A white flower grew from my palm. Violet streaks ran down the petals. The petals change colour a few times and the person I was calling Mom gasped. I plucked the flower and handed it to her.
She smelled it and then scrunched her brows in concern. “Doesn’t it hurt when your body changes like that so quickly?”
I shrugged. “Shaping is strange. Most of it isn’t painful, but you do get ghostly sensations, temperature shifts, tremors, that kind of thing. It’s like your nervous system doesn’t know what to make of it.”
“It’s all so new to me still,” she murmured. “I saw a monster in the woods a few days ago. It just stared at me like it knew me. And when the red moon split open, I thought the gates of hell must have opened up. But now I can see that Shaping isn’t all evil.”
I smiled. “I think it’s incredible. Nell can do so much with plants, I’m just scratching the surface.”
“You speak so highly of her. She must be important to you.”
I faltered for a moment, a little lurch in my stomach as I was brought back to reality. “Yeah,” I said softly.
“I was so worried for you. Especially when Sillwood came to ruin. We lost contact and I worried every day that you weren’t safe. But it warms my heart to hear that you found others you can rely on and connect with. You had such a hard time as a child making friends.” She stopped and covered her mouth. “Oh, listen to me continue this charade. I hope I’m not making you uncomfortable.”
A black butterfly fluttered past her head and landed on my shoulder.
I reached out a finger, letting the antennae feel me. “I’ve made a lot of friends. People who really get me. I know it’s horrifying sometimes, but Shaping is the best thing that ever happened to me. Because of it, I met Nell and so many others. I could introduce you to them if you’d like.” I turned and saw Kay materializing out of her butterflies.
She was running before the butterflies even had a chance to settle, hitting me with a hug that caused the insects to spill over me.
“You always know where to find me, huh,” I said, amused, as I hugged her back.
“Well you did eat a part of me,” Kay said, pulling away to look at me.
“Cannibalism?”
Mom shrieked, pulling back her sleeve to reveal the mouth on her arm that had just spoken. It yelped in response.
“Sorry! I’ll get off you right away! Meant to get Sage!”
The mouth disappeared and reappeared on my hand. Then it melted and shifted into an ear which I flicked.
“Ah! Stop that.” The ear morphed quickly between mouth, nose, and back to mouth. “Something smells good!”
I raised my hand to show Mom that it was harmless. “You’re getting used to your new Shape I see, Ajna.”
“We were just sitting around, waiting for you to come back! So I had lots of time to-”
Kay slapped her own hand down on mine, silencing AJ. “Lots of time to annoy everyone. Let’s wait for the car to get here before we barrage Nick with information.”
I introduced Kay to Mom and we returned to the area where the feast had happened hours ago. Harvey had stuck around and arranged a meal to welcome the newcomers. It wasn’t long before a beat-up looking H.E.S.P. armoured vehicle rumbled down the road and stopped in front of us.
The door was kicked open and a figure wrapped entirely in white took a shaky step out of the vehicle. A bit of spiky red hair poked from the top and then the figure reached up to pull some of the toilet paper away from their face so they could see.
“Sage,” Tom said gravely in a deep voice. “A lot has changed since you left.” He held a staff made of many interlinked cardboard cores of paper towerls. It bent a little as he leaned on it. “For my accomplishments in battle, I was dubbed Tissue Lord, Cleaner of Evil Juices. I’ve been appointed the new leader of Earth.” He extended his hand out imperiously. “Will you bend the knee?”
He tried to take another step but Daria rounded the car and stepped on a trailing piece of toilet paper, causing him to trip and lean heavily on the staff. Proving to be too much weight, he hung in suspension for a split second before the staff broke apart and he sprawled onto the ground.
“You are such a badass!” Daria said gleefully, stepping over Tom to slap me on the shoulder.”
“You’re the one who put a goddess in a headlock,” I fired back.
“You’re right,” she nodded seriously. “We’re both badasses.” She pulled me in for a hug and whispered in my ear. “It’s like Neve is a new person. You really slayed her demon.”
“What are we whispering about?” AJ asked, having sprouted a new mouth from my shoulder.
Daria quickly leaned in and kissed the mouth, leaving him spluttering. “Revenge is mine!” she declared. “Now let’s eat!”
The festivities attracted the locals back to the pavilion and soon it was packed with people. I even spotted ex-H.E.S.P. soldiers rubbed shoulders with ex-Ring members. The air was filled with raucous laughter as music played from drones flying high above.
Zola had started up a conversation with Mom. Bailey was introducing Vanessa to Tom and Kay. I noticed that Vanessa was missing one of her prosthetic legs, but the remaining one was hot pink and matched her outfit.
I spotted the soldier who had recognized me during the final battle with Cecily. He gave me a small smile and a wave. I waved back and he turned back to chatting with his friends.
“Sage! You need to see this,” Vanessa called out, beckoning me over and showing her phone. “One of Nell’s spawn is making new plants in the ocean. They’re like giant lilypads, they are sooooo cute!”
I sighed. “I’m gonna have to make sure they’re behaving themselves. Speaking of…” I glanced meaningfully at Kay.
Kay just shrugged. “I stuck with her for a few days. We chatted about clothes and arcades and cat videos. She seemed intent on learning as much as she could pack into her brain about how things worked now. Then one day she just disappeared in the middle of the night. Guess she found something she wanted to do without me.”
“I have a tracker on the phone we gave her,” Bailey said. “In case you wanted to keep tabs.”
I shook my head. “Nah, don’t bother. I have a feeling she’ll be alright.”
Tom, who had freed himself of the toilet paper, nodded enthusiastically. “Seconded!”
I exited the conversation and went over to Graham. He was speaking to a few others and I recognized the tattoos and stiff posture of one person there.
“Hi Richard!” I said, tapping him on the shoulder.
He turned to glare at me. “Who’re you?” he asked gruffly.
Graham patted his shoulder. “Never mind that, tell them about your wife.”
Richard grumbled for a moment before showing me a picture of a healthy, smiling woman on a motorbike. “She gained a Shape and her cancer began to go into remission.”
I blinked in surprise. “Dice?”
“Never!” Richard barked.
Graham stepped in. “It’s becoming more and more common now for people to gain Shapes naturally. And fascinatingly, even those with Shapes are finding that they’re changing too. There is a network of scientists that has been established in the wake of the Breaking, that’s what they’re calling Cecily’s day of descent. We don’t have a good grasp of what is happening to the world, so many avenues of communication and collaboration have been lost, but the running theory is that the Lacunae’s influence and the distress caused by the Breaking triggered a further change in Shaping as a whole. AJ’s new Shape may be evidence of this.”
AJ stood up proudly. He didn’t have his customary hood up either, despite the number of strangers around.
“You wanted a super power so badly you grew a new one, huh,” I teased.
He beamed, but then his expression faltered for a moment. “I actually wanted to talk to you about something.
I turned to search for more familiar faces. “Maybe in a bit, AJ. Is that Fir?!”
She was standing with her elks around her, feeding them hotdogs.
The rest of the night was a blur. So many people wanted to talk. I even spent some time with the soldier and his wife. Their names were Mac and Claire and they had grown up with Nick. It was easy to smooth over the gaps in my memory and just act like everything was normal. But all too soon, people began to leave. This was a short moment where we could ignore our worries, but the world had been shattered and people still needed help out there. Everyone had something they needed to do, loved ones to try and find, goals that were weighing heavily on their minds.
And I was left facing a group of my closest friends, concern written across their faces.
Graham cleared his throat awkwardly. “Sage, AJ has told us something.”
I nodded and went over to a dusty old sofa and sat down, closing my eyes and bracing for the question.
Daria blurted it out, “Are you really going to leave Earth?”