I spent a week in the hospital and lying in bed at home before they let me go to school. My time was spent doing homework, reading the lectures from class, going over class notes sent to me by friends, and studying magic with Mo Shu Shi. I had to go back on Wednesday for the doctors to check my hand, remove some more bone splinters, and see if they had to take off any more of my hand, but it was healing so nicely thanks to my continual charge that they decided to leave it alone. I was on a steady dose of painkillers, and I could feel my fingers under the bandages, sometimes they felt so itchy I was ready to take a knife and cut them off if they were real.

Not having to go under the knife again was a relief. The get well bouquets, class notes and get well cards, along with more chocolate than I could eat in a month, from my classmates and friends were really nice to. A few girls I thought were my friends didn't send anything, not even a text message. When I got home from the hospital I had a few hundred texts and missed calls. A lot were from people who knew my family and wanted to gain some influence, but at least half were genuine. It took about two days to go through and answer them. Do you know how hard it is to use a phone with only one hand. I can do it, but that was usually just for quick things, not scrolling through dozens of messages and trying to answer them.

My parents were talking about rehabilitation therapy to limber up my palm, and learn how to do all kinds of things with only my right hand and a tiny stub of a thumb on my left hand. But that had to wait until my hand was healed enough to use without ripping off stitches, aggravating the wound and other stuff.

The magic classes with Mo were interesting, and I saw his real face for the first time. His face wasn't what I expected, he had a round, chubby baby face, with a very sparse mustache. And when he wasn't in his hero persona, his jokes were... bad. I thought some of the stuff my girlfriends and I talked about when we were alone was naughty, but they didn't come close to the tamest jokes coming from Mo's mouth. I'm not sure if he was trying to get me used to the types of jokes boys would make or not, all I do know is that he had me blushing and speechless most of the time when he didn't have me struggling to learn how to contain my essence.

I was disappointed that I wasn't learning any real spells right away. He only taught me a simple light spell that's suppose to test your level of magic, I could light up my bedroom nicely for a little over an hour, which made me a Wizard 1. He had me meditate, imagining essence was fireflies and I had to keep them close to me, and he explained that later I'd be able to store essence and spells in objects ready to be used like a one shot holdout. To get ready for that he started teaching me Chinese calligraphy, which was how he placed his spells onto paper, bamboo darts, and even oriental fans he used when fighting.

Trying to draw on the rice paper, without being able to use my left hand to hold it in place because of the jagged bolts of pain that shot through my hand and up my arm when any pressure was put on it sucked. I didn't need to put my hand on the paper, but it was a habit and keeping the remains of my hand on my lap didn't feel natural.

At the end of the week, we'd made a magic schedule where I'd train for three hours every Saturday and Sunday morning, and the rest of the week I'd practice meditation and essence storing exercises for one hour a night, more if I had time.

My regular homework was actually more difficult than studying magic. Have you ever tried to type using only one hand? I went from typing a thousand word essays at seventy words a minutes, to thirty words a minute because I was hunting and pecking like I was six years old again.

Sometimes I'd be about to go to bed, look at the pile of homework I still had to do, which I could normally finish in a single evening, and I'd burst out crying. Everything just felt so overwhelming,

Mom or Uncle Herb would come in then, since Dad was on mandatory bed rest, and try to comfort me. And Beetle wouldn't leave my side, even when Mom was in the room. My Mom and my familiar had an unspoken agreement, when I wasn't having an emotional breakdown when Mom appeared, Beetle vanished. Say what you will about the little demon, it had a very good sense of self preservation. Mom never threatened Beetle directly, in fact she made sure we had catfood and kitty litter for him, but it was pretty clear if Beetle suddenly disappeared one day she wouldn't spend much time looking for him.

Every morning after breakfast I had a two hour long therapy session, instead of going into the city, Mom and Dad paid extra for the psychiatrist to come to our home. With everything that had happened, my parents didn't want me exposed more than I absolutely had to be until we were all healed up and the media wasn't snapping at our heels. Like the magic lessons, once I was back in school we'd go to a weekly session every Saturday morning, and I'd see the school psychologist three times a week.

Getting everything organized for school took quite a bit of work on Mom's part. Since she was the only one of us who was on her feet, even if her own wounds were healing more slowly than normal, she was doing everything that had to be done in person or over the phone, while Uncle Herb and Mo Shu Shi helped with forms, emails and other things.

At first the school was leery about having a mutant student. Mom called up various human rights codes, the school rules and charter which said nothing about mutants, and raised the fact that I was being called a hero in Vancouver, and it would look very bad if they threw out a heroic young girl, who had just been through serious trauma and only wanted to go back to school. That decided them, and I could reenter school as soon as I was healthy enough, but I was not allowed to participate in any dance events, or other competitions of any kind.

Beetle was another problem. Pets weren't allowed, but since he was a familiar there was a potential loophole. My parents lawyers actually had to go and speak to the headmaster in person and I was allowed to bring Beetle with some pretty strict rules, namely he stayed in my room except during evening free time, and if anyone complained of being allergic I had to remove him from the area. It was better than I thought I'd get so I wasn't about to complain.

The final thing we had to get used to were the security guards.

My parents had hired a very good security team within hours of our exposure. Their experts had gone through the house, improving and expanding our already good security system, set up a security office in a spare office, and had converted two of our guest rooms into impromptu rooms for six of their men so we had guards at all times. By the end of the month we were going to start building an actual guard house so that the security team would have more room, and proper facilities. My Mom complained about the money being spent, but Dad was spending his bed rest talking to his agent about a book deal, speaking gigs and trying to start a bidding war on interviews and possibly a documentary. You can call my parents a lot of things but they were very good about not letting a crisis go to waste.

So with all of this happening, my life utterly flipped around, and still popping a few painkillers every day, I went back to school on Monday.

**
Joan Everest School for Girls
Moose Lake, Alberta,
March 12th, 2007

I'd been out of school for only a little over a week, and when I went back, everything had changed. The first difference was driving through a swarm of reporters around our house, in a heavily tinted SUV with my Mom beside me, and a driver, while three security guards following in another identical vehicle behind us. When we reached my school, and Mom had to go and sign a bunch of papers, confirming who the security guards were, and that if my injury was aggravated in certain ways she would not hold the school accountable. While Mom did that, I walked to my dormitory followed by two of the guards, while the others went to stow their equipment in a special guest dorm for this type of thing.

Ms. Kent, the dorm head, fussed over me and clucked over my hand which was in a sling, saying if I needed any help to ask her, as I signed in. I gave her a big relieved smile, at least she wasn't treating me differently.

Walking to my single, I passed quite a few of my classmates who were going through their morning rituals. A few saw me coming and ran for their rooms, like I was some knife wielding maniac. Others just edged around me, giving me a quick hello, staring at my hand, my security guards who were allowed into the dorm to look at my room first hand and help me carry my things, or Beetle who was in a carrier case that I was holding.

I heard some girls whispering about me, but they shut up as I got close enough to make it out. Hunching my shoulders and ducking my head I kept going.

Then my former roommate, Faith came running up, threw her arms around me and gave me a massive hug. I almost screamed as my hand was crushed against my body.

“Ow! Please let go!” I gasped.

“Oh, did I hurt you, El?” my friend said, looking like she was about to cry.

“A little,” I squeaked, seeing spots in front of my eyes from the pain. “My hand is really tender.”

“Oh god, I'm sssooo sorry. Here let me take your things,” she insisted, taking Beetle from me.

Clutching my wrist as if that would make my hand stop hurting, we made it to my room, where I dumped my bag on the bed and took out two pain pills, swallowing them as quickly as possible, not even bothering to get a drink. Sighing in relief, I went to my drawer and pulled out a uniform.

Faith sat on my bed, and waited until the security guards left before talking. “So... is it true?”

“What part?”

“That you're a mutant, and you're parents really are Fly By and Prairie Sun, and you were attacked by a demon, and you saved the world, and that you're turning into something weird like Super Bear.”

If that was what my best friend at school was asking, I wondered what some of the girls who didn't like me had heard. “I'm a mutant. I was the girl who you guys saw on the net after the fighting in Vancouver. My parents are superheroes. I was attacked by two demons and that's how I hurt my hand. But I'm going to still look human, and Super Bear is my uncle.”

“Really?! Um, how does that work?” she asked, her look of confusion probably coming from wondering what it would be like giving birth to a bear with horns.

“He's a good family friend, and we unofficially adopted him. And he looked normal until he was fifteen. He's a really nice guy.” As I struggled out of my pants and t-shirt, the pain came roaring back. Unthinkingly I grabbed my taser and zapped my arm, letting the electricity rush through me and dulling the pain a little. Then I realized Faith was there watching, her eyes bugged out.

“You-you tazed yourself!”

“Yeah. I absorb energy and I can use it for healing and stuff. It doesn't hurt,” I said, suddenly very self conscious. I began throwing on my clothes, which was really awkward when I got to the buttons on my blouse.

Faith came over and began doing them up for me. “What's it like? Being a mutant?”

“My parents love it. I'm not too happy with it. So far the best thing I've gotten out of it is a cat.”

“Yeah, I was going to ask about that,” she said, eyeing Beetle a little enviously.

“He's my familiar. I just got him after the demon attacked and it turned out I'm a wizard. He can turn invisible and he's really smart.”

“You're a wizard Harry!” she teased.

“Yeah. If I try really hard I can make a reading light, but I'm hoping I'll learn more soon.” Filling up my water bottle with protein powder, I put it in my bag and headed for the door. “Let's go get breakfast,” I said as butterflies decided to hold a dance party in my stomach.

We walked to the cafeteria, Faith peppering me with questions, and quite a few girls offering sympathy, but acting pretty nervous around me. Before my parents were outed I was used to being known, but lost in the background of richer and more important girls, now all eyes were on me and no one seemed to know quite what to do with me. Usually in the morning there'd be some jockeying to be the first in, no actual pushing, but nudges, getting uncomfortably close, things like that. Now it was as if there was a bubble around Faith and I.

Sitting down at the usual table, only Faith sat with me. I sat there and ate my granola, eggs and toast, wondering what I'd do for lunch and supper if there was something I had to cut.

Then unexpectedly Tammy, the hero hater who I sometimes argued with sat down beside Faith. “Hi Tammy,” I said.

“So you're a mutant,” she stated.

“Yeah.”

“When were you going to tell us?”

“I was hoping never. I liked people thinking I was normal.”

“You should have more faith in us. How's your hand?” she asked.

I had to close my mouth, it was opened in shock. This girl always complained about heroes and mutants, we had bets going on that her parents were H1 sponsors. “It hurts a lot. I won't be able to use it for a couple of weeks, and even then, I only have like half my thumb left.”

“If you need help you can ask me,” she said,

Ok, who had replaced this girl and where was the real Tammy? Actually change that, they could keep the original, this one was better. “Thanks.”

With a bit of a happier feeling, I finished breakfast and headed off to class.

**

It was a relief to get back home for the weekend, the entire week had been rough. I didn't have to worry about any obvious name calling or blatant bullying, but I was being treated by most of my classmates like I was a leper. Even some of my teachers had avoided me and seemed to be trying to make my life miserable.

**

“But Ms. Ransom, I just want to practice some basic steps. I have a note from my doctor saying that I can. I'm not going to use my arm or anything,” I told my dance teacher.

The gray haired woman shook her head, not even letting me through the door into the dance studio or glancing at the note. “I'm sorry Ms. Young, but you cannot come in here in this condition.”

“Please read the note, I need to do light exercise everyday, just fifteen minutes worth. You can watch to make sure I don't over stress myself. I can't do Krav Maga, so I can dance or run, and with the rain my bandages will get soaked.”

“I have other students who need my attention, I can't spend my time with someone who won't benefit from my class,” she said.

My jaw dropped. “What do you mean? I love dancing, why can't I benefit from it?”

“You're a mutant. You can't enter any competitions or dance professionally. I've already had to deal with a dozen calls demanding to know if I have allowed mutants to unfairly compete with baselines.”

“I manifested in November, and I used my claim about illness to drop out of the competitions. Now all I want to do is use my free time to relax and follow my doctors orders. I'm not going to do anything else.”

She crossed her arms, not moving an inch. “If you come in here, we could be accused of having a mutant helping us win competitions, I am not risking the other girls getting disqualified after all the hard work they put in.”

I could feel the sparks start to pop just under my skin. Rather than risk coming off as a dangerous mutant, I turned and walked away, refusing to cry.

**

The safety goggles were almost impossible to put on over my head with only one hand, and Tracy, my assigned partner was not about to help me. Turning on the Bunson burner, I reached for the beaker full of chemicals. It was still empty.

“Tracy, why haven't you put in the stuff?” I asked.

She let out a squeak and backed away, almost tripping over her stool. Rubbing my forehead, I counted to ten. “Tracy, we're partners, we each need do our part. And I can't do everything one handed,” I said slowly, hoping to get some pity points.

“I-I-I,” she stuttered turning white.

“Tracy, have I done anything to you since you've known me?” I asked, speaking as if to a small child.

She shook her head.

“Right. I'm not going to hurt you or anything. I need your help, and we need to do this together if we're going to get marked for the work. Do you want to lose your A?”

Another head shake.

“Ok. Good. Can you put the chemicals into the beaker?”

Very slowly she did her job. Every step was like that, where I had to quietly walk her through everything.

When I finally got back to my room that night, after dealing with silence, fear, looks of contempt, and only a few friendly faces, all I could do was fall onto my bed and cry as Beetle licked my face.

**

I struggled to hold my supper tray, which was loaded down with ham, steamed vegetables, and mashed potatoes. Having to hold it against my body, it kept tapping my hand, and threatening to cover my t-shirt in gravy.

Faith came over with a few of our friends, and discretely took the tray.

“Thank you,” I said.

At our table, Faith quickly and efficiently cut up my ham for me. For a little while it actually felt like old times, we were talking happily about everything I'd missed, the junior high drama, what funny stuff had happened, and things like that. Even Tammy was nice, going to get me my usual Caesar salad so I wouldn't have to.

But then I noticed something.

“Why isn't anyone sitting close to us?” I asked, when I saw that every table next to ours was empty.

My friends looked at each other, their food, the ceiling, everything except me.

“Oh, ok,” I said.

Faith broke up the awkward silence. “We still don't know what your powers are, you only told me your a wizard and can taze yourself.”

Looking around, I realized that with quite a few of the girls I was either a social pariah, or a dangerous person, so there really wasn't much reason to keep things secret. Holding up my hand, I made some sparks shoot out of my palm. “I'm an energizer. I make an electrical charge and I can absorb a lot of energy. Once I've got it I can make myself stronger, faster and things, or shoot energy out of my hands.”

“Does it hurt?” one of the girls asked.

“No. If I shoot it from my mouth, it makes me faint because it takes everything I have, but it doesn't hurt. And getting charged up actually feels nice, if I get too much energy it's like I've just eaten a huge bowl of ice cream.”

“Did you really shoot yourself with a tazer?” Tammy asked.

“Yeah. I can't build up much of a charge quickly by myself, but when I put the charge into my muscles, it helps me heal faster and not hurt so much. So Super Bear made me a special tazer that really helps out. The bracelets and belt I was wearing for the last few months were another gadget he made for me that would give me an emergency charge,” I said.

“And those tacky rings and chains?”

My face turned red. “I was sparking a bit, the rings and chains took the extra power and used it to recharge the bracelets.”

Faith's eyes went wide. “That's why you ran to the bathroom sometimes or hid your hands in your desk!”

I nodded, trying not to look too embarrassed.

“What are Fly By and Prairie Sun like?”

“My parents are...” what was I suppose to say? I had always kept my personal life personal, just not talking about it, and letting my parents reputation as pillars of the community speak for itself. “They're ok. A little intense sometimes, but they act like normal parents at home. I just can't- couldn't, tell people what their real job was.”

“But what about when they fight supervillains?” another friend asked.

“It's scary. But I grew up with it, so it's normal. It's just like having parents who are in the army or police or something.”

As we kept talking, it was really interesting finally talking about my family. I didn't give away any big secrets, just talked about Mom and Dad's regular work and lives. I'd NEVER done anything like it before. I kept wanting to look over my shoulder, having a paranoid idea that Mom or Dad was coming over to stop me.

In grade two we had to make a class presentation about what our parents did. Mom and Dad had spent weeks dealing with a very nasty villain who liked upping the body count as he worked, and I was really proud of what they were doing. So I made a big presentation all on my own about Prairie Sun and Fly By. It had a pretty collage, pictures of them fighting, and I had printed everything as neatly as I could in colourful markers. The morning of the presentation, I'd shown Mom. She had spit out her coffee, immediately called the school saying I was sick, and spent the rest of the day explaining why I couldn't show my work to anyone ever. She kept the project, but only close friends saw it. I'd gone in the next day with a boring, simple piece of bristol board, a few pictures of my parents shaking hands with Fly By and Prairie Sun, and a very simple outline of what they did as assistants.

Having the freedom to be openly proud of my parents was not something I was used to.

It almost made up for the way half the dorm avoided me in the bathroom as we got ready for bed.

**

Three weeks after I got to school I was taken out again for a few days to go to Vancouver with Mom and Dad. It was a bit of a rush, so we took the plane, and as a family we walked through the MCO checkpoint. In the terminal a few people recognized us, and took pictures as we went to the VIP lounge, our body guard, who was weaker than anyone of us, but was there to act as a paranoid set of eyes, did his best to block me from the amateur photographers.

Fortunately that was the worst thing that happened, because I was pretty self conscious of how Dad and I looked. Dad was still bandaged up, but because his faster than normal healing rate he was using a thin bandage, while the last of the scabs healed. He just kept his wrist in his coat pocket, so it didn't look strange. I was wearing a type of compression glove to pad the stumps where my fingers used to be, and to ensure the blood flowed properly in the rest of my hand. It also had fake fingers that were the right general shape and size, so while my fingers didn't move, it looked like I had them. As we waited, I kept flexing and stretching my palm, like my rehabilitation therapist had taught me. Now that my hand didn't hurt so much, I was figuring out how to do a lot of things without my fingers, even cutting my own food. Two very useful tricks my therapist had taught me were how to tie my shoes one handed, it had only taken me two days of frustration to do it. The other one was how to button my shirts.

At the Vancouver airport we were met by Uncle Herb and Cloud Master. There was the usual condolences, and then we were off to their headquarters to see Dr. Sharpe.

Everyone except Eddie greeted us as we walked in, even some of the part time heroes were there. Dr. Sharpe however cut the party short for me, which since it was a bunch of adults talking about how much everything sucked, made my day. He seemed a little put off by having Beetle come in with me, but other than a muttered complaint about familiars, didn't object.

“Estelle, I have great news for you,” Dr. Sharpe said.

“You've found out how to let me stay a girl and regrow my hand,” I said.

“Uh, no,” he replied, his smile disappearing.

Smiling I patted his arm. “I was joking. What is it?”

“Oh, yes, I see. Well, because you're growing I can't fit you with cybernetic fingers like I'll be using on your father, but there is an alternative until you reach your adult, male size.” He pulled out a glove that looked similar to what I was already wearing.

I didn't know what to say. I knew that people had cybernetics, but they were awkward, clunky things, unless you wanted to spend a very large fortune even for my parents, or devises that risked exploding and breaking. And with the rapid changes in bone size, muscle mass, and other things it was almost unheard of for children or teenagers to use them.

“Now then, this is a gadget, if you lived in Vancouver I'd make you a devise that was ten times better than your original hand, but the regular tune ups make it unwieldy, so don't worry about it exploding or gaining sentience and trying to kill you, I learned my lesson after the first trial run,” he told me. “I'm going to put a cap over your remaining thumb and your knuckles. They'll keep your skin open but protected by a self sealing membrane. This glove I made using your last measurements when you were here, is stretchable so we'll only need to change it maybe twice a year, until you stop growing. The cybernetic fingers will pierce your muscles, attaching themselves to your nervous system, it takes about a half hour to do so, and you'll want to use a general anesthetic while it works. The glove ensures you have a firm grip, so don't worry about the fingers tearing your bone or flesh if you lift something too heavy, and they work exactly like your original fingers, possibly a little better. The surface of the glove passes sensation to your nervous system, and receives signals from the same. Best of all it's washable with ordinary soap and water, lets your skin breathe, and you can wear it continuously for up to three days before you need to take it off to clean it and the cap with a basic saline solution.”

That sounded nice. One possible problem. “What about when I use powers?”

“That's why it looks like a glove instead of being much thinner and skin coloured, all of that is insulation to keep it from being destroyed. Please don't send any energy directly through your hand. But the insulation will let you arc your energy around yourself without too much worry,” he said.

So I could still use my powers, just had to be careful, and I'd look a little odd wearing black gloves all the time, but really who cared about that. I had worn chained finger rings for a few months which looked even worse, I'd survive. “Thank you Dr. Sharpe. When do we put the cap on?”

“Right now if you're up for it.”

“Give me two minutes to change,” I said, heading for the change room.

**

I woke up to Mom, Dad, and Dr. Sharpe looking down at me.

“Estelle, please raise your left hand,” Dr. Sharpe said.

I did, and saw the black, skin tight glove covering it. It wasn't really uncomfortable, but I couldn't feel much of anything from it.

The doctor pulled up a remote and started pressing buttons. My hand went ice cold, then burning hot. Then it found a nice medium. “Please make a fist.”

I did, actually feeling my fingers move and press against each other. It seemed odd after four weeks of only an occasional phantom pain to be feeling my fingers again. Tears of joy started to fall, as I did all sorts of things gradually getting more and more feeling, until I could feel the air from someone blowing on my fingers.

When we were done, I jumped out of the bed and hugged Dr. Sharpe, giving him a kiss on the cheek, which left him red faced, and stuttering.

“Mom, Dad it's just like my real hand!” I said, blowing them kisses.

Mom gently took my gloved hand and ran her hand over the black surface. I stopped bouncing, and my jaw dropped.

“What's wrong Estelle?” Mom asked, dropping my hand afraid she'd hurt me.

I tried to speak, but only a sob came out. As everyone stared at me, I reached out and touched Mom's cheek, it wasn't cold and hard, it felt real. I really started to cry, running my new hand through her hair, feeling the warmth of her her skin, marveling at how soft it was. After a whole life of not knowing Mom's real touch, I could really, truly feel her. Gingerly, my other hand touched her arm, all it felt was hard stone. It would have been too much to hope for that the curse was totally over, but it was enough.

Finally I was able to speak through my tears. “I can feel you.”

Mom broke down in tears, clutching my new hand in hers, kissing it as quickly as she could, making up for lost time.

Authors Note: This is the last part of this section. I haven't actually written much about the summer months, so I'll be posting once a week instead of everyday. Time to focus on other stories.