A Rock and Family Vacation

[8]

Before Blair drifted off, they all made absolutely sure that the phone was filming. To prop it up, they took several ornaments from the kitchen that looked vaguely like bookends. Some little towels guarded against scratches and Brooke lamented that she didn’t simply own some sort of phone stand. The boys and… So forth… had weird little things that she didn’t understand to help hold their phones. A glass thing would’ve been perfect but they worked with what they had.

The first traces of change came with Blair‘s curly hair starting to straighten, as though someone turned up the humidity. It also began lightening. It happened slowly though, like those Magic Grow toys or the invisible ink game. Blair used to play with those all the time. Brooke wanted to stroke her son’s hair for comfort. Lacy folded up into a tight ball with her jaw clenched and eyes locked on the extreme sports distraction playing on the TV.

Before long, watching was too much to bear. At the same time, her mind raced with all the strange junk that was expelled by the Internet. Deep fakes, CGI, morphs, and weird filters. Surely, no reasonable person would even believe this level of evidence. What more could they do? Brooke wasn’t going to film her son in any way that might embarrass him. This would have to be enough, even if it invited debunking and skepticism.

Brooke felt just as drowsy as Blair looked, but it was a different kind of tiredness. She had gotten up early and surged through the rejuvenation of a shower while working to deal with her youngest and all the questions such a radical change brought. Dealing with her chaotic teen boys as they dealt with their new little sister was emotionally exhausting. Then trying to be strong for Lacy through her pain and deliver some sort of reassurance that really only her eldest actually provided by making this strange sacrifice. Blair and Lacy had been as thick as thieves for so long.

Sure, they fought, argued, and accused the other of the wildest things, but she had seen Blair walk into a room when Lacy was sulking over any old thing and resolve the whole matter with just a few words. Before all this, Lacy had panic attacks about the upcoming years with Blair investigating college. He even went so far as to hide any college fliers deep in his closet. Fortunately, Blair noticed, as he always did, and obtained plenty of digital copies by email. He let his little brother have his best efforts at controlling a situation he couldn’t possibly control.

“Mom?”

Brooke snapped out of her reflection and focused staring at the little ways changes drifted from Blair’s longer hair to a softening of his Iron Giant-esce bulky jawline. “What is it, sweetie?”

“You said…that… grandpa sent something for us to look at?” Lacy was still twisted up as a pretzel, with her limbs tightening and clenching, as though providing an invisible pump for her tension. However, the snapping bitterness in her voice receded as she glanced over at her mom and then quickly checked on her older brother.

Straightening, Brooke nodded to her child’s question. It felt clear that Lacy muffled several unkind words about her grandfather. Brooke didn’t have a problem with her child calling him all sorts of deserved things. Frankly, she could see how any of them might directly blame her father for how things had gone and were likely to go on this trip. He was deeply responsible for so many things that Brooke just wanted to forget. She appreciated Lacy’s restraint, no matter the impetus or feeling. Just being able to talk to Lacy, without absorbing her panic that her world was over, was a relief. A moment to keep from drowning, even though the analogy didn’t quite work since she was a strong swimmer who enjoyed the water.

In response to Lacy’s reserved question, Brooke considered waiting till everyone was together again, to brief them on the dress code and requirements, but didn’t want to lose this opportunity. She agreed to bring over her laptop so long as Lacy diligently made sure that the phone was still recording and that her brother was comfortable.

To this, Lacy adopted a serious expression practically unlike anything she’d seen from her 12-year-old outside of challenging final bosses in her games. Lacy leveled her eyes at Blair and scrutinized every inch of his flesh for advancing transformation. She also delicately traced her slender fingers around Blair‘s phone and checked the time codes along with the image focus. After a few moments, she gave a measured nod and responded, “It’s good. I mean… it’s going.”

Before Brooke left the room though, Lacy swiftly recalled, “Could you… Grab those shears as well? Hair. For this hair.” Lacy tossed a few locks over her shoulder in the hope they might simply leave that way and never return.

That was a bigger ask than rushing over to grab her laptop for grandpa‘s update. They would need something to catch the hair when she cut it. Lacy could sit on one of the chairs by the kitchen and she could fan out a beach towel. No, better idea. In the trunk behind the backseat, she had stored the drop cloth from those painting classes she took. It had to be dusty by now, but it would do the job. She nodded, agreed to this as well, and lingered a moment to make sure there wasn’t anything else.

Being away from Blair‘s unconscious form still etched her quiet, sleeping shape like a ghost on the back of her eyes. He never slept this peacefully, except when recovering after a serious illness. She could still hear his breath, but it was so faint and reserved. Lacy had been quieted too.

She mounted the stairs urgently but not with chaotic speed. No reason to make anything feel worse. Retrieving the laptop was simple. Sifting through the scattered luggage for the shears was less so. It wasn’t in her main bag. That just had the fold-up travel scissors. Fortunately, one of the bathroom bags had it.

Hustling downstairs again, she dropped off her laptop but kept the shears in a pocket. She didn’t want to cast a flare of uncertainty in Lacy’s direction, but some of the things her child said deeply concerned her. Brooke tried not to dwell on that as she snatched up her keys and hustled out the front door to the car.

Clare and Eliot were already out of sight. Despite that, Brooke stretched on her tiptoes to peer over the ridges of sand and dirt with tufts of green. Nothing. Meanwhile, the waves crashed and receded against the shore with practiced clockwork, not caring a wink for the tiny crises playing out in her life.

Brooke climbed around in the back and easily found and retrieved the cloth. Before heading back in, she focused her kindest thoughts on her husband and youngest.

—-

Eliot did his best not to make this excursion feel different than any other. He grabbed his keys, wallet, and cell phone. However, when he grabbed for the last, it slipped from his fingers even though it had a bumpy and sticky grip on the sides. Cursing with all the blunted words practiced from a decade and a half of parenting, he saw that it was fine despite ricocheting over several floor tiles. His hand shook when he picked it up. He coughed and snatched up one of the nearest water bottles.

The water helped but also made his guts feel like the crab shack meal and breakfast were ready to violently dislodge like a melting glacier. He considered jotting down that stray imagery, but his nerves were too rattled to bother. Instead, he drew in a few whiffs of the sea breeze until he felt like he could handle this. He had to show his best face for Clare.

His mind traced the contours of a familiar, long-composed, but never-put-on-paper concept. An alien and human couple meeting for the first time on vacation. Maybe it cut a little too close to the present, but the grooves of the narrative slowly steadied his nerves. He never quite worked it out because he wanted the aliens pretending to be like a normal group of humans. The usual. The twist was the humans were trying to fit in by being more like aliens. Maybe it was a neutral location for each of them, but Eliot couldn’t quite suss out how to write it. But the potential dramatic irony of each group desperately trying to be something they weren’t excited him.

It still didn’t make facing his youngest daughter any easier though. But Clare still felt like Clare. It didn’t matter how she looked and what she wore, he told himself.

She slipped on that same travel bag from when she went out with Brooke earlier. Quietly, she held his hand as they walked out of the house. Blair stopped holding hands a few years older than Clare. However, he kept close to his family with a constant awareness of where he was and where they were. Not one of those kids who got fixated on toys and then found themselves half a store away from familiar faces. Lacy was that kid. His remedy involved busting out siren noises and screaming across the store. Sweet, quiet dreamer Clare had the worst of it though.

Nervous moments of uncertainty wrapped around the poor kid like invisible pythons. He looked fine, he said he was fine, and yet they would find him drenched in sweat and screaming about some nightmare he could barely remember.

The only place Eliot could really deal with those things was several days after the fact in some detailed imagining, uselessly constructed and scribbled across a blank page.

“Are you okay, daddy?”

“Yes. Just stay close to me while we’re out.” That was a lie and he faintly suspected that Clare understood it was. She accepted this though.

“It’s getting easier to walk, but it’s still weird. I’ll take it easy.” Clare usually bounded ahead, explored, and sought out the next hill to see what it held. The possibilities of her star field dress expressed.

Part of him wanted her to just scamper off but then swing back, as though following an invisible tether dragging him forward while allowing her freedom. His children had been too tightly bound in this decade, locked away inside by society, distant from his parents while Brooke’s father made all the inroads. Eliot tightened his empty, untrustworthy hand, as though his bitter anger towards his father-in-law could dispel the shakes.

Gingerly, Clare unfurled the narrative of her last outing with mom. Doing the splits and riding a wall without the “birdie and egg” pain she usually felt. She reenacted some dirt slides and looked at her dad expectantly. Eliot smiled and nodded. He told her that was “cool” and resisted all the anxious fears. Why journey anywhere else than in this shared moment with his child?

“Do you think…maybe I was supposed to be a girl?”

That question took Eliot by surprise. Clare highlighted how comfortable she felt right then. Also, her siblings just accepted her as a girl. No one out and about freaked, and the lady at the clothing store especially saw her as normal. She compared this with how distraught Lacy was. Even though overreaction tended to be the norm with Lacy.

That whole ball of everything felt like it had been set on fire and he needed to examine it before it melted away. His wife was so much better at zeroing in on simple answers. All he could come up with was a dozen vague contemplations about fate, genetics, and psychology which wouldn’t help his kid. His daughter.

“I don’t know. But I do know that your entire family will love and support you no matter what has happened before or what will happen in the future. We’re here and you don’t need to be scared.”

It was awkward and took more words than any of Brooke’s succinct determinations, but Eliot found relief in seeing his daughter nod and smile.

“You two there! Welcome to Pinckney Point. Could I trouble you for a moment of your time?”

To their left at the edge of the grass along the path leading from the beach house to the boardwalk stood a lanky, gaunt man in a black suit. He didn’t appear much older than Eliot but still had a frail, thin energy about him, as though he might dwindle to a single black hair wavering in the wind if he turned to the side and the breeze picked up.

His suit dangled, as though he were an emaciated stick bug which adopted an awkward, hermit crab home. Eliot scolded and lamented himself for coming up with such rough analogies for a simple man behind a rickety, white folding card table. However, he also positioned himself between his daughter and the strange man before asking, “What do you want?” Even though his wife more often cited the Netflix child abduction documentaries, he was also mindful of them.

The strange man dipped his head with a quick smirk before saying, “Just but a moment of your time. My name is Carren Cross. And I simply wish to discuss something called the Cerberus Initiative with you.”

—-

“So, Blair is going to be gone.”

Brooke arranged a nice spot on the tile between the kitchen and the dining room with a dark color contrasting Lacy's fair locks so that she would be able to see if any of the hair fell to the side. She knew that if there was a cleanliness complaint then her father was sure to mention it and any random fines almost as desperately as he let her know about the damn, expensive tint-shifting windows.

She spread out the drop cloth and situated the chair so that they both could continue to watch Blair without any obstacles. At this point, her eldest definitely had a different facial structure and curve to his features. His bulky shoulders were starting to recede through his clothes. His hips may have widened but his increasingly baggy clothing hid the specifics.

“He’s right there”, Brooke asserted as she prepared everything for Lacy.

“Is he? Not for long. He’ll be gone and I have no idea who he’ll be when he wakes up.” Lacy focused intently on her brother while her eyes wandered and took in the scope of the entire room. Her mother stood in front of her.

“You’re still Lacy, aren’t you? Same RuggedClaw10Strike online… Schooling all the noobs?” Lacy shut her eyes and groaned. “God, mom. Stop, please stop…”

Brooke knew a handful of recent and dated slang she could wield to painful effect. She did enjoy torturing the other junior high kids during Lakethorn’s hybrid back-to-school night. Lacy flung her hair over the back of the seat.

She sighed and declared, “Change sucks. Everyone says ‘embrace change’ and ‘look for change in things’ blah blah. I changed, but I’m fighting to go back. Clare changed so much. Blair is changing now too, but I don’t know who he’ll be when he wakes up. My brother or someone else? You don’t know what that friggin rock can do. He doesn’t either, even though he likes to think he’s sooo smart.”

Brooke knew Clare desperately worried that things were different between them. She honestly didn’t believe that Clare had changed that much. The only difference was that she put on some other clothes. But it didn’t seem worth it to nitpick and press Lacy. Instead, she told her, “Yeah, change can suck. Change is desperately scary, but there are also constants, things that can’t and won’t change. Your family loves you, no matter what happens to your appearance, what words spill out of your head, or what fears rise to the surface. Blair will always be your big brother and Clare will always be your little brother. No matter what… details are different. And we, your dad and me, I will always be here for you and love you.”

Lacy‘s head shifted around like she was rotating it to get a kink out. She groaned when one of the long hairs stuck on the wood. “I guess. For now, just get this junk off me.”

Brooke went right to work with the shears. She gathered up a lengthy section of the hair from all sides and gingerly snipped from left to right, pausing so that the blades didn’t get snagged. Well over a foot of the hair resting on her shoulders came away in her hands. Some of it slipped out, but she twisted it together and set it aside in a wash basin.

When she returned to pick up the strays, her hand paused, and her mind puzzled as a mass of blonde hair covered Lacy’s shoulders as thoroughly as what she just removed. Had she not cut as much as she thought, and another layer slid back to fill the spot? The hair in the back looked exactly the same.

Lifting her shears again, Brooke re-gathered as much of the hair as possible and then snipped slowly and cleanly across it. Lacy’s back should’ve been bare but, as soon as she lifted the hair away, it was like another curtain was revealed. This one actually appeared as though it fell lower across her back.

“Did you do it?” Lacy nervously looked back and felt around her head. “Is there still more?” Brooke swallowed and witnessed the absolute mass of cut hair she set aside, enough for a decent wig. Lacy felt around in alarm. “Why does it feel longer?”

Doing her best to not scare her child, Brooke helped Lacy up and over to the nearest mirror in a closet. Lacy staggered and gripped the door. Brooke showed her what she cut off, but Lacy still dashed over for the shears.

Brooke held her hands up nervously while Lacy gave a single nod and carefully sliced through a large part of her hair. The yarn-like bundle of fair hair tumbled to the floor and instantly more hair replaced it. A brief glow of silver traced the edge like a spark of static electricity. The hair reached slightly longer, stretching for the middle of her back.

Collapsing to the ground with her arms dangling and her legs useless, Lacy pronounced, “I’m…cursed…”

[I have a question at the end of the chapter again to help with suggestions for where the story should go. I'm a couple chapters ahead but I love seeding ideas from people as much as possible. Feel free to add an idea which doesn't show up in the options. Thank you for reading!]

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