Free Time's Daughter by Anya Breton

in front of me before I’d finished blinking. Beneath the
black fabric I could make out Alex’s steel blue eyes. I frantically
looked for help. My friends were still frozen. Jenny was midway
through a blink, Melissa’s mouth was open as if she were about to
speak and Ashley looked like she’d sneeze at any second. But I knew
otherwise.
    No one would move until I fixed this.
    “ How are you doing this?”
Alex roared and jabbed a finger at my unmoving friends.
    I stared at him in disbelief. How was he able to
move and talk while everything else was frozen?
    He grabbed me by the arms and shook me violently.
“Answer me!”
    His aggressive shaking successfully intimidated me
into answering. “I don’t know! It just happens. Okay?”
    “ What are you? Tell
me !” The growling voice coming from his throat was almost
animalistic as he shouted.
    “ I don’t know. I don’t
know !”
    “ You have to know! How did
you get this power?” His pointed back at my motionless friends
again.
    I slowly regained some of my sense back. There was
no mugger. There was only Alex stalking me. “How are you able to ignore it?”
    “ I’m the one asking the questions,”
he snapped.
    “ Why? Why do I have to explain
anything to you? You’re the new person in town! Not me.”
    He let go of my arm but didn’t step away. I didn’t
like his proximity but I feared he’d grab me again if I made a
move.
    “ Because if you don’t tell me,
others will investigate and they may not be as nice.” His pitch
went low.
    A harsh noise escaped my throat. “This is you being nice ?”
    “ Yes.”
    “ Is that why you were nice to me for
three days? Did you get impatient because I didn’t just come out
and say ‘hey, I’m a freak, nice to meet you’?”
    “ No.” He glanced behind him at the
immobile figures. “How long will it stay like this?”
    I folded my arms in front of me. “I don’t know.”
    The steel blue eyes focused on me once again. “Do
you really not know, Aeon? Or are you just telling me that?”
    Here we were, two people carrying on an argument
while time was frozen around us. I didn’t think I had much of a
choice except to tell him the truth. He now had seriously damaging information about me.
    “ I really don’t know,” I
said.
    He took a single step back as if he trusted me
enough not to bolt. “You don’t know how you got this power?”
    “ No,” I lied.
    Alex inhaled noisily. “You’re lying.”
    My eyes rounded at the low declaration. “What?” I
croaked the question.
    “ You may not know how it works, but
you do know how you got it.”
    How had he known ? I added a kernel of truth
as a test. “I just woke up one day and I had it.”
    His lips thinned but he didn’t instantly discount
what I’d said. “This is serious, Aeon. The more you tell me, the
safer you’ll be.”
    “ Safer?” I exclaimed. “Safe from
what? The only thing that is dangerous right now is you . I
thought you were a mugger!”
    “ There are others like me—others who
won’t be stopped by your magic. They don’t like it when people mess
with the status quo.”
    “ Magic ,” I said in slow
disbelief. “What are you talking about?”
    Alex shook his head and paced a few steps away.
“You’re not a Time witch?”
    I felt the space between my eyes crinkle in serious
confusion. “What’s a ‘Time witch’?”
    “ How can you halt time and not know
what a Time witch is?” Alex swore quietly but offered up a
definition. “A Time witch is a witch capable of manipulating Time,
just like the name sounds.”
    “ I don’t believe in witches or
magic.”
    “ Well, sweetheart, this is
magic.” He gestured to my friends.
    His condescending tone rubbed me all wrong. Eyes
narrowing I snapped, “Don’t call me sweetheart. This isn’t magic,
this is just some weird fluke.”
    “ A fluke you control at will? I
don’t think so.” He snorted. “Are you really as clueless as you’re
acting or is this just to confuse