Elizabeth
Site Admin
Joined: 30 Dec 2007
Posts: 172
 |
 Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2008 11:14 pm Post subject: Bygones: Hero Worship |
  |
|
My sister has always been my hero. One of my first memories is going to the playground with her when I was four. She'd pushed me on the swings for a while, but both of us quickly got bored with that, and I went off to play in the sandbox, while she talked with some of the older girls. I was about halfway through building what was sure to become the masterpiece of all sandcastles when a few boys, older than me, but not quite as old as her, had decided that they didn't want to share the sandbox with a girl.
And she was there, before they could kick over as much as a turret, staring down at them with folded arms, daring them to take another step towards me. One of them, not the brightest crayon in the box, decided that she wouldn't do anything to him, because she was just a girl. He'd gone home with a bloody nose, and the two of us had gone home with our ears ringing from the angry lecture his mother had given us. But even after getting yelled at for what seemed like hours, she just smiled down at me, and asked me if I was okay.
She was always there, always looking out for me, even when she told me to go away so she could hang out with her friends. I always knew that, if I needed her, she'd be there, that she always kept an eye on me, just in case.
And then she went to England. She'd been to sleep-overs before then, but aside from that, we'd never really been apart for longer than a school day. At first I thought that maybe that was why, when she came back, she seemed so different. I mean, I knew she'd been through a lot - she'd shown me the scar on her stomach her first day back - and she seemed older somehow - the blue streak across the front of her blonde bangs looked really cool, though mom refused to let me do the same - but I had the feeling that something more had changed, something deeper.
"Don't be silly," mom had told me when I'd asked her about it. "She's still the same old Jillian. I'm sure she'll snap out of it - she just needs time. And for you not to pester her about it." She would know, I suppose, since she -is- a police officer. She hadn't been stabbed before, that I knew of, but I'm sure she knows plenty of people who have been. I'm also sure that she knew more about what had happened to Jillian over there than she was telling me, and yet, whenever I asked about it, she just said it was a mugging, and not to ask her about it.
Not that it would have done any good, anyway. She'd said the same thing, the one time I'd disobeyed mom; she was even less convincing about it. Before she left, I bet she would have told me, but the new her was different, whether mom could see it or not.
"Jill?" I asked one night after dinner, having just nearly thrown my plate into the sink in an effort to catch up with her. "Jill!"
"What is it, Mackenzie?" Everyone else always just called me Mac, but she knew how much that bugged me.
"I was just wondering if you wanted to watch Diamond Dead with me. They haven't released it in England even now, so..."
"You're way too young to be watching that kind of thing," she told me, apparently forgetting that she was the one who had shown me my first zombie movie, when I'd been even younger.
"Well, then it's a good thing my big sister will be watching it with me, then won't it?" I smiled up at her.
She shook her head. "I can't, hon. Sorry."
And before I could give out so much as a, "Why not?", she's in her room, door closed. I asked it anyway, but she ignored me, just as she ignored my knocking at the door, until dad told me to leave her alone, and to go take my bath.
"I don't take baths anymore," I reminded him, loudly enough that Jillian could hear as well.
"Oh, is that what that smell is, then?" he joked, sniffing loudly.
"Very funny," I said, unamused. He apparently thought so, seeming pretty pleased with himself as he wandered off to watch TV. "That's not what I meant," I spoke to the door, hoping Jillian -hadn't- heard dad leaving, so she'd think I was talking to him. "I take showers now."
That was true most of the time, anyway, or had been since Jillian had gotten home. They weren't really the same, and I never felt like I got nearly as clean, but they seemed much more grown up. And, honestly, ever since Jillian had gotten back, I'd needed all the help I could get to remind her that five years wasn't that big of a difference, age-wise. It had never seemed to be, before she left. But things change. Sometimes they get better; mostly, they just get worse.
"She's probably doing drugs," my best friend, Alisa, told me matter of factly the next day. "I think that kinda stuff is legal over there. I bet she got addicted."
"She's not doing drugs," I rolled my eyes. "Where would she even get them?"
"There's drug dealers around here," she said, though she sounded more uncertain about that. "And your mom's a cop. I bet there's drugs in the evidence locker or whatever. Maybe she snuck in there and stole 'em."
"You're an idiot." I threw one of the stuffed animals - a giraffe, I think - from the foot of her bed at her, but she just squealed and covered her head before returning fire with a pillow. I decided not to bring it up again, but when I got home, I watched Jillian closely. After all, Alisa would know... Her father was an officer, too, and the only parent of hers still living, so she spent a lot more time at the station than I did. I wasn't sure what sort of signs you were supposed to look for in case of drug use. She didn't seem to be acting all that different, though it was hard to tell, in the short amount of time I saw her before she vanished into her room again.
"She's a teenager, Mac," my mom tried to explain to me, as if that wasn't obvious. "Who knows what she's thinking? I do know she still loves you."
Well, obviously. She was still my big sister after all. That wasn't the issue at all. Did she still like me? Or had I become the dreaded kid sister, the very sight of whom caused clenched teeth and frayed tempers, who was a mere annoyance, rather than a friend? I'd never been stupid enough to think that she didn't notice our age difference, but I had thought that maybe it hadn't bothered her.
And then she'd left, and ruined everything. Or, rather, she'd gotten back and that had happened. And it wasn't as if it were a gradual thing, either - I'd known right away that the gulf between us had widened. Her plane had gotten delayed, and wasn't going to come in until some crazy hour at night, so mom had made me go to bed instead of letting me go to the airport, telling me Jillian would be there just the same when I woke up.
She had; probably not quite how mom had meant. I think it was about 3 in the morning when my eyes suddenly shot open, a moment or two before the rest of me caught up and realized why. Without thinking, I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs, practically threw myself into her arms.
I heard the sound of her laughing above my head, as she picked me up, like she always had before. "You've gotten so..." she started to say. She tended to say that most of the time, too, ending it with "big", though.
It took me a moment to figure out what had stopped her, but when I did, I felt myself blush so hard I thought I might permanently change color. One of her hands was resting on the bottom of my diaper now, as she held me, hand pressing against the thick padding that was so obviously not my regular underwear.
Mom must have noticed what was going on as well, since she gladly volunteered an explanation of, "Mac's been having some problems at night."
"Mooom!" I protested, hardly able to believe she'd just come out and say that.
"Honey, she was bound to find out."
"Hey, don't worry about it, Mackenzie," Jillian smiled down at me, giving me a hug. Her voice sounded different, somehow, like there was the barest hint of a British accent still lingering about. "It's not a big deal. I knew a girl my age at the school who still wet the bed."
It made me feel better, until I realized that it wasn't true. Or at least not the first part. She might have claimed it didn't make any difference, but ever since she'd gotten back, I could just tell that she saw me as more of a baby, an annoying baby. And there was one quite obvious explanation for that, no matter how much she tried to deny it.
I could feel her staring at me, the few times I happened to see her after getting changed into my night-things. If I wasn't so sure it was pity, I might almost think that the look in her eyes was jealousy.
---------
"Earth to Mac! This is ground control, requesting immediate communication! Is there anybody up there?"
A moment later, when I gave no response, Alisa's hand came into view, over the top of my manga. It waved at me briefly, then grabbed the top of the book, pushed it down, revealing her face waiting behind.
"So, did you just come over here to read your comics?" she asked, rolling her eyes.
"And to spend time with my best friend in the whole wide world," I answered dryly, raising my reading material back up.
"Come on, let's go outside!" I felt her hand wrap around my foot, start to tug me across the bed. "It'll be good for you."
"You sound like mom," I told her with a sigh, kicking her off me with my free foot. "What is there to do outside, other than get heat stroke?" It took me until the end of the question to start to feel bad about what I'd said; Alisa didn't have a mom anymore, after all, and talking about mine around her always made me feel awkward. A silence fell over the room, dropping over the two of us like a blanket of snow that would have been so welcome in the middle of that particular heat wave, until finally I set the comic down and hopped off the bed without looking at my friend. "Let's go, then."
From the corner of my eye, I saw her start to smile. I glanced over suspiciously, but she was already on her way out of the room, any discomfort I might have caused her forgotten. For being eleven, she could be a little childish at time - so says the girl who still wore diapers at night at the same age - so maybe the prospect of playing had over-ridden her grief. Or maybe she didn't really care, and had just been waiting for my guilt to get the better of me. Or maybe I was just being silly.
I left my stuff there, on her bed, and gave chase, flip-flops clattering on their hardwood floors. I wasn't allowed to run inside at home, but Alisa's dad never seemed to mind. He was pretty laid back, really - I guess he got enough of bossing people around from being a police officer. My mom, on the other hand, just couldn't get enough, so it spilled over from work, mostly onto me. I'd thought it only seemed that way because Jillian had been off in a different country for so long, but it hadn't really changed now that she was back. But then, Jillian didn't really do anything that warranted getting yelled at for anymore. She spent most of her days in her room, alone. I didn't know what she was up to in there, since the few times she bothered to answer my knocking, she just told me to go away, but I was sure if it was something bad, mom would have figured it out.
"Hey, Mac." I skidded to a stop at the sound of Alisa's dad's voice, nearly tripping over my shoes in the process. "Be careful," he chuckled, making me blush a little, but not really in a bad way. I could tell he wasn't being mean about it or anything; I guess I probably had looked kinda funny.
"Hi," I squeaked, waving from the hall over to the kitchen, where he was chopping up some celery.
"Are you going to stay for supper?" he asked. "We'd love to have you."
Ignoring the potential Twilight Zone-ish creepiness to his phrasing, I shook my head. "Mom told me not to."
"All right, then," he shrugged as he finished up, tapping the knife's blade against the cutting board. "Another time?"
"Of course!" I nodded.
"Excellent." He smiled briefly at me before going back to his work, sliding the celery into the bowl of salad. I got only a few steps before he spoke up again. "You might want to go out this way," he advised, nodding towards the kitchen door. "Alisa's waiting for you with a water gun outside the front door."
"Oh... Thanks!" I took his advice, waving goodbye for some reason even though I knew he wasn't watching, since he was instead putting the salad into the fridge.
For a moment, I considered trying to sneak back to my house, not really in the mood to get into a water fight. But if I wasn't extremely careful about it, she'd notice me before I could make it the whole way. And she was faster than me. So I snuck the other way around the house, heading for the front porch, where, sure enough, she was waiting, gun trained firmly on the door. Her back was to me, so that she would surely have seen me if I'd tried to escape. To her credit, beyond the initial attack, she wasn't being completely ruthless - there was another gun, not as big as hers, on the floor behind her. I guess that might just have been back-up for her after she'd blown through her current one's tank; however, that wasn't how she usually played. She could be silly and childish, but she knew what was right and what was wrong, and leaving me no way to defend myself wouldn't have been fair.
I slipped off my flip-flops, inched closer to the porch, across their freshly trimmed yard. The bottom step was known to creak, quite loudly unless it was breached with utmost care. A loose board, I guess. Luckily, I had climbed up onto that porch many a time, so I knew just what needed to be done. On the somewhat less lucky side, knowing and doing were two different things altogether.
The gun was so close to the edge of the porch that I only really needed the first step, but other than the far side, it was also visible to Alisa. So I stayed as far from it as I could, not even getting up on the little fake rock path that led to the steps, just stretching my leg out, leaning forward, aiming my toes for the right spot. But, at seemingly the last moment, my other foot slipped, making me go down too quick.
If I hadn't been me, if I'd been someone cooler, like Mulan or Jillian or Lady Snowblood, I would've taken advantage of the split second it would take the sound to reach Alisa's ears and, from there, her brain, to make a desperate leap forward, grab the gun, and maybe even get in the first shot as I backed away, covering my retreat back to the yard, where I could more easily avoid her inevitable counter-attack.
But since I am, undeniably, me instead, I froze, just standing in place as Alisa turned and spotted me, surprise soon giving way to her mischievous grin as she brought her gun around and fired. I did find myself jumping back as I got hit, though, the stream of water splashing against my chest shockingly cold - she must've had the gun in the fridge or something, the little sneak.
She smiled impishly at me as I stood there, trying to brush the water off, waiting until I had finished and was just starting to reach for the other gun before hitting me again. I shot her a dirty look, to which she shrugged innocently, backing up a step. Finally, I grabbed my weapon, quickly getting off a shot that went wildly awry before the stream died off completely. I turned and ran off, starting to work the pump, finding myself giggling as another spray of water splashed my legs. Stray pieces of grass began to cling to my feet as I spun, water arcing across Alisa's body.
Soon, we were both laughing, both soaked, both almost out of ammunition. We'd worked our way behind her house, past the kitchen window, where her dad waved back at me at last. I turned away, grinning, and found myself being watched by someone else, from across the yard, resting against my - or rather our - house. I stopped in my tracks, Alisa nearly running smack into me from behind before deciding to use the remaining reserves of her gun's tank on me while I stood there, motionless.
"I gotta go," I told her, though my words probably blended together a bit.
"But..."
I shrugged, handing the gun back to her. "I gotta go get ready for dinner."
She said her somewhat dejected, "All right," as I started to walk to my own house. "Hey, what about your stuff?"
"I'll get it after supper, okay?" I called back, and she made a noise that resembled assent. As I got closer, I could tell that Jillian was holding something, though now instead of watching me, she was turned away. I couldn't help but feel a little insulted as I drew closer. Did she really think I was stupid enough not to figure out what she was doing?
"Since when do you smoke?" I asked her quietly.
"I don't know," she faced me again, cigarette between her fingers. "A few months, I guess." She reached down with her free hand, shoving the half-crumpled package further into her pocket, the three aces of spades vanishing from my sight.
"I won't tell mom and dad, you know," I told her. "I wouldn't do that."
She gave me a smile, not quite like her old one, but partway there. "Thanks. You know you should never start smoking, right?"
I nodded, rolling my eyes. How many times had I heard that lecture? Probably about as many as she had, though apparently it had worked better on me. "Why did you start?"
"It's a long story," she said simply.
"Oh." I knew what that meant - that she didn't want to talk about it - but surely she owed me something for keeping her secret, didn't she? "I have time, you know."
"Not right now, Mac. You should probably go get dried off before supper, you know."
"Fine," I snapped, bristling at her use of my nickname. I fully expected her to stop me before I got to the front door; she would have, before.
She didn't speak to me again that evening and, not being in the best mood, I returned the favor. As soon as I finished eating, and had gotten excused from the table, I went back to Alisa's house, slipping my flip-flops back onto my feet before scaling the still damp porch steps. Alisa and her dad were watching some TV show, so I joined them for long enough that I was sure Jill would be back in her room by the time I headed home again.
Her light was on, up on the second floor, and her window and curtains were open, but I couldn't see her moving around, so I guessed she was on her computer, probably talking to all her friends from England. I'm sure they were all much more interesting than I was... Maybe that's why she wasn't interested in me anymore.
I closed myself up into my room as well, curling up on my bed and reading, until it was close enough to bedtime that I reluctantly got out my pajamas, shedding my underwear so that I could put myself back into diapers, become the baby that Jillian apparently hated. Mom, of course, had to give my bottom a pat when I went downstairs to tell her goodnight, even though I'd never forgotten yet. I knocked on Jill's door, but she didn't bother to answer.
"Fine!" I hissed at her, kicking the bottom of her door. "See if I care!"
I turned away, fuming, then turned back, giving her door one more angry kick, harder than I had meant. "What are you two doing?" asked dad's voice from the living room.
"I just tripped!" I replied, before Jillian could tell on me, bending over and rubbing my sore toe, wondering if I was going to get a bruise from that. I gave her door a dirty look, only to notice that it was open. "Sorry," I said under my breath, since surely she was just mad at me for making so much noise, and not concerned for me.
But she wasn't there at all. "Jill?" I asked, pushing the door open a little further. "Jillian?" Her light was still on, as I had already known, having seen it leaking out from under her door, but she didn't seem to be there. I took a tentative step inside, half expecting her to jump out from behind her door to scare me. She didn't.
"Where are you?" I closed the door behind me as I went further in, all the time trying to figure out where she was hiding, and what she was up to. Her curtains didn't quite go down to the floor, and the wind outside was blowing them open enough for me to be absolutely sure she wasn't there. I knocked softly on her closet door, then opened it, finding only clothes. "This isn't funny..." I told her, walking over to her bed, crouching down and peeking underneath, letting out a relieved sigh when she didn't leap out - I have to admit, I was still a little freaked out by the idea of things underneath bed.
"What the hell are you doing in here, Mackenzie?!"
I flinched, glancing behind me, wondering where she'd been. "Sor..." I started, scanning the room, confused by her apparent absence, until I lifted my eyes a little. I gave a gasp that nearly turned into a scream, my legs giving way and dropping me the short distance to the ground as my bladder let go, something they hadn't done during the day before. But then, I'd never been confronted with something like that before.
"Chill out," she shook her head, an amused look on her face from the other side of the window. "It's just me." And with that, she reached out, opening her window the rest of the way so that she could stop hovering and fly inside, landing right in front of me. "You okay?" She held out her hand, but for a few moments, I could just stare up at it in shock as I sat there, trembling.
-----
"Again!" I giggled, bouncing in place on the roof of... I'm not even sure what building it was, honestly. Jillian smiled at me from a few feet away, where she was glancing carefully at the ground below, pulling strands of hair out from behind her mask, only for it to find its way back under there a few moments later. I guess it was pretty windy, though, honestly, I hadn't even noticed.
"Well, we will have to get down from here," she replied, turning away from the roof's edge, apparently satisfied that we hadn't been seen. "And unless you want to jump..."
"No, that's all right." I scurried over to her. "So this is what you've been up to all this time?"
"For the last time, Mackenzie, I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. If I could've been sure you'd keep it secret, I wouldn't have waited so long, but..." She shrugged. "It just seemed like the right thing to do, you know? Keeping it secret, to protect my loved ones, or whatever. It wasn't easy, you know."
"I could've kept it a secret." I said it quietly, letting the wind carry the words away. It was true enough, sure, but I didn't want her to hear how hurt I was that she hadn't thought she could trust me. I mean, I was still the only person she'd told, so that was still pretty good, even if it had taken a while.
"The sky looks so beautiful from up here." She tilted her face up towards the stars, closing her eyes for a few moments, then looking back down, out towards the town. "It all looks so beautiful."
"You need a costume," I told her. "And a superhero name. There's nobody else doing any superhero-ing around here... You could be famous!"
"Nobody's doing that because there's no reason to," she answered, her tone telling me that she'd thought of all this already. "We barely have enough crime to keep the police busy - I don't need to stick my nose into it."
"Well, you at least need a name," I insisted, deciding not to remind her that there were still a few unsolved robberies and such that she might be able to use her powers to help solve somehow. And mom had just been talking about how they'd busted some drug-runners with meth and rouse and whatever else; there were sure to be some others out there, somewhere. "One of these days, someone's gonna see you, and they're gonna ask you who they are. Then what are you gonna do?"
"Leave?" She chuckled at me as I rolled my eyes, wishing she would just play along. "I dunno... I was kinda kicking around Zero-G as an option, you know?"
"Eh," I shrugged. Creativity, honestly, was not one of her strong suits.
"Eh? What's wrong with that?" She poked my ribs, coaxing a giggle out of me.
"I... think it's taken," I said diplomatically.
"Could be." She glanced back up at the sky, absentmindedly reaching into her jacket pocket, starting to pull out her cigarettes before apparently remembering that I was there, and sheepishly putting them back. "It was just an idea."
I took the few steps over to her, wrapping my arms around her and staring upwards with her. The stars twinkled above us, more than making up for the mere sliver of moon that was visible. They seemed so close... Almost as if I could simply reach up and pluck one down, put it in my pocket to keep me warm. "I missed you."
Her hand slid down, detaching me from her side. A few moments later, I felt a bunch of little bubbles rising in my body, like in the glassed of champagne mom and dad had every New Years'. I could feel the roof moving out from beneath my feet. I'm sure that, given time, I could learn to direct myself on my own, but for now, Jillian keeps ahold of my hand, guiding me through the air.
And, to be perfectly honest, that was just fine with me.
-
Summer bled away into autumn, draining away the green from the leaves, only to leave them in even more colorful coats. It also took my free time, as school started back up, then kicked into high gear, giving me nothing in return but homework. More often than not, by the time I was finished, and gotten myself ready for bed so that I wouldn't have to worry about mom and dad coming up to check on me, Jillian was already gone.
But every once in a while, usually if I managed to get most of my work done at lunch, I'd finish in time, and would at least have the chance to talk her into taking me with her. Sometimes she'd say I should get some sleep, or sometimes she'd claim she wasn't going out, but every once in a while, we'd go explore the sky. I was getting pretty good at flying, though not nearly as good as Jill. But, then, she'd also had a lot more practice than me. Of course, I kept it all a secret. It was harder than I'd expected, especially with Alisa, when I was spending more time in the cafeteria doing math than talking to her.
One day, Alisa insisted that I was ignoring her, that I didn't want to be her friend anymore. She could be all dramatic like that, from time to time. I insisted she was wrong, but I was never sure whether or not she believed me. And then came the day that she didn't show up to school at all. My first thought, silly as I realized it was, was that she really was mad at me. None of my teachers volunteered any information to contradict me, however, so as the day went on, and there was still no sign of her, I began to wonder more and more just how unlikely it actually was.
By the time I got home, I had convinced myself it was all my fault, working myself up until I nearly burst into tears when Mr. Khabon, my science teacher, told me I'd answered one of his questions wrong. He seemed to get the idea after that, since he didn't call on me for the rest of the day, or for a few days afterwards. As soon as I was in my house, I was on my way up to my room, tossing my backpack in the general direction of my bed, and then back down the steps, ready to beg Alisa to forgive me for being a terrible best friend.
"Where are you off to?" dad asked me, poking his head from the kitchen, as I made my bee-line back to the front door.
"I'm gonna go see Alisa," I told him. "She wasn't at school today. I'll be back in..."
"Sweetheart, I think you'd better come in here for a minute."
"Come on, dad, I..." But his tone made me a bit worried, so I cut off my own protests and meekly joined him in the kitchen, perching on one of the chairs and waiting. But of course, as it always is in these sorts of cases, I wasn't at all prepared for what he was about to tell me. I was mostly just curious, and already starting to squirm in my seat, hoping that it wouldn't take too long.
"Mackenzie," he said, kneeling down next to my chair to look me in the eye, "I'm not really sure how to tell you this. But I think you're mature enough for me to just come out and say it, so..."
"I am," I smiled proudly, glad that someone in my stupid family had, for once, acknowledged that, diapers or not, I wasn't just a stupid little kid. "I can handle it. Just tell me."
He gave me this strange little smile, and a tiny nod. He opened his mouth once before he managed to start. And finally, he told me.
-
I glanced awkwardly over at Alisa, sitting next to some woman I'd never seen before. They were both dressed in black, which seemed pretty standard, though I'd had to make do with dark-ish gray. Luckily, the lid of the casket was closed... On TV, it seemed like they usually had it open, and I'd been worrying about that all morning, as I'd been getting dressed.
"Come on, Mackenzie, sit down," Jillian whispered to me, taking my hand. I hadn't realized how long I'd been standing there, in between the rows of pews, and sheepishly started to follow Jill to where mom and dad were sitting.
But Alisa had apparently heard Jillian, or she'd just chosen that time to look around, red rimmed eyes firmly homing in on me. She waved, just the tiniest of motions, then pointed to the empty seat next to her. I looked up at Jillian, then over at mom and dad, half hoping that they'd insist that I sit with them, but they just nodded, and Jillian let go of my hand.
"H-Hi," I mumbled, sitting down. I had felt like I should apologize for being too upset and, frankly, scared, to visit her, like I should tell her that it was going to be all right, even if I wasn't sure how, but that was all that ended up coming out. She seemed to get the gist of it.
"There are so many people here," she whispered, glancing behind her at the rows of full pews. Her voice seemed odd, almost as if it were an echo, from a long way off. "I only know a couple of them..."
"Who is... umm..?" I nodded towards the woman, who was talking to the preacher.
"She's my Aunt Claudia," Alisa answered. "I'm... I'm gonna live with her from now on."
"Oh," I nodded, vaguely remembering her having mentioned her aunt a couple times, usually in conjunction with what present she'd gotten from her for Christmas or her birthday. "Is she nice?"
"I guess," Alisa shrugged.
The preacher stood up then, and started to talk, though if you'd asked me what he said even a minute after he'd finished, I couldn't have answered. Alisa's eyes kept darting back and forth, like she was looking for something she couldn't quite find. About halfway through, her hand darted out and grabbed mine, holding onto it for dear life. At first, I told myself I was just being a good friend, being there for her, but eventually I realized I was squeezing back just as hard, as my bottom lip began to tremble.
I'd cried plenty those few days before the funeral, and even more after, when I realized that Aunt Claudia wasn't moving into Alisa's house, as I'd kind of automatically assumed, but rather Alisa would be moving into her house, two and a half hours and half a world away, but I never cried harder than when I was sitting there with her, her father lying there, in front of us, in that terrible box. After a few seconds, she let go of my hand, turned, and hugged me; she didn't let go until it was over.
"You have to find them," I raged a day or two later, sitting on Jillian's bed, her pillow clasped tightly to my chest. "You know you can do it... You can't just let them get away with it!"
"It was just a robbery," she tried to tell me from her desk, turning away from her schoolbooks. "They happen all the time. If the police didn't get them on tape, I doubt anyone will ever manage to find them."
"But you could," I insisted, "if you'd just try! You're a superhero!"
"I'm not, Mackenzie," she sighed. "There's nothing I can do about it."
"You just don't want to!" I shouted, throwing her pillow across the room at her. "You never liked Alisa, anyway!"
"I like Alisa just fine," she replied, infuriatingly calm. "But catching the robbers isn't going to change anything, sweetie."
I knew it would, somehow. I knew it deep inside of myself, that getting her to do this was the only way that I could actually help Alisa, but I couldn't even get that right. "I hate you!" I screamed, storming off to my room.
I didn't really, of course, and I knew that saying it wasn't likely to make her change her mind. By the time I'd worked up the courage to go apologize to her, she had left for the night. There was a slight twinge in the pit of my stomach, telling me that maybe I was wrong, and she had gone after those bad guys after all. Even though I knew I shouldn't, I decided to go into her room, so that I could be there when she got back.
I sat on her bed for a few moments, then moved to her desk chair, since it was a lot less comfortable, and thus I'd be less likely to fall asleep in it, since I wasn't sure just exactly how late she stayed out, usually. I flipped through her textbooks, then through her half finished homework, neither of which made a whole lot of sense to me. I sighed, leaning back in her chair, starting to wonder if I should give up and wait for the next morning, only for my eyes to fall on her trash basket, sitting on the far side of her desk. More specifically, I saw something poking out of it; a newspaper.
It could have been that one of the things that had changed while she'd been over in England, but I'd never seen her actually bother to read a newspaper before, so, of course, I was curious. I hopped down from the chair, snatching the paper from the trash, spilling some stray, half finished homework pages onto the floor. Right away, I saw what had drawn her to it - there was an article on the first page about Alisa's dad, or more specifically, his death.
I started to smile, a warm feeling flooding over me. I'd done it after all. She must have been doing research so that she could find those thieves. If it hadn't been so late, I would have called Alisa to tell her the good news, at least until I recalled that I wasn't supposed to let her know about Jillian's powers.
And then I actually started to read the article, moving down from the headline to the sub-headline, which declared simply, "Metahuman involvement suspected." My eyes shot over to the window, where there was still no sign of Jillian. What had I done?! I was sure she could handle a bunch of burglars by herself, no problem, but somebody else with superpowers? A nervous feeling began climbing up my body from the pit of my stomach as I began to imagine any number of possible powers Jillian could find herself up against, and how they could kill her just as easily as they killed Alisa's dad.
I quickly scanned through the rest of the article, trying to find some kind of indication of what she might be facing. They mentioned some kind of electronics disruption that had kept the cameras from functioning correctly, which didn't seem too bad... After all, it wasn't like Jillian was a robot or anything. And then the article went on, mentioning the shelves that had been moved from their place and thrown at Alisa's dad, but without any obvious damage from someone with superstrength lifting them. Telekinesis, then, it deduced, or something of that sort.
Well, that wasn't quite as bad as I'd feared. Depending on the telepath, Jillian might not be quite as quick, but she was probably fast enough to block a flying shelf. After all, I knew that she took it slow with me; if she was lightening up some inanimate object so that she could use it as a shield, I was pretty sure she wouldn't bother to take nearly as much time. Still, if I'd known what I was putting her up against, I wouldn't have pushed her so hard.
I sat there anxiously for a long time, waiting to see her come floating up in front of the window, but, despite the less than comfortable wooden chair, I found myself drifting off to sleep. I half considered breaking my promise, going to tell mom what had happened so that she could go help. Instead, I decided to write her an apology, since that was what I had went to her room to do in the first place. There was plenty of paper spread about her desk, but, oddly enough, no pens or pencils, so I had to open up her desk drawer.
There was more paper in there, along with a bunch of key chains and other little trinkets. I dug through them all gingerly, not wanting to make to obvious that I'd been in there, and negate my apology by getting her all mad at me for going through her stuff. The pens were under a couple layers of flyers, mostly stuff she'd brought back from England, advertising some new music store, or a party, or whatever. I reached for the nearest pen, but my eyes fell on something else, shining ever so slightly beside it.
It was a key, small and silver. Even though I knew I shouldn't, I picked it up and looked it over for a few moments before recognizing it as the key to her suitcase. I could see the corner of her suitcase peeking out from under her bed, where she'd shoved it after unpacking, and, assumedly, hadn't had any use for it since then. And yet, for the life of me, I couldn't remember it being so close to the edge of her bed before.
I should have left it alone. Whatever was in there was none of my business, but even so, I couldn't help but be curious. The suitcase was heavier than I'd thought it would be, which only fueled my desire to know what secret souvenirs she'd kept stashed away in it.
It was the jewelry that I saw first, dumped in a big pile in one corner, gold and silver chains wrapped around each other like a pit of snakes. Beside it, there was a pile of cash, more neatly divided into stacks of tens, twenties, and what turned out to be fifties, though I didn't recognize them at first, probably because I'd never seen one before in real life. There were some higher denominations in there, too, but they were all mixed up together, and not nearly as numerous. Along the opposite side of the suitcase, there sat a row of what appeared to be small, metal eggs. I picked one up carefully, surprised at its weight in my palm. It was cool to the touch, and almost perfectly smooth, except for one, small button that I found myself pressing before I could even consider what a dumb idea that was.
The lightbulb flickered as Jillian's alarm clock sprang to life, pumping out a hiss of static. Quickly, I pressed the button again, not wanting to mess anything up, and, frankly, a little scared at the sudden noise. I stared down at the egg, wondering what she would need something like that for. I glanced back into the suitcase, towards the jewelry and the money, the gears in my mind starting to turn ever so slowly. I picked up one of the bills, rubbing it between my fingers, then tried to untangle a bracelet, each touch bringing me closer and closer to panic. I hadn't really considered why she would have all that fake money or costume jewelry; I also hadn't considered that it could possibly be anything else.
But as I sat there on the floor of her room, looking down into that suitcase, a horrible realization dawned on me. I slammed the suitcase closed, locking it and shoving it back under the bed before putting the key back and closing the desk drawer, all the time nervously watching the window. I stumbled out of her room and back into mine, only then realizing that I still had the egg clasped in my hand. I started back towards Jillian's room to put it back, not making it any further than my own door. What if she caught me? What would she do to me, if she knew that I'd discovered her real secret?
I hid the egg in my dresser, under my socks, and curled up under my covers, watching my door, praying that she didn't keep track too closely of how many of those she had. I may have been her sister, but when it came to supervillains, there was no telling if that would make any difference whatsoever.
|
|
