“What should we do with the bones?”
“I don’t know, bury them or something.”
There were voices and footsteps, and when I opened my eyes, I quickly shut them because no one should no I was awake. I was most probably better off pretending I was asleep, or even better, dead. Maybe, if they thought I was dead, they would throw me in some ditch and I could go home.
By allowing myself that little glance, I concluded that I was in a dark, humid, cave. From laying on it, I decided that the floor was cold stone, and by the sound of the voices and there echoes, it must be a large cave. I heard some water dripping somewhere, which, after a few minutes, really started to annoy me.
“Let’s see if this beauty is awake!” a raspy, high voice suddenly says. I feel the anxiety rise in my stomach as I hear the approaching footsteps. Then, all of a sudden, it hit me, the stench of rotten flesh. Hands with long fingernails dug into my shoulder blades, trying to wake me up. In the space of a few seconds, my brain decides it would probably be better if I continue to fake sleep, but my curiosity was much greater than that little pineapple called my brain, so I open my eyes just a little bit and quickly jerk away from the creature.
It wasn’t human, but it wasn’t any animal I would have recognized either. Back then, I had no clue on what it was, but now I know, it was a so called shape-shifter, in its true form.
Its fingernails were long and yellow, and were attached to long, bony, arms.
When the creature saw my face, a long grin stretched over his face, revealing sharp, rotten, teeth. As it stands up to get a better look, I see how tall he is, with long, bony limbs, and razor thin, brown, skin.
All of a sudden, it begins to speak, “Don’t be afraid, little angel, we are not going to kill you, unlike your little friend, who tasted quite delicious.” His smile widens in response to my shocked expression.
“Ben’s dead?” I choke in a hoarse voice.
“Yes,” he motions to a pile of bones in the corner of the cave, “the rest is inside me. You see, I don’t like the bones, I guess I’m a little picky, but, oh well.” He lets out a little chuckle and continues to stare at me. The me, who was about to get very sick.
“Well,” I begin, gathering all the bravery left inside me, “if you’re not going to kill me, then why did you bring me here?” Wow, I was braver than I thought.
His stupid little smile vanishes and turns into a serious expression, “I think the boss should tell you this!” he says in a very low voice, almost a whisper, and upon finishing his sentence, cold, thin, hands clasp around my upper arm and pick me up without any problems. I shriek and against my protests, they carry me through the cave, past Ben’s bones (R.I.P Ben), and into the back corner of the cave. Sitting there cross-legged, was another one of these creatures. The arms put me down and when I turn around to glare at the creature, it had already turned its back on me. I turn around again to look at the other one, which was looking at his hands, and without acknowledging my presence, he says, “Sit down.” And so I do.
After the longest silence of my life, I finally gather the courage to break it,
“Excuse me,” my mother had always said that no matter what, politeness is the right way to go, “Excuse me, but what are you?” Upon my question, the creature finally looks up. His face was long, and narrow, with a long nose and full lips, kinda like mine.
He clears his throat and says, “I’m, well, we are shape-shifters.” He smiles at my puzzled face.
“Shape-shifters,” the creature continues, “are things, or creatures, that can take on any kind of shape, human, animal, or object. Even imaginary things, anything.”
“And what do you, so called shape-shifters, want with me?” He smiles even wider at my question.
“We want you, no, we need you to kill someone for us.” His smile disappears a little when he sees the shock on my face, then he continues, “To be more specific, we want you to kill someone of our kind….Someone that, unfortunately, is in the way of our plans…” He looks at the bottom of his feet, wearing a sad face.
“What are your plans?” I ask, looking directly at his face.
“We can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” He looks up at me after my words, then says in a clear voice, “No, there is no need for you to know of our plans. All you have to do is kill the thing, you get a reward, and move on with your life. We will never bother you again.”
They wanted me to kill someone but they wouldn’t even tell me what that person had done to deserve such fate?
“No,” I say.
“No?” He looks at me with a puzzled face. Had he never heard the word “no”?
“No,” I repeat, but then add, “Why should I kill someone if I don’t even know why?”
He leans his head against the cold, stone wall, then says, “You got a point there. Alright, I guess I’ll tell you.”
He pauses, then takes a long breath, “Jonathan, the shape-shifter’s name, is my brother, and yes, I love him dearly but he betrayed us. Many years ago, when we were still young and full of dreams and hope, we decided on a matter that would change the history of mankind – and shape-shifter – forever. It was just after the Great Depression that we decided to go to war!”
“Wait, what?” I interrupt, “Don’t tell me there was a battle between mankind and shape-shifters.”
“Oh yes there was, and you’ve heard about it too.” He smiles at my unbelieving face, “World War 2?”
“What?” I say so loud that every body in the cave turns around and gives me an accusing look.
“Well, do you really think all those people were, well, people?”
“Aehm, yeah?”
“Well, no. Many of the German soldiers were shape-shifters. That was the reason of the whole war anyways. Adolf Hitler was a shape-shifter.” I was about to interrupt again but he silenced me by raising a hand. “Adolf Hitler,” he continues, “was my brother. We, all shape-shifters, wanted at least a small part of the world we could call our own, you see. Would you like living in the underground for centuries? No! The humans had controlled our race for decades, until we decided it was enough. And at the time, many of us were living in Germany, so we decided that that was the best place to start. So on April 20th, 1889, my little brother changed into a little baby that would later become the dictator of Adolf Hitler. And that was the big mistake. We should have never let my little brother play the role of a powerful dictator.”
“Why?” I was very tense, I have never heard this particular version of the story.
“Why? Well because he forgot.”
“Forgot what?” His frequent pauses were driving me crazy.
“He forgot who he really was! He was no human being, no dictator, he was a shape-shifter, like all of us here, no one special, no one extraordinary. I mean, that’s why people call Hitler inhumane! Because he was, because he wasn’t human, how could he? He, well, we don’t feel like human beings, think like human beings. Or do you think that a human being would kill 6 million Jews in concentration camps just because they’re Jewish?”
My mouth was wide open, and he continues,
“Well, anyways, in the beginning, all seemed well. We invaded Poland in an afternoon, and basked in the glory. But then everything went wrong. And by the time the Americans joined the war, all hope was lost, but we continued fighting because we trusted my brother and we trusted his decisions. But I guess we shouldn’t have. If we would have stopped fighting in ’42, the world would be a different place now. We should have stopped right then, but even the smartest of us couldn’t have seen the ending coming.
“By the time the year 1945 came, even my brother had lost his fate, the humans would win, like they always do, and so my brother, deciding not to be a looser, faked his death on April 30th, 1945.” He trails of so I have time to ask a question.
“Wait a sec, faked his death that day? Wasn’t that the day Hitler died?”
“Yes and no. Indeed, Hitler did die, but my brother didn’t. He ordered one of his servants into his office and told him to change into Hitler. The shape-shifter, young and stupid as he was, did so right away and once he had changed, my brother gave him some water which poisoned him and killed him. You see, when we die, our bodies stay the way they were when death came. We don’t change back into our original form as many people might think.
“Any who, the poor guy was now dead on the floor, looking like Adolf Hitler, and what did my brother do? He changed into some spider and got out, leaving us unprotected, and so we were imprisoned or executed, and the ones that were able to flee, are now living in caves just like this one all over the country.” He takes a deep breath and then was silent. In fact, all was silent, and when I looked around the cave, every shape-shifter had stopped doing what they were doing and were now listening closely as if they had never heard this story.
“But,” I start and he looks at me, “how do you know that the dead shape-shifter wasn’t your brother?” He smiles a crooked smile.
“Because every shape-shifter has their own, how do you say, aura which never changes. It floats around you at all times and trust me, I could have spotted my brother’s from a mile away. And that’s why we need you.”
He finishes and everything was silent, and it was the loudest silence I have ever heard. Then he says, “So, will you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Kill my brother?”
I was silent, then say, “Why me? Why not you?”
“Well, “he stutters “You’re the one.”
He gets up and starts walking around the cave, and so I too, get up to be one level with him. Just now was that I realized how small he actually was. To be honest, I was probably 10 inches taller than him.e
“Well, you have to kill him because he already knows all our auras and when he senses one, he will become suspicious, since we haven’t contacted him in years.”
I nod, but then say, “Wait, I don’t even have that aura, do I? Since I’m human, right? So when he sees that I’m human, he can just change into some monster and kill me, right?” I look at him in confusion, but he just shakes his head.
“No,“ he says, “that’s the point, you are not human!”
Everything is quiet, then I start laughing,
“What on earth are you talking about?” I look at him and wait for a laugh, or at least a smile.
“You are not human, you are a shape-shifter!”
“You’re kidding.”
“No,”
“But,”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
No, he did certainly not look like he was kidding, so I shake my head. Then I say, “But, how?”
“Well, your dad is a shape-shifter”
“What?” My world around me shatters, everything I knew, disappeard. My dad wasn’t who he said he was? I don’t know why, but there was something in that creature standing in front of me that was believable. He wasn’t human for sure, but maybe I should make him show me he was a shape-shifter.
“Show me, “I say in a firm voice.
“Show you what?”
“That you actually are what you say you are and not some freak full of crap”
He clicks his neck and nods. Then he closes his eyes and all of a sudden, his features begin to change and his body stretches. Hair shoots out of his scalp, and before I know it, a human being, or at least, human being looking, stands in front of me. In just a few seconds, he had changed from a disgusting looking creature, into an actually handsome tall man, maybe in his twenties.
Upon the look on my face, he smiles.
“You didn’t expect that did you?”
“No,” was all I could say, but then it hit me.
“Wait a sec,“ I say, “I can’t be a shape/shifter,”
“And why is that”
“Because I have never looked like all you guys. I have always looked the way I do, according to age of course.”
“Ah, good that you say that, but we do have a theory,” He starts pacing around again. At least one could look at him now without staring at his creepy face, I think.
“A theory?”
“Yes. We think that the way you are now is your original form because you never thought you were anything different than human. I mean, you were raised human, you have human friends….” He trails off, which gives me time to ask another question.
“Then how do you know that I’m a shape-shifter?”
“I already said that, because of your aura, which by the way is beautiful. Red and orange, just beautiful.”
“My aura? How come I can’t see it?” I still didn’t really believe him.
“Well, just like you can’t tell if you have bad breath or not.”
“How did you find me?”
“Well, we didn’t particularly find you…”
“You didn’t?”
“No, we always knew where you were. Thanks to your dad.”
“My dad knows you?” I started to panic a little. How could I ever look my dad in the eye again.
“Well, he’s family.” After my questioning look he adds, “Cousin!”
“Cousin? And my mom?”
“Your mom is human…another reason why we think you don’t look like we do…”
“Does my mom know?” Oh, how I hoped she didn’t.
“Yes, she knew when she married your dad, and she knew that you are who you are from the very beginning.”
I had to sit down. Why had my parents never told me this?
“So, my parents know that I’m a, a shape-shifter?” I could barely say the word, almost as if it was a swearword.
“Yes,”
I bury my face in my hands, why did my parents never tell me this? Every time I told them about my classmates teasing me when I was little, and me telling them that I was worried that I actually was weird and different, all they would say is that I’m normal, just like them. They had lied to me straight in my face all my life.
“I want to go home,” I say, surprising myself. Did I really want to face my parents?
“Aehm, we’re not done here,” he looks at me wearily. “You still have to learn how to change!” All of a sudden, a much taller and thinner shape-shifter appears out of the shadows next to him.
“Wait,” the other shifter looks at George (he had told me his name earlier) and then whispers, “Couldn’t her dad teach her everything she has to know?”
“Yes!” I say quickly, and nod forcefully.
George looks at me, then back at the tall shifter.
“Alright, we’ll bring you home.” And he walks towards me, touches my forehead and everything goes black again.

“Oh God,” my eyes fly open and focus on my surroundings. I was sitting in my car, engine turned off, and something moved next to me.
I jump and look at the boy sitting next to me. Ben.
I scream, “Oh my god, Ben!” I jerk forward and hug him.
“Aehm, are we at that kind of friendship already?” he asks, sounding a little uncomfortable but he doen’t resist my hug either.
“I’m just so happy you’re alive!”
“Well, I’m happy WE are alive, considering you almost drove into that ditch there, “ he points out the window and as a matter of fact, there was a ditch, and a rather deep one too.
“What happened?” we ask simultaneously and laugh.
“I could ask you that.” Ben actually looks worried now, “we were driving down this road, joking and all, and all of a sudden you say you’re not feeling well and pass out. The car swerves, I grab the steering wheel, turn the engine off and let the car roll to a stop, then I use the emergency brake.” He stares at me and I stare back.
“You really don’t remember any of this, do you?” I shake my head.
“Are you like dehydrated or something?”
“What?” I look at him tiredly, “I mean, no!”
“Dude, can you drive home?”
“Yeah, sure,” I nod and turn the key in the ignition. The little two liter engine roars to life, well, it meows to life.
“Are you sure? I mean, we can just call my dad or something, he works for the ADAC.”
Quick reference: the ADAC is like AAA in America. You call them when your car breaks down, and they come and get you and your car.
He looks at me concerned.
“No, I’m fine.” I smile at him and drive off the gravel and onto the pavement.

About 10 minutes later, he tells me to turn onto a dirt road that leads up to small house with a little flower garden in the front. A woman is standing, bent over some roses, in the garden, and I have to say, it is the most beautiful garden I have ever seen. There are roses everywhere. Red, white, yellow. There are tulips between and pansies, millions of them. Wait a sec, tulips in September? Don’t they usually bloom in the spring? Whatever.
“This is your house?” my mouth was hanging so wide open, I was surprised of it not touching the steering wheel. I hear the smile in his voice when he answeres, “yeah, I guess so. I mean it’s small, not much…” he trails off.
“Not much,” I want to grab him by his throat by now. “Are you serious? It’s beautiful!”
He just shrugs and says, “not really into flowers, so…”
As we approach the house, the woman looks up and waves. Ben waves back and smiles.
“Who…”
“My mom.”
I nod and park the car. Directly, the woman puts down the pair of scissors she had been holding and approaches us.
“Hey mom,” Ben says as he gets out of the car.
“Hey, how was the first day of school? I see you already made friends.” She smiles and gives him a hug. Then she turns her attention to me and says, “Why don’t you park your car over there and we can have some apple strudel. It’s fresh out of the oven, and I have some fresh coffee too.” She smiles.
“Oh, no, but thank you,” I return her smile, “but I think I should get home. Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow Ben,”
“Yeah,” he says and grabs his coat from the backseat.
As I drive away, I hear his mom say, “nice girl.”

“I’m home!” I throw my coat over the chair standing in our front hall and enter the living room. There is my mom, sitting, and watching her favorite TV show, eating a piece chocolate cake.
I plop down next to her and grab a little piece of her cake.
“How was school?”
“Stop it mom.”
“Excuse me?”
“I know what you and dad are hiding from me.”
“What?” she looks at me concerned.
“Don’t do this mom, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
She slowly puts her plate on the table in front of her and turns off the TV.
“How did you find out?”
“That doesn’t matter,” I snap at her, and to my surprise, she doesn’t even respond. When I usually use such a tone with her, she gets furious. But all she says is, “I’m sorry, but we were just trying to protect you,”
“Protect me?” Opposed to her, I am anything but calm. “How on earth were you protecting me?” I jump up and hover above her, and immediately, she gets up herself to now be just a few inches above me.
“Don’t talk to me like that young lady.” Uh oh, she used the word young lady.
“Do you know what effort it took to stop you?” She looks at me questioningly.
“What do you mean, stop me?” I was still furious, but decided to talk calmly to her and press out all the details instead of just getting the broad version of my life.
“Well, when you started shifting the minute you were born. It was frightening. We couldn’t go out, you couldn’t see your grandma, no one. You changed your appearance every few hours. Can you imagine what it was like for me? Every time I came to check on you during the night, you looked like someone else.” She pauses and sits back down.
“Anyways, we decided that it was no good living like this. You couldn’t meet your family, you couldn’t make any friends,”
I interrupt her, “Friends? I was what, 2 months old?”
“Well yes, but what about later? What about when your 5, 7, 10? How do you want to explain your friends why you look different every time you see them?”
She motions me to sit down, and so I do, quiet, she hs a point there.
“Your dad, a shape-shifter himself, told me how shape shifting infants should behave. They should uncontrollably shift every few hours for the first 2 months or so, then they should shift every few weeks, until they just stop unless they want to. It’s a learning process. You learn how to control it.” She pauses which gave me time to respond, “but how does dad know all this? All this stuff about baby shifters?”
“That’s because he had 3 little brothers when he was a teenager, just like you are now. He had to take care of them while his mother, your grandma, was horribly ill and couldn’t take care of the triplets herself.”
“Triplets?”
“Well, it is quite common under shape-shifters to have more than just one baby at a time, but don’t ask me why because I don’t know.” She looks at her cake and then grabs it and finishs it.
“So,” I say, confused, “what happened to me, what did you decide on?”
“We decided to stop you from shifting.”
“How?” How could you stop nature?
“By telling you it wasn’t true and that you were not able to do it. That every time you thought you shifted, we told you that you just imagined it and after a while, you actually stopped. And when you did, you looked like the girl you see in all the pictures when you open our family book,” she smiles at me as if this is what I wanted to hear.
“How old was I when I stopped?”
“About 4.”
“4?” How could I not remember this?
“Yes, and we had been hiding you all this time. The first time you saw your grandma, my mom, was on your fifth birthday,” she trails off, gets up and walks to the fire place where there was a picture with me and Grandma Lila, my mom’s mom. She points at the picture and says, “See? This is the first picture we ever took of you and your grandma, on your fifth birthday.”
I get up and look at the picture closely. There was me, on the lab of Grandma Lila, laughing at some stupid joke my dad had made about elephants and giraffes. And my grandma, smiling shyly, holding my little hands in hers.
“What did you tell her all these years? Before she met me I mean.”
My mom sighs, “Ah well, we told you that you were really sick and in a hospital in a different country. We told her to not look for you and that we will come as soon as you’re better.” I stared at her and she stared back. Who else had they lied to?
“Wait,“ I say suddenly, struck by understanding, “So Grandma Rosie? She knew right? I mean, she must have known, she is a shape-shifter herself right?”
My mom nods and leaves the living room to come back with a picture of Grandma Rosie, holding an infant with red hair.
“This was you,” my mom says and points at the little infant, “right after you were born. She was there because I couldn’t go to the hospital.”
“Why couldn’t you,” I begin but then realize. She couldn’t have gone because of me. What would all those nurses think if the baby just changes its whole physical appearance in their arms? My mom smiles and then points at my hair, “You had brown hair when you were born, but just minutes after birth, it changed to red.” She looks at the picture again, then frowns, “You never really changed your face however, trust me, I know. I guess the first thing you did was change your hair, not your whole appearance.”
I look at myself again, then say, “So you don’t have to change everything, like you can just change certain parts?”
“Yes and no.” my mom shakes her head, “you have to be rather powerful to just change parts because it takes enormous amounts of control…”
“So I’m powerful?”
She laughs, “Yes, I guess so…”
I smile and look at the picture again. Grandma Rosie looks so happy. Her rosy cheeks, hence the name, Rosie. When my grandma was born, her cheeks were so red that my great-grandparents decided to name her Rosie, or Rose, instead of the name they had planned for a girl, Ursula.
Now that I think of it, Rose is perfect. I however, always call her Rosie, Grandma Rosie.
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen grandma’s cheeks that rosy in a while. In fact, she had been pale and sad, and every time I visited her, it had gotten harder to make her smile. Like the older I got, the sadder she became. Of course, I have no idea how she is now, I haven’t seen her in almost ten years.
“Grandma Rosie didn’t like your decision, did she?” I look at my mom and she shakes her head.
“No, she most certainly did not. She didn’t want to see neither your dad nor I, that’s why we never visited for long. We dropped you off, but didn’t stay, remember?”
Yes, I certainly did. Sometimes my mom wouldn’t even go into the house. She would stay in her car, give me a hug, and be gone before I had even entered the house. But even that stopped after a while.
“Mom, can I go visit Grandma Rosie?” I look up at my mom but she avoids my sight. As she puts away the photo, she says, “Oh Lisa, you haven’t seen her in what, ten years? What would you tell her? And anyways, she lives six hours away. And I’m not coming, and your dad isn’t coming either. He hasn’t spoken to his mom since the day we decided to stop it. She thinks it was going to torture and destroy you, keeping all that power locked inside of you.”
“But it didn’t”
“No, thank god for that. But I was worried, very worried” She squeezes me and then walks to the kitchen.
“What do you want for dinner?”
“Where does she live?” I am not letting her change the topic, she is most definitely not off the hook.
I hear her sigh, “In Koeln” (Cologne, Germany)
I had made up my mind, I would drive to Cologne, and my mom could not stop me. Tomorrow morning, when my mom would think I was going to school, I would go to Cologne. I would pack my backs tonight and put them in my car. If my mom would ask me what they were for, I would say that I was invited to a slumber party after school by some nice girls I had met in class, and she would believe me. And by the time the school would call that I had not attended class, I would almost be in cologne, and then they couldn’t stop me.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“What do you want for dinner?” My mom is leaning against the kitchen door, a towel in her hands.
“Fleischsalat?” German meat salad you spread over a piece of bread.
“Sure,”

Cold air hits me when I open the door and yell goodbye over my shoulder. It is 7a.m. and I am most definitely not going to school. When my mom asked me yesterday why I was loading my car with a sleeping bag, I had told her my little lie and she had believed it. I mean, I was going to my grandma, not out of the country. And that was the reason I was not feeling guilty a bit. I had also told my mom that I was getting gas, hence me turning right at the end of our drive way, not left, so she wouldn’t get too suspicious. And that wasn’t actually a lie, I was getting gas. I figure, why not hit the Autobahn with a full tank of gas instead of an empty one?
After filling up my car and buying some good drinks, I hit the freeway ramp, and accelerated. I felt my car’s 150 horsepower engine pouring happily, getting rid of all the city driving junk that was blocking its cylinders.
The drive went by eventless and when I entered Cologne, I was pretty much exhausted, so I stopped at a gas station and got something real to eat: A nice roll with salami and Swiss cheese. After being filled up, I check my phone, wondering if my mom had already found out about my missing at school. And indeed, 10 new voice messages. I sigh, dial her number, and put the phone to my ear.
She picks up after the first ring, “Hello? Lisa, is that you? Are you ok? Where are you? Why weren’t you at school?” She sounds really anxious, so to ease her mind, I quickly answer,
“Mom, I’m fine, don’t worry.” I pause and wait for her response, but nothing.
“Mom? Are you still there? Mom?”
“Yeah, I’m here. You’re in Cologne, aren’t you?” Her muffled voice over the speaker is very quiet and filled with disappointment.
“Yeah,” I sigh. I want to say more, want to explain myself, but all that comes out is, “I’m sorry. Mom, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t enough. Lisa, you betrayed me and,” I couldn’t let her finish, I feel the anger rising in my throat, blocking every feeling of guilt.
“I betrayed YOU? What the hell are you talking about? You were the one that hid this important part of my life for all these years. You’re telling me I betrayed you? You were the one that kept secrets, you were the one that betrayed me, mom. You and dad, and you know what? I am not feeling any kind of guilt! In fact, I am more than glad to not be sitting in that godamned house full of LIARS.” I was screaming now, making every person at the gas station turne around and looke at me accusingly. I couldn’t believe it, is this their business? No, so why do they even care?
“Was gibt’s denn hier zu glotzen?” What are you looking at? I throw at them, and they turn around, shaking their heads.
But instead of staying put, I walk out, slam the door behind me and get in my car, so I could scream at the woman who calls herself my mom.
“Lisa,” her voice is very calm, which makes me even angrier, “we were just protecting you! We’ve been over this, come back home and we’ll talk about everything.”
“NO!”
“Lisa!”
“No, I’m gonna stay here a few nights, and then I might come home.”
“And where are you gonna sleep?” my mom’s voice was harsh; I guess she was getting angry after all. Good.
“At Grandma Rosie’s” I snap at her.
“Oh yeah? You don’t even know where she lives.” She has a point there. But I have my answer ready.
“Well, I bet you’re gonna tell me where she lives since you don’t want you’re teenage daughter sleeping on the street, right? I mean, I barely have enough money to pay for another tank of gas, let alone a hotel room.” That was a lie, I had grabbed three hundred Euros from my bank account before leaving, I mean, I am pretty stupid sometimes, but not that stupid. And anyways, she doesn’t need to know that little detail. After all, hadn’t she thought and done the same thing?
“Lisa? You stupid little girl, how could you?” She sighs and it almost sounds like she was going to cry, almost. “I won,” I think grimly.
“Well? Are you gonna tell me or not?”
“Hold on,” I hear her put down speaker and shuffling papers. Then she returns and says,
“I will only give you the address when you promise to come home by the end of the week!”
I sigh, it was no use to fight over that, too.
“All right.”
“Ok, the address is “Am Portzenacker 16””
I smile to myself, thank her, and hang up.
Am Portzenacker 16 here I come.

It was dark by the time I pulled up to her house and parked the car on the curb. The house was completely dark, and not even the streetlamps were working properly. The shadows cast eerie figures over the street and houses, and when I slam my car door behind me, the sound echoes between the rows of houses. I take a deep breath and walk towards my grandma’s house. I ring the doorbell, and no one answers. After the third ring, I decide to leave and try again tomorrow, as I see the lights turn on and the lock turn.
A woman in her sixties opens the door and lookes at me angrily.
“What do you want? Do you know what time it is?” Her voice is grumpy and she tries to stare me down but I don’t falter easily. I know what I want and I wasn’t going to give in to some grumpy old woman.
“Grandma Rosie?” I look at her and see her eyes widen upon my question. She draws in a breath and sighs.
“You’re Lisa, aren’t you?”
I smile and nod simultaneously.
She smiles back and says, “I was wondering when you were going to show up. Come inside, come inside.”
I follow her into the living room. A little cramped, but the most comfortable room I have ever been in. There was a fire in the fireplace, and the walls were either covered in pictures of me and my family, or they were buried behind bookshelves, filled with thousands of books. Some of them looking as if they were a hundred years old.
In the middle of it all were 2 armchairs with lots of pillows, blankets and books. They were standing right in front of the fireplace, with only a few feet distance. There was no trace of a TV.
“I was just reading when you came, but I must have fallen asleep.” She looks at the clock and then laughs,
“Oh my Goodness, it’s only 9:30. I was expecting it to be later in the evening.” With one swift motion she clears one of the armchairs and motions me to take a seat. And so I sink into the most comfortable chair I have ever put foot in, or in this case, butt in.
“So, you’re probably here to find out about yourself, right?”
I nod, and then say, “Yeah, mom doesn’t really want to go into the details. I just found out yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” she looks astonished, “and you’re already here? Say, how mad must you be?”
“Pretty mad,” I smile.
“Come, let me give you a hug.” She stands up and almost squishes me to death. “Oh, I have missed you so much. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see you again. I was expecting you years ago. I was beginning to think that your mom and dad had actually succeeded.”
“Nope,” I shake my head.
“Well, the truth always comes out. How did you find out? Did you change?”
Again, I shake my head, “No, someone told me.”
“Someone told you?”
“Yes, and they gave me a mission.” I look down at my hands.
“A mission? What kind of mission?”
“I have to kill someone.”
I hear her draw in a deep breath, then she sighs, and mutters, “George…”
I look up at her, “You know him?”
“Well of course I do, I’m related to him, as tragic as that is.”
She was related to the guy that kidnapped me? Well, kidnapped my mind.
“So, you also know the guy I have to kill?”
“Yes, but you don’t have to kill anyone,”
“I don’t?” It was like my grandma had just lifted a million heavy stones from my shoulder.
“Oh no,” She laughs, “you see, George is a little crazy.”
I look up at her, confused, and she continues,
“Well, he’s the only one that would think that you should kill someone. He probably told you about Jonathan, my cousin.”
“You’re cousin?” I look around and say, “How come you don’t live in a cave?”
She laughs out loud, “Haha, because I know how to use my powers. I know how to lie. I know how to be human. In fact, I haven’t changed to my true form in, heck I don’t know, thirty years? I don’t even know if I could still do it.” She gets up and looks at the pictures on the wall. Then she points to someone and says, “See this? This is Jonathan and me. The one you have to kill”
“I’m supposed to kill him?” I point at the man in the picture. He looks happy and proud. His cheeks are flushed and red, just like Grandma Rosie’s, and both of them are laughing as if nothing bad had ever happened to them.
“This was before the war,“ my grandma sighs, “before Jonathan did what he did.” She shakes her head but then turns around and walks towards the kitchen.
“All right, you must be starving, am I right?” She looks at me and I smile, nodding my head.
“What do you want, some of my special chicken noodle soup.”
“Yes please,” As she shuffles away to the kitchen, I get a better look of the room. There were pictures everywhere. To be honest, I couldn’t even tell the color of the wall. And on when there weren’t any pictures, book cases filled with books covered the wall. I step closer to one of the bookcases to get a better look. Stacked between all the ordinary books like Moby Dick and I could have sworn even Twilight, was a book that looked anything but ordinary. It was very thick, at least a thousand pages long, and it was bound in dark green leather. As I pul it out, little dust particles trickle down onto the book shelf. The book was very heavy in my hands, and as I look for the name, my grandma speaks up from the kitchen.
“I see you have found it,”
I turn around, startled, and put the book back into the shelf.
“Found what?”
“Oh don’t worry, take the book back out. I’m your grandma; every book I own is your book too.” She smiles, walked over to my side, takes the book out of the shelf, and openes it. The pages were yellow and rather brittle.
“The art of shape-shifting,” my grandma mouths and turns the page. “This book will teach you anything you have to know about shifting, but be aware; some of these things are very difficult and could go awfully wrong when not done right.” She closes the book and places it in my hands, “I don’t need it anymore. Take it home with you, and swear that you will start learning from chapter 1, even though it might seem too easy and rather boring.” She looks at me seriously and I nod, but when noticing that it wasn’t enough, I ad, “I promise!”
My grandma smiles again and changes the topic, “All right, come on now, soup’s ready.”

Later that night, I lay in bed, flipping through the pages of the book. The most bizarre things are described. One whole chapter covers the topic on how to transform into shoelaces, and another is about the transformation into houses. According to the book, when one is very gifted and talented, he could, theoretically, change into a planet and let people live on him. Of course, however, no one has ever tried that. By flipping through the book, I begin to think, “No wonder this book is so big.” But could I do all that? It was hard to believe.
I flip back to chapter one and read the title, “Transforming into people you know best” The book says that this was the easiest form of changing appearance because you try to transform into someone you know best. Apparently, it is quite simple because you can easily put yourself into that person’s position.
Who was my best friend? Lola probably. Yes Lola, the friend that I had left behind in America. Oh, if she knew what had happened to me. She would most probably put it under the category “Super Mega Awesome”.
I get up and walk towards the mirror on the opposite side of the wall. This room, just like the living room, is filled with photos and books, but I don’t have time to look at every single one of them. I want to change, to shift. I want to know if I really do have the ability. When I had told my grandma that I had never changed appearance, her eyes looked very worried, no matter how hard she had tried to hide it.
As I stand in front of the mirror, I glance down to read what else it says in the book.
“After approaching a mirror that reflects your whole body, close your eyes and concentrate on the person you know best. Concentrate on every single detail, his/her smile, the way his/her hair falls, and even the way he/she smells and talks. Many shifters have said that it makes it easier when one concentrates on the other person’s feelings too.”
I lay the book down next to me and close my eyes. I try to imagine standing right in front of Lola, try to imagine her long, maroon colored hair, flowing past her shoulders. Her little dimples when she laughs, and her large, ocean green eyes. I try to recall her favorite perfume, but I fail at that and instantly feel ashamed. It’s only been two months since I’ve last seen her and I have already forgotten her favorite perfume? I open my eyes and look into the mirror. My brown eyes stare back at me and my long, wavy, brown hair falls past my shoulders. Nothing has changed. I kneel down beside the book and continue reading.
“Once the transformation starts, a sensation often described as tingling spreads through the shifter’s body. That feeling will start in the toes and then spread throughout the whole body. Once the tingling reaches the hair, that person has completely transformed. Warning: a loss of concentration during the transformation may result in parts of the body transformed and other parts still remaining. This is how centaurs were created. A shape-shifter tried to transform itself from the human form to the horse form and lost his concentration. He was so frustrated with himself that he lost his ability to transform and was stuck like this for the rest of his life. If one does lose concentration during the transformation, DON”T PANICK, be calm and try to transform back to your original form”
I stop reading, Centaurs? What else exists? What else do I not know about? Will I run into a dwarf tomorrow when I live the house?
I continue reading,
“Another easy transformation is transforming into the person in front of you. Before closing your eyes and concentrating on the change, study the person’s features closely.”
I sigh; I would have to try again tomorrow morning, when I had grandma to look at.
I close the book, crawl under the warm covers and fall into a dream in which I change into a spider but am unable to change back.

I awake the next morning covered in sweat. And as I throw back the covers to let the hot, stuffy air escape, I hear my grandma outside, talking to someone. As I look out the window to find out who my grandma is talking to this early in the morning, I see her standing with a watering can in one hand, and a pair of scissors to cut plants and flowers with, in the other. Leaning over the fence, she is talking to a neighbor, an older woman with brown hair, most probably dyed, with a large stomach. I open the window and lean over the sill.
“Grandma, good morning!” I wave at them and they wave back as my grandma explains the other woman who I was.
“Wait one sec and I’ll make you some breakfast. How about Nutella and rolls?” Grandma looks at me, waiting for an answer.
I smile and say, “Perfect.”
I take a step back to close the window and throw on some clothes. But as I pull on yesterday’s jeans, I realize how dirty they are and so I take them off, run to my car to get my backpack with all my stuff, run back inside, and throw on a fresh T-shirt and jeans.
As I enter the dining room, I smell fresh rolls and Nutella and my mouth starts watering instantly. I had completely forgotten how hungry I really was.
As I stuff down roll after roll, my grandma slowly drinks her coffee, looking at me, her eyes gleaming with happiness for a reason I didn’t know.
“Do you know how happy I am to have you back?” she sighs and I look at her,
“And I’m happy to have you back too,” I smile and she returns the favor. Then curiosity fills her face, and she asks,
“So, have you looked at the book yet?”
I nod, swallow, and then say, “Yeah, I even tried to transform, but it didn’t work.”
She looks at me, “It didn’t?”
“No, but I didn’t really try either, I was too tired,”
“Oh,” she finishes her coffee and stands up. “Well I think that you are awake enough now, so let’s get you to look a little different.” She claps her hands and walks into the living room, followed by me.
She stops, turns around, and motions me to stand right in front of me.
“All right, if you have done your reading, you should know what to do now,” She looks at me patiently.
“Study your features, close your eyes and concentrate on the transformation. And when it works, I should experience almost like a tingling sensation, right?”
She nods proudly and motions me to go ahead and try it. I look at her closely, every single detail, every single crease in her pale skin and rosy cheeks. Her short, gray hair, her double neck that gave her a healthy look, not a fat one. She was wearing very sweet perfume today, and when I closed my eyes, I saw her in front of me.
I concentrate on every single thing and then it came. The tingling first started in my toes, and it felt as if my feet were falling asleep. Then it slowly started to spread up my legs, through my torso, past my shoulders, down my arms and into my fingertips. And as it reached my head and hair follicles I hear my grandma laughing and my eyes snap open.
I see my grandma smiling and nodding approvingly.
“So?” I ask wearily.
“Perfect,” she says and turns around, grapping the mirror behind her that I swear was not there before.
She holds it in front of my face and I gasp. There she was, not me, but her. My grandma was staring back at me. I had become her identical twin.
I started laughing and my grandma chimed in. I did it, I actually did it. Up until now, there had always been a little doubt in the back of my mind that this might all not be true. But it was, it was all true. I could actually do this. Possibilities opened up before me. There was so much I could do now. I could run with the deer in the forest behind our house, or fly south with the birds in the fall.
A huge grin spreads across my face and I take a deep breath.
“All right, maybe you want to change back now. Let’s see how that will work out.”
I nod and close my eyes again. I concentrate on myself and just like that, the tingling feeling comes back, spreads through my body more quickly than before, this time starting at my head and ending at my feet. I open my eyes and don’t need the mirror to confirm that I look like myself again.
“Ok, that worked really well, better than expected actually. I was getting a little worried that you might not be able to do it after over ten years, but you did perfect.” She smiles at me, it seems like she likes doing that, but then also adds, “When you transformed back, where did the tingling start?”
I look at her in confusion, but then say, “In my head, why?”
“That’s good,” she nods, “because that means that you’re in your true form. When it starts in your toes, you change out of your true form and into a so called “fake” form and when it is the other way around, you change from the “fake” form into your true form. Of course, when you’re ling enough in your fake form, and you forget about your true form, your fake form transforms into your true form.” She smiles at my confusing look. “I understand that you are confused but you’ll get the hang of it. Your transformations will become quicker too the more you practice.” I nod, she was right, it was all a little confusing right now.
“Well, you should probably go home,” I sigh, but she was right, I should go home.
“Thanks Grandma, for everything,” I smile and give her a long hug.
“Of course, everything for you my dear, everything for you.” She escorts me out to my car, grabbing my bag from my room for me. I put it in my trunk and walk to the driver’s side door.
“Well, this is it.” I say.
“Yes, Oh goodness, you’re so grown up, have your own car and all,” I see tears in her eyes.
“Oh grandma, I’ll call you as soon as I get home, and I’ll come visit you soon, so we can practice some more, ‘kay?”
She laughs a tear filled laugh.
“Ok, and bring mom and dad, I’m not mad at them anymore. I haven’t been mad at them for many years but I was too much of a coward to actually call them, and I’m sorry for that, so sorry. Will you tell them that?”
I nod, but she doesn’t seem convinced.
“You promise?”
“I promise,” And with that she opens the door for me and I get in, turning the key and starting the engine.
“Love you grandma,” I look at her and her eyes tell me before she says it, “Love you too. And don’t try to transform into animals until we meet again, you don’t want to end up a centaur right?” she winks at me and I smile.
“All right,” there was still so much to learn from her. And so she slams the door, waves, and walks towards the house.
As I turn around the corner, I see her wave at me one more time and I smile, finally feeling complete, for what seems like the first time in my life.