CHALCEDONY

Chapter 21: The Change

Coal moaned. The lumpy bed squeaked under his weight. His head pounded. The feel of his skin being torn part had stopped, and that was a mercy. Clutching his head, he sat up and opened his eyes.

Joseph and Zora stood a few feet away. When he sat up, they jumped away, running to the far side of the room.

"Man, what's wrong with you?" Joseph asked.

"I don't know. I think something at the professor's office made me sick." He couldn't tell them about the curse. With his headache, that was the best lie he could come up with. He didn't trust his self to stand.

"No, duh," Joseph said.

"How are you feeling, Coal?" Zora asked, stepping closer.

"I'm sore and my head hurts, but I'm fine. I'm sorry for scaring you. I don't think I'm contagious. You don't have to be scared."

He looked around the room. Two beds, dingy blankets, the highway outside the door and a small machine in one of the windows. "Where are we?" Coal asked.

"At a hotel. I couldn't take you home looking like a giant albino," Joseph said.

Coal lifted his head, confusion overshadowing his headache. "An albino? What are you talking about?"

"Here," Zora said, throwing a compact mirror on the bed. "Look."

"Why?" Coal asked.

"Just look," she repeated.

He took the mirror and looked at his reflection. He was dark-skinned, with braids, wide nose and full lips. That has always been who he was, and what he looked like. But that was not the person or image staring back at him in the small mirror. This person was broad and heavily muscled, but instead of dark skinned, he was white skinned. Pale. The color of milk with only a hint of caramel. Reddish-brown freckles were scattered over the bridge of his nose and across his checks. His hair was still kinky and braided, but it was red. A dark, vibrant, loud red. And if that all of that was not impossible, this person had thick pointed, elongated ears.

This had to be a dream.

Or a nightmare.

He raised his hand that was not his to touch the foreign ears, hoping that if he touched them, the facade would shatter. And his was even white, and they ears were warm, hard, and intricate. Real. Finally, when the possibility that what he was seeing was true and the false image did not fade, he threw the mirror across the room.

"Is that a magic mirror? What's going on?" he said, standing. Now he understood the panic they were when he had awakened.

Joseph and Zora ran to the other side of the room.

"Seriously a magic mirror?" Joseph asked. "Those exist?"

"What was that? What kind of mirror is that?" Coal asked, panic gripping his heart overshadowing the pulse of his headache.

"It's not the mirror.  Zora and I see it too."

"I knew there was some strange reason you were asking about fairies. I effen I knew it," Zora said, excited, smiling, gleaming almost.

"If it's not the mirror, then something's wrong with me," Coal said.

"Ya think," Joseph said, fear and sarcasm apparent in his voice

Coal couldn't stop looking at his arms, feeling on his hair, his ears. His teeth. He touched his teeth with his tongue. His canines were sharp. Was this part of Chalcedony's punishment? Confuse him into believing he was fey, an elf. Punish him with the thing he'd long for almost his entire life?