The Metamorphosis of Aria Mertz

By K. Bird Lincoln

Yoshika Mertz's teenage daughter is out of control and changing before her very eyes. But she finds out it isn't just normal hormones at work—Aria has a brain tumor. Despite a supernatural warning, Yoshika chooses an experimental immunotherapy to save her daughter. But will the cure itself change her daughter so much that she will lose her forever?

• Language: English
• Publisher: K. Bird Lincoln
• Release date: Jun 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386284604

K. Bird Lincoln

K. Bird Lincoln is an ESL professional and writer living on the windswept Minnesota Prairie with family and a huge addiction to frou-frou coffee. Also dark chocolate-- without which, the world is a howling void. Originally from Cleveland, she has spent more years living on the edges of the Pacific Ocean than in the Midwest. Her speculative short stories are published in various online & paper publications such as Strange Horizons. Her medieval Japanese fantasy series, Tiger Lily, is available from Amazon. World Weaver Press released Dream Eater, the first novel in an exciting, multi-cultural Urban Fantasy trilogy set in Portland and Japan, in 2017. She also writes tasty speculative fiction reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Check her out on Facebook, join her newsletter for chocolate and free stories, or stalk her online at kblincoln.com Tiger Lily: "A beautifully-written genderbending tale of rebellious girls, shifting disguises, and forbidden magic, set against the vivid backdrop of ancient Japan."  --Tina Connolly, author of Ironskin  "DREAM EATER brings much-needed freshness to the urban fantasy genrewith its inspired use of Japanese culture and mythology and its fully-realizedsetting of Portland, Oregon. I'm eager to follow Koi on more adventures!" --Beth Cato, author of The Clockwork Dagger and Breath of Earth

Book preview

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

About the Author

Other Books by the Author

Chapter One

Aria was missing again. Her oboe teacher’s voice emanated from Yoshika’s voicemail in an overly sympathetic voice. Yoshika had learned the hard way sometimes Minnesota Nice actually meant irritation. The message said Aria hadn’t showed up for her lesson. Yoshika was just coming out of a vascular abnormality consult on a toddler with an enlarged foot. She had a half hour in which she was supposed to be typing up the notes for her Poster Presentation at the AAD Conference in Chicago. She bit her lip. The dermatology world would just have to learn about advances in Klipple-Trenauny treatments from the poster. Dealing with her daughter was becoming an urgent matter.

Yoshika made her way to Gonda Building’s huge windows. She never had bars on her phone inside Mayo Clinic’s downtown buildings unless she was pressed up against the glass. There was a light spring rain draping Peace Plaza below in a hazy, grey filter. But even with bars, there were no texts or missed calls from Aria.

Where are you? She texted.

Yoshika called her daughter’s phone and it went directly to voicemail.

It was 4:30, way past time for the middle school bus to have dropped off Aria at home and for her daughter to have walked the five minutes downhill to First Presbyterian for her lesson. Yoshika rubbed her elbow, sitting down on one of the carefully upholstered waiting room easy chairs placed by the window. Aria’s new behavior issues caught Yoshika off-guard. Other mothers complained about their daughters sleeping late and being cranky. Aria was certainly cranky these days, but somehow it was a different level of crankiness. Aria wielded her words like fillet knives, especially to her little sister, Emi. Two mornings in a row she’d reduced Emi to tears just with snide comments about Emi’s eyebrows. And then this unfamiliar gleam appeared in her hazel eyes--yes that usually called to mind Duke so strongly it made something inside Yoshika crumble--as if she were pleased to see her sister crying.

Aria’s grades were plummeting. Yoshika stopped checking them on Skyward because the number of missing assignments listed there made her throat constrict. When she first asked Aria about them, Aria had casually lied to her face.

She didn’t know what to do. Late at night she looked at Aria and thought about all the times they’d snuggled up on the couch to watch British Bake Off, or spent hours and hours in the Children’s Science Museum trying out every single interactive exhibit. Most nights Aria wouldn’t budge from her room. She was plugged into her phone or listening to rap music from artists like Migos and Cardi-B. Yoshika had never heard their music, but suspected she shouldn’t be letting an eighth grader listen to them.

Duke would have known how to handle sexually explicit rap lyrics without flying into a flustered panic like Yoshika. He’d have joked in that way only daddies could seem to pull off, defusing the slang of their exploitive connotations. He had this way of letting Aria’s most acidic comments roll right off his back—the good old, Midwestern golden-boy exterior he played so well.

But Duke wasn’t here anymore. She set her jaw, determined not to fall into maudlin thoughts. She hadn’t been able to save the love of her life from a stupid little blood clot. It was such a senseless way to end a man so full of vitality. Death was Yoshika’s enemy. It had robbed her of the foundation of her life, her best friend, the man she’d been relying on to navigate the tricky shoals of their daughters’ adolescence while Yoshika concentrated on finishing her fellowship.

It was all on her now. But Aria was running a race toward a dark tunnel, and Yoshika was just far enough behind that she couldn’t quite catch her. Missing an oboe lesson was a new low, though. Aria loved the teacher who last year talked her into switching from clarinet to oboe.

Luckily, Yoshika had installed the 360 locater app on Aria’s phone a few nights ago. She snuck into her daughter’s room, her face burning, her heart beating against her ribcage like a frightened bird. She’d bribed Emi into telling her Aria’s current password with an all-you-can buy trip to Sephora at the mall where Emi bought tweezers and an eyebrow pencil.

Yoshika brought up the 360 app on her phone. The little blinking icon that represented her daughter showed her nearby. She zoomed in on the map of Rochester. Aria was in the Pill Hill neighborhood, not too far from their small house.

Relief coursed through her. Not a kidnapping then. Aria wasn’t lying in a ditch somewhere. It showed her at the historic Plummer House—not the usual hangout for druggies and pedophiles. Not that Yoshika knew of such places existing in Rochester. She checked her watch. Emi had Girl Scouts at Folwell for another hour. She’d have to hit the parking ramp and pick up her Prius first, despite the Plummer House being walkable from downtown.

First she had to check in with Dr. Tabitha Kempe, the Peds Fellow Supervisor, and let her know she was leaving early. Tabitha was one of the mothers Yoshika had commiserated with about teenage hormonal crankiness when she first thought Aria’s changes were due to her finally getting her first period. Dr. Kempe would be sympathetic.

Ten minutes later, Yoshika was winding through the mansions and well-manicured shrubbery of the Pill Hill area. Plummer House was at the end of a twisting, dead-end street. It was a warm spring. Dog walkers and seniors in coordinated track suits jogged toward the forested path through the Plummer House grounds that acted as a shortcut between Pill Hill and the road toward Soldier’s Field.

The 360 App couldn’t pinpoint whether Aria was inside the house or outside in the gardens. The sign on the gatekeeper’s cottage which bordered the empty gravel parking lot where Yoshika parked the Prius said the house was open for self-guided tours until 5:30pm. It was wiser to check inside first.

First time here? said the grey-haired volunteer just inside the grand, white stone foyer. Bifocals perched on her nose and there was a definite librarian