Constellation

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Amber takes a bite out of her sandwich. It has turkey on it instead of ham like yesterday. She gave Cassidy a concerned look from across the table.

“Yeah,” Cassidy answers, eyes trained on own lunch. Her fork dancing around the noodles on her plate. She thinks something over and then asks, “do you think magic is real?”

Amber almost chokes on her sandwich. “Magic?” She asks incredulously. “Um, like David Blaine or Criss Angel?”

Cassidy shakes her head. “No, like real magic like Harry Potter, Hocus Pocus and all that.” She regrets asking the question when Amber gives her a look as if Cassidy had another head growing out her shoulders. She starts to dismiss her own words but before she can speak someone behind her chimes in.

“I believe in magic.” It was Tyler.

Both Cassidy and Amber look at Tyler with shocked expressions on their faces. The large teenager slides a chair up to their table and sets down his sports drink.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Amber asks looking around them to see who’s watching. “This isn’t even your lunch period.”

“Is now,” he says with a sarcastic grin. His eyes twinkle up like an ocean at sunrise. His sparkling teeth are on full display when he turns to Cassidy. That feeling she first got when she saw him at the antique shop hits her tenfold. She can’t hold eye contact with him for more than 5 seconds before her face burns.

“I keep seeing you around here without having a conversation with you,” Tyler says in a light tone. Cassidy wants to believe it’s a flirtatious tone but she can’t be too sure. “New people don’t usually get past me, but I am glad to finally make your acquaintance properly this time.” He holds out his hand. It’s large and calloused and his fingers are thick yet nimble. “Tyler Hemming.”

“Cassidy Mason.” She slides her hand into the larger one and immediately she feels a tingle in her palm. It reminds of this morning and she snatches her hand back. She gives an award smile and goes back to her food.

“Mason,” Tyler says. He looks up in thought, muttering ‘Mason’ to himself over and over. “Oh! You must be Jason’s sister.”

“Yup, that’s me,” Cassidy jokes awkwardly. She’s never been this nervous before in front of a guy but she gives herself a bit of grace considering what she’s been through in the last 24 hours.

“So, you guys were talking about magic, right?” Tyler says, changing the subject. He directs his question towards Amber, her cheeks are red, probably from secondhand embarrassment.

“Y-yeah, Cassie was just asking me if I believed in it or not,” Amber says. “Honestly, I can’t say I do, sorry.”

“I think magic is all around us, in the air, in our blood. I think magic is more than just spells and potions, but the very energy that keeps us alive.” Tyler speaks while looking directly at Cassidy, peering deep into her eyes. “Magic is in friendship and family and love.”

Blue meets green and Cassidy didn’t have to touch Tyler’s hand to feel that electric charge, like ions present before a catastrophic storm. Cassidy recognizes it as the same feeling she felt this morning.

“I have to go to the bathroom.” Cassidy stands to leave with her tray in hand and her bag slung over her shoulder. “Girl stuff. I’ll see you in science class, Amy.” Before she leaves though, she stops and turns. “It was really nice talking to you Tyler.” And then she’s on her way to the nearest exit to the cafe.

She sat in the bathroom, her phone buzzes:

Amy ^-^:

Sorry, he’s not usually like that. I told him off for you in case he made you uncomfortable.

11:31a.m.

Cassidy writes back:

Me:

No worries! It’s okay he didn’t do anything wrong.

The screen goes dark on her phone and she can see a crude reflection of herself. Sure enough, just as she predicted, her eyes are glowing, albeit very subtly. Like a jade gem with flecks of gold that only shine when it’s twisted and turned to catch the light. She squeezes her eyes shut and does what her mom told her. “You have to control your emotions. Take a deep breath and clear your mind. The more you do it, the easier it will get.” Cassidy does her best to empty her mind. All she kept seeing in her mind’s eye was images of Tyler; his blue eyes, the single curl that falls against his forehead, his smile that favors one side of his mouth. All she could focus on was him and that feeling she felt, that feeling of anxiety mixed with excitement and thrill. Butterflies dance in her belly and it’s not difficult to realize she has a crush. She remembers what Amber said, though. “Be careful.” It’s just that, she’s already been in danger, what’s a little more?

Nicholas doesn’t show up to History class today, the seat he sat in a couple rows behind Cassidy was empty, but while she’s looking back to find the ginger-haired boy she locks eyes with Tyler instead. He gives her a smile and waves at her with two of his fingers. She sees his teeth, his canines are sharp and she gets an uneasy feeling in her belly. She breaks eye contact and turns back around in her chair and focuses on her textbook. She opens her notebook to take notes and has to flip through a score of pages to get to a clean sheet that didn’t have drawings on it. Throughout all of her classes she just couldn’t stop drawing. It was mostly some shadowy figure that was more like a blob of darkness and she was depicted using the light from her hands. Sometimes she just drew her hand, a ball of light resting in her palm. Some of her notes for her other classes were muddled with little doodles of Nicholas and his yellow eyes and sharp, lamia teeth. Some were of a blue-eyed dog. She doesn’t realize she’s drawing in the middle of the lesson. The history teacher introduces the lesson and goes over what they talked about yesterday and although Cassidy is listening her pencil is gliding across her paper.

The teacher starts writing on the board for the class to take notes, and when Cassidy looks down at her page she startles at what she sees. She had drawn Tyler but half of his face was of that of a dog or an immature wolf. He was surrounded by a sea of constellations and a full moon. She looks over her shoulder again, only to be met with that twisting feeling. Was Tyler a mystic, too?

“I’m going to put you in pairs for this assignment,” says their teacher, Mrs. Carter, “You’re going to work with your partner to write a report that will be due next Wednesday.” She walks around the class and places instruction sheets on everyones’ desks and begins listing off names of which students will be paired up together. She reaches Cassidy’s desk and puts down a sheet. “Cassidy, you will be partnered with Mr. Hemming.” She looks over her shoulder and there Tyler is, already looking at her. A chill ran down her spine, but she steels herself. Everything will be okay, they just have to write a report and that’s it, nothing crazy.

Mrs. Carter stands at the front of the class once more. “I expect all of you to communicate with your partner outside of class as I will only be giving you ten minutes of each class period to work. You all will be responsible for managing your time and getting this assignment finished by next week. You guys are able to text and email each other now so, no excuses.”

She finishes up and then the bell rings. As Cassidy is packing up to go, Tyler walks over to her.

“So, we’re partners.” Cassidy just nods her head. “We should probably exchange numbers,” Tyler says and quirks one of his thick eyebrows. Cassidy pauses, almost dropping her pencil case.

“Yeah,” Cassidy’s voice breaks and she clears her throat before laughing awkwardly. “Sure.” Tyler fishes out his phone from his pocket, “What’s your number?”

Cassidy lists off her digits and she still gets a jolt of surprise when her phone buzzes in her back pocket.

(Unknown Number):

Looking forward to working with you, partner :)

Cassidy looks down at the message on her phone and then looks up to see Tyler’s retreating back. She takes a few seconds to save his number. Wolf.

She meets Jason at the front entrance, he looks like he had a rough time in gym class, looking tired and drained. He perks up, though, when he sees his little sister.

“Hey, Cee-Cee,” Jason says. He hasn’t called her that in at least three years. “You doing okay? What happened this morning?”

“Talk to Mom about it,” Cassidy says curtly. “She’s got a lot to tell you.”

“Wait, what? Cass, talk to me.” He pulls her arm and turns her around from where she was heading outside to the car. Two pairs of green eyes look into each other. Jason looks around them and then back at Cassidy. “Why was there blood on our steering wheel? Did you hurt yourself?”

Oh, right. She didn’t even tell her mother the whole story about the blood, just that some scary vampire guy confronted her about being an andromeda. She didn’t tell her she drank his blood. She doesn’t tell Jason either, just says she’ll tell him after they talk to their mother.

“I need your help with this new song I’ve been working on,” Jason says as they make their way towards Adam’s school. “The melody is so blurry, like I have a complete picture that just needs a focused lens.” It wasn’t an odd request. Cassidy has helped him and his band in the past, especially their last song that they ever made together. Drift. She scoffs to herself when it comes to her that the song was a prediction of their departure.

“No problem, Jay,” Cassidy says and looks out the window to the dreary Tuesday afternoon sky.

Rain was still falling when they pulled into the pickup line for Adam’s school, everyone waiting outside had an umbrella above their heads, or a raincoat on. Cassidy sees a young girl in purple rain boots and a matching raincoat. Adam is the odd one out. He’s outside in a light jacket while rain water cascades down his thick, curly ‘fro. Jason scowls.

“Do you want to get sick?!” Jason yells to Adam when he gets in the car. “I thought I told you to pack an umbrella before we left.”

Adam just slides into his seat and shrugs. “I didn’t want to.”

“Of course not.” Jason sighs. “Why is everyone acting so goddamn weird today?”

Cassidy ignores it all, knowing what’s to come later. She fishes out her iPod from her bag, pops in her earbuds and puts her hood over her head. Yesterday the car was full of conversation, today the only sound in the car came from a Coldplay song playing on the radio. All Cassidy hears is the angsty tune of Yellowcard’s Breathing.

Cassidy holes herself up in her room when they arrive home. She changes out of her all black outfit in exchange for another black outfit of an oversized hoodie and sweatpants. Cassidy and Farley settle down into her bed, with Farley pressed tightly to her side, he whines.

“Everything is alright, buddy, don’t worry,” Cassidy says while stroking a hand through Farley’s fur. He gives a huff and eventually relaxes into a half sleep. Cassidy still has her headphones in, she listens to The Fray sing another sad song. Her eyes close and she drifts off into sleep that is neither calm nor fitful, it was like her body just gave up on fighting the exhaustion that sunk deep into her bones. She doesn’t dream, but she still feels conscious. It’s like her body and mind is suspended in a vast darkness, floating, just existing in space. She spends this time digesting the knowledge of what she actually is. Her mother told her she and her brothers are Andromeda, magical creatures born of light and stardust, powers gained from a constellation in deep space. It doesn’t feel any less absurd than when Nicholas told her the first time. She has powers that are really strong according to Tanya and her run-in with Nicholas had exacerbated the process of discovering them. Her mother didn’t explain much else, saying she’d save it for when all of them were together and they can all get answers together. Cassidy had asked her if it had anything to do with why they moved and Tanya told her it didn’t, but Cassidy didn’t believe that.

She doesn’t know how long she’s been in this state, her brain seems to mellow out and calmness overtakes her at last. The heat she feels inside her slowly revs to a warmth akin to standing near an open flame, but it doesn’t burn. The warmth radiates from inside of her and cools her from the inside out. She was a star in a constellation.

She startles at the sound of a howl, the sound so close and loud as if it was right up against her ear, right inside her head. She jolts up in a sitting position in her bed, gasping. Farley lifts his head as well and looks at her and yawns. It lets her know she was the only one that heard it. Just then she hears her mom and dad walk through the door.

“Cassidy!” Yells Shawn. “Come downstairs, we’re having a family meeting.”

Cassidy makes her way down the steps, Farley in tow. She takes a seat on the big couch next to Jason while Adam sits on the other side of her.

“Are we moving back home?” Is the first thing that comes out of Adam’s mouth. Right, because the last time they had a family meeting they were told they were moving 2,000 miles away from home.

“No, baby,” Tanya says, rubbing the little boy’s head with a guilty expression on her face. “We need to talk about something, much much more serious.” She looks towards her husband.

“Your mother and I have been keeping something from you,” Shawn says. He takes his glasses off his face and loosens his tie. He rolls up his sleeves and sits on the coffee table right in front of his three children. “We didn’t think we’d be having this conversation with you, but, well I think it’d be better if your mother showed it to you rather than trying to explain it to you.”

Behind them Tanya stands in the open space of the living room. “I haven’t done this in so long, so I’m a bit rusty.” She gives a nervous laugh and then closes her eyes. She cracks her knuckles and shakes her hands out, willing the tension to leave her body so that she can focus.

She opens her eyes and Jason gasps first. Her eyes are glowing a dull red color and her fingers buzz with a waning light. A swirling vortex of light forms in the palm of her hand, spinning in the same way the colorful flashing lights at a fair spin around and around while you sit on a carousel. It doesn’t last long. Sweat forms on Tanya’s brow and she’s soon out of breath. The light goes out and their father is there to catch their mother when she almost collapses to the ground from fatigue.

“Woah! That was so cool!”

“What the hell was that?!”

“Huh,” is all Cassidy gives after witnessing her mother’s light show. She wonders if she would have had the same reactions as her brothers if this was the first time she was finding out about it.

“Give your mother a second and we’ll answer all of your questions, okay?” Shawn tells them, guiding his wife to the seat by the window. “You shouldn’t have gone so hard, honey, are you okay?” Tanya gives him a nod and puts up her index finger, signaling that she just needs a second to compose herself.

“I’m fine,” She says eventually.

“Okay, so do you want to tell us what we just fucking saw?!”

“Language, Jason,” their dad said.

“You saw my light,” Tanya chimes in. “I have it and so does your aunt Grace, and your grandmother and her father before her and so on. We didn’t think you would have it either, your grandmother didn’t sense the light in you all when you were born, so we thought you guys came out human like your father.” Tanya looks toward Cassidy with her shaky gaze. “But if one of you has it, then you all do.

“You’re Andromeda or as some people like to call us; witches of light.”