Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Turn About ❯ One-Shot

The last time I saw my brother, I was nine.

It was the last day he could be considered healthy. He had a cough; he'd been able to hide it before that day. He wasn't sick often; I can hardly remember him being sick in all honesty. But if he coughed, Mother used to always be watching him after that. He was the baby of the family, we were three years apart. That was just how it went. I suppose Mother was always worried because I was worried. I looked after him, as an older sister can when there isn't much distant in age or maturity. A sick child and a worried one was more than enough for her.

Either way, he ended up in bed early that night. Mother didn't let him up the next day. She let Father in to see him, before he went to work. I wasn't. She didn't need me sick too. My clearest memory is that I was lonely. I had no other siblings, for whatever reason. There was a doctor at some point; I think Father had known him years ago. Some point after the doctor, there was a man with a child's casket and that was that. I know it hurt, back then, but that's how it went. Someone would get sick, at some time a doctor would come…and before long there was a funeral. The only other thing I remember was the church and how entering it made things so final.

The last time I saw my father he'd been called to war.

My brother had been gone a few years and as far as I understood, no one came back from war. I was a mess of tears, something my mother didn't appreciate. She was strong but to this day I wish she hadn't been. Maybe if she hadn't been as strong there would have been emotion in her voice when she told me Father would come back, be a hero that had fought back the Germans. But I don't think she believed her own words either. I felt as if my father leaving meant the end of my family. Back then Mother got help from her own parents, and my father's I would later know, in order to raise me. I know I spent a lot of time with them, family meals and ways to save money. It didn't matter that the next age has been forever remembered as a Golden Age. It was then that we had little and things hadn't changed for the better with Father gone.

I was right and he never came back, though I doubt I will ever know if it was the war itself that killed him or if it was rampant disease that took my father away. Some days I have to figure it was the war, because the Flu hadn't made its appearance then. The little rhyme of those days will haunt me for a long time still to come I suppose. I was so stubborn when it came for the first time to the area, I'm still shocked that I didn't end up sick and dead myself….though I have suspicions on why of all people I would be spared the fate instead of someone really needed in this world. But there is no undoing it now.

Some time, a few years I want to say, my mother remarried. There was no raising a child alone back then, so it wasn't abnormal…but I was never happy with it. I lost both sets of grandparents with the marriage and we moved. Maybe what angered me more than replacing my father was the idea of replacing my brother as well. My new father had a son himself, he'd lost his wife years before to illness and had only now decided to remarry. He'd really done no wrong to his boy by doing that, really. My step brother's name was Gabriel and he was three years older than me…my former situation reversed. The family relationship between us was tenuous. Gabriel had been an only child all his life and I had the briefest memories of my life as an older sister. We clashed in ways that our respective parents couldn't see. We didn't let them see. They were happy with each other…we would have to be happy ourselves.

The last time I saw my second home….Mother and my stepfather as well…was when the Dust Bowl began to hit our region.

I was old enough to be married….but I was short and childish in my looks. And maybe that's putting it mildly. There wasn't much hope of a match with that even if things had become much more open in that golden age. I attracted no one. My stepbrother tried but had little luck, he was a gentleman to the core, but had a very hard time talking to women. When the Dust Bowl came, the Depression too, we lost much of my stepfather's business. It was hard to provide for a family, though my stepbrother, to his best attempts, had a job, got paid. I didn't have the luxury. I had the problems of what is known as being a tomboy now. It wasn't great then.

I couldn't stay. So I left. I cut my hair, ragged and like a paper boy's. I had gotten clothes that had been left over from my stepbrother, that hadn't been given away as he had grown by a father that didn't know what to do with them. They were dated, but they would work. I left, in the night, I had to. I couldn't live there, couldn't be under the reins anymore. I never went back to that home in Iowa. I never saw my mother again, not with her recognizing me. I know she died at the age of sixty three, I saw her once more as child lost in the hospital. I attended her funeral and knew what I had lost despite everything. If not for the years apart, I may have never known.

In those years I was no better than a stray. I rode trains, up top like the authorities told you not to, did the odd jobs boys could find in the Depression and did everything I could to never allow anyone to realize I was female. Wasn't hard….I'd never hit puberty. Still haven't. I guess it had its perks.

Twenty seven years ago I met my uncle.

He's not my uncle, not by blood or anything that normal people consider family, even as family begins to mean so many different things. But nonetheless his is my uncle, in ways that words do not tell. Six feet tall, he was huge to my eyes then, big to me now even. Black hair…dyed or bleached in the bangs to something near white and with dark, dark eyes. He scared the living daylights out of me in a back alley of Boston. He had been looking for me since I had left home. Which I would find out….once I stopped running from him. It was hard to believe him; he looked too young though the hardness of his personality fit just fine with someone who had seen more than I. Some nights he would literally save me with food and shelter. He said he did it for my father and the way he spoke….made me believe he was still alive.

He is…but he is not the man I knew. And in a way, it's better than I could have hoped. My uncle let it slip around the time war started in Europe again. It was hard to believe, I ran from him again. Of course this agitated him to no end; he had thought his days of dealing with emotional younger people were over when my father had grown. In the end he found me in a train yard trying to decide which direction to head in. He alone would never have convinced me to listen…but it was that same day that I met my aunt. She was quiet and tall, taller then I though women could be. She was soothing as she tried to explain, and my uncle tried to keep her on track, and between her words and the stupidity of it all…I left the train yard with them. I know now it was the only decision to make. To say that there honestly was another would be denial.

The last time I saw my stepbrother was at the train tracks before he was shipped out.

It was by accident too. I was dragging my uncle about; trying to convince him to let me meet my father. Looking away from my uncle, I noticed him, spotted him like he was the only one there. I stopped so fast people ran into me, but I couldn't stop watching. I wanted to go up to him…but I couldn't. I was afraid and I simply could not do it. I had already noticed I had stopped changing…my first hint should have been the unchanging childish looks and lack of womanly things. I had begun to ask my aunt but she avoided the topic well. I couldn't go up to Gabriel looking as I did when I left as I was most certain I did. Not when the man was about to go to war.

I let him leave but watched until he had left the platform. Once my uncle knew who it was, he said nothing to make me leave. I wished him silent luck that he would make it back to this soil again…but I don't know if he ever did…though something of the meeting still bugs me.

Fifteen years ago I found out I wasn't human.

I was right about the not changing bit. I wasn't, which was normal apparently. Slow growth rates and long life spans come with the territory. Though the puberty thing has my aunt stumped and my uncle gets pale faced, has to leave the room. Being short comes from my father; apparently he was short for a lot of years (try decades) before getting a growth spurt. Tells me that he's at least closer to the same height as my uncle rather than closer to me. The entire feeling of it is like walking around one day and someone you know coming up and telling that gravity is in your head and your entire life…you've been floating above the ground, you've imagined that your feet are touching the earth. In a way it's more fundamental than that, disconcerting to the point where you stop thinking about it.

I only think as much as they bring it up. This is about every time my uncle opens his mouth with how little he talks and I think my aunt can speak of nothing else. Sometimes I can steer them in other directions. Its easiest with my aunt, you could distract her with a snap of your fingers…literally. My uncle is tougher, he can be singled minded in everything he does. I've managed to get him off topic (much as he demands that I think about what I…am) by demanding to know where my father was. This stopped him in time but never left a good feeling in the air.

In the last six months I have met my father twice. He's apologetic for the years we've been apart; he's watched me and knows so much though. He hugs me more then I have been hugged before in my life. For once, someone in my family looks like me. I finally know where my green eye came from too.

Last month my aunt came by with an albino dog. She claims, with that smile of hers, that it has been looking for me for decades…so far all he does is sit on my couch and stare at me. And growl if I try to get close enough to make sure he really is male. When she stops by he sits in her lap and she talks to him and he stares at her as if there's a conversation being had.

In the last two minutes I have opened my front door and slammed it again. I've seen a ghost, found the dog growling at the door as I panic, try to remember where I hid the baseball bat from my aunt, whether or not anything my uncle has ever said about defense can even be used and crying for my father in my head. And at the same time I feel the pooling feel of the power I haven't wanted to acknowledge since I found myself floating. I have no reason to stop the anger that comes after the sensation. Whoever it is, it is a cruel joke they play, looking exactly like the last day I saw my stepbrother.

And they will pay for it.

It doesn't matter if I have the baseball bat or not, I'm angry enough to beat the pulp out of my uninvited guest with my own two hands. I pull it open already yelling,

“Listen up wiseas-!”

“Michelle?!” My voice clogs my throat hearing my name, a name I can hardly go by anymore, in the voice of someone who should most likely be long dead on foreign soil. A wide smile parts the lips of pale face, lights up brown eyes I couldn't stand so many decades ago. Hands come up to run through messy bed hair the color of grain from wheat.

“Michelle….” And this time he whispers. The dog has stopped growling and is sitting patiently at my legs garnering the attention of the one at the door; I'm seconds away from blubbering like a fool for all the world to see.

“G-Gabriel?” His eyes widen and I think he's torn between laughing and sobbing himself. It's been decades….he's been to war…

“You haven't changed!” It's the same thing out of both our mouths at the same instant. It's what I hadn't noticed at the train station. But he's going into shock and all I want is to hold him close. My stepbrother is really outside my door. I clear my head with a quick shake before beckoning him in. Before shutting the door I make sure no neighbors are being nosy. For a few it's the only thing they do besides getting high. A manic grin splits my face.

“Gabe!” Before I can even turn to face him completely, my step brother has me close. It's almost strange.

“Where have you been Michelle? What in the world made you leave?” I don't have any choice but to wrap my arms around his neck.

A half hour later I have him at the little table in what amounts to my kitchen. He's got a glass of water he's only been half drinking because all he's doing is staring at me.

“What?” Gabriel jumps and stares at his water glass.

“What…happened to us?” I know what he means, but I can't say it. He had been the normal one, should've married and had kids. Should have been far too old for war. It's one thing for me to say to myself, alone and quietly, that I am not human. It's entirely another to face my stepbrother and even plant the seed that he may not be also.

At first I attempt to deny that anything has happen, but that as well won't leave my lips. I can't chase him away, not when it won't be long and everyone born in the times I remember well will be dead and gone. I have mourned for years the loss of the family I had grown up with, and to chase away Gabriel left me with a cold chill.

“You….You really don't want to know Gabe.” He fixes me with brown eyes and its obvious the changes he's been through.

“Really? Because I'm not aging and I can't stay in one place anymore. Something is wrong with me, with you, and your explanation can't be worse than not knowing what it is.”

“Yes it can….it can be worse. A million times worse.” Eyeing me skeptically and gripping the water glass tighter, my stepbrother is ready to wear me down. I started again, trying to answer without answering.

“It's like being taught that its ABCD, that's how the alphabet goes…and when you've got it down and moved on to bigger and better things, someone stops you and says `no, no its not ABCD, its ABDF. A.B.D.F.' It can hurt you and it can change you and there will be no going back to way things were before. ” The confusion is evident on his face. There is no reason to hide it.

“Something…fundamental…that I believe is wrong. Something you don't question?” He's always been bright.

“You're going to force me, aren't you?”

“I can't live like this. I need you to help me, but if you can't tell me, what good will it be?” I grind my teeth.

“We're not human,” I say fast and continue before he can interrupt, “In fact, we were taught to call our kind…demons.” He covered his face with his hands. I hang my head.

Welcome to our mad world, Gabriel, welcome.