The Breaking of the Third Rule

So, I messed up. 

And not in a cutesy way, as they say now. 

I messed up so catastrophically that I have been declared missing for the last four years. 

And yet, in all this time that people have been looking for me, I have been sitting on a shelf in the town square coffee shop. 

I have seen my parents walk by me, as well as my sister, my friends, my neighbors, my teachers. 

I have seen first dates, and finally ones. I’ve seen writers shed tears at their holey plots and hopeless queries. I’ve seen countless awkward job interviews. I’ve seen new staff of the cafe burn their hands trying to work the milk frother. And I’ve seen seasoned staff sniff what is most certainly not sugar up their noses when they think no one is looking. 

I’ve memorized nearly every customer's coffee orders, even the menu options they choose when they are feeling “feisty.” But that could never be Mr. Wetherby, for he always ordered a large drip coffee with eight pumps of vanilla and two espresso shots. Then, for some strange reason, he’d tell anyone who spoke with him that, “It’s just black tea. Good for your heart, did you know?” 

Yes, for the last four years, I have been stuck on a shelf in The Brown Bean Cafe, nestled amongst an assortment of mugs on the cliched mug wall. 

If you were to look for me on the wall, it’d take but a moment to spot me. I surely stand out like a sore thumb. The coloring of my mug—myself, really—resembles the colors of the clothes I was wearing when I broke one of the only three rules of shapeshifting. 

The rules being: don’t let anyone who is not a shapeshifter see you shift, don’t tell anyone who is not a shapeshifter that you are one, and three, do not turn into anything inanimate, for you will not be able to snap yourself out of it, literally. 

I remember when this was discussed in my first ever Young Shapeshifters community meeting, but I wasn’t really paying attention to the instructor’s explanation. Mainly because I thought they were self-explanatory, but also because she was there. 

Ruby Teller. 

The girl that lived down the street. A shapeshifter, like me. I couldn’t believe it. And I couldn’t hear much else the instructor said about the rules of shapeshifting because my heart was pounding up my throat and into my too-big ears at the sight of her. 

Her flame-red hair. Her crystalline blue eyes. Her freckles, like mine. 

We were only thirteen on the day that we were welcomed into the shapeshifting community. There aren’t many of us in town, but enough that each of the youth members were able to have their own seasoned mentor. Mine being Guy Rory. 

Guy is a ridiculous man, just as his name might suggest. He’d rarely turn himself into an ordinary looking animal. If he wanted to be a fox, he would turn into one with a severed back leg or a severe underbite. If he wanted to be a frog, he’d be one with eyeballs on its rear end. 

One thing Guy never did was turn into the likeness of another person. He explained that doing so was dirty work, and dangerous. It often messed with the mind in ways that weren't always resolvable once you returned to yourself. 

But now I wish I had broken that rule instead of the one I did. In hindsight, I feel like the consequences would have been less dire. 

On the evening I turned into a mug, after only a year of learning the craft of shapeshifting, I had seen Ruby Teller run across the town square to meet up with a boy in front of Pottery & Portents. 

I’d never seen the guy before, so I assumed he was from out of town. He had white-blonde hair and looked older, sixteen or seventeen, maybe. He also looked rough. What with purple bags under his eyes and stains on his shirt. But who am I to judge? I thought he was family to Ruby, until they hugged tightly. And then kissed.  

My heart shriveled to the size of a raisin. So dramatic, I know, but I was fourteen at the time and the sight of them felt much like my future was being dehydrated by the sun. 

I had been doing homework at the coffee shop, completely unaware that I would remain here for the next four years, when they slipped out of sight. But just before they went, Ruby spotted me across the way and waved. I waved back, awkwardly.

A couple hours passed from the time I saw them leave the town square to when I’d see Ruby again. It was nighttime. The sun had gone down and the cafe was about to close. The soul occupants being me and Emma Daughtry, who was working the closing shift. 

I was readying to head home but needed to use the restroom first. I finished my business and when the automatic hand dryer cut off, I heard a vacant scream coming from outside. I thought maybe Emma burned her hand on the milk frother—it was only her third shift. 

I left the restroom and walked quickly down the hall back to the dining room of the cafe. Before I turned at the end, where a fake bushy tree was placed, I spotted a fear stricken Emma between the leaves, as well as an apprehensive, bewildered Ruby and the blonde guy she was with earlier. He was standing across the counter, looking rather seriously at Emma. 

It wasn’t until I saw Emma lift her hands up in defense that I noticed the guy was aiming a firearm at her. 

I gasped. 

The armed boy whirled in my direction, his pistol following suit. I crouched at the base of the fake tree in an attempt to hide. 

Cowardly, I know, but, again, I was only a fourteen year old boy—and a twiggy, nerdy one at that. I’d never even seen a gun in person before. 

The armed blonde boy yelled, “Show yourself! Now!”

I didn’t. 

Instead, I turned myself into the first thing I saw sitting adjacent to me on the counter: a damn mug. 

I was so scared at that moment that I didn’t even think to turn myself into a normal looking one. 

No, I turned into a mug that’s first half is striped yellow and blue, for the shirt that I was wearing was a yellow and blue striped polo. The second half of the mug resembles the beige khakis I was wearing. Oh, and my handle is speckled like a freckled arm. Ugly, I know. 

I had heard myself clatter onto the floor next to the fake tree. It was surprising that I didn’t shatter—that probably would have been the end of me. 

I also heard a gunshot, two girls screaming, the blonde guy shouting to grab the cash and run, and then footsteps stomping out the front door.  

The next day–after a night full of police officers and detectives investigating the scene of the crime and talking to witnesses–I was finally found by a staff member who was cleaning up the cafe. They shrugged at the sight of my ceramic self and placed me on the middle shelf of the mug wall to collect dust. 

There was nothing I could do. I can’t speak or move. I can only see, hear, and smell things. How that is possible, I don't know. What I do know is that I am no longer a freshman in high school, but a peculiarly painted mug used only for decoration.

In those first few weeks, I was relieved to hear that Emma survived her injuries and was recovering well. But I was heartbroken to hear that my parents were desperate to find me. Flyers were handed out around town and across county lines. A photo of me was visible on the mounted TV across from the mug wall. There was a reward available to anyone with valuable information about my whereabouts. 

My family visited the coffee shop from time to time. They typically sat just two tables away from me, completely unaware that I was above them. In the first couple months, they were sullen and red-eyed. People would walk up to them, offer their condolences and speculations about where I must have run off too. Each of them being more outlandish than the last. 

Which was understandable, really. They were grasping at straws. Because where could I have gone? And why would I leave? I was a well educated, good natured boy that only dreamed of traveling the world and immersing himself as a fellow animal in the woods and mountains to learn what it truly meant to be among the wild. I also loved my family, school, and friends dearly. 

The depressiveness of my situation set in long ago, but I’ve learned to cope by being a shameless Nosey Nelly. And by counting the dust particles that pile up on my rim on any given day. The average is about twenty-three, in case you were wondering. 

It didn’t take much strain on my nonexistent ears to hear that Ruby and her guy friend were caught and prosecuted shortly after that night when The Brown Bean Cafe was robbed at gunpoint. 

The blonde haired boy was sentenced as an adult and has to serve fifteen years in prison, while Ruby was sentenced to juvenile detention until she turned eighteen. 

The town was divided on how they should feel about Ruby. Half were sympathetic and held the assumption that she must have been pressured by the older boy to do something so heinous—that maybe Ruby didn’t know he had a gun. The other half thought she was just another delinquent that is going to continue down a path of criminal behaviors that will degrade the town and therefore she should just “stay behind bars forever.”  

Honestly, I don’t know where I stand or what to think about her.

I’ve had plenty of time sitting on this shelf to reminisce on the times that Ruby and I practiced our shapeshifting together. She was a natural at it, while it took many tries for me to turn into whatever I was aiming for. 

Ruby was only ever helpful and patient. I don’t remember ever feeling much embarrassment for how much I struggled in front of her. She was just so kind and thoughtful. 

She was also the one who taught me about the history of shapeshifting, in lieu of Guy Rory. 

She told me about her favorite shapeshifter, Malcolm Shultz, MD, who’d spent his life not only treating the terminally ill, but also shifting into a white dove or large butterfly while patients lay on their deathbeds. He’d flutter above them while they were taking their final breaths. Ruby said that she aspired to be like him. To bring peace and calm, in whichever ways she could, to such a scary world. 

It’s hard for me to believe that in just a few short months after that conversation, that she’d change so much as to be an accomplice in an armed robbery that resulted in the near death of a girl just three years older. 

 But over the years, while watching the world pass by like a fly—cough, mug—on the wall, I have gained a perspective that everyone has flaws—their own mistakes to make and mend. I can only hope that in her time in juvie, that Ruby has remained the girl I had once known, well before the incident that turned me inanimate.

Fast forward to today, on this particularly interesting day—for I am finally getting dusted—I hear that Ruby is to be released this afternoon. 

Surely if I still had a heart, it would be pounding. 

I’m not quite sure why, though. It's not like she would come to the cafe, of all places. And even if she did come here, I highly doubt she’d see my mug, and say, “Oh, there you are, Connor.” 

I don’t even know what good it would do if she were to see me disguised as this dumb mug. 

I’ve run every possible solution to my predicament in my head and it seems utterly hopeless. The only methods of reversing a shift is to either snap your fingers, flick your wrist, or do this odd throaty chortle thing (used primarily when we don’t have digits or limbs). And since I don’t have hands or a throat, my soul is stuck in glazed ceramic. 

It’s like I’m in suspended death. 

On some dark days, I wish there was an earthquake that would cause me to topple over the ledge of this shelf and leave me shattered on the ground. Maybe then I’d be released. 

I’ve no such luck, though. 

The dread of the day coming to an end starts settling in, for I’m about to be left utterly alone with my bleak self—seated between a blue floral and polka dotted mug. 

It’s a stormy night. The lights of The Brown Bean Cafe have just been cut off by a kid named Kyle. The large windows of the cafe are just barely permitting the soft orange glow from the street lights outside. 

Kyle heads to the front door to leave and lock up. Right before he closes the door behind himself, a small tabby cat scuttles between his legs and slips in. 

He notices, but then says, “I’ve already clocked out. That’s a problem for the morning shift.” Kyle proceeds to lock up, leaving the wet tabby cat inside the cafe. 

The cat wastes no time running to the back wall of the cafe. Its orange hair is visible by the dim light outside. Meowing loudly, it sits in front of the mug wall. 

Then, it lifts its head and familiar crystalline blue eyes stare up at me. 

With a flick of a paw, the cat suddenly transforms into a beautiful young woman with bright red hair. 

“Thought I’d find you here.” Says Ruby. She lifts her slender, freckled hand up and plucks me off the shelf. “Seems we both have been stuck in the same place for the last four years.” 

She didn’t bother transforming into anything before we left the cafe, what with me in her hands. She unlocked the deadbolt, and left it that way as we headed down the street. 

I cannot begin to tell you the feelings that are surging through my ceramic self. Although I can’t yet feel the wind or rain swirling around me, I can see and smell so much more than I have in the last four years. The freedom—though limited—and newfound sense of hope is something I will surely never forget. 

And the feeling of being held by none other than Ruby Teller herself.

She holds me securely as she walks us along the streets of town. After a few quiet minutes, she begins to speak quietly, and somewhat timidly. 

“I don’t know if you can hear me. Oh, I hope you can. I hope you’re in there, Connor. I need to explain myself to someone.” 

Through some loose tears, Ruby tells me that she met the blonde haired guy online—his name is Derek, by the way—and that he seemed normal, gentlemanly even. Derek was clever at pulling at her heart strings. He told her he was poor and that he had an autoimmune disease that debilitated him and left him prey to horrible bullies over the years.  

Ruby explains that they had only met for the first time that afternoon. And that they had only gone into the cafe to get change for a twenty. She didn’t know his intentions, nor that he was carrying a gun. 

After they were caught by the cops, Derek was cunning enough to convince them that the theft was Ruby’s idea. She had been so riddled with guilt and fear that she couldn’t contest his claims well enough. 

She also explained that she didn’t shift into something small to escape juvie because she felt that her punishment was just. She was young, naive, and someone got hurt so she felt she deserved the punishment. 

Ruby said she had only seriously considered escaping when she heard I was missing, but she didn’t know how she could get me and get help without getting caught herself. 

Before realizing it, we made it to the building where the shapeshifting community gathers. We walk in as intruders to a meeting already taking place. 

Ruby is greeted with mean faces and even a few mutterings about not being welcome. She ignores them and bravely walks to the head table. She places me down in front of our leaders, then turns to the small crowd and looks at my parents who are among them. 

“This is Connor McCreedy.” Ruby announces, pointing to my mug, “He was there that night in the cafe. He tried to help, but was held at gunpoint by Derek. And in his fear, he turned himself into a mug.” 

I take note to later thank Ruby for adding that little lie into her story. For I would much rather look like a fool than a coward to our people. 

My parents collapse into tears. The head leader of our community, which is now Guy Rory for some reason, stands and takes me into his hands. 

“This will either kill him or shift him.” He proclaims. Guy then tosses me onto the tiled ground. 

Instead of shattering, I stand. On two legs that are longer than I remember them. And with a heavy head placed between broad shoulders. 

I twist and stretch my body. My striped shirt is too tight for comfort and my khakis only go to my mid calf. I must have aged in my time as a mug. 

Then, I utter my first words in four years, “Fuck, that sucked.”