"I'm not even surprised anymore."
The rec. room was like a miniature Chuck E. Cheese's. There was a foosball table, an air hockey table, a basketball hoop, a Pacman machine, table tennis, skeeball, a rock climbing wall, a slide that Naomi was pretty sure started somewhere upstairs, a chin up bar, and buried trampoline. Naomi didn't even know how the room could physically fit everything in it at once, but somehow it did.
"Most of this is stuff my Uncle Sahale got cheap from pawn shops or yard sales that he fixed up," Darcy explained. "And my cousin Gen is a huge health and fitness nut, so she added the rock wall."
"And the slide?"
"My dad's idea, but Aunt Tehya helped him install it."
"Wow," was all Naomi could say. "And where's the top of it?"
Darcy pulled her behind the slide and pointed to a crawl space-type hole in the wall. Naomi peered inside and saw a ladder.
"Wow. How long has your family had this lodge?" Naomi could easily imagine generations of Jogahs adding to the building, improving it and making it better.
"That's... a hard question to answer," said Darcy slowly. "And it's also something I've been wanting to talk to you about."
Naomi looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"My questions first," Darcy insisted. She took a deep breath, like she was preparing herself, and when she looked at Naomi it was a hard, searching stare, like she was trying to see inside her and look at her brains. It was more than a little unnerving, seeing the sudden change in her friend's usual carefree demeanor.
"What are you?" she said.
Naomi blinked. "I-I, what?"
"What are you?" Darcy asked again. Naomi thought she might be joking, but the look Darcy was giving her that made her feel like she beneath a microscope convinced her otherwise.
"I don't know what you're..." Naomi stopped and her blood turned to ice. Her lungs refused to draw air and Naomi felt the color evaporate from her face. She was seized by pure fear.
Her thoughts were racing at a million miles an hour. She couldn't possibly be talking about... could she? But what else could she be talking about? How did she know? How did she find out? Did she see me? When could she have seen me?
"I... I..." Naomi couldn't speak. Her voice was shaking too much, and her mind was so muddled she couldn't form a coherent word.
"Are you a Naiad?" she pressed. "A Wight? A Sprite?"
Naomi recognized all the creatures her friend was naming. The naiads were the spirits of bodies of water in Greek mythology. The wights were the dwarf and elf spirits in Norse tradition, and everyone knew that sprites were a species of fairy.
This was all made perfect sense to Naomi, who had had an interest in mythology legendary creatures since before she could remember. What made no sense whatsoever was why Darcy was asking her if she actually was any of these creatures.
"What are you talking about?" she finally managed.
Darcy sighed. "Fine, we'll do this the hard way, then." She reached into her back pocket and pulled out... an envelope. For a crazy second Naomi thought it was a knife, and she flinched away.
Darcy opened the envelope. Inside there was dirt, but not dirt. Regular dirt wasn't shimmering blue and didn't smell like strawberries and sunshine. Darcy grabbed a pinch of the blue dirt and flung it in Naomi's face.
Naomi was so surprised and too busy hacking and coughing to realize a tingling sensation had started in her fingers until it had spread like a wildfire and was nearly to her ankles.
Her eyes widened to the size of grapefruits. "Igottausethebathroom!" she said. She turned to run, but Darcy's hand snatched her wrist, holding her back.
"No," Darcy said. "No more running."
Naomi's heart beat faster and faster until she was sure it'd explode. Her breathing was fast and shallow. She tried to pull away, tried to fight Darcy off, but the girl had a grip like iron. There was no way for her to hide. All she could do was turn her face away as her hands turned painfully warm and she Shifted.
Naomi's senses increased tenfold. She could feel the texture of the floor beneath her shoes. She could hear Ezhno making lunch in the kitchen upstairs. She could smell the scent of rain in the air from the open windows. But most importantly she could hear Darcy. She could hear her breathing, could feel her pulse in her fingers still gripping Naomi's wrist tight as a manicle.
"Look at me," Darcy said quietly. "Let me see your face."
Naomi obeyed, turning her head ever so slowly to face her. And why shouldn't she? There was nothing to hide anymore. She could have used her enhanced strength to pull her wrist free and run, but there was no point. Darcy already knew there was something difference about her. She had found out the truth, and nothing Naomi did was ever going to change that. So she turned to face Darcy, letting her friend take in her bejeweled face, her shimmering, healthy hair. But she didn't let her see her blazingly bright eyes. Naomi kept her eyes glued to the floor, scared to look up and see the look of disgust on her best friend's face.
"I was right," Darcy said, her voice barely above a whisper, yet Naomi heard it easily with her enhanced ears. "I was right."
Naomi gathered her courage and dared to look up and meet her friend's gaze. She felt no small amount of relief to discover wonder in her Darcy's eyes and not horror. "Please," Naomi pleaded, her voice hoarse. She was surprised to feel that her face was wet. Was she crying? "Please, you can't tell anyone, not even Papa. Please, Darcy, if you were ever my friend, please, you have to keep this secret."
The Shift ended and Naomi's skin reverted to normal, as did her senses, but she didn't take her eyes off Darcy.
"Please," she begged. "If anyone were to find out... I would be carted off to Area 51. They'd cut me open and experiment on me. Darcy... please." Her voice was small and weak.
Naomi didn't know what she expected Darcy to say. Maybe something like, Of course I won't say anything. You're my best friend! I won't say a word. Or, she dreaded, something like, Are you kidding? Of course I'm telling. Do you know how many renovations I can add to this place once I collect the reward for turning you in? What she didn't expect her to say was, "Must be on your mom's side."
Naomi reeled back. "What?"
Instead of answering, Darcy said, "Come with me." She still hadn't let go of Naomi's wrist, and she started to drag her along until Naomi dug her heels into the ground and yanked her arm painfully out of Darcy's grip.
"No. I'm not going anywhere until you swear you won't tell anyone about this."
"Does that mean you don't want to meet others like us?" Darcy asked.
Naomi's mind was still reeling over what had just happened, so it took her a moment to identify what was wrong with what Darcy had said. "Us? What do you mean 'us'?"
Darcy smiled like Naomi was a child who had said something amusing. "Did you really think you were the only one?" She closed her eyes, whispered something in a language Naomi didn't understand, and began to glow. It was faint at first, but then it turned blinding and Naomi had to look away. When the light dimmed and she could look back, she gasped. Darcy's skin, usually a flawless copper color, was now speckled with flecks of golden yellow. Her burgundy eyes were more pink than brown, and the teal of her bangs was more vibrant than Naomi had ever seen it, like it had just been freshly dyed.
It wasn't until she was gasping for air that Naomi realized she'd not been breathing. She opened and closed her mouth like a fish, trying to form words but failing. "I... But I... How?"
"I'll explain everything," Darcy promised as her skin, hair, and eyes returned to their normal colors. "But first, I think you should meet some friends of mine. Follow me."
Darcy led her inside the crawl space behind the slide and mounted the ladder. But instead of climbing up, Darcy gave the third rung a hard twist and suddenly the faded away, revealing that the ladder extended into a deep, dark tunnel.
"Come on," Darcy said, already climbing down.
Naomi followed, more questions than she could number zipping around her mind. She knew she'd just seen Darcy Shift, and she knew she'd just seen a solid-looking floor disappear into thin air, but her brain didn't seem to know how to store that information. How was this possible? She knew she hadn't imagined it, yet it seemed too impossible to be real.
Answers are on the way, she reminded herself. Patience. Just a little longer.
She couldn't see anything, but she heard Darcy reach the bottom with a grunt. When Naomi's feet reached the floor, she tried to get bearing of her surroundings, but the only light was coming from the small square above them where they had entered. She could barely see the outline of Darcy next to her reach over to the ladder, grab the fifth rung, and twist it. When she did, the hole sealed itself shut, like it had never even been there in the first place, plunging them into darkness.
"This way," Darcy's disembodied voice said. She grabbed Naomi's wrist and led her through the darkness. "Stop here." They must have reached a door, because Darcy reached out and knocked four times in a special rythme.
They waited five, ten seconds before a voice from the other side said, "That you?"
"Who else would it be, Sir Goofalot?" Darcy replied. Naomi could hear the smile in her voice.
A small door opened, about four feet tall and four feet wide, letting light come streaming into the room. Darcy got down on her hands and knees and crawled through.
"Darcy! You're here!" the voice said as Naomi nervously got on her hands and knees to follow.
"Yep, and I brought a friend."
"Brought a friend?" the voice asked. "Who..."
Naomi stood on the other side of the hole and came face-to-face with a boy. He couldn't have been much older than Naomi herself, fifteen, probably, but it was obvious already that he was going to be a very handsome young man. He was tall and strong. His sandy blond hair was swept to the side and his eyes were candy apple green. His skin was lightly tanned and he had a tilted smile.
The room they were standing in was round, and completely painted white, with no exits except the way Naomi had just come from and a hallway right behind the boy. The whole effect made Naomi feel like she'd just walked into an asylum, and she tried not the think about how much she probably belonged in one.
"Is this...?" The boy looked to Darcy, who nodded. "Nice to finally meet you, Naomi," the boy said. "I've heard lots about you. My name is Alec. I'd shake your hand, but..."
That's when Naomi first noticed his arm was hanging in a sling around his neck. He was wearing a cast, but the cast didn't seem like a normal cast. Naomi couldn't place what was off about it at first, but then she realized it was made of smooth, polished, red stone.
"Nice to meet you," Naomi said, eyes glued to his cast. How was it possible to make a cast out of rock like that? Naomi used to collect such rocks when she was younger, but she'd never seen one big enough to carve a cast out of it.
"Come in," Alec said. "I've just pulled lunch out of the oven." He turned and started down the hallway, Darcy right behind him. Naomi was left with the choice of
A) Staying there in the round, white room
B) Going back through the small door and trying to find her way around in the dark, or
C) Following.
She chose option C.