Chapter 3 #2
The few years they spent together as sisters were some of the best of Glo's young life. Although her sadness over the loss of the boy of her dreams, that rascally Chris Archer, was never far from her thoughts, she had her Family, her cousins, and Twiggy, and she counted herself among the very blessed.
Then, on Twiggy’s eighteenth birthday, the Shifter announced that she had been accepted into Madame Maude’s Modeling School for the Magically Marvelous. It broke Glo’s heart, but she knew it was Twiggy’s dream to stomp the runways of Paris. Milan and New York, and she wouldn't stand in her way.
The days, weeks, and months flew by, but the girls stayed in constant contact. Then, the day came for Twiggy’s debut. Glo was front and center with all her cousins as the breathtaking Shifter sashayed her way into history.
For the next three years, Twiggy was on every runway, wearing every designer from Alexander McQueen to Zika Ascher. She was on the front of every magazine on every stand in Nowhere, USA, and Glo had them all. It was wonderful to see her dear friend living her dreams and having everything she’d always felt was taken from her when her parents passed away in a freak insecticide spill in the Great Forest.
Then, one night, just after midnight, the Brown Witch of Peace, Protection, and Eternal Love was awakened from a deep sleep by the tink–tink–tink of pebbles hitting her window. Throwing back the covers, she jumped out of bed and ran across the room.
Magicking open the window, she squealed with delight, “Twiggy! You’re home!”
“You know it.” The Shifter spun in a perfect circle, arms open wide, and her head thrown back in the soft moonlight. Stopping with a trademark Twiggy flourish, she smiled, "You better get down here and let me in. I have no clue where my key is, and that blasted Pygmy Hippo of yours has spelled the door to within an inch of its poor life."
"Girl, I got you covered." Snapping her fingers, Glo removed all the Magical security and, with another snap, Magicked herself downstairs just in time to welcome her best friend with a hug.
The next few days were full of catching up, gossiping, and, most of all, eating anything and everything that Glo's Aunties, Granny Esta, and her cousin Lucy cooked, baked, fried, and sautéed. Having Twigs back was a dream come true, but Glo couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
Then, on the third night, she got her answer. Not long after they returned home from the movies, Twiggy sat down on the couch and patted the cushion to her left. No sooner had Glo done as she was asked than Twigs got right to the point.
“As you know, we Insect Shifters are governed by the god Tithonus.”
“Yeah, we all learned that in The History of Shifters 101.”
"Yeah, we did. Well, Mom and Dad always told stories about how Tithonus fell madly in love with the Moon goddess Selene and pledged his undying allegiance to her. They said that was why all the Beetle Shifters are some of the only Paranormals forced to Shift with every Full Moon. Like we have no choice. It just happens. Doesn't matter where we are or what we're doing. One minute, we're human…" Motioning up and down her body with the wave of her hands, her voice shook as she seethed, "… and the next, we're all exoskeletoned out and Beetley until dawn." Jumping to her feet, she paced back and forth, waving her hands. "And until recently, until I started this whole effin' Shifting BS, I didn't care. I mean, it was so far from my mind that I completely forgot I was turning twenty–one until the girls at the Modeling Agency threw me a surprise party."
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. The girls and I sent you that care package a week early so you’d be ready.”
“Oh, shit, I’m so sorry. I meant to tell you how much I appreciated it. I just didn’t pick up my mail until it had already happened.”
“Oh, no!”
“No, no, no,” Twiggy reassured, still not meeting Glo’s eyes and continuing to pace. “It’s not your fault. I just forgot all about the mail. Paris was just a whirlwind, and I was completely wiped out.” Shaking her head and wringing her hands, she kept going, “The party the girls planned was awesome. We had a blast and drank way too much champagne, and all was well until two nights later.”
“No!” Glo shrieked, her hand slapping to her chest over her heart and tears filling her eyes.
"Yes, it was horrible. And now, I have to run and hide every time there's about to be a Full Moon. My agent says if I don't stop disappearing and missing appointments, he's gonna drop me.”
“Oh, Twigs. I’m so sorry.” Getting to her feet, she stood in front of Shifter. “I wish there was something I can do.”
"Oh, I was hoping you would say that." Smiling, Twiggy leaned closer, and that was when Glo saw the loving expression she'd come to know, and love hadn't reached her friend’s eyes.
Gloria recognized the undeniable truth–that the girl she knew, the girl she thought of as a sister, the girl she loved with her whole heart, was gone. Her old friend was up to something–something really bad. It was the only explanation for the sudden and complete change in the only other person in the world she knew almost as well as she knew herself.
And it made Glo sick to her stomach.
Things had changed. They’d gone from day to night, from white to black, from good to horribly, horribly wrong, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Twiggy was no longer the person she’d known. Her friend was gone. How had this happened? Had something gone wrong when her Beetle Magic was unleashed? Did her body rebel and the Insect just bullied its way to the front and took over the loving warm person who also resided within that same soul? Or was being the center of attention as a world renowned and sought after model more important that anything and everything else–even Glo?
Worst yet, when had her loving, caring friend turned into a con artist–a liar? When had she gotten so coldhearted? Did Twiggy care about anyone other than herself?
None of that mattered in that moment. It had happened, and Glo had to play along. She had to know what Twiggy was scheming and stop her if at all possible.
And that was when she realized something–or someone else was missing. Opening the unique link she shared with Hillary K. Hippo, she reinforced all her mental shielding and telepathically whispered, “Hey, Hill, where they hell are you?”
“Well, lookie there, she actually missed me. Better late than never.”
"We don't have time for your snark. Where are you? Why aren't you here? What is…?"
“I am locked in the root cellar, and that’s not all. I am stuck in some cage that I think was meant for a dog–a dog! Oh, the injustice! The inhumanity! The horror!!!! When I get my hooves on…”
“Let me guess, Twiggy.”
“Damn, you got it in one. How did you…?”
“Yeah, ‘cause she’s up here and… Oh crap! I gotta go! Be there when I can get there!’
“No! Glo! Don’t you dare!”
But Gloria didn't have time to worry about Hilly. For the moment, she was safe, not happy about her accommodation, but safe. And the Brown Witch had bigger fish–or more to the point, Beetles, to fry.
Pulled from her memories by a sound so obnoxious that she actually looked around for the chalkboard and the butthead who was raking their nails down it, Glo's eyes snapped to the front, and what she saw forced an "Ewwww,' from her lips before she could stop it. There she was, the 'not-dead' Twiggy Girdler leaning in so closely to the Magical screen that everyone in the room could see the ooey, gooey, extremely thin membrane slipping and sliding between all the millions of lenses that served as the Twig Beetle Shifter's eyes.
Not to mention, when she blinked, Glo could see that the Twig Beetle Shifter still had her extremely long, incredibly thick fan of black eyelashes. Unfortunately, they were so caked with something defying all manner of description that made those lashes look like hundreds of thousands of creepy little spider legs.
“Holy crap!” Hillary shrieked. “That’s just nasty. Let this be a lesson to the children–do not mess with the Dark Arts.”
And Glo wholeheartedly agreed, but she couldn't speak. Hell, she wanted to throw up, was struggling to catch her breath, and couldn't even contemplate the composition of the clumps and clogs in Twiggy’s lashes. For in every single one of those shiny black lenses–the millions upon millions that made up the Twig Beetles eyeballs–the poor Brown Witch of Peace, Protection, and Eternal Love could see her image–misshapen and stretched in ways a face should never be contorted, distorted, or otherwise fucked with–reflected back at her so many times that she swore right then and there to never visit another Funhouse for all of eternity. Hell, she might even throw out all the mirrors in her house when this was all over.
Sadly, the nastiest, foulest, most hateful person Glo had once upon a time called a friend couldn't stop there. After all, she had been a model and loved to show off, and what better time to put on a show than when you were 'raised from the dead'?
Stepping back, Twiggy opened the two 'arms' on her thorax and the top set sticking out of either side of her abdomen as wide as they would go. Glo watched in horror, unable to look away, as the three pointy claws–adorned with polish the color of the original Bubble Yum bubble gum that she'd chewed enough of to stick herself and many others to a wall in her bedroom during her preteen years–atop what she had to think of as her hands, mostly because they were polished–clicked and clacked as she 'clapped' them together like a drag queen clapping her acrylic nails at Sunday brunch. While the stiff, thick hairs lining the middle set of arms that poked out in every direction wiggled and waggled with the Beetle's every move.
It was all too real and more than a little surreal, but sadly, Twiggy wasn't done yet. Performing an all-too-familiar move, the Shifter with an exoskeleton pushed up on the pointed tips of the four-inch Pepto Bismol pink stilettos she just happened to be wearing and pirouetted like a Goddess be damned ballerina. It was a perfect–albeit weird as all get out and the stuff true nightmares were made of–reenactment of that horrific night when Gloria found out that her friend had quite literally gone to the Dark Side.
“Oh, Twigs, you…”
“Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!” The Beetle shrieked so loudly and with such a grating hiss that Gloria was forced to take another step back. “Shut the hell up, you spoiled rotten, selfish, petulant brat! You have everything! EVERYTHING!”
Pushing so close to the Magical screen that the stringy antennae she used for smelling were smooshed in every direction and kinked in ways Glo knew would never ever be straight again, the Beetle just hissed and screamed with tiny bits of spittle coating everything in its path. As if that wasn't enough, the Brown Witch could see every single one of the thick black stubbly hairy whiskers poking out of the wrinkly, creased paper-thin flesh surrounding Twiggy’s creepy little mouth in ghastly detail.
The louder the Beetle Shifter screeched, the more furiously her mandibles flapped and flew in every direction. Resembling a conductor’s baton at the crescendoing apex of the 1812 Overture, those eerie, scary, and downright unsettling pinchers swung up and down, side to side, and in so many other directions that they were little more than a blur.
And all the while, Twiggy shrieked, screamed, squawked, and shouted, "You said we were sisters! You said you loved me! You had all the Magic! ALL the Power! All the EVERYTHING and YOU REFUSED TO HELP ME!"
Throwing back her head, crowing and chortling at decibels that would've made AC/DC jealous, Glo was just about to disconnect the call and sound the Brown Family Coven All-Hell's-Breaking-Loose Alarm when Twiggy dropped her head, looked straight at Glo, shoved her face so far into the Magical screen that the crispy black dot parading as a nose popped and crackled in the Enchanted monitor, and ground out through gritted teeth, "I'm comin’ for you, Gloria Angelica Brown! You can’t run! You can’t hide! I’m comin’ for you, your Pukey Pink Hippo, and your Big Ol’ Dragon, too!”
With the threats still ringing in their ears, the screen went black, the lights all over the house went out, and only the battery–operated music box sitting on the mantel belting out– Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer– was left to fill the void. Somewhere on the edge of the fog of confusion, Glo felt Hilly land on her shoulder right before Em squeezed her hand, and Noss whispered, “Is she okay?”
"NO! I am NOT okay!" The Brown Witch of Peace, Protection, and Everlasting Love shouted. "I am mad! I am livid! I am … I am… I am… Arrrrgghhh, Oh my Great Goddess! Just like Auntie Sarah Jane used to say, I am so pissed I’mma ‘bit to havin’ a flyin’ duck fit!”
“Stand back!” Hillary K. Hippo whooped. “This Brown Witch is about to go off!”
"Damn straight! That pin k-painted exoskeleton filled with Black Magic, and bullshit is NOT gonna get away with this!” Snapping to the left, she gave Em’s hand a return squeeze. “Can you and Noss hold the fort down?”
“Oh, hell, yeah!” The Fey Dragon and her hunka-hunka-stoney-lovin’ Gargoyle cheered in unison.
Continuing her turn, she made it half–a–step toward the door before a thought stopped her in her tracks and had her looking back. “I am sorry, Em. I guess you need an…”
"No way," the Fey Dragon smiled, winked, and tapped her temple. "I heard it all, and what y'all didn't say, I caught when you were trippin’ down Memory Lane.” Blowing a kiss, she playfully shooed the Witch. “Now, go kick that Beetle’s ass. Nossy and I will keep answerin' the phone and tell everybody you're gettin' everything fixed."
“I love you, Em.”
“Love you more!”
Running towards the door, she'd just grabbed the knob when Hillary yelped, "Stop!" No sooner had the Hippo shouted the word than did the air fill with Magic, and Glo's PJs were instantly changed into red yoga pants, an oversized white sweater with a Mistletoe sprig on the front, red high–top Chuck Taylor Converse tennis shoes, her hair tied up in a messy bun with her matching red and white scrunchie.
Tapping Hilly’s feet where they were perched on her shoulder, Glo shoved all the love she felt for her cantankerous Familiar into her tone and declared, “Thank you, Hills. You drive me batshit crazy twenty–four–seven–three–sixty–five, but I would be lost without you.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can show your appreciation with pink diamonds, endless roses, and my weight in chocolate after we squash that Beetle. She made me mad all those years ago, but now I am pissed off and ready to charge!"
“Yes!” Glo agreed with a cheer. “Let’s do this!”
Opening the door, she gave her best friends one last look before stepping over the threshold. One foot on the snow-covered porch and one still in the house, and three things happened at precisely the same moment:
Hilly yelled, “Watch out!”
A deep male voice yelped, “Holy shit!”
Glo ran headfirst into the only man she’d ever loved and greeted him with, “What the hell, Christopher? I haven’t seen you forever, and the first thing you do is try to kill me?”