December Star

A dark, snowy evening, 18 years ago, a beautiful baby girl was born. But it wasn’t a time for celebration.

“Roan, please,” Her mom pleaded, her breathing shallow and ragged. “Take her, and go. They’ll be coming soon.” She sounded close to more tears.

Roan, her husband, shook his head. “No, we won’t leave you here, Mae,” He said. He had the baby girl in his arms, held close as she cried.

“Hurry, please,” Mae pleaded. “Keep our baby girl safe.”

“We won’t leave you,” Roan insisted, a tear slipping down his cheek. “Come. I’ll help you stand.”

And so he did. With one strong arm wrapped around his wife, and the other holding the baby girl close, he went out into the snowy night. It was dark, and they were in their cottage in the middle of….well, nowhere. They lived far out, for good reasons, too. They were gifteds, and some people didn’t like that. They believed they were a disgrace to the human race, and should be eliminated. And that’s why, when they found out Mae was pregnant, they had warned them, that they would come and kill her, Roan, and their newborn child the day she was born.

“Come, please, faster,” Roan insisted, trying to keep her going. She couldn’t. Mae’s eyes were slowly closing, and she couldn’t seem to stand right. The newborn baby’s cries became louder and more often. Roan tried to calm her, while helping his wife.

Then they heard the yelling.

Mae’s eyes snapped towards the source of the sound. They could see faint lights through the falling snow. It was almost a blizzard out here.

“Go, Roan,” Mae demanded, pulling off of him and standing up straight. Her voice was powerful and demanding. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Roan saw this, and shook his head.

“Go!” Mae yelled. “Now. Take her, and keep her safe.” She paused, tears in her icy blue eyes. The eyes that matched her newborn daughters. “She shouldn’t have to have this life. She can’t stay here. Take her far away, Roan. Far away, please,” She whispered.

Roan was crying. “Mae…..” He whispered. The shouts and cries were getting closer, and the faint outline of a group of people could be seen now.

“GO!!!” Mae yelled. With one last look at his wife, Roan turned to leave.

“Name her December. She was born on Christmas,” Mae whispered. Roan nodded, and then ran.

Mae stood to face the mob alone. She was glaring at them, fury in her icy blue eyes.

“There she is!” They called. Several of them had guns or other weapons.

“What do you have to say for yourself, /gifted/?” One spat. He said the word scornfully, as if it were poison upon his tongue.

Mae spat at his feet. He hit her hard on the cheek, and she fought back. Not with her fists, but with her gift.

She could control water in all its forms. She started to manipulate the snow around her, turning it into ice and sending it at them. She froze several to the spot by their feet.

“Hey!” They cried. They sounded almost scared. The others started to shoot at her. She was hit in the stomach, but that didn’t stop her. She fought valiantly and fearlessly, until she could go no more. She fell to the ground, her blood staining the snow red, her now lifeless icy blue eyes staring blankly up at the falling night sky.
~~~~
Roan ran with his daughter, until he thought they were a safe distance away. He stopped to catch his breathe, breathing hard. The baby was still crying harshly, and he tried to quiet her, but she wouldn’t. Soon, he heard shouts again. He ducked behind a tree, holding his child close as he tried to stay still.

“He went this way!” He heard shouts.

“Roan Star!” A gruff voice called. “We’ve killed your wife, and now you and your ‘precious child’ are next.”

He froze, holding her closer. She had stopped crying, but she was shivering. Signs of hypothermia were beginning to show through her.

Suddenly, a tap on his shoulder made him jump. He spun around, ready to fight for his child, when a hand was placed over his mouth.

“Shh, it’s me,” A male voice whispered. Roan froze.

“Daniel?” He asked. The man, whose head was covered by a cloak, nodded. He looked to be in his mid twenties.

“Daniel!” Roan whispered. He heard the shouts getting closer, and without a second thought, forced December into his arms.

“Take her, and raise her, please,” He whispered. Daniel was an old family friend. He wasn’t a gifted, neither was his wife, but they knew about them, and they were close.

“Don’t tell her of us, until she’s ready. If she’s ready,” Roan said quietly. “I don’t want her to know about this. And when she gets her powers, if she does, just please…..” He was cut off by Daniel.

“I’ll take care of her,” He said quietly. The baby was silent now.

After a short hug, Daniel left his friend.

Roan stepped out from behind the tree, and fought just as hard as his wife had. But in the end, he, too, lay dead.
~~~~
Daniel took December home to Dale, where he lived with his wife, Claire. He raised her as his own, memories of his friends pushing him on.

By the time she was 5, December was a very happy child. Laughter and warmth filled her everyday life. But she knew something was wrong, something was missing. And then one day, her powers came.

She had been playing outside with her dad, throwing a ball back and forth, when suddenly he dropped it, and began to look around frantically for her. She was confused.

“I’m right here, daddy!” She cried. His eyes followed her voice, but passed right over her. Why couldn’t he see her?? She was scared.

As she began to cry, she became visible again. He hugged her tightly, and told her that she was ‘special’. December didn’t know what that meant at the time, but she would soon find out.
By the time her 6th birthday came around, she could already use her other power. She had found out about it the same way as she had found out about her first one; by accident. She had been at home ,when suddenly she was looking at herself. She realized she was somehow in her mother’s body. She started to freak out, and her father found her. He calmed her down, and she returned to her body. The look of fear on her mother’s face, fear of her, was enough to make her stay in her room, under the covers, for the rest of the day.
~~~~
By the time she was in middle school, December could control her powers almost perfectly. She was 12 when she found out about her adoption. She had known about the secrets of the town fro a while, and had a hard time accepting them. Her mind was very logical, so it didn’t compute with her. But then again, she had seen her own powers firsthand, and had run into a few of the vampires before. In fact, K.C. had almost drank her blood once.

But once she learned of her adoption, she became bitter and curious. She hated her real parents, she loved them. She wanted to learn more about them, she wanted nothing to do with them. She wanted to remember them, she wanted to forget them. Her feelings about them confused her, and she wanted to learn about her past, where she came from, so she wouldn’t have to be haunted each and every day and night by it. Especially night. When she found out about her adoption, strange dreams started. Dreams of red snow, ice, and falling snow in a blizzard. Icy blue eyes. She didn’t know what it meant, and was determined to find out. She thought it had something to do with her parents.

For those 6 years, she searched and searched, all while trying to keep up a normal life. She /loved/ school, and would hate to miss even one day. She loved science and math the most, and she had a 4.0 GPA, even as she hit high school. She had never really thought much about boys, until the 10th grade. A boy asked her to go on a date with him. A boy she had secretly liked for years. The movies. She was shocked. Most of the boys made fun of her, or didn’t see her. She was the invisible girl in the back of the room, the one who knew all the answers but never said them. But she accepted, but when she got there, she found him out front, kissing his girlfriend. He laughed at her, told her she was stupid for believing that anyone could ever like her. She vowed to focus only on her studies then, while mending a broken heart.

She was over him in about 2 months. She thought he wasn’t worth the trouble. No one who caused you pain deserved a place in your heart, she said. And that got her thinking; her parents, her real parents, caused her years and years of agony and torture, wondering just why they had given her up, what she could have possibly done wrong as a newborn.

Every time she thought she found a document on the computer, an article online, anything that could trace back to her parents, it all ended the same way; in a dead end. But her stubbornness refused to allow her to give up so easily. She pressed on, though she never found anything.

Throughout her childhood, she had one friend who stuck with her through everything; Brooke Lynn Bridge. She knew about her powers, her parents, everything. The only secret she’d ever kept from her friend was her strange dreams she had every night. Her friend had those ‘gifts’, too!

She always felt like she had a secret at school. Her parents had told her, as when she was younger, that she was ‘special.’ She was different. But sometimes, she didn’t feel so. She felt less than special, much less. Worthless, maybe. After all, her parents had given her up, hadn’t they?

But another secret she had were the secrets of the town of Dale. She couldn’t tell anyone else, for obvious reasons, though she was glad that at least her best friend knew. She was intrigued the most by the town’s vampire population. She had always seen vampires as pale beings who turned into dust in the sunlight and couldn’t get near garlic or crosses, but she soon learnt that most of these assumptions were wrong. Only ‘made vampires’, as they were called, couldn’t be touched with crosses or holy water. There were many things to learn, and being the person she was, she wanted to learn them. But her parents told her not to meddle with the vampires; they were dangerous, especially to humans. But she didn’t listen to them. She hadn’t ever ventured very close to the Manor, but she had stood in the woods, looking over at it a few times. She hadn’t been seen, and if she had, they didn’t bother to do anything about it. She knew most of the town’s dead residents, and spoke to several of them often, including Alex and Ella. Mostly Ella, but Alex as well. She got along well with the siblings.

By the time she turned 17, she knew what she wanted to be. A doctor. The human body had always interested her, and she wanted to act on that. So she began to study on her own at nights. By the time she was 18, she knew which college she wanted to get into. But it was one of the most prestigious schools in the nation, and one of the hardest to get into. She wanted to, though, so she sent in her application as soon as she could. It could take months to hear from them, she knew, and waited every day with fingers crossed. She honestly really wanted to get out of the town of Dale, too. It was….interesting, to say the least, but sometimes she thought she was losing her mind. She also wanted to get away from constantly hearing how ‘special,’ and ‘different’ she was. She loved her ‘parents’. So much so. But she never understood what they had meant. And they refused to tell her more about her real parents, saying that she wasn’t ready, or that they would when the time was right. Well, she had been waiting 6 years for that! And she wanted to know before she went off to college. Not if she did. Even if she couldn’t get into the college she desperately wanted to, she would go to one. She had sent in over 20 applications already, and was still sending. She had heard back from a few of the smaller ones, and had been accepted to all of them. But she was still waiting for the letter that she hoped would come, telling her that she had gotten into the one she wanted to be in. Or at least any letter. Even one that told her she had been rejected.

Sometimes she wondered if she could ever live a normal life, being who, or what, she was. Someone with ‘gifts’, as her ‘parents’ so often liked to call them. She sometimes wondered if her real parents had had them. Her ‘parents’ didn’t tell her, and somehow always found aw ay to change the subject whenever she brought it up. But she wouldn’t give up on finding out more about them, and she would do it before she left for college.

She sometimes had doubts, though. She didn’t want to leave her friend. Her best friend, Brooke. But she wanted to follow her heart, though part of it was telling her to stay here, in Dale. She hated the unknown. She liked sure, solid things. Like math. It never changed; the basic laws of it had been the same for centuries. She didn’t like change, but she knew it came. It always did.

So she was just taking life one day at a time, though she had the bigger picture in mind. Find out about her parents, go to college, and live a normal life.

But did she really want that? Any of it?