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The next time I got out, Allen allowed me to roam. “You're probably safer at night,” he pointed out. “And there's a nice moon coming out. You can go lunch on whatever unsuspecting creatures catch your fancy.”
My bird-stomach growled. The idea of raw meat sounded so good. Living on pizza crusts and whatever Allen was generous enough to create for me was usually not enough, but I couldn't admit that to him.
“Go plot with your oak tree-brother,” he snickered. “And good luck.”
As I often did, I thought about how much I loathed that Allen controlled us. I flew over the forest, wishing I could return to his house and peck his eyes out. Of course even if I somehow got close enough to hurt him, he could always fix himself up. I was nothing compared to such a powerful man.
Flapping through the twilight sky, I could almost sense the dark closing in on me. Although I was high up on the food chain, I was no longer human, and I couldn't safely assume that nothing would try to attack me. The night sounds were loud and harsh on my ears, and I jumped as a katydid buzzed past. It looked tasty...
A bat whizzed by me and finished it off, and I swerved into a branch to dodge the furry mammal. I lost a few feathers to that encounter...
Extremely on edge, I continued to search for Daniel. The woods loomed below me, a black void threatening to swallow me up. Daniel, I cried in my mind. Daniel, where are you? I'm so scared!
Unintentionally, I let his name fall from my mouth, but it materialized only as an anguished screech that echoed through the night. I hadn't realized how helpless it felt to be robbed of the ability to form words. But perhaps my call had done some good after all. I was suddenly aware of my brother's consciousness, a well of calm and content. I followed the familiar pull until he came into view, a defenseless young sapling, glowing in the moonlight.
Daniel, I'm here.
It took a moment for the tree to rouse from its slumber. Did trees sleep? But his reply was all the answer I needed, strange as it was.
Sorry, I was napping. No sun to photosynthesize with, you know? Hey, don't hurt my branch when you land this time. Last time you sunk your nails right into me. My sap was flowing all over. It's all dry on me now, see it? Kinda like a scab!
Viewing the dried sap on his bark, I was laughing in my mind, despite our grim circumstances. I could always count on Daniel to brighten up my day. He was the one who could lift me from any funk, although it was often through making fun of Matthew.
And now he was a tree.
And what was more, he still didn't seem to mind.
How's it going, Corinne? Any nice male birds taking you out for drinks?
Daniel was definitely Daniel, no matter what form he was in. Daniel, how could you joke? Aren't you scared? Don't you want to be a person?
He hesitated for a moment. Not really.
Why?
One of his leaves fell lazily to the ground. This is so much nicer and easier, and I have a much longer life span.
Life spans? Who was thinking of life spans here? Who cares? You'd still be a tree!
Corinne, you should ask Allen to make you one so you see what I mean!
I purposely dug my claws into his branch. I’d swear he visibly cringed even as a tree, but in any case, he didn’t say anything.
Daniel, he made me into a jade statue before. There's no way I want to go back to being an object.
I'm not an object! I'm a living organism!
I didn’t answer him. There really was nothing to say. We sat there in silence, just listening to the sounds of the forest. Daniel’s forest.
Sorry I missed your graduation, kid, he said out of the blue. So busy sunbathing, you know?
How do you even know what day it is? I asked morosely.
Oh, Allen keeps me up on the news. He apologized for keeping me from your celebration, and he told me how it went.
My brother spoke like Allen’s actions were completely acceptable. And they weren’t! Daniel, aren’t you angry that he wouldn’t let you go to your own sister’s graduation?
Well, I would have liked to be with you–
I could see there was no reasoning with him in this state, and I was too miserable and tired to fight with him. Oh, Daniel! What should we do? I don’t want to be a bird forever!
Finally, he suggested what he had said right before Allen had discovered us: Go to Mom and Julian.
***
AS I FLEW FAR ABOVE my neighborhood, I sensed my parents even before I neared their house. Just as with Daniel, I could feel a tug in my gut, a familiarity beckoning me to come join them.
I flapped over to the back door and looked in. No one was there, but I had a sneaking suspicion as to where my father would be. I knew I was getting closer to him as I approached the piano room window. It was kind of like a game of hot and cold.
Peering in, I could see Dad slumped over the piano. He wasn’t playing; instead, his fingers stretched across the keys while he stared ahead, a vacant expression on his face. And for once, he looked old.
I had never seen him in this light – I couldn't imagine Julian Greene as an older man. He was always so full of life even in his darker moments. Now that I knew so much more about him, viewing him this way only hurt more. My handsome father was more than just a doctor or pianist. Many people owed him and my mother their lives. What would this world be like without these brilliant men and women whom my parents had rescued?
I pecked at the window. It was open a crack, but the screen kept me from entering the house. I probably could have teleported in, but I didn't want to scare my father any more than I needed to.
When Dad didn’t respond, I tapped louder. He slowly turned to face me, and a look of annoyance passed over his face. “Brian?”
Brian? Why was he calling my grandfather? No one else was in the room.
He got up and walked grudgingly toward me. “Patricia's in the shower.”
I shook my head “no” and waved my wings around a bit.
Dad crept closer, regarding me intently as he opened the screen. “Brian?” he said again. “What’s with all the theatrics?”
This time I squawked and shook my head back and forth several times.
“Not...Brian?” He peered into my eyes, his mouth falling open. “But you have an aura...” Stunned, he reached out to me. “Corinne? Daniel?”
I nodded, fluttering into his hands.
“Corinne?”
More nodding led him to draw me up and kiss me on my head. “Oh, my God! We were so worried! We couldn't find you!” He paused, looking me up and down. “Aldous got ahold of you. I knew it. Let me get your mother.” He didn’t bother to walk up the stairs. He just disappeared.
It was funny – he was so happy to see me, but he didn't seem overly worried that I was a bird.
Seconds later, he reappeared with Mom. Her hair was wet and she had thrown a bathrobe hastily around her dripping body. She ran at me, clasping her hands together and crying.
“We looked all over for you, but we couldn't sense you!” She threw her arms around me and held me tightly. “We figured he was blocking your signature. He needs to be stopped. I'm so glad you were able to escape him, Corinne.”
What did it matter? I'm destined to be a house pet, I thought to myself.
“No you're not.”
Before I could wonder if she had heard me, there was light, and I was me. Person-me.
I stood open-mouthed, staring at my mother. “You?”
“Yes,” she said, slightly embarrassed.
A mixture of anger and shock welled up inside of me. Had I known this, I would have left Allen the very first night he let me fly. “Why didn't you tell me that you’re a changer? I can’t believe–”
“Shh,” Mom calmed me. “It’s okay. I didn't get around to telling you yet. I would have soon, but I wanted to ease you into things a bit at a time. Transformation is a tough thing to accept. But now that Aldous divulged it all...”
I wanted to scream. This whole calamity could have been avoided had I known about Mom. Yet if I had just told her about Allen...
I swallowed hard.
“Corinne, you can't let him know about us,” Mom whispered.
“Us?” Now I was even more confused. “You mean you and Dad?”
“Not Dad. I mean other changers.”
“There's more?”
“You know that crow?” my mother began. “The one that was cawing at you when you were re-planting the bleeding heart?”
I gulped. The realization that was dawning on me was as hard to accept as learning that my own mother was a changer. “You called me Brian when I was at the window, Dad.”
He nodded.
“And Mom, why did you ask if Grandpa Brian had planted that plant? Was he there?”
Dad coughed. “Oh, he was there.”
I didn't say anything, and he continued, “The god-damned squawking crow? That was Brian. It's always Brian. He's a pain in the–”
“Julian! That's my father you're talking about!” Mom cut him off.
The revelation was yet another slap to my long-held beliefs about my life. I’d always had crows and birds flying around me. Or so I thought until now. Maybe they were my relatives all along... Grouchy Grandpa Brian, who watched history programs all day and often yelled back at them, could also become a crow?
“Oh, Corinne,” Mom looked at me lovingly and started to choke up. “We flew all over the forest and the town, we were calling you...”
I remembered the night I'd thought I'd detected voices as I was drifting off on my perch. “I think I heard you once, Mom.” Perhaps they'd flown overhead?
“I really think he must have been blocking you, because we couldn't sense you. He's young to be so powerful.”
“He's sure powerful,” I grumbled. “Look what he did to Daniel.”
Mom jumped up. “What did he do? Do you know where he is? Is he alright?”
I grimaced. “He’s a tree.”
“Oh, thank God he’s okay!” She swept her hand across her face. “What happened to you both? How do you know it’s Daniel?”
Well, he was hardly okay if he was a tree, but I didn’t say that to her.
“Allen...Aldous turned me into a bird so I couldn't take him back to his own time...” The tension, fear, and horror of the past days rushed over me, and I finally ran into my mother's arms, sobbing and shaking. “Oh, God, it was so awful... He tied me to a perch at night!”
My father’s face grew so red and enraged that I worried he would have a stroke. “Tied you?” He smashed his fist into the piano bench cushion. “An eighteen-year-old girl? He transforms you, ties you up at night, and what, keeps you as a pet?”
“Oh, Corinne, Corinne. I’m so sorry! What a horrible man!” my mother exclaimed, vehemently shaking her head in disbelief. For several seconds, she ran her hands through my hair, smoothing out the tangles. “Don’t worry. You're safe now, and we'll help Daniel.”
“Damned changers!” Dad spat, throwing himself back down on the piano bench. He snapped shut his Chopin book and tossed it to the side.
I looked into Mom’s eyes, searching for more explanation. “Oh, Mom, I can’t figure it out... Daniel’s happy as a tree! He said he wants to stay like that! His mind is all messed up!”
She smiled. “His mind is fine. Don’t worry about that.”
“You know,” Dad remarked, “you still could have taken Aldous back in time even in bird form.” I could hear him struggling to control his anger. He rose from the piano, and then came over and placed his arms around us both.
“But if went back in time, no one could have changed me back.”
“You’d come back to us, and we would.”
“But you didn't tell me you could!” I shrilled in fury, pulling away from them. “Had I known, I would have gone to you right away! Look what I had to go through! Why didn't you tell me you were a changer, Mom? You told me the other stuff! I can’t believe any of this...”
Mom remained silent, but her mind was evidently at work. “How do you know Daniel’s a tree?”
“Again with the trees,” Dad groaned, whatever that meant. Probably another one of their crazy stories.
“He talked to me! Well, in my mind.”
My father raised his eyebrows, and Mom grabbed my hands in earnest. “Was he kind of 'glowing'?”
“Yes.”
Releasing me, Mom nudged Dad, and they gazed at each other like the most spectacular secret of all was about to be divulged. “Come here, Corinne.”
“I am here,” I uttered blankly.
“Try this.”
“What?”
With a flash, I was on the ground, immobile and shapeless. Mom! What did you do to me? I shrieked in my mind.
“Now, Corinne, you're a rock. But you don't want to be one, do you?”
Of course not!
There it was again, the bizarreness of being solid and unbreathing...
“So you need to push yourself back into human form.”
How do I do that?
“Think of your body. Think of how it feels to have arms and legs, and to be able to move. Think of what it’s like to be flesh and blood, and to be tall.”
A powerful warmth ran through me.
“My God,” Dad breathed.
Mom, however, was clapping. “Yes! Yes! Think of the light – push yourself into that ball of light!”
A surge of energy flowed through my form...
“Go, Corinne! Go!” Dad encouraged excitedly.
Something gave inside of my very being, and I guided the power through me. I was no longer stone. My very essence was now the energy, manifested as a bright orb of light.
“Yes!! Now push yourself into your real form!” Mom instructed.
Arms, legs.... I forced myself into my corporeal, human figure. Everything was coming back – hair, fingernails, nose...
“Finish up, Corinne! Be you!”
And I was.
Even though I'd been human for a few minutes when my mother changed me back before, returning to it yet again after all the time as a bird was still difficult, and I stumbled a bit before I could right myself. Then I resumed my violent shaking. This new power had not only rendered me speechless, but I was infuriated as well. If I had only known, I could have saved myself. I could have escaped Allen and even stopped him for good!
Dad let out a series of astonished curses, while Mom wept and embraced me. “You're my kid,” she whispered. “Mine and Julian's. Everyone said you'd be incredible. They were right.”
“She even changed back fully dressed! Is she just like you, Patricia?” Dad ventured between uncontrollable bouts of smiling.
“What does that mean?” I made a proud but angry yawn.
“She's tired, Julian.”
Dad continued as if Mom hadn't spoken. “Your mother picks up whatever abilities she's exposed to, Corinne. It's extremely exceptional, even for people like us. I don't know if you have that talent too, or you simply have innate abilities. I have to tell my parents. My father would love to work with you.”
“Why?” I tried to stop myself from shivering. It wasn't working.
“Ron is a teacher,” explained my mother.
“I thought he's a surgeon.”
“He also teaches people abilities. He works with them to bring them out.”
“So anyone can do this?”
“No. Some people are born with talents, others are able to learn them – from people like my father,” Dad replied.
“And I guess some can't pick up anything at all.”
“True.”
So my own mother was doing this all along, “being” things before I ever existed. And now I could too. After the other discoveries I'd made about myself, this one was the hardest to accept. But it was true, and I now had to learn all I could about it. “How can I see or hear if I'm...whatever...a rock?”
Mom swished her foot against the floor. “Corinne, you need to rest. It's so late,” she replied, but the hunger for information was written so clearly on my face that she grudgingly went on.
“No one, not even Jonas, truly understands how we are able to transform things. A rock should just be a rock, right? But by studying my father, Jonas, who is every bit the scientist, feels that this ability of ours proves that there is more to consciousness than just the physical brain.”
Digesting this, I nodded slowly. “So you're saying, like a soul?”
“Maybe. You've heard of out-of-body experiences?”
“Yes. I never believed in them, however.”
Dad chuckled. “But you believe in transformation.”
Mom folded her hands together. “Well, I liken it to the idea that the consciousness can be separate from a body. Our body might go through a complete metamorphosis, but our ‘soul’ or consciousness remains, locked in whatever form we've put ourselves in.”
We blinked at each other for a few seconds, and then Mom sighed. “I wish Lisette could have seen this. She's the one you were named after – a venerable old changer.”
Of course, having been born in 1761, she would have been ancient. I was very curious as to what her story was. The idea of her living that long fascinated me.
“She was able to live so long because she changed. She never stayed as any one person.”
“Don't you just...run out of energy at some point?”
Mom gulped. “I don't know. She was killed,” she replied softly.
Someone killed a changer? I wanted to ask more, but my mother's tortured expression silenced me for the time being.
“Okay, let's get a few hours of sleep so we're strong. I'll need to get my father. Then we'll go rescue your brother and stop Aldous.”
“Well, at least for a while,” Dad added. “He’ll start on Hannah soon enough when he’s back home.”
“Let's go now!” I gasped, horrified that we would wait. “We've got to save Daniel!”
Shaking her head, Mom countered, “Corinne, you're exhausted from changing and everything Aldous put you through. We need all the strength we can get. We've got to be clear and sharp.”
“I can't sleep, Mom! How can I sleep after I found all this out?”
First my mother's hand was on me. Then we were both upstairs by my bed.
Mom pulled back the blanket and straightened the sheet. “Get in,” she demanded.
I only had to look at her face to know that I had no other choice. I got in, she covered me up and ordered, “sleep.”
I did.