Sphereshifters: Aleph (Story Arcs 1, 2) Page 8

of ten. Her mother gave it to her, telling her it was precious and she could write down her deepest secrets. She took this to heart.

  First Entry -

  Dear Diary(is this how you start?)

  Lancer's dumb. I don't why anyone calls him Lancer. I did because he doesn't like his real name and asked me to, but is Layne a bad name? I think it's nice. I wrote too much bye now.

  Second Entry -

  I don't like starting dear diary, so I'm not going to. You're a book not a person and I don't want talk to you.

  Lancer's dumb. I asked if he wanted to come for cookies today, but he said no. He said *there are tear drops on the page here* I smelled and had cooties! Serious? We're ten and I don't have cooties. He's dumb. No one has cooties. Those are fake.

  ...

  ...

  ...

  ...

  Seventh Entry -

  Lancer's dumb. If he's really dumb am I dumb, too? I look at him in class and I can't stop! I'm going crazy. He's so pretty, though *heart* We're reading a book and the teacher told us to write our favorite descriptions and I want to write about Lancer but I can't give Ms. Allen that! She'll read it. I'll write them here.

  Lancer's hair is dark and wavy like wheat stalks bending in gusty wind. His eyes are so beautiful and blue, like a deep lake or maybe a splashy puddle on a rain day. His lips are ohmygod I can't even think about his lips Iwanttokisshimsobad.

  Do you think he'll kiss me if I ask?

  Eighth Entry -

  Lancer's dumb. Today is my birthday and I asked him if he'd give me a kiss for a present and he said no. Why? I'm not pretty? I think I am. Mom has a big mirror and I can see all of me when I stand in front of it and I'm pretty sure I'm pretty. I even practiced making pretty faces so I could show Lancer. But he looks away! I make a pretty face and he looks away. Serious? If I were him I'd kiss me. What about ohmygod I can't write that! Alright, I'll write that I think kissing would be fun but maybe there's more fun after? Diary, if you aren't a book and are a person and you tell anyone I'm going to burn you in a fire.

  ...

  A few days later, Jaylee's mother knocked on her door. "Can I come in, dear?"

  Jaylee stuffed her diary under her pillow in the middle of writing her ninth entry. "Yeah, mom. What is it?"

  Mrs. Ellis opened her daughter's bedroom door, stepped into the room, then closed the door behind her. She smiled at Jaylee, reassuring and calm. This, Jaylee thought, was odd, because her mother didn't do it unless something was wrong. Sure, she smiled all the time, but it was more a silly, whimsical look instead of one with a lot of meaning.

  Her mother removed the plentitude of stuffed animals from atop a wooden chair and pulled it to the foot of her daughter's bed before sitting on it. "Jaylee," she said. "We should talk, dear."

  Jaylee shrugged. "Alright."

  And they talked. About birds and bees and how Lancer might be a very pretty boy and--

  "Wait," Jaylee said near the end of the conversation. "How did you know about Lancer? Did you read my diary?"

  "Yes," her mother said.

  "Is that why you gave it to me? You've been reading it this entire time! Right? Haven't you? It's private, mom! I hate you!"

  This was the fourth time Jaylee had said I hate you since coming home from school, and while she meant it this time(she really did, more than the time before when she thought she'd hated her mother but now knew she didn't but this time was for real), her mother smiled and laughed it off.

  "It's fine to have crushes on boys," her mother said, ignoring the accusations(which were true, of course), "but wait until you're older, please? Maybe you'll get married and then it'll be amazing. Kissing is fine, Jaylee, but you have a wonderful life ahead of you and I don't want you to ruin it by--" And here her mother mentioned awkward details of what lay beyond kissing.

  Jaylee cringed, because it was gross talking about this with her mom. Except, wait wait, she backtracked a second. "Lancer will marry me?"

  "Why wouldn't he? You're an attractive young lady."

  "He doesn't even look at me, though. I--alright, watch." Jaylee made a pretty face to show her mother, the same one she tried on Lancer. "I do that and he looks away!"

  "He's shy, dear."

  "I don't want him to be shy, though. I want him to kiss me."

  Jaylee's mother scrunched up her brow. Contemplating something probably, but who knew what. Jaylee never understood her mother. Her father said she was some great sphereshifter before, but to this day Jaylee had never seen her mother sphereshift. Nothing. Not once.

  "I'm going to teach you something, dear."

  "Mom, I don't want to learn to make cookies."

  "Stop pouting, your face will get stuck that way and then how will Lancer find you attractive?"

  Jaylee stopped pouting right away. "I still don't want to learn to make cookies."

  "Not cookies. I'm out of practice, but I did this when I was young. You just need to be careful, alright? I don't want you to take advantage of situations and if I hear about you and Lancer, or any other boy--" Her mother really really liked being awkward.

  Twenty-seventh Entry -

  Lancer's dumb. Mom taught me pheromone stuff. She says it's got to do with smells. I'm practicing but I can't get it to work. She showed me one and I think it works, but people look at me funny.

  Twenty-eighth Entry -

  Lancer's dumb and so is my mom! She tricked me. The sphereshift she showed me WAS SUPPOSED TO MAKE PEOPLE LOOK AT ME FUNNY! Serious? What kind of thing is that? Who does that who wants someone to look at them funny Idon'tunderstandher.

  ...

  Thirty-fourth Entry -

  Lancer's dumb. My mom apologized and told me that was the easiest sphereshift to learn and that's why she started with it. I guess that's alright, but I don't like people looking at me funny. This next one is nice. It makes people smile. Mom says it taps into memory centers in their brains and causes them to remember their happiest memories. That sounds nice. I smelled it but all I smelled were mom's cookies, so I thought she was trying to trick me into making cookies with her. I used it around Lancer and he smiled! Tomorrow I'm going to ask him to kiss me.

  Thirty-fifth Entry -

  Lancer's dumb. He wouldn't kiss me. What an idiot!

  ...

  One-hundred-and-fifty-ninth Entry -

  Lancer's still a little dumb, but I think I'm wearing him down. I've been holding back so much. I told my mother before what I wanted to try, and she thinks it's interesting if I can pull it off. I finally managed to do it the other day, and I've practiced to make sure I understand it and I definitely do. I haven't told her yet. I'm going to keep it secret for a little. Rei came today and asked daddy if he could give Lancer and her a ride into Garde on his next trip. That's tomorrow. Jared and I get to go. I'll be with Lancer! I need to find a way to get Jared and daddy to leave us alone. Rei will help, I think. She's helped before.

  Back to my discovery! This is exciting I'm so excited. The secret to pheromones is water sphereshifting, mom taught me. The scents are good by themselves, but if you mix small scents mix mix swirl mix with sphereshifting, and put them on certain points on your body(wrists, neck, armpits, or another warm spot that's inappropriate and mom told me never do that until I'm married or she'll ground me forever I swear you're reading this mom and I won't do it I want to kiss Lancer but I won't do anything else) you can use your body heat to evaporate the mixture and send scents into the air around you. A minor fire sphereshift to heat the mix increases the effects by a lot, though.

  Which is fun and it works but what if you mix the pheromones inside your body and when you sweat they come out? Not gross sweat like after you run and you're sticky, but the regular kind that happens a little at a time throughout the day.

  And I can do that now! It's neat. I've been seeing what my body makes naturally, but I figured out if I eat the right foods I can add different pheromones for a little while. It's still a good idea to carry vials and ingred
ients just in case, but this is less conspicuous. Lancer would wonder why I'm holding a vial and mixing things before I ask him to kiss him. Now I don't have to! Isn't that neat?

  Mom if you're reading this stop reading this. I've asked you a million times. I'm sixteen now and I haven't even kissed anyone. If you're scared of me doing I'mnotgoingtowriteitthat'ssoweird I'm not talking about this with you. I won't do it, alright? I don't even use pheromone sphereshifting on Lancer ever anyways, but if I use it once to get a kiss that's not bad, right? I'll do the rest the hard way and I swear he'll ask me on a date and I have two years and we'll marry when I'm eighteen or maybe nineteen I don't know.

  I'll talk with you when I get back. Stop reading this.

  Bonus Content: Rei's Kidnapping

  Everything went as planned.

  Julie Allen had always acted pleasantly towards Sanford. Perhaps she thought him an outcast, but she still offered to help him attain food and materials for his workshop when he needed it. This was good, since he very well couldn't march into town and buy them himself. Without her help, he would've starved to death years ago.

  It didn't take much to get her talking about that Lancer boy's sister, Rei. Rei was her top student, wonderful and easy to get along with and though she had problems relating to the other students sometimes it didn't affect her grades. In a hushed tone, Julie mentioned that the children avoided Rei sometimes, thought her too good. She was worried that in the future this might lead to bullying.

  Sanford didn't worry about that. He had plans of his own. He would give Rei the first gift he'd given