Bloom

McKenna — The Night Before the Ceremony of Strength The pack had already decided what I was worth. Tomorrow, they intended to make it official. I stood in front of my bedroom mirror, practising the expression I planned to wear at the Ceremony of Strength: calm, unimpressed and preferably the sort of face that suggested I had better things to do than attend my own public humiliation. It was a work in progress. Unfortunately, my reflection had other plans. A thin ribbon of red light curled around my fingers. I froze. Gold shimmered along its edges, delicate as sunlight caught in a thread of silk. For one impossible second, the light wound itself around my knuckles, bright enough to illuminate my reflection. Then it slipped beneath my skin. I flung my hands apart. “What on earth?” Nothing answered. I stared at my fingers, turning them over as though the explanation might be printed on my palms. There was no mark. No burn. Not even a particularly impressive sparkle to prove I hadn't imagined the whole thing. Wonderful. Apparently, I was now hallucinating on top of being a disappointment. I pressed my hands against the edge of the dressing table and leaned closer to the mirror. That was when I noticed my eyes. Red. Not bloodshot. Not irritated. Not the sort of red I could blame on a sleepless night and an unfortunate lack of eye drops. Red as fresh paint, with a strange gold shimmer buried deep within the colour. I stopped breathing. The girl in the mirror stared back at me. Same face. Same hair. Same little scar near my eyebrow from the time I'd fallen out of a tree as a child and insisted, despite the blood running down my face, that I had meant to do it. But those eyes were not mine. I blinked hard. The reflection blinked with me. I leaned closer, searching for some ordinary explanation. A trick of the light, perhaps. Exhaustion. Stress. Something that wouldn't require me to reconsider everything I thought I knew about myself. The red remained. Gold flickered beneath it. Then the air around me seemed to tighten. I felt it before I understood it—a pressure against my skin, as though the room had drawn a breath and was waiting for me to do something. Something stirred deep inside my chest. I grabbed the table. Warmth gathered around my knuckles. For a heartbeat, I wanted to laugh. Not because anything was funny, but because my life had apparently reached the point where laughing was the only reasonable alternative to screaming. I had spent years waiting for something extraordinary to happen to me. Naturally, it had chosen the night before the one event where extraordinary things were supposed to happen in front of an audience. “Please don't,” I whispered. The warmth disappeared. I remained perfectly still, listening to the silence. Nothing else happened. I should have felt relieved. Instead, I felt the first sharp edge of fear. Because I knew what the pack would say if they saw this. I could practically hear the whispers forming already, the careful little pauses before someone asked whether I was sure I was all right. People were remarkably comfortable with the idea that something was wrong with me. They had years of practice. My assessment had earned me a score of zero point five. No remarkable abilities. No obvious gift. No reason to expect anything special from me. The number was small enough to fit beside my name on a piece of paper. The damage it had done was considerably harder to contain. At first, I'd told myself it was only a number. Numbers couldn't measure loyalty. They couldn't measure courage or the stubbornness required to keep showing up in a place where people had already decided you didn't belong. But people loved numbers when they gave them permission to judge someone. Zero point five had become my introduction, my explanation and, in some people's minds, my entire personality. McKenna Rochester. The weakling. The girl who couldn't quite measure up. I hated the label. I hated the people who used it. Most of all, I hated how often I caught myself wondering whether they might be right. I looked down at my hands again. If this was some kind of gift, it had terrible timing. If it wasn't, I had a different problem. I moved towards the window, needing something ordinary to look at. Outside, the pack grounds lay beneath the darkness. Trees stood along the boundary, their branches shifting gently in the night breeze. A few windows glowed in the houses, but most of the pack had settled in for the night. Tomorrow, the grounds would be crowded. Wolves would gather to witness the Ceremony of Strength. Those approaching twenty-one would face the next stage of their lives, discovering their abilities and learning what place they might claim within the pack. For some, it would be a celebration. For others, a test. For me, it had always felt like standing in front of a room full of people while they waited for proof that I deserved to exist among them. I rested my forehead against the cool glass. I wasn't asking to be the strongest wolf in the pack. I wasn't even asking to be the most impressive. I wanted to stop being treated as though I had personally inconvenienced everyone by being born. Was that too much to ask? Apparently, the answer was yes. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, I caught movement between the trees. A figure stood near the boundary. Tall. Motionless. Watching the house. I pulled back from the window. My heart gave one hard thud. The figure remained where it was, half-hidden by the trunks. I couldn't make out a face or any details, only the suggestion of a person standing in the dark. I leaned forward again. The space between the trees was empty. I stared until my eyes began to water. Nothing moved except the branches. Perhaps it had been a shadow. Perhaps my imagination had decided to join the evening's entertainment. I was beginning to wish it would develop better material. Still, I didn't return to the window. I went back to the mirror instead. The red had faded. I blinked, leaning towards the glass, but my eyes were their usual colour again. Ordinary. Familiar. Entirely unhelpful. I lifted my hand and examined my knuckles. No light. No warmth. No proof. For several seconds, I considered calling for my sister. McKayla would know what to do. Or at least she would pretend to know, which was sometimes nearly as comforting. We were twins, after all. We had spent our lives sharing things other people couldn't understand: pain that passed between us without warning, wounds that seemed to answer one another, and a connection that had always felt stronger than the ordinary bond between sisters. If I told her, she might believe me. She might even help. But then what? She would worry. She would ask questions I couldn't answer. She might tell our parents, and they might decide the elders needed to know. Before long, my strange little secret would belong to the entire pack. Everyone would have an opinion. Everyone would want an explanation. And the people who had spent years reducing me to a number would be given something new to judge. I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't even ready to decide whether I was frightened or furious. So I kept quiet. Not because I was ashamed of what had happened. At least, that was what I told myself. I was keeping it to myself because I had learned the hard way that not everyone who offered help wanted to understand you. Some people wanted to fix you. Some wanted to control you. Others simply wanted a closer look at the thing they considered broken. I wasn't going to hand them the opportunity. Not yet. I returned to the mirror and studied my face. I had spent so much time trying to convince other people that I was worth more than my assessment that I had almost forgotten I was allowed to decide that for myself. The thought was uncomfortable. It was also mine. Whatever had happened tonight, I would figure it out. I would find out why the light had appeared, why my eyes had changed and what that strange pressure in my chest meant. I didn't need to understand everything before sunrise. I just needed to stop letting other people's opinions make every decision for me. Tomorrow, I would attend the ceremony. I would stand where I was told to stand. I would listen to whatever the elders had to say. If they looked at me with pity, I would survive it. If they whispered, I would survive that too. But I would not volunteer my secret. Not to my sister. Not to my parents. Not to anyone. For once, the decision belonged to me. I drew the curtains across the window and changed for bed. The movements were ordinary, almost reassuring. Fold the clothes. Put them away. Check the door. Turn off the light. Small things I could control. I climbed beneath the blankets, but sleep refused to cooperate. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the red light winding around my fingers. I saw the gold beneath my skin. And I saw the figure between the trees, standing so still that I couldn't tell whether it had been watching me or waiting for something else entirely. I had no answers. Only questions, and the uncomfortable feeling that the night had shifted something I couldn't put back. Tomorrow, the pack would gather to decide what kind of wolf I was. They believed the ceremony would reveal what I had to offer. They had no idea that something had already happened—something that had left me frightened, confused and, for the first time in years, unwilling to accept the answer they had chosen for me. I turned onto my side and pulled the blankets higher. Maybe I was weak. Maybe I wasn't. But I was finished treating their judgement as the final word on my life. Whatever was waiting for me tomorrow, I would face it on my own terms. And if the world had decided to change the rules overnight, it could at least have the decency to explain them.