"Lena…what's your last name, hon?"
Lena shifted in her seat and folded her arms across her chest. "I don't have one."
The teacher, a tall woman with brown hair done up in a bun on top of her head, looked up from the bright pink attendance sheet, peering at the new student through bejeweled eyeglasses. "Excuse me?"
"I don't have a last name," Lena repeated. "I suppose you could use my mother's maiden name—Sorenson. Well, I guess that's still her last name. But my dad doesn't have a last name."
"No last name?" the teacher clarified. "Well, that's…different."
"Well, that's probably because I'm different," Lena replied, sitting up straighter.
A few people chuckled. The teacher adjusted her glasses and continued taking roll.
As Lena walked away from her last class, one of the other girls approached her.
"I'm Alexis," the girl introduced herself. "You know, it's really cool that you don't have a last name. I wish I was like that. I've always hated my last name. Want to know what it is? It's really embarrassing. Wait, you probably already heard it when Mrs. Dawson was taking roll. Do you remember what it is? I'll tell you anyway. It's Blaskenjoom. Isn't that just the worst? When I get old enough I'm gonna legally change my last name to something more normal. Like Miller or Smith. Then I'll just be normal instead of Blaskenjoom. If you could choose your last name, what would you choose?"
Alexis Blaskenjoom stopped to take a breath, and then continued with one last question. "Why doesn't your dad have a last name?"
As she resumed walking, Lena considered Alexis's question, trying to put herself in this other girl's shoes. How would she react if she had just met a girl with no last name, who claimed her dad was a 700-plus-year-old unicorn? She'd probably think she was kidding. Or crazy. Or both.
"I don't know," Lena decided. "I suppose…I guess maybe he had a last name he didn't like, so he just got rid of it."
"Maybe that's what I'll do. Then I could just be all mysterious, the girl without a last name. Well, you've already taken that spot. Plus your first name helps with all the mystery. I think you're the only Lena in the whole school, but there's like four Alexises. Maybe I'll change my first name too, so I can be someone entirely new…"
Lena silently thanked the appearance of a bathroom she could duck into to escape the other girl's chatter. In a moment, Alexis Blaskenjoom's voice faded as she continued down the hall, not noticing the absence of her audience.
The door of the girl's bathroom clicked shut as Lena leaned against it, automatically turning off the lights. To a normal person, the room would be pitch-black, but not to Lena.
Seeing in the dark was a trait she had inherited from her mother. Nothing was ever truly dark to her—only dim. A good skill to have (if you could call it a skill) if you wanted to hide from overly loquacious seventh-graders and curious teachers in an unlit restroom.
Lena walked over to the sinks—or, more importantly, the mirrors above them. She examined the pearly, metallic-looking tint to her white-blonde hair and blue eyes, and the small silver line on the side of her forehead, an inch-long streak across her right eyebrow. A scar she had gotten five years ago—the first time she realized she wasn't normal.
It had happened on her eighth birthday, when her parents had taken her to visit her uncle at his mansion and woodland property, which everyone called Fablehaven. The party was over, and Lena was wearing some of her presents: a thin, bejeweled, elegant gold headband from her mother; some blue dress-up fairy wings from her uncle (dear Uncle Seth thought it was a wonderful joke, Lena had not known why, but it earned him a punch on the shoulder from her mom); and a necklace with an irregular-shaped but beautifully colored pendant from one of her mother's friends (she would later learn that the friend was a dragon, and the pendant was one of his scales). In her left pocket were three batteries from a couple of her uncle's friends (her mom said she was not allowed to meet them yet), and in her right was a large gold coin from her dad (a communication device—but Lena didn't know that yet). The grown-ups were talking and playing a board game in the living room, and Lena felt upset that they had allowed her to be bored on her birthday.
"Having fun watching everyone else do something boring?"
Lena jumped with surprise and turned around, the momentary fear evaporating when she saw it was Uncle Seth.
"No," she admitted, adjusting her headband. She pulled one of the batteries out of her pocket.
"How come I'm not allowed to meet your friends?" she asked.
Seth smiled. "Well, Newel and Doren probably wouldn't be good friends for an eight-year-old fairy princess."
"Newel and Doren?" Lena asked skeptically. "Those are weird names."
"They're weird friends."
Lena smiled and put the battery back in her pocket. "Is that why they gave me batteries? Just because they're weird?"
"Partially," Seth replied. "It's also probably because I gave them a lot of batteries when I first met them. It was probably about…oh, fifteen to twenty years ago."
Lena's eyes widened. "Twenty years?"
Seth nodded.
"Wow, you're really old, Uncle Seth," Lena blurted.
Seth laughed, even though Lena didn't think it was funny.
After a moment, Seth asked if Lena was thirsty.
"Yeah! I haven't drank anything since the party," Lena announced.
"Want some chocolate milk?"
"I love chocolate milk!"
Seth opened the fridge and pulled out a clear glass bottle full of brown liquid. There was a piece of masking tape with the word "Viola" written on it. He got out two glasses and filled them both with chocolate milk from the bottle, giving one to Lena. She quickly guzzled it down, while Seth took smaller sips of his.
Seth and Lena peeked in at the other adults—they were still playing their "bored game", as Seth called it. Lena loved that her uncle could look like a grown-up, but still be fun and funny. Afterwards, Seth said, "You know, we've still got an hour or two before dark. What do you say we go explore the woods? I'll show you the most special thing about Fablehaven."
Lena happily agreed.
Lena checked her watch. School had been out for about twenty minutes. She opened the door, automatically turning on the light. The fluorescent bulbs suddenly brightening surprised her and hurt her eyes for a moment, but then she adjusted. The hallway was quiet; no squeaking of the janitor's cart, no clopping of a teacher's high heels. Cautious, not wanting to be caught in school so late after the end of classes, Lena stepped out of the bathroom and carefully closed the door. She took her communication coin out of her pocket and rubbed it, causing the gold surface to subtly glow. Her father's voice came into her mind.
Where are you? You're almost half an hour late. Are you okay?
Typical overprotective dad response. Lena supposed even unicorns weren't immune to becoming stuffy adults. I'm fine, Dad. I just need to be picked up. I'm still in the school, right by the bathrooms.
There was a pause, and then her dad replied, All right, I'll be over in about ten minutes. Stay where you are. If anything happens, contact me right away.
Yeah, Dad. Whatever.
Lena put the coin back in her pocket and sat down on the dirty floor of the school hallway. She fingered her scar, remembering the naiad in the pond when Uncle Seth had taken her to "explore the woods" on her eighth birthday. She recalled going out onto the docks and peering into the water, despite her uncle's warnings. When she saw a pretty face in the water, framed by flowing black hair, Lena had reached out to touch the "mermaid", the naiad's pale hand had shot out of the water and tried to pull Lena under the water. Seth shouted out, and suddenly a thick layer of ice coated the pond, trapping the naiad. It had let go of Lena, and Lena leaned down to get a closer look. The seemingly defenseless creature scratched Lena's face with its long fingernail, drawing blood that was not red, but silver, like her father's. At first the silver blood and her uncle's ability to magically freeze the lake confused and scared Lena, but after returning to the house and explaining to Lena's parents, everyone went home angry at Seth—except Lena, who was still confused.
Lena looked at her watch again. Her dad should be coming soon. Lena went to her locker and took out her backpack and things (after three failed attempts at her new combination lock) and started heading out to the front parking lot.
Lena scanned the rows of cars for her father's dark blue Stratus. When she found it, she started running towards it. She opened the passenger door and slid into the shotgun seat, quickly buckling up.
"Hi, Dad," Lena greeted nonchalantly, taking off her backpack and dropping it on the floor. "Sorry I'm late; there was this other girl that was pestering me, so I hid in the bathroom for a little while. I guess I was in there a little bit too long."
"Oh, not too long at all, sweetheart," her dad replied, turning the keys in the ignition and shifting the car into reverse.
As they stopped at a red light a minute or two later, Lena pointed out, "Ooh, new keychains. Where'd you get them?"
There were six new charms on her dad's keychain—a silver star, and five tiny plastic figurines. Lena couldn't tell exactly what they were supposed to be. Lena fingered one of the figurines, trying to figure out what it was.
"This one's cool," Lena said casually. "It almost looks like…"
Lena's contented smile vanished as she realized what the figurines were. They were five little people—all with silver stars painted on their terror-stricken faces and red arrows in their chests. The one on Lena's finger was a woman with light brown hair and green eyes. She was wearing a dark blue evening dress—a miniature, plastic version of her mother's favorite gown.
The figurine was of Lena's mother, shot through the heart with a crimson arrow.
"That there," Lena's dad said, referring to the figurine Lena was holding, "is target number one."
The light turned green, and the car moved forward.
Lena looked panickedly into the face of who she thought was her father. But her father did not have red eyes, or such an evil-looking smile.
"Now," said the driver, "if I was an Eternal with a young daughter, what would I do in order to keep her from being killed? Send an army to save her? Try a small rescue? Or perhaps…consent to her kidnapper's wishes and be killed in her place?"