Rose - Tinted Glasses

From the corner of her eye, Becca watched a small pack of drunk pixies adding salt into her grandmother’s bone china sugar pot. The sugar pot was the oldest thing in the house, even older than grandmother herself. There would be hell to pay if it broke, so she didn’t want to risk any sudden moves to swat them away. Twelve and so close to the Shift, she had plenty of practice acting normal when the world was anything but. She’d deal with the pixies later when her parents weren’t around. Otherwise, they would probably think she was the one behind the prank when they found salt in their morning tea. Not worth it.

She wasn’t sure whether ‘pack’ was a correct term for a group of pixies. It’s not like they covered it in school, but there was just something so animalistic about them. They were like large gray squirrels, albeit completely devoid of any hair or softness, resembling dried out, gnarly twigs from an old tree. They scratched the delicate china pot with their short but sharp talons, making an awful screeching sound that vibrated in her brain. A part of her was grateful for this nuisance though. Being able to see the pixies meant that she was still a child and that it wasn’t her turn to grow up just yet.

Her younger brother Tom giggled, spurting cereal milk through his nose and interrupting her train of thought. Only five, he was still at an age when children tried to comprehend the wondrous and terrifying world of magic around them that the grown-ups couldn’t see. Some days he would pester their parents about the fantastic creatures or physics-defying incidents. This usually ended with tears and frustration, when mum and dad only praised his imagination and creativity but never understood that his stories weren’t made up at all.

Becca didn’t blame Tom for trying, even though he was doomed to fail. She still remembered when a few years ago a small golden dragon