Developments

Children grow, but usually not like this.

                The most difficult thing was just trying to sleep.  Not because of pain-induced insomnia-though that didn’t help much either-but just because she couldn’t get used to sleeping face-down.  It was the only way to sleep without adding any extra pressure to her head.  However, suffocation ended up being the issue with her face smothered by pillow and mattress.  That and her nose felt abused after a while. 
                Amber had tried sleeping on her back, but that always felt like someone was pulling at her hair, and sleeping on either side was rather like trying to sleep with your head on a lead pipe for support.
                “But they’re not lead,” Mattie had said stupidly one morning at breakfast, unable to successfully guide his spoonful of dinosaur egg oatmeal to his mouth in favor of gaping at Amber’s head; the brown-sugar oats smeared against his cheek before he realized there was an issue with the trajectory.
                “Does it matter?” Amber snapped.  “Doesn’t change the fact that I can’t sleep at night.”
                “Jeez, Am, have a hissy fit, that’ll make it better.”  Amber leered at her brother, teeth digging together until the ache of it was throbbing in her temples, making her regret the containment of her annoyance.  She sighed instead, staring down at her own bowl of oatmeal, untouched.  Since she didn’t sleep, she didn’t have much of an appetite.  Though she couldn’t have been more exhausted.  Just by sitting down, Amber felt like her body was exerting enough energy needed to scale a mountain.  Her doctor had told her that the comparison made a lot of sense.
                “You could liken it to being pregnant, actually,” she’d said.  “In a woman’s first trimester, she will feel regularly worn out simply because her body is constructing a new organ to grow a human being.  It’s tiring work.”  Though Amber hardly felt that the mutation of her skull could be in any way similar to getting knocked up.  At least mothers got to have sex first before their suffering.  Granted, Amber demanded cupcakes as soon as soon as it became apparent that the change was permanent, but there was only so much that red velvet and cream cheese frosting could do for her.

               

The horned girl sat on the concrete ledge of the great pedestal the library lion perched upon.  Lots of people liked to scatter themselves among the granite stairs in the shade of the great twin beasts of oxidized bronze.  But not when Amber was there with her weathered black tome entitled ‘Occult Myths and Mysteries.’  Though it wasn’t the first time she sat there with a thick volume of a potentially blasphemous and wildly interesting knowledge, it was the first time she had her hood down.  No one could ignore the curved spikes jutting out from just a bit behind her ears: they protruded from her black curls like a bright, lopsided halo about the back of her head. 
                “Nice prop, heifer.”  Amber looked up from the passage she’d been reading about some ritual involving sexual cannibalism and found Mattie standing there in front of her.  He had his hands in his pockets and a lollipop between thin, smirking lips.
                “That was funnier a year ago when I actually looked more like a cow,” Amber muttered before dog-earing the page and shutting the book with a wave of musty-page smell wafting into her nose.  “What’s the damage, then?”
                “I got a call from Bricker.  Said someone tipped off the police about the town demon lurking on the steps of the Gwayne Merth so I came to pick you up so you’ll stop disturbing the peace.”  He sat down next to her and put his hands on his forehead, rubbing a bit. 
                “I have half a mind to set this building on fire just for that,” she said bitterly, reaching to stretch her arms above her head.  Mattie laughed. 
                “Nah, I’m kidding you.  But you really should be wearing your hood out in public, you know.”      

“F**k you, it’s hot.”
                “So go inside where there’s air conditioning, pest.”  He got to his feet and held out a hand for her to take.  “Dad’s making beef stroganoff tonight, so we should go home anyway.”   Amber sighed and pulled herself up by her brother’s grip.  For a moment, she looked at him with her tilted grin and then prodded his forehead gently.
                “You know,” she began as her eyes focused on the space of Mattie’s brow, “I have a feeling you might get pregnant soon.”

Author's Note

Please review if you read. Even if it's only one word, I'd be appreciative.