Volume 3: Meristem

Issue 5: Ember

Florian Reyes Honeywell

By Roach

The steel toes of Amber’s Doc Martens deafened the chatter throughout the gym. As the distance between us closed, I saw that she wore a cotton candy pink cardigan complemented with Adidas tights. In the clutches of her sharpened nails, she held a Starbucks cup—presumably from the coffee shop across from Aesop’s. I looked around. Maybe her accomplices were nearby, and it just happened to look like she was heading my way. But there was no sign of Jazmine or Raegan. Under normal circumstances, this would have been a relief. But as she continued her advance toward me, I felt nothing but dread.

As I prepared to get out of her way, Amber halted in front of me. She took a long sip from her coffee, until I could hear a soft gurgle at the bottom of the emptying cup. The entire time, she measured me with her bright, green stare. Until she spoke up. “I’m not sure what’s worse… That your project sucks so much that your mom has to coerce the judge, or that she’s more interested in the judge than in you?”

I froze in place. Not only was I stunned by the fact that Amber spoke to me at all, but that she had paid enough attention to me to know who my mom was. Somehow, the insult didn’t really register with me at first, as I was still working through the possibility that Amber recognized me. Then, I stole a glance in the direction my mom had gone. She stood by some of the posters at the other end of the gym, still immersed in her discussion with Dr. Morris.

“I’m kidding,” Amber said, drawing my attention back to her. She laughed, and for a second, I made the mistake of thinking it was some kind of joke after all—not a funny one, but a joke, nevertheless. Then she added, “It’s obvious what’s worse.” The words themselves didn’t get to me in the same way as the ice in her voice. Her rose-red lips curled into a sadistic smile.

Oh, I like her. The Queen’s chuckle reverberated from within me.

In the theater, face to face with a monster, I had been able to think on my feet. But confronted with one of my classmates? I was at a complete loss. There was no humor in Amber’s expression. Only a certain satisfaction, like an archer that had just hit her mark. Whatever it was that she wanted from me, my dumbfounded expression seemed to be giving it to her.

This wasn’t a situation my bees could get me out of. Rather, no matter how tempting, it wouldn’t end well. I didn’t know how to reason with her, nor did I have any clever retorts. I was so used to being ignored that the idea that the Amber Wren would give me any attention was outside the realm of possibilities. This wasn’t supposed to happen. At Chapel High, I was a ghost. I had refined a form of invisibility. Although not as literally as Camilo, I made it my own. I kept to myself. Kept my mouth shut. Just like a ghost. A ghost haunting over nothing.

At least, until Camilo had discovered me.

And then, the @ChapelConfessional post…

The Queen intercepted again. It’s just like you, Hive, to stand there and take it.

Prompted by her comment, I finally spoke up. “Uh, I mean, she’s just…” I sought out my mom in the crowd, looking for an explanation. But the words died in my throat. It was the wrong thing to say. Who was I trying to stand up for, myself or her? In either case, I had no defense. I cleared my throat, suppressing an emerging bee. I looked down at my worn-out Converse. Maybe I should have known ghosts were easy to see through. “This isn’t really any of your business,” I said at last. It was pathetic, but it was all I had.

Amber’s smile revealed snow-white teeth. “None of my beeswax, huh?” She giggled at her own joke. I was surprised that she knew enough about me to make a jab at my family’s occupation. Had she investigated me? Why? Or did she know more than I originally thought? Had she found me out? She continued, “Looks like you have some… issues to work through. Best leave you to it.”

Can’t say she’s wrong, the Queen taunted.

“Oh, before I go, can you take care of this for me?” She held the coffee cup out to me. When I didn’t take it, she pushed it against my chest. Then she let it drop. The empty cup fell to my feet. “You should know where the trash is.”

Before I could come up with anything I could do or say to save some grace, it was too late. Amber turned on her heel, her hair a fire wavering over her shoulders. I watched her disappear into the labyrinth of posters. As she walked away, she held up her phone, swiveling the device from side to side like the cannon of a tank. I could see her talking; perhaps facetiming someone, or broadcasting her narcissistic smirk into the online ether. I could only hope she wasn’t relaying my miserable performance to someone else.

Even after she was gone, I remained still. If I had any doubts before, I knew better now; Camilo’s anonymous caller—Spindle—sounded exactly like Amber.

At the realization, I jerked into action. I pulled my phone from my pocket and started typing. I messaged Camilo:

> It’s her

There was no way around it. Amber had sought me out at the fair. Normally, someone like me wouldn’t have been worth her time. Unless she thought I could be “Stagehand’s friend,” like Spindle had identified me as on the phone. And to make it worse, she had referenced bees, meaning she either knew about the Honeywell business or my secrets. The first, I hoped.

I stared at the screen, awaiting a reply, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see that my mom had circled back to my booth. “Honey, this isn’t the time to be on your phone. It looks unprofessional.”

“I was just… looking something up,” I lied.

“You can do that later. Hand it over,” she said.

I sighed. She waved her hand, signaling for me to give her the phone. Reluctantly, I resigned it to her.

This is why you’ll never be fit to rule, the Queen said. Such a pushover.

My mom put the phone in her purse, then turned her attention back to me. Her expression softened slightly as she reached out to pat down a crease in my shirt. As if in response to my disgruntled expression, she let go of the fabric again. “You know, Dr. Morris said some really nice things about your project.” She continued, “For a first-time entomologist, you’ve done some good work. I’m proud of you.”

“Not an entomologist,” I muttered. Although she had intended for it to be a compliment, all I could think about was Amber’s comment. Did my mom’s presence sway the judge’s opinion of my project? At the end of the day, I didn’t care all that much for the Science Fair besides getting a passing grade. But I didn’t want my success to depend on anyone else. Especially not my parents.

“I know, I know. You can be anything you want to be,” she said.

I nodded absently, still lingering on the encounter. I wanted to discuss it with Camilo as soon as possible. “I’m going to take a look around.” Before my mom had a chance to respond, I headed in the direction I had last seen my classmate. I scooped Amber’s trashed coffee cup off the floor on my way.

I wove between students, teachers, and family members until I finally reached Camilo. The bags under his eyes had grown darker. His funeral-appropriate black shirt and jeans matched the design of his poster. But in spite of his gloomy appearance, he smiled once he spotted me. I waved to him.

Once I arrived at his poster, I skimmed through it. The title read “Survey of San Francisco’s Pigeon Populations.” There was a brief description of the species—its scientific name was Columba livia, I learned—followed by a breakdown of its color variations. He had observed gray most frequently, followed by brown, white, and black. A map illustrated the handful of sites Camilo had surveyed across San Francisco.

“Please don’t ask me for my spiel.” Camilo drew air quotes around the last words. “If I hear the word spiel again, I’ll puke.”

“No, I was just going to say that…” I fumbled. Judging by his reaction, he must have been too occupied to see my message. I looked nervously toward the poster, then pointed at a brown pigeon with wings tipped in white. “I like this one,” I said.

“That’s Gladiator,” Camilo explained. “And that’s her mate.” He gestured to the one-eyed pigeon standing next to her.

“Gladiator?”

“I feed them sometimes.”

I nodded, although I wasn’t quite processing what he was saying. I glanced around, as if expecting another ambush from Amber. But all things considered, the Science Fair appeared to be proceeding normally.

“How are you, anyway?” Camilo said. “You don’t usually resort to coffee.”

I squeezed the empty cup in my grip. “This isn’t mine. It’s Spindle’s.”

“What?”

I tapped my index finger against the cup. As I did, I realized that the barista had misspelled Amber’s name on the label. “Spindle—or Ember, if you will.” Resentment seeped from my voice.

“Ember? What happened?”

“Did you get my message?” I asked.

“No,” Camilo replied, but the question prompted him to reach for his phone.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Emb… I mean, Amber, gave this to me. Told me I could find the trash.”

“When?”

“Just now. It was strange. She didn’t bring her normal entourage of Jazmine and Raegan. Based on the way she was talking, it seemed like she might have looked into me. Either way, she sounded exactly like on the phone.”

“Looked into you how?”

“She said something about bees…” When I saw the horrified look on Camilo’s face, it dawned on me that—although we talked every day—we had never really spoken of our families. I quickly added, “My dad is a beekeeper, so it could be just that. I don’t know if she knows about… the other stuff.” Sometimes people connected my surname to the family business, but I wasn’t sure to what extent Camilo would be familiar with it.

“I see…” Although Camilo relaxed a little, concern lingered on his expression, brows furrowed. He looked as if he wanted to say more, but we both knew this wasn’t the best place to talk openly. “Anything else?”

“Not really.” Although she had said other things about my project, not to mention my mom and the judge, it didn’t seem relevant. Nor was it a can of worms I wanted to open at the moment.

“Hm, how weird…” Camilo looked out over the crowd. “Did you see where she went?”

I surveyed the fair until I spotted her by Max’s poster. She spoke to him. Although I saw her lips move, I couldn’t make out the words at a distance. But I didn’t need to hear her to understand her intent. The self-congratulatory expression I had seen earlier on Max’s face collapsed. He shrunk back, shifting closer to his plant. Based on my own interaction with Amber, I couldn’t imagine that she had anything nice to say to him. I watched her continue toward the exit. “She’s leaving,” I said. “Maybe she has something better to do than talk shit, after all.”

“Wanna find out?” Camilo had the same scheming glimmer in his eyes as when he had first proposed that we hunt down the monster.

I looked in the direction of my poster. My mom was still standing there, and—as irony would have it—stared at her phone. Her hypocrisy would have gotten to me more under different circumstances. But at least, in that exact moment, I could use the diversion to my advantage.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Camilo took the lead, slipping past tables and students. As I trailed after him, the row of posters formed an incomplete wall between us and my mom. I quickened my pace between each gap, stealing a glance in her direction every now and then. Once we made it outside of the gym, I heard the steps of Amber’s boots carry down the empty hallways. We walked quietly up against the wall. Occasionally, motivational posters and advertisements for clubs and scholarships scraped against my shoulder. At least the hallways were empty, as most people were already in the gym.

“Okay. Plan,” Camilo whispered. “I can turn invisible and keep track of her. I’ll update you by text. You’ll stay close by, but out of sight, until we figure out what she’s up to.”

The emptiness of my pockets suddenly weighed heavy as stone. “I don’t have my phone.”

“Didn’t you just text me?”

“Yeah, but my mom took it.”

“Control freak much?”

“Tell me about it.”

Camilo stopped, forcing me to a halt behind him. “Want me to get it back for you?” he offered.

I assumed he meant that he could turn invisible and take the phone from under my mom’s nose. While the potential consequences horrified me, his offer also touched me in some way. But I shook my head. “It’s not worth the trouble. Besides, we’ll lose Amber at this rate.” Her footsteps grew fainter, somehow higher up—she must be reaching the top of the staircase, I estimated.

“Alright, alright. New plan.” He rubbed his hands together. “I won’t be able to make both of us invisible, but perhaps a minor illusion is more doable… If I recreate our faces, we should be unrecognizable enough.”

“That might work,” I said. While less stealthy than invisibility, I didn’t have any better ideas.

Camilo snapped his fingers. “There,” he said. Within the blink of an eye, his face took on a new form. The transformation wasn’t really visible—rather, he was Camilo in one moment, and a stranger in the next. The stronger jaw and cheekbones reminded me of a young version of Marlon Brando, with the hint of a mustache.

Then the question occurred to me. “How do I look?”

He tilted his head. His now blue eyes glanced over me. “Hm… One more thing.” He snapped his fingers again. “Since she talked to you earlier, she might recognize your outfit. This should help.” I looked down to discover that he had added a design for Chapel High’s mascot—the albatross—on my shirt.

“My favorite,” I muttered.

“Of course.”

As we continued up the stairs, I reached for my face. I wasn’t sure what to expect. That it would feel like nothing? Or like a mask? Neither was quite right. My chin and nose were more pronounced, more like my dad’s. The illusion had no weight or pressure, yet a strange sensation lingered with me. It was the same feeling as if I had folded my legs or hands in the opposite order than I normally did. Not outright unnatural, but still wrong. I wondered if this was what plastic surgery felt like.

Holly, the library intern, strolled down the hallway. I felt an acute self-awareness, half-way expecting her to call us out. As we crossed paths, she sent us a quick but puzzled glance. I gave her a slight nod in return. She carried on. I hurried after Camilo. It seemed that his illusions were—if not entirely convincing—at least passable. I hoped.

Once we reached the door, I glimpsed my new face in the reflection of the glass panes. What struck me the most was the color of my hair. It was a deep brown, almost exactly as it used to be before my transformation. But aside from my hair, it was difficult to make out any concrete features. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the glass’ translucency or the illusion’s quality. Somehow, it almost seemed as if the reflection couldn’t fully capture Camilo’s powers, or, alternatively, as if the illusion didn’t extend all the way into reality. As my mirror image passed me by and I found myself outside, I could no longer recall it properly. Like someone I had dreamed—when I still dreamed. The strange feeling from earlier grew inside of me, resonating in the occasional flutter of wings, like radio static.

About midway between Chapel Hill and Aesop’s, Amber walked away from us. The entire time we followed her, my eyes didn’t leave her white Fjällräven backpack. For every step, I expected her to turn around and discover us. I kept reminding myself that I wasn’t me anymore. Then it dawned on me.

“What are our codenames?” I asked Camilo.

“I don’t know… uh, you come up with something.”

“Why me?”

“I don’t know, just think of something.”

“Fine. How about, uh, Leonard and Bernard?”

“Are you serious?”

“What’s wrong?”

Amber, still ahead of us, entered the Starbucks down from Chapel Hill.

“You can’t just say that because they both end in nard,” Camilo said.

“Well, nard rhymes with nerd, which you happen to be.”

“Then we might as well be Brad and Chad!”

“Fine. I’m Brad, you’re Chad.”

“You think I’m a Chad?” His face scrunched up in a conflicted expression.

“Don’t let it get to your head, Chad.” Although I couldn’t ignore how stupid it sounded when I said it, the Starbucks loomed ahead. We were running out of time to strategize.

“Okay, Brad, follow me and act natural,” Camilo said upon arriving at the coffee shop. “I won’t be able to disguise our voices, so try not to say too much.” He opened the door, and we followed Amber inside. While the Starbucks wasn’t crowded, there were enough people there to keep the baristas busy. Most of the tables were occupied by guests typing away at their laptops. In the time it had taken us to catch up to her, Amber had reached the front of the small line. The barista—college-aged, weary-looking, and with pink curls peeking out from under their cap—glared at her through narrowed eyes.

“—not seven vanilla pumps, I said eight, aren’t you listening? And that’s with five caramel pumps and extra extra caramel drizzle, stirred, at precisely 173 degrees Fahrenheit. No more or less. Oh, and before I forget, with one quarter of an inch of vanilla sweet cream cold foam.”

“Umh, what’s… what’s the drink?” the barista stuttered.

“Caramel macchiato. Grande,” Amber scoffed.

“Okay… Anything else?”

“Yes, I want non-fat milk with that. Please and thank you.”

“Alright. So, umh, what’s the name for the order?” The barista’s voice was one of utter defeat.

“Amber,” she replied with a hint of exasperation.

“That comes to a total of… 9.53.”

I had positioned myself to the side of the entrance, where I wouldn’t be blocking anyone’s path. My awkwardness was palpable; I had no idea what to do with myself. I felt an instinct to check my phone to appear busy, but of course, it was still missing. Instead, I ended up pretending to read the menus on the walls behind the counter. Camilo, on the other hand, joined the line. A couple of customers stood between himself and Amber.

Amber hovered around the barista, offering comments throughout the process. “That’s not enough vanilla cream,” she said as they topped off the drink. “I would hardly call that a quarter of an inch.” I exchanged a look with Camilo as we observed the spectacle.

Once Amber’s caramel macchiato was done, she turned around, consequently facing me. I tensed as if Medusa herself had escaped the Rock, now inflicting me with her paralyzing stare. In a dumb sort of way, I thought that if I just remained still, she wouldn’t notice me. Once again, I reminded myself that it wasn’t me she saw, but Brad. Yet, I couldn’t entirely shake the fear that she would see right through my discomfort, right through my new skin.

As she glanced over me, a sign of what I thought was recognition flashed across Amber’s face. Did she suspect something, or was I imagining it? Her gaze continued to wander through the Starbucks, seemingly disaffirming my concerns. But my relief was short-lived. She walked over to Camilo who still waited in line. A familiar smirk re-emerged on her face as she leaned toward him, and whispered something into his ear. Then she stepped away again.

Camilo’s mouth opened while Amber’s smile widened. Briefly, her gaze flickered to me before returning to him again. Had she seen through us? How?

“You can’t just—” Before Camilo could finish the sentence, Amber dropped her coffee at his feet. The lid came undone on impact, the cup’s contents spilling out from the opening.

Camilo sprung back like a jackrabbit, but not quick enough to avoid the incoming splash of caramel coffee. For a split second, his face wavered, like a glitch in a video game. Although barely detectable, I saw his—Camilo’s—stone-cold glare emerging through the illusion. His expression reverted to Chad again just as quickly. While he had dodged the worst of the impact, light brown liquid now specked his shoes and ankles. He landed a step back and locked eyes with Amber.

That seemed to answer my question. She definitely had noticed us. But how she could see through the illusion, I had no idea.

A hush swept through the coffee shop. I surveyed each face turning toward us, trying to see if anyone had noticed Camilo’s illusion falter. While some of the customers stared at us, others quickly turned to their phones, doing their best to pretend that we didn’t exist. The exception was the pink-haired barista. I thought they returned my look with an expression of sympathy, before quickly vanishing into the backroom.

Amber kicked the coffee cup—not violently, but hard enough that it spun toward me. An agitated buzz rippled through the swarm as the cup bumped into my shoe. I didn’t budge.

She smiled at me, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Her comment from before flashed through my mind: You should know where the trash is.

Even disguised, Camilo looked furious—his expression hard, his teeth gritted. His stare didn’t waver as Amber ran her fingers innocently through her hair. “Whoops, how clumsy of me,” she said insincerely.

The barista returned from the backroom, armed with a mop. They looked confusedly out at the scene in the coffee shop. Camilo’s shoulder visibly lifted and sank as he took a deep breath. Then he turned away from Amber. He brushed past me on the way to the door, as if he barely registered that I was still there.

For a moment, I froze. I wasn’t sure I had even fully digested the Science Fair yet, let alone processed what just happened. Only when I heard the door close behind me did I move again. I turned around to follow after Camilo. But, before I left, I caught one last glimpse of Amber. She followed us with her gaze, a smug smile pasted on her lips. Next to her, the barista had started mopping the floor, throwing judgmental glances her way.

Outside, Camilo was already crossing the road. He walked toward one of the shops, its sign portraying a smiling fox; Aesop’s.

As the face of my illusion melted away, I hurried after him.