Chapter Text
Joyce stared at the mirror, wondering how long she could hide. This was not what she expected when her parents had said there'd be something exciting for her birthday. Her Aunt Elizabeth coming for her birthday was kinda of neat. She rarely came to Dayton. But this? This was not something she approved of. A cool ring, and a book she couldn't read? She'd rather have a ticket to Paris so she could go see the Mona Lisa in person. That would have been an awesome birthday present.
Everything was just too bright, even with all of the lights off. And the bathroom smells had her wishing for nose plugs. She could get used to, probably. But she was now seeing colors she had no name for.
But that wasn't the worst, she thought angrily, tugging on one of her pointed ears. Pointed ears! And she'd lost several inches, when she wasn't tall enough already. Darlene was going to be insufferable. Give her a pointed green hat, and one of those sexist miniskirts in a bright green and she could go work for the pervy Santa at Woolworths at Christmas. And let's not forget the groping! Those poor Santa elves had to put up with too much. This was the seventies!
"Joyce, please come out," her mother said from the hallway.
"No!" Joyce said.
"It's not a bad thing," her mother said. "Come out and spend some time with Aunt Elizabeth."
"Mom, you turned me into one of Santa's elves. For my birthday! In the summer!" Joyce yelled back. "I can't go to the senior prom. Everyone will stare at me."
"That's in the spring. You have over nine months," her mother said. "You'll be back to normal by then. Probably."
"Probably? I might get stuck with these ears for the rest of my life?" Joyce screeched.
"Hasn't happened in years," her aunt said, in a whisper.
"You aren't helping, Elizabeth," Joyce heard her mother whisper back.
"I can hear you talking about me!" Joyce said towards the door.
"There's cake," her mother said. "It's your favorite."
"You can't bribe me into liking this," Joyce grumbled. "A little warning would have been nice. 'Oh, Joyce, guess what! On your birthday you can get a job working for Santa. Feeding his reindeer and making toys. It'll be a lot of fun.' But no. Instead, 'put on this ring. It's a family heirloom.' And Bam! Pointed ears! Like some Bewitched rerun."
"You know that's not how it happened," her mother said. "Now come out here. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation."
"I'm the one with the pointed ears!" Joyce said, opening her mouth, looking for any changes there. Maybe pointed teeth like Dracula? That could be useful. She could open packages with her teeth. Or scare Darlene.
"Joyce?"
"Yes, Aunt Elizabeth?" Joyce said.
"You aren't the first person that this happened to when they weren't expecting it," Aunt Elizabeth said. "It's a very select club. I was very surprised when it happened to me, when I was your age."
"You don't have pointed ears," Joyce said, turning to stare at the door. "How?"
"You can learn to hide them," her mother said. "No one outside of the family will ever know."
"How! How do I fix this?" Joyce said. "Betty is supposed to come over tonight. It's my birthday. We have plans."
"If you don't come out here you'll just have to cancel," her mother said. "I'm sure she won't mind."
Joyce sighed. She'd gotten over it, mostly. Assuming her ears could go back to normal. But she reserved the right to throw a fit in the future. "I'm coming out," she said, reaching for the lock. Quickly unlocking it she opened the door before she could change her mind. "You said there's cake?" She asked hopefully, attempting to give her mother the classic puppy eyes, though she wasn't sure if this new face worked that way.
"Your favorite," her mother said, stepping away from the door to let her pass. "In the kitchen."
"Where's Dad?" Joyce asked. "Is he home yet? And where's Darlene?"
"He'll be home in an hour," her mother said. "A new shipment came in this afternoon and he's still putting it away. And your sister went to a movie with her friends."
"Did he know about this?" Joyce asked, poking an ear as she entered the kitchen. "Does he have the ears too?"
"He knows," her mother said, taking out several plates and forks.
"Only the women in our family get the ears," Aunt Elizabeth said. "Usually the first born."
"Sometimes others can change," her mother corrected. "Like Aunt Elizabeth."
"Is Darlene going to get the ears?" Joyce asked, already planning ahead. It was so rare that she could do something Darlene couldn't.
"It's unlikely," her mother said, cutting the cake into generous slices. "We'll have to see."
Joyce nodded. "How do we fix this. Before Betty gets here. I'd like my normal ears back. And all this light is giving me a headache."
"Those are your normal ears," Aunt Elizabeth said.
"No they aren't," Joyce replied, shaking her head. "I want the ones I was born with. Those are my normal ears."
"Maybe an explanation would help," Joyce's mother said, placing a slice of chocolate cake in front of Joyce.
Aunt Elizabeth grimaced for a moment, before pulling out the book with the strange writing. "You need to understand that you can't tell anyone, Joyce. No one!"
"How does Dad know then?" Joyce asked her mother. "If he can't do it, you must have told him."
"There is an exception," she said. "When you have daughters, you can tell your husband, and them. But not until then."
"What if I don't want to get married?" Joyce said, grimacing. "All the boys around here are pricks."
"Joyce! Language," her mother said.
"Well, they are," Joyce grumbled, grabbing her fork. "Entitled pricks!"
"You'll meet someone some day," her mother said, grimacing but not correcting her language again. "I didn't meet your father until I moved away."
"It doesn't matter right now," Aunt Elizabeth said. "Let's get this over with."
"This is really good chocolate," Joyce said, humming. "Where did you get it from?"
"Andersons," her mother said. "It's their regular double chocolate cake."
"No way!" Joyce said, poking it with her fork in disbelief. "This is ten times better than that cake you got for Darlene's birthday."
"It's the change," Aunt Elizabeth said.
"What's the change?" Joyce asked.
"Things taste different," she said. "It can be intense if you aren't expecting it. You get used to it the longer you are changed."
"Can I finish this before changing back?" Joyce said, before quickly taking another bite of cake. Making chocolate taste more chocolatie? That didn't quite make up for the ears but she'd take it.
"Of course," her mother said. "Aunt Elizabeth still has things to tell you, if you still want Betty to come over tonight."
"Go ahead," Joyce said, waving her fork at her Aunt.
"Thanks," Aunt Elizabeth said, sighing. Joyce could almost here the 'damn teenagers' in the sigh."It's mostly family legend now, passed down from mother to daughter, but we aren't from around here."
"We're from some country where people have pointed ears? Are we Irish? Leprechauns? Is there a pot of gold in the back yard?" Joyce asked. A pot of gold could pay for a trip to Paris, she thought eagerly.
"No, we aren't leprechauns," Aunt Elizabeth said, glaring at Joyce's giggling mother. "We aren't originally from this planet."
"Mars? Are there people on Mars?" Joyce said, between bites of chocolate, jumping to another conclusion. "Do we have a spaceship? One that's bigger on the inside?"
"The legends don't say where we're from, just not here," Aunt Elizabeth said. "This is written in a language called Furling. Or so this says." She held up the slim book. "And no spaceship."
"You can read that?" Joyce said, putting down her fork and making a grab for it.
"A little," her aunt said, keeping it away from her. "It's the journal of a very distant ancestor. She talks about coming here through a large ring."
"Not this ring?" Joyce said, holding up her hand.
"It isn't clear," Aunt Elizabeth said, taking her hand. "But it's unlikely."
"So what's with the ears and other things?" Joyce said.
"Camouflage," her mother said. "We don't know why anymore but the family has been hiding from something for a long time. Blending in was important."
"Well, how do I change back into my camouflage? Camouflage," Joyce said, nodding.
"Concentrate on how you want to look," Aunt Elizabeth said. "The first time takes a couple minutes."
"That's... not very helpful," Joyce said, thinking about how fast the original change had been. "Concentrate?"
"You want to spend the evening with your friend," her mother said. "Aunt Elizabeth is going to be here for the rest of the week. Before she leaves you should have a good idea of how to change. But for now, the first time should be almost automatic, as long as you are wearing the ring."
"Okay, Mom," Joyce said. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and thought really hard about looking normal again. She could hear her mother and Aunt Elizabeth talking in low voices. It was very distracting. "Shhh!" she said. "Can't concentrate while you're chatting away."
Her aunt and mother stopped talking, though Joyce could vaguely sense much waving of hands.
"Oh, there it is," she said, finding an imaginary spot somewhere in the back of her head. "Now what? Hmmm." There was a sliding pulling feeling in her arms and legs, and suddenly things weren't as loud as before. Opening her eyes, the light was back to normal. "Am I me again?"
"Yes," her mother said.
"Good job," Aunt Elizabeth said. "Next time should be easier. We'll start practicing tomorrow, after lunch."
"I have to go to school tomorrow," Joyce said. "There's a yearbook planning meeting."
"You'll just have to miss it," her mother said. "I'm sure you can come up with a believable excuse."
"Sorry, can't help with the yearbook, have to go practice turning into an elf," Joyce said sarcastically. "That'll go over well." There was a knock at the front door. "That's Betty," Joyce said, standing up. "Gotta go."
"Don't take the ring off," her mother said, as Joyce started tugging on it to give back to her.
"Why not?" Joyce asked.
"You'll need to keep wearing it until you can change on your own," Aunt Elizabeth said.
There was another, louder, knock on the front door. Joyce looked towards the door and back at her mother and aunt. "I really have to go."
"Go!" Her mother said. "Just be back at a reasonable hour."
"And meet me here after lunch," Aunt Elizabeth added.
"Bye, mother, Aunt Elizabeth," Joyce said, before dashing towards the front door.
"I was never that young," she heard her mother say, just before she opened the door.