We began walking towards the front of the restaurant with my father, grandmother and grandfather. Everyone seemed to be in a fairly decent mood, which was a nice change from my father’s earlier sour mood with my grandparents. If I was lucky, it would stay that way through the next hour or so while we ate dinner.

I had been to Rico’s with some friends from school for the first time last month to celebrate our graduation. It was a wonderfully friendly and classy restaurant run by a sweet old Italian man and his granddaughter. What most people, myself included, loved most about Rico’s was that it wasn’t just a place where the owner was hardly ever seen. Rico was there every day from open till close. He cooked, waited, whatever needed to be done, Rico was there to do it. And he wasn’t just a helpful old man; he was as sweet as pie. When we came in June, a friend of mine didn’t get her order made right and when she asked the waiter about it, Rico himself went back to the kitchen to make it, and instead of just making the order himself, he pulled the original cook over and showed him how to make the dish correctly, never with a negative word.

My grandfather walked in and today, Rico was standing in front seating people.

“Hi there sir. How are you this evening?” He asked my grandfather.

“I’m doing well, yourself?” Replied my grandfather.

“Doing wonderful tonight. Do you have a reservation tonight?”

“Yes, we do, it’s under Rose.” Answered my grandfather.

“Wonderful, looks like you’ve got your full party with you, do you have a preference for seating?” Asked Rico.

“If possible, could you put us somewhere somewhat private?” Asked my grandfather, “We have some important things to discuss, family matters, and we would prefer not to be over heard.”

“Well certainly” responded Rico “That should be easy enough to do.”

He walked us towards the back of the restaurant near the kitchen and around the corner then, much to my surprise, seated us in a closed section of the restaurant.

“Will this work well for you tonight?” He asked my grandfather, “It’s not an open section tonight, so it should stay quiet and private for you, unless we get overly busy.” He explained.

“Yes sir, this is perfect, thank you.” Asked my father, offering to tip Rico, obviously not noticing that he was the owner of the restaurant.

“Oh, thank you sir, but please, allow me to respectfully decline.” Rico said to my grandfather “Family talk is an important and often private affair, I’m honored that you chose my restaurant for it.

“Here are your menus, I’ll be back in a few minutes to take your orders, would you like anything to drink?”

“I think we’ll do fine with waters around the table please, sir.” Answered my grandfather.

After Rico had walked away, my grandfather looked around the table from my father to me, to Kayde, and finally at my grandmother.

“Now, Albert, I know that this is an uncomfortable subject for you, but tonight, we are here to have a talk about Phee, and Kayde, coming into their powers.” My grandfather said, looking at my father. “I hope that, as her father, you have enough concern for your daughter’s future to fight through your discomfort.”

“Yes, I will, I’ve had time to prepare myself for this conversation, so I think I can handle it.” Answered my father, glaring back at my grandfather.

“Now, first things first” Started my grandfather “Albert, I know that you, as well as Flora and I, were hoping the Phee’s skin wouldn’t change to much, however, today, both Phee and Kayde have witnessed Phee’s skin changing to a red color, momentarily. As far as her power goes, we don’t know what this means, but we do know that it means that her skin will be red in color. We all know your preference to appear normal to your neighborhood, for obvious reasons. The problem is that red is rather obviously not a normal color. The fact that she is already changing in color means that it will happen very soon. I’m not sure if Raven talked to you at all about the way things would happen for Phee, but before she learns her glamour, she must learn her power.”

“So what you’re trying to say is that she’s going to be red until after she learns her power?” Asked my father.

Before Syle could answer, Rico came back to take our orders and bring us our water. Kayde and I decided to share a large appetizer platter, my father ordered spinach lasagna, my grandmother chose a ceaser salad with chicken, and my grandfather ordered mushroom garlic linguine. Rico collected our menus and left to go turn in our orders.

“To answer your question rather bluntly Albert, yes.” Said my grandfather quietly, “An even bigger problem is that as a Faery, and Kayde, I hope you’re paying attention as well, once Phoenix fully changes color, she will also be fully in her power, and in order to learn her power, she has to be outside, in a natural setting. It’s not something she can learn inside a house.”

“So you mean that when she starts trying to learn her power, she has to be outside?” Asked my father “Meaning that there’s really no way to hide this from our neighbors?”

“Well, yes and no.” Answered my grandmother, “There’s a way around everything. For instance, she could practice her power outside, late at night; problem is that if she ends up becoming a Flower specialty, like I am, she’ll be hard pressed to practice in the dark. We really won’t be able to come up with a game plan for either of them until we know more about their power.”

“Ok, well, I guess this is really a talk that we should have later on, once we know more about their power.” Said my father, looking relieved. “Is that all we have to talk about?”

“Oh, not at all,” Said my grandmother “That was just one fo two things we wanted to bring up. Another thing we wanted to talk about was more for the kids than for you though. When you come fully into your power, you need to be aware that it will be very hard to control and they will be tied closely to your emotions. When I came into my powers, I couldn’t be anywhere around plants while in a bad mood because it would kill them. I couldn’t go into public either because whenever I saw something that made me smile or made me happy, plants around me would begin to grow!”

“And when I came into my power as well, things were difficult.” Said Syle, “You’ve heard the expression, a cloud following you wherever you go? Well, I literally had to deal with a cloud following me. In a good mood, there would be soft snow fall all around me. Everything I passed would end up with a light layer of frost covering it. I couldn’t go anywhere near plants that weren’t winter hardy, because they’d always die. When I was in a bad mood though, it was the worst. The soft snowfall was virtually a snowstorm. The light layer of frost would turn so severe that I would sometime break windows.”

“So you mean to tell me, that these kids aren’t going to be able to go anywhere until they’ve mastered this, this magic?” Asked my father, his voice harboring more than a bit of annoyance.

“Honestly Albert, it’s highly possible that they’ll have a hard time out in public.” My grandmother said gently “But it’s also possible that it won’t be so difficult. Maybe Kayde will just be a thought Faery and all that will happen is that he’ll jumble or clarify people’s thoughts.

“There are a lot of different specialties out there, we just have to have time, once again to let the kid’s come fully into their powers.”

“This is ridiculous!” My father said loudly, shocking us all “How can you restrict these children this way? If you had known your place when Raven died and left my daughter alone, none of this would be happening right now. My daughter never would have slept with this guy and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

“You’re ruining my child’s life, and you expect me to just sit around and accept that?” My father finished, as he glared back and forth at my grandparents.

My breath caught in my throat and I nearly started crying. No! I thought to myself. I will not cry over this. He will not ruin my night again.

“Dad?” I said quietly.

“Just because she’s nearly eighteen doesn’t mean she’s not a child.” My father said.

“Dad?” I said again, a bit louder, breathing deeply as I tried to breathe deeply and keep myself calm.

“She doesn’t know the first thing about any of this. You know what? Fuck this! I’m leaving. I refuse to sit by idly and watch you people try to brainwash my child!” Said my father, standing up.

“DAD!” I said again, nearly shouting, as I stood up.

At that moment, four things happened. The candle centerpieces flared up almost three feet, there was a large racket in the kitchen that consisted of some yelling and what sounded like pots and pans crashing, a few second afterwards, the smoke alarm in the restaurant started buzzing loudly and the over head sprinklers came on, and then Rico came running to our table.

“I’m so sorry, but there is a fire in the kitchen, we have to evacuate the restaurant.” He informed us, giving us a few seconds to gather our belongings and then hurrying us to the emergency exit.

As we stood outside of the restaurant I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that the candles, the noise in the kitchen, it all seemed to happen when I lost my temper with my father. I looked up at my family and saw that my grandmother, my grandfather, and Kayde all seemed to be looking at me. My grandfather leaned towards Kayde and whispered something to him that I couldn’t hear.

“You’re right. I’ll take her around the back. Thank you for dinner, we’ll see you soon.” He said to my grandfather as he took my hand.

“Phee, baby, we’ve got to get you out of here.” He said to me pulling me further down the alley.

“What? What about my family? Can’t I at least say good bye to them?” I asked, confused as to why we were leaving so suddenly.

“You can call them from the car.” He told me sternly.

“What?” I asked annoyed. “Why?” I asked annoyed.

“You’ll see when you get in the car, for now, we have to go Phee, trust me.” He said to me.

We walked around the back of the building and headed to his car. He opened the door for me as always and waited for me to get myself situated before closing the door. The strange thing was that this time he seemed to be blocking me from looking outside of the car. After he had walked around to his side of the car and gotten in the car I looked at him.

“Now can you tell me why we had to leave without even giving me time to say good bye to my family?” I asked.

As an answer, Kayde reached up and flipped down the sun visor in front of me and opened the mirror. As I looked up, I saw a face staring back at me, wide eyed. Even though the face I saw was my own, it was still unfamiliar to me. The face I was used to seeing in the mirror was lightly tanned from all of my work in the garden, but the one I saw was red, and not the light red that looked almost pink that I had seen earlier in the day, but a much stronger, more vivid red, that seemed to be almost glowing. My usually long dark brown hair seemed to be turning bright orange from the roots down to the ends. I turned to Kayde with questioning eyes, worrying about whether or not I had been seen like this.

“That’s why we had to leave my dear, and why we leave the way we did.” He answered my unasked question.

As I got to the middle of the stairs, I realized that there was something strange going on. No one was talking in the living room. If nothing else, I was sure Kayde and my grandparents would at least be in the middle of some kind of unnecessary chit chat. As I rounded the corner into the living room, I could see what the problem was. It seemed my father had gotten back home from shopping around the same time as Kayde had gotten back. Instead of my father getting back a bit after Kayde and walking in on a conversation that was already taking place, they got there at the same time and neither of them knew what to start talking about.

Chuckling to myself about how shy they both are, I decided to break the silence.

“Well look at that, my two favorite guys made it back home” I said smiling as I walked over to the love seat to sit next to Kayde.

“That’s a lovely dress Phee,” Said my father “When did you get that? I’ve never seen you in it before.”

“Grandma and Grandpa gave it to me” I told him.

“It was Raven’s favorite dress when she was younger.” Said Flora to my father, “Anytime we went out, she’d wear it, if it was appropriate.”

“Well dear ones” Said my grandfather, as he began to stand up “I can’t be the only one in the house who is hungry, can I?”

“No sir.” Said Kayde, standing and offering me his hand for support.

“Ever the gentleman.” Said Flora laughing “He reminds me of you when we were at that age.” She said, looking at my grandfather.

“Does anyone mind Italian? I know that you and Kayde had French last night, right?” Syle asked looking at the rest of us.

“Italian sounds delicious.” My father said to my grandfather.

“Mr. Woodland?” Said Kayde as we were standing on the porch waiting for my father to find his keys and lock the door.

“Kayde, there’s no need to be formal, you can call me Al.” My father said with a tone so friendly that it almost made me question his motives.

“Ok then, Al. I was wondering if you had any plans to spend time with Phee tonight.” Kayde half asked. “I was hoping to take her to go see a movie, if you didn’t have any plans.”

“No sir” Answered my father “After dinner, she’s all yours. Just behave yourselves.” He said, as we all headed down the walkway to the cars, laughing at his joke that I didn’t find very funny at all.

“Thanks Al, and don’t worry, I’ll treat her with the utmost respect.” Kayde assured my father as I glance at him with a raised eyebrow.

“So in that case, Kayde, you and Phoenix can ride in your car.” Said my grandfather “Albert, I know that you’re not exactly comfortable with Flora and I, so I guess that means we’ll all drive our own car and meet up at Nico’s?”

“Sounds like a plan” Answered my father.

Once again, Kayde held his car door open for me and waited for me to get in the car and closed the door after me.

As we pulled away from the curb, a question popped into my mind that I was surprised that I hadn’t asked about before.

“Kayde?” I started off slowly, trying to decide exactly how to word the question without hurting him. “I was wondering, what were you doing out so late on a Thursday night?”

“It’s the weirdest thing.” He told me “I went to bed at eight o’clock that night; I was exhausted from working early that morning.

“I fell asleep much quicker than I had expected and I dreamt of you the whole time. You looked the way I told you, red skin, and bright orange hair. For some reason, I woke up at eleven o’clock. Wide awake, not even a bit drowsy. For some reason, I felt an urge to go for a walk.

“That was out of the ordinary, but not too much. What really threw me off was that when I started walking, I ended up turning corners that I never really walked along when I took my walks. I had never been to the block that your father’s office is on. I just kind of ended up there.” He finished up as we pulled into the parking lot of Nico’s.

“Kayde, dear, do you mind if we talk about this more after we leave?” I asked him. “It’s just, it’s pretty amazing from my end, and I’m curious about your end.”

“Of course babe.” He answered as we began to get out of the car.

Kayde leaned up against his car and pulled me in front of him and wrapped his arms around me as we waited for my father and grandparents to pull into the parking lot.

“You know, what your grandmother, what Flora said last night, about having to have strong feelings for the Half Blood you sleep with?” He said softly in my ear. “It’s true. I mean, I’m sure it was obvious to you, I just wanted to say it out loud, you know?

“I mean, I’m not in love with you or anything yet. But I’m pretty sure that that is all it is, a yet, because I can definitely see myself with you for a long time, maybe forever.” He finished as he leaned forward and kissed my cheek.

He had completely taken me by surprise. I had been thinking about the way we felt about each other and wondering if I should bring it up for hours now. I never expected him to be the first one to say something about it. It’s always rare for a guy to come out with something like that. It was obvious even before he brought up his feelings for me that Kayde wasn’t the average guy, so I’m not sure why it threw me off so much, but I was absolutely speechless for a few seconds.

As I took a couple of deep breaths, Kayde turned me around so that I was facing him. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just figured that since you and I knew the same information, it wouldn’t be a big deal.” He said, looking at me with worried eyes.

“Oh Kayde, it’s not that you freaked me out. I was just surprised. Most guys wouldn’t have been the one to bring something up like that, you know?” I explained to him “I mean, you’re nothing like any guy I’ve ever dated, it’s wonderful, and refreshing and, you know, I don’t think forever with you would be such a bad thing either.”

Kayde leaned forward and kissed me softly on the lips just as my father was pulling into the parking lot. “I sure hope you mean that.” He said, winking at me and pulling away as my grandparent pulled into the lot as well.

I walked through the back door and started up the stairs. I can not believe how much things have changed in the past forty eight hours. I thought to myself. I went from a single, normal almost eighteen year old girl to a half human half faery magical being with a boyfriend.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what my grandmother had said about Kayde, and how he felt about me. I’ve been with guys who cared about me, of course, but never one like Kayde. He had just met me not even two full days ago, but he was so sweet and generous and caring. I loved the way he took the time to plan out a twenty minute drive to take me to me to find my grandparents, it had blown my mind. The way he brought me a whole rose bush instead of cut flowers, because he knew I liked plants, but didn’t know if I liked cut flowers made my heart melt. The way he ate me out, determined to give me an orgasm before we even had sex, made me… Well, let’s not talk about how that particular situation made me feel.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how strange it felt to call Flora and Syle my grandmother and grandfather, knowing that physically, they look no older than I. It was easier to think of them as my grandparents, refer to them as my grandmother and grandfather while they were using their glamour, but even then, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way I had seen them the night before. The smooth, tight skin wouldn’t leave eyes. I knew that one day it would be easy and that I would be used to it, but that day certainly wasn’t today.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how my father was reacting, I kept expecting him to blow up over it, and I expected it to happen soon. My father hated anything out of the ordinary, with the exception of my mother, apparently. I knew that once I truly started changing, once my powers came, once I started acting more, well, Fae, he would hate it. I know he was keeping me from my grandparents to avoid me learning from them and becoming more like them, thinking that if he kept me from them, I would stay normal, the way he wanted me to.

My father was a rather hot tempered man, and I knew that even if it didn’t happen now, soon, he would blow up over this and try to blame someone. It was most likely that he would try to blame my grandparents and say that if they just hadn’t kept in contact with me this wouldn’t be happening. In my mind, the only person that could be blamed was my father himself. He knew my mother was a Faery, and so he knew that any child they had would be half Fae as well.

To be honest, I just couldn’t stop thinking. Thoughts were whirling through my mind one after another and before I even realized it, I noticed that I had already taken a shower and was wrapped in a towel and heading back to my room to pick out a nice outfit for dinner. I wanted to wear something sexy, since Kayde was there, but still classy, since I was going out with my father, Syle and Flora as well.

I started rifling through my closet and pulling dresses out. I had sexy, and I had classy, and hell, I even had elegant, but sexy and classy? I couldn’t find anything. Just when I was almost to the end of my closet, there was a knock on my door. I opened my door and found a box on the floor with a folded note taped to the top.

I picked the box up and opened up the note.

Flora,

Hope not to be over stepping any boundaries, but we thought you might like to wear this. It was your mother’s favorite dress when she was your age. We hope you like it. And we hope you don’t mind us sabotaging your wardrobe.

Flora and Syle

P.S.

Don’t worry; your wardrobe will go back to normal if once you decide whether or not to wear the dress.

I opened up the large white box and in it was the most amazing dress I had ever seen. I pulled the dress out and laid it flat on my bed, admiring it. It was a short, black V Neck dress with small leaf skeletons embroidered on the bodice, inside of each leaf was a very thin white fabric that made the leaves seem gray. The skirt of the dress was made to look like it was made out of nothing but raven or crow feathers layered one upon another down to about two or three inches above my knee. The minute I saw it, I had decided to wear it to dinner. I loved the black and gray of the bodice and the blue-black color of the raven feathers.

I slid the dress over my head and it slid down my body like silk. I went to my jewelry box and put on a black pearl necklace that my mother had left for me that had a small tear drop shaped piece of onyx hanging from it. I opened the drawer that had all of my earrings in it and pulled out the pair of matching onyx earrings. I left my wrists and hands bare of jewelry. I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and curled it just enough to add a soft wave to the bottom of my hair.

Now that my hair and jewelry we taken care of, I pulled out my make up and dumped it over my bed. For my eyes I chose a black eyeliner and mascara, a glittery tan base shade, which I swept over my entire eye lid up to my eyebrows, a grey shade for my eye lid and a navy blue color to add a smoky look to the corners of my eyes. To the top, I lightly brushed some loose clear glitter to give my eyes a shimmer. For my lips, I chose a soft pink color to help draw attention to my eyes and keep me from looking way too made up.

As I was adding a shimmery powder to my face, neck and chest I heard a knock at the door. Knowing that it was near six by this time, I figured it was going to be Kayde. I finished with the powder quickly and rushed down stairs.