Soil

Chapter 1: Birth of a Shifter

The green leaves slowly pulled back. I sat up straight, trying to see over the crowd. Please, be like me, I chatted in my head. Please, just one other person. The petals were a vibrant pink. My heart sank, and my shoulders dropped. It was nothing like me.

A bright rose grew into the air and opened up to reveal a little girl. Her hair matched the colors of the petals. She stretched her arms overhead. The other shifters whose main gift was to grow the perfect rose went to place a robe around her shoulder. They cooed over how cute she looked.

The goddess was beaming. She hugged the girl and led her away to hear the same speech all the other flower talents heard. I picked at the dirt under my nails. No one had ever heard the one she'd given to me, because no one else had been cursed to live in the dirt.

I slid off the rock I had been sitting on and shoved my hand in my pockets. Wandering down the path that weaved through the garden, I went back to my small hut that sat next to the manure pit. It was a stench I was used to. One I actually liked, but I still wasn't happy about being left to tend it alone. Sitting on my porch bench, I pulled my feet up onto it and removed the dirt caked between my toes.

I knew where every piece had come from. Some was from the rose patch I had run through when I heard a shifter was being born. Earlier, I had hauled soil to the apple orchards, and on the way home, I picked up something from the elm trees.

What a worthless, pointless, and damn stupid ability. With a sigh, I laid my head back. It was damn stupid. I rubbed my face. My whole life had been accounted to this, and I hated it.

"Terrin!" Berry jogged down the tail, waving his arm. His deep blue hair stuck up in every direction. "Terrin, the goddess wants everyone to come to the palace. We're celebrating Coral's birth."

"Coral?" I muttered, picking more dirt out of my nails.

He stopped in front of me, breathing heavily. "Yeah, the new girl. That's the name the goddess gave her."

"Hmm..." I glanced at his feet in horror. "Berry," I snapped, yanking him onto the porch. "You're contaminating the ground."

Little fruit plants had started to sprout.

"Oh sorry." He shrugged. "I'm just excited, and you're some dirt purist," he teased.

Folding my arms, I leaned against the armrest.

He rocked back and forth, sucking in his lips. "So are you coming?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Terrin," he whined. "It's the goddess's request, not mine."

"The new girl has nothing to do with me." I stood and marched into my house. "So, there is no point." I slammed the door.

"Come on," he breathed, knocking on the side of my house. "Why are you acting like this?"

"Some fruit head won't understand. Go away." I glanced through the window and saw him scowling.

"Fine. Stay here and play with your dirt." He turned to leave.

I dropped into the chair by the kitchen table. Laying my head down, I wrapped my arms around it. The goddess would scold me later, but there wasn't much worse she could do. If the other shifters misbehaved, she'd send them to me as punishment. There was nothing worse than the manure pit, and that was my daily reality.

***

I heard a knock on the front door. I didn't bother climbing out of the pit to see who had come to visit. Vines twisted together into a staircase. I scowled at the ones touching the ground. Those little flower buds were messing up the composition. For a god, Herminia understood nothing about dirt.

"Terrin." She tapped her finger against her arm. "For being rewarded a day off, you're overly diligent."

I wiped my face with the back of my arm. "I didn't think it mattered."

"Everyone was to attend. I'm very angry with you for disobeying me."

I rose to my feet and wiped the mud off my legs. "Sorry, I just didn't feel like going." I started up the ladder.

"You are such a difficult boy." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I never had this problem when you first arrived at the garden. You were so happy back then."

"Hmmm..." I pulled myself out and started down the trail to the creek.

"Terrin, I am talking."

"Hmmm...." I shoved my hands in my pockets and trudged on.

Arriving at the bank, I dipped my arms into the water and scrubbed them. There wasn't much difference between the rich, dark brown color of the soil and my skin. Some color as my hair. Same color as my eyes. I was destined to be in that pit. I glanced across the way and saw the flower talents leading the new girl around. Their complexions were so brightly-colored. Even the shifters that looked over the trees had the dark skin mixed with green hair. I was the only one like this.

"Jealousy can rot a garden," said Herminia.

I jerked my head down and went back to washing up.

"You can't change the way you were born."

I scrubbed harder, clenching my jaw.

"We all have our place. Not everyone can be as flamboyant as those gifted in the florals."

"I don't want to be them," I said sharply. "I don't want to look like them, or act like them."

"Then, what?" She narrowed her eyes at me.

"I'm tired of it." I motioned toward the pits.

"Not this again, Terrin." She shook her head.

Growling in frustration, I marched past her. "Forget it. I know what you have to say, so leave me alone."

"I'm trying to include you, Terrin," she called after me. "You're one of my shifters. I care about you."

"Then leave me alone!"

I ran up the hill and hurried in through the back door of my house. Flopping down on the bed, I threw the blankets over me. The only thing I hated about the way I looked was it sentenced me to live here alone. To work alone, to forever be alone. I just wanted to be with someone who understood me a little bit. Someone who wouldn't roll their eyes when I talked about dirt, or look at me in disgusted after mixing up a fresh batch of fertilizer. Just one person, that was all I wanted. But curse the god and the great creator, I'd spent three hundred and seventy-two years waiting and still nothing had happened.