The strange girl patted her hands back upward, where they settled over her breasts, giving a slight squeeze before she grinned and said, “Omigod, please don’t be a dream.” Then it was like a switch had been flipped as an expression of panic washed over her and she began tearing at her clothes, trying desperately to get them off and seemingly too frantic to remember the existence of zippers or buttons. Not that she needed them, she was strong and she quickly tore her already shabby clothes to scrap fabric, only letting out a sigh of relief once she was finally naked.

The glowing golden freckles weren’t just on her face, they were present all over her body, though much more prevalent on her arms and legs. Except for those freckles and her dark blue skin, her body was much like that of a young Nymph with the hints of an hourglass figure to come. She was almost delicate with maybe b-cup breasts, a slim waist, and slightly wide hips, and she probably still had some growing to do since it looked like she couldn’t have been older than fourteen. Despite that delicate softness, I could see the definition of muscles beneath the surface as she moved.

I wondered if her sudden need to destroy her clothing was because of an aversion to clothing like my own, a Fey allergy to synthetics, or because of the discomfort that they had surely been causing to the large wings unfolding from her back. It was possibly all of the above. She had large translucent butterfly wings colored an iridescent azure with veins of gold, and there was a faint glow coming from them that bathed the alley in cerulean light. Her head was now turned, transfixed by those wings and she reached out to tentatively touch one. The moment that she did, her eyes widened in realization and she fainted.

“Dammit, okay, I may have goofed big time here,” I grumbled as I knelt beside her and gently shook her awake. She resisted at first but finally, her eyes began to flutter open and I placed a hand gently on her shoulder to calmly say, “Please, keep calm. We’re… ummm… here to help.” Yes, because I had helped so much already.

She looked up at the contact and those strange eyes suddenly locked on mine, and it was like there was a sudden surge of electricity between us for a brief instant. In that instant, an expression of recognition and adoration covered her face before she practically jumped on me to engulf me in a hug, damn near crushing me in her arms. Okay, that was a little unnerving but not near as much as when she nuzzled against me and murmured, “Mmmmomma.”

I looked at the others in confusion but they were just as confused as me, probably more. At least Carmilla seemed to have some presence of mind though as she said, “I can’t find a purse or anything to indicate who she might be. Get her in the car, we can’t leave her here so you’ll have to take her home until we can find out who and what she is. Maybe Tiff or Isabella will have some ideas. I’ll wake up one of these idiots and see if I can find out why they attacked her and what they know.”

I had a pretty good idea of what she was, even if I didn’t know who. I had just created a new species of Paranormal because I had brute-forced my Divine magic while trying to save her. This was exactly the kind of thing that Mom had warned me could happen if I didn’t focus on exactly what I wanted my magic to do. What was with the ‘Momma’ thing though?

Melody tried to pick the girl up to carry her to the Charger but she started to panic, clung tighter to me, and damn near cut off my breathing in the process. Finally, I retrieved my keys from where I had stuffed them in my pocket earlier and tossed them to Jess. “You drive, Sis.” Then I gently tapped the girl’s shoulder and tried to speak reassuringly. “We need to get you in my car, I’ll stay with you in the back seat but I need you to let go of me and walk with me, okay?”

After a moment she nodded and released me from her death grip, allowing us both to get to our feet. Soon I had her settled in the back seat with me and as Jess drove us back to Pandora’s Box I tried to get her to talk. I figured that a good place to start would be with her name since I couldn’t exactly keep referring to her as ‘the girl’ or some derivative thereof. “I’m Crystal, what’s your name?”

The girl looked at me in confusion, her face scrunching up in concentration for a moment before she finally looked at me pleadingly and shook her head. “I… can’t remember. What’s my name, Momma?”

Jessica unsuccessfully attempted to cover a giggle as she drove but I shot her a serious glare via the rearview mirror. As gently as I could I told the girl, “I’m sorry, I’m not your mother, we just found you being attacked by some dudes in an alley and came to help.”

That proved to be a mistake as her eyes started to get misty and her lower lip trembled for a moment before she vigorously shook her head. “No! You’re Momma, I can feel it!” Awww shit, now she was starting to cry.

“Whoa! Okay, calm down, there’s nothing to cry about. We’re totally gonna figure this out,” I told her as soothingly as I could. I did not need a kid. Cinder was okay because she was a baby and adorable and I didn’t really need to do much with her yet except send loving thoughts and eat a little more but this was a whole different story. I needed to figure out who this kid was and what to do with her. “Why don’t you tell me what you do remember,” I suggested.

What she remembered, turned out to be not a lot. The poor girl’s memory was like Swiss cheese. She remembered everyday knowledge well enough, like that we were in a car and what cell phones were. Details like her parents’ names, where she was born, and her birthday were all gone, though she was pretty sure that she had turned thirteen recently. Like her age, she could remember some other general things, and those things were enough to paint a pretty dismal picture of her life up until we found her.

I was assuming that she grew up in a normie household since she had no idea what Paranormals were, she thought that I was talking about a movie genre. She was also a runaway. She was a boy who felt that she should be a girl and her parents were ultra-conservative and religious. Whenever she did something too feminine there was a beating to attempt to get her to man up and to cast out her ‘perverted thoughts.’ It made me furious, people like that didn’t deserve to have kids.

She had run away and spent the past six months to a year living on the streets and taking shelter in abandoned buildings, dressing in girls’ clothes she had found in charity bins. She had been squatting in an abandoned building with several other runaways, most of whom were teenagers when one had tried to force himself on her and discovered her secret. She kicked him between the uprights and ran for all she was worth, and we had come across her when the would-be-rapist and his friends had caught up with her.

With her memory gaps, it seemed that she was now convinced that the people who raised her hadn’t been her real parents, that they had stolen her from her real mother, and that I had awakened her true nature when we were reunited. It was a hodgepodge of traumatic memories, appealing fairy tales, and pure coincidence but she didn’t want to let it go. She was convinced I was her mother because she knew it the moment that she looked in my eyes and I apparently smelled right, whatever that meant.

By the time I had gotten as much as I could out of her we were back at the club so we took the girl upstairs to see Dr. Diaz. She wouldn’t let me leave her side though so I had to sit through the whole examination too. I guess that was okay though since Carmen’s mother had a lot of questions for me about what exactly I had done when I healed her. Eventually, the excitement of the night took its toll though and she fell asleep on the examination table while Dr. Diaz grilled me.

Noting her lack of consciousness, Carmen’s mother guided me out into the hall so we could speak without waking her. Once the door was closed behind us she looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Crystal, I’m going to be frank here. I have no idea what she is, I’ve never seen or heard of anything like her before.”

“I was afraid of that,” I grumbled. “I fucked up. I panicked and let my magic control things, but it was my first time consciously using Divine magic and she was dying. We didn’t have time to get her here or for an ambulance to get there.”

The doctor placed a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “It’s times like this that I’m glad that Carmen and I only have the Life aspect of Divine magic and not the Creation aspect. This is why you need to always be conscious of exactly what you’re trying to accomplish, Crystal.”

“Yeah, I’m expecting a hell of a lecture from Mom about that,” I replied with a sigh.

“You tried to save a life, Crystal. You did the right thing and, although it demonstrates just how important it is that you learn to control your magic as soon as possible, I can’t be angry with you for that. I’m sure that Tiffani will feel the same,” she told me gently. “That being said, you will need to take responsibility for this mistake. She thinks you’re her mother, and in a way she’s right. So I think that Tiffani and the others will agree that that makes her your responsibility.”

“What do you mean she’s right?” I asked with a frown. She couldn’t seriously expect me to treat this girl as my kid, I wasn’t even finished high school yet.

“I believe that when she first looked at you eye to eye that she imprinted on you. I suspect that future children of her kind will be born Manifested and the imprinting is a natural process to connect them to their mother when they first open their eyes, it’s not that uncommon in the animal kingdom. It would explain her insistence that you’re her mother and I think that imprinting at such a late age may be partially responsible for her scrambled memories since she’s re-associating her mother figure with you,” she told me patiently. “Even putting the imprinting aside, you also created her and she is unique. You brought new life into the world and that is the very definition of a mother, Crystal.”

“She’s right, Snowflake,” my own mother agreed as she approached. “While I could have waited a few more years to become a grandmother, you are responsible for this girl now.”

I was surprised that she was upstairs until I saw that it was nearly one-thirty. Well, it looked like once again I wasn’t going to get laid tonight, and now I apparently had a thirteen-year-old kid to worry about too. Why can’t my life ever be simple? “Sorry, Mom, I fucked up. I guess Carmilla told you what happened?”

“She did,” Mom replied, though at least she didn’t sound mad. “She also told me that the child stopped breathing while you were working hard to save her. We will intensify your training but you can’t be blamed for doing what you could to save a life. Milla couldn’t find out any other information about the child other than the other kids called her Snoop. I should think you can come up with something more appropriate for her, my little snowflake. Isabella, is there anything that you can tell us that will help us to see to her needs?”

Dr. Diaz nodded and jumped on the new topic immediately. “She is definitely a Fey variant, possibly a Nymph variant. It could be that Crystal was at least subconsciously guiding the transformation to some degree. She should have similar dietary requirements as the two of you as well as the usual Fey quirks. I noticed there was a faint rash from the clothes she was wearing that was hard to notice due to her skin tone, but she seems to have some low-level regeneration from the rate that it was fading.”

“Anything else,” my mother asked, nodding thoughtfully at the new information.

“Her wings may seem delicate, with how easily they can fold against her back, but they seem to be very sturdy. Her muscles seem denser than normal, especially those connected to her wings so she should have some degree of enhanced speed and strength, though I would caution her to be careful about getting too rough. Despite the wings and denser muscles, she weighs less than she should for her height and size. I’m guessing that her bones are hollow and that in combination with her adapted musculature are meant to assist with flight. I would like to get someone with mage sight to get a look at her so we can figure out what element she’s aligned to and what abilities she may have but I don’t know anyone that I’m sure we could trust.” The last part was said with a frown and a distinctly regretful tone.

“What about Ashe?” I asked a bit uncertainly. “I mean, she knew things that she shouldn’t have about me and Sorcha so maybe Salamanders have some sort of mage sight?”

Mom’s and Dr. Diaz’s eyes widened and then Mom smiled and nodded. “That’s not a bad idea. I would like to know if this is something that Ashe is capable of, having someone with dependable mage sight that we can confer with could be useful in cases like this. Could you ask her, Snowflake?”

I nodded and sent my thoughts out to Ashe, hoping that the Salamander wasn’t already asleep. ~Ashe, are you awake?~

~You… umm… knew things about us, things we didn’t know or were keeping hidden. I was wondering how. Carmen’s Mom was talking about wanting to find someone with mage sight, are you able to do something like that?~ I asked tentatively.

~My kind do not see the weave of magic as a mortal with mage sight can, but we see the true nature and potential of living creatures, things they may not know themselves and what elements they are aligned to, it is how we find suitable hosts for our children,~ the Salamander explained patiently.

~Okay, I think that’s what we need. I goofed, Ashe. I was healing someone tonight and I changed her, I sorta created a new type of Paranormal and we’d like to know what we might be dealing with since she’s kinda my responsibility now,~ I explained.

~I shall come, Crystal,~ she assured me and a moment later she materialized beside me in the hallway.

“She said that she can’t see magic but she should be able to do what we need,” I told my mother and Dr. Diaz carefully.

“Let’s go take a peek at sleeping beauty then,” Dr. Diaz said with a nod before pushing the clinic door open once again and leading us inside.

Mom got one look at her and gasped, “She’s lovely, Crystal, beautiful workmanship.” Then she seemed to realize what she said and added in a more serious tone, “But you need to learn to properly control your magic. We can’t have any more accidents like this.”

~Your mother is correct, little one, on both counts. Oh! How wonderful, she’s aligned to the Divine! However, I do not see the potential for magic use in her, except the use of glamours. She will be quick, graceful, and strong, and while she has no potential for magic herself, her senses are highly attuned to it,~ Ashe said in a pleased tone once she had taken a few minutes to examine the girl.

~What? Like mage sight?~ I asked.

The Salamander seemed very pleased as she corrected me. ~This goes far beyond mere mage sight, little one. She is my opposite in a way. Though she cannot see the nature of people and things, her senses are highly attuned to magic. With enough experience, she should be able to see, smell, and taste it well enough to determine the nature of spells, the individual flavors of magic users, and the ambient mana that they leave in their wake. She is a magic tracker.~

Once I had passed on that information to my mother and Dr. Diaz they both frowned as the latter muttered, “The PDA would love to recruit someone like her for one of their Hunter teams but so would people like the Chimera Syndicate. You’ll need to reinforce that she needs to keep the scope of her abilities hidden to everyone but family, just as much as you, Carmen, and Sorcha do.”

I groaned, but I knew all too well how important it would be to keep her abilities secret. I could also understand that they were right about her being my responsibility but I also had a life to live. “I’ve got lessons and stuff, and then I have school in January, I can’t have her following me around like a baby duckling and calling me Momma all the time,” I told them with a sigh. “I’m too young to be a mother.”

“Said every teenage mother ever,” Mom said sarcastically, though she did wrap me up in a hug and that made me feel a bit better.

“Yeah, but most teenage moms don’t have kids that are only five years younger than them,” I grumbled. I knew they were both right, well, all three of them if I included Ashe. The truth was though that I was growing to love my Mom more and more with each passing day and I was glad I had her and this new family to turn to when Jess and I lost everything. The girl we found didn’t have a mother that loved her unconditionally, but if she saw me as that person could I really not at least try to provide what she needed like my mom did for me and Jess?

“This child has been through some major trauma, Crystal, and that is going to take time to heal. From what I’ve observed while talking with her she is also emotionally immature and extremely insecure, so she may be clingy for a while. We will try to get her comfortable enough with the rest of the family that you can have your alone time when you need it but the person that she is going to respond best to will likely always be you,” Dr. Diaz pointed out as Ashe sent me a mental good night and excused herself to get back to her job of heating the building and water.

I sent my own good night back to the Salamander, nodded in response to Carmen’s mother, and let out a little sigh before conceding, “I’ll give it a try but I’m not sure if I’m ready for this kind of responsibility. I only recently Manifested myself and I have a bunch of issues of my own to deal with. I have no idea what to do about her education and identity, if I go to the PDA about getting her put in my care after the bimbo act that I pulled the other day, they’re gonna laugh me out of there and probably take her to some Paranormal orphanage where we can’t do anything for her.”

My Mom giggled and then smirked my concern. “My dear little snowflake, did I forget to mention that Jimmy called this morning? For some reason, neither of the people who did your intake wanted to become your permanent caseworker, I can’t imagine why. Jimmy generously offered to do so in their place. We can call him tomorrow about coming to do a home visit and he can do a home intake for your new charge then.”

“Do you think he’d be willing?” I asked uncertainly. Mom seemed to trust him and he had helped with our new identities and apparently had helped do the same for many of the others in our weird not-so-little family. He was a likable guy too, so I was hoping that he’d be willing.

Mom nodded. “He did something similar back when Pan officially adopted Rhissa and needed to register her. Since he’s in the know about you and me, and we can be sure he isn’t being monitored here, we can tell him what happened and work out what will look good on the paperwork together. You should choose a proper name for her though since she doesn’t seem to remember hers.”

I groaned but I knew that she was right. “I didn’t think I’d be naming a kid for at least another decade or two. Maybe Selina? Selina Tiffani Cummings?”

Mom surprised me by letting out a squeal of excitement and wrapping me up in a bear hug. I guess she liked my choice. Unfortunately, that also caused the subject of the name to stir from her sleep. She looked around in confusion and uncertainty for a moment before catching sight of me as Mom released me. “Momma?”

I sighed but tried to put on my game face. She needed me and I was responsible for her current situation after all. So I took a deep breath and walked over to smile at her and take her hand. “Sorry to wake you, Selina.”

“Selina?” she asked in slightly sleepy confusion, leaning into me and trying to snuggle closer.

“That’s your name, Selina Tiffani Cummings,” I told her gently. “I know that you’re probably pretty tired but I want you to meet someone before we take you somewhere to sleep. You already met Dr. Diaz, but I’d like you to meet my mother… your… umm… grandmother, Tiffani.”

Selina looked from one of us to the other and I knew that it wasn’t too hard to see the family resemblance between us. I could almost see a resemblance in Selina as well if it weren’t for the dark blue skin, glowing freckles, and wings. I made a mental reminder to get Aunt Merry to teach her about glamours since Ashe seemed certain that she possessed the ability. “Grandmother?” Selina asked, her sleepy eyes widening as a frightened look washed over her and I wondered what trauma that word had associated with it. Damn, this girl really needed a loving family.

“You can call me Nana Tiffani, Sweetie,” my mother offered with a sad look. I was pretty sure that she agreed with my assessment. “You poor girl, being out on your own for so long without a family to love and care for you. Those days are over now, we’ll take good care of you, you’re with a real family now and we look after and accept one another.”

A sleepy smile turned Selina’s lips slightly upward as my mom stressed the word girl slightly. “Okay, Nana Tiffani.” It seemed that was exactly what she needed to hear, that she was a girl and accepted for it.

Oh yeah, Mom knew exactly what buttons to push to make her feel safe and accepted and she was going in full grandmother mode and taking charge right out of the gate. “The first thing that Crystal and I are going to do is show you to your room so you can get a good sleep in a nice, warm, and clean bed, Selina. Tomorrow you can start off the morning with a nice hot shower and a big breakfast and we will introduce you to the rest of the family.”

I decided to get in on it as well since Selina was looking to me for approval. I nodded and smiled at her and added, “Mom, maybe we can get Aunt Merry to teach her to cast glamours tomorrow morning while I’m doing my lessons. We’ll need to take her shopping for clothes and necessities after all.”

“That’s a good idea, Snowflake. We’ll both take her and have Merry and Annika come along to keep us all safe. It’s time that we were all in bed though.” With that, we said our goodnights to Dr. Diaz and made our way toward the other residential hallway where Mom and I both had our rooms. We made sure to show Selina which room was mine before Mom led us to the next unoccupied dorm room a few doors down from mine.

We showed her inside and she seemed a bit shocked at the size of the room, the walk-in closet, and her own bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub. I couldn’t blame her since I’d had much the same reaction. “This is all for me?” she timidly inquired.

“Yes, and if you need me I’ll be sleeping just a couple of doors down the hall where we showed you,” I assured her. “Now you need to get in bed young lady, we have to be up early and we have lots to do tomorrow.”

I had her get comfortable in the bed as I tried to think of all the things I always wanted a mother to do for me while growing up. With that in mind, I tucked her in and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. Once Mom had kissed her good night as well and we assured her once again that we were both just down the hall if she needed us, we turned off the light so she could sleep. Well, at least she wasn’t going to need a nightlight since those glowing golden freckles and her wings, even folded up against her upper back again as they seemed to do when she was sleepy, provided plenty of light.

As I closed the door behind us I let out a sigh of relief. “I’m not really sure that I’m cut out for this parenting thing, Mom.”

“You’re doing fine, now get some sleep,” she told me, kissing me gently on the forehead, much as we had Selina a moment earlier.

“Good night, Mom. I know that I haven’t really said it much since we got here but I love you and I’m glad that we found you,” I replied, hugging her tightly.

“I love you too, Snowflake. I wish that I could have been there as you and Jessica grew up, but we have one another now, and that is what matters. Sleep well,” she whispered, kissing me once again as I finally broke the embrace.

I headed to my bedroom, half-hoping that Melody would be there waiting for me but we both knew when Selina had refused to be separated from me that we likely wouldn’t have our time together tonight. “Tomorrow night for sure,” I promised myself as I got undressed and crawled into my bed.

Still, I was too keyed up by everything that happened to sleep yet so I tried to take my mind off my wandering thoughts by trying to relieve some of my pent-up sexual energy. I couldn’t manage it though; my thoughts were all over the place. I was worried about my new charge, angry about what she had gone through, and although I had seen her naked for most of the time I had spent with her, it had done nothing for me. I felt almost maternal, and it wasn’t just because I felt responsible for her. Since the moment our eyes had met I felt a connection to her. Maybe when she imprinted it wasn’t a one-way thing?

It was three in the morning and I was finally drifting off when there was a tentative knock at my door. Reluctantly I crawled out of bed with a yawn and opened the door to find Selina standing on the other side. She looked uncertain and frightened and there were trails of tears running down her cheeks as she flinched and mumbled, “I had a scary dream, Momma.”

I wasn’t surprised, nor should I have been after the night that she had endured. I was fairly sure that the only good part of her night was me changing her into a girl, even if she wasn’t human anymore. Sadly, I suspected that she had far more reasons than just that to have nightmares. And the way she flinched as she asked, hoping for love that her parents should have given her, made me want to hunt down the assholes who had broken her so badly and give them good cause for nightmares.

Instead, I gave her the best reassuring smile that I could manage and said, “You can sleep in here with me tonight, but we need to be up in a few hours to get ready for the day.” I crawled back in bed and once she climbed into bed with me I put my arms protectively around her and held off my own rest until her wings folded back up against her back and I was sure that she was asleep.