how to deal with it. I was pretty sure the spirit wasn’t just going to go away.

“What do you think?” I asked Isabelle, though there was no answer.

I let out a sigh and watched as a small spirit climbed out of a crushed car and skittered across the ground, looking something like a metal rat to my eyes. So far, I’ve seen two spirits in the junkyard, the little rat spirit and a gremlin, both of which were harmless.

A minute later, I heard my name called out. I looked up and saw Julie coming towards me, looking a bit worn out and not nearly as energetic as usual.

“Hey,” Julie greeted me with a smile. “I heard you playing again…”

I stared at Julie for a moment, remembering our encounter last night in her dream. “Are you okay?” I asked her carefully. “You look kind of tired.”

“The flu, I think,” she answered with a shrug. “I started feeling like crap yesterday afternoon, and then I didn’t get much sleep last night.” She shuddered with a somewhat haunted look. “I had some really bad nightmares.”

“Oh?” I encouraged her to continue, curious about what she remembered.

“It was snakes,” Julie continued with a wince. “I dreamed I was being eaten by a giant snake…” She shuddered visibly and added with a forced smile, “I’ve been pretty freaked out by snakes ever since I was little…”

“So, you face down every bully in school, but you’re afraid of a little snake,” I teased her lightly, grinning as I said it. After seeing the snake in her dream, I didn’t blame her for being afraid. That thing had scared me.

“Yeah, but jocks don’t have scales,” Julie responded in almost serious tone. “Snakes are just…creepy.”

“That they are,” I agreed, thinking of one specific snake.

“Enough about snakes,” Julie told me, eying my guitar. “Can you teach me how to play one of those things?”

“Sure,” I responded with a shrug. “I’m not really an expert, but I’ll show you what I know…”

I spent nearly an hour showing Julie the basics of playing a guitar, from where to hold the fingers to get the sounds you wanted. I just hoped that she didn’t ask me for full on lessons since I was pretty good at playing by ear but could barely read sheet music at all.

“You want to come over to my house,” Julie finally asked me. At my startled look, she quickly added, “I’m not trying to seduce you or anything. I just think it will be more comfortable than sitting on the hood of a car.”

“Good point,” I agreed. Then I looked around, thankful that I didn’t see Whisperwing anywhere. “But Aunt Cassandra would kill me if she found out…”

“What does your aunt have against me?” Julie demanded in obvious annoyance. “I’ve never even met her. Is it because I’ve got red hair?”

“She’s just overprotective,” I explained with a sigh. Since Julie still looked a little offended, I continued, “I…I lost my mom when I was really young. In fact, I never really even knew her. Aunt Cassandra took me in when I was six and raised me like her own kid since.” I scowled, feeling uncomfortable with this subject. “She’s the only family I have and she kind of burned a bridge or two because of it.”

Of course, I couldn’t tell Julie the real reason that Aunt Cassandra kept wanted me to avoid her family. Not only would that have been pretty awkward, but it would really upset Aunt Cassandra.

Julie gave me a sympathetic look and cautiously asked, “If you don’t mind my asking…what happened with your mom?”

“I’d…I’d rather not talk about it,” I said uncomfortably.

Julie nodded at that, obviously curious but she didn’t push. I was grateful for that. Then she tried changing the subject and abruptly said, “You know, I’ve got cookies at home… I helped my mom bake them yesterday.”

“What kind?” I asked, suddenly more interested.

“Chocolate chip,” Julie told me with a faint smirk.

I grinned at that. “Okay. I’m in.”

We began walking across the junkyard, to the opposite side from where I’d come in. As we walked past one stack of metal junk, I noticed the gremlin playing around on top. It looked a little like a monkey, but not nearly as nasty as the spirit I’d fought last night. Gremlins weren’t really dangerous, just mishievious. They liked breaking machines but usually avoided people.

Suddenly, the junk on top of the pile began to shift and slide. I didn’t know if the gremlin had done this by accident or intentionally as some sort of prank, but scrap metal began to fall towards us.

“Look out,” I shouted, shoving Julie back away from the pile, just as a large chunk of a car body fell right on top of me. I hit the ground hard with the car body landing on my leg. I struggled to pull my leg free but it wouldn’t budge.

“Efram,” Julie exclaimed, staring at me in surprise and then demanding, “Are you all right…?”

“I think so,” I responded with a grimace. “I think I bruised the hell out of my leg, but I don’t think I broke anything.” I tried pulling my leg again and muttered, “No sharp pains and I can wiggle my toes…but I’m not going anywhere.”

Julie tried lifting the large piece of scrap but it was too heavy for her to even budge. “I can’t move it,” she admitted after a minute.

“It looks like you’re going to have to go get help,” I said reluctantly, wincing as I did so. That would mean Aunt Cassandra would find out that I’d been hanging out here with Julie. It would probably result in my being forbidden to come to the junk yard again as well.

“I can’t just leave you here by yourself,” Julie protested. Then she grinned mischieviously and added, “The rats would eat you alive.”

“Naw,” I responded with a grin of my own. “I don’t taste good enough for them to bother with.”

Julie chuckled at that but remained where she was, giving me an odd look and then staring at the large chunk of metal that pinned my leg. “I…I can get you out of there,” Julie finally said. She looked nervous as she added, “I’m really not supposed to do this…but you just saved my life.”

With that, Julie put her hand against the large chunk of metal. A moment later, the metal around her hand began to rust and then the rust spread out until it covered most of the metal. The rusting continued so that the metal was not just covered with rust but was actually rusting away. In less than a minute, half the metal had crumbled away and disintegrated. I pulled myself out of the rusted dust while Julie silently helped me back to my feet.

“You…you probably have some questions,” Julie said, looking nervous.

“Not really,” I responded with a sigh. For a brief moment, I was tempted to feign shock at what she’d done, but after she’d just trusted me with her secret, I couldn’t do that to her. “You’re Touched and your talent is to rust metal.”

Julie stared at me with her mouth dropping open in shock. “What?” she blurted out in confusion. “How did you know?”

I hesitated a moment before answering, “Aunt Cassandra told me. That’s the real reason she doesn’t want me talking to you. She knows your family are Touched.” Then I let out a sigh and suggested, “I think we should go somewhere else to talk.”

Julie agreed and we continued walking to her house since that was where we were going before this happened. Neither of us said much as we left the junkyard and made the several blocks journey. My thoughts were of how I’d just broken one of the biggest rules Aunt Cassandra had given me while Julie was doubtlessly wondering how we’d learned her family’s secret.

When we arrived at Julie’s house, I was relieved to see that her family was gone. I was going to be in enough trouble for talking to her about this and didn’t want to compound it by having her family realize that I knew their secret. Julie asked me to sit down in the living room and then brought me a soda and several cookies.

“They’re good,” I told Julie after taking my first bite.

“I did promise you cookies,” she said a little awkwardly. Without looking at me, she mused, “I like going to the junkyard because it’s a good place for me to practice with my talent without anyone else finding out about it…” Then she looked at me and asked, “Did you see me using it? Is that how you know?”

“No,” I answered honestly. “This was the first time I ever saw it. It’s kind of cool.”

“Thanks,” Julie responded with a faint smile. “But how did you and your aunt know about my family? About Touched?” She gave me a thoughtful look and then asked, “Are you Touched?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m not Touched.” I hesitated unsure of what I should tell her. It had been pounded into me since I came to live with Aunt Cassandra that I couldn’t tell anyone about my being a Sier, especially not anyone who was Touched.

“Are you Were?” Julie asked me curiously while I shook my head again.

Then she abruptly froze, staring at something off to the side with a loud gasp. I turned to see what she was staring at and gulped at the sight of a large mirror hanging on a wall. Half the living room was reflected back from the mirror, including Isabelle who was shown as sitting in my seat instead of me.

“Your reflection,” Julie blurted out, jumping to her feet and alternately staring at me and then the mirror. Then she gasped, “That’s the girl from my dream last night…the one who saved me from the snake…”

Julie went to the mirror for a better look so I sighed and walked to the mirror as well. I gave her half a minute to stare at Isabelle before I finally said, “I’m Sier.”

Julie turned away from the mirror and stared at me for a moment in surprise before saying, “I thought the Sier were extinct or something…”

“Not extinct,” I responded with a forced chuckle as I went back to the couch and sat down. I took a drink of the soda that Julie had given me and then continued, “There just aren’t a lot of us around…at least not compared to Touched or Were. And we keep an even lower profile…especially from Touched.”

“But why?” Julie asked in surprise. “I mean, it’s not like we’re normals.”

I hesitated a moment, not sure how to explain it since I wasn’t really sure of all the details myself. “What do you know about the Sier?”

“Not much,” Julie admitted with a thoughtful expression. “My mom once said that the Sier used to be pretty powerful but my dad says they were a bunch of frauds who barely had any real magic.” She shrugged apologetically.

I let out a sigh, knowing that I was in deep trouble for this. But I’d already outed myself to Julie so I might as go the rest of the way. Aunt Cassandra was going to kill me anyway.

“The Touched can do magic,” I said carefully, giving Julie a wry grin. “The Were can turn into animals. The Sier…we talk to spirits. That’s our thing.”

“Spirits?” Julie asked curiously. “Like ghosts?”

“Yeah, ghosts are one kind of spirit,” I agreed. “But there are lots of other kinds too.”

Julie gave me a skeptical look and said, “I didn’t think ghosts exist.”

“Which is one of the reason a lot of people thought we were frauds,” I pointed out. “A lot of Sier can do things like astral projection or seeing the future. But what we do isn’t flashy and most people who aren’t Sier can’t even see it.” I shrugged at that. “So if you don’t believe in spirits…”

Julie nodded at that, understanding the situation. If you didn’t believe that spirits existed, then you had to assume that anyone who claimed to communicate with them was either lying or deluded. That situation had been the downfall of a great many people with Sier blood.

“I heard some of the stories at school,” Julie said quietly. “I mean, about how you freaked out on a field trip and said that ghosts were trying to get you…”

I shuddered at the memory of that nightmare even though it had been years ago. One visit to a civil war cemetery had not only left me traumatized, but had also been the final nail in my reputation as the school freak. After that, I finally learned to keep quiet about the things I saw, but it had been too late.

“You weren’t imagining it,” Julie whispered with a sympathetic look.

I just nodded faintly. “No.”

Julie was silent for a moment, just giving me a look of pity that made me uncomfortable. Then she said, “I know what it’s like to be an outcast. I mean, no one at school treats me like one…not like they do you…but I’m Touched and can’t tell any of them. I have to keep so many things to myself that I never really felt like I belonged. I always felt like an outsider who just pretended to be part of the crowd. I guess that’s why you caught my interest.”

“You’re lucky,” I told her, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice. “At least they don’t treat you like an outsider.”

“I know,” she agreed with a faint smile. “You know, there’s a school for Touched that I could go to where I wouldn’t have to lie about any of this. I could be myself and even use my talent in front of people…” Then she shrugged and admitted, “I’ve been thinking about it, but I don’t really want to leave my mom and dad…or my bratty brother.”

“The Sier don’t have anything like that,” I said, wishing that we did. “The only other Sier I’ve ever met are Aunt Cassandra and a couple of her relatives.”

“You said that some Sier can do things like see the future,” Julie abruptly said, giving me a curious look. “Can you do that?”

“See the future?” I asked. When she nodded, I answered, “No more than you can. I predict this cookie is going to disappear…” And with that, I snatched up a chocolate chip cookie while she laughed.

“Well, that bites,” Julie joked. “It would be cool being able to see the future.”

I nodded at that and responded, “I have a different gift.” I took a deep breath and admitted, “I can go into other people’s dreams.”

Julie stared at me for a moment with an odd look before saying, “My dream last night…” She gestured to the mirror and said, “She was in it…”

“Isabelle,” I said self-consciously. “She’s called Isabelle. And yeah, that was us…”

“Us?” Julie asked, looking confused.

“My familiar,” I explained with a sigh. “She’s a spirit and sort of lives inside me.”

My reflection in the mirror waved to Julie and then went back to ‘normal’, or at least back what had become normal for me. Julie just stared in surprise.

“Your reflection is a ghost?” Julie asked with a shake of her head.

“A spirit,” I corrected her. “I thought that Isabelle was a ghost when we first bonded a few days ago, but now I’m not so sure…” I felt a feeling of amusement and even smugness from Isabelle. “I’m pretty sure that she’s no mere ghost like Mrs. Dieter…” There was sense of confirmation from Isabelle.

“Mrs. Dieter?” Julie repeated with a look of surprise. “You mean that old story about the school being haunted is true?”
“Yeah,” I responded with a shrug. “She gives me the stinkeye every time she sees me. But that’s not the point. When I go into dreams, I…” I paused, blushing brightly as I took a deep breath and continued. “When I go into the dream plane, I look like Isabelle. I don’t really understand why, but I think it’s because we’re fused and when we leave my body behind, we’re in the spirit world which is her domain.” I could feel Isabelle agreeing with me.

“That was YOU?” Julie gasped. “You were in my dream?” Then she demanded, “Did you give me that nightmare?”

“No,” I quickly protested, feeling self-conscious. “You were attacked by a spirit that was feeding of your fear. I kind of stumbled on you and thought I could help…”

“So you turn into a girl when you’re dreaming,” Julie said, smirking in amusement. “And you decided to come into my dream and chase off a nightmare.”

I gave a wry smile as I answered, “More or less.”

“Well, I’m glad you did,” Julie told me. “That nightmare was bad.” Then she looked back to the mirror and teased, “You know, Isabelle is really cute.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, but Isabelle was amused. However, whether that was because of the compliment or because of my embarrassment, I wasn’t sure.

Suddenly, I sensed a nearby spirit that sent a cold chill down my spine. I snapped around and stared at the window, and at the spirit owl that flew through it as though the glass wasn’t there. Whisperwing circled the living room and then landed on top of the TV, staring straight at me with an intense look.

“Oh shit,” I blurted out, knowing that I’d just been caught. “I am so dead.”

--------------------

When I returned home to face the music, I expected Aunt Cassandra to be furious at me. But to my surprise, instead of looking angry, she looked worried instead.

Aunt Cassandra stared at me with a tired look, then she turned her attention to Julie, who’d insisted on coming with me. I didn’t think that was a very good idea, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Would you like something to drink?” Aunt Cassandra asked Julie, being much more calm and polite about this than I would have expected.

“Yes please,” Julie answered, watching my aunt with a curious expression.

Aunt Cassandra poured us each a glass of iced tea and then looked at Julie. “It seems that Efram has told you more than he should. Honestly, I’m not too surprised.” She looked to me and added, “He never has been very good at following directions.”

“I know I told her that we were Sier,” I said apologetically. “Things just kind of happened.”

“I also told you to stay away from her and her family,” Aunt Cassandra pointed out with a sigh. “That just leaves the question about what to do now.”

Julie stared at Aunt Cassandra with a defiant look on her face, then she accused her, “You’ve been spying on me and my family.”

Aunt Cassandra didn’t deny it. “My familiar happened to see your father using his talent so I realized he had to be Touched. I’ve kept an eye on him and the rest of your family since.”

“You spied on us,” Julie pointed out again, sounding as though she was starting to get angry.

“A little,” Aunt Cassandra agreed. “But probably not nearly as much as you think. I was watching out for a potential threat.”

“What do you have against us anyway?” Julie demanded. “Efram said that you didn’t want him talking to anyone who was Touched. Why? I mean, it’s not like we don’t know the Sier exist.”

Aunt Cassandra stared at Julie for a moment then she looked at me and chuckled. “You do pick some interesting friends.” Then she looked back at Julie and said, “This isn’t anything personal. I know that you’re a good person, and if I hadn’t known you were Touched, I probably would have encouraged Efram to ask you out.”

“Hey,” I protested, blushing at the attention.

“The Sier have survived by staying hidden for centuries,” Aunt Cassandra said. “We are…reluctant to get involved with the Touched.”

Julie ran her fingers through her hair, looking a little confused. “But why?”

“You really don’t know, do you?” Aunt Cassandra asked, looking faintly surprised. “I guess that makes sense…”

“It’s because of the purge,” I answered, remembering what Aunt Cassandra had told me in the past. “Some of the Touched threw the Sier under the bus…big time.”

“What are you talking about?” Julie asked, giving me a look of annoyance.

Aunt Cassandra let out a sigh and rubbed at her temples. “The Sier and Touched have always had a complicated relationship,” she finally explained. “The Touched who understood our powers greatly valued our ability to gather knowledge. Sometimes this led to great partnerships, but other times it resulted in sorcerers who tried to control us and force us to give them what we knew. Sometimes we were allies and sometimes rivals. For the most part, our people were able to coexist peacefully.”

“Normals didn’t know the difference between Sier or Touched,” I added, eager to show off my knowledge. “They lumped us all together, and when the purges began, they burned us at the stake too.”

“Some abused their powers,” Aunt Cassandra explained. “Some normals feared us or were jealous of us. And as the normals grew in numbers and strength, this caused the escalation that led to the purges…the hunting down and killing of the supernatural races.”

“I’ve heard about them,” Julie said with a grim look. “Anyone that was even suspected of having magic was hunted down and killed…so we started hiding from the normals, trying to convince them that magic didn’t even exist. That we didn’t even exist.”

“During the time of conflict,” Aunt Cassandra said carefully, pausing to sip her tea and stare at the table with a thoughtful look. “Before everyone went into hiding, the problems between the normals and the supernatural races were so bad that we were on the verge of war. The Were were the first to go into hiding, trying to avoid the conflict and disappear. A lot of Touched wanted war on the normals, especially some sorcerers who’d used their magic to build their own kingdoms. They felt their magic made them superior and that they had the right to rule.”

“My parents told me about those times,” Julie said with a frown. “They said that Morgana LeFay led the forces that wanted war…”

“I wasn’t there,” Aunt Cassandra said with a forced chuckle, “but from what I understand, she wasn’t the only one or even the worst.” Then she paused for a moment to rub her temples, somehow making her nearly look decades older than her actual age. “While the Touched were deciding whether or not to launch a full war against the normals, most of the Sier sided with the normals.”

“But why?” Julie asked with a look of confusion. “I mean, if the Sier were getting hunted down too…”

“It was our duty,” Aunt Cassandra answered quietly. “A Sier’s duty…”

“What does that mean?” I blurted out. “Isabelle mentioned a Sier’s duty but wouldn’t say what she meant.”

Aunt Cassandra gave me a look of surprise, as though she expected me to know this already. However, everything I knew about the Sier had come from her, and if she hadn’t thought to teach me something I couldn’t be expected to actually know it.

“In older times,” Aunt Cassandra explained carefully, looking straight at me, “It was a common belief among the Sier that we had a duty to serve our communities…our tribes, villages, and neighbors. We would serve as intermediaries between the spirit world and the physical, protecting our communities from harmful spirits and often physical threats as well. Different Sier would interpret their duty in different ways. Even though normals became hostile towards us, many continued to fulfill their duty as they saw it.”

“So the Sier and Touched were on opposite sides of this,” Julie said, looking a little shaken as she absorbed this. “And the Were were…”

“Neutral,” Aunt Cassandra agreed. “Though I have no proof, I always believed that the threat of facing the Sier was one of the largest factors that convinced the Touched to go into hiding rather than wage open war. Unfortunately, open war may have been easier for us to deal with…” She went silent for a moment and took a sip of her tea. Then she continued, “Some Touched blamed us for standing in their way while others merely feared we would use our gifts to find them where they hid, to hunt them down for normals. Because of this, some of the Touched came after us, hunting us down and either attacking us directly or doing the very thing they feared we would do to them, pointing us out to the witch hunters…”

“Shit,” Julie blurted out with a look of horror on her face. “That’s why you’re afraid of Touched…”

Aunt Cassandra nodded at that. “Our kind were driven into hiding, not only from normals but from the other supernatural races. In time, most Sier abandoned the concept of having a duty, though there are some who still attempt to fulfill it from the shadows. Most of those who were directly involved in that conflict have long since passed, but unfortunately, there are still a handful who are still alive. We fear that they might continue their war against us if they should find us.”

“I won’t tell anyone about you,” Julie promised, glancing to me. “I won’t even tell my mom and dad.”

“Thank you,” Aunt Cassandra told her, looking relieved. “I know most Touched don’t mean us any harm, but our history does make us cautious.”

“I guess I can understand that,” Julie responded with a faint smile.

“So,” Aunt Cassandra asked Julie politely. “Will you be staying for dinner? I’ve never really talked to someone who was Touched before so there are some things I’d like to ask you…”

Julie looked surprised at the invitation and glanced to me as though unsure she should accept. I grinned and told her, “Aunt Cassandra makes really good lasagna…”

“How can I say no to that?” Julie responded with a grin, still looking a little confused by what had just happened.

Julie had come home with me because she’d expected Aunt Cassandra to be furious and she’d wanted to defend me. I was surprised myself since I definitely hadn’t expected Aunt Cassandra to be so relaxed about it, not after how firmly she’d always been on insisting I keep my identity as a Sier a secret.

After Julie went to use the bathroom, I looked at Aunt Cassandra and said, “I thought you’d be pissed…”

“I was…at first,” she admitted with a faint smile. “But I think we can trust her.” She put a hand on my shoulder and said, “I might have been overreacting when I insisted you stay away from her completely, but we do still have to keep our heads down. It might not be very likely that anyone would ever come for us, but some of the sorcerers who led the hunt against our kind could still be around and holding a grudge. As my mother is fond of reminding me, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“I’ll be careful,” I promised her, trying not to roll my eyes.

“You know,” Aunt Cassandra told me with a grin. “She’s a cute one. When are you going to ask her out?”

I nearly choked on that. In the space of one day, Aunt Cassandra had gone from telling me not to go anywhere near Julie to encouraging me to ask her out. “We’re just friends,” I protested, though truthfully, I would like to be more. With a sigh, I admitted, “She already friend zoned me… Already gave me the whole speech about not being her type and everything.”

“Oh,” Aunt Cassandra responded, looking a little disappointed. Then she smiled again and said, “Well who knows, things may change. After all, I never thought that I’d actually be encouraging you to date a Touched girl.”

--------------------

It was night out and the moon was a mere sliver, yet I could still see as clearly as if it was day. However, the only things I could really see around me were a dirty farm and an old barn in front of me.

I brushed my long white hair from my face and turned to look around me, my silver sword clutched firmly in hand. At the moment, I was definitely female, a fact that was made evident by the sleek silver armor I was wearing which showed off most of my curves.

A large part of me knew I was dreaming but that part seemed to just be a passenger on this ride. I had no control over myself as I walked into the barn where I was assaulted by the stench of manure.

There was creature in the barn, standing over the body of a child. The creature looked like a man but he had black eyes, and as he snarled, he revealed a pair of fangs in his mouth. Blood dropped from his mouth, blood that had been drained from the now lifeless child.

‘Vampire,’ my mind screamed, identifying what his creature was. This wasn’t some sparkling pretty boy but a true monster. As I stared at him, I could tell that he had no human soul. His body was not even alive. Instead, it was a corpse that had been possessed by an evil spirit, a spirit who thirsted for blood.

There were no words exchanged between us as my body moved on its own to attack the monster. The vampire lunged at me but I gracefully avoided him, lashing out with my sword and removing his head.

A moment later, the dream popped and dissolved around me. I found myself standing in the dream plane, still wearing the silver armor and wielding the sword. I stood there, feeling dazed by the strange dream I’d just had.

“Where the hell did that come from?” I asked as I tried making sense of it all.

“Me,” Isabelle answered me. “The past.”

“Your past?” I gasped in surprise. Then I gasped again but in realization. “Your memory? You fought vampires?”

“Our duty,” Isabelle responded.

“A Sier’s duty,” I whispered, remembering what Aunt Cassandra had told me of that duty a few days ago. I felt a sense of confirmation from Isabelle. “You were bonded to another Sier…” Another sense of confirmation. I felt a little jealous at that and then asked, “How many others?”

There was silence for a moment and I thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then I felt a sense of sadness as she answered, “Each remains a part of me.”

“Oh,” I responded, not sure what I could say to that. I was curious but didn’t want to push just yet. Instead, I focused my attention on the other thing that caught my attention. “The Sier’s duty… Is that what you meant? You want me to fight vampires?”

“If needed,” Isabelle answered me.

I felt a cold chill down my spine at that, remembering that oil monkey thing we’d fought in Julie’s dream. I realized that this was what Isabelle wanted me to do…to fight these dangerous spirit.

“I can’t,” I protested. There was a sense of skepticism from her but she didn’t argue.

Since I was back in this dream plane, I wandered about, carefully paying attention for any sign of the big dark spirit. Fortunately, I sensed no indications of it being near so after awhile I began to relax a little.

Out of curiosity, I went looking for Julie’s dream, if she had one that was. If she was still awake or not currently dreaming, I wouldn’t be able to find it. However, I quickly felt the presence of her dream and was drawn to it.

“Knock knock,” I called out as I touched the pillar of light and entered her dream.

A moment later, I found myself standing on the middle of a beach. There was white sand beneath my toes and the warm sun glowing from the clear sky above. And to the side, the ocean was perfectly still without sign of a single wave. Of course, as beautiful as the scenery was, everything was a little blurred and unreal. After all, this was just a dream.

The silver armor that I’d still been wearing after my vampire dream faded away and I was wearing a skimpy two piece bikini instead. I looked down at myself and how my breasts pushed out, blushing. One thing I’d learned over the last couple days was that when I was in someone else’s dream, the dream could affect me a little as well.

“Julie,” I called out, looking around and then spotting her. She was laying back on a deck chair, holding a coconut drink with an umbrella sticking out from it in her hand.

Julie sat up and saw me, her eyes going wide. She looked around in confusion and then asked, “Is this a dream?”

“Yes it is,” I told her with a grin.

“Wow,” Julie blurted out. “I didn’t even know…” She shook her head and said, “As soon as you arrived, it’s like my mind sort of woke up…”

“That’s interesting,” I commented, wondering if that was a side effect of my power or if it was just her sensing an outside presence and responding.

“Wow, you look incredible,” Julie said, looking me over with a grin.

“Um…thanks,” I responded, feeling embarrassed by that though Isabelle was pleased. “You too…” It was all I could do not to just stare at Julie with my tongue hanging out.

“Do I call you Efram now?” Julie asked me curiously. “Or Isabelle?”

“We are Isabelle,” my familiar answered from our mouth.

Julie gave me a startled look at that. “Okay…”

“We’re both in here,” I told her, tapping my temple. “And since we’re in Isabelle’s form…”

“Okay…Isabelle,” Julie said with a giggle. “Does this mean I can actually have a conversation with her?”

“If she answers,” I pointed out with a shrug. “She’s not real talkative.”

“So, what’s it like sharing a head with Efram?” Julie asked. Isabelle didn’t answer.

“She doesn’t even talk to me much,” I said. “I’m a little surprised that she even said what she did.” Then I asked Isabelle, “Is there anything you want to say to Julie?”

To my surprise, Isabelle said, “We are pleased to know you.”

“Okay,” Julie responded, obviously a little uncertain about how to respond to that. “It’s nice meeting you too.”

“Now that the introductions are out of the way,” I said, looking around with a grin. “This place looks like a lot of fun.”

“My family went to the beach for vacation last year,” Julie told me with a grin. “It was a lot of fun.”

I nodded at that. “I’d imagine.”

“You know what else is fun?” Julie asked.

Without waiting for me to answer, Julie leaned forward and surprised me with a kiss. Her lips were so soft on my own, but they pulled back far too soon.

I stared at Julie in surprise and a little confusion. “Wow,” I finally said, feeling my heart racing. “Not that I mind, but what was that for?”

“Because I wanted to,” Julie answered with a grin, though I could see she was a little self-conscious as well but trying to hide it. “Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have the guts to do that in the real world.”

“But what about that whole ‘just friends’ thing?” I half joked. Then I gestured down at myself and added, “And at the moment, I kind of look like a girl…”

Julie blushed brightly before saying, “That’s why I wanted to…”

“What?” I blinked in surprise.

“I prefer girls,” Julie blurted out, giving me an appreciative look. “That’s why I said you weren’t my type…”

“Oh,” I responded in realization, suddenly feeling foolish for having a crush on her.

Julie leaned forward and we kissed again, this time for a bit longer. This might be a dream but it certainly felt real. Even my body was starting to respond and get turned on. I felt like how I had when Isabelle let me feel the sensation from the female perspective. My nipples felt sort of hard and erect while my groin felt warm and wet. I was really enjoying this.

When we pulled apart, Julie gave me another appreciative look and smirked. “I like you,” she told me, looking just a little self-conscious again. “But out there,” she gestured above us but I knew she meant the real world rather than the sky, “I’m not attracted to you. But right now…I definitely am. I think you’re a total hottie.”

“So, you’re not attracted to me,” I pointed out wryly. “You’re attracted to Isabelle.” I felt a stirring of smug amusement from my familiar.

Julie looked a little embarrassed as she nodded, “Pretty much. Sorry.”

I stared at Julie for a moment, realizing that if I didn’t look like Isabelle like I did right now, then I wouldn’t have had a chance to make out with her like I was just doing. I let out a sigh and said, “I can live with that.”

With that, Julie and I started to kiss and make out again, though this time we dropped to the sand as we did so. The sand blurred and transformed into grass as the dream shifted according to Julie’s subconscious. We were no longer on the beach but in the middle of some kind of park. I barely paid attention to our surroundings as I focused all of my attention on Julie.

I was pretty sure that Julie’s breasts were larger in the dream world than they were in reality, but I wasn’t about to complain about the discrepancy. I kissed Julie and felt her up but the two of us didn’t go any further than that. Still, since I’d never gotten this far with a girl before, at least not outside of my imagination, this was still great excitement for me.

Eventually, Julie’s dream faded and popped as Julie woke up. I was suddenly left on the dream plane, still wearing a bikini and feeling all hot and bothered. I cupped my breasts through my bikini top, wishing it was still Julie’s hands on them. That had felt so nice…

“Damn,” I muttered, feeling annoyed and disappointed. I felt an echo of the emotions from Isabelle which made me feel a little better. At least I wasn’t alone in that. “What are we supposed to do now?”

As soon as I asked that question, Isabelle took control of our body and we began walking. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but as we walked everything seemed to blur a bit. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant but had a feeling that we’d gone a greater distance in the dream plane than it seemed. Then without hesitation, Isabelle reached out and touched a dream, sending us both inside.

I was suddenly standing in the center of a very large room that was decorated expensively. It looked like it could be some wealthy persons mansion, and it looked like I’d arrived in the middle of a huge party. No, as I looked around at all the people, most of whom were a little blurry as well as undressed, I realized that I’d ended up in the middle of an orgy. I gasped in shock as I took it all in, seeing people having sex all over the room.

“What the…?” I blurted out in shock

My bikini started to fade away under the power of the dream, leaving me completely naked. I suddenly realized that I was getting a LOT more attention than I was comfortable from, especially from a large muscular guy with a ridiculously large penis. He was the only one present besides myself who was crisp and clear so he was obviously the dreamer. I was pretty sure that his Adonis appearance was just another part of the dream, which was confirmed when his appearance flickered and I caught a glimpse of some boy only a year or two older than me.

“Oh shit,” I blurted out, willing myself out of the dream.

A moment later, I was back in the dream plane, letting out a sigh of relief. I was also blushing like crazy. I felt a surge of amusement from Isabelle, which suddenly made me wonder if that little dream had been her legitimate solution to my being left turned on, or if it had been her idea of a practical joke. I wasn’t sure which.

“Okay, that was a bit much,” I said, shuddering at being stuck in some guy’s wet dream. I had a feeling that with the way I looked right now, it wouldn’t have gone very well for me.

Then I felt Isabelle’s mood turning serious inside me, just a moment before I sensed a nearby dark spirit. She’d obviously sensed it before me.

I stood there for a moment, wondering what I should do. Then I remembered Isabelle’s memory and knew exactly what she wanted. “Okay,” I said reluctantly. “Let’s go do our duty.”

I felt a sense of satisfaction from Isabelle even as our lips formed into a smile. The silver sword reformed in our hands while the armor reappeared as well.

The dark spirit we both felt was a short distance away, and when we found it, I was startled to see that it looked like a nasty green slug… It had tentacles coming out of its head and reaching for someone’s dream.

“Disgusting,” I muttered.

I’d seen several other spirits wandering around the dream plane, including a couple that were just balls of light and one that looked like a butterfly. But so far, all the ones that seemed dark and dangerous were disgusting.

The slug turned and belched out a blob of green slime at me, though my arm came up on its own and a silver shield formed on my wrist, blocking the attack. After that, I jumped at the slug and impaled it with my sword.

“Gotcha,” I exclaimed.

The spirit melted away into goo, but I had a feeling that I hadn’t truly destroyed it. Instead, I somehow sensed that I’d just weakened it greatly and forced what was left to retreat from this plane.

“Well done,” Isabelle said, radiating a sense of pride.

“Thank you,” I responded, staring down at the green smear on the ground that was already fading away. That thing had been disgusting, but fighting against it like that had been exciting. And when I looked at the dream it had been feeding on, I couldn’t help but feeling a sense of satisfaction. “Do you think we can do that again?”

Isabelle didn’t answer aloud, but there was a strong sense of agreement and approval which was answer enough. With that, we went looking for some other nasty spirits that needed to be chased away from dreams.

--------------------

I was in the school courtyard, sitting off to the side where no one would really notice me. While I ate lunch, I was doing a little people watching. Or more accurately, I was doing a little people and spirit watching.

One of my classmates walked across the courtyard, having a blob of spirit attached to her, though she would never know. From what I could see, this was the kind of spirit that would feed off her emotions, memories, and identity without harming her. If it remained with her long enough, it would begin to look and even think like her. If it remained with her until her death, it would become her ghost. And if it separated from her earlier than that, it could become her fetch instead.

Mr. Mickelson, a bald middle-aged teacher walked past a minute later, having a spirit of some sort following him as well. I didn’t have any of his classes but I’d seen him around and had never noticed that spirit before. It could have just tied itself to him, but more likely, my senses hadn’t been strong enough to really notice that one until my awakening.

The spirit with Mr. Mickelson wasn’t the kind to become a ghost but was something else. The teacher was notorious for having bad luck, such as having the fire alarm in his classroom break and go off every week, or the way he kept tripping and breaking things. The biggest example of his bad luck was that the day his divorce was finalized, his now ex-wife won the lottery.

Now that I saw the spirit with him, I suddenly became suspicious of his bad luck. This spirit could be a luck eater…one that feeds off good luck and leaves their victim with bad luck. I’ve never seen one before, but it made sense. There were other spirits that fed off bad luck, but those were even rarer.

I felt sorry for Mr. Mickelson, being haunted by a spirit who kept causing problems without his even being aware of it. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about it. Isabelle and I had taken out a few nasty spirits in the dream world over the last few days, but I couldn’t do anything here in the physical world. I couldn’t even touch the spirit unless it was at least partially in the dream world.

When I closed my eyes and stretched my senses, I could vaguely feel the presence of the big dark spirit somewhere nearby. It was fairly close but not right there. It had been in hiding ever since taunting me in the dream realm.

I could sense other dark spirits nearby, ones that made Isabelle tense up and act the way she had when we first saw the oil monkey. There seemed to be more and more of these dangerous spirits and I didn’t know why.

Then I heard Isabelle’s voice inside my head, quietly whispering, “They are drawn to the dark one. Such powerful spirits often draw others to them.”

I was caught by surprise since this was the very first time that Isabelle had talked to me while I was in the physical world. Until now, all I could get from her had been feelings and emotions, which were admittedly getting easier to sense.

“You talked to me,” I blurted out, a little confused by this sudden change.

“You are learning to listen,” Isabelle responded, feeling pleased at that.

I was about to ask Isabelle more questions, wanting to take advantage of the new ability to communicate with her in the physical world, when I noticed Julie on the other side of the courtyard. She was talking to one of her female friends and a boy with the reputation of being a bit shy and withdrawn. I couldn’t hear what they were saying from where I was sitting, but it almost looked as though Julie was trying to play matchmaker between the two.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I mused with a chuckle. Julie did like getting involved in other people’s business and trying to help them out. She was a good person that way.

Then I smiled as I remembered our little dalliance last night. For the last few nights, Julie and I had been having fun making out in her dreams. Each time had been fantastic, but unfortunately, whenever things got too hot, she would wake up and leave me in the dream plane, still horny and unsatisfied. This was getting a bit frustrating, but fortunately, I was able to work off my frustration by hunting down some dark spirits and chasing them away from dreams.

In spite of the fact that my relationship with Julie had become physical in her dreams, we still remained just friends while awake. Neither of us talked about what we did in her dreams and we both tried to act as though nothing had happened. However, I’d noticed her looking at my reflection in various mirrors with an expression of intense interest and attraction. I couldn’t help but feeling just a little jealous of Isabelle, even though I was the one who kept making out with Julie.

“At least she likes spending time with me when I’m still myself,” I said, looking forward to meeting up with her after school for some guitar lessons. Of course, that still wouldn’t be as much fun as what we’d be doing tonight in our dreams.

After I finished eating my lunch, I started to leave the courtyard and return to the main building when I suddenly found Bobby Decker standing in front of me. I didn’t say a word or even look straight at him as I changed course to go around him. However, Bobby stepped to the side and blocked me again.

“Where do you think you’re going, emo boy?” he demanded of me with a sneer.

“Isn’t this just a little elementary school?” I asked Bobby with an exasperated sigh, wishing that he’d find someone else to mess with. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than bother me.”

“Watch it,” Bobby said, shoving me and knocking me back. I barely managed to stay on my feet instead of falling into my ass. Then he smirked and said, “You might say you’re a hobby…”

“You should try stamp collecting,” I said as I began to go around him again.

Bobby grabbed for my shoulder, exclaiming, “I didn’t say you could go yet…”

“And I didn’t ask your permission,” I responded, slipping out of his grip and continuing on my way.

“Go ahead and run away, emo boy” Bobby called after me with a laugh. “In fact, why don’t you do everyone a favor and just kill yourself already…”

I froze at that, feeling a surge of anger at that. “What was that?” I demanded as I turned back to glare at Bobby.

Bobby began to grin with a malicious glee in his eyes as he realized that he’d just pushed one of my buttons. I immediately realized that responding to his latest taunt had been foolish, but at the moment, I didn’t give a damn. I had a lot of practice ignoring Bobby and other assholes like him, but this time he’d gotten me where it hurt.

“I said you should kill yourself,” Bobby repeated with a smirk. “Everyone knows you emo freaks are always whining about your lives and thinking about suicide. Just do it already and get it over with so the rest of us don’t have to look at you anymore…”

With my fists clenched in rage, I took a step towards him, snarling, “Shut the fuck up…”

“Everyone knows you’re a fucking whackjob,” Bobby said with a sneer. “So come on crazy boy… What are you going to…?”

Bobby had pushed my first button when he’d joked about me killing myself and now he’d just pushed my other sensitive button. I didn’t even give him a chance to finish as I punched him in the face as hard as I could. He staggered back, probably as much from surprise that I was actually fighting as from the punch itself.

“Fucker,” Bobby screamed, punching back at me.

Isabelle immediately responded by sending out several of her essence tendrils and blocking Bobby’s punch, just as she had the balls of paper that had been thrown at me in class a few days ago. For anyone else watching, it would merely look like Bobby was punching at me and missing.

“Stay out of this one,” I told Isabelle, glad that she had my back but wanting to kick Bobby’s ass on my own. He’d had this coming for a lunch time.

Isabelle responded by dropping her protection, just in time for me to get hit in the face. It hurt, but I was too angry to just give up because I’d been punched. Instead, I hit Bobby again and again, catching him in the solar plexus and then kicking him in the thigh. My familiar might not be helping directly, but my experience fighting those sprits with her in the dream plane had taught me that if I was going to fight, I had to fight to win.

Before I realized it, Bobby was on the ground and I was straddling him, hitting him in the face. I was vaguely aware that there were at least two dozen people gathered around and watching, but I still didn’t fully absorb this until I realized that someone was calling my name. Even then, it wasn’t until I felt a hand on my shoulder

“Efram,” Julie cried out as she grabbed me. “What are you doing? Stop…”

I stop and realize that Bobby isn’t even fighting back anymore. In fact, he’s barely moving at all while half his face is covered in blood. I back away from him, shaking as I realize what I’d just done.

“I know I told you to fight back,” Julie exclaimed angrily, gesturing to Bobby, “but this isn’t what I meant…”

I stared at Bobby and then looked around the crowd, and at the angry teachers who were coming towards us. “Oh shit,” I whispered, feeling oddly drained now that all my pent up anger had been released. “Aunt Cassandra is going to kill me.”

Less than an hour later, I was sitting in the principal’s office with a furious Aunt Cassandra. She’d been called out of work to come and deal with the situation and she was not at all happy with me because of it.

“Another fight?” Aunt Cassandra had demanded when she first saw me, in spite of the fact that my last real fight had been over two years ago.

Our school principal was Mr. Heize, a middle-aged man who had a bit of a pot belly but not enough to really call him fat. He sat behind his desk, looking just as pissed as Aunt Cassandra.

“Efram broke another student’s nose,” Mr. Heize exclaimed, glaring at me and then Aunt Cassandra as though it was somehow her fault as well. “This is completely and totally inexcusable…”

“Agreed,” Aunt Cassandra responded reluctantly, giving me a look. “What happened?”

“What happened is that he attacked another student without provocation,” Mr. Heize snapped. “Efram is a known trouble maker and this is the last straw…”

“Without provocation?” Aunt Cassandra asked Mr. Heize with narrowed eyes. “Are you certain of that? Bobby Decker has been bullying Efram for quite some time…”

“Nonsense,” Mr. Heize argued, looking almost offended. “We don’t
Tolerate bullying in this school. If any bullying had occurred, I’d know about it.”

I just snorted, “Bullshit.”

The fact was that some of the teachers seemed to dislike me just as much as the students did. And all of them seemed to make a habit of looking the other way when people were messing with me.

“I’ve seen Bobby Decker physically assaulting Efram before with my own eyes,” Aunt Cassandra pointed out, not being completely honest since it had been with Whisperwing’s eyes rather than her own. “I’ve filed multiple complains for this and other incidents, which you seem to have completely ignored.”

Mr. Heize looked more than a little annoyed at her correcting him. “Whatever may or may not have happened in the past,” he said almost smugly, “that has no bearing on this situation. I’m afraid that Efram is expelled.”

“What?” I blurted out.

“And what punishment is the other student receiving,” Aunt Cassandra asked with in a deceptively calm voice. “After all, a fight requires two people.”

“That is none of your concern,” Mr. Heize told her, which translated to ‘none’.

“I thought as much,” Aunt Cassandra responded with a grimly. “I agree that this fight went too far, but this punishment is too severe for the circumstances.”

Mr. Heize glared at Aunt Cassandra and smirked a little as he said, “We have zero tolerance for violence against other students. And we do have witnesses who confirm that Efram threw the first punch…” He paused for a moment before adding, “Rules are rules.”

Aunt Cassandra stared at Mr. Heize with a steady look before calmly saying, “I believe there are also rules against relations between students and faculty.”

“What are you…?” Mr. Heize started before Aunt Cassandra cut him off.

“Such as between you and Amanda Miller,” she stated firmly. I nearly choked in surprise at that while Mr. Heize’s eyes went wide.

“What?” I gasped.

Aunt Cassandra calmly continued, “Hypothetically speaking,” the tone of her voice making it quite clear that there was nothing hypothetical about this. “If a student offers certain favors in order to ensure she graduated, it would not only be immoral but illegal for a school official to accept.”

I watched Aunt Cassandra, knowing that this information had to have come from Whisperwing. She’d had her familiar watching me at school quite a bit, so there was no telling all that he’d witnessed.

Mr. Heize looked pale and afraid. He was even starting to sweat. He glanced to me and then Aunt Cassandra, gulping visibly.

“Since this is a first occurance,” Mr. Heize said awkwardly. “I suppose that we could do a two week suspension instead. He stared at Aunt Cassandra nervously.

There was a long moment as Aunt Cassandra just stared back at him before she finally said, “Agreed.”

We left Mr. Heize’s office a minute later with Aunt Cassandra still looking grim. She stopped in the school hallway and demanded, “Did you use your gifts.”

“No,” I told her quietly, feeling guilty for losing it the way I had. “And I told Isabelle to stay out of it.”

“At least there is that,” she muttered, giving me a look of disappointment.

Just then, I noticed Julie coming down the hallway towards me at a quick pace. “Are you okay?” she asked with a worried look. She quickly looked me over and seemed to relax a little when she saw that I wasn’t really hurt. Then she looked a little angry and demanded, “What was all that about?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” Aunt Cassandra said, giving me a disapproving look. “You know we can’t afford that kind of attention… Why did you go after that boy so viciously?”

I didn’t answer her and only shrugged in response. I felt bad for disappointing Aunt Cassandra like this, and embarrassed about the way I’d lost control.

“Bobby was just teasing Efram,” Julie told Aunt Cassandra with a confused look. “I didn’t hear it all, but he was saying something about him being crazy and saying he should kill himself or something.” She shook her head and added, “It was pretty mean, but Bobby’s been a lot worse than that before…”

Aunt Cassandra just stared at me with a wide eyed look of sudden understanding. Her expression changed from one of disapproval to one of sympathy. Then she carefully said, “I see…” And with that, she put a gentle hand on my shoulder.

Julie stared at Aunt Cassandra, looking even more confused. “Okay,” she said carefully. “What am I missing?”

“I think that conversation should wait for another time,” Aunt Cassandra answered, obviously not wanting to talk about my personal issues at the moment, much to my relief. “For now, we need to be going.”

“I’ll see you later,” I told Julie, not looking forward to the questions that I knew she’d be asking.

“Keep an eye on that principal,” Aunt Cassandra told Whisperwing, who’d been flying nearby. “I don’t trust him not to pull something.”

The spirit bird abruptly changed direction and flew back down the hall towards Mr. Heize’s office to act as Aunt Cassandra’s invisible spy. Julie just watched with a faint smirk since she couldn’t see Whisperwing but now knew of his existence.

“Later,” I told Julie again as Aunt Cassandra and I continued to leave the school.

“I’ll talk to you tonight,” Julie called back, putting emphasis on ‘tonight’.

“Oh no,” Aunt Cassandra said. “You’re grounded and not leaving the house…” I had to hide a faint smirk since I still hadn’t told her about my nightly dream visits with Julie. “Now come on,” she told me with a sigh. “It seems we need to have a little talk about drawing too much attention.”

--------------------

Ever since I bonded with Isabelle, my dreams had changed. Even when I wasn’t wandering in the dream plane and was only in my own dreams, I still saw my dream self as female. At the moment, I didn’t really question that as I was so caught up in my current dream that I wasn’t even fully aware that it was just a dream.

I was in the middle of a large ballroom, surrounded by people who were dressed up in expensive and fashionable clothes while dancing around the floor. I was wearing a gorgeous ball gown that was made with a lovely silvery white fabric that matched my hair and looked incredible on me. My wrists and neck were adorned with silver jewelry which contained several gleaming sapphires to match my frosty blue eyes.

I laughed aloud as the music flowed through me, guiding me as I glided across the dance floor. My companion was tall and fit, wearing a formal military uniform for the occasion. He was handsome and witty, providing me with a great deal of amusement, some of which was at his cost, though he didn’t realize it.

Then something abruptly changed though I didn’t know what. In an instant, I became fully aware of the fact that this was a dream, though I was pretty sure it had come from Isabelle. I was experiencing another of her memories, something which had happened several times before. I stopped dancing and looked around the ballroom, feeling oddly disappointed that I was no longer able to enjoy it.

“We are not alone,” Isabelle stated, though I somehow knew she was going to say those exact words before they even left our lips.

I scowled as I felt the dark presence touching the edge of our dream and tainting it. I felt a surge of anger that the big dark spirit would dare ruin what had been such a pleasant memory. I wasn’t completely sure how much of this anger was fully my own and how much came from Isabelle, though I quickly realized that it didn’t matter. Neither of us was going to stand for this.

A moment later, the lights all dimmed and the atmosphere became dark and gray. All joy and happiness was suddenly gone from the ball room and the dream. And at the same time, the people all changed as well, becoming dull and lifeless. My companion’s face turned gray and sank in and he stared at me with eyes that were now pure black.

My sword appeared in my hand as every dancer turned and glared at me with cold and hungry expressions. I gulped, suddenly feeling a chill of fear as I realized that all of these men and women in expensive and antiquated formal dress had all just become zombies before my eyes. All of them started to come towards us.

The man I’d been dancing with a minute before drew the decorative sword from his belt and swung at me, slicing through my dress as I dodged. I looked down at my ruined dress and felt annoyed. I’d liked that dress. He slashed at me again but I blocked his attack with my sword and then launched my own, driving my sword right into his chest. He paused for a moment but then tried raising his sword again.

“Damn,” I exclaimed, feeling a mixture of fear and anger. The fear part grew stranger as I saw just how many of these zombie dancers I had advancing on me. “I can’t fight in this damn dress…”

With that thought, my dress faded away and was replaced with the sleek silver armor. This was just in time as several ladies started scratching at me. I lashed out with my sword, slicing through several at once and trying to back away.

A zombie who’d been a respectable matron just a minute ago launched herself at me. A single slash of my sword sent her head flying, ending her much more effectively than impaling my dance partner had.

I slowly backed up until I realized that there were zombie dancers there as well. My dance partner came at me again, moving faster than most of the zombies in the movies did. I blocked his sword attack and then brought my sword down, severing his hand and watching that hit the ground along with the sword it still clutched. Then I followed that up with another swing that removed his head.

The sense of darkness and fear grew even stronger and I realized that there was absolutely no way I could defeat all of these zombies. Most of them were unarmed, but they had sheer numbers.

“What are we going to do?” I asked, my voice shaking.

However, there was a sense of confidence from Isabelle as she answered, “Trust me.”

A moment later, her essence poured out of my body, much as it did when she formed the sword or armor. However, this time the essence erupted right out of my back, forming into two large feathery wings, each of which was made glowing silvery white energy.

Isabelle took control and we flew up into the air, above the mass of zombies. I was stunned by this and still trying to take it all in when she held out our hands and released a massive burst of silvery white light.

All the zombies below us screamed as they began to melt and then fade away. Everything around us began to fade until it all popped and vanished, reminding me that in spite of how realistic this had been, it had all been inside of my own dream.

My dream was gone along with all the zombies within, leaving me in the dream plane. I dropped to my knees, feeling strangely exhausted by the stunt Isabelle had just pulled. Our wings pulled back into our body and vanished, along with the armor.

“I didn’t know you could do anything like that,” I exclaimed, definitely impressed by my familiar. “Damn that was awesome…” Isabelle felt tired inside of me but also rather pleased by the compliment.

After taking a minute to catch my breath, I stood back up and looked around, realizing that something was still wrong. Isabelle definitely sensed it too.

“Oh shit,” I blurted out as I realized what it was that I was feeling.

There was a feeling of darkness and fear radiating through the air, coming from everywhere at once. It was as though the dream plane was covered with haze of smog that made it difficult to breath.

“That dark spirit,” I muttered, knowing that it was responsible for this. That spirit had infected my dream and appeared to be doing the same to every other dream in range. “How to we stop this?” Isabelle didn’t have an answer. Then I gasped, “Julie…”

If Julie was dreaming right now, then her dream would be tainted by this dark power. It took me several seconds to realize that Aunt Cassandra would be in the same situation.

Since Aunt Cassandra was just sleeping in the next room over, her dream was always the closest to mine. She didn’t have a dream currently present which meant she was either not asleep or just not dreaming. Since I didn’t have to worry about her, I went to find Julie.

I found Julie’s dream a minute later and could tell that she was having a nightmare, a bad one. Isabelle and I summoned our sword and then we stepped inside.

A single glance was all I needed to know that this was definitely Julie’s nightmare. I was in some sort of large room but I couldn’t see the floor through all the snakes that were slithering around. I gasped at the sight, suddenly thinking of that tomb scene in Raiders of the Lost Arc

“Oh shit,” I exclaimed.

I wasn’t normally afraid of snakes, but there were so many here that I immediately felt more than a little nervous. And if I was feeling like that, I could only imagine what Julie felt.

“Julie,” I called out, seeing her in the center of the room with a look of absolute terror on her face.

Julie’s feet were completely buried in snakes and she had them wrapped around her lower legs up to her knees. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she had a large python that was wrapped around her body, as though it was trying to crush on.

I rushed to Julie’s assistance, using my sword to cut the large python off of her. It faded away and vanished as I did so, though that did nothing to the snakes on her feet or covering the floor.

“Efram,” Julie cried out when she saw me, looking relieved. “Please… Snakes…”

“It’s just a dream,” I reminded her as I gave her a hug. “They’re not real…”

Isabelle took over again and I held my hand out and there was a burst of silvery while light. The snakes covering Julie’s legs vanished, but floor was still covered and I could sense that Isabelle had already used up too much energy and couldn’t do that again.

“Snakes,” Julie blurted out, nearly hysterical.

“It’s just a dream,” I repeated, holding her tightly. “It’s your dream. You can make them go away…”

However, I wasn’t completely sure that would work. Sure, it was Julie’s dream so she had control of it, but it was also being influenced by an outside source. The dark spirit was tainting her dream and turning it into a nightmare.

“I can’t,” Julie protested.

“You can,” I assured her, trying to sound confident. I held her hand in mine and promised, “I’ll help you…”

Isabelle was tired but she was willing to try. While Julie tried thinking happy thoughts, such as the absence of snakes, we pushed out as much as we could to try chasing out the influence of the dark spirit.

Isabelle and I gave it everything we could, straining so hard that it was physically painful. The light that radiated from us seemed to chase the snakes away, but it wasn’t quite enough. I grimaced and pushed even harder and then it finally happened, the dark one’s taint faded away.

“Oh God,” I gasped, dropping to my knees in exhaustion while every snake vanished.

“You did it,” Julie exclaimed, dropping to the ground beside me and holding me tightly. “You saved me…”

I smiled weakly and responded, “We did it…”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Julie said, still hugging me tightly and then giving me a kiss. “I was so scared…”

“Me too,” I admitted, then gave a weak chuckle. “You have some of the scariest dreams…”

Julie stared at me for a moment and then asked, “Was it that spirit again?”

“It was a different one this time,” I told her with a sigh. “It got my dream too…” I shuddered at the zombie attack, having a flashback to some nightmares I’d had after watching a zombie flick as a kid. “It seems to be getting everyone at once…or at least a lot of people nearby. Maybe even the entire town.”

“Shit,” Julie gasped, holding me tighter.

The room we were in faded away and we were now in Julie’s house instead. Neither of us said anything about the change of scenery and we just continued to hug each other until Julie woke up.

--------------------

I sat on the edge of my bed, absently strumming my guitar. Isabelle was enjoying the simple tune that I was playing while Julie sat a few feet away, listening just as attentively but also watching the way my fingers moved.

Since I was still suspended and grounded, I hadn’t been able to leave the house all day and was really feeling cooped up because of it. Thankfully, Julie had come over as soon as school was over in order to hang out and even cheer me up a bit.

“That was pretty cool,” Julie said once I finished my current song. “How’d you learn to play?”

“Mostly trial and error,” I responded with a shrug. “I played by ear and watched a few instructional videos online…” Then I stared down at my guitar and chuckled. “Just don’t expect me to teach you how to read sheet music. I don’t really know how to do that yet.”

“Still, you sound pretty good,” Julie told me and I felt a sense of agreement from Isabelle.

While I was setting my guitar aside, Julie commented, “You know, Bobby came back to school today…and he had two black eyes and a bandage on his nose…”

“Oh,” I responded, trying to keep my voice even. I had a black eye of my own from the fight, and after a couple days it had turned into a nice shade of purple.

She gave me a curious look as she continued, “He was telling everyone that you jumped him from behind, and that you cheated, and a bunch of other stuff.”

“Figures,” I responded with a snort, feeling a stirring of annoyance from Isabelle which mirrored my own.

Julie just chuckled and added, “Bobby found a couple rust spots on his new car after school…” She looked rather smug and quite pleased with herself. I couldn’t resist laughing at that.

“I bet he’s pissed,” I said, remembering how Bobby had been bragging about his new car in class.

“Yep,” Julie agreed. “Just don’t tell my mom and dad. They’ll be pissed too if they find out I was using my talent for something like petty revenge…” She rolled her eyes at that.

“Aunt Cassandra is the same way,” I pointed out with a grin. “Don’t do anything to draw attention…then she convinced a pigeon spirit to have a bunch of pigeons shit all over the car of a coworker who insulted her…”

Julie laughed at that, and when she stopped, she stared at me with a curious look. “What in the world did Bobby say to piss YOU off so much?” She frowned as she continued to watch me. “I mean, I’ve seen Bobby and everyone else treat you like shit, but I’ve never seen you lose it like that…”

I grimaced, knowing that she would have asked that question sooner or later. I was actually a little surprised that she hadn’t pushed me about that before this. “It’s…complicated,” I said carefully, but that obviously wasn’t going to satisfy Julie. “I guess I’m pretty touchy about some things…and Bobby kind of pushed the right buttons.”

“Obviously,” she responded wryly.

“My grandpa was an asshole,” I said after a minute, deciding that I might as well tell her everything. “He cheated on his wife with a normal…and that’s where my mom came from. I guess he found out that his girlfriend on the side was pregnant and ran. He never went back to see my mom or check up on her.”

Julie nodded at that, still looking a little confused. “I guess that’s a common story,” she said, “But I don’t see what that has to do with…” She paused and shrugged.

“Having Sier blood can be confusing,” I tried to explain. “Even if you aren’t a true Sier, you can sometimes see things that other people can’t. If you tell other people about it, they think you’re crazy. And if you don’t know about the Sier, you might think you are too. It’s even worse for a true Sier. We’re sensitive enough that things can get really dangerous. Maybe my grandpa thought my mom was only part Sier and it wouldn’t matter. Maybe he didn’t care. But he abandoned her without any guidance or warning.”

“Oh shit,” Julie whispered with a look of dawning realization.

“My mom was raised by normals,” I continued, my voice choking. “They didn’t even know the Sier existed. She was diagnosed as delusional and was eventually locked up in a nuthouse.”

Then I went silent and just stared at the floor, feeling ashamed and not wanting Julie to know the rest. Still, I began to talk, telling her about how I was conceived in the institution and didn’t even know who my dad was. That was painful for me to admit, but it was even harder talking about how my mom killed herself when I was just a baby. When I was done talking, I couldn’t even look at Julie. Now she knew that I really was broken goods, just like everyone at school said.

“Oh my God,” Julie exclaimed, abruptly grabbing me in a firm hug. “I didn’t know…”

Isabelle projected a feeling of comforting reassurance, making me feel as though she was hugging me from within. It was enough to shock me out of my self-pity. “You are not broken,” Isabelle assured me, in a tone of voice that accepted no arguments. “You are mine as I am yours.”

“Thank you,” I told Julie and Isabelle at once. Then I gave a weak smile and wiped the tears from my eyes as I said, “You must think I’m a total wimp now… I mean, I’m crying for nothing…”

There was a sense of amusement and denial from Isabelle while Julie just grinned and responded, “Nonsense.” Then she winked and added, “I already thought you were a wimp.”

I just laughed at that and hit her with my pillow. “Gee, thanks.”

Julie grinned back at me, then she reached over and took my hand, holding it as her expression turned serious. “No, I don’t think you’re a wimp. I mean, twice you’ve gone into my nightmares and stopped them” She shuddered and said, “Last night, that was the worst nightmare I’d ever been in… But you came in and saved me.”

“That big spirit,” I said grimly. “It told me it messed with my mom…” My voice shook at that again. “Now it seems to be coming to town… I can feel it nearby, hiding and spreading fear.”

“Everyone in my family had nightmares last night,” Julie told me grimly. “Hell…everyone at school was talking about how they were having nightmares…”

“Our enemy feeds on the fear,” Isabelle told me, feeling angry and determined at that. “It grows stronger.”

Julie couldn’t hear what Isabelle was saying and continued talking, “I think it took a lot of guts to fight your own nightmares and then come into mine…”

Then she paused and stared at me for a moment with an odd look on her face before she suddenly leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. I was stunned by the kiss, though I certainly enjoyed it. She pulled back a few seconds later, looking self-conscious.

“I thought you didn’t like guys,” I said, quickly adding, “Not that I mind.”

“I’m just not really attracted to guys,” Julie corrected me, as though there was some kind of difference. She looked embarrassed as she looked me in the eyes and continued. “But I really do like you, and not just because you look so hot in my dreams.”

My heart jumped a little at that and I couldn’t resist joking, “Those dreams are pretty fun…”

“Yeah,” Julie agreed with a mischievious grin. “But I keep waking up too soon.”

“Definitely,” I responded while Isabelle agreed. I kept being left with blue balls, or at least I would have been if I actually had balls at the time.

“I’m not really into guys,” Julie told me, leaning forward again. “But I’m willing to try…”

With that, Julie and I went for another kiss. I started getting a hard-on almost immediately, but to my surprise, I didn’t get the nice nipping out sensation that I’d gotten used to at night. Isabelle reacted to that by giving me those sensations so I suddenly felt like I was getting wet between my legs at the same time I was hard. I wanted to rub my nipples but held off, knowing that it would have been weird when I didn’t even have breasts at the moment.

“That wasn’t bad,” Julie said when we pulled back, giving me a self-conscious smile. “I can do that a little more.”

“You know, if it’s a chore,” I started to tease her before she silenced me with another kiss.

Julie and I had been making out for several minutes when I suddenly felt a spirit at the edge of my consciousness, one which sent a cold chill down my spine. I pulled back from Julie and let out a gasp.

“Oh no,” I whispered. “Not now…”

“What’s wrong” Julie asked with a worried look.

“Company,” I answered grimly, silently cursing the bad timing. Then I shook my head and warned Julie, “You’ve never heard of the Sier.”

“What do you mean?” Julie asked as I left my bedroom with her following close behind.

In the living room, I found Aunt Cassandra talking to a middle-aged woman wearing a dark suit. She had relatively short hair that was dark brown that was starting to turn gray. When she saw me, she stopped to give me a look of stern disapproval.

Aunt Cassandra’s mom didn’t exactly hate me, but it was pretty close. After all, I was a living reminder that her husband had cheated on her with another woman.

I stared back at her then glanced to her familiar, what appeared to be a soap bubble floating in the air a short distance away. Her familiar was an elemental…an air spirit. As I watched, the bubble reformed and looked like a little transparent pixie floating in the air.

“Efram,” she greeted me coldly.

“Mrs. Augier,” I responded just as coldly.

A moment later, Clara Augier turned her attention to Julie, who was standing right behind me. She gave Julie a curious look and then she glanced back to Aunt Cassandra.

“This is Efram’s friend Julie,” Aunt Cassandra introduced her.

“She was just leaving,” I added, glancing to Julie who nodded.

I went out the door with Julie, who gave me a curious look and asked, “Okay, what was that about?”

“You remember when I told you about my asshole grandpa?” I asked her. When she nodded, I gestured back to the living room and added, “That was his widow…Aunt Cassandra’s mom. She doesn’t exactly like me.”

“Ah,” Julie responded with a look of understanding. “And I take it she’s…”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’ll talk to you later…”

“I’ll see you tonight,” she said with a wink and a grin before she hurried off.

I let out a sigh and then braced myself before turning to go back inside. Mrs. Augier stared at me with a strange expression and it took me a moment to realize that she wasn’t really staring at me. She was staring at Isabelle.

“I told you,” Aunt Cassandra said. “Efram has an unusual bond with his familiar.”

“So I see,” her mom responded. “Incredible…” She continued looking me over as she mused, “Bonded spirit to soul in such a way…”

“I didn’t know what to make of it,” Aunt Cassandra told her. “That’s why I called you...or at least one of the reasons.”

“I assume the other is that powerful spirit I felt,” Mrs. Augier stated, still staring at me.

“Yes,” Aunt Cassandra agreed. “It followed Efram here after his trial and decided to stick around.”

Mrs. Augier nodded at that and then announced, “I’ve never seen this kind of bond, but I have heard of it.” She looked to Aunt Cassandra and stated, “Efram is an avatar.”

“An avatar?” I blurted out in surprise while Mrs. Augier gave me a brief glare for interrupting her.

Aunt Cassandra had told me about avatars before, but I never expected to meet one much less actually be one. The Touched had sorcerers, the Were had mythics, and we Sier had avatars. They were extremely rare and supposedly very powerful.

“An avatar?” Aunt Cassandra repeated, just as surprised as I was. “But only a couple avatar emerge a generation…”

I tried to remember everything Aunt Cassandra had told me about avatars, but there wasn’t much. I was pretty sure a Sier became an avatar because they bonded with a certain kind of spirit, but I wasn’t positive.

“An avatar’s bond with their familiar is different,” Mrs. Augier said, staring at me again and making me uncomfortable. “They bond much more directly, fusing to nearly become one. The power that the familiar gains from the bond is directed back through the Sier, which is what makes an avatar so powerful.”

“Are you sure I’m an avatar?” I asked skeptically. “I’m not very powerful…”

“Efram is a dream walker,” Aunt Cassandra agreed.

I realized that Isabelle was being very attentive at the moment, as well as amused. Of course, she should be since they we were all talking about her as much as about me.

“This one does not like us,” Isabelle told me, and I could feel her staring back at Mrs. Augier. However, this didn’t seem to really bother my familiar.

I didn’t share Isabelle’s observation with Aunt Cassandra or her mom, and instead, I asked my familiar, “What do you think? Are we an avatar?”

There a sense of confirmation from Isabelle, though I could tell she was holding something back. Still, she didn’t volunteer whatever this was and I wasn’t about to push while Aunt Cassandra and her mom were standing right there.

“Very interesting,” Mrs. Augier mused.

After this, Mrs. Augier interrogated me on my gifts and just what Isabelle seemed capable of. I told her about being able to walk in the dream world and enter other people’s dreams, and even about being able to fight off some of the weaker spirits that prey on those dreams. She seemed interested in that, though a little disappointed that the only things Isabelle had done in the physical world were to occupy my mirror and protect me from balls of paper.

“I see,” Mrs. Augier said when I was done, giving me a skeptical look and obviously wondering if she’d been wrong about my being an avatar. I didn’t bother pointing out that Isabelle had agreed that I was.

“The other reason I called you was because of that malevolent spirit,” Aunt Cassandra told her mom, giving me a curious glance. “Efram said that it talked to him and claimed to have tormented his mother.”

Mrs. Augier gave me another speculative look at that, one that softened just a little. “It may be possible…”

“It’s also been causing nightmares all over town,” Aunt Cassandra added with a scowl. “I woke up from one myself, nearly screaming…” She shook her head, looking embarrassed at that. “From what I’ve heard around town, just about everyone was having nightmares last night.”

“Isabelle says it’s feeding on the fear,” I said awkwardly.

Mrs. Augier stared at me with a slight scowl before reluctantly admitting, “She may be correct. If so, it will only become more dangerous.”

Aunt Cassandra nodded agreement with a grim look. “It’s also drawing other spirits…potentially troublesome ones.” She shook her head and added, “If this continues, the whole town may become infested.”

“Driving spirits out is no simple task,” Mrs. Augier mused to herself. “And I fear the large one may be beyond our ability.” She glanced to me and continued, “If it was drawn by Efram, the most simple solution is to have the boy leave.”

“Leave?” I gasped in surprise.

“And have it keep following him?” Aunt Cassandra asked, obviously not liking that answer. She shook her head. “No, absolutely not. We need to find a real solution.”

Without a word, Mrs. Augier reached into her purse and pulled out a worn stack of tarot cards. She went to the kitchen table and began to spread the cards out while Aunt Cassandra and I watched in silence.

Mrs. Augier’s gift was that she could know things about the current status of other people’s lives, though she couldn’t see their futures. She usually used tarot cards, tea leaves, and other such things in order to focus her gifts, though I didn’t really understand why she had to. Ironically, the more she knew someone the less her gift actually worked on them.

I knew better than to underestimate Mrs. Augier’s gifts, even with her limitations. She’d made herself a small fortune by reading the lives of various CEOs and business owners, then using that information to decide whether or not to invest in their companies.

Once Mrs. Augier had the tarot cards spread out on the table, she flipped some over and looked at them, arranging the cards in different places. There appeared to be no pattern to what she was doing but she seemed to be getting what she needed. Unfortunately, the deepening scowl told me that it wasn’t good news.

“That malevolent spirit was drawn by the boy’s trial,” she finally said, surprising me since I didn’t know she could read spirits. “And by him specifically.” She looked at Aunt Cassandra and continued, “It drained energy from Efram during his trial, enough to give it strength to act. It appears to be distracted by the feast before it, but it still wants the boy.”

“It can’t have him,” Aunt Cassandra stated firmly with a look of defiance.

I felt a similar defiance from Isabelle and a determination to protect me and defeat the enemy. I agreed with her completely, thinking about my mom and how it had probably tormented her and driven her to her death. It was going to pay. If only I knew how.

“It grows stronger,” Mrs. Augier said with a grim look. “And more dangerous.” She looked at Aunt Cassandra as she added, “Together, the two of us might be able to drive some of the smaller spirits away, but we can do nothing against this monstrosity. Not now and certainly not once it becomes stronger.”

It didn’t escape my notice that she completely overlooked me in that comment about fighting back, in spite of the fact that I had already chased off some of those smaller spirits. It didn’t surprise me either since I knew Mrs. Augier had nothing but contempt for me. But in spite of what she thought, I planned on fighting that thing with everything I had. Isabelle agreed with me wholeheartedly.

--------------------

I was sprawled out on my bed, flipping through a well worn motorcycle magazine and listening to some tunes through my ear buds. I would have preferred to play around with my guitar before bed, but I couldn’t do that tonight because Mrs. Augier was in the guest bedroom beside my own. Aunt Cassandra didn’t mind my playing and often encouraged me to practice, but her mom was a lot less tolerant of the noise.

Mrs. Augier had been with us for the last two nights, staying to help deal with the situation of the dark spirit and the infestation its presence was causing. Truthfully, she might know a lot more about Sier history and traditions than even Aunt Cassandra, but there wasn’t much she could do to help. Still, I had to at least respect the fact that at least she was staying and trying.

The dark spirit had definitely become stronger and it seemed to cast a shadow over the entire town. The dark spirits that had been drawn to it like a moth to a flame were getting stronger and were beginning to affect the physical world. Even some of the spirits which were normally harmless were becoming tainted by its presence and were starting to become dangerous as well. Unfortunately, the effects of the dark one’s presence went beyond just the spirits. Most of the people in town were tired and grumpy due to all the nightmares, which was making the tension build.

Isabelle was frequently tense and I knew she wanted to do something about the dark spirit as well as all the smaller ones. I could feel her frustration echoing along with my own since there was nothing we could do in the physical world. All we could do was fight off a few smaller spirits in the dream plane and protect the dreams of the people we cared about, which came down to Julie and Aunt Cassandra.

The only real positive to the situation was that Aunt Cassandra had lifted my grounding, mostly so I could escape the constant disapproval of her mother. I’d taken full advantage of that freedom to get away from the house and hang out with Julie. Unfortunately, she had to stay away from our house for now since she didn’t want to draw Mrs. Augier’s attention. Mrs. Augier knew that there was a Touched family nearby, but not who they were. She was likely to be even more suspicious of Julie and her family than Aunt Cassandra had been.

My relationship with Julie was definitely odd, especially over the last couple days. We’d kissed and made out a few times, but I could tell that she just wasn’t into it as much as she was when we were in her dreams, or more specifically, when I looked like Isabelle. Still, I appreciated the fact that she was willing to at least try.

“At least we’ll see Julie again in a little bit,” I told Isabelle, who mentally nodded agreement. Of course, I knew that before we could spend any time with Julie, we’d have to get out of our own dreams and then chase the nightmares away from Aunt Cassandra and Julie. I wondered if I should protect Mrs. Augier’s dreams as well and reluctantly decided that I probably should. After all, she might be a bitch, but she was family of a sort.

I was about to start getting ready for bed when there was a faint knock on my door. A moment later, Aunt Cassandra poked her head into my room and gave me a gentle smile.

“How are you holding up?” she asked me, coming in and looking a little concerned.

“All right,” I responded with a shrug.

Aunt Cassandra sat down on the edge of my bed and sighed. “I know this isn’t easy for you…having my mother in the house like this.”

“She doesn’t exactly like me,” I responded wryly.

When Aunt Cassandra first decided to take care of me, she and her mom had argued quite a bit about what to do with me. Aunt Cassandra thought that I should be raised by family, even by an aunt I’d never met, while her mom thought I should be given over to some other Sier family…where she could forget I existed. Fortunately for me, Aunt Cassandra had ignored her mom’s advice, though I don’t think her mom ever forgave me for that.

“I know you won’t believe me,” Aunt Cassandra told me with a faint chuckle. “But she isn’t always that big of a bitch…” Then she paused to consider for a moment before adding, “Just most of the time.” I couldn’t resist chuckling at that myself.

“At least her familiar is cool,” I said with a grin. All it did was float around the room and creating a light breeze. It was actually kind of fun to watch.

Aunt Cassandra just smiled as she got up and started for the door. “Goodnight,” she told me, pausing as a dark expression passed over her face, perhaps as she remembered the fact that she would be facing more nightmares when she went to sleep. Then she gave me a serious look and said, “Be careful and try to stay out of trouble. You too Isabelle.” Isabelle merely seemed amused at that, though I could tell that she appreciated being remembered as well.

“We will,” I promised her, just to ease her worry. After all, I was confident that Isabelle and I could handle anything we ran into tonight.

Once Aunt Cassandra was gone, I finished getting ready and then climbed into my bed. At first, my thoughts were racing too much for me to get to sleep, but eventually my mind slowed and sleep slowly claimed me.

When I eventually settled into my dream, I was sitting atop a horse and riding, though I had no idea where. I glanced down at myself, seeing that I was in female form, as I was every time I dreamt. It no longer seemed all that strange to me, not when compared to everything else.

“Another one of your memories,” I mused to Isabelle, who confirmed that this was so. “It seems like every night we get your memories… I barely remember what it’s like to have my own dreams.”

Suddenly, Isabelle tensed inside of me and a second later I sensed the same thing she did. The dark one’s power was flowing into my dream and tainting it again. I braced myself to fight it off but the darkness hit with much more strength than ever before and the very fabric of my dream began to ripple.

A moment later, I was no longer on the horse but standing in the hallway of what looked like a hospital. I looked around nervously, wondering why I was here. However, I was certain that it wasn’t for anything good, not when the dark one was involved.

Just then, a middle-aged man appeared further down the hallway. He was tall and thin with almost no hair left on his head, and he was wearing a white coat. This man immediately started hurrying towards me, calling out, “There you are…”

“Who are you?” I demanded suspiciously, wondering who this man was. He certainly didn’t seem very dangerous, but I still had a bad feeling about him.

Suddenly, I felt myself being grabbed by both arms, making me gasp in surprise and struggled to pull away. Two large men had appeared behind me and each had a firm grip on one of my arms.

“We’ve got her Doc,” one of the large men told the balding man who stopped in front of me.

“Let me go,” I ordered them, struggling to pull loose but it was no good. They were too strong and their grips were too good.

“Be careful with this patient,” the man they’d identified as Doc told them. “She’s had a nasty break with reality. She’s delusional…sees things and hears voices.” Then he chuckled and added, “Even believes that she’s really a boy.”

“Crazy little nutjob aren’t you?” one of the large men commented with a chuckle.

I stared at Doc with in sudden realization at what was going on…then gulped in fear. This wasn’t just a bad dream. This had become my own personal nightmare. I screamed and tore myself loose from the men in a desperate attempt to escape, only to tall flat on my face. Then I found I couldn’t get up…couldn’t move my arms. I was now tied into a strait-jacket.

“Let me go,” I snarled angrily, only to have the two men pick me up.

“Don’t worry,” Doc told me with a bemused smile. “We’ll get you the care you need…”

The power of the dream pressed against me, against my awareness and very sense of self. I was beginning to feel dazed and confused though I tried to fight that and the two men at the same time. It did little good as the men picked me up and carried me down the hall.

I was taken into another room, a large one that looked like some sort of entertainment center, though there was nothing entertaining about it. I was plopped down in a chair and held down while an ugly woman who was dressed as a nurse approached me.

“You didn’t take your medication,” the nurse said, giving me a stern look. “That’s a very naughty girl.”

“How do you expect to get better if you don’t take your medication?” asked the big man who was holding me down.

“Go fuck yourself,” I spat out.

The large man suddenly pulled my head back and forced my mouth open. Before I realized it, the nurse shoved some pills in my mouth while the man held my mouth and nose shut until I swallowed.

“Good girl,” the nurse said, patting my head like I was a dog. “Behave and you’ll get better.”

With that, the nurse and men left me, though I wasn’t going anywhere just yet. I felt dizzy and even more confused while a fog seemed to fill my head. There was something inside me, something pushing but I couldn’t quite make sense of it or remember why it was important, only that it was.

As I sat there, I looked around at other people…other patients. One man stood in the corner, staring off into space with a blank look on his face while a little drool escaped from his mouth. Another man was banging his head against the wall.

“Who’s your daddy?” one guy exclaimed, staring at me with a lusty look.

A cold chill went up my spine at that and it only grew worse when the man who was banging his head began to mutter, “Who’s your daddy? Who’s your daddy?” Each time his head hit the wall, he repeated, “Who’s your daddy?”

I wanted to scream but I couldn’t quite remember why. My mouth started to move on its own as though I was trying to say something, but all that came out was drool that dribbled down my chin.

I had no idea how long I remained sitting where I was before someone led me to my room. It was small, cramped, and lacking any comforts at all. I was even locked in for the night, though I scarcely noticed it…or much of anything.

Before they locked me in at night, I was given a dose of medication and I was given another for breakfast. The day, night, and following day were all a big blur to me, though there was an undercurrent of fear and frustration. Every time I tried to think about it, it was as though something outside pushed on me and made me confused again. Something inside kept trying to fight but was overpowered each time.

Time had little meaning to me so I didn’t know how long I was here, feeling trapped and powerless...unsure of everything around me and even myself. Doc and the nurse both kept telling me I was sick so I knew I must be. They said that if I cooperate I’ll get better. I’m tired of feeling scared and lost. I vaguely wanted to get better.

Eventually, one of the orderlies led me to Doc’s office, grabbing me by the shoulder and acting as though I might escape at any moment, in spite of the fact that I was still in a strait-jacket. I was nearly pulled into the small office and pushed down into the chair while Doc watched me from across his desk.

“You’re a very sick girl,” Doc announced while the orderly stood back. “We are trying to help you here…”

“I’m sick?” I mumbled in response.

“Oh yes,” Doc told me as a malicious gleam filled his eyes. Somehow, I could sense that there was something dark there…something dark and dangerous. I didn’t understand why, but I felt a strange certainty about that.

“You’re crazy,” the orderly said with a laugh. “Bat shit fucking crazy…”

“No,” I protested weakly, feeling fear and confusion. “I’m not…”

“Of course you are,” Doc told me with an evil smirk. “You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t…”

“You’re just like her,” the orderly taunted me with a smirk of his own. “You’re just like your mother…”

Doc leaned forward and gave me a smug look. “You see things that can’t possibly be real. You hear voices that don’t exist.”

Just then, almost as if on cue, I heard a voice in my head. “Don’t listen to him,” it said faintly, almost as though screaming from a very long distance.”

“We’re going to fix you,” Doc explained with a dark grin. “Just like I fixed her…”

With that, Doc set a gun on the desk between us and all I could do was stare at it with a feeling of shock that somehow managed to rise through the fog in my head. I had a flash of a woman putting it to her head and pulling the trigger.

“No,” I tried to protest, though I didn’t have the energy to put much force into it.

“You’re sick,” Doc told me with an obviously mock sympathy. “You’re broken…”

“Damaged goods, babe,” the orderly added.

“Your mother was a lunatic,” Doc commented in the same kind of tone he might use for discussing the weather. However, there was a sadistic gleam in his eyes. “You have no father…or if you did…he was probably a lunatic too…”

“You’re the kid of two crazies,” the orderly laughed. “Of course you’re fucking nuts too…”

“No one wants you,” Doc continued. “You have no reason to live…”

I stared at him, feeling as though there was a massive lump of lead in my stomach. Those words went straight into my gut, painfully so.

“Don’t listen,” the voice in the back of my head tried telling me, but it was so faint I could barely hear anything.

“You’re worthless,” Doc insisted. “Broken. Damaged. Unwanted…” Then he gestured to the gun and said, “The cure is right here. It can end all of your pain and suffering…”

Suddenly, the orderly laughed, “But you ain’t gonna get the cure yet…”

“You haven’t suffered nearly enough,” Doc told me with a dark laugh. “But you will… Your suffering will feed me, and eventually, you will beg me for the release…” He put his hand on the gun and added, “But unlike your mother, you will never get that release…”

“At least not until he gets tired of you,” the orderly added with a dark laugh.

The fear I felt only grew stronger, especially when the orderly actually picked me up and slung me over his shoulder. He marched me down the hallway and back to the day room where all the patients were gathered.

When we went into the room, the orderly set me down and taunted me, asking, “Guess which one is your daddy…”

“I’m your daddy,” one fat man exclaimed cheerfully while he wiped a handful of feces on another patient.

“No, I am,” the other patient called out.

Every one of the patients began to yell out that they were my dad, even the women. A wild eyed woman who had pulled out half her hair laughed gleefully with a manic look in her eyes. With each claim, I winced in horror, feeling worse and worse about myself.

“I’m broken,” I whispered, knowing that it was true. “No one wants me…”

“I want you,” one of my so called daddys said, giving me a lusty look before he ran to me.

My strait-jacket was gone, though I don’t remember when it had been removed. However, the freedom to move my arms did no good as the patient threw me on the ground and then sat on me, grabbing my breasts with his hands.

“No,” I tried to push him off, feeling a surge of terror.

The other patients all rushed over as well with two of them grabbing my hands to hold them down while another two grabbed my feet. The one who was straddling me laughed in glee as he played with my breasts and then bent over to kiss me.

“New toys,” the one on top of me exclaimed gleefully.

“Me next,” the one who’d been smearing feces called out.

Then the patients began tearing off my shirt and pants, their intentions being horrifically obvious. The orderlies and nurse just stood back and watched with grins on their faces.

“No,” I called out, frantically trying to fight against these patients while I grew increasingly desperate. “Please no…”

“You’re all alone, girlie,” the nurse called out. “No one is going to help you…”

I screamed and struggled even harder while one patient began to feel the feminine parts between my legs. Then he stood up and pulled down his own pants before staring at me with a vapid grin on his face. Drool dribbled down his chin and filled me with revulsion.

Then, something inside of me stirred and I suddenly remembered that I wasn’t alone. That voice in my head was with me.

“Not alone,” the voice whispered, growing stronger now that I was able to pay attention to her. “We are never alone.”

I grabbed onto that, clinging to the presence inside myself. It felt so familiar, so comforting. Then a name came to me.

“Isabelle,” I exclaimed, suddenly remembering her name…suddenly remembering her. In an instant, everything came back to me and all the cloudiness and confusion cleared. “It’s just a dream…”

This was no mere dream but a nightmare, the worst I’d ever had in my entire life. This was a thousand times worse than the zombies and I let out a scream as my terror turned to rage.

Isabelle’s power surged through my body and I suddenly began to glow with a silvery white light. I pushed outward and all the patients were flung away from me. Then I jumped back to my feet, forming a sword in my hand.

“NO,” I snarled, focusing on my anger as it helped keep the fear away. I could feel the dark power of this nightmare trying to overwhelm me again but I fought against it, knowing that I couldn’t let it take me again. “Not again… Never again…”

There was a sense of absolute agreement from Isabelle. We were both pissed that the dark one would attack me like this…that it would attack US like this. It had hit me with everything I truly feared but I wasn’t going to let it beat me…beat us.

Isabelle’s power surged through me and exploded from my back as a pair of glowing wings appeared. I screamed and released the power from one hand, sending a wave of light out to crash into the patients. A half dozen of the lunatics faded away and vanished.

“You’ve a bad girl,” one of the orderlies insisted.

“You’re very sick,” the nurse told me though she had an evil glow in her eyes. “You won’t get better if you don’t cooperate…”

“FUCK YOU,” I screamed, slashing out with my sword and slicing through one of the orderlies and then impaling the nurse. These weren’t real people, just twisted figures from my nightmare, no more real than the zombies had been. “Fuck you all…”

The tainted nightmare pressed against me even harder and I could feel the big dark one pushing with an immense amount of power. A part of me began to feel afraid and confused again but I drew strength from Isabelle. The two of us pushed back with everything we had, releasing a massive explosion of light.

The dream shattered around us and faded away, along with the dream world. I felt myself being pulled back to my body and the real world, though I was exhausted from the effort of freeing myself.

I bolted upright in bed, shaking as the memories and feelings of that dream still clung to me. I gasped for breath, trying to reassure myself that I was indeed safe and awake. Isabelle assured me that we were.

Suddenly, Aunt Cassandra exclaimed, “Efram,” and grabbed me in a hug before I’d even realized she was there.

“What…?” I blinked in confusion. “What are you doing in my room?” Then I looked around and was startled to realize that there was daylight coming from my bedroom window. “What time is it?

“Oh God, you’re finally awake,” Aunt Cassandra told me, pulling away and staring at me with a look of immense relief.

I stared at Aunt Cassandra, having a bad feeling about the way she was acting. “How…how long have I been asleep?”

“Two days,” Mrs. Augier answered from the doorway, giving me a curious look.

“Two days?” I blurted out in surprise.

“You’ve ben unconscious for two days,” Aunt Cassandra agreed with a gentle smile and a worried look. “I was so worried…” She quickly hugged me again.

I gulped, trying to absorb that. I’d been trapped in that horrible nightmare for two days…the nightmare that still might be waiting for me the next time I went to sleep. I felt a cold terror creep over me at the very thought of ever going back…and of ever facing the dark spirit again. Yet I knew without a doubt that I would face it again.

--------------------

I sat at the dining table, digging into a stack of pancakes and gulping them down as fast as I could. I hadn’t eaten a thing in two days and was making up for it.

Aunt Cassandra pulled another batch of pancakes off the griddle, the last batch she was going to make. Then she took a long gulp from an energy drink, the second can I’d seen her down since I woke up. She still looked exhausted though.

Mrs. Augier looked exhausted as well, though she was sipping coffee rather than an energy drink. She hadn’t said much since I woke up though she looked grim and very worried.

“You know,” Aunt Cassandra told me with a forced smile. “You’re probably the only one in town to get any real sleep over the last couple days.”

I snorted at that. “I rather would have been awake.” I still hadn’t told her the details of my nightmare, only that it had been bad.

Aunt Cassandra nodded in understanding. “Every time I go to sleep, I have a bad nightmare.” Her mom nodded agreement from beside her. “Everyone in town has been having these nightmares.”

“The enemy has become much stronger,” Isabelle told me grimly.

“The dark spirit has become more powerful,” Mrs. Augier stated, repeating what Isabelle told me though I was pretty sure she couldn’t hear Isabelle. “And those parasite spirits are becoming strong enough to affect the physical world.”

Mrs. Augier had been talking to Aunt Cassandra more than me, but it was me that Aunt Cassandra looked to. “We’ve called on some other Sier to help, but we don’t know when they’ll be able to arrive. Or if they’ll arrive in time…” She looked extremely worried, though the effect was broken by a loud yawn.

“I can feel it,” I said, closing my eyes and feeling the dark one’s power. It seemed to smother the whole area. It was definitely stronger than when I’d gone to bed.

After I finished eating, Mrs. Augier left the room while I helped Aunt Cassandra clean up the kitchen. She kept giving me odd looks…worried looks.

Finally, Aunt Cassandra asked, “What happened?”

“I…,” I started, then paused with a lump in my throat. I didn’t want to talk about it, but that was the very reason I opened my mouth and quietly said, “I spent the last two days in a strait-jacket.” Aunt Cassandra gasped at that while I gave a weak smile and added, “I think I understand what my mom went through…”

“Oh,” Aunt Cassandra gasped, her eyes going wide. Without another word, she grabbed me in a hug and just held me.

Once we’d finished cleaning up from breakfast and I’d gotten showered and changed, Aunt Cassandra announced that we needed to go to the store. Apparently, we were running really low on coffee as well as a few other supplies.

I had to climb in the back seat of the car which annoyed me because Mrs. Augier claimed my usual shotgun spot. Still, I didn’t have to sit beside her and at least in the back seat I was outside of her attention and didn’t have to see her giving me the stink eye.

When we reached the store, I saw that we weren’t the only ones going for coffee. The coffee section of the store was nearly empty and other people were already staggering down the aisle towards it, looking exhausted and burnt out. In a way, they almost reminded me of the zombies from my nightmare. In fact, everyone I saw in the store had an almost haunted look about them. That wasn’t too surprising considering just how much I could feel the dark spirits presence over the entire town.

I left Aunt Cassandra and Mrs. Augier to do their shopping and made my way to the magazine rack where I flipped through a guitar magazine. But in spite of having a cool article in front of me, I barely paid any attention to it. I was distracted by the dark spirit’s power and how it was smothering the town. I had a feeling that the town wouldn’t be able to withstand this much longer before people either began going insane or moving away in droves.

“We have to stop it,” I said grimly, feeling a sense of agreement from Isabelle. Unfortunately, knowing that it had to be stopped wasn’t the same thing as knowing how.

While I was lost in my thoughts, I suddenly heard a familiar voice call out, “Efram…”

I looked over and saw Julie coming down the aisle towards me, looking just as tired and shaken as everyone else. However, she at least had a smile and looked a little more lively. My eyes glanced to the shopping basket in her hand and I noted it was half filled with energy drinks.

“You’re all right,” Julie exclaimed, grabbing me in a hug. Then she pulled back and said, “I was so worried…”

“So…you heard?” I asked awkwardly.

“I called and your aunt said you were in a coma,” Julie blurted out. “I got worried when you didn’t show up in my dreams…” She gave me a look that seemed a mix of relief and curiosity.

“That bastard trapped me in my own dream,” I explained with a weak smile. “In my own nightmare…”

Julie stared at me for a moment with a wide eyed look before quietly asking, “How bad was it?”

I hesitated a moment, shuddering at the memory. “You remember your snake dreams?” At her nod, I added, “It was like being stuck in that for two days.”

“Oh shit,” Julie gasped, staring at me with a look of pure sympathy. “How’d you get out?”

“Isabelle,” I answered with a wry smile.

“We are stronger when together,” Isabelle told me proudly.

“My dreams have been really bad lately,” Julie commented with a scowl. “Everyone’s have…”

Julie and I continued talking about this until I saw Aunt Cassandra and Mrs. Augier coming towards us. Then, we switched topics to keep Mrs. Augier from realizing just how much Julie knew about the situation and the Sier. We continued talking even after we’d gone through the checkout and started for the parking lot.

“My car is parked over there,” Julie told me, pointing in the direction away from the one we were going. “It’s a total piece of crap.” She sounded cheerful as she said that.

“At least you have a car,” I pointed out.

“You can have a car when you buy one,” Aunt Cassandra reminded me with a faint smile.

I just chuckled at that. “I was thinking more in the line of a motorcycle…”

“Reckless,” Mrs. Augier muttered disapprovingly. “Those things are dangerous…”

I bit my tongue at that, wanting to point out that riding a motorcycle was certainly no more dangerous than fighting nasty spirits. However, Julie’s presence kept me from doing so.

Suddenly, car horns began honking from the street and I saw a woman running towards the store with a look of fear on her face. “What’s going on?” I called out as she was passing near us.

“There’s a robot,” the woman answered, not bothering to slow down, only to gesture back towards the road.

“A robot?” Aunt Cassandra asked with look that said she thought the woman had been seeing things.

“I’ve got to see this,” Julie exclaimed with a grin, already running towards the street. I didn’t hesitate to follow behind her, curious to see what was going on as well.

As we got closer to the road, I saw a few other people running as well, and a moment later, I saw why. There was a metal creature walking down the middle of the road, standing about eight feet tall and looking almost like it could have come straight from the Transformer movies. It was humanoid in shape and did look like a robot, but it looked like a robot made entire out of scrap metal and random bits of junk.

The metal creature took several steps, moving slow and awkwardly. It suddenly swung a massive arm and smashed in the side of a car. The thing was slow and clumsy, but it was obviously dangerous too.

“It really is a robot,” Julie blurted out in disbelief while Aunt Cassandra and Mrs. Augier caught up to us.

“That’s not a robot,” I responded with a gulp.

Julie could see the metal monstrosity the same way all the normals around us could, but I could see the spirit that was powering and controlling it. It was the gremlin from the junk yard, obviously having become much more powerful and malevolent. Usually, gremlins are just mischief makers, and I’d never heard of one as dangerous as this. If that dark spirit could do this to a normally harmless spirit…

“Get away from here,” Aunt Cassandra ordered, though I wasn’t sure if she was talking to Julie, me, or both of us.

“Look out,” Julie cried out to some guy who’d abandoned his car and was trying to run away. The metal monstrosity was slowly going after him. “leave him alone…”

Julie ran towards the metal monster, waving her hands and trying to distract it while Mrs. Augier yelled, “Are you insane, girl?”

“Pretty much,” I muttered as hurried towards Julie. “Come on…”

“That thing is going to hurt people,” Julie cried out as she backed away. Then she paused with a look of determination on her face.

Without any further warning, Julie ran towards the metal monstrosity again and grabbed hold of its leg. I immediately saw its leg begin to turn red as the metal began to rust and spread. In mere moments, most of its body was covered with rust.

“My parents are gonna kill me for this,” Julie exclaimed as she jumped back.

The rust continued its progression, not appearing to need any further contact from Julie. The whole metal structure began to crumble away, starting with the leg she’d first touched. A few seconds later, the leg collapsed completely and the metal form smashed to the ground. It struggled for several more seconds before it finished disintegrating.

“What in the world is that?” Mrs. Augier demanded, staring at Julie with a suspicious and somewhat hostile look.

Julie gave her a defiant look and proudly announced, “I’m Touched.”

There was a look of fear in Mrs. Augier’s eyes followed by one of rage. “YOU KNEW,” she accused Aunt Cassandra.

“We don’t have time for this,” Aunt Cassandra responded, pointing to the pile of rust, or more specifically, to the angry gremlin that was climbing out of it.

The gremlin was larger than it had been in the junk yard and somewhat nastier looking, as though it had been corrupted to its very being. The metal creature it had created may have been destroyed, but the gremlin remained unharmed. If it still had enough power left, it might even be able to create a replacement.

“Whisperwing,” Aunt Cassandra called out and her familiar dove out of the sky and attacked the gremlin.

Mrs. Augier glared at me and then Aunt Cassandra before she turned her attention to her own familiar, who’d been floating just beside her. In an instant, the soap bubble transformed into a transparent pixie that launched itself at the gremlin as well. I could feel a swift breeze as it flew past.

The animal spirit and air elemental kept attacking the gremlin, though it kept swatting at them and hissing, not seeming to be hurt. I watched the battle for a few seconds and then glanced to Julie, who just stood there with a confused look on her face. That just reminded me that she couldn’t see the fight going on right in front of us.

“Damn,” I snarled, wishing that there was something I could do. Whisperwing and Mrs. Augier’s spirits weren’t doing anything and the gremlin looked as though he was about to turn and run. Unfortunately, I was nearly powerless outside the dream realm.

“Not powerless,” Isabelle assured me with a sense of determination. “We are never powerless…”

A moment later, I felt Isabelle extending her essence through me, pushing it out through my hand. My palm burned with a cold fire while the now familiar looking sword appeared. I clutched the sword, feeling a little stunned since this was the first time that we’d done anything like this in the physical world. Then again, Isabelle had extended those tendrils of her essence to block the wads of paper in class as well as Bobby’s punches, so maybe this wasn’t really much different.

“What the…?” Aunt Cassandra gasped, staring at my sword.

I charged the gremlin while Whisperwing and the air elemental flew out of my way. The gremlin slashed at me with its clawed hands but I swung down with my sword, slicing its hand off at the wrist. Then I swung the sword again while the gremlin scrambled back to escape me. One more slash and I’d removed its head. The gremlin faded away, its essence expelled from this plane of existence.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Aunt Cassandra blurted out in surprise.

“Neither did I,” I muttered in response.

“What am I missing?” Julie asked me with a frown. “Did you and Isabelle do something?”

Mrs. Augier stood there with a look of cold anger on her face, glaring first at Julie and then at me. Not only had Julie revealed that she was Touched, but she also just proved that she knew of the existence of the Sier, and of my familiar specifically. I had a feeling that I’d rather go up against that gremlin again than face the conversation that was surely to come.

--------------------

I was in the living at home, under the intense scrutiny of Mrs. Augier. At the moment, I really envied Julie since she’d been able to excuse herself and go home right after the confrontation with the gremlin.

Julie had said that she was leaving to check up on her family since she didn’t know if anything else weird would show up. That might be true, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t her only reason. I knew that was largely an excuse so that she could avoid having to face Mrs. Augier.

“You had a Touched in this house,” Mrs. Augier told Aunt Cassandra in a tone that was more than a little disapproving. “A Touched who knows what we are…”

“Yes I did,” Aunt Cassandra responded with a deceptive calmness. That might have come off as being cool if it wasn’t for the fact that she let out a loud yawn.

“Don’t you know how dangerous that is?” Mrs. Augier demanded. “Every Touched is a potential threat…”

“Julie isn’t a threat,” I argued. “She’s my friend. I trust her.”

Mrs. Augier scowled at that and shook her head. “I will not allow your poor judgment to endanger my daughter.”

“I think I have a say in whether I’m endangered or not,” Aunt Cassandra said, giving her mother a flat look. “Julie found out by accident. Regardless, what’s done is done. We have more important things to worry about now.”

“More important than having sorcerers hunt you down?” Mrs. Augier snapped. Then she turned to me and demanded, “This is your fault isn’t it…? You have no respect for our ways and how we’ve survived for all these centuries… And you were the one who drew that dark spirit here…”

“ENOUGH,” Aunt Cassandra exclaimed, slamming her hand onto the table and getting her mom’s full attention. “I will NOT have you bad mouthing Efram under my roof.”

“Cassandra,” Mrs. Augier stated, puffing herself up a little for what was obviously about to be a reminder as to who was the mother and deserved respect.

“Efram is not responsible for father’s mistakes,” Aunt Cassandra stated firmly, giving her mom a defiant look. “And neither was his mother. It isn’t fair or right to keep taking it out on him.”

Mrs. Augier looked stunned at that outburst, though only for a moment. She glared at her daughter and said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“You weren’t the only one father hurt,” Aunt Cassandra insisted firmly, growing angry. “And you certainly weren’t the worst. I had a sister that I never met…who was trapped in a living hell and died before I ever even had a chance to meet her.” Aunt Cassandra appeared to be growing more angry with every word. “I sometimes have nightmares about what it was like for her…and I wonder…if things were just a little different…would father have abandoned me the same way.”

I stared at Aunt Cassandra in surprise. I’d always known that I had my own issues about my mom, but it never dawned on me that she might have some as well.

“Father hurt your pride,” Aunt Cassandra continued angrily. “But he hurt Efram and his mother a great deal more. You’ve been nothing but hostile to Efram since I took him in, though he’s done absolutely nothing to earn your scorn. If you can’t put your grudge away and treat him with the courtesy he deserves…you’re welcome to leave this house and not come back.”

Mrs. Augier stood there with a look of stunned disbelief on her face, being unable to speak for perhaps the first time I’d met her. I just looked at Aunt Cassandra, more than a little impressed and touched by her words.

With that, Aunt Cassandra turned and walked away while I did the same since I didn’t want to be alone with Mrs. Augier after that blow up. Aunt Cassandra went outside while I went back to my room.

“We must defeat the enemy,” Isabelle told me insistently. “It has grown too strong…”

“I know,” I agreed, thinking of the gremlin and how it had been unable to unleash that metal monstrosity onto the physical world. Who knew what the dark one and all those other spirits would be able to do? “But how?”

Isabelle didn’t answer me, though I could sense her emotions enough now to know that she felt frustrated too. I had a feeling that there was something else as well, something she wasn’t saying.

After a few minutes, I went out to find Aunt Cassandra and thank her for standing up for me. Once again, she’d proven that she had my back, going even further than I’d ever expected.

I found Aunt Cassandra out in the back yard, crouched down and talking to what looked like a transparent squirrel. It was a squirrel spirit, though it turned and ran off into the woods just a moment after I saw it.

Aunt Cassandra gave me a weak smile, then said, “Most of the animal and nature spirits have either fled or gone into hiding. They’re afraid of that dark spirit…for good reason.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, suspecting that she was trying to avoid thinking about the fight she’d just had with her own mother over me. “Isabelle says it’s gotten too strong…”

“I hope the Sier we called are able to get her soon,” Aunt Cassandra told me with a worried look. “I have a feeling that by tomorrow, it will be too late.” Isabelle agreed with Aunt Cassandra.

I stood there in silence, thinking about our enemy and how scary it was. I was terrified of it, yet I hated it and wanted to destroy it at the same time. Unfortunately, I had no doubt that it was far too powerful for me to beat, especially in the physical world.

“Maybe,” I said, remembering what Mrs. Augier had said after her tarot reading… “If it’s here because of me...then maybe I should go. Maybe it will follow me and leave everyone else alone…”

“I don’t think it will be that easy,” Aunt Cassandra told me with a sad smile. She put a hand on my shoulder and added, “But I’ll try to protect you the best I can.”

“Fleeing would be futile,” Isabelle stated from inside me. “The enemy would not abandon a feast such as this…not even for us. It would destroy this town and then seek us out again even more powerful than before.”

I let out a sigh, then told Aunt Cassandra what Isabelle said. It appeared that we didn’t have any choice but to try stopping it before it was completely unstoppable.

Aunt Cassandra and I went back into the house together, though I was a little surprised to find that Mrs. Augier wasn’t there. I frowned, feeling oddly disappointed. She hated me enough that she’d actually left rather than play nice.

Aunt Cassandra looked a little hurt, but she didn’t say anything. I was trying to think of what I could say to try making her feel better when the phone began to ring.

I picked up the phone, only to hear Julie scream, “ZOMBIES!”

“What?” I gasped, feeling a little confused.

“There are fucking zombies in my yard,” Julie exclaimed, her voice filled with fear. Then she yelled out, though fainter, as though no longer speaking into the phone. “Dad… Watch out…” The phone went dead.

“Julie,” I cried out in worry.

“What?” Aunt Cassandra demanded. “What’s wrong?”

“She said there are zombies there,” I blurted out, already moving to the door. “I’ve got to go help…”

“Just a moment,” Aunt Cassandra said, rushing to her bedroom and coming back a moment later with her shotgun in hand. “I’m coming too.”

We arrived at Julie’s house just a couple minutes later and I immediately saw that she hadn’t been kidding about the zombies. There were seven of them in the yard, looking as though they’d stepped out of some zombie horror movie. But these weren’t people in makeup. These were real animated corpses.

Julie and her family were in the middle of the yard, fighting back against the zombies. There was a man and woman who I assumed to be her parents, and there was a boy who appeared to be about eleven. This had to be the bratty brother that Julie had told me about.

I was relieved that Julie and her family didn’t seem to be hurt, but I was definitely worried. I looked at the zombies again and grimaced.

Zombies were usually the domain of necromancers, a type of Sier who had the gift of being able to control ghosts. They could make the ghosts more powerful and force them to control dead bodies, especially the bodies of their former hosts. However, only two of these zombies were of that type. These were ghosts from the graveyard who’d become strong enough to animate the bodies on their own.

The five other zombies were definitely animated corpses, but they weren’t being controlled by ghosts. Instead, each had black spirit tendrils running through them, tendrils that trailed behind them like some kind of chain that vanished into the spirit plane. These five were being animated and controlled directly by the dark one.

“Our enemy makes its move,” Isabelle said from inside me with a powerful sense of determination.

“Julie,” I cried out, getting her attention while Aunt Cassandra opened up with her shotgun and blew the head off one of the zombies.

“Efram,” Julie cried out in relief.

“This is a sorcerer’s work,” her dad snarled with a worried look. “Normals shouldn’t be involved.” Then he used a baseball bat to swing at the nearest zombie and drive it back.

“These weren’t created by any Touched,” Aunt Cassandra said with a grimace, earning looks of surprise from Julie’s parents.

Aunt Cassandra aimed her shotgun and shot at a second zombie while Whisperwing began dive bombing the zombies, distracting the spirits that controlled them. I took a deep breath and summoned my sword, though it took a bit out of me to do so.

“Fucking rotten piece of shit,” I exclaimed, slicing through one of the ghosts and dispelling it. With the ghost gone, the corpse collapsed to the ground, no longer animated.

“You’re Touched,” Julie’s mom cried out with a look of relief.

Julie swung a large kitchen knife at a zombie, impaling it in the chest. The zombie jerked and the knife was pulled from her hand, though it remained sticking out of his chest.

“Since you’re Touched,” Julie’s dad said with a weak grin.

He held out his hand and the ground beneath one of the zombies suddenly sank in, creating a bit of a hole. I’d noticed similar holes scattered about the yard. Unfortunately, the hole wasn’t very deep and the zombie was able to climb out of it without much trouble.

“Why can’t they be made of metal?” Julie asked with a frustrated look.

“It’s the zombie apocalypse,” her brother cried out, actually looking happy. Then he stuck his tongue out at Julie and smugly announced, “I told you it was real…”

“Bite me,” Julie told her brother as she backed away from the zombie, kicking at its legs so that it fell over. “Thank God they’re kind of slow and clumsy.”

“Don’t let them bite you,” her brother warned her. “You’ll turn into a zombie too…”

“It doesn’t work that way,” I pointed out, slicing through the tendril that connected one of the zombies to the dark spirit. The body collapsed to the ground.

I grimaced, feeling tired. Calling up the sword in the real world was taking a LOT more energy than it did in the dream world. My hand was also starting to feel weird and I didn’t know how much longer I could keep this up.

Isabelle radiated determination from within and I knew that there was no way she’d give up. I felt the same way so braced myself to keep going as long as I possibly could.

Julie’s dad used his talent to slow the zombies down by creating holes while I dove forward and sliced through its connection to the dark spirit. Aunt Cassandra reloaded the shotgun and blew apart another zombie.

In almost no time at all, only two zombies remained. I was exhausted and it took nearly everything I had just to keep standing. The sword flickered in my hand and faded out as I could no longer keep it formed.

“Only two more,” Julie told me with a grin.

Suddenly, the presence of the dark spirit grew much stronger, strong enough that it was nearly overpowering. I gasped under the power and turned to look as a new figure arrived.

The newcomer was seven feet tall and shaped like a man, though his entire body was pitch black. A dozen black tentacles emerged from his body at various random places, including one from the back of his head. Two of these tentacles led to the remaining zombies.

“Our enemy,” Isabelle exclaimed from within me, projecting a fierce rage and determination.

I stared at the dark figure in front of me, realizing that this was the dark spirit itself…not merely another decoy. It had finally appeared to me directly, though I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or afraid at that.

“What is that thing?” Julie’s mom blurted out, revealing that he dark spirit had become strong enough that it could now be seen by people besides Sier.

“Some kind of conjuring,” Julie’s dad answered grimly. “It must have been created by the sorcerer who created those zombies.”

“You,” I spat out, forming my sword again though it took everything I had.

The dark spirit looked at me and then it laughed. “At last, we meet directly. Oh yes, you will be quite a meal… You taste so much like your mother that I cannot wait to devour you…”

“If you wanted me,” I demanded, “then why attack them…” I gestured to Julie and her family.

“You care for the female,” the dark spirit answered with a cruel tone. I had the clear sense that he was playing with me. “I have watched you guard her dreams. I will take that which you care for and destroy it. I will force you to watch as I consume her mind and drive her to madness. As I will do to all you care for…” It turned its attention to Aunt Cassandra.

“I’m not helpless victim,” Aunt Cassandra told it firmly. “I know what you are.”

“Do you?” the dark spirit asked with a cruel laugh. “You do not possess the power to stand against me… None of you do.” It looked back at me and added, “I will savor breaking you.”

With that, the two remaining zombies launched themselves at Julie. I jumped at them, slashing at the dark tendril that tied one of them to the evil spirit, but another tendril suddenly wrapped itself around my ankle and pulled me away.

“Let go of me,” Julie screamed while her dad tried hitting the zombie with his baseball bat.

Aunt Cassandra opened fire on the zombie, unloading two rounds into its torso and doing enough damage that it fell apart. I slashed at the tendril to the second zombie, severing it from the dark one’s control. But while I was doing that, the other zombies we’d already defeated began to stand up again. The dark one had connected new tendrils to them while I’d been distracted.

“Oh shit,” I blurted out.

I charged the dark one, determined to drive my sword into his chest. He just stood there and allowed me do to so, then laughed when it did nothing at all. Then he backhanded me, sending me flying back. The sword vanished from my hand before I even hit the ground.

“You are powerless against me,” the dark spirit announced, gesturing to Julie who was now being picked up by three zombies.

“Let her go,” I demanded, even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good.

I struggled to get to my feet, watching in horror as the zombies brought Julie to the dark spirit. Aunt Cassandra and Julie’s dad tried going after her while Julie’s mom pulled her younger brother back and away from the fighting. Then the dark one’s tentacles lashed out, sending everyone flying back except for Julie.

“Let me go you damn monster,” Julie ordered the dark spirit. She was obviously terrified but was doing a good job of keeping it under control.

“Your death will be slow and agonizing,” the dark spirit told Julie calmly before he turned to look at me again. “Know this little one… I chose her because of you. Her suffering is your fault.”

I started towards the dark spirit, barely able to move my body and using everything I had to do even this much. Using that sword in the physical world had taken too much of my reserves.

“Let her go,” I told the dark spirit, terrified of what he was going to do to Julie. I knew that it was doing this just to hurt me, to make me angry and full of guilt. Unfortunately, knowing that didn’t mean it wasn’t working. “Please…take me instead. I’m the one you want…”

The dark one merely stared at me, seeming amused. “You will suffer greatly before I take you. You will lose everyone and everything you care for. In the end, you will beg me to end your suffering, though no such release will come. You shall not escape as your mother did.”

I tried to charge the dark spirit but it merely swatted me aside as though I was little more than a nuisance. I heard Julie crying my name as I was flung back, hitting the ground hard. Then I forced myself to sit up again, just in time to see the dark one vanish along with Julie and the zombies.

“They’re gone,” Julie’s dad cried out.

“It took Julie,” her brother exclaimed.

I gasped in horror, knowing that it was my fault, that I’d failed Julie and everyone else. She was going to die because she knew me. I grimaced in pain and tried to get to my feet, but then my muscles all turned to rubber and I collapsed to the ground right before darkness claimed me.

--------------------

I floated in the darkness for some time before I became aware of my surroundings. As I did so, I found that there was now a floor, and somehow enough light to see by though there was nothing to see.

“I’m dreaming,” I said, realizing that I was currently in my female form. I looked down at my breasts and was only faintly startled by the fact that I was wearing a silvery white dress.

Then I looked around and realized that this was neither the dream realm or my own dream. I was somewhere else, somewhere that was very akin to my dreams but which wasn’t quite there.

“I failed,” I cried out in anger and grief, tears running down my cheeks. “He’s going to kill Julie…”

“The enemy is strong,” Isabelle said from our shared mouth.

“I was powerless against him,” I spat out bitterly.

Suddenly, a large mirror appeared in front of me and I could see my own reflection, or at least Isabelle’s reflection. But when I tilted my head, the reflection didn’t mimic the move. Instead, she stared at me with a sad look.

“We are never powerless,” Isabelle told me from the mirror, speaking from there rather than from our shared mouth. “Unfortunately, the enemy is stronger than we are at this time.”

“Damn it,” I cried out, wanting to hit the mirror in frustration but holding myself back. “She’s going to die and it’s my fault…”

“Not our fault,” Isabelle assured me. “It is the enemy’s doing, not ours. Do not fall into its trap.” Then she paused a moment before adding, “She is not yet dead. As long as she lives, there is hope.”

“But how?” I demanded. “How can we beat him? He’s stronger than us. Maybe if we got him in the dream realm…”

Isabelle was silent for several very long seconds before she responded, “There is a way.”

“What?” I asked her, feeling a surge of hope. “What do you mean?”

“We must become stronger,” Isabelle explained gently. “We must assume our full power.”

I stared at Isabelle, not sure what she meant. “What do you mean our full power?”

“We must complete our bond,” she told me with a faint smile.

I blinked at that, not sure what she meant since the two of us had already bonded. However, I didn’t have to speak these questions aloud as Isabelle knew what I was thinking.

“Our bond has slowly grown stronger,” Isabelle explained. “Our powers grow as it does. But it is not yet complete. I did not wish to push this upon you until you were ready…until we were ready.”

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. Isabelle had already done that by providing me hope. However, she seemed reluctant to continue.

Though I knew I didn’t need to actually ask the question since Isabelle shared my thoughts, I still had to ask. “What do you mean by completing our bond.”

“When our bond is complete,” Isabelle said, staring at me from her frosty blue eyes, “we will be nearly as one. Our powers will be at their full strength and we might be strong enough to defeat the enemy.”

“Then let’s do it,” I insisted. “Let’s finish this bonding so we can go rescue Julie…” But then I paused, sensing that Isabelle was still holding something back, something she didn’t think that I’d like.

Isabelle gave me a gentle smile from the mirror. “Once our bond is complete, our power will change your physical body. Our form will be as it is here…” She gestured down at herself.

For a brief moment, I stood there in stunned silence as I absorbed Isabelle’s words. If we did this, I would turn into her…in the real world as well as in the dream world. I would turn into a girl.

“I have been bonded to male Sier before,” Isabelle told me with a faint smile. “It could take years before they were ready to accept that step.”

I took a deep breath, then blurted out, “Let’s do it.”

“There will be no turning back,” Isabelle warned me. “There is no undoing what is done.”

However, Isabelle already knew my answer to that and merely nodded her head. Then she reached out from the mirror, her reflection actually extending from the surface. I reached back, touching her hand with mine.

I felt a surge of energy through my entire body, much the same as when I’d first bonded with Isabelle. I could feel her presence, her very essence flowing through my very being with a burning intensity that was even stronger than what I’d felt before.

The dark place vanished from around me and I suddenly found myself laying on the ground with Aunt Cassandra leaning over me with a worried look. Her eyes went wide as I looked into them and then she smiled.

“Efram,” Aunt Cassandra exclaimed with obvious relief. “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” I answered, slowly getting to my feet.

Julie’s family was still there, gathered together a short distance away. They were hugging each other and crying. Of course, they’d just watched Julie be taken away by a monster.

“What’s going on?” Julie’s mom demanded of me. “Who was that and why is it after you?”

“It’s hard to explain,” I started awkwardly, though my voice suddenly cracked badly in the middle of the words.

I was back in the real world but I could still feel Isabelle’s presence burning inside me, soaking into my very body mind and soul. As our energies merged, I could feel my body beginning to change.

“Efram,” Aunt Cassandra gasped, staring at me with a worried look. “Your hair…”

I reached up and felt my hair, which had already been shoulder length but had grown another six inches. But even more noticeable than that was the fact that it was changing color, becoming pale and light. In mere moments, my hair was the same silvery color that I saw when I looked into the mirror.

“Your eyes,” Aunt Cassandra exclaimed, letting me know that those had changed color as well.

“Don’t worry,” I told Aunt Cassandra, my voice now sounding like that of a girl.

I felt my bones changing shape inside of me while my flesh shifted around it, adjusting to the new pattern that Isabelle was providing. I took a deep breath as I felt my hips widen. With another deep breath, I felt a pressure beginning to build in my chest. Then with a third deep breath, I felt my crotch beginning to pull in.

“What the hell is happening to you?” Julie’s dad demanded. “Are you under some kind of spell?”

“What is happening to you?” Aunt Cassandra asked me. “You don’t seem worried…”

“I’m not,” I said, holding my hands to my chest as I felt the two mounds swelling under my shirt. In mere moments, my growing breasts had become quite noticeable.

“You’re turning into Isabelle,” Aunt Cassandra stated with a grim look.

I merely nodded at that, reaching between my legs and gulping as the last of my manhood was pulled up inside my body. I let out a gasp when it was gone, knowing that I’d never see it again.

When my changes finished, I took several more deep breaths and tried to absorb the way my body now felt. There was a new weight to my chest and a more subtle difference that seemed to touch on every fiber of my body. However, these were hardly new sensations. I’d spent enough time like this in the dream realm that being changed into a girl for real didn’t seem all that shocking.

However, my body wasn’t the only thing that had changed, nor even the most drastic. Isabelle was now closer to me than ever before. There was almost no separation between us as I could sense her thoughts and feelings as though they were my own.

I now understood Isabelle far more than I had before. I knew that she was a powerful spirit from a far plane and that she had bonded to dozens of Sier over the centuries. I knew that when a ghost bonded to a normal, the ghost fed on their memories and emotions, absorbing their hosts identities. Isabelle did something similar and retained the memories of each of her previous hosts. They would remain with her for as long as she existed…as would I. I was now forever a part of her, just as she and my predecessors were a part of me.

“Who are you?” Julie’s dad demanded of me.

I looked to him and the rest of his family before carefully answering, “Call me…Isabelle.”

Aunt Cassandra looked startled at that and more than a little worried. “Isabelle?”

I looked to my stunned Aunt Cassandra and said, “Considering how I look now, that seems more appropriate.”

“But how?” Aunt Cassandra asked with a worried look.

“This is part of being an avatar,” I told her as I self-consciously gestured down at my body. “This was the only way I could get strong enough to fight that spirit and save Julie.”

Though it was obvious that Aunt Cassandra and Julie’s family all had a lot of questions, I didn’t have the time to waste answering them. Every moment I waited was time that Julie was in the dark spirit’s possession.

With that, I called on my power, finding it almost easy to do so. It rushed out of my body, destroying my ill-fitting clothes and covering me instead in the now familiar silvery armor. Then my power flowed out of my back, forming into the same wings from the dream realm.

“She’s an angel,” Julie’s little brother blurted out in amazement.

“I have to go get Julie,” I told Aunt Cassandra as I spread my wings and jumped into the sky.

“Efram,” Aunt Cassandra called out, though I was quickly out of hearing.

A part of me was amazed by the fact that I was actually flying, though the part that was Isabelle had flown many times before. Still, if it wasn’t for the situation, I probably would have enjoyed this freedom.

I needed to find the dark spirit and where he was holding Julie, so I tried to focus on sensing his presence. Until now, the dark spirit had been hiding in the spirit plane so that I’d only been able to sense that he was somewhere nearby, just not where. But now that he’d left the spirit plane to take Julie, I could actually sense him.

“Gotcha,” I exclaimed.

I landed in front of my school and let my wings fade away, then scowled, feeling the dark spirit hiding within. I had no idea why he’d chosen to come here, except perhaps because it was a place where I was miserable.

“At least there shouldn’t be anyone here,” I muttered as I stepped inside, forming my sword in hand.

Unlike earlier, it took almost no effort to form my sword. Now that Isabelle and I had completed our bond, our powers were at full strength. We could operate in the real world nearly as easily as we could in the dream world.

The school hallway was empty, though it didn’t remain that way for long. A figure stepped out from a classroom doorway and stood in front of me, staring at me with a look of pure hatred. It was Mrs. Dieter.

Mrs. Dieter had changed from the last time I’d seen her, having obviously been affected by the dark spirit’s power. Instead of looking like a grumpy old woman, she now looked like something sinister. Her features had twisted and as she snarled, I could see that her mouth was filled with sharp teeth, almost like a shark.

There were no words between us, nor were any needed. Mrs. Dieter ran at me, swinging her hands and her now clawed fingers. I jumped back and used my sword to block her attack. She hissed and then swung again, missing me and hitting the row of lockers on the wall. The metal shredded beneath her claws.

“You’ve gotten dangerous,” I said grimly.

When Mrs. Dieter charged me again, I dove to the side and swung out with my sword, severing her arm at the elbow. She hissed and then spat at me. A ball of black goo came right towards me, though I summoned my shield in time to block it.

“You’ve become a poltergeist,” I stated with a scowl. She’d turned from a harmless if grumpy ghost into a spirit with enough strength and anger to be dangerous.

Then I slashed out with my sword, slicing Mrs. Dieter along the side. I followed that up by impaling her through the chest and pouring more of my energy through the blade. Her body faded away and vanished from sight.

I couldn’t help but feeling a little sad about what I’d just done to Mrs. Dieter, even though she hadn’t given me much choice. Unlike the other spirits I’d fought, she’d actually been a small part of my life. She hadn’t been pleasant, but she had been a part of my life.

I continued down the hallway, following the dark spirit’s presence straight to the school gym. I stepped inside and found zombies, more than a dozen of them. None of these zombies were animated by ghosts. These were all the dark spirit.

“Zombies,” I muttered, having a flashback to the dream that the dark one had corrupted. I also felt angry as Isabelle resented the way a fond memory had been ruined.

The dark spirit stood on the other side of the gym, looking exactly as he did the last time I saw him. Of course, that had been less than an hour ago, but it felt much longer to me.

My eyes went to Julie, who was curled up on the ground, looking absolutely terrified but still a little defiant. Black tentacles seemed to grow from the floor itself, forming into a cage which kept her bound.

“Julie,” I called out, getting her attention and asking, “Are you okay?”

Julie stared at me, the fear in her eyes fading away and being replaced by surprise and relief. “Isabelle?” She blinked, looking confused and asking, “How…?”

“Let her go,” I commanded the dark spirit.

“You were foolish to seek me out,” the dark spirit announced. “Are you as eager for your end as your mother was? You disappoint me. I have only begun your torments.”

“The only one who is going to end here is you,” I responded, glaring at our enemy.

At that, all of the zombies began to advance towards me, assaulting me with the decomposing smells. It seems that the dark spirit didn’t like being threatened.

“I get it,” Julie exclaimed. “This is another dream… I’m stuck in another nightmare.”

“Not this time,” I told her

I slashed at the first zombie to approach me, slicing through its flesh though it didn’t hesitate at all. I attacked again, cutting through its very neck and sending its head flying. The headless corpse continued to come at me.

“Efram,” Julie cried out a warning.

I snapped around and slashed at the zombie that had been trying to come up behind me. Then I dove away from these zombies, slashing through the tendrils that tied them to the dark spirit instead. As soon as the connection was severed, the zombies collapsed.

“Go get em Efram…Isabelle,” Julie cheered me on. “Kick his nasty ass back to where he came from.”

Since the best way to defeat the zombies wasn’t to confront them directly, I rushed around, slicing through the tendrils cutting them loose from the dark one’s power. In moments, there were a dozen inanimate corpses scattered around the gym floor.

“I will never be able to watch a zombie movie the same way again,” I muttered, turning my attention to the real threat.

The dark spirit had watched this brief fight without moving from his spot. Then its tentacles came to life and began to stretch out again, rising up and shimmering. A figure appeared at the end of each tentacle…a very human looking figure.

The first figure that finished forming looked like Doc from the nightmare I’d been trapped in. I gulped at the sight, feeling a surge of bad memories. That unpleasant deja-vu only grew worse as I recognized the other figures. Two orderlies and the unpleasant nurse from the same nightmare.

“You are a very ill girl,” Doc said as he came towards me. “Trust me...I’ll make you better.”

I snarled in anger, pissed that he’d dare try something like this again. Of course, he was trying to push my buttons. This thing loved to push buttons.

While I was staring at the figures from my nightmare, the dark spirit spread its tendrils along the floor and reconnected with the inanimate corpses. In mere seconds, all the zombies began to get back to their feet. The sight of them made me curse at myself for getting distracted. Now, I was completely surrounded.

For a moment, I felt the fear rising, though I felt a wave of confidence and reassurance from Isabelle. I smiled faintly and shifted my vision to her senses, allowing me to suddenly see around me in every direction at once. I’d only looked at the world like this one time before and it had been a bit disorienting, but now that I was fully bonded to Isabelle, it was no longer any problem.

I immediately began to move, slicing through zombies and the tendrils that connected them to the enemy. But when I started for Doc, he cried out, “You’ve become lost in your delusion. Attacking me will only make it worse.”

“I’m not afraid of you anymore,” I said, driving my sword through the Doc, who then faded away.

“Way to go,” Julie called out excitedly. “Kick his ass.”

I was about to charge the dark spirit directly when a new figure appeared, the same way the ones from my nightmare had. This one was a girl with dark hair who looked to be in her late teens. She was dressed like the patients from the hospital nightmare and she had the same haunted look that many of them had.

“Please,” the girl cried out as the orderlies each grabbed one of her arms. “Help me…”

I froze, staring at this girl with a sense of shock. I’d never seen her before in my life, or at least not as long as I could possibly remember, but there was absolutely no doubt in my mind as to who this was.

“Who is that?” Julie asked, obviously seeing my reaction.

“My…my mom,” I responded, feeling the words catch in my throat.

The dark spirit laughed at that and stated, “I knew your mother better than any…”

“My mom is dead,” I spat out angrily. “This is just a fake…”

“Perhaps,” the dark spirit responded. “But I knew all her thoughts and fears… Oh yes, I know her fears intimately…” He paused at that to gloat before continuing, “Is there anything you ever wanted to ask her?”

“Who are you?” my false mom asked me, looking all the world as though she was a real person. If it hadn’t been for the black tentacle coming from her or the fact that I knew she was indeed dead, I might even have bought into this. “Are you my baby…?”

“She isn’t real,” I insisted, reminding myself as much as anything else. “You’re just trying to push my buttons…” And though I hated to admit it, my enemy was doing a good job of it.

“Do you want to know who your daddy is?” she abruptly asked me. “I can tell you…”

I gulped, suddenly realizing that this dark spirit probably would know who my father was. He’d been there with my mom, tormenting her and feeing off her misery. He’d been with her the entire time. But of course, I knew that he was just trying to use this knowledge to distract me, just like he was using my mom’s face.

I shook my head with a grimace, hating the way that the dark spirit was playing with me…and that it was working. The fact that my enemy knew who my father was caused me to hesitate and tempted me to try making a deal. And even though I knew that this wasn’t my real mom in front of me, I couldn’t bring myself to go through her in order to attack the dark spirit.

While the dark one was keeping me distracted with my fake mom, he had the zombies start approaching me from behind, apparently not aware that I could currently see them as well as what was in front of me. Just as one of the zombies got too close, I formed my wings and flew up into the air, earning a loud gasp of amazement from Julie.

“I’ll get you out of there in a minute,” I called out to Julie.

“You’d better,” she called back. “I HATE playing damsel in distress… Next time it’s your turn.”

I couldn’t resist chuckling at that, feeling the echo of amusement from Isabelle. However, we were both determined to save Julie and destroy the enemy. Not only did we have personal reasons to do so, but it was a threat to every living being nearby.

I took a deep breath and then unleashed my power in a burst of white light. Every zombie collapsed to the ground, becoming motionless corpses as the tendrils were dissolved. The dark spirit howled in rage, appearing to have been hurt by my power, though not nearly enough.

“Damn,” I muttered as I landed and let my wings fade again. Doing that took up a lot of energy, but it was the fastest way to get rid of the zombies and the nightmares. My false mom had also vanished along with the rest which relieved me since I wouldn’t be forced to attack her directly.

“It bites,” the dark spirit snarled. “And it shall die…”

The dark spirit grew new tendrils, but instead of going for the corpses that were scattered across the gym floor, he lashed out at me. I sliced through one tendril before it could reach me and then another. I formed my shield and used that to block while I continued to fight through my enemy’s attacks and slowly moved closer to him.

“Drop your weapon,” the dark spirit commanded, making me realize that he’d grabbed Julie and now held her beside him, bound up in his tendrils. She looked terrified again, but there was still a look of defiance in her eyes.

“Kill this fucker,” Julie told me, though her voice shook.

I stared at Julie and grimaced, then without a word, I let my sword and shield fade away. I was now open and vulnerable, though the dark spirit didn’t take immediate advantage of that. I could feel his malevolent amusement as he just stood there gloating.

“Come towards me,” the dark spirit ordered me.

I slowly started walking towards him, glancing to Julie worried about how I could get her out of this alive. I had no doubt that he would kill her anyway, after all, that was why he took her in the first place. All I could do was buy time and hope that I found a way to get her out of here alive.

“I see that I shall have to keep you close,” the dark spirit said, glaring at me with a powerful intensity. “I shall have to keep you under control while I feed…”

“Let her go,” I insisted coldly.

The dark spirit made as though to lower Julie and release her, then it suddenly lashed out, wrapping its black tendrils around my ankles, waist, and wrists. It held me tight and pulled me closer while simultaneously tightening his grasp on Julie.

“Now you shall watch as I flay her,” the dark spirit told me with his malicious glee. “Your guilt will be delicious…”

Just then, I noticed a large rat coming into the gym from the side door. I never would have seen it without Isabelle’s surround vision, nor would I even have noticed it if she hadn’t brought it to my attention. Then to my surprise, more rats began to run into the gym, more than a dozen of them. In mere seconds, nearly a hundred rats had entered the gym and were all making their way towards the dark spirit.

I was a little confused by the appearance of the rats since they didn’t make much sense. After raising zombies, why would the dark spirit somehow summon rats as replacements? However, a moment later, the rats began to swarm all over the dark spirit, trying to bite and scratch him though it did little good. And though I was surprised by the rats actions, I immediately took advantage of the distraction.

“BURN,” I cried out as I unleashed another burst of light, much smaller and weaker than my last one. But this time, I wasn’t trying to remove an entire gym full of zombies, just a single enemy.

The dark spirit screamed in pain as the tendrils holding me and Julie all dissolved and melted away. His very body was melting a little as well, though not enough to stop him. He began to fade, pulling back to the spirit realm so that he could escape, though I knew that I couldn’t let him do that. If he got away now, he would only find a way to come back again.

“You will suffer for this,” the dark spirit hissed.

I merely reformed my sword and drove it straight into his chest, right where his heart would be if he’d been human. “This is for my mom,” I snarled at him as I poured more of my energy through the blade, burning the dark one from the inside out.

The dark one shrieked in agony, and for a brief moment, I was sure he was going to strike back with one final blow. But instead, his humanoid form collapsed into a puddle of black goo on the ground, goo that was already starting to fade away. The dark spirit’s presence, which I’d been feeling since my awakening was now completely gone.

“You did it,” Julie exclaimed, throwing her arms around me and giving me a kiss. Then she pulled back and grinned as she jokingly added, “My hero…”

“You would have done the same,” I told her, blushing under the attention.

Julie just stuck her tongue out at me and responded, “You bet your ass I would. And don’t you forget it.”

Then I looked around the gym, at the fading black goo and the dead bodies that were scattered all over the floor. I had a feeling that their presence here would lead to a lot of very awkward questions. Questions that I had absolutely no intention of answering. Fortunately, the rats had lost any sense of organization and were scattering, running out the open doors.

“Ug,” Julie said with a shudder. “Rats…”

“At least they’re not snakes,” I pointed out, to which she nodded agreement.

“Where the hell did they come from though?” she asked, looking around with a look of distaste.

I just smiled at that before answering, “Aunt Cassandra sent them. She must have.” Then I chuckled and gestured around the gym, adding, “I’m just surprised you’re worried about the rats…not the dead bodies.”

“They’re not moving around,” she pointed out with a grin. “At least not anymore.”

Since the threat was gone, I relaxed and let my power fade away. I’d already lost my sword when I’d destroyed the dark spirit, but now I let my armor vanish as well. However, a moment later I wished I hadn’t. Until that moment, I’d forgotten that my clothes had been destroyed in the process of summoning my armor and now I was suddenly naked.

Julie giggled and gave me a very appreciative look. “Very nice.”

I blushed and quickly summoned the armor again, feeling the amusement from Isabelle. She also had some fun ideas of what we should be doing with Julie right then and there, ideas that made me blush even more. I coughed and said, “I guess I’d better keep this on for now.”

Julie and I left the gym and started for the school exit, though we were only halfway there when I suddenly felt the presence of unfamiliar spirits. I froze and braced myself, remembering that the dark spirit might be gone but there were other spirits who’d been empowered by it and still remained.

A moment later, two spirits appeared in the hallway in front of me. One of them was a ghost that looked like a medieval knight, dressed in a full suit of armor that included the helmet. The other spirit looked like a very large fox, except that it actually had a bunch of tails growing from its backside. I quickly counted nine tails.

I was about to summon my sword, but then I realized that I didn’t sense anything dark or malevolent about them. The two spirits merely stood there watching us but made no move to suggest they were going to attack.

Then two people stepped around the corner and joined the spirits. One was a thin man who stepped beside the knight while the other was an Asian woman who stood beside the fox.

“Sier,” I said in realization as well as a little surprise.

Suddenly, a spirit owl flew out from around the corner where the two Sier had just come, then flew right to me before circling and going back. Whisperwing landed on Aunt Cassandra’s shoulder as she joined the other Sier.

“Efram,” she called out to me with a look of relief on her face. Then she gave me a wry look and corrected herself. “Isabelle…”

The sight of Aunt Cassandra made me relax. I glanced back to the unfamiliar Sier, both of whom were watching me with strange expressions. It dawned on me that these had to be the Sier that had been called in to help with the dark spirit.

“The spirit’s presence is gone,” a new voice said, making me blink at the sight of Mrs. Augier.

“I destroyed it,” I said in explanation, earning looks of surprise from the unfamiliar Sier.

“Then we arrived too late to help,” the thin man said, giving me an even more curious look.

“You’re an avatar,” the Asian woman stated, staring at me and making me uncomfortable. “I’ve never met an avatar before.”

“Me either,” I admitted with a wry smile. “It’s kind of new to me.” Of course, Isabelle was answering all my questions about being an avatar even as they came to me.

“Your father is outside the school waiting for you,” Aunt Cassandra told Julie. Then she chuckled and said, “I tried losing him on the way here, but he wouldn’t have it. It was all I could do to talk him into staying back until we had a look.”

“That sounds like dad,” Julie responded proudly.

“It seems that we’ll need to get to work cleaning up after this,” the thin man announced with a scowl. “There was too much of a disturbance. Too many normals saw evidence of our existence.”

“That should not be a problem,” the Asian woman told him with a confident look on her face that assured me she was telling the truth.

“When are you going to change back?” Aunt Cassandra asked me as she looked me over.

I took a deep breath before hesitantly answering, “I’m not.” I couldn’t look at her as I admitted, “I can’t change back.”

“What do you mean?” Julie demanded, putting a hand on my shoulder and forcing me to meet her eyes.

“This was the only way,” I said quietly, giving a weak smile. “It was the only way I could get the power to stop it…” Then I paused before adding, “Isabelle warned me it was permanent.”

“You knew?” Aunt Cassandra gasped in surprise. “You did this intentionally?” I could only nod at that.

Julie’s eyes went wide and then she threw her arms around me, holding me tight. I hugged her back, wishing I could drop my armor so I could really enjoy her closeness, but I certainly wasn’t about to do that in front of all these people.

Once Julie released me, we left the school so we could let Julie’s family know that she was all right. The two Sier who’d come to help out immediately went to go check the gym and begin the process of cleaning up after the battle. I didn’t really have any idea what that entailed, but I suspected that it would involve making the bodies disappear.

As soon as we stepped out of the school, Julie’s dad saw her and cried out in relief. She immediately ran to him, giving him big hug and assuring him that she was all right. I watched with a smile, happy for her but regretting that I’d never be able to hug my own parents.

I felt disappointed that I hadn’t been able to learn who my father was when the answer had been so close, but I suspected that this might be a good thing. The dark spirit probably would have lied to me, but even if he hadn’t, I doubted that it would have been an answer I was happy with. After all, the kind of person who’d take advantage of a mental patient was probably not someone I would be proud to call dad.

Mrs. Augier distracted me from my thoughts with a cough. When I looked at her, she carefully said, “I believe I owe you an apology.”

“What?” I responded in surprise.

She frowned and shook her head. “As my daughter pointed out,” she told me slowly. “I have been blaming you for something that isn’t your fault…something that happened long before you were born. I…I am sorry for this.”

Mrs. Augier turned and walked away while I just stood there in stunned silence. Aunt Cassandra put a hand on my shoulder to get my attention.

“I’m very proud of you,” Aunt Cassandra told me with faint tears in her eyes. “I know it couldn’t be easy to make a decision like that…to give up what you did.” She gave me a hug, and when she finally pulled away, she quietly added, “I’ve never met your mother…but I think she would have been proud too.”

“Thank you,” I told Aunt Cassandra, giving her another hug and feeling tears in my own eyes. She was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a mom, so having her say this meant a lot to me.

I’d never known my mom but I’d mourned her loss for my entire life. Confronting the spirit that had tormented her, that had driven her to her death, it gave me a sense of closure that I hadn’t really expected. I’d gotten revenge for my mom’s death, though that hadn’t really been the main purpose of that particular fight.

“Come on,” Aunt Cassandra told me, putting a gentle arm over my shoulder. “Let’s go home. I have a feeling that we have a lot to talk about.”

--------------------

I sat on the edge of my bed, contentedly strumming my guitar and smiling as I enjoyed the music. At times like this, my emotions and Isabelle’s were one and the same, something that was happening more and more often lately. And even when we weren’t in complete synch, our thoughts and emotions were so intertwined that it was sometimes difficult to separate mine from hers.

One of Isabelle’s previous hosts had been a minstrel who’d given her an appreciation for music, an appreciation that had made it much easier for Isabelle and I to bond. If it hadn’t been for our shared enjoyment of music and the way it had brought our emotions together, then it would have taken much longer before we’d even be capable of completing our bond. If it hadn’t been for the music, then we probably wouldn’t have been able to beat that dark spirit.

Eventually, I realized what time it was and set my guitar aside. I got up and went to the large mirror that now hung from my bedroom wall and looked myself over. I absently ran a hand through my silvery white hair and smiled at my reflection. Now that the image in the mirror actually matched how I really looked, I could once again think of it as my reflection.

It had only been a week since I looked like this for real, since I’d completed my bond with Isabelle. After seeing this girl in the mirror for somewhat longer, not to mention actually being her while in the dream realm, the change wasn’t nearly as difficult to adjust to as I would have imagined. Of course, sharing my thoughts and emotions with Isabelle certainly made it easier as well. After all, she thought of this as merely being her normal form and I was picking up on that perspective.

I cupped my breasts for a moment, then posed and looked myself over appreciatively. I was definitely hot, though the hair color and my frosty blue eyes also added a strong exotic element. Still, I couldn’t help but feeling a strange pride, even if much of it came from Isabelle.

After a minute, I finished adjusting my clothes and then went to the living room where I found Aunt Cassandra busy talking on the phone. I listened in long enough to find that she was talking to her mom, who’d gone home just a few days ago.

Mrs. Augier had stuck around for a few days after the dark spirit had been defeated, helping with all the clean-up that needed to be done. After her apology, she’d made an effort to be polite to me. But more than that, she no longer looked at me with contempt, but with some respect for what I’d done with the dark spirit. That had made the rest of her visit much more pleasant for me.

“That was my mother,” Aunt Cassandra said when she finally hung up. “She just told me that Byron and Shizura got home safely.”

I nodded at that, thinking of the two Sier who’d shown up to help fight the dark spirit. Even though they’d arrived too late, they’d both immediately went to work cleaning up the mess that had been left behind.

Shizura, the Japanese woman with the spirit fox, had a gift that was perfect for that kind of thing. She could cloud people’s memories, not exactly making the normal witnesses forget about the zombies and the metal monstrosity, but making it so that they felt more like a barely remembered dreams.

Byron, the man with the ghostly knight, and Shizura were both old fashioned Sier who still believed that the Sier had a duty to their communities and to the world at large. They tried to help when spirits got out of hand and began causing trouble in the physical world, and both of them were impressed that I’d been able to defeat the dark spirit on my own. They’d admitted that it would have taken both of them working together to do what I had. Of course, Isabelle was helping me so I hadn’t really defeated him by myself.

While Byron and Shizura had been here, they’d hunted down and removed the other dangerous spirits that the dark one had drawn to town and empowered, and I’d helped them. It had been interesting and educational, though none of those spirits was actually very powerful so we’d been able to quickly banish them all without much difficulty.

The spirit I was most pleased to have banished was the bad luck spirit that had been tied to Mr. Mickelson at school. Maybe now he’d finally be able to have some good luck.

“Those two were pretty amazing,” Aunt Cassandra said with a smile. “And impressive.”

“I know,” I agreed pleasantly. Then I grinned proudly as I added, “And they asked me to work with them once I turned eighteen.”

“Are you going to accept?” she asked me curiously.

“I’m thinking about it,” I admitted. The truth was, I rather liked the idea of protecting people from dangerous spirits...and so did Isabelle. After all, it was our Sier’s duty.

I went to the kitchen to get something to drink before I left the house, though Aunt Cassandra watched me the entire time with an odd look on her face. I’d been getting that look from her a lot over the last week, so I just pretended that I didn’t notice it.

“You know,” Aunt Cassandra finally said, “I’m a little surprised that you’re actually dressed like that.”

I paused to look down at myself though I already knew what she was referring to. I was currently wearing a skirt, a shirt that revealed a little cleavage, and a pair of shoes with low heels. It was the kind of outfit that I frequently saw my female classmates wearing at school.

“What do you mean?” I asked, giving my best innocent look.

Aunt Cassandra gave an exasperated sigh before answering. “I thought I’d have to drag you shopping for girl clothes and then force you to wear them, but here you are, wearing a skirt without my even having to suggest it.”

“Well, I am a girl now,” I pointed out with a faint smile. “I might as well dress the part.”

Aunt Cassandra shook her head at that while I just chuckled. Isabelle and I both found it funny that Aunt Cassandra had a harder time adjusting to my being a girl than I did.

“It’s not that big a deal,” I assured her.

“Not a big deal?” she blurted out in surprise. “You went through a sex change.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, giving her a wry smile. “But I already got used to seeing a girl in the mirror…not to mention all the time I spent as one in my dreams.” I gestured down at myself and tried to explain. “It’s not like this is completely new to me.”

“I don’t know,” she said, giving me a skeptical look.

“Things would probably be different if someone had done this to me without my permission,” I told her with a sigh. “Or if I didn’t have any idea it was coming. But I did know. I knew what it would mean when I told Isabelle to complete our bond. I walked into this with my eyes wide open, knowing that this was the price I’d pay to get my full power.” I gave Aunt Cassandra a reassuring smile and added, “It’s a very small price to pay and one that I’d happily pay again. And to be honest, I don’t really mind it at all. Sure, I’m a girl now, but I actually feel better and more confident than I ever have before.”

“I noticed that,” Aunt Cassandra told me, giving me a curious look. “I’ve noticed that you seem more confident…and happier.”

I just smiled at Aunt Cassandra, not sure that I could really explain what I felt to her. I’d faced down some of my greatest fears, defeated the monster who’d driven my mom to her death, and was now a full blown avatar. Those things could change a person and they had.

There other things as well, things which might not seem as impressive but which meant a great deal to me. These were the things I counted as blessings and which made me so happy.

The person who’d raised me…who was the closest thing that I had to a parent, had proven that she had my back no matter what. She’d had my back against zombies, against an evil spirit, and even against her own mother. I didn’t know if I could ever tell Aunt Cassandra how much that meant to me.

I was dating Julie, which was a great wonder as I’d once thought no girl would ever be interested in me, especially not one that I liked. The fact that her family knew I was Sier was an added bonus since it meant I could really be myself whenever I went to their home to visit her.

And of course, there was Isabelle, who was now a part of me and would be for the rest of my life…and beyond. She was a partner, closer than most people could possibly understand, even most Sier. I knew that together, the two of us could handle anything.

“I am happy,” I admitted to Aunt Cassandra. “I never would have asked to be a girl…at least not if I didn’t have to. But now that I am, I’m not complaining.”

“I just hope you keep that attitude when you go back to school,” Aunt Cassandra told me with an amused smile.

“That, I am not looking forward to,” I responded with an exaggerated sigh.

Aunt Cassandra laughed at that. “Well, your new papers should arrive any day, then you can go back to school with your new identity as Isabelle.”

“At least I’ll be able to start over again,” I pointed out with a faint smile. I wouldn’t have to deal with the stigma of being the creepy emo kid anymore. Of course, with my hair color, I still might be marked as weird, but I wasn’t really concerned with that.

“Well, I’m off to go see Julie,” I told Aunt Cassandra with a grin.

Aunt Cassandra nodded, and as I started for the door, she said, “I know it can’t be easy.”

“What can’t be?” I asked her in confusion. “Being a girl?”

“Your relationship with Julie,” Aunt Cassandra replied. “I thought you two might become an item, but now…”

I just stared at Aunt Cassandra for a moment and then burst out laughing. At her blank look, I said, “Actually, Julie prefers me like this.” She gave me another blank look and I smirked as I added, “She’s a lesbian.”

Aunt Cassandra’s eyes widened in realization. “No wonder you don’t mind…”

I grinned at that, thinking that it was definitely one of the benefits of being a girl. Every time Julie and I had been together in her dreams, she always woke up just as things were getting good, leaving me turned on and unsatisfied. But now, I assumed that would no longer be a problem, not that I’d had a chance to find out yet. In fact, I was hoping to test that with her tonight.

“That’s why you’re dressed up like that,” Aunt Cassandra said in realization. She looked me over and grinned while I blushed slightly at having been caught. “This isn’t just going to see your best friend. This is a date…”

“Something like that,” I admitted.

Aunt Cassandra stared at me for a moment and then grinned. “Well, if you’re going out on a date dressed like that, you’re going to need some makeup…”

Before I realized it, Aunt Cassandra had me sitting down while she put makeup on my face, promising to give me real lessons later on. I patiently sat through it, realizing that I would have to learn how to use makeup…along with a few other things that normal girls learned while growing up. However, I decided to consider it a challenge rather than as some sort of insult to my lost manhood.

I smiled as I considered all the new things I would have to learn, that I would be able to experience. I had a whole new life ahead of me, one that I never would have imagined.

For most of my life, I’d been afraid of being Sier and what that would mean for me. Being Sier had destroyed my mom and had ultimately taken her life. It had made me into an outcast with little hope of anything ever really getting better. But to my surprise, it had also given me Isabelle and had opened my eyes to an entirely new world.

Seeing things that others could not was both a blessing and a curse, but this was the nature of the Sier. We could see monsters such as the dark spirit, but we also saw great wonders. And for me, the greatest thing I could see was the life that lay ahead of me. I am proud to call myself Sier.

The End