Entanglement

The store bustled with little old ladies, trying to find the best deal. They all had the image of sweet, innocent, fragile old gals, but they were wild animals. Literally some of them were. When we had half off sales in yarn it was like black Friday shopping. These ladies attacked each other like rabid dogs.

Sometimes the clerks had to call the Supernatural Control, SC. Once they had a wind witch fighting a nixie for waterproof enchanted wool. They had to close up shop for three days to clean up the mess. Those two ladies were banned from the thrift store. They even had charms to ward them off.

“Hey Charlotte, shouldn’t you be gone already?” Maggie shouted, causing some fairies near her to buzz around her head angrily. Knowing them they were cursing her with endless itching for days. Charlotte didn’t envy her right then.

She ditched the last of her yarn, bolting away before the ladies fell on it taking her down with them. She glanced up at the clock and cursed. She only had twenty minutes to get home. She ran for the back door, hoping to avoid as many ladies as she could. She ripped off her light teal apron with the word City Thrift embroidered across the breast section.

“Thanks a lot Maggie. You couldn’t have told me this… I don’t know, when I was supposed to be off, not twenty minutes later.” Shoving her apron at Maggie she opened the door.

“You looked like you were enjoying yourself. I would’ve felt bad to tear you away.” Maggie shrugged her shoulder with an innocent smile.

“I’ll remember this.” Charlotte warned playfully, letting the door swing as she left. Her playful attitude disappeared as the bike rack came into view. Where her hot pink bike once stood was now a tree. She stomped her foot, “When will these freaking tree spirits realize that a bike is green . I never see them turning cars into trees.” Lying next to the tree was her backpack that she left with her bike. “At least this didn’t get turned into a bush.”

She ripped open the bag. If she didn’t have her bike, there was no way she was going to make it to her house in time. Running through town would take to long, but flying may just be fast enough. She gently pulled out a necklace.

The string holding the pieces together were bird muscle; to keep it from becoming brittle and breaking she oiled it once a week. Replacing what would normally be beads were tiny wing bones. The largest item of them all was the beak, hanging beside the beak were two black feathers.

She slipped the necklace over her head. “ What was once yours be mine, temporarily change my blood line. From blood and earth, give me rebirth. ” Slowly lukewarm energy coiled outward from the bird totem she was wearing.

She was always told that being a skin walker made you non-human, but not supernatural. Creatures of myth believed them to be black witches with no genetic abnormalities, while witches came to the conclusion, after much testing, that we didn’t hold the right auras to be witches. Somehow we, as a group, ended somewhere in-between. Charlotte held onto to hope that someday skin walkers would have a place in society, like vampires, werewolves, witches and so on.

What would be considered agonizing pain to a shifter, felt like stretching to her. The warm energy numbed her body into bliss. Suddenly the energy pulled back, pulling with it her bones, muscles, and bodily fluids. To anyone watching her, she just looked like she imploded, like a bomb. While her body rearranged itself, her mind was already taking flight.

She landed on scaled claws. Her arms were folded back. Unfortunately for her when she shifted, her clothes didn’t shift with her. Quickly she pecked at her clothes, she was putting holes in them, but it was nothing a needle and thread couldn’t fix. She was not about to leave her clothes, if she did that every time she would never have anything to wear.

She dropped the clothes into her pack. After several failed attempts she was finally able to zip it up. One bright thing about being a skin walker was that they got to choose what they wanted to turn into. In some ways that made them hot commodities, they could do things others couldn’t. Lucky for her she had packed her raven totem, usually they were already big but with a little inner energy, she was able to make her raven form even bigger essentially making it possible for her to take her bag. She snapped her beak on the handle, spreading and flapping her wings she took to the air. The bag weighed her down at first, but she adjusted to it.

Maybe a century ago, if someone saw a raven or any creature carrying some kind of luggage they would freak, shouting “Witch!”, but times had changed. Seeing an animal having intellectual thoughts was the norm.

Cutting a half an hour run into fifteen minutes of frequent flyer miles, she made it to her house. Getting through some college and living on her own, she would’ve never had enough money to buy a house, making her have to get a roommate, which she tried once and gotten everything stolen from her, or living with her brother William. She would rather live with her parents before him but they lived in northern California. Up there they disliked certain species, skin walkers being one of them. That is why her parents never practiced their blood lineage. Charlotte almost didn’t practice either until she changed the first time, after that she left her home town in search of a trainer.

The house was in the countryside. The man that once lived there was her trainer, after years of training her, his heart finally gave out. She thought she was going to be out on the street, especially since Ted had three children, but in his will he gave her his house. His children were so shocked that they took it to court. Charlotte won; Ted had put an enchantment on his will so his words would never be twisted.

She dropped her backpack on the porch with a thud then she lightly landed next to it. Skin walkers normally used the pelt of an animal to fully shift and stay shifted it used less to maintain the change and the change back used none. However, when a skin walker used a totem, they had to draw large amounts of energy from within. One to activate the totem, two to say in shifted form, then lastly to shift back. If a walker wasn't careful they could forever stay in an animal form when using a totem.

After Charlotte’s flight, she could feel the wariness forming in her bones. She released the totem, releasing the chant back out into the universe. She stretched her body, the totem melted the feather, evolved the beak, bringing her back to herself. Her body trembled as it tried to stabilize itself.

She knew she had pushed herself too hard, but she needed the money from the job she was about to do. She would get a lot of money if she could please him, that is whatever he wanted. She stood up in all her naked glory, grabbing her bag she entered her house. Walking straight to her room she ignored her surroundings, focused on her goal to get the pelt and go. As she entered her room realization hit her. She had been robbed.



The police cruiser pulled down Charlotte's dirt drive way. She didn’t want to deal with her brother but she had to report the robbery, if she want any of her walker things back. She was just hoping it wasn’t William, she couldn't handle him then. She let out a sigh of relief as Andrew Miller got out of the car.

“Hey Andrew.” She waved to him, coming to a stand.

“Charlotte, how you doing? You weren’t here when you got robbed, right?” His voice actually held sincerity. He was truly worried. He was a big man, tall and built. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him, but what really got her were his eyes. They were the palest blue, she’d ever seen. She was a sucker for the eyes. Unlike her eyes, which we a mousey brown, it didn’t help that her hair was fire red mess, maybe if it was blonde then her eyes would stand out, but she was just unremarkable.

“I’m fine, and no one was around. Hey I hate to be a bitch, but can I go. I have a job to get to.” She held up a white pelt. It was from a winter horse that went existent years ago. Andrew paused for a second.

“Sorry, no can do. Your brother is going to want to talk to you…at the station.”

“Can’t you find it in your heart to let me go. This is my livelihood.” If she missed this job she may not have running water for a month. Working at the thrift store only helped to a certain point.

“You wouldn’t need that excuse if you just took the job William offered you. You would be a great secretary. It would be safe, you would get enough money, and I would be near you and able to protect you,” he mumbled the last part.

Charlotte looked away from locking her house, “What did you say?”

“Umm. You would be safe and be able to get a lot of money.” He rubbed his neck in a nervous gesture. She squinted at him, she thought she heard him say something else, but she knew he wouldn’t budge. “You ready?”

“Do I have a choice?” Andrew shook his head. “Then I guess so. Lets’ go to the station.” Her voice rung with false enthusiasm.