I tried not to show how much riding in the car bothered me – Lola really was a safe driver, according to Dana – but cars were just not something I’d ridden in much yet, so the feeling of rushing along much faster than I’d ever done in my life was still something that hadn’t quite clicked yet.

Lola, however, didn’t miss the way I tensed up with every vehicle that passed us and laughed lightly.  “Eventually you’re going to have lived in this era long enough that this won’t be such a big deal for you.”

“Eventually,” I agreed with a grumble.  “I’m not there yet.”

I found it easier to adjust to the speaking patterns of this age, maybe because I had been hearing people talk to me for centuries, who knew?  Clothing was still an adjustment, but one I was more interested in.  So many options, so many possibilities.  I didn’t know that I would ever have a wardrobe like Lola’s, but I now owned more clothes than anyone in my town growing up ever had, so that was something, at least.

Lola thankfully headed towards a smaller strip of shops rather than the large mall that Dana had taken me to once before.  That had been overwhelming – more people than I’d ever seen before in my life.  And they weren’t all supernaturals or protected humans.  In fact, few of them knew about the supernatural world.

That was an adjustment, too.  Back when I’d been a kid, the population was small enough that supernaturals were able to isolate themselves better, far away from most human towns, and just be ourselves.  Some areas of the world even had few enough humans that supernaturals were able to create entire countries for their people.  But now I was informed that supernatural-only communities were pretty rare.

Lola parked the car and waited impatiently for me to follow her into a little shop that boasted pastels, lace, and fluffy clothing.  I wandered around aimlessly for a bit while she began hunting for whatever it was she was looking for, then I got distracted by the jewelry section.

Jewelry was a good change, in my opinion.  It used to be something that not everyone could afford, but now there were options cheap enough for pretty much anyone.  Dana had seen my fascination during our first shopping trip to get me some clothes and things and had gotten me a couple of things, but I was still somewhat floored by the sheer volume of options available.

I was slowly going through the jewelry, pausing to look at some of the earrings and sighing a bit to myself, when Lola did her non-magic magic act of popping up out of nowhere and nearly surprising me to death.

“You see something you like, Nicky?”

I gave her a frown in answer, my heart still thumping erratically.  “Don’t do that!  I don’t understand how you can move so silently and I never hear you.”

She giggled and then reached for one of the earrings that I’d been lingering on.  “These would look nice on you.  You should get your ears pierced.”

I would have told her that wasn’t a thing for most men, but apparently that wasn’t entirely the case these days.  Still, I was pretty sure this shop catered specifically to women and I was also pretty sure that most men wouldn’t wear earrings with tiny dangling flowers on them.

“I don’t think – ” I started to say, but she didn’t give me a chance to finish my thought.

“Oooh what about this?”  She picked up a hair clip, and before I could stop her, reached over to put it in my hair.  “Yep, it fits you!  You should wear more jewelry.  You like it, don’t you?”

I felt my face heat a bit from embarrassment as I pulled the clip from my hair.  “I don’t think men are supposed to wear stuff like this,” I muttered.

“Pfft, who cares?”  Lola rolled her eyes.  “First, fashion has changed a lot since you were a kid and it’s constantly changing from month to month even now, but second, people are a lot more open about stuff like that anyway.  You’ve seen girls wearing pants now, right?  And guys can wear skirts if they want.  Or frilly stuff.  Or whatever you feel like.  Just wear what you want, Nicky, don’t worry about what other people think.  Besides, Mama and I will support you!  So at least you know you have a cheering squad of two.”

“I don’t exactly want to wear girls’ clothes,” I tried to explain awkwardly.

Thankfully, Lola didn’t need my explanation.  “But you like some pretty stuff and that’s fine!  Just own it, and if people don’t get it, well, don’t keep them in your life – which is a loss for them!  And if you’re not sure because it’s an adjustment from how you grew up, well, start small.”  She took the clip from me, the pair of earrings, then rifled through things until she found a ring she apparently liked for me and made me hold out my hands until she found the right size.  “We’ll get you these,” she explained.  “You can wear them around your room, or the hospital – whatever you’re comfortable with – and as you get more comfortable, we’ll come find you, um, I don’t know, lace shirts for guys?  Trust me, there’s every style in the world out there, if you like something specific, we can find it for you.”

I trailed after her on the way to the register, feeling a little overwhelmed – but in a good way.  Lola wasn’t bothered by the fact that I was attracted to things that even in this era, seemed to be mostly reserved for girls.  Maybe I just felt that way because growing up, it had been natural to wish I was a girl because male witches were second-class citizens and I just wanted to be treated like everyone else.  But Lola didn’t care if I was now trying to figure out what I did like, and I appreciated that.  It was something none of the people I’d grown up with had cared about at all, so it was nice to have someone who noticed that I was even interested in something – and then didn’t care if that something wasn’t “normal.”

After that, we went to another shop that had more darker clothes – goth style, Lola had informed me.  She liked to mix the frilly stuff with the goth stuff, so apparently her shopping trips involved these two stores, primarily.  She did inform me that there were some more options in the mall, but she actually liked these choices better.

“Fewer options,” she explained, “but better stuff, you know?  The big chain stores have everything you can imagine, but it’s not always great quality and sometimes it looks cheap.  I want something that’s not going to fall apart the second time I wear it.”

Apparently not all clothes were as sturdy as they used to be.

When she finished at that store, Lola led me down the street to an ice-cream shop.  I perked up immediately – ice-cream was definitely one of the good changes.

As we sat outside and ate our deliciously-good ice-cream, I noticed something odd.  A pair of shifters also got ice-cream and looked like they were about to sit near us when they almost recoiled, whispered something among themselves, and hurried off.

I paused, watching them go.  “Was that because of me?”  I couldn’t help but feel uneasy.  Growing up, I’d been treated as the town lackey because male witches don’t have another purpose, but Dana and Lola had treated me like I was just a normal person, so sometimes I forgot how others might see me.

“Nope,” Lola was steadily working on her ice-cream, seemingly unbothered by the shifters’ obvious dislike.  “It was because of me.”

I frowned.  Lola was one of the nicest people I knew.  Granted, I only knew about…two…people at the moment, but still.  “Why?  Because you work at the hospital?”

She raised an eyebrow.  “Not very familiar with banshees, are you?  No matter, that’s normal.  See, we have a reputation of being associated with death.  We have two main types of screams – one, we use in battle.  It can temporarily paralyze, permanently paralyze, and even kill, depending on how we use it.  But we don’t use that lightly.  The other one, though – that’s where we get our bad rep.  See, sometimes we just get almost a premonition, I guess?  And we let out a scream, involuntarily.  That scream is basically a warning that death is coming.  Sometimes it’s when we first meet someone, sometimes when we encounter them during the day – it’s random, and not something we control.  But people don’t like to associate with banshees because they see us as harbingers of death.  Thing is, it’s not like we choose the warning scream or just decide that the person is going to die.  In fact, our scream can sometimes warn people of danger to come that they can avoid.  Not always, but occasionally.  And other times, it gives people enough time to say goodbye.  That’s why the hospital doesn’t mind me being there,” she explained.  “They see it as a way to help warn them if one of the patients is in danger.  Family members of the patients, though, not so much – so I generally avoid them.”

I took a bit to process that.  “So people blame you for something you can’t control?”

“Sort of?  It’s more like they’re afraid, Mama says – afraid of what might happen if they see a banshee.  They don’t want to hear that death scream.  I mean, it’s not like if we don’t see them it’ll change the future – they still might die the next day.  But people still associate us with death as a result.”  She shrugged.  “It might bother me more if it wasn’t for Mama.  I remember what it was like before her, wandering around on the streets just trying to survive and any supernaturals who saw me would run away like those two.  Mama, she felt mixed up about what she is, and she decided that we could be a family so she took me in.”

I frowned again.  “What about your biological parents?  They just abandoned you as a kid?”

“Oh, no – I never had any.  Well, I think?  See, people don’t know where banshees really come from.  Maybe that’s another reason for the dislike of us and association with death?”  She seemed more thoughtful than upset as she licked her spoon.  “There’s theories that we’re born to humans and then kill them, or we’re born from dying breaths, or from another banshee’s scream – though then we start to wonder where the first banshee came from, if that’s the case – or we’re hybrids created from harpies and something else and they throw us out rather than keep us – although no species has ever claimed to have created a banshee child – or even that we’re aliens from another world.  At the end of the day, they’re all just theories, some more bizarre than others.  What we do know is that banshees appear at random, approximately at a physical age of about four or five, and people generally just find a banshee wandering around confused and on its own.  No one’s ever been able to figure out where we come from.”

I had no idea that banshees were surrounded with so much mystery, but I’d mostly grown up with witches and only really heard about a banshee after I woke up, so maybe it wasn’t that much of a surprise that I knew nothing.

“That would be terrifying,” I murmured after a moment’s thought.  “Just being a kid and having no one there for you.  It was scary enough waking up as an adult, but as a kid I imagine it’d be a lot worse.”

To my surprise, Lola brightened up some at my response.  “Well, yeah, it was, those first few years of my life were pretty bad, but Mama’s been great so I don’t care much.  But it doesn’t bother you?  Now that you know about banshee’s reputation?”

I made a bit of a face.  “I’m the last person to judge anyone because of what they are.  I know the pain from that personally.  Besides, you and Dana have been kind to me so I know firsthand that the whole death thing isn’t real.”

She gave me a huge smile in response, and I realized that she must have been worried about how I’d react once I learned the truth about banshees.

“I know you,” I added.  “And, well, the whole thing with the jewelry, you know?”  It was kind of awkward to reference that, I still wasn’t used to the idea of being able to talk about things like that, but I pressed on anyway because it was important that she understood.  “You’re a kind person.  You understood about that and didn’t judge me, and you’ve been patient about teaching me everything since I woke up.  As far as I’m concerned, stuff about the whole premonition scream thing or where banshees came from, that’s just not important.  I know you’re intelligent, kind, patient, and understanding.  That’s what really matters.”

Lola’s smile got even wider.  “Aww, thanks!  Not everyone takes the time to get to know me, so it’s nice to just get to talk to you and make another friend.  Some of the hospital staff still aren’t even okay with me, it’s nice to be treated normally.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.  I could understand that.  Maybe that was why Dana and Lola were important to me, not just because they were the first people I met after I woke up – they were both used to being treated differently because of what they were, whether a hybrid of two magic extremes or a banshee associated with death.  Me being a male witch seemed pretty average to them, so they didn’t see the big issue with it.

And that, in and of itself, was the most important thing they had given me.  Acceptance.