Mother used to say I was given a gift. That I was special. That I had magic in my veins. Cut to seventh grade, and she is yelling at me for getting an F on an assignment. Yeah, my ass is very special indeed.
I swear I try my best at school, but I have some learning disabilities. I am dyslexic, so I could only rely on the teacher’s voice to learn, because if I tried to read from the board or from my book, it became pretty much a soup letter. I am also autistic, but I don’t get overwhelmed too easily and if I have my dice with different sensory objects and stimuli, I’ll be just fine. I couldn’t do classes for differently-abled students because my Mother and I were struggling a bit financially. So I just had to suck it up and take it, even if it was an F thrown at my face.
I also space out quite frequently. Imagining myself soaring above the skies. Day dreaming. Did I say my teachers absolutely hate me for that?
Either way, it all started when those strange twins enrolled in my school. They were identical so they couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than family. I was seventeen because I’d been held back for “stupidity” (I mean, fuck off), and they too looked older than ninth graders. Both of them were tall, and had blank expressions on their faces. They murmured something, probably their names, when the teacher asked them to present themselves, and sat right at the back of the room, like the least interesting thing for then was learning about history. To be fair, I felt the same, but if I didn’t pass again my Mother would have my liver for dinner.
I looked quickly on their directions, trying to disguise my intentions with a finger brush of my hair. My cheeks got flushed immediately: they were staring right at me. I unfocused and turned back to my book. There was something about those stares that really unsettled me. I was grateful I only had history class with them.
To add to the creepiness, in the first week that they were at school, they never ate. They had this unfocused, blank eyes unless they were sneaking a glance at me when they thought I wasn’t looking. I might be bad at school, but I could see they were trying to say or do something to me.
In the next week to their introductions, I sat at a table alone (I usually get surrounded by squirrely 15 year old girls but I’ve been this age, so I let them be as annoying as they want). As soon as the scripted glance happened, I waved and gestured them to sit in the empty table with me. They were so tall and awkward, it took a while to get from one way of the cafeteria from another and I could get a good view.
The boy was tall and lanky, with white snow skin and messy black hair almost in constrast. His eyes were dark chocolate, gazing directly into my soul. He didn’t smile or say anything, didn’t even sit. He looked more like a bodyguard than a twin.
The girl was the same, pale skin with dark hair, more curly than her brother’s. Her eyes were also dark chocolate, and she seemed to have a better disposition than her angry brother. She smiled, and her teeth were an immaculate white. Even through the awkwardness, I could tell they were above beautiful.
“Hi, Isa!”, the girl said cheerfully.
“Uh, it’s Bella. How do you know my name?” I blurped out. Great, now I’m more awkward than the both of them combined. Nice going, me.
“Oh, sorry Bella. I’m Alyssa, and this statue right here-“ she have a friendly slap on her brother’s arm. “-is Henrique. We were dispatched to protect you.”
I stared at her, eyes wide. “Protect from who?”
“Not who. What”, Alyssa looked at the windows leading the cafeteria back to campus. “You are pretty famous on our world, and with you turning 18… things are in a bit of a turmoil.”
I felt dizzy from all the information. Me? Famous? The girls who couldn’t even pass fourth grade? I think my brain stopped working at that moment, because all I could manage was a “uhh uhuh”. I searched for the dice in my pocket.
“So now we gotta take you back. Give you what is your birth right. You’re the one who will lead us.”
I gulped, still very much overwhelmed. “I am going to lead what and where now?”
Henrique intervened, his voice softer than I expected for a guy with such an angry demeanor. “Did your mom ever said you were special? Magical?”
I remembered the old days. “Yes, she always said that.”
“Well, it’s not bullshit. You are magical, but you never had the chance to learn how to use it.”
“Oh, c’mon!” I said sarcastically. Plenty of mothers say that to their children. Right?
Alyssa leaned over the table and whispered to me. “Name, Isabella Evangeline Young. Age, 17 years. Gets held back in school because your brain is simply not wired to function in English. Favorite hobby, crotcheting. Favorite shirt, an ice cream cone. Last love interest—“
“Okay, I’m convinced, don’t say anything else please!” I pleaded while Alyssa chuckled. At this point I could feel the warmness of my face, meaning I should be beet red. It’s very hard to hide your emotions when you’re a ginger.
“You have to lead us into battle. It is in the prophecy.” Henrique chimed in.
“I’m sorry, I’m totally convinced that you know your stuff but… What war? Who are us?” I asked, still confused.
Alyssa smiled again, her pristine teeth seemingly a bit more pointy than before. “Oh, the demons. We are demons. And we will depose The One Above.”
——
The bell rang and I made the twins promise to explain everything, in intricate detail, to me. They agreed and we went on to our afternoon classes.
After school we met at the statue of the school’s mascot, a red herring (yes, I see the irony), and started to walk home.
“Okay, so… you are demons.” I was still trying to wrap my head around this during the entirety of the afternoon.
“Not just us.” Alyssa made the gesture of a handgun and pretended to fire at me.
“I am a demon??!” Needless to say I was shocked beyond belief.
“Not just a demon.” The never-smiling Henrique chimed in, with his soft voice. “The demon. You are the daughter of the last monarch in our world.”
“So I’m a demon princess? Oooh, they should make a videogame about me” I joked, but it fell flat with the twins looking at me absolutely unfazed.
“You do realize you have to take all of this seriously when our battle starts for real, right?” Henrique just couldn’t shut up, could he?
“Yeah yeah I’m aware. So what am I? If not a demon princess…”
Alyssa sighed. “Our world is democratic and a monarchy. People appoint their candidates, they get elected, they can take the people’s concerns to the monarch, who then has the power to approve or deny the petition.”
“So… you’re not a monarchy neither a democracy?” Alyssa just tiredly stared at me with a ‘please don’t make me explain it again’ face. “Okay, cool. When do I get powers?”
“You have to train.” Henrique’s voice got harder. “They are already inside you, just—“ he trailed off when my foot got stuck on a rock and I fell hard on my knee. “Are you okay?!” He didn’t seem to know what to do to help me.
“Hey, I’m okay. Happens all the time.” I chuckled and got off the ground, dusting my jeans off of dirt. Then I rolled up my sleeve so they could see the bruises. “Most of them I don’t even know where they come from. I remember some; this was in the kitchen cabinet…” i point to a purple spot on my forearm. “I get bruises a lot, but that’s okay, I’m used to it.
My explanation didn’t appear to make the twins relax, eyeing my bruising with suspicion; I rolled back my long sleeve shirt and pretended this was not awkward.
After a few seconds, Henrique’s voice got soft again. “You scraped your knee, didn’t you?”
“No! I mean, yes! I mean, kind of?” I shrugged. “It’s not hurting.”
He took a seemingly expensive handkerchief and dipped some water from a bottle in it, pulling the leg of my jeans gently upward. I let him do it for one simple reason: I lied, it was hurting as hell.
Henrique gently tapped the scrapes on my leg, his handkerchief getting redder as he went. I noticed it had an emblem of some sort in the corner, but I couldn’t read it.
“We should sit down. Don’t want you getting in accidents just for being inattentive”, Alyssa’s voice had a tinge of smugness in it, but I decided to ignore her provocation. Henrique finished his job and rolled the leg of the pants down.
“Thank you, I feel much better.” I told him, and for a split second I could see the shadow of a smile.
“Don’t mention it.” He said, turning away from me, but I could see the tip of his ears were bright red.
“Going back to the important stuff…” Alyssa resumed as if nothing had happened. “You do have your powers, and when you learn how to use them, you could wipe a whole platoon at once.”
“But how do I do that?!” I was frustrated feom all their cryptic answers.
“The journey is different for everyone. For me and Henrique, it was a jigsaw puzzle. Some people compare it to a game of chess. And yet others say it’s a maze. I’m afraid you’ll have to find out on your own.”
“I don’t feel anything of the sort. Are you sure you have the right— WHA—“ I got crudely interrupted when someone pulled my hair from behind jerking my head back and i hear a CHOP, like scissors. The momentum made me move forward, and I touched my hair. No. NO. “What the FUCK do you think you are doing?!” I snarled to Henrique.
“Your picture is all over our world.” He explained, playing with the scissors. “We need hair dye and colored contacts to be safe.”
“NO WAY. No, ok? I’m pretty sure you have the wrong person, I’m not special and you just fucking chopped my hair off!” My hair, a shade of orange, was spread like huge tentacles behind the bank. The rest now, instead of my back, ended right on my neck.
“It is for your own safety—“ Henrique insisted.
“I said NO!” As soon as I said it, a medium gush of wind flowed through Henrique’s hair. Alyssa looked confused but then hid it under a huge smile.
“See? You have powers. We will teach you how to. But you have to trust us.” She extended her hand for a handshake.
I took her hand. “No hair dye and no contact lenses though.”