Miranda [Watty Awards 2013]

Chapter 1

I am a wanderer, a lone teenage girl with no one to guide her.

            I go where I want, whenever I want, and there are no questions asked. I don't need a driver's license, or a social security card, or anything else like that. Not like a normal person would.

            I can have whatever life I choose, and I can change it like a light switch. If I want to be a teacher, I am a teacher. If I want to be a pilot, I am a pilot. If I ever had the urge, I could be the president of the United States.

            But who would want to run America?

            The thing about me is that I am not limited like everybody else. If I want blonde hair, then I get blonde hair. If I want blue eyes, then I get blue eyes. I'm not a normal person, and I don't have to deal with the daily problems they face. I change form constantly, and I answer to nobody.

            In reality, though, I am seventeen years old, almost eighteen. I have jet black hair and deep blue eyes, almost black as well. My birthday is sometime in July, but I don't remember the other dates. My age is irrelevant to my job.

            And speaking of my job, it's something that's quite complicated, really. I don't have a cell phone, nor do I need one, but I get alerts constantly. Whenever I walk the streets, I always feel a tug in my gut when I pass somebody, knowing what's going to happen to them. But no, I don't see the future. Only limitedly, anyway.

            It's true that I know a lot about somebody just by looking at them, but I can't see their futures. Sometimes I get slips, delicate paper tucked carefully into an envelope, and they let me in on what's going to happen to somebody in the near future, but I don't see it in my mind's eye. I am only prepared with the sequence of events if it's an important person.

            This is the reason why I don't have friends, and if there's family that I don't know about, why I wouldn't see them either. My life does not allow me to get close to anybody, never love a boy, never have a family-because I would not be able to stand getting an envelope with their name on it.

            Once I get that envelope, my job begins. I have to track down that person, find him on the map somehow, and throw myself into his life. The envelope means that it's going to be a difficult person for my father to get a hold of, and that just can't happen. They cannot escape, believe me.

            My purpose is to get inside the situation, analyze what will happen, and make sure that it happens the way it's supposed to. It will end in at least one fatality, and it's my job to make sure that it's the right person, and that nobody manages to sneak out alive.

            Does that make me a gang member, then? Or an accomplice in Black Market crime, or something equally as horrendous?

            No, that's not what I would describe it as. It's simple a family business, and we are the only family that can do it, my father and I.

            There's no way for us to be caught. I myself am a master of disguise, not including Father, although I learned most of it from him in my younger years. I can change my hair color to whatever suits me, change my eye color with a single blink, change everything about me. I am rarely ever seen in my true appearance, and nobody knows my real name.

            For now, I am a short, pixie-like blonde, barely past five feet and with striking green eyes. My name is Alexa Ford, a new one that I'd chosen a few weeks ago.

            I travel quite a lot, having been on every continent multiple times, even Antarctica. I don't get attached to one place for too long. Today I am settled in a cozy house along the coast of Ireland, and I have been here for five weeks. I don't feel that I'll be here much longer, as I have already received a young woman's envelope, and I am out to go find her.