A Rising Star - Story

Elizabeth · A Rising Star - Story

1

"Are you sure you don't want me to go in with you, sweetie?" Mrs. Mingus asked, turning around in the driver's seat of her car to face the girl in her back seat, Megan. Meg shook her head, long black hair streaming around her face, though she wasn't so sure that that had been the right decision half a moment later.

The person in the front seat, next to her mother, rolled her eyes. "She'll be fine... And it's not like there's anything you can do anyway." Mrs. Mingus glared at Cherise, who, with the kind of efficiency that comes only from long hours of arduous practice, ignored her. "Ready, Megs?"

Megan nodded as she unbuckled her seat belt, politely saying, "Thanks for the ride Mrs. Mingus."

"No problem," the woman replied, giving her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, you'll do great."

Megan attempted to return the smile, but her stomach churned with anxiety, and the best she could come up with made her look like she had just been told her puppy had just been ritualistically sacrificed by a bunch of Satanists. She gave one last consideration to just telling Mrs. Mingus to take her home, that she couldn't do it, and then she was out of the car, standing next to Cherise.

Who was laughing at her, making no attempt to disguise it. "Calm down! Geez, you'd think I was taking you to get executed. It's just an audition, Megs. And it's not like they're gonna tell you you can't join - you already have. Remember? Everyone was nice to you at the workshops, now weren't they?"

Megan reluctantly nodded. "I guess..."

Cherise put her arm around Megan's shoulder, her green eyes meeting Meg's blue ones, having to stoop down for them to do so. How the two had ever become friends was a great mystery, right up there with 'where is Atlantis?' and 'did Spike really want his sould the whole time, or did the cave demon just double cross him?' Cherise was five years older than Megan, who was very short for her age anyway. The shortest in her class, in fact, something that pretty much nobody ever let her forget. Maybe if she just had the guts to stand up to them once in a while, they'd back off, but she never had, so they were still at it.

"If anybody tries to mess with you, just tell them that I'll kick their ass if they do, okay?"

Megan nodded, managing a weak smile. Cherise straightened back up, waved to her mother, who was just then finally getting around to leaving, and began to lead the way into the theater. Megan stared after the departing car, until a shout of, "Come on, Megs!" brought her back to reality, and she scampered after her friend like a lil bunny, through the glass double doors that led to the lobby. The doors were had a sign taped to them, but Meg went by it too quickly to read. Not that it really mattered; she knew what it said - Auditions for the Youth Theatre of Merriam County's production of Peter Pan, tonight at 6 PM.

Inside, everyone that Megan had met, or even just seen, at the workshops she had went to earlier that year, plus quite a few she had never seen before, stood, mostly just talking to one another. Cherise was signing something on one of the three tables set up along the walls, so Meg decided to join her.

A woman Meg hadn't noticed before stopped her before she could reach her friend. "Are you here for the audition?" she asked, and instantly Megan decided she didn't like her. She didn't look to be a whole lot older than Cherise, but she had an air of superiority about her that seemed to shout that she was better than everybody else here, and she knew it quite well. And then there was her next question, after Meg's timid nod to the first. "You do know that you have to be in sixth grade, don't you?"

By now, Megan thought, I should be used to this. She wasn't. "I do. I am." The woman gave her an odd look, shrugged, walked away. The dark side of Megan's mind considered making faces, or worse, at the woman's back, but, as normally happened, that was immediatly squashed by her common sense. That, and her fear of being caught and getting in trouble.

Cherise straightened back up, setting the pen she had been using back down next to the piece of paper on the table. "So... You ready for this?" she asked with a smile.

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"So... Are you ready for this?" he asked, his face masked by the shadows that surrounded him.

"I-I don't know," she answered, feeling a little nervous. The shadows seemed to be obscuring not just him, but the entire room. All she could see was a table, though not what was on it.

"I don't think you are. You don't even know the first thing about this, do you?"

"Isn't that what you're here for?"

She couldn't see his face, yet she knew he was smiling. "Exactly. Are you ready to learn, then?"

And then the shadows darkened, spread, drinking the light from the room, and sending her back from her dream, into her own bed again, not that she had ever left it. Light shone in from her window, too dim to be the sun. Sighing, she put her head back down on her pillow, and tried to get back to sleep.

2

The house seemed to be staring at Megan as she walked past it, as it did whenever she walked past it, and just like every other time, she shivered, trying not to look at it, her steps quickening. It had been abandoned for as long as she could remember, and the rumors that it was haunted had been around for nearly that long as well. Meg had never been closer to it than she was now - across the street - and, God willing, she never would be.

It probably wouldn't have comforted her much to know that it all wasn't just paranoia - it really was staring at her, truth be told.

She breathed a sigh of relief as the house left her field of sight, and luckily from there it was just a few more steps to her own house, which was very much not haunted, and was polite enough not to stare. She waved at Cherise, watering the flowerbed outside of the house next to Meg's, as she stopped to grab the mail out of her mailbox. As usual, it was mostly junk - sale papers from stores that she had never seen, much less been inside, offers for her mother to join a video club and three different music clubs - but there was also a couple bills, and, down at the bottom, a true rarity. A letter, addressed to her.

Curiously she looked to the return address, found it to be from the Youth Theatre. Her heart leapt to her throat, all sorts of scenarios blossoming in her head. That woman had told the director that she wasn't really old enough. Her audition had sucked, and they were going to make sure that she never acted again. Or, worse of all, she had gotten a part.

She threw the rest of the mail onto the kitchen counter, walked back to her room. There she set the letter on her desk, where it remained for most of the next hour while she stared at it, too nervous to open it, her Social Studies homework in front of her supposed to be getting finished.

When she heard the front door open, she still hadn't picked up her pencil or touched the enevlope again, and it didn't look like she would be doing either any time in the near future on her own, so, gathering her courage lest it grow teeth and try to bite off her fingers, she grabbed the letter, stuffed it into her pocket, and headed out her front door, shouting that she would be back in time for supper, just in case.

Cherise was no longer in the front yard, although Meg hadn't really thought she would be. She had long since ceased feeling weird about just barging into the Mingus's house, as she had done it for a good many years now, when Cherise's mother had told her she was going to wear the doorbell out, threatening that if she did, she would have to buy them a new one. She -had- figured out that that had been a joke, after a while, but by then she had gotten the message, and didn't bother with knocking, ringing, or anything.

"Hi, Megs," Cherise called from her room, where Megan joined her a moment later. "Did you get your letter?" Megan nodded. Cherise glanced up from the book she was studying, rolled her eyes. "You haven't opened it yet, have you?"

"No," Meg admitted, throwing herself down on her friend's bed. In some ways it was nice having a friend who could tell those sorts of things just by looking at you. In others, it was just plain creepy.

"You are such a scaredy-cat," Cherise told her, turning around in her chair. "I'll have to remember never to ask you to go sky diving with me, or mountain climbing, or for a walk across the street..."

"Have I ever mentioned how much I hate you?"

"See, this is why I ignore you most of the time..."

"Why did I think you would be any help?" Meg sat up, threw one of Cherise's pillows at her.

Cherise caught it somehow through her fit of giggles. "You are just so cute when you're angry!"

"I'm leaving now..." Meg said, standing.

"Come on, Megs, you know I'm joking. Let's see it." Megan pulled the envelope out of her pocket, handed it to her friend, and then nervously sat back down on the bed. Cherise dug around in her desk for a second, taking out a letter opener, and had used it on about half of the envelope before Meg sprang back up and snatched it away.

"I-I can't do this..." she mumbled, heading back to her own room, where she could stare at her half-opened letter without getting made fun of.

"You got a part," Cherise called after her. Megan was back in a flash, almost as if she had never left.

"How do you know?" she asked suspiciously.

"I got one of those too, you know..."

"Oh. Well, what part did I get?"

"I'm not gonna tell you! Look for yourself."

Meg stuck her tongue out at Cherise, but she finally had worked up the nerve, and ripped the envelope open the rest of the way, unfolding the paper inside, scanning it for her name. She missed it the first time, finding Cherise's instead.

"You're a pirate..." She had to stifle a laugh, not really sure why this struck her as funny.

"I prefer the term gypsy, thank you very much." And sure enough, it had 'Pirates/Gypsies' above the column that listed them. Cherise was third on the list, after Captain Hook and Smee. "Or you can just call me Starkey."

Megan's eyes had fallen back to the list, and this time she found herself.

"Oh, God." Her eyes widened, and she felt quite like fainting, or throwing up. She ended up doing neither, being too busy getting the air squeezed out of her by Cherise.

"Congratulations, Meg, see, I told you you'd do great!" Megan let the paper fall from her hand as she hugged her friend back. It flipped over in the air, landing upside-down, hiding the very last thing that Meg had expected to see - the first line of the cast list, her name down as the person playing Peter Pan.

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"There isn't much time," the shadow-man said urgently. "You have to pay attention if you want to have a chance."

"Sorry... I guess I'm just kind of preoccupied, I guess," she shrugged.

"I can see that," he said with that smile that you couldn't quite make out through the shadows. "You still need to know this, even so."

"Just give me a minute. I'm sure whatever this is, it can wait a minute..." she said, beginning to feel very annoyed at the shadow-man. Hadn't he ever heard of a little thing called patience?

"No, I don't think it can," he answered sadly.

And it couldn't, seeing as how she was awake a moment later.

3

The calendar mocked her, showing its many empty spaces like so many glittering teeth, grinning at her, whispering that she only had a few more days left until she had to go and make a fool of herself in front of Cherise and God only knew who else, at the same time telling her that it would be forever until practice started and she would actually have something other than homework to do during the afternoon. Megan wished it would make up it's mind so that she could know whether to be scared or excited - being both at the same time could be rather confusing.

Maybe if she actually knew what the role of Peter Pan entailed, she wouldn't be quite so nervous - would there be too many lines to memorize? Would there be five dances in a row that she had to be in, so that she would be having a heart attack by the time she got to her big scene, if she actually had one? Of course, if she would just go out and rent the movie, she would be able to figure all of that stuff out, but she hated going to Blockbuster, the only place in town. The people who worked there all freaked her out for some reason, probably because they all knew her name, even the new ones that she had never seen before in her life.

She sighed, turning away from the wicked calendar and back to the equally, if not more-so, wicked math. She knew that it was so horribly cliche to do so, seeing as how everybody else in her class felt the same way, but she absolutely hated math. Everything from the teacher, who could freeze a bonfire with one glance, to the actual math, which she was certain would never actually be useful, once she was out of school. All it ever did was make her angry, or make her sleepy. At the moment, given the weird dreams she had been having lately, she would have preferred angry, but mathematics, the most evil thing ever created, didn't give her a choice, and soon she was fast asleep.

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"Wait... You're not him!" she exclaimed, beginning to feel even more confused than she usually did during these dreams.

The man that sat before her now certainly wasn't hidden by the shadows. That was hard to do, when you were made out of fire. He gave her a funny look, and then started to laugh. "You sent me this?! What, did you run out of infants?" he called to somebody, unless he was just making fun of her.

If he wasn't virtually just a living cigarette lighter, wasn't across the table from him, and wasn't so much older and bigger than her, Megan would have hit him then. She hated people thinking she was just some little kid, even though she was fully aware that she did look younger than she actually was. It still got on her nerves, more than pretty much anything else. "I'm -not- a kid," she informed the man, straightening up to her full height, as unimpressive as that was, and fixing him with her most acidic look.

"Well, I guess if he's going to waste my time with this crap, he might as well send me easy opponents," the man said with a shrug.

"Whoa... Opponent? What are you..." She never got to finish her question, as the next moment, she was being flung across the dream room, slamming into the wall much harder than she would have thought she could in a dream.

"Do you have any idea at all what you're doing?" the man asked as she pulled herself to her feet speechlessly, her wild-eyed stare directed at him. She shook her head, only then noticing something on her side of the table, something she probably should have picked up, something she was probably supposed to be using. "Oh well. All the easier to finish you off."

She didn't have time to protest, or even speak, before she felt herself being lifted into the air by a giant hand made of black ice. Frightened, she began to beat at it with her fists, but all that did was make her hands as cold as the rest of her body was turning. "P-P-Please, let me go..." she whispered, ending with a loud gasp as the hand tightened, squeezing the air from her lungs. Blackness crept in from the corners of her vision, and she knew that this was the end, she was dying...

She fell to the ground, gasping for breath. She was vaguely aware that the man was standing now, a smile on his burning face. "All too simple. Make sure you tell him to send somebody a little more challenging next time. A chimp would do fine, I'm sure..." Megan was in too much pain to do anything about the insult, or about the feeling that followed it. it felt as if somebody was paging through her mind, reading her deepest secrets, and fears, and dislikes...

"So... Not a kid, huh? Could be fun, I guess...." Megan found herself on her feet again, wobbling a bit, but otherwise no worse for the wear. "You should thank me - usually I play to the death."

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She sat up, on the verge of tears. What was going on?! Had she gone crazy?! Would they let her stay in the play, if she was? She reached a shaking hand to her face to brush the hair out from in front of it. She had always heard that dreams had some sort of meaning, and sometimes she even believed it, but what did a man made out of fire, a giant black ice hand, and getting tossed around by invisible thingies mean? Nothing good, that was for sure. Probably that she needed more sleep.

Her math was still waiting for her, she realized with a sigh. But the clock on her desk informed her that it was now after midnight, and she knew that her mom would kill her if she was up much longer. She would just have to do it before math class, she decided as she stood.

A strange feeling made her glance down, confused. Why would her pants feel so wet? Well the big damp spot on them probably had something to do with it, and the puddle on her chair and the floor below it couldn't have helped much. She stared at it in shock for a minute, not believing she had actually wet her pants.

She was brought back to reality by a banging elsewhere in the house. Her mother. In a flash, she had her soaked jeans and panties off, and was using them to soak up the puddle as quickly as she could, then throwing them into her closet. She would have to wash them the next day...

She was already pulling on another pair of underwear, and her nightshirt, though not at the exact same time, on as she hurried to her bed, slipping off her light as she leapt in, pulling the covers up to her neck just as her door opened a crack. Silently, she prayed she had been fast enough, and quiet enough.

Her luck seemed to be with her that night - the door closed a second or two later, and Meg breathed a sigh of relief. Her luck held for most of the rest of the night, in fact. There were no more dreams, strange or otherwise. Unfortunatly, her luck must have abandoned her at one point, since she woke up the next morning to something more terrifying than even the most frightening of her nightmares.

She had wet the bed.

4

Was everybody in the whole freaking world shopping today?! Why didn't any of them have anything better to do?! Megan wondered bitterly as she wandered through Sav*A*Lot, the smallest and usually least crowded store in town. Usually. Not today, of course. Today, she could barely go down a single aisle without seeing somebody that she knew, or at least looked familiar. Elvis was probably in there somewhere, too, looking for her.

Her plan had been to hurry in after school so that she could get home before her mother, but she had already been here for almost half an hour, hoping that the crowd would thin out some. She didn't know how much longer she would be able to pretend she was walking around aimlessly before one of the people that worked there either asked her if she needed help or told her to leave.

Maybe she should just give up now - she wasn't sure that she would be able to go through with this, even if the store miraculously cleared out in the next two seconds. It was just too humiliating. She was twelve years old, for God's sake! She shouldn't be doing this, but that didn't seem to stop her. No, if anything was going to stop her, it would be fear. Cherise was right. She was a chicken.

It hadn't stopped. Somehow, she had known that it wouldn't, that it wouldn't just be a one night thing, but she had waited a couple days just to be sure. It wasn't as if there would be any use to have them, if she did stop. But, of course, she hadn't. How she had made it through the last three days, she had no clue; they had been the most harrowing experience she could recall having in quite a while.

She had very nearly been late for her first class each day, because she had to wait for her mother to leave for work before stuffing her sheets into the washing machine. There was no way she would let her mother know about this - it was bad enough -she- knew about it. And then after school she had rushed home so quickly that she hadn't even noticed the house glowering at her so that she could move them to the dryer. Actually, by that time, they were just a little damp, but she would rather be safe than sorry. So far, she had always had her bed made as if nothing were wrong by the time her mother came home, but she didn't want to risk it anymore. She had enough stress with school, and Youth Theatre starting the next day.

One good thing about wetting the bed was that it had taken her mind off of her anxiety about the play. That was the only good thing, really, but it was something at least. She hadn't been eating as much as usual, either, though, seeing as how she had already weighed about ten pounds less than people her age and height should, that couldn't really be counted as good.

Finally, she gathered her resolve, heading for the aisle she must have passed a hundred time already. This time would be different. This time, she was going to make herself go down it. This time, she was going to prove Cherise, and herself, wrong. This time...

"No," she moaned when she saw the three girls headed straight for her. "Not them..." She considered making a run for it, but it was too late. One of them was waving at her, for some reason Megan couldn't fathom. None of the three liked her at all, and in fact hated her quite a lot. They had never told her why, never talked to her unless they were making fun of her.

"Megan!" Cassie, the leader of the little group, called, and Megan weakly smiled at her, waving. "We saw you over here and just thought we'd congratulate you..."

"Huh?" Meg mumbled, feeling confused until she realized that most likely she was walking right into some sort of trap.

"Peter Pan, silly!" The answer came from Ellen, the youngest and smallest of the three, though she was still taller than Meg.

"How do you know about that?" she asked suspiciously.

"We're in it, too!" Cassie exclaimed. Megan tried to hide her surprise and horror. This day just kept getting better... She knew she should have read the cast list more closely!

"Umm.... Wow..." Megan replied, the most interesting thing her mind could come up with.

And then the trap sprang. "Only -we're- in the chorus. How could they let a no-talent little brat like you be Peter?!" Stephanie nearly screamed, shoving Megan backwards into the shelf full of cereal boxes behind her, knocking a few boxes to the floor.

"If you ruin this like you ruin everything else, we'll make you sorry you were ever born," Cassie promised, shoving Megan back into the shelf she had just untangled herself from. They didn't seem to have anything else to say, though the look on their faces said more than enough. The three of them stood in front of her for another minute or so, blocking all her routes of escape, until they heard a voice behind them.

"Why don't you leave her alone?" Cherise asked, sounding more dangerous than Megan had ever heard her. She was the kind of person that hated unfair odds, people ganging up against somebody, and anybody except for her making fun of Meg.

Cassie, Stephanie, and Ellen turned to Cherise, who was standing with her fists on her hips, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor. "Come on, let's go," Cassie said, just loud enough for the other two, and Meg, to hear. She hated admitting defeat, but not enough that she was going to get into a fight in the middle of the store. Not now that they had more than one opponent.

Stephanie gave Megan one last shove, for good measure, and this time the shelf, not the most sturdy thing under normal circumstances, collapsed. Megan fell to the floor, boxes raining down around her, as her three worst enemies hurried away, giggling madly. Cherise helped Megan to her feet, brushing imaginary dust from her skirt. "You okay, Megs?"

Megan shrugged, tears starting to well up in her eyes. Her back hurt where it had been run into the shelf, but her dignity was more injured than anything. "Just great," she said sarcastically.

Cherise smiled sympathetically down at her, giving her a little hug. "Come on, you can ride home with us... Mom should be almost done by now."

Megan had to think for a moment before answering. It was a tempting offer... She had to get this done, however, so she shook her head. "I-I have some things to do..."

Cherise shrugged. "Okay... You sure you're okay?" Megan nodded, and Cherise gave her another hug, then walked off to find her mother.

"Are you quite finished?" someone that, judging from their clothes, worked there asked quite nastily. "Or do you want to smash the doors on some of the freezers, too?"

Megan opened her mouth to tell him that it was her fault, but any words she would have said were drowned out as she began to cry. She ran away, wishing she could just vanish, ducking into the closest aisle and sitting down there, where the man wouldn't see her, even if he probably could still hear her.

She managed to calm herself down a few minutes later, enough to see where she was. Right in the middle of the baby care products, right where she had been trying to get all afternoon. Quickly, she looked around at them, wondering if she would be able to fit into regular diapers. Probably not, the way the day was going, she thought bitterly. Luckily, the store had adult diapers in the same aisle, just a few feet away. By then, she was starting to lose her nerve, and she forced herself to grab the closest package marked 'Small', darting straight to the check-out lanes, her face bright red.

She was still blushing furiously, a few tears still threatening to spill from her eyes, when she faced the cashier of the express lane, the only one that didn't have more than four people waiting. The cashier gave her a funny look, which Meg tried to ignore, looking at everything but the woman as she handed her the money, the remnants of her allowance for the past month. She had been planning on buying a CD or something with it, but this had seemed more important.

Megan grabbed the bag, glancing at it just long enough to see that it was paper so that nobody would be able to see through it, and hurried out of the store, praying she would have enough time to get home before her mother did. She was so worried about that, she jumped about a mile when she heard Mrs. Mingus's voice beside her.

"Hi, Megan!" she called from her car, waiting for the traffic light, one of only three in the whole town, to turn green. "Hop in!" Meg gladly did so, even managing a smile for Cherise and her mother, and a quiet 'thank you' when they arrive at their house, the only words she said during the entire trip.

Her sheets were still damp as she pulled them from the washing machine. She didn't have time to dry them now, however, barely had time to get them on her bed and to stick the diapers in the back of her closet. Later, that night, she nervously brought the package back out, wishing not for the first time that her door had a lock. Ripping it open, she pulled out one of the diapers, her heart sinking when she saw it. It looked almost exactly like one a baby would wear, except without the cartoon characters across the front. Was she really going to wear this?

She sighed as she stripped, set the diaper down on the chair in front of her desk, sitting down on top of it. It crinkled softly, but still too loud for her liking. Her first attempt ended up too loose. She had only done a little bit of babysitting, yet it had been enough to know that diapers had to be tight. She sighed again, tears starting to leak in between her tightly closed eyelids. It just wasn't fair!

It took another couple tried before she was satisfied that she wouldn't leak all over the place, then walked over to get her nightshirt. The bulging plastic garment, making soft noises with every move she made, the padding enfolding her, pushing in towards her from every direction, felt odd between her legs, and not in a good way.

She woke the next morning to an even odder feeling, something cold and clammy encircling to her crotch. Her brain never worked very swiftly when she first woke up, and it took her a moment to remember her 'adventures' of the day before, and that the feeling was a wet diaper. It didn't really seem like a very good omen for the rest of the day, the day that rehearsals finally began. Of course, it could have been worse... It could always be worse. She just wished she knew how.

5

Lo! t'is a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears

Megan yawned, the words in the book in front of her blurring, despite her best attempts to stop them. She wanted to pay attention, she really did - Mrs. Marsee was her favorite teacher, but she could be a bit... well, boring... at times. Her voice was definitely not one made for radio, or television, or anything that actually involved talking for more than a few seconds at a time. Not unless the point of her speaking was to put people to sleep.

Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

This class would have been so much easier if they could have just read the poems to themselves, instead of the teacher doing it for them. But if they did that, then half of the people probably would never actually open their books. So they all suffered, even the ones who would have done their work.

As Megan was contemplating the extreme injustice of this, the person at the desk in front of her turned around. Although she was sure that it had been a girl when she had walked in, she wasn't anymore. No, not at all... In fact, it was Brian, the boy she had had a crush on for the past two years, but, in true Meg style, had never had the courage to say anything to.

"Hi," he said, smiling. Meg returned the smile, unable even to return the greeting. Fortunatly, he must have found that cute, because his smile widened, and he leaned his chair back so that he was closer to her. "Boring class, huh?" Megan shrugged, as she always did when people said that, torn between her loyalty to her favorite teacher and the fact that this really was a very boring class.

That seemed to be all Brian needed to know. His smile widened even further, making him look like an angel, in a manly way, and Meg found herself half-standing up so that she could lean all the way across her desk, meeting Brian somewhere in the empty space that used to exist between them. Their lips brushed together in a moment of pure ecstasy, and then...

Out--out are the lights--out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm

Then she woke up. She gave out a sad little sigh when she saw that the person in front of her was indeed a girl, not her long lost love. Life truly was unfair, she decided.

Of course, it was then, when she was sure that her day had reached its lowest point, that she felt the warmness in her crotch, down her legs. "No!" she blurted out, quickly looking down at her book when everybody turned to see what she was yelling about. Mrs. Marsee paused for a moment, then continued reading.

And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
- Edgar Allen Poe

Thankfully, the bell rang just as Mrs. Marsee set her book down, a sure sign that she was going to start asking questions. Nearly everybody was already out of the room by the time the ringing ended, leaving Megan and Mrs. Marsee alone. At least it wouldn't be as embarassing with just one person instead of twenty, though still, she would much prefer that nobody know that she had just had an accident like some three year old.

Luck, it seemed, had fallen in love with Megan. He may not have been as good a kisser as imaginary Brian, but at least he had the good grace to get Mrs. Marsee out of the way. "I have to run, Megan, but if you still want to look through the assignment list, it's on my desk... Just be a dear and lock up the classroom when you leave, okay?"

Megan nodded mutely, hardly able to believe this stroke of fortune. Good thing she had been late to class that day, and hadn't had time to choose the subject for her end of the year research paper... This was probably the only time she was actually glad she was clumsy. After all, if she hadn't managed to run into somebody's locker door just as they were opening it, she wouldn't have had to pick all of her things up off of the floor, while trying to keep from getting stepped on at the same time, she would have been on time!

As soon as Mrs. Marsee was out of the door, Megan darted up and slammed it shut, locking it and pulling the shade down over the window that took up nearly half of it. Then, reluctantly, she surveyed the damage to her clothes, feeling relieved that it wasn't nearly as bad as she had feared. Nothing that couldn't be fixed, with a little help from a teacher's absentmidedness.

Mrs. Marsee wore a sweater to school every day, even in the middle of the summer, and every day, without fail, she left it on the back of her chair when she went home, until the end of the week, by which time her chair looked like it was some sort of messed up lab experiment involving small, innocent animals and a steamroller, when she finally remembered to take them with her. Megan felt a little guilty taking one of them, but this was important... Besides, she would get it back to her, somehow, someday.

As she tied a light blue sweater around her waist, she scanned the list, quickly choosing Mythology as the subject for her paper. After cleaning up her chair with a roll of paper towels from Mrs. Marsee's desk, she grabbed her backpack and all but ran from the school, hoping that nobody would see her and ask why she was wearing a teacher's clothes.

She didn't have much time before rehearsal, so she grabbed the pair of pants closest to the top of the drawer that usually had the most clean clothes. Her hand froze when she used it to grab some clean panties, however. What if it happened again? Wouldn't it be safer to... No. No, she wasn't a baby, she could control herself, during the day at least. Unless this was some sort of serious medical problem. Maybe she should tell her mother after all...

She reached further into the drawer, her mind made up. She was -not- wearing a diaper, and that was final! But even as she thought that, a terrible vision flooded her mind, one of Stephanie, Cassie, and Ellen all standing next to her, laughing and pointing at the ever-growing wet spot on Megan's pants. That was the very last thing she needed to happen, something that she never wanted to actually happen, no matter what the cost. Why couldn't those three have found something else to do besides being in the stupid play with her?!

"Wait for me!" she called as she ran from her yard to the Mingus's, nearly stumbling a couple times from the unaccustomed thickness between her legs. The car stopped halfway down the driveway, and Megan hopped into the back seat, her heart stopping at the noise her diaper made. The others didn't seem to notice, however.

In fact, nobody noticed, or if they did, they didn't give any indication of it. Megan was too nervous that they would, however, that she barely managed to make it through the rehearsal, even though all they did was read through the script. Cherise tried to introduce her to some of her friends, but quickly realized that she was distracted by something, and gave up, correctly assuming that she would forget nearly everything anybody told her. Megan barely remembered anything from that afternoon by the time she got home, except that she had an insane number of lines, more than likely too many for her to ever have a prayer of memorizing. Why had she let Cherise talk her into this?!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"You should have listened to me," the shadow man said, drumming his fingers against the table. "He wouldn't have caught you off guard that way..."

"Oh, shut up!" Megan said angrily, turning away from him. "You're just a dream..." The man laughed at her, probably was going to say something else, but Meg cut him off. "Why can't you leave me alone?! Just... Just go to hell!"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Megan stared quietly into her closet, knowing she was going to have to make a choice soon, or she would be late. The problem was that she really didn't want to do this, but she also didn't want to humiliate herself in front of the entire school. Then again, there was always the chance of that happening whether or not she wore it. If she wet herself, yes, that would be bad, but it would be equally bad if someone saw she had on a diaper. But how would they do that? She hadn't needed the diaper at rehearsal, but that had only been a couple hours...

How had things ended up this way, with her having to make this ridiculous decision? She wished she knew, yet still she had no clue. Reluctantly, she pulled the small, white torture device from the package, already mentally preparing herself, as best she could, for her first diapered day of school. It was certainly going to be a long one...

Suddenly, she threw it back into her closet, slamming the door shut. No, she wasn't going to do this! Yesterday had been a fluke, nothing more, and it wasn't going to happen again! She wouldn't let it! At night, she may be a diaper wearing freak, but there was no way the same thing would happen during the day, not if she had any say in it!

She didn't.

6

Megan growled quietly as she frantically shuffled through the contents of her locker, trying to find her math book. She knew it was in there - that was where it had gotten left the day before, when she had left in too big of a hurry to bother with stupid little details like her homework. If she could just find it, though, she could get it finished during lunch, and Mr. Spencer would never have to know...

But it wasn't there. It should have been, but for some reason, it was nowhere to be seen. She was about to give up when she saw a paper bag, down at the bottom, where Crystal, the girl she shared the locker with, usually kept all her stuff. It would have been much easier to let Megan have that part, seeing as how she could reach it without having to stand on her tip toes, unlike the shelf. And Crystal barely had enough stuff to fill the shelf, taking up only a little corner of the bottom half, while Meg never had enough room. But Crystal was bigger than her, and somewhat of a bully, and hadn't given her a choice.

Normally, she wouldn't have given the bag a second glance. She was desperate, however, and it looked like it might be about the right size. Bending over, she stuck her hand inside, a little disapointed that it seemed to be empty. Well, it seemed to be, until she touched the bottom and something brushed against her hand.

She gasped, leaping backwards and knocking the bag over, only to find herself being pushed forward again, into the locker, which was promptly shut. The click of the door locking itself seemed to echo as Meg turned to face it instead of the back of the locker. She couldn't see out, but she could hear, and what she heard was pretty much what she had expected to.

"I guess your friend isn't here to help you now, is she, little Meggy?" Cassie asked quietly, probably not wanting to attract too much attention to herself. At least not the kind of attention that talking to a locker would have gotten her.

"Let me out! Please, there's something in here!" Megan begged, too scared to care about wounding her dignity by asking for something from her worst enemy.

"Of course there is! We didn't want you to get lonely..." Ellen said, a little louder. The hallways were emptying by now, all of the students headed for the cafeteria.

Megan threw herself against the door, which, as usual, even when she was on the outside, wouldn't budge for her. "Don't leave me in here!" she screamed, starting to cry. Why did everything happen to her?!

There was no answer, unless you counted the faint, and growing steadily fainter, sound of laughter that came from Cassie's little gang as they walked away. Something slithered across her foot and she screamed again, giving a little jump that slammed her head into the bottom of the shelf. Why had she chosen today to wear her new sandals? was the last thing she thought, before she collapsed, unconscious onto the floor of the locker.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"We're gonna be late!" Megan whined, fidgeting in her car seat. She absolutely hated riding in it... She was a big girl now, after all, just turned five! But her mommy and daddy said she was still too small.

"No, we'll be right on time," her daddy assured her. Normally, that would have been enough. Not today, though. No, today, she was too worried about being late to her ballet class.

"Are too gonna be late," she pouted, crossing her arms. "And then they won't let me dance..."

Daddy sighed. "I'm sure they'll understand if you're a few minutes late, honey. It's pretty foggy out here, and I imagine they'd rather you be late then not show up at all..."

"I guess," Megan conceded, though she kept pouting. She was always afraid that she would get kicked out of the class altogether if she didn't show up right on time, and that was the last thing she wanted. "Can't you go a little faster?"

"Meg, sweetheart, Daddy is busy right now - could you please be quiet?" He turned slightly in his seat as he said it, giving her a little smile to take the harshness from his words.

It was just a second. It shouldn't have mattered that much, but, somehow, it did. He turned to face her at just the wrong time, the only time so far during the whole trip that they had seen any other car on the road at all.

Megan saw the headlights, coming straight for them, though she didn't realize how close they were until she heard the screaming of metal against metal, and by then it was too late. Too late to scream out, far to late to do anything about it. She had been too slow to stop the wreck... Too slow to save her father's life....

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Megan's eyes shot open, breathing heavily. For a moment, she was afraid that she was going to start crying, like she almost always did after she had that dream. Then she had something even worse to think about, namely, the horrible cramping in her bowels.

Frantically, she fought to hold it back, as if it wasn't already too late. When she felt the slithering over her foot again, though, she forgot all about her futile little struggle, and just shrieked again. Her body took full advantage of her inattention, and by the time she had calmed down enough to care, her panties were filled with a warm, mushy load of poop.

It wasn't long before she could smell herself, or, more specifically, her accident, and she started bawling, ashamed at herself, angry at Cassie, and just generally not in a very good mood. How was she going to get out of this? Even if she could get out of the locker, she still had to get home, or at least to a bathroom, without anyone seeing her, or else she could never show her face at school again.

She was still crying when her locker door was pulled open, letting light flood in, revealing her in all of her lack of glory, and her cell mate - a little black snake that quickly slithered away. Megan's tear stained eyes tilted upwards, scared to see who her rescuer was.

"Cherise?" she asked, confused. "Wh-What are you doing here? Your locker's on the other side of the building..."

"Yes, dear, I know where my locker is," Cherise informed her, rolling her eyes. "I still have to walk this way to get out of the school, though."

Megan blinked a couple times, feeling very confused. "And you're getting out of the school because..?"

"Megan. Honey. You are aware that you're supposed to go home after your last class, yes?"

Megan gasped. "Oh, God, I missed math, didn't I? Mr. Spencer's gonna kill me!"

"Spencer? Yeah, I don't think he'll be too happy with you skipping out on him..." Cherise said, completely non-comfortingly.

"It's not like I had a choice," Megan haughtily informed her friend, not in the mood for this now.

"So I gathered. Come on, let's go home..." Cherise took Megan's hand, helping her to her feet. The hallway seemed to spin for a minute, and Megan felt her balance starting to become non existant. Cherise kept a hold of her, however, keeping her from falling. "Are you okay?" she asked, starting to sound worried. Megan shrugged. "Do you need to see the nurse?"

"No!" Megan answered quickly. The less people to see her like this, the better. And, speaking of people... "Where is everyone?"

Cherise rolled her eyes again. "I had to help Mrs. Marsee look for one of her sweaters." Megan blushed, feeling guilty, yet not enough to admit to her little act of theivery the day before.

Cherise walked Megan home, keeping a close eye on her. Megan was almost afraid that she would want to come inside with her, but she stopped at the doorway, telling her that if she thought she needed to go to the hospital or something, she could always call her. Megan smiled weakly, then all but slammed the door in her face. If she had figured out that Megan had pooped herself, she hadn't said anything. Of course, she might have just been being nice, for once, but how likely was that? Still, Megan would have felt a lot better knowing that Cherise -hadn't- noticed - having her best friend know that she was turning into some kind of freak with the potty training of an infant wasn't the most pleasant thought in the world.

Megan was more than happy to change her clothes and take a shower. Once she felt clean again, which seemed to take forever, she went into her room, ready at last to accept her horrible fate. This had been too close, and she wasn't going to risk it, not again. And if that meant she had to wear diapers, well... So be it.

Elizabeth

7

"I'll kill them," Megan growled, squeezing the pencil so hard that it snapped in two. Somehow, the fact that she had a diaper on under her baggy jeans made her feel a little less fierce than usual, but it did nothing to dampen her anger. "I don't know when, I don't know how, but I swear, someday I'm gonna kill them."

Cherise sighed, taking the two halves of her pencil from Megan's hand. "Remind me never to let you borrow anything from me ever again."

Cassie, Stephanie, and Ellen glanced as one over at Megan, and then turned away, giggling. "I hate them," Meg announced. "I wish they were never born. I wish they would all be struck by lightning, or set on fire, or..."

"My little Meggers is growing up," Cherise said with a mock sniffle. "She's finally realized the secret of life - violence solves everything."

Before Megan had the chance to come up with anything to respond to that with, the director entered the green room, which immediatly quieted down. When Megan had seen the director for the first time, she had been shocked, surprised, and, most of all, in love. For one thing, he wasn't all that much older than the kids he would be directing, seeing as how he was only 22, and the oldest of the actors had just turned 19. He was also rather cute, having the dreamiest big brown eyes, semi-long brown hair, and an earring - today it was a little silver skull - in his left ear. He had even shown them his tattoo, the Chinese symbol for magic, on his right arm, during one of the workshops.

Megan had felt a little guilty when she realized she had a crush on him, until she realized that Brian more than likely couldn't care less about what she did, or who she liked. Of course, the director, who insisted that everyone call him by his first name, Jeremiah, was a decade older than her, so it wasn't like she had a chance anyway. Still, she could dream, couldn't she?

"Break's over," he told them, his voice filling the room without him having to raise the volume above that of his normal speaking voice. "I need Hook and Peter Pan onstage, and everyone else to go to the music room to work on songs with Mitzi."

Megan breathed a sigh of relief, glad that she got to work with Jeremiah, and not just because she would get to look at him. It had turned out that the woman who had questioned her age at the auditions was the musical director for the summer, Miss Lynch. Only Jeremiah was allowed to call her Mitzi, as Meg had found out two days ago, at the first rehearsal.

She smiled nervously up at Josh as they followed Jeremiah onto the stage. Josh was a senior, so this would be his last year in the youth theatre. Megan wasn't completely certain, but she was pretty sure that he was about two feet, if not more, taller than her, and outweighed her by at least 175 pounds. She didn't look forward to the sword fight with him, even if she knew she was going to win. She -was- the hero, after all! Josh returned the smile, looking nothing like Captain Hook for the moment.

"Megan, right?" Jeremiah asked. Megan nodded, happy that he knew her name, even if it was his job. "You can have a seat if you want," he said, gesturing at a semi-circle of chairs. Megan nodded, choosing the chair in the exact middle, setting her script down in the empty seat to her right.

"Now, during the audition, you said that you had never used a sword before, right?" Megan nodded again. "Okay. Well, me and Josh have been working on some simple choreography for the fight. I doubt you'll be able to memorize this today, and we might change some of it anyway, but I thought you'd like to see it, to get some kind of idea what you'll be doing."

Megan nodded, feeling a little confused. How had they been choreographing, if they hadn't had her? Jeremiah was just as tall as Josh was, though a good deal thinner... That would make quite a bit of a difference, or so Meg assumed. And then Jeremiah got down on his knees, making Megan feel stupid for having not figured out that he could have done that.

She had been hoping that the fight would be simpler, or at least slower, since one of the participants wasn't using his feet, but she was wrong. Jeremiah was quick, even on his knees, and soon Megan was sure that this, along with nearly everything else in this play, was going to be impossible for her to learn in time for the play, or her high school graduation, for that matter. Who did they think she was, anyway, some kind of robot?

"Did you get any of that?" Jeremiah asked when they finally finished up.

Megan shook her head miserably. "Sorry," she said quietly, her feeling of confusion melting away to one of stupidity. They were going to think she was some sort of idiot. Not that she wasn't entirely sure that she wasn't. She did wear diapers, after all.

Jeremiah smiled. "I didn't really think you would. Come here." Megan obediently got up, walking over to them, taking the plastic sword from Jeremiah. "Now, you start in this position..."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Megan glanced around, adjusting her grip on the handle of the sword. There were at least three of them, but it was rare for them to hunt in packs that small, so she was prepared for more. There was no way they hadn't noticed her yet - if they hadn't seen her, they would have at least smelled her blood, lurking just below her skin. That was what they were after. That was what she wouldn't let them have.

She had been hunting them for the past week, but every time she thought she was getting close, they seemed to vanish without a trace. This time, however, she wasn't going to give them a chance, if that was their plan. Somehow, she doubted it very much. The two that she had spotted had probably just been seperated from the others, and trying to find them. Now that they had been reunited, Megan's instincts told her that they would attack.

As usual, she was right. With an unholy screech, the first leapt down at her, and she turned, bringing the sword up so that the creature's own momentum speared it. She pulled the sword free just in time to turn and face the second as it slowly adanced, licking its lips, as if it could already taste her. A quick glance to either side showed that she was being surrounded.

She cursed, knowing this was it. There was no way she could hold off this many. She held her breath for a moment, and then she charged at the one straight in front of her, bringing the sword back, swinging it as hard as she could at its neck. It went all the way through, and the head fell off of the thing's neck with an unnaturally loud...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Thump.

Megan sat up slowly, trying to figure out if it had just been in her dream, or if it was real.

Thump.

"Not again," she whispered, shutting her eyes as she drew her knees up to her chest, her lips moving in a silent prayer.

Thump.

The damp padding of her diaper squished slightly as she rocked back and forth, hugging her knees against herself. She should have known... It had been almost a month since the last time.

Thump.

Closer this time. A pair of tears made their way down her cheeks. She should have known, but she had just thought that maybe it was over, maybe the last time she had finally earned forgiveness.

Thump.

She jumped a little. This one was even closer, even louder. She should have known better than to get her hopes up. But she did, every time. And every time, she was disappointed. So why did she keep doing it? Was she really that stupid?!

Thump.

Her tears increased, in number and size, as her lips moved more quickly. Not that it ever helped. Nothing ever did. Why hadn't she figured that out by now? She wanted to get up, to hide, but there was nowhere that she wouldn't be found, eventually, and then it would just be worse. Her legs didn't seem to be working, anyway.

Thump.

Almost there. "Not again," she whispered one more time.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

8

It couldn't be true. It just couldn't be. A trick, that was what it was... It had probably taken them all weekend to come up with it, and any second now they would all be laughing at her, telling her how stupid she had been to believe it.

But somehow, in the pit of her stomach, she knew that this was no trick, no ruse to make her look like an idiot in front of everybody in the school, which would no doubt be where they would have revealed the truth. Megan felt dazed as she shuffled from one class to another, hardly listening to anything her teachers said, too shocked to be able to think of anything else but the practical joke that was no joke.

It felt odd, knowing that her own problems last Friday night had been nothing, not compared to what Stephanie's parents must have been going through. She had no idea what they had felt, what it possibly could have been like, walking into their daughter's room, finding her... Actually, she didn't -want- to have any idea how they felt. She knew all about losing a member of her family, about feeling responsible, but she also knew that it had to be worse for parents, especially when they had only had one child.

She hadn't seen Cassie or Ellen anywhere, wondered if they had skipped school. It was a small town, after all, and pretty much everyone, at the school, anyway, knew how close the three had been. Megan wasn't sure that she would have been able to face them, if they had been there. She had said her share of mean things about all three of them, Stephanie included, over the years and even if they had been more cruel, she still felt ashamed, now that Stephanie was...

God, why couldn't she even bring herself to think about the word?! It was just three letters, one simple syllable, yet she was hiding from it as if it were a fire breathing dragon. Not the friendly kind, like that one on Shrek - No, more like one from Reign of Fire. And Meg didn't really like fire at all, even when it wasn't being breathed by giant lizards. In fact, she hated it, ever since she had burned herself on during a camp out with Cherise's Girl Scout... group... thingie. She wasn't sure what they were called, since she had never actually been a member, just tagging along with Cherise occasionally.

No, that wasn't the point! The point was... Was... Something. She couldn't even remember now, she had gotten herself so off track! She always tended to overthink everything, and then by the time she had gotten back to the main thought, she was too confused to care about it anymore. Maybe this time that was a good thing; no, that sounded like she didn't care that Stephanie had... She did care, she just didn't need to think about it too much during her classes, or else she would learn absolutely nothing, and probably end up failing everything. She didn't need that, not by any stretch of the imagination. Some of her teachers would understand, of course, but not all of them.

The bell rang, sounding about twice as loud as usual. Megan stared up at it for a few moments before realizing that she was supposed to be going to lunch, and only when her classmates began to slowly funnel out of the door did she stand, gathering her things silently.

The hallways seemed even more crowded today, but somehow it only took Cherise about three seconds to find her. They usually just met each other in the cafeteria, but today Cherise must have just sensed that Megan needed her sooner. "Did you hear?" she asked, almost before Megan had noticed her there.

Megan nodded, tears that had been building up all day starting to escape. "I-I didn't really want her to..." she said miserably.

If she was looking for any absolution of guilt from Cherise, she must have been crazy - the only reply she got was a "Huh?"

"Last Friday! At rehearsal, I said..." Her little off hand comment had been haunting her ever since she had heard the news that morning. Cherise still looked clueless. "When I broke your pencil!"

"Oh..." Cherise suddenly started giggling.

"Stop it!" Meg hissed, horrified. What was wrong with her?!

"Meg, I hate to have to tell you this, but this isn't your fault... Just because you said that you were going to kill them doesn't mean that you made her die."

"I didn't mean it..." Megan said quietly.

"I know, honey." Cherise put her arm around Megan's shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

"I didn't want her to... to die..." Megan sobbed. There was a series of thuds as her books fell to the floor, but by then, she didn't care, because she was being hugged her best friend, crying her eyes out over one of the meanest people she had ever met.

------------------------------

"I'm sure you've all heard by now," Jeremiah said, obviously trying to sound like everything was normal. "That one of our members, Stephanie Nelson, died in her sleep last Friday night. I know that this is a great loss, but remember the old theatre adage - the show must go on. The other board members and I have decided to give you the rest of the week off, and to dedicate this year's show to Stephanie's memory.

"Now, go home. Get some rest, enjoy the time off. And be back here next Monday, ready to do your best so that we can put on the best show we can. For Stephanie."

9

It took longer for her to hear about the second death, mostly because she was the only one that knew about her 'connection' to him. If she had been in the habit of looking at the obituaries in the local newspaper, she would have seen, but she couldn't remember the last time she had done that. Possibly never.

Brian McKinley... At first she had hoped that it was a different Brian, seeing as how she never had figured out his last name, even after two years of secretly being in love with him, but when she had described him to Cherise, she found out that it really had been him. The hospital, where her mother worked, was in an uproar - two teenagers, both found dead in their beds the same night, with no explanation whatsoever, even after autopsies had been done on them. They did their best to keep it quiet, until they found out what was going on, but in a small town, that was extremely difficult, usually to the point of pure impossibility, and soon nearly half of the school vanished, all claiming to be sick from something or other, though in reality afraid that they would catch whatever Brian and Stephanie had had. Or, more accurately, their parents were afraid they would.

Megan was sure that the pincipal would make them come back to school eventually, but until then, she enjoyed not having nearly as many people around her. Less people to make fun of her that way, and less people to find out about her diapers, which she still wore every day, even though, to her delight, her accidents had dwindled down to just one every other day or so. Maybe she really -had- been sick, and she was getting better! Either that, or she was just too busy getting ready for finals, which it was being rumored would be pushed back a week because so many people were skipping school, to bother with wetting her pants. She would have thought that she would be needing diapers more now, since she was so busy, and under so much stress not to flunk and be forced to redo sixth grade, but whatever. She was happy about it anyway. Unfortunatly, she still wet her bed every night, so that wasn't really very likely. She was going to have to buy more diapers soon, something she didn't look forward to at all.

It was odd - even though Megan felt terrible about it, and terrible in general, she still hadn't cried over Brian's death. Maybe it was because she didn't really know him, and in her heart she had always known that she never would, or maybe she had used up all her tears on Stephanie. Whatever it was, she felt so guilty about it that she decided that she had to make it up to Brian's parents somehow, even if they had no idea who she was, even less so than Brian had.

And that was why she voyaging into the final frontier, one which she had been banned from entering while at Cherise's house because she used to be so horrid at it - cooking. Why Cherise's parents couldn't just forgive her for her one little oversight was beyond her; after all, how was she supposed to have known that she was only supposed to put a teaspoon of salt into the cookies, and not a tablespoon, like she had done? It was an honest mistake, forgetting that the capital T stood for something different than the lower case one.

She did know the difference now, but she didn't want to risk anything like that happening this time, so she had stopped at the store and got a mix for lemon poppyseed muffins. All she had to worry about for them was water, oil, and an egg, all of which she had, and could figure out the measurements for. They turned out to be even easier to make than Meg had expected, and a couple minutes after she had opened the box, she was fleeing the kitchen, waiting for them to finish baking. The oven made the room even warmer than it usually was in the middle of summer, and the green and white sweater she had on, the last clean thing with long sleeves she could find in her dresser, didn't help.

She was only halfway through her math homework when the timer went off in the kitchen. Happy for any reason to get away from math, she scurried out of her room, and a few moments later, she was on her way to Brian's house, nervously clutching the basket she had put the muffins in. She had only been there once, back when the crush had first set in. Even then she hadn't gone in, or even within a hundred feet, of the house - she had just followed Brian home from school one day. She would have done it the next day as well, and probably every day after that, but she realized how much like a stalker that would make her seem.

Like this -didn't- make her look like a stalker. She had made muffins for the family of somebody she had never even properly met. Her finger paused an inch from the doorbell as a vision of Brian's parents, who, in her mind, were just older versions of Brian, calling the police on her and demanding that she be put into jail.

She shook her head, wondering where that had come from. She just had an overactive imagination, that was it. The door was answered by a little girl, about six years old. "H-Hello," Megan said, feeling a little confused. Was she at the wrong house. "Are you Brian's sister?" The girl nodded, then smiled at her.

"Do you wanna play?" she asked. Meg gave her a strange look. Why would she want to play with some girl, half her age, that she had just met? Little kids were odd, and much more daring than she was.

"I have to get home..." she said apologetically. "Are your...?" She was cut off by the sight of the girl's face screwing up, and then by the sound of wailing as she burst into tears.

Her parents showed up in a flash, giving Megan a disapproving look. "Sh-She doesn't want to play with me!" the girl cried, pointing at Meg, who, at that moment, would have been quite happy to be struck by lightning.

"It's okay, sweetie," Brian's mom told her, stroking the girl's hair comfortingly. "You don't want to play with her anyway - she's just a baby."

Megan opened her mouth to protest, only to find that there was a pacifier in it. So instead she stamped her foot, glaring at them. She was -not- a baby! Even if she had to wear diapers...

"Aww, is the baby going to throw a temper tantrum?" Brian's mother asked, only half mocking. "Maybe she needs to be changed. Is that it? Does baby have a messy diaper?" Meg shook her head, horrified that the woman could even suggest such a thing. "I think somebody isn't telling the truth..." The woman shook her head sadly. "Even Jenny knows that you shouldn't lie." The little girl nodded proudly. Suddenly, the woman reached out, grabbed Megan's skirt, pulled it off. Megan would have gasped if it hadn't been for the pacifier, and not just because of that. Her diaper really was soiled. "Naughty baby... You better come inside so I can punish you..."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Megan was brought back to reality as the door opened, revealing a woman nothing like either version her mind had came up with, yet still obviously related to Brian. Meg quickly moved her finger away from the doorbell, glad she hadn't needed to work up the courage to press it, especially after that little daydream. Especially since she could feel the mess in the back of her diapers, just like in the dream.

"M-Mrs. McKinley?" she asked, her voice shaking.

"Yes, that's me. Can I help you, hon?" She sounded much nicer in real life.

"I was a friend of Brian's, from school. I-I made these for you. Sorry if they don't taste too great, I'm not a very good cook." Megan blushed, and she pushed the basket into the woman's hands.

"That's sweet of you..."

"Megan," Meg said quietly.

"...Megan. I'm sure they taste fine." Mrs. McKinley smiled at her kindly. "Would you like to come inside?"

Megan shook her head, trying to string together two words that weren't too similar to any of the phrases she had used in the dream. "My mom... Home... I..."

"Well, thank you." Mrs. McKinley set the basket down on a little table by the door, gave Megan a hug, harder than Meg was expecting, or used to. Then again, most hugs weren't given to her by people whose sons had just died. Meg tried to hide her wince before Mrs. McKinley had pulled away, but wasn't fast enough. "You okay, sweetie?"

"I'm fine," Meg replied, smiling fakely.

"All right. Thanks again. Drop by anytime." Megan smiled again, and hurried away, eager to get back home, and get her diaper changed. She was in such a rush, in fact, that she didn't notice that the door was unlocked, or at least didn't think much about it. She had probably just forgotten to lock it again; she did that every once in a while.

At least, she didn't think about it until she was in the house, on her way past the living room and to her bedroom, and she heard her mother's voice, stopping her cold in her tracks. "Just where do you think you've been, young lady?"

10

Megan cursed under her breath, wracking her mind for some explanation that wouldn't get her mother even more angry at her. Unfortunatly, her mouth, like usual, worked much faster than her brain, and before she had a chance to think of anything, she had already said, "Just out for a walk..." There was only silence from the living room for what seemed an eternity, never a good sign. What was she going to do? She knew what was going to come next, and facing it with a messy diaper made it seem even worse than usual. "I-I'm gonna go take a shower, momma..."

That went over just about as well as she had expected. "Get in here, young lady!" For a moment, Megan was torn between obeying, knowing it would be simpler if she did, and not, knowing it would be less humiliating if she didn't. Just a moment. And then she was running into her room, knowing full well that if she hurried, there was no way that her mother could catch her in time, not with her limp. For the first time in nearly a week, she grabbed a pair of panties instead of a diaper, and then dashed into the bathroom, locking the door.

She stood there for a minute, leaning against the wall, trying to calm herself down. Her heart felt like a jackhammer banging against her chest, trying to rip free. Her mother had almost found out... That was one thing she could never let happen. Finally, with a sigh, she stood back on her own two feet. She was going to have to get started, or else she would be in here all day, and -that- certainly wouldn't help anything, would just make things worse for her.

She had always hated changing diapers, even the few times she had babysat. Now that the diapers she was changing were her own, she hated it even more. She was pretty sure she was getting a rash, since she had forgotten to get any powder, or lotion, or anything else like that. Of course, getting the diapers themselves had been nerve-wracking enough - buying anything else probably would have given her a coronary. She would have to next time, though, unless she wanted the rash to get a lot worse.

She cleaned herself up as well as she could, throwing the diaper away in the garbage can under the sink until she could sneak it to the one outside the house after dumping as much of the mess into the toilet as she could, before getting into the shower to finish the job. As the water beat down against her tiny body, wishing that she didn't know exactly what was going to happen once the water was turned off, and she ventured out of her sanctuary, the only place that she knew her mother couldn't get into.

All too soon, the water trickled to a stop, and Megan, shivering, dried herself off before stepping out of the shower and putting her clothes back on. It felt odd, putting something so thin on underneath her skirt, after the past week, and any other time, she would have been happy. But not now. She didn't think anything would make her happy now. How could it be happening again, so soon?!

Megan sighed, ventured forth into the living room, where her mother was still waiting. She didn't look too pleased at all. "Hi, momma," Meg said, making herself smile so she wouldn't cry. "Y-You wanted to see me?"

"You know damn well I wanted to see you," her mother growled. "Get your ass over here, girl." Megan gulped, obeyed.

She could smell it on her mother's breath, stronger than she would have expected this early in the day. She sighed again, remembering, just barely, a time, long ago when she hadn't had to worry about this, a time when she had had a father, and the hope for a little sister...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"We're gonna be late!" Megan whined, fidgeting in her car seat. She absolutely hated riding in it... She was a big girl now, after all, just turned five! But her mommy and daddy said she was still too small.

"No, we'll be right on time," her daddy assured her. Normally, that would have been enough. Not today, though. No, today, she was too worried about being late to her ballet class. "Be quiet, hon..."

"Are too gonna be late," she pouted, crossing her arms, not caring that mommy was taking a nap in the front seat. She slept a lot these days, when she wasn't throwing up, or eating weird things. "And then they won't let me dance..."

Daddy sighed, casting a desperate look over at his wife, finding no help there. "I'm sure they'll understand if you're a few minutes late, honey. It's pretty foggy out here, and I imagine they'd rather you be late then not show up at all..."

"I guess," Megan conceded the point, but wasn't ready to resign herself to being late. "Can't you go a little faster?"

"Meg, sweetheart, Daddy is busy right now - could you please be quiet?" He turned slightly in his seat as he said it, giving her a little smile to take the harshness from his words. God, what was it going to be like, having -two- kids bugging him about this kind of thing while he was driving, and, if Meg was any indication, every other waking moment?

Sometimes a second seems longer than that. Sometimes it's more significant than it truly has any right to be. This was one of them. Time seemed to stretch on forever as the lights appeared in front of them, yet it still wasn't long enough for Meg to find her voice, to say something, anything...

Her eyes opened to a place she had never seen before, and she would have been scared out of her mind, had her grandparents not been there. "Grampa, Gramma!" she shrieked, leaping out of the bed, much larger than the one she had at home, at them. She didn't see the grief on their faces, maybe just didn't know what it was. "Where is this? Where's mommy and daddy?" she asked as she finally pulled away, seating herself on her grandmother's lap.

She didn't catch the uneasy look that passed between the two. They seemed to come to an unspoken agreement that it was best to just tell her the truth, no matter what. "Megan, we have some bad news..." her grandmother said sadly. "Your daddy... He's dead, sweetie. And your mommy is very sick. The doctors don't know if she's going to make it or not. She may... She may lose your baby sister."

Megan, with all the innocence of her five years, looked up with her big eyes, and asked, as seriously as could be, "How could she lose her? She's in her belly..." Her grandmother smiled sadly, and then she started to cry. Megan had never seen her do that before, and she thought that it was the worst possible thing she could, and would, ever see.

She was wrong. That didn't come until a few days later, when she finally got to see her mommy. She was in a wheelchair, her leg in a cast, and she looked quite a bit thinner than she had the last time Meg had seen her. Megan was a little intimidated by the wheelchair, but ran over to her mother anyway, hugging her tightly, going on and on about how much she had missed her. She felt her mommy hug her back, though it felt a little different from usual, somehow. She looked up into her mommy's face, trying to see what was wrong, and it was there that she saw it, the most terrible thing ever. Even through pleasant look she was faking, Meg could see it, in her eyes mostly, the look of pure hatred, could almost hear the silent accusations. It was the first, and far from the last, time she had been truly frightened of her mother.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She fell backwards, her shoulder bumping the coffee table just enough to knock it over, spilling a half empty bottle of beer onto the carpet below. She gasped, reaching a quivering hand to her face. It came away coated in blood. Her mother almost never hit her where people might notice - she must have been even more drunk than Meg had thought.

"Are you some kind of idiot, girl?" her mother growled. It seemed a normal question, especialy when she was drunk, but after the past few days, she instinctivly looked down at her pants. Wet. Couldn't she even be out of diapers for five minutes without having an accident?! What was happening to her? It hadn't been this way, before...

That was it! A smile lit up her face as she finally realized the truth. And then it was wiped off as pain shot through her rib cage, and she curled up around herself, just praying for the pain to end, praying that this time, it wouldn't last so long, praying...

She gasped, a loud cracking sound meeting her ears at the same time as her mother's shoe, and then, for she knew not how long, there was only the pain.

She looked up, wondering what time it was, when her mother had left the room. She rolled over with a groan that quickly turned into a cry of pain. Her arm looked... wrong... somehow, and she knew in her gut that, more than likely, it was broken. What was she going to do now? She certainly couldn't count on her mother...

"I-I think I need to go to the hospital," she said to a shocked looking Cherise a few minutes later, and then collapsed into her arms.

11

"What happened to your arm, Megan?" he asked, trying to sound concerned, or so it seemed, anyway.

"It's none of you business," Meg growled at him, beginning to think she had made the wrong decision coming back here. If she ever told anybody about this, they would say she was going crazy. Which might not be entirely false. After all, she -had- spent half the night trying to find a man that couldn't possibly exist.

"Now, now, no need to get cranky... You were the one that called me, after all, not the other way around."

Megan sighed, struggling to keep from screaming at the man. She needed to keep herself under control, or else he might not help her. "I broke it, okay? No big deal. It happens all the time."

"Oh, -you- broke it, did you?" The man was grinning at her, she could feel it in her bones.

"That's not why I'm here!" She closed her eyes, trying once more to tame her temper. Her arm hurt so bad she could feel it in the dream, the rest of her body was pretty sore as well, she was tired, and now that she had finally found this man, he only wanted to talk about was the one thing she would much rather just ignore. "Look, I need to ask you something, okay?"

"Well, why didn't you say so?"

Megan gritted her teeth, forced a smile onto her lips. "Was it that fire guy?"

"Excuse me?"

He was toying with her. The smile slipped for a moment before she caught herself. "Is he the one making me..." She sighed, wishing he would just admit he knew instead of teasing her. She had never admitted it to anyone, but if she wanted help, it looked like she had to. "Is he making me wet the bed?" she asked, rushing the last three words out of her mouth so that they jumbled together, almost to the point of unintelligibility. A knot formed in the pit of her stomach - he was going to make her say it again.

But he didn't. No, instead he rubbed her nose in the fact that he warned her. "It's possible, since you never bothered to listen to me before, when I could have helped you."

"You never told me that this would happen!" Meg whined.

The shadows shifted slightly as he shrugged. "You didn't ask. Anyway, I didn't really expect him to let you live at all. He must have been in a playful mood that day."

Meg gasped. "You didn't think I needed to know -that-?!"

He shrugged again. There was silence for a few minutes. "Is that all?"

Megan shook her head quickly, lest he suddenly disappear, or whatever shadow people did. "How can I make it stop? Can you teach me?"

He smiled. "Of course. All you had to do was ask, you know..."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"You okay, Megan?" a voice asked above her. "You were thrashing around quite a bit..."

Megan opened her eyes to see Mrs. Mingus's concerned face above her. "Just a little bad dream," she mumbled, sitting up in a bed that wasn't her own, rubbing her eyes with her one good arm. The old familiar feeling down near her crotch was back, and she wished that Mrs. Mingus had let her go to her own house the night before so that she could have gotten her diapers. But she had said it was too late, and Meg needed her rest.

Meg supposed that was true. After all, she had been up quite late, getting her arm all x-rayed and put into the cast. The break wasn't too bad, really just a fracture, and the doctor seemed to think that it would be better by the time Peter Pan opened. The hardest part of the night, however, was explaining to everyone in the hospital why the daughter of one of their best nurses was there with somebody that wasn't her mother. Or, not explaining, exactly. More like making up a story about how her mother had been dead tired from her shift that day, and she hadn't wanted to wake her after she fell down the steps into the basement and broke her arm.

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry," she said quickly, trying to pretend that she was surprised about wetting the bed. Mrs. Mingus was confused for a moment, until Megan pulled the covers back. How she got the courage to do that, she had no clue, but possibly a good part of it came from not being in the mood to try and find a way to do laundry without anybody noticing in a house that she didn't regularly live in.

"Oh, honey, it's okay. Don't worry about it." Mrs. Mingus told her gently, brushing Meg's hair out from in front of her face. "You just had a tough day yesterday, that's all." Her hand paused for a moment. "I bet you'd feel better if you told me what really happened."

Meg sighed. There had only been two people that had doubted her story at the hospital the night before - Cherise, and her mother. Probably they just knew her better than the doctors. Sometimes that was a good thing, and sometimes, like now, it was very bad. "I told you. I slipped and fell down the basement steps."

"Megan, you don't have to protect anybody. If somebody did this to you, you have to let me know."

"I'm gonna go get changed now." Megan stood, grabbing the clothes she had been wearing the night before from the nightstand, heading into the bathroom, hoping to get finished before Cherise woke up, not wanting her to know what she had done while wearing one of her night-shirts. She didn't know if she could handle lying to her best friend, or even her best friend's mother, again. She hated it, yet was too afraid of what might happen if she didn't to tell the truth.

Megan stared at herself in the mirror, glad to see that she looked a little better than last night. Her nose was the tiniest bit swollen, and there was a bruise right under her left eye, but besides that, and the cast on her arm, you could never tell what had happened. Well, not if she kept wearing things with long arms and legs, that was.

There was a short struggle as she got dressed, not used to doing it with just one arm, and then she went back into the guest room, just long enough to put the wet shirt onto the pile of laundry that Mrs. Mingus was heading to the laundry room with. She offered to help, but the woman declined, just as Megan had known she would.

Cherise was still fast asleep as Megan snuck into her room, crawling onto her bed next to her. "Oh, Cherise, you're so beautiful," she whispered, trying to make her voice sound as deep as possible, stifling giggles the whole time.

"Mmm... Jeremiah..." Cherise murmured, rolling over. "You... too..."

That was all Megan could take, and she burst into full fledged laughter. Cherise shot up, her eyes glancing every which way until they finally landed on Meg. One look at her told her that she was up to no good, and, remembering the dream she had just had, she knew exactly what her friend had done. "You little brat!" she exclaimed as she sat up. "I'll teach you to mess with sleeping people's heads!" She reached forward, reaching out to tickle Megan, but after a moment, Megan pulled away, a look of pain clear on her face. "Are you okay?" Megan nodded, but didn't look at all as if she meant it. "Meg, why won't you just tell us the truth and let us help you?"

"I -did- tell you the truth," Megan insisted, and then burst into tears.

12 - The Showdown

"I think I'm ready," Megan said, more to convince herself than the the shadow man.

"You sure?"

Megan nodded. "As much as I will be tonight, anyway."

"Remember - hard and fast is the best way with him." Meg nodded again, starting to get nervous. Not just about what she was about to do, but about this whole thing, in general. Maybe this was her mind's way of telling that she hated herself, but in a creative way. How had she possibly come up with all of this stuff? But she must have, because that was the only explanation she could come up with. It was a scarily odd and realistic dream that her subconscious had made up to help her deal with wetting the bed. And this, hopefully, would end her bedwetting, and, God willing, the dreams, too.

At least, that was what she had been telling herself for the past two days, ever since the shadow man had agreed to 'train' her. What does he represent, exactly? she wondered. "Close your eyes," he commanded, and she squeezed them shut before she talked herself out of this. "Good luck."

"Thanks," she answered, eyes still shut.

"No problem," said another voice. "I was glad to do it, really."

Meg's eyes opened quickly, her hand already slowly making its way to her pocket, trying not to attract the attention of the fire man. "Please... Make it stop..." she begged, though not stupid enough to believe he'd actually give in.

"Why should I? What, are you going to throw a tantrum if I don't?" Megan's fingers brushed against a stack of thin cardboard, and she chose a piece from the middle.

"No..." she said, almost shocked at the calmness in her voice. She should be freaking out by now! "I think I'd rather do this!" She brought her hand up, the card right in the middle of her palm, feeling rather stupid. That is, until the room darkened, and began to shake.

"What the..." the man started, but was cut off as flaming chunks of rock began raining down around him. While he was distracted, she pulled the rest of the cards out, searching for something that might work better against fire than more fire. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man's hand coming up, and she could feel the wind start to gather, about to push her into the wall, like it had last time. Megan was quicker than he was, however, and the wind bounced off of the shield she had summoned, giving her enough time to find the next card.

"Stop this!" the man thundered, fiery eyes flashing. "You don't understand!"

"I think I understand just fine. You turned me into a diaper wearing freak and killed my friends. Now I'm just taking my life back," Meg answered coldly as she threw the card at him, spinning it like a frisbee. His hand shot towards the pile of cards on the table in front of him, just as the card hit the floor next to him. "Stupid aim," Meg growled. Now she had to figure something else out...

Suddenly, a column of water sprang up from the floor, carrying to fire man up, up, and smashing him into the cieling. A few moments later, the water disappeared, and the man's body fell to the floor. Meg held her breath, her hand hovering over the cards in case she needed to use another, but, after a few minutes of anxious waiting, the man still hadn't moved so much as a centimeter, and Megan relaxed. It was finally over...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Megan woke up in a cheerful mood, even if she did have a wet diaper. It would be her last, at least until she got really old, and so it didn't seem quite as bad as normal. She might even miss them, she thought nostalgically. They may be noisy and humiliating in an infantile way, but they were soft, and, as strange as it sounded, she felt safe with them on.

No, she had just gotten used to them, that was all. She had resigned herself to wearing them, and so she had made up good things about them. There was no way she could actually -like- to wear them.

She got dressed, made herself breakfast, and headed off to school, her good mood lasting nearly until her first class. She had felt the pressure in her bowels earlier, but it hadn't seemed urgent, so she had ignored it. As she was walking down the hallway, her books balanced precariously on her good arm, she realized that that hadn't been such a good idea. The pressure returned, but this time it started to go away almost instantly. Unfortunatly, it was going away by making her fill her pants.

She tried to stop herself desperately, only to find that she had no control. She stood in the middle of the hall, shocked, as the bell rang. The halls began to empty around her as she turned and ran from the school; there was no way she was going to go to class like that. Somewhere between the school and her house, she wet herself, thought the only way she knew was by the wet spot on her pants when she finally stopped.

What the hell was going on?! Was there something seriously wrong with her? she wondered as she tearfully changed her clothes. She had never had an accident when she was wide awake, or at least not daydreaming. How could she have been so stupid as to think that something that happened to her in a dream would affect her in the real world? Because somebody that she had imagined, yet hadn't bothered to take the time to give a face, had told her it would. She really -was- an idiot.

Once she was diapered - all of their good qualities had seemed to vanish, not that she had to wear them again - and had changed her clothes and was reasonably calm, she headed back out the door. She should be in time for her second class of the day, if she hurried. She was stopped on her front lawn, however, by the sight of somebody she hadn't exactly been expecting.

"Cherise? Shouldn't you be at school?" Meg asked, switching directions. "Did you follow me back?" A wave of relief washed over Megan as Cherise shook her head. "C'mon, you can walk with me." Cherise shook her head again. "Are you sick or something?"

Cherise shook her head, beckoned for Meg to come closer. "Cherise, what's going on?" Meg was starting to get scared, though she did her best to hide it, in case that was what Cherise had wanted all along. Cherise pulled a pad of paper and a pen out of her pocket, wrote something down, held it out to Megan. Megan stared at the words, trying to figure out if it was a trick. She looked back up at Cherise. "Did you see him?" Cherise stared at her questioningly. "The man in the shadows." Cherise's face lit up with recognition as she nodded. Not the good kind of recognition, though.

She took her paper back, wrote something down. 'What did he take from you?'

Megan glanced down at the ground, not wanting Cherise to see how much she was blushing. "Nothing..." she lied. She saw Cherise's foot tapping, looked back up just as the paper was shoved in front of her face.

'Tell me.'

Megan sighed. "Okay, fine... But only if you promise not to tell anyone." If looks could kill, Cherise's would have at that moment. Meg giggled. "Sorry, I couldn't help myself..." Cherise pointed to the paper. "Well, it wasn't really him... At least, I thought it wasn't. Now, I'm not so sure..."

Cherise's pen danced furiously over the paper. 'Just tell me before I have to come down there and finish the job the "basement steps" started on you.'

"He... He took away... He made me..." Megan struggled to find something that didn't sound too stupid, but everything that came into her head seemed wrong. What -had- he taken away? She wasn't completely incontinent, or hadn't been, anyway.

'Are the diapers his fault?' Cherise had written before Meg could work out the right phrasing.

"You knew?!" Megan blushed again, this time at how loud she had just screamed.

'I'm your best friend. Did you really think I wouldn't notice? You can't hide anything from me, Meggers, especially something that makes you look sooo cute.'

It was Megan's turn to give a killing look. "You wouldn't think this was so funny if you were the one wearing them."

'Awww, is baby cranky? Do you need a diaper change?' Cherise stuck her tongue out, quickly retracted it as Megan started crying. Meg didn't really know why she was crying so much lately - it didn't make her feel better at all, just more like the baby she feared she was becoming - but it seemed to be her solution to everything.

'Megan, I was just joking. I know it's not your fault. I won't tell anybody, I swear.' Cherise help the paper out, hoping Meg wasn't too upset to read it.

"Y-You don't understand! This isn't something I can just laugh off! I hate it! I-It gets worse every day, and I want it to stop, but it never does, and everything else keeps falling apart, and I don't think I can handle it anymore!" She felt Cherise hugging her, and let herself forgive the older girl long enough to get a little comfort from her.

'We'll find some way to beat this' the next note told her, after they had seperated, and Meg had wiped her eyes and nose.

"I already know how. I have to face that bastard again. Tonight."

13

Something was different... It took Megan a minute or so to figure out what, though why it hadn't been immediatly apparent, she had not a clue. Everything was bigger. Or, rather, she was smaller. After she had figured that out, what she saw when she looked down at herself didn't surprise her at all.

She had on a diaper, thicker than the ones she wore in real life, a little pink T-shirt, and a bib, and not much else. That jerk... She knew who had done this, and had no doubt that he was pleased with himself. As if he wouldn't already have been, for ruining her life. "Get out here!" she screamed, looking around the dream world for the shadow man. "We need to talk!" From the tone of her voice, it was a little more apparent than she would have liked that 'talk' in this case meant 'kick your ass'. She was in nowhere near a good mood, hadn't been most of the rest of that day.

"Daddy's home," his voice answered from behind her, and she spun to face him, not liking the idea of not being able to see even the little bit of him that she normally could. "What's the matter - don't I get a hug?"

"You were doing this all along, weren't you? Who was the fire man? Why the hell did you make me kill him?!" Megan tried to look angry, but succeeded only in becoming even more adorable.

"Aww, is Meggie mad?" the shadow man teased. "I think she needs to have a little time out..." Meg gasped as she felt herself being picked up by an invisible hand and carried to a playpen that was about twice her height. She opened her mouth, about to let loose with a string of curses that would surely have gotten her kicked out of school when a pacifier appeared from nowehere and was plunged into her mouth. It refused to come out, no matter how hard she pulled. She glared daggers at the shadow man as he approached her, his shadows following him like a little lost puppy, if puppies hovered around people and made them hard to see.

"Now, now, no need to look at me that way, Meggie... I'm just going to tell you a little bedtime story..." Megan tried to ask about the fire man again, but all that came out through the pacifier was grunting. "If you're worried about that guy you killed last night, don't be... He was nothing, less than nothing. Just a minion of mine, with just enough power to make him a nuisance to people that daydream a lot. I would have killed him myself, but there's this clause about not killing things that you created... It's complicated." He shrugged.

"Now, are you ready for your story?" He smiled, reached over and patted her on the head, had his arm back outside the playpen before she could move a muscle. "A long, long time ago, back when true magic was more than just a myth, there lived a wizard, more powerful than any that your puny little world had ever known. He was the advisor of a great king, the ruler of Camelot, whose one dream was to end war. Of course, the wizard knew that this was impossible, but he decided to stick with the king anyway, because he had become almost like a son to him.

"One day, a young girl came to the courts of Camelot. Not much was known about her, though she seemed to be an orphan, looking for work in the kitchens of the castle. The wizard could sense her power, that she could become much more than just a cook, and took her under his wing, teaching her everything he knew. Everything, except for the spells from one book, the wizard's inheritance from his father.

"She should have been greatful that he hadn't just let the kitchen staff turn her out into the street, that he had taught her anything at all. But she wasn't. She wanted the book, and made no effort to keep that fact a secret. The wizard always knew that she would betray him someday, but he could never have predicted that she would be able to break the seal on the forbidden book, and use one of the spells within on him.

"The spell should have trapped the wizard here, in the world of dreams. The ignorant girl, however, misspoke the final word of the incantation, only half trapping him, giving him powers in both the dreaming and waking lands, but only in those who were willing to do his bidding."

Megan's eyes widened, and she struggled to speak. The shadow man smiled.

"Yes, that's why I had you destroy my minion - it allowed me to gain complete control over you. It would have been simpler to trick you into doing something else - your friend merely haunted her mother's dream at my request, and... well, you know what happened to her. I needed Kasen out of the picture, though, and, as I am unable to do that..." Meg could have sworn that his smile widened then, but couldn't really be sure.

Finally, the pacifier fell from Megan's mouth, and she nearly flew at the side of the playpen, which didn't even seem to notice the attack. "I don't give a damn what some chick did to you way back when, it doesn't give you any right to do this to me, or take away Cherise's voice!"

"Oh, is that her name? I had wondered..."

Megan didn't realize he was baiting her until she had leapt at the plastic wall once more, only to fall back onto her diapered bottom again. "Fix us," she growled.

"Why should I? What would I get out of it? You have nothing to offer me, baby, nothing that I couldn't simply take." He crossed his arms defiantly. "There's nothing I want anyway. I'm more powerful than I ever imagined possible; I exist in both the dream world and the real world, something nobody else has ever done. I am merely one step below the gods! There is nothing that you have that could benefit me in any way. The only thing you're good for is entertainment, and I'm getting that from you already."

Megan chewed on her lower lip nervously, a bad feeling growing within her, one that told her that the man was right. She was trapped, and there was no way out - if he wanted to, he could keep her needing diapers for the rest of her life.

"Well, this has been fun, but I'm afraid it's somebody's bedtime..." the man said, mischieviously. Megan didn't like his tone of voice, nor the now all too familiar feeling of yucky squishiness in the seat of her pants as she pooped in them. And probably not just in the dream world either, she thought bitterly.

"I hope you enjoy this while you can, you sick bastard, cause I'm gonna find some way to kill you!" she resisted the urge to try and break through the playpen again, just barely.

"Now, now, there's no need for that kind of language... I think baby needs a good punishment..."

Megan wasn't given time to wonder what he was talking about, because the next moment, he and the playpen had vanished, and she was back in the "normal" world of dreams, the one where she didn't have to worry about people trying to kill her, or turn her into a baby, or anything like that. For some reason, she liked this one much better.

Elizabeth

14

"Wake up, sweetie," a voice said from the darkness, accompanied by shaking. Megan's eyes slowly worked their way open, revealing something she had never thought she would see again.

Her mother was standing over her, smiling. Megan smiled back, though she had already decided that she was still dreaming. At least this was a good dream, or seemed to be so far. "Good morning," Meg said, her voice sounding odd to her ears for some reason. Probably just the dream...

"Morning, honey," her mother replied, pulling back Megan's covers, reaching down to check Megan's diaper.

Huh?! Meg sat up quickly, pushing her nightshirt down, but it was too late. She winced, bracing herself for the explosion her mom was sure to have, now that she knew that her 12 year old daughter wore, and used, diapers.

"Messy today, huh? Bet that feels icky..." Her mother reached over and picked her up.

Megan was now starting to get very worried, and she felt a dread certainty that this wasn't a dream, even though that was the only rational explanation. Megan's mother might be able to pick her up in real life, but not so easily, as if she were only five years old or something... Meg glanced up at her mom, realizing that she seemed to be quite a bit bigger than usual.

Uh-oh. She looked down at herself, saw that her two tiny bumps, not really worthy of being called breasts yet, nowhere near so, were even less impressive than normal. Her whole body was less impressive, in fact, and the nightshirt had the Powerpuff Girls on it, instead of the Hard Rock Cafe logo that should have been there. This was bad... Bad, bad, bad...

Her mother carried her over to the corner of her room where her desk normally resided, only now the desk was gone. In its place was a changing table, fully stocked. Obviously, her diapers weren't so much of a secret anymore. But what was going on? If this -wasn't- a dream, then what was it?

Whatever it was, she was glad not to have to change her own diaper. She had grown used to doing that, yet not having to, and still getting clean was nice. She could get used to this, she thought. Especially the part with her mother not hating her. And then she looked up at her mother, and, seeing how much larger she seemed to be now, and decided that she'd rather be her regular age. Growing up hadn't been overly much fun so far - she didn't want to have to go through it again.

After a clean diaper had been taped around Megan's bottom, her mother went over to the closet and began rummaging through clothes, emerging finally with a pink dress that Meg normally wouldn't have been caught dead in. She was by no means a tomboy, but she hated clothes that were too frilly, or overflowing with lace, or just plain too girly. Today, however, something made her say 'yes' in her new, or rather, old, childish voice when her mother asked if it was what she wanted to wear.

If Megan had been expecting to get to dress herself, she would have been very disappointed, but she had had a feeling that her mother was going to do it for her. She did. "Oh, you're going to look so adorable for your class picture," her mother gushed as she lifted Megan down from the changing table. Oddly enough, Meg found herself smiling and giggling happily at her mother's words, and then running over to take a look at herself in the mirror on her closet door.

Her heart sank and soared at the same time. She really was five, or somewhere around that age anyway, but she looked absolutely adorable, just like mommy had said. Wait - she didn't call her mommy anymore, she called her... Something... else... But what else -was- there to call her? After all, she was her mommy! She didn't need any other name than that!

"You want french toast, Meggie?" Mommy asked, and Megan found herself jumping up and down, clapping her hands. Mommy laughed, and headed out of Meg's room to get started. The reflection in the mirror caught Meg's eye again, and she snapped her head around quickly, hoping to see what had just moved there. And there he was - the shadow man. He smiled at her, waved, and then he was gone. Megan didn't notice that last part, however, as she was too busy hitting the mirror with all the strength she had in her tiny body.

The glass shattered, shards of it flying everywhere; the ones that hadn't embedded themselves in Megan's hand, that was. A second later, the mirror's frame came loose from the wall, falling to the floor with a loud crash before toppling backwards, towards the closet door.

The blood on her hand caught Megan's attention, and she was staring at it through the haze of tears when mommy came thundering in, demanding to know what on God's green earth was going on here. She drew in her breath loudly, quickly kneeling down next to the girl and taking her hand gingerly, and, after looking them over, led her to the bathroom, where she washed the blood off and carefully removed the shards of glass. Luckily, there were only a few, and they were rather large and easy to spot.

"What were you doing, Megan?" Mommy asked, clearly fighting to keep tears from her eyes. "Is something wrong?"

"N-No, Mommy," Meg answered, unable to look her in the face. She hated lying to mommy, and wasn't very good at it in the first place.

"Do you want to stay home from school today? I can probably get the hospital to give me the day off, if you do..." Megan's mind jumped at the opportunity not to be seen like this by anyone else. Her body had a different idea.

"I wanna go to school," it said, right before bursting into tears. "I-I'm s-sorry about the m-mirror, mommy!" she wailed, not calming down until mommy hugged her.

"Shh, shh, it's okay, Meggie..." Mommy cooed, kissing her forehead. "Let's get you fixed up so you can get to that french toast, huh?" Meg nodded, let mommy bandage her hand, then followed her into the kitchen, where the scent of burnt bread lingered heavy in the air. "Crap," mommy said under her breath, hoping that Meg wouldn't hear, since if she had she would probably decide to tell her new word to everyone she saw that day.

Megan was delighted when she was lifted onto the counter, and allowed to help make up a new batch of french toast. By some miracle, she managed not to get any eggs, or anything else, on her dress. The counter, though, was another story entirely. Mommy cleaned up as much of it as she could while Megan hurriedly ate.

A loud honking was heard outside the house, and mommy said another word that Megan would be sure to impress all her friends with later that day. She handed Megan a backpack that had been hanging on the back of her chair, and she had still managed to forget to grab, kissed her on the cheek, and watched as she rushed out to miss the school bus.

God, she was growing up so fast... Nichole shook her head, almost forgetting about the incident with the mirror already. Her little girl was going to be all grown up before she knew it. Where had the time gone?

15

Footsteps echoes in the cold stone hallways of the castle, but she was too busy to care at the moment. It didn't really matter anyway - if it was just a servant, then they couldn't possibly enter the room. If it was one of the knights, well, there were times that she doubted that they were smart enough to know how to open a regular door, much less this one. The Queen perhaps might know how - she had heard rumors about her that suggested she was secretly a powerful wizard, though she didn't really believe them, so that didn't worry her much either. And if it was Merlyn... Well, if it was him, there wasn't anything she could do to stop him, and she was already too late to escape anyway.

Besides, she was too close to stop. She had almost managed to do something nobody else alive except Merlyn had done, open the book containing the Atlantian's most secret spells, so dangerous that the book was sealed so that they could be used only by those wise and patient enough to break through. It was a long, slow, and exceedingly dull process, but if she could actually do it, it would all be worth it. Merlyn couldn't deny that she was the one with the real power then - he surely couldn't have opened it, if his father hadn't shown him how.

The final stages of the unbinding began to take shape in Nimue's mind as her hand brushed the surface of the ancient volume, and then went through, into the pages within. This was it... If she made a mistake now, the next time the book was opened, it would be blank. Not that she would care. If she made a mistake now, she would most likely be dead before she realized it. She closed her eyes to center her mind, which she was using to cut through the mystical bonds that locked all of that knowledge away from her.

She gasped in pleasant surprise as they sprang apart like rotten twine under the edge of a well sharpened dagger, and the covers of the book shot away from each other, opening the book to the last page that had been viewed. Nimue glanced it over, hardly believing her luck - the words within weren't in some strange, long forgotten language after all! She could read them, and, she was quite sure, use the spells that they represented. She really was more powerful than Merlyn!

She even -looked- dangerous, or so she thought, even if no one else would have. At least, she did until her pride began to bubble over, and she started giggling, making her look just as fragile and powerless as she normally did. In the best of times, her body seemed to have seen no more than eight, perhaps nine summers, completely ignoring the last five she had lived through. Merlyn told her that she most likely had Atlantean blood in her as well; they were said to age more slowly than those who were born elsewhere in the world. And now that she was a wizard, time had even less effect upon her. Maybe even less than it did upon Merlyn - after all, she was quite possibly a full-blooded Atlantean, and he was only half. Some days that thought cheered her, and on others it disturbed her to no end. How much longer would she be stuck in this child's body? It had its benefits, of course, but they were far outweighed by her desire to be seen as the woman that she was.

Perhaps there would be something she could do about that, with the book finally opened. She could do almost anything, if the rumors were true. Merlyn would bow before her power, recognize her as a true wizard, instead of an annoying little apprentice, good only for doing boring chores that he felt he was too good to do himself, or she would kill him. No, death was too simple, too quick... She would find some suitable prison for him, where he could spend the rest of his long, long life, where she could make him pay for everything he had done to her, everything he had put her through.

Her hand stretched forth, almost of its own accord, to turn the page, to begin her search for a suitable penance for the old man when she heard the door behind her creak open. She spun around, trying to close the book at the same time, somehow knocking it to the floor instead. It hit with a muffled thump as the spine knocked against the stones. Nimue joined it a moment later, having forgotten that she had been standing on a stool so that she could reach the top of the pedestal that Merlyn kept the book on, probably for the sole purpose of reminding Nimue how small she was. The stool was not the best in the castle, and had been wobbling the whole night, as she had worked the unbinding. Her quick movements had been just enough to finish it off, and it tipped over when she was still halfway through the spin.

She certainly didn't feel powerful anymore as Merlyn glared down at her as if she were some disobedient child. In fact, that was what she felt like, even if she would never have admitted it to any living person, much less Merlyn.

"What have you done?!" he roared, using his magic to appear to be growing ever taller and more fierce, letting his voice echo dramatically around the room. Nimue would have been more impressed if she hadn't seen it so many times before, whenever she did something to anger him. "How many times have I warned you to never touch that book?!"

Nimue tried to get to her feet, was pushed back down by Merlyn's magic. "I got it open," she informed him icily. "I have opened the Book of the Sun, without any help from you, or anybody else. You should be worshipping me - only a high priest ca...."

"Do you think I don't know that?" Merlyn growled. Nim was beginning to think she had made a mistake; he was much angrier than she had anticipated, even if he hadn't shown it yet. She could see it boiling beneath his skin. "I was the one who told you about the high priests, and the Book of the Sun, and Atlantis, you little ingrate! Without me, you would be totally ignorant of your heritage."

"That doesn't change anything, old man. I still opened the Book..."

"Which proves nothing, except that your parents both came from Atlantis." He tapped the end of his staff against the floor, and Nimue suddenly found herself in the air, being pulled towards Merlyn despite her struggles. He smiled mirthlessly at her when she finally stopped moving. "You see? You have no real power. You couldn't even counter my levitation spell - how did you expect to use the Book of the Sun?"

Suddenly, Nimue was being flung through the air like a rock from a catapult until she hit a bookshelf on the wall behind her. Books showered down, yet she was still in the air, held there by Merlyn. "You have disobeyed me yet again, Nimue. I would like to say that I'm surprised, but that would be a lie, of course. You were an insolent little wretch the first day you came here, and you haven't changed a bit. I have gone easy on you so far, though I see that that has been a grave mistake. I have been neglecting your discipline, both as a master and as a guardian, for far too long." She began to move again, this time slamming into bare stone wall, falling to the floor below afterwards, struggling to regain her breath so that she could do something, anything, to stop him.

"If you were truly the high priest you claim to be, then surely you would not be enough of a child to be doing this," Merlyn smirked, making a minute gesture with the hand that the staff wasn't in. Nimue's bladder, bursting from spending the entire night locked up in here, not moving from her spot in front of the pedestal, relaxed, and she felt a warm wetness splashing against her legs, soaking the skirt of her dress, the best she owned. She knew she should have changed after the feast the night before... Or, better yet, waited for another night. She had only chose this one because she had assumed that Merlyn would drink too much wine, as he usually did, and sleep for most of the next day. Or perhaps this was why she had chosen -not- to change. Merlyn seemed to enjoy making her humiliate herself, though usually in public, like that. The dress, while being her best, was one of her least favorite, having been made for somebody of her size, not her age, and made her appear to be even younger than normal. At least she wouldn't have to wear it again...

The pedestal started to shake, and then slowly rise into the air. It was made of extremely heavy wood, weighing more than Merlyn could have ever hoped to lift by sheer physical might, most likely the reason he was having trouble with it. Nimue leapt to her feet, dashing to where the book lay on the floor, hoping that there would be something useful in there. The pedestal fell to the ground with a loud crash as Merlyn turned his attention to her, knocking her back against the wall. "Don't you ever learn?" he snarled. "-Never- touch the Book of the Sun!" The pedestal began to shake again, and Nim once more got to her feet, rushing back towards the book, wishing that she could have used her own magic upon it without risking its destruction.

She collapsed to the ground just inches away, stars appearing before her eyes, her spine aching as if it had been broken. The pedestal fell beside her, making a near deafening sound. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she nearly gave in to the pain, the temptation of unconsciousness nearly too much for her, but she knew that if she did, Merlyn would make sure she never got a chance to use the book again, most likely by taking out her eyes.

Her arms refused to work. Her tears increased as Merlyn advanced on her, grinning like a wolf on the prowl, while all she could manage to do was lie there like a slug, the pain paralyzing her. She was helpless, like the child that Merlyn made her out to be, completely at his mercy yet again. Memories of things he had done to her flashed through her mind, and it didn't help any knowing that he would make all of those seem like nothing this time.

Her vision cleared up, allowing her to see the last few words on the page the book was opened to. With no other choices, and nothing to lose, she began to speak, her voice weak, though growing stronger with every word. "Stop that!" Merlyn commanded, lifting his staff.

It was too late. A strong wind rose, blowing everything in the room around, pushing the cover of the Book of the Sun closed. A small black circle appeared before Merlyn, and before he could do anything about it, it grew into something more recognizable to him - a portal. He tried to escape, but the world of dreams would not be denied. The wind continued to blow, gaining strength. Nimue, however, knew nothing of it, having passed out from the pain, and the exertion of using such strong magic. She didn't even realize that she had made a mistake with the final word of the incantation.

When she awoke, the first thing she noticed was the Book of the Sun. It had opened again, though now there was nothing within the covers. The pages were all gone, blown away to the ends of the earth, certainly Merlyn's revenge upon her for using its power on her. She started to cry, unsure of what else she could do. What was she now, without the book to give her power? Just a child, capable of only the most basic magics, unless she could find any other mystic books in Merlyn's collection that she could read.

Well, at least Merlyn had decieved her for the last time, she consoled herself.

Little did she know how very wrong that would turn out to be.

16

"Mrs. Spratt!" Megan wailed, running towards the teacher's desk with tears in her eyes. "Billy pushed me!" Meg pointed towards the tiny wounds on her knees, not really even worth a Band-Aid, though traumatizing enough for a five year old. Or this five year old, anyhow. "A-And he called me a baby!"

Doris Spratt sighed, reminding herself that she really did like kids, because why else would she have taken this job? Not for the money, that was for sure... She smiled at the little girl, wishing she knew what in God's name had possessed her mother to enroll her in school early, instead of waiting another year, like she had been advised to. It was hard enough for 'normal' children to start kindergarten when they were four. But when they were so much smaller than even other four year olds, and still wore diapers... It was just asking for trouble. Even more so now that she was in first grade, still tiny, still diapered.

"Do you want to go see the nurse, Megan?" she asked sympathetically. She may not have agreed with the girl's mother's decision, but the girl herself was a good kid, really. Pretty smart, really, and she never broke any rules. And she was one of the cutest children that Doris had ever seen. Sometimes it was all she could to do stop herself from picking her up and hugging her. But she couldn't show favorites, even subconsciously, in case the other children picked up on it - Megan didn't need anything else for them to tease her about.

Megan shook her head, sniffling softly. "Okay, then," Doris said, turning back to the subtraction worksheets she was going over. Megan stayed there, in front of the desk, however, instead of going back out to recess. "Is that all, Megan?"

"H-He called me a baby, Mrs. Spratt," Megan reminded her helpfully.

Doris sighed again. She may love this girl to pieces, but... Well, in truth, she would have to agree with Billy. It wasn't Megan's fault so much as her mother's, but there was no reason why she couldn't have gotten potty trained by now. "I'll talk to him about it." Megan, who seemed satisfied by this, called a thank you as she ran out of the classroom, back out to the playground. Doris might actually talk to Billy, though chances were that she wouldn't have time. That was just her all purpose answer to everything related to teasing. The principal might not like it if he heard about it, but it satisfied everyone most of the time. The kid who had done the teasing, if they weren't busy with something else, would usually have forgotten about what he was making fun of the other kid for by the time they got back outside, and if he hadn't, the other kid 'knew' that the teaser would just be getting in even bigger trouble. Sometimes she had to take a little more active of a role in tease-squashing, mostly on behalf of Megan, but a lot less than Mrs. White, the other first grade teacher, did.

Doris smiled as she wrote 100 % at the top of Megan's worksheet. Math was the little girl's worst subject by far, yet today she had been wonderful, outshining even Mike, who was usually her star pupil. It was as if she had grown up overnight or something.

Sneakers squeaked loudly in the hall right outside the open classroom door, and a few seconds later, Megan was standing in the doorway again, crying her little eyes out. Doris sighed. Well, grown up when it came to schoolwork, anyway...

Megan was starting to get extremely upset with herself. After all, some little kid had called her a baby - big deal. If she had been at her regular age, she could have called him the same thing. But her body didn't really seem to care what her mind thought, and, before she could even think about stopping herself, she was in tears, whining to the teacher. She sincerely hoped that she wasn't stuck like this, because while being cute was all fine and dandy, being a cry-baby wasn't.

And, amazingly enough, having her picture taken with a bunch of snot nosed little kids hadn't been all that and a bag of chips, either. It must have taken them ten minutes to calm down enough so that the photographer could even take the first picture. After that... Well, Megan didn't know how the poor man had been able to stand them long enough to take five. She wouldn't have.

Mrs. Spratt was pretty nice, however, and Megan remembered now why she had been her favorite teacher, back when she had actually been in first grade. But had she been such a teacher's pet back then, too? God, she hoped not... She could see why everybody teased her. Well, the fact that the dress was altogether too short for her five year old body to understand how to wear properly, so that she kept flashing views of her diapered butt to nearly everybody in the building, and, now that they were at recess, out of it. To a five year old, it might not have mattered so much, but she was twelve, damn it, and it was embarassing the hell out of her.

"Look, the baby's back from crying to the teacher," Billy taunted. Megan told herself to ignore it, to just walk away, but, of course, she didn't listen to herself.

"You're gonna get in trouble!" she told him, sticking her tongue out. "Mrs. Spratt'll make you come back to first grade again next year if you don't leave me alone." She was embellishing, maybe, but Billy didn't know the difference.

Or so she thought. "Will not!" He stuck his tongue out too. "She knows you're just a stupid little baby who should be back in preschool."

Megan inwardly gave an exasperated sigh as her eyes filled with tears. Again. "I'm -not- a baby!" she yelled as something inside her snapped, and she raced towards the much larger boy, shoving at his chest with all her might. He gave out something of a quiet roar as he tumbled backwards. Megan watched, shocked, and then started laughing at how easy it had been. He wouldn't dare make fun of her now, wou...

A hand fell on her shoulder, and she winced as she looked up at the face attached to it. Mrs. White, the teacher in charge during recess that day, was standing over her, frowning. "Why did you push that boy, young lady?" she demanded. Megan didn't like her very much, even when she wasn't mad at her. She wasn't very nice, and she was always frowning, no matter what.

"H-He called me a baby," she said meekly, knowing that wouldn't be good enough.

"That's no excuse. I think you need a time out."

"But..." Megan's protest was cut off by a glare from the teacher, and she let herself be led back into the school for the rest of recess. Life just wasn't fair sometimes...

'You have -got- to be kidding me,' Megan thought, her heart sinking. This just couldn't be happening. It had to be some horrible, horrible dream, or something like that. Her life just couldn't be -this- unfair.

"Aww, isn't she just so cute, El?" Cassie asked with a smirk.

"Adorable," Ellen answered.

"What the hell are you doing in my house?" Meg asked, surprised to hear the words actually coming out of her mouth instead of staying in her mind.

"Tsk, tsk... You wouldn't want us to tell your mommy that you spoke to your babysitters like that, now would you? Cause then big bad Megan would get a spanking." Cassie crossed her arms, a superior look on her face.

"Now, wouldn't that be horrible?" Ellen copied Cassie almost exactly, so much so that it was almost spooky.

"Oh, don't worry Meggie, we won't tell your mom," Cassie said, almost surely a bold faced lie. "If you just do a few things for us..."

Megan glared at them, not having any idea what they could possibly want, not wanting to know. It wasn't anything she would want to do, that was for sure. "Screw you," she growled, stomping off to her room, where she was resolved to stay for the rest of the afternoon.

She quickly changed her mind as her bowels announced that they hadn't completely emptied themselves the night before. Oddly enough, they gave her enough of a warning that she might have a chance to make it to a toilet. She opened her door a crack, enough to be sure that Cassie and Ellen weren't waiting for her right outside, and then dashed out, running into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door. Her bowels rumbled, reminding her that she couldn't stop now, and she quickly set to taking off her diaper, which, as she had discovered earlier in the day, was an actual Huggies, something she had never expected, or wanted, to fit into ever again.

She was glad that it only had two tapes, instead of the four she had gotten used to undoing. It was hard enough with just the two, and her hands seeming to be battling against her, not wanting to do what she told them. There was a loud knock on the door, and Cassie's voice came through. "What do you think you're doing, young lady?" The doorknob rattled loudly. "Unlock this door right now!"

Megan almost obeyed, made herself stop. She wasn't going to let her two worst enemies see her like this, and she certainly wasn't going to let them force her to mess herself again. She breathed a sigh of relief as the diaper fell to the floor beneath her, still unused. As she pushed the lid of the toilet up, she heard a rattling at the door, one that was made only when somebody was using the key that went with it.

"No, no, no," she whispered over and over to herself even as she tried to make herself poop, while she could still do some with a little dignity, to no avail. The door burst open, revealing her, still sitting on the toilet, the diaper on the floor in front of her. "What is going on here?!" Cassie asked angrily, though she knew full well. She walked over, snatching Megan up as if she weighed nothing, handing her to Ellen as she picked up the diaper. "Baby shouldn't run around without this..." she said, waving the diaper in Megan's face. "She might have an accident and make a mess..."

Megan squirmed uselessly against Ellen's grip as Cassie moved the diaper from right in front of her face to her crotch. "Let... me... go!" She strained against Ellen's arms, her legs kicking wildly, almost beyond her control.

"Ow!" Cassie took a step backwards, rubbing her forehead, where Megan's foot had made contact with it. "Why, you little..." Meg flinched, almost certain that she was going to get slapped. Instead, Cassie just grabbed Megan from Ellen and carried her to the changing table in Megan's room, where she none too gently diapered her, pulling it closed so tightly that it almost hurt. Megan was too scared of what the now much older girl could do to her to do anything else to her, though. When you were as small as Megan, angering a potentially dangerous person more than twice your age was a rather stupid thing to do.

Now that she was back in diapers, the pressure in her bowels returned, much more powerful now. The thick, warm paste oozed its way into the minute space between her bottom and the surface of the diaper, pushing outwards and downwards, squishing between her legs. She gulped as she finished, glancing up at the two girl who hated her guts, had just seen her fill her pants, such as they were, and were in charge of cleaning her up, or not.

Cassie turned and grinned at Ellen. "I think she'll be fine for a little while, don't you Ellen? Why don't we go see what's on TV?" The two turned to leave the room.

"B-But..." Meg protested, getting stopped by the stream of urine that suddenly poured out of her, making the inside of her diaper an even squishier, ickier place to be.

"I think you need to take a nap, little girl," Cassie told her, pausing for a moment in the doorway. "And don't even think about budging from that bed until I come in to wake you up, or you'll be sorry!" Cassie laughed as she shut the door behind her, leaving Megan alone with her angry, twelve year old thoughts and innocent, though rather smelly five year old body. How had her life gotten this screwed up?!

17

Nimue curtsied politely, even though, or perhaps simply because, Guinevere didn't expect it from her. Somehow, she always managed to forget how long Nimue had been at Camelot, and that she was a great deal older than she looked, old enough to know that the woman was queen, and deserved her respect. She was rather fond of Nimue, too, though not as a female companion, but as a child, one of the few left at the castle, that she could teach to knit, and embroider, and all of the other womanly arts. All of the things that Nimue could already do, but she had nothing better to do most days, now that Merlyn was trapped within wherever the portal had led to, and the king and knights were off on some quest or another. Nimue never bothered to keep up with politics, so she wasn't sure exactly why they were gone, just that they were. Which was good enough for her. If they weren't there, they could whisper among themselves about her being Merlyn's lapdog, or that she was keeping him hidden away for some reason, perhaps to test the loyalty of his spies within the castle.

"Good evening, Queen Guinevere," she said, trying to sound as regal, yet still somewhat humble, as she could.

"Hello, little one," Guinevere smiled, kneeling down in front of her. Nimue fought back the urge to hurt her, knowing that the penalty for that, even for one thought upon as a child, would be extremely painful, if not lethal. "Shouldn't you be abed at this time of night?"

Nimue sighed; she was beginning to get frustrated with this entire castle, or at least the few people left in it. Would it really be any better elsewhere, however? Most likely, it would be worse, and much more dangerous. "I couldn't sleep, Your Highness," she lied, her head bowed.

"There's no need for titles, Nimue," the queen told her, still smiling. Nimue was a little surprised that she actually remembered her name - most days, she just called her 'little one' or 'child', or occasionally 'dear'. Sometimes it bothered her, but she comforted herself by saying that that was why Guin always confused her for a little girl, because she didn't know who she was.

"Thank you," Nimue curtsied again.

"Quite all right, dear, but you really must try to get to sleep again - Run along, now." With that, Guinevere stood, turned, and walked away. Nimue glared at her departing back, despising being dismissed like some child. Someday she would make the people of this castle respect her for what she truly was... Today didn't seem to be that day, however.

She turned, continuing on to Merlyn's former, and now her own, rooms, nearly running into Lancelot, one of the knights who had stayed behind, to guard the castle. He was one of the few that Nimue could actually tolerate being around for very long, mostly on account of his being gorgeous. She knew better than to think that he would ever think the same of her, though, and so she found it much easier just to pretend to be the little girl that he saw in her whenever he was around.

"Pardon me," he said pleasantly as he bowed to her, most likely in a mocking way, though to her it didn't really matter, and continued on his way, disappeared down the same hallway that the queen had entered. Strange...

Nimue stood there for a few moments, pondering, before her curiousity got the better of her, and she followed, her instincts telling her that something beyond the ordinary was going on. A low moaning met her ears as she quietly walked to the edge of a closed door, the only thing that this hallway seemed to lead to. It was most likely locked, yet she tried anyhow, finding that it was. She looked around, making sure no one else was around, whispered a few words that she had read in one of Merlyn's old, dusty books earlier in the day. She didn't expect them to work by themselves, without her having a focus, like Merlyn's staff, to channel her powers through, but the door suddenly popped open, revealing something that should have caused her to turn and run, hoping that they hadn't recognized her, yet instead made her stand perfectly still, as if she were frozen, staring wide-eyed at the scene before her eyes.

Lancelot leapt to his feet, quickly pulling his breeches up, glancing over at Guinevere, who looked as if she were trying to hide under the sheet. The dress she had been wearing a few minutes before lay on the floor next to the bed, crumpled up like it had been tossed aside. The two exchanged guarded looks, obviously trying to figure out what to do about this threat to their secret.

Nimue's eyes fell upon a sword in the corner of the room at almost the same instant that Lancelot's did, and her eyes got even wider. Guinevere seemed to almost read Lancelot's intent, and cried out, "No! She's just a child, Lancelot..."

"We cannot allow her the chance to tell anybody of this," he said, though Nimue could tell that he didn't really want to kill her.

"She doesn't even understand what was going on, most likely."

Nimue glared at the queen. "I'm -not- a child," she growled, glad that Merlyn wasn't there. He would have caused her to soil herself for saying that, as he was fond of doing, just to remind her that he saw her as a child, and wanted her to see herself that way as well, so that she wouldn't think of contesting his power.

Lancelot took a step towards the sword. "No, Lancelot!" Guinevere shouted.

"My love, we have no choice. If the king was to find out..."

"Then we shall have her swear to us that she shalln't tell a soul." Guinevere sat up, holding the sheet with both hands. "Now, dear little Nimue, we shall see to it that you get the most beautiful doll in the kingdom, how would you like that? And the royal seamstress will be at your command, to make you the finest new clothes. The cooks will see to it that you get as many sweets as you desire as well. There's just one thing that you have to do..."

Nimue stepped further into the room, keeping a cautious eye on Lancelot. "As I have told you, Your Highness, I am not a child. Perhaps if I was, I would take your offer. But, instead, I think I will offer you another. There is but one thing that I want, and you two are going to get it for me, or else the entire kingdom will know about this by the dawn." She was bluffing - she sincerely doubted that anybody would believe her, even if she told them, but she needed to sound threatening, or else this would never work.

It couldn't have worked out more perfectly if it had been planned. While perusing Merlyn's library, she had come across a reference to the Book of the Sun, and its first destruction long ago. The high priest had used an instrument to scry the locations for the missing pages, and Nimue had planned on doing the same thing, except that she didn't have the correct tools. That would no longer be a problem, however...

She grinned, crossing her arms in front of herself, trying to appear as intimidating as Merlyn had always made himself be. "I want the Holy Grail."

18

Megan was a little apprehensive as she woke the next morning, but all of her fears were put to rest as soon as she had thrown aside her blankets and looked at herself. She was twelve again, thank God. No more just being a little kid, having to do whatever the older and bigger kids told her to. Well, no more listening to, and getting upset by, taunts made by some bratty five year old.

She glanced at the door for a moment, wondering if her mother was going to come through it any second and change her. She wasn't sure if she wanted that or not, but it didn't happen after a couple minutes, so she did it herself. It seemed strange, after a whole day of other people doing it for her, yet it made her feel grown up for some even stranger reason. It was probably the only time that wearing diapers made her feel like a big girl.

As she reached into the bag for a new one, her hand had to reach nearly all the way in to grasp the final diaper. She sighed unhappily as she put it on, remembering how she had hoped to have beaten this bedwetting thing before she ran out. Now it had only gotten worse. And she had to go out and buy more! As if doing it once hadn't traumatized her enough...

She got dressed in a hurry, grabbed a Pop Tart from the kitchen, and nearly ran out of the house. She wasn't about to carry around a package of diapers all day, but she needed more than one, or her rash would be getting even worse. Maybe being in a hurry helped her get through it better, since she didn't have time to be embarassed as she grabbed a package, not looking at it, and then got some diaper rash ointment, and some baby oil and powder, rushed to the cash register, and darted home with her bag. She had just enough time to rip open the bag, stuff a couple diapers in between her books, and run, her lungs trying to burst by that time, to school.

Classes themselves went quite well, really, until she had to change herself. As usual, she went into a stall in the bathroom, locked herself in, pulled out one of the diapers. It felt odd even when just her fingers were touching it, and when she had put it on, she figured out why. It was about twice as thick as the ones she was used to wearing. She couldn't even squeeze her legs all the way shut now! She took a few steps, growing more and more hysterical with each, watching herself waddle like a toddler. She moaned, her brain working up a plan.

Of course, the warning bell went off just then, telling her that she had about a minute to get to her next class. She pulled her pants back up, shocked, pleasantly, that they went on over the diaper, but just barely. If her shirt hadn't gone nearly to her crotch, the diaper still would have been noticable to anyone, and recognizable as such to anyone that had a baby brother or sister.

Running had never been a strong suit for her, and the added mass between her legs didn't help at all. Her next class, Western Literature, had already started by the time she made it there, on the verge of tears. Cassie, who was at the head of the classroom, glared at her as she walked in, and then turned back to the paper she was holding in front of herself and reading from.

"Oh, shit," Megan whispered to herself as she slid into her seat blushing at the angry look the teacher gave her. Sifting through the contents of her bookbag, she was relieved to see that she -had- brought her own paper with her. She sighed, relaxing for a split second.

No more than that, however, because that was when Cassie finished, and the teacher said, "Since you were late, Megan, you must have been getting some last minute work done on the presentation, huh?" Megan blushed again as the class turned to look at her. "Well, we wouldn't want that work to go to waste, now would we? Let's hear you masterpiece next." Megan was still blushing as she got up from her seat, walking - or waddling, rather - up to the front of the class, her paper clutched so tightly in her fists that she was afraid she would rip it.

She cleared her throat, forcing the look of absolute fear fom her face, replacing it with an obviously fake smile, and not much of one at that. The words on the paper seemed to be leaping up and down, so that she wouldn't be able to make them out, though she was pretty sure that they weren't really, unless they were trying to make her sick. In that case, they weren't doing too badly of a job. "M-My paper was on..." she began, trying to recite the words from meory so that she wouldn't need the jumpy paper.

Cassie was pointing at her, stifling laughter. That in itself wasn't all that unusual, but today Megan was even more paranoid than normal, so she quickly glanced down at her diaper bulge, sure that that was what had drawn Cassie's attention. Whether it was or not, she still didn't know, but the moment she looked at the diaper, it began filling up with an unpleasant mass that her body hadn't asked her if she minded expelling. She paled, and then blushed.

"Were you planning on continuing this astounding piece of literature any time soon?" the teacher asked dryly. Megan's blush deepened about ten shades, and she nodded, quickly returning her eyes to the paper, which had, luckily, stilled itself a bit.

This was going to be a bad day.

As she waddled from the classroom, she wondered if all of the rest of school, until summer vacation finally set in, were going to be like this. These diapers were much too thick, and she only had a few things that would fit over them inconspicuously. She couldn't very well take them back, however, and she didn't have enough money left at the moment to get any more, so she was pretty much screwed.

"Come -on-, move it!" Cassie growled from behind her a split second before shoving her out of the way. Megan stumbled, caught herself against the wall, losing her grip on her school books, which she was frantically trying to stuff into her backpack, at the same time. She bent over, picking them up before they could be trampled, and when she stood again, she found Cassie hovering over her. "You just looked so cute giving your presentation," she said, teasingly. "For a second there, you looked just like my baby sister when she craps herself." She laughed, and then walked away.

Megan glared after her, and then zipped up the backpack, once again heading for the bathroom. It was empty, as usual, since most of the students used the bigger one now, and she started to get her new diaper out even before she was in the stall.

Bad idea. The door swung open with an audible squeak, and she turned without thinking, the diaper in one hand, her open bookbag in the other. Cassie was standing there, smirking. "I-It's not what you think..." Megan mumbled, trying to put the diaper away.

"Oh, I think it is," Cassie told her as she reached behind herself, locking the bathroom door. "In fact, I'm almost sure of it, though he never told me that you wore diapers when you were twelve... Just five. By the way, I had a blast yesterday. Hope your mommy lets me come over more often."

Megan might have fainted then, if it wouldn't have simply made things worse. "Y-You remember?" she managed to get out eventually.

"Of course." Cassie smiled, taking a few steps toward her prey. "How could I forget the look on your precious little face when you filled your diaper, right in front of me? It was the same look that you had in class. And the same look I bet I'll be seeing quite a lot from now on."

Suddenly, Cassie was right there, in front of her, and then Megan's pants were around her ankles, revealing the diaper underneath. "Now let's get baby into a nice, fresh diaper, huh?"

19

Camelot had changed quite a bit in the past few months, and all for the better as far as Nimue was concerned. Guinevere was smart enough to know that she, and her husband, most likely, would be laughed out of the castle, and perhaps the isle of Britian if she voluntarily gave all power over to what appeared to be a little girl. She also knew, know anyway, that Nimue would settle for nothing less than that. So, they had come to something of a compromise - Nimue had all the power she wanted, but nobody except for her, Guin, and Lancelot would know.

And that worked, sort of. Those in the castle knew that Nimue carried at least a bit more power now, since she had been all but elevated to the rank of princess. Despite what she had said that night, not so long ago, the thought of having the prettiest clothes in the kingdom had attracted her, and she now had a whole closet full of dresses that she would only have dreamt about when she was studying under Merlyn. They were mostly fairly childish; part of the compromise had been for her not to attract too much attention to herself, and if dressing, and sometimes acting, like a little girl was required for that... Well, she was starting to get to like it, now that Merlyn wasn't around.

She had a much nicer room now as well, about twice as large as the one she had previously occupied. It was nearly indistinguishable from the room of a regular child, even had a few toys, mostly dolls, scattered about. For the sake of the maids that kept the room clean, Nimue told herself, trying to hide how much she enjoyed playing with them every once in a while from herself. Most of her time was spent in Merlyn's library, however, so the temptation to play wasn't too large. Or so she would have liked to think. In the beginning, it had been that way, yet none of the books had interested her, not knowing that she could reconstruct the Book of the Sun. So less and less of her time was spent actually studying, and more and more taken up by napping in the warm sunlight on Merlyn's chair, arguably the most comfortable in the castle, which she had never before been permitted to so much as touch, and, as much as she hated to admit it, playing.

The former was what she was doing now, as she pretended to be looking at some old, dusty volume she had dragged from one of the shelves, in the hopes that maybe it would give her, or, more accurately, the knights that were out searching, more clues as to the location of the Holy Grail. None of the books she had looked in had told her anything, so she had really all but given up, only looking at books when she was bored out of her skull.

She yawned, covering her mouth with one hand while flipping to the next page with the other. Some days - this one being a good example - she wondered why she even bothered with the book. It would be much simpler to just curl up in the chair and fall asleep without having it perched on her lap. She had gotten to the point where she didn't even bother to read anything, just turned pages until she was asleep. Sure enough, only moments later, her hands both fell limply onto the fragile pages, her eyes closed tightly in slumber.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The cup glowed brightly as the water within began to swirl around, seemingly of its own accord. Nimue stared at it, fascinated, anxious to see what it would tell her. Soon, now, she would have the power to track Merlyn down, to figure out where the portal had led, and then finish him off for good. It wouldn't do for him to find some way to escape a few years down the road...

The water sped up, starting to take on different colors, becoming brighter. The colors seemed to blend into each other, though she could still see and tell the difference between all of them somehow. She was entranced, couldn't have stopped watching even if she had wanted to. The colors continued to get brighter, until it felt like her eyes were going to dry up in her skull.

And then the colors seemed to go on fire, right there in the water. She forced herself not to give into her fears and pull away, knowing in the back of her mind that if she did, she would get nothing more than the pretty lights she had already seen out of this. The colors burned for another few moments, and then the water cleared up.

Hadn't it worked? she wondered, feeling disappointed.

"Hello, Nimue," an all-too familiar voice said from behind her. She jumped, feeling quite a bit like a child that had wandered where she didn't belong, and had been told repeatedly not to go. The look on Merlyn's face only made things worse.

"M-Merlyn?" she stammered, trying to figure out how he could have managed to escape already. Had the portal been even weaker than she had feared? Her gaze raked the room, seeking out possible weapons in case he decided to attack her, which would almost certainly be the case.

"Oh, don't worry, dear little Nimue. I wouldn't think of harming my favorite apprentice." Merlyn smiled, obviously trying to be comforting. Nimue was comforted, yes, but more because she knew from his words that he -couldn't- hurt her. Why, she didn't know, but that wasn't important at the moment.

"What do you want, old man? I'm busy." She tried to stand in front of the Grail, not sure what powers it would have in his hands.

"I can see that. But that isn't going to help you. You're going to need the real one..." Nim arched her eyebrow; had the world beyond the portal driven him insane? Of course it was real! Sir... something or other... had brought it here for her... sometime... He had almost certainly had some grand adventure that he had told her about when he had given it to her, and that she had just as almost certainly ignored. Merlyn sighed. "Dear, dear Nimue, haven't you learned anything yet?"

The library seemed to blow away like smoke, the Grail with it, leaving the two of them hovering in the blackness of nothing. She looked around frantically for something, but there was only her. Her and Merlyn. "It's just a dream, Nimue. Don't worry, nothing can hurt you..."

If Nimue's gaze had been teeth, then it could have bitten through stone then. "What do you want, old man?"

Merlyn tried to act surprised. "Why would you suspect that..." Nimue's glare intensified. "All right, I do want something. Don't worry, it's something very simple. I'm sure even you can do it. You've already begun, in fact."

Nimue crossed her arms defiantly. "If you think I'd ever release you, you must be even madder than I thought."

Merlyn sighed, again trying to appear stung by her words. "If you don't help me, I may be forced to... persuade... you."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Nimue's eyes came open, and instinctivly went to her crotch. If Merlyn had ever wanted to persuade her of something, usually her own inferiority, then his efforts were usually focused there. Nothing seemed wrong, however, and she began to giggle softly. How foolish could she be?! It had just been a dream... And dreams never hurt anyone, now did they?

20

Megan glanced nervously in Cassie's direction, but the other girl was busy talking to her friends, and wasn't looking at her after all. Meg gave a little sigh of relief, glad that she had just been being paranoid. She felt a tap on the shoulder, turned back around to see Cherise shoving a piece of paper at her, the words 'What are you looking at?' written on it. Megan wasn't sure why Cherise even bothered to come to rehearsals anymore - she couldn't talk or sing, two of the most important things that you could do in a play, in Meg's opinion anyway. But she hadn't missed a single one. Megan hadn't either, since Cherise was her ride, and now that she had finally gotten a driver's license of her own, she would sit outside Meg's house and honk until she came out, even if she didn't feel like going that day. Megan was very glad that her mother wasn't home at that time of day...

Meg shrugged. "Nothin'," she muttered, not feeling like explaining the events from earlier that day to her best friend. Or anyone, for that matter. At least Cassie hadn't told anybody either, as far as Megan knew.

"Were you planning on paying attention to the music today, Megan?" an exasperated Mitzi asked. Megan blushed, twisting her chair back around to face the front of the room again. Nobody seemed to want to listen to Mitzi today, and the woman wasn't too happy about it, and willing to take it out on anyone and everyone. Even poor little Megan, the star of the show, who was really just as guilty as anybody. She just had too much on her mind at the moment to worry about music, even a song that was supposed to be one of her biggest numbers - I'm Flying. She didn't really like it that much; they had already gone over most of it - the part she sang - the day before, and were only going over the chrous parts now.

That was mostly because she would actually be flying during it. She wasn't really fond of heights, and the thought of flying wasn't helping her any. Sure, three other people would be flying too, and they all weighed less than her, so that if any of them was likely to be dropped, it would be one of them, but just thinking of being even a foot up in the air freaked her out. And Jeremiah had said that they would likely be flying her at least five feet off the ground, maybe more. She wasn't even five feet tall, even if she wore heels! Perhaps she should have mentioned that at the audition, she had thought to herself often, ever since Jeremiah had announced all the little flying statistics. It was too late now...

"Sorry," Meg said meekly. Mitzi glared at her for a few minutes, giving just enough time between Megan's word till Mitzi started playing the piano for Meg to hear Cassie and her friends giggling. Feeling paranoid, she looked over at them, and this time they were looking back. Megan blushed as Cassie leaned over to whisper something to Ellen, and they began giggling again.

"Megan!" Mitzi hissed.

"Sorry," Megan repeated, her blush deepening as she faced the musical director again, the laughter spreading throughout the room.

Mitzi sighed, obviously sure that there was no way she was going to restore order in ten minutes left in rehearsal. "You might as well get ready to leave," she said. "Our star obviously doesn't feel like practising, and if the title character doesn't know what she's doing, what's the point?" She stormed out of the room, much like she did at just about every other rehearsal; why she continued working with teenagers if she hated them so much Megan was fairly certain she would never know.

Meg did know that she should have been used to it by now. She was, sort of, but she wasn't used to Mitzi's anger being directed at her. Her blush deepened another five or six shades, and tears began to sting her eyes as she closed the score, shoving it into the bag that she always carried to rehearsals now, even though most of the time it only had that and the script. She saw Cherise scribbling something, wasn't in the mood to be told that it wasn't her fault, so she got up and tried to make a rush for the door before she started crying too heavily.

"Awww, what's the matter, baby, did you get yelled at?" Cassie's voice broke through the jumble of voices that had arisen since Mitzi's departure. Megan paused, just long enough for Cassie to get behind her. "Does baby need another change?" she asked, thankfully just low enough for Megan, and not the rest of the cast, to hear.

"Leave me alone," Megan whimpered, starting to walk away.

"Now that's not very polite," Cassie reached out, grabbed Megan's wrist, pulled her backwards. "Didn't your mommy ever teach you manners? I guess we'll have to fix that." An image of Cassie revealing her diaper flashed through Megan's mind.

"Just leave me alone," she begged quietly.

"You just don't get it, do you, lil Meggie?" Cassie shook her head. "When somebody invites you to their house, you don't just walk away... You see, that's rude. And rude little children have to be punished, or they just get ruder, and ruder..."

"But you didn't..." Meg protested, her heart pounding away. There was no way this was going to end well.

"That's because it's not an invitation. You're coming, or everyone here finds out the truth about our precious little star..." Megan gulped, wishing that the hand that Cassie didn't have an iron grip on wasn't in a cast so that she could have fought back, or at least prevented her pants being pulled down, if it came to that. And even if Cherise came to her rescue, Cassie would still have time to show off Meg's undergarment before getting smashed to a pulp.

"Fine." Her shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Oh, goody!" Cassie grinned, pulling Meg even closer to herself. "I'm sure we're going to have a great time, little Meggie-poo. Well... I am, anyway." Megan cringed at the sound of her laughter, trying hard not to let her brain realize just how much it sounded like the shadow man's laugh.

Elizabeth

21

Any half decent soothsayer would have seen it coming a week ago, perhaps more, but seeing the future had never been a strength of Nimue's. Still, an event of much magnitude should have given her -some- warning. Everything had been going so well, too; Camelot under her command, 'her' knights undoubtably close to finding the Grail, she hadn't seen Merlyn in her dreams for a couple days now. This, she told herself, was what came of not paying attention to politics. She had often suspected that that had been how Merlyn had seen what was to come, by paying attention, not any magical abilities.

Nimue sighed, looking around the library. There were way too many books for her to take them all, and she doubted she would have wanted them all anyway. The cover of the Book of the Sun was already packed, of course, and she wanted to take some others, just in case she might need them, but none of them looked like they would do her any good in the world outside.

Stupid King Arthur. Why couldn't he have waited until Nimue had the Grail, and the Book of the Sun, till her got himself killed by his own son? And why couldn't the messenger have gotten killed while trying to escape the battle afterwards? More importantly, why hadn't she just killed him herself when she had seen him coming? She may not have been able to see what he was going to say, but she could feel that it was nothing good.

Finally, she grabbed a couple of the smaller books from one of the shelves she could reach without a ladder, and hurried to her room. Disturbingly enough, she had actually considered taking her toys with her, but what good would they do her? Besides there hadn't been enough room... Even so, it made her nearly want to cry to look around at all she had gotten since she had gotten rid of Merlyn, knowing that she had to leave it all behind.

She had seen the way some of the knights had looked at her, and she knew that this was probably not a good time to be the former apprentice of the advisor to the now dead king, especially after all the power she had gotten Guinevere. They probably thought she would try to become the next ruler of England. And if they did, she had no doubt that they would be all too willing to kill her. And she couldn't be on her guard all the time...

Moonlight streamed in through her window as she quickly put on her cloak, shouldered the little bundle of things she had made up, and hurried through the dark, stone passages that cut through the castle like veins, taking the least direct route she could, not wanting to run into anyone. There were a few close calls, where she heard footsteps and barely had time to duck into a nearby doorway before she heard somebody walking past her, but for the most part, she was successful.

The thing that had worried her the most about this escape had been getting past the sentries that patrolled the outside wall of the castle, watching for armies approaching, though they would certainly notice her leaving as well. Luckily, she had overheard a conversation between a couple of them, in which they mentioned that they needed to bring up another keg from the cellars. In other times, Nim might have kept that information hidden away, in case she ever needed to force them to do anything for her, since they weren't supposed to be drinking while on patrol, but it wouldn't quite as well with the king gone, and most likely dead. It might still work, though she didn't feel too eager to test whether or not they would take the opportunity to rid Camelot of a potential contender for the throne.

So instead she had figured out where they had hidden the keg, and, when they were all out patrolling, slipped a little sleeping powder from Merlyn's stores in. By now, most, probably all, of them would be fast asleep. Sneaking around the little old man that operated the drawbridge was easier, so she hadn't really worried about that, nor about getting over the moat.

One of the first interesting, at least according to her, things that Merlyn had taught her was levitation. Figuring out a way how to make herself fly had been a little tougher, but turned out to just be a matter of amplifying the spell by quite a few times, and using it on something flat. She didn't trust the strength of the spell for very long, but the moat wasn't all that far across, and so it should work. At least, she hoped it would.

She took her cloak back off, shivering a little as the cold night air reached her skin. She had some clothes for warmer weather packed, but had only worn a short sleeved dress, though she couldn't for the life of her remember why now. Spreading the cloak out on the ground, she whispered a couple words, focusing all of her inner energy onto the cloak and the words, connecting the two in her mind. After a moment of uncertain flutters, the cloak rose into the air. Nimue stepped onto it, repeating the words over and over, guiding the cloak straight forward.

She had a little scare when she had made it about three-quarters of the way across, when the cloak suddenly froze in mid air, but luckily it began moving again after that moment had passed. She was glad to be across, however, with her cloak around her shoulders again instead of under her feet. A quick glance behind her was the only remorse she showed for leaving the place where she had learned so much, the place she had all but ruled, for a few weeks anyway, and then she was gone, heading into the deep fog of the valley beyond the mystical fortress of Camelot, the one place she knew that she would never return to, even if she lived until the end of the world.

Nimue yawned, her eyelids feeling as heavy as if they were weighted down by stones. Just a little further, though, she knew, and there would be a little village where she should be able to find a room, to get a little rest at least before she had to start moving again. She couldn't wait too long, or else someone would notice her absence, and start searching for her, and this town would most likely be the first place they looked. Still, she couldn't bear to force herself to go any further than it, so it would do.

Nim froze as she heard voices being carried on the wind from further along the path, almost as clear as if she had been standing right beside those to whom the voices belonged. One was familiar, though not enough for her to put a name to it. It was the softer of the two, the weakest sounding.

"Surely a knight in the king's service has more gold about him than this," the other growled, and Nimue could practically see the blade held threateningly in his hand, pointed at the knight's throat. "Tell me where it is, and I may let you live, you filthy worm."

Nimue was half tempted to just let the knight get slaughtered - weren't they always bragging about how they could get out of just such a deadly situation as this? Perhaps this would be a good time for the knight, whoever it was, to demonstrate. But something, compassion maybe, or a premonition, came over her, and she knelt down in the dust of the road, tracing a few figures there with her finger.

She slowly stood back up, feeling even more exhausted. Had she used too much of her mystical energy? Would she be able to make it to the town? That would just be too ironic, for her to die saving a person supposedly sworn to saving the 'helpless' of the world, which was one word most people would use to describe her, at least if all they were judging her by was her looks.

The thundering of hooves filled the air, though Nimue could still hear the bandit's cursing as he turned to see the group of knights riding towards him and intended victim. Nimue gave him enough time to sheathe his sword and run away before continuing down the road.

The knight was injured quite badly, even Nimue could see that. He couldn't possibly last much longer, and Nim knew that she didn't have enough energy left to do anything for him. It would have been more merciful to simply let the bandit finish him off, Nim thought sadly. Even a pompous knight deserved a quick death, at least as opposed to this slow, and, by the look of blood spattered everywhere, painful one.

"L-Lady," his voice spoke up, shocking Nimue a little. She had never been called 'Lady' before... It had a nice ring to it, however. Still, the fact that he was able to speak had been the thing that had shocked her the most.

She knelt down again, grimacing a little as the hem of her already dirt-stained dress became soaked in blood. She no longer had a seamstress to obey her every whim - she would have to take much better care of her clothes than this. "What is it?" she asked him, not really expecting an answer.

"I-I've found it," he gasped, and then was interrupted by a coughing fit. His hand weakly reached upwards, almost as if controlled by a muscle spasm, and came away covered in blood. "I-I found the Holy G-Grail..."

22

Megan looked around nervously, wishing that it didn't feel like everybody was staring at her. "You said we were going to your house," she whined, for what was possibly the hundredth time. Cassie just smiled at her, which was much nicer than some of the responses she had gotten before. "Please, I'll do anything you want, just..."

"That's right, -Baby- Megan. You'll do whatever I want," Cassie smirked. "And I don't need to agree to anything to get you to do it."

"Th-This is just stupid! They'll never let us in, you know."

Cassie just smiled at her, patting her on the bottom. Megan winced, not because it hurt, even though it did, but because of her worst enemy doing something so maternal to her. Not that Cassie meant it in a maternal way - no, she was just doing it to be sadistic - but Megan had seen real mothers doing just such a thing.

"What are you so worried about anyway? All you have to do is be your own adorable little self... And we all know how good you are at that." Cassie's smile turned into a glare, then switched back. "Now shut up, unless you want another spanking."

Megan blushed, but kept her mouth closed. A spanking was the last thing she needed right then. That had been nearly the first thing that Cassie had done after they had left practice and came here, to the mall. Luckily, there weren't very many people around, and Cassie made it quick so that she didn't get in trouble in case the security guard walked by, but Meg's butt was still stinging from it.

At one time, Megan would have liked to think that she could have kept Cassie from doing stuff like that, but now she had an arm in a cast, she was nearly helpless against her. And she wasn't too sure that even if both of her arms had been healthy that she could have held her off for more than a minute, two at the most. It was a scary thought.

But not as scary as what was about to happen.

"Come on, Meggie, it's time," Cassie suddenly exclaimed, grabbing Megan's hand and half dragging her across the mall, to the entrance to a small area behind the little stage that was hardly ever used, except for the one time that some author had given a reading of her newest book there.

Ellen beckoned to the two of them, or at least that's what it seemed like she was doing. It was hard to tell with the sleeping two year old she was holding in her arms. "Hurry," she hissed, and Cassie gladly complied, all but shoving Megan through the door.

There were clothes tossed all about the room, though the only life visible was that of Ellen, her little sister, Cassie, and of course Megan. A few mirrors were mounted on one wall, and there was another door, one that led up to the stage.

"I think they're about ready to call us. I wish Kate would wake up... She's probably gonna make us lose," Ellen lamented.

"Like you ever stood a chance against little Megan here," Cassie cooed, tweaking Meg's cheek, something Megan had despised even when she had been a real little girl. She started to pull away, but a voice came from above unexpectedly, and she became more occupied watching Ellen, desperately trying to wake the sleeping toddler, walking away.

"It's almost our turn!" Cassie exclaimed. "Aren't you excited?!"

"Please, Cassie, I know you hate me, but you can't make me do this!" Megan begged, actually getting on her knees. "You saw all the people out there..."

The next thing she knew, she was on the floor, her head spinning, tears streaming from her eyes. "I told you to shut up," Cassie said in a quiet, dangerous voice. "Don't you ever listen?!"

Before Meg could think of anything to say to that, she heard Cassie's name being called. "Let's see your little friend Cherise get you out of this one." Cassie sounded much happier now, as she tugged Megan to her feet, and then starting dragging her to the door. Meg tried to find something, anything, to keep her body from moving forward, but it was hard enough for her to keep from falling on her face.

And then she was out, on the stage. She had been working on getting ready to do just that for weeks now, but this wasn't the same as Peter Pan. She still felt a great deal like the lead character - everyone was surely staring at her - but there were quite a few differences, too. For one, if she was Peter Pan, she could just fly away from all this.

And she would have a much different costume. One she could actually walk in, most likely. She could barely even waddle now. Cassie had put two of Megan's extremely thick diapers on her at the same time, and a little pink dress that had been made for somebody perhaps half her age, short enough that even one diaper would be showcased quite well by it. But two at the same time... She might as well just be wearing a T-shirt.

Megan froze as she saw the sea of faces looking at her, heard the voice announcing her as Cassie's one and a half year old sister, saw the other contestants of the baby pageant, or more specifically, the mothers and sisters of the contestants, glaring, mentally telling her that this was serious business, not the place for some silly prank as they breathed an inner sigh of relief, glad to see that at least she wasn't more competition.

Everyone was looking at her. Megan was sure of it. And they had to all be laughing at her, she could hear it in her head. -She- would be laughing, if she was in the audience, and Cassie was onstage. Or she would have at one time, before she had started needing to wear diapers.

Tears poured like twin waterfalls from her eyes, blurring the sight of all those people who had seen her like this. Her life might as well be over; in this town, if even a quarter of the people in attendance saw, or heard about something, the rest of the town would know within the week. She would be known as the '12 year old baby' or something like that for the rest of her life, she was certain, and with that nickname, how could she ever hope to get a boyfriend?

There was a maelstrom of voices swirling violently around her, but they all seemed to blend together in an unintelligible mess as she just stood there in full view of anyone who cared to look at her. Nothing really seemed to matter anymore. At some point, she felt her hand being taken roughly, and her feet began to walk almost of their own accord, mindlessly following as Cassie led her on to the next torture...

The next thing that she saw, or her brain recognized anyway, was the house. Somehow during the horror of being diapered at school and getting attacked in her dreams, she had mostly lost her fear of it, yet she wasn't prepared for it just then, and all the old paranoia came rushing back, accompanied by a hearty shiver.

"Aww, is the baby afraid of the big, bad haunted house?" Cassie teased. "Well, we'll just have to do something about that, now won't we?"

"Screw you," Megan growled. "I don't care if you -do- tell everyone I know now. Just leave me alone."

Cassie didn't let go of her hand, however. "What about your mother?" she asked. "What if I told her? Do you think she'd be angry enough to break your other arm?" The shock must have shown on Megan's face, because Cassie laughed. "It's amazing the kind of things you learn in your dreams, isn't it, Meg?"

Megan nodded, the tears that had almost dried welling back up again. "So... Do you want to risk your dear mommy's wrath... Or do you want to go see what's in the haunted house?"

A few minutes later, Megan was at the front door of the house, her hand raised to knock. The door creaked open as soon as her fist touched it, revealing the pitch blackness inside. Megan held her breath, reminding herself what would happen if she turned and ran, and then stepped inside.

23

Light shouldn't have penetrated this far into the cave, yet Nimue could see perfectly as she walked through, the sound of tiny skittering feet ahead of her greeting her ears with every step she took. The ball of light hovering just ahead of her helped quite a bit, of course...

She was starting to think that the man had just been crazy, that the pain and horror of death lingering so close had decimated what little bit of brains he had to start with. After all, why would he hide a holy relic in a deep, dank cave like this, instead of taking it back to Camelot, even if he had heard rumors of King Arthur's defeat. In his dreams, no less! All knights were crazy, Nimue was sure of it.

But didn't that make her even -more- crazy, since she was following his directions? No, she was just a woman on a mission, that was all, willing to do whatever it took. And if that included making a pointless trip through some old cave, then so be it.

Something in the distance reflected the light back, faintly, but enough for Nimue to see. Could it be..? Had he been right after all?! She quickened her pace, would have held her breath if she wasn't so tired from walking, and using her energy on the ball of light.

And then she was holding her breath, regardless of all of that. Had she really found it? It was almost too easy. Or would have been, if she hadn't been waiting so long for this. Her hand was shaking ever so slightly as it reached out, her fingers brushing the rough wood of the Grail, and then wrapping around it, pulling it up, cradling it before her chest.

A smile cracked slowly across her face, transformed into a soft chuckle before erupting into pure, unfettered laughter. The silence of the cave shattered, sound bouncing off of stone walls that had not heard the sound of a human voice for years, if not centuries. It was almost over now... Unless, of course, this was just the beginning.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Megan gasped, her hand clutching her rapidly beating heart. She hadn't been expecting to see anyone else here... At least, she was hoping that she wouldn't. "What are you doing?" she asked, once she could talk again. "I-I don't think people are supposed to be here..."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Nimue fell back, exhausted, as the light around the Holy Grail began to fade. So many... There were so many... How could she possibly find them all, even if she did know where they were? It would take her forever, if not longer.

So it had all been for nothing. She could never hope to repair the Book of the Sun, not if she had three lifetimes. This trip, all those boring days in the library, the betrayal of her master - all for naught.

She sighed sadly, and then the tears started to pour down her face, onto the cold, uncaring rock below her. After all of this, she had still had no power. That was all she wanted, just a little power... And not to be seen as a little gir...

That was it! She sat up suddenly, tears and grief alike forgotten. Who was to say that she -didn't- have three lifetimes? She was Atlantean, after all! And her aging had slowed down even further, ever since the Banishing. Who was to say that she had to worry about such inconveniences as mortal life spans? Who was to say that she wouldn't live forever? She could, and would, damn it all!, fix the Book, if it took her until the sun itself burned out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

'What are -you- doing here? And why are you dressed like that?'

"I-It doesn't matter," Megan said quietly, blushing and looking down at the floor, unable to miss seeing the thick diaper around her waist as she did so. "C'mon, let's go home."

Cherise shook her head, grabbed Megan's arm. She was silent for a few moments, as if considering something, and then nodded, seemingly to herself. 'Do you trust me?'

Megan raised her eyebrow, suddenly wondering if this wasn't really Cherise. Maybe it was a ghost pretending to be her... "Of course I do. We've been best friends for... forever."

'Eight years' came the written answer. 'Will you help me with something?'

"Sure," Megan shrugged. Cherise smiled, dropped the notebook, reached up with both hands, grabbing Megan's face...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Civilizations rose and fell, magic was pushed out of the world by the rise of technology, kings and queens were crowned, only to be killed, sometimes by usurpers to their throne, sometimes by time itself. There was only one constant, only one thing that persevered.

The eternal child, never staying in one place for long. There was always another page to find, another place to go, another adventure to coax others to tackle for her. When times changed enough that people began to question an eight year old by herself, she adapted, creating 'parents' for herself, first by using spells to possess two people, and then, when she started running into problems with them suddenly remembering that they weren't related to, and certainly never gave birth to, her, she went on to the next stage, building a pair of humans with dirt and magic.

As the number of pages left to discover dwindled, however, so did her love for the world, and her hatred of her state as a mere child, forever, grew, overshadowing her hate of the old man, Merlyn. So that when she found the final page, in the new country across the sea, her first task was not the destruction of that old foe, but something much more difficult.

It took her a week almost, to work the complex spell, one that drained her of all the mystical energy she could summon, and begged for more. She gave it all she could, praying it would be enough. And at the end, it was. For a few months, she wasn't sure of that, but soon she began to notice the changes, slow, yet much more rapid than anything that her body had been through for many, many years, leaving her unable to work even the simplest spell for nearly a decade. Still, her body was growing again, was aging...

It had begun.

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Megan tried to break free, but there was nothing to free herself from. In fact, there was nothing at all.

"It's all right," Cherise's voice, silent for so long, reassured her. "It'll all be okay, soon."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The door creaked open, almost falling from its hinges as the hand pushed it inward. Cobwebs hung thick all through the room, nearly as thick as the scent of decay. A soft wind blew, gained strength, clearing the room of all but the occupant in the center.

The ancient head raised, turning slowly, looking as if it moved any faster, it would fall right off of the bony, almost skeletal shoulders on which it was perched.

"Nice place you got here," Megan's voice said. The man knew who was really saying it, though. And in that moment, he realized that he had been tricked. The girl hadn't been just some adolescent after all, even if she had seemed to be. He hadn't been tricking her - he had just been leading her straight to his hiding place, the haven where he kept his body, ever since time had made it useless to him. The one place where he was vulnerable.

"So, you finally found me," he said, his voice rough, hoarse, unused to the world of the waking. "But do you..."

He was cut off by a flash of light, searing what little flesh remained from his bones, shredding the bones, leaving behind only a pile of dust where the world's most powerful and well known wizard had once sat.

Nimue smiled, brushing her hands off. "You always did talk too much, old man," she said quietly, turned, walked away.

~*~Epilogue~*~

Megan woke.

That was the first surprise, something she hadn't been expecting to happen again.

"Time to get up, honey," another voice told her as the blankets were pulled away from her body. "You don't want to be late for school, now would you?"

Megan couldn't tell if the voice was mocking her, or if it was serious. Still, the principle remained the same - she was too tired to really care.

"You don't want -me- to be late for school, do you?" the voice spoke again, sounding playfully annoyed.

"Yeah, I do, Cherise... Now shut up and let me go back to sleep." Megan rolled over in the bed, reaching blindly for the blanket before remembering that she had a cast on her arm.

Cloth brushed against flesh, and her eyes shot open. Her arm... It was healed! But how..?

"There are a lot of things you don't understand now, sweetie, and things that you may never understand..." Cherise told her softly, from her perch at the edge of the bed.

"I know you'll hate me for a little while, Megan, but that's okay. You probably know by now that I'm not who I seem. Neither are my parents, for that matter, but that isn't important now. I just want you to know... I love you, Megan. No matter what. Someday you'll understand."

Nimue - or Cherise, whichever you want to call her - stood, gently gathering Megan into a hug despite the other girl's attempts to pull away. "Ever since the first day I showed up in the house beside yours, you were always there, pestering me. It took me a long time to realize that you looked up to me. No one... Nobody ever did that before. You -trusted- me."

"And you tricked me," Meg said coldly. "You were the shadow man, weren't you? You started this whole thing..."

Cherise sighed. "Yes, I did, but I promise you, I'm not him. Just trust me again, like you used to. I'm giving you something you deserve more than any person I have ever met. Something that you had, so long ago that you probably don't even remember it."

Cherise bent down and kissed Megan's forehead. "Goodbye, Megan. You were a true friend."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"We're gonna be late!" Megan whined, fidgeting in her car seat. She absolutely hated riding in it... She was a big girl now, after all, just turned five! But her mommy and daddy said she was still too small.

"No, we'll be right on time," her daddy assured her. Normally, that would have been enough. Not today, though. No, today, she was too worried about being late to her ballet class. "Be quiet, hon..."

"Are too gonna be late," she pouted, crossing her arms, not caring that mommy was taking a nap in the front seat. She slept a lot these days, when she wasn't throwing up, or eating weird things. "And then they won't let me dance..."

Daddy sighed, casting a desperate look over at his wife, finding no help there. "I'm sure they'll understand if you're a few minutes late, honey. It's pretty foggy out here, and I imagine they'd rather you be late then not show up at all..."

"I guess," Megan conceded the point, but wasn't ready to resign herself to being late. "Can't you go a little faster?"

"Meg, sweetheart, Daddy is busy right now - could you please be quiet?" He turned slightly in his seat as he said it, giving her a little smile to take the harshness from his words. God, what was it going to be like, having -two- kids bugging him about this kind of thing while he was driving, and, if Meg was any indication, every other waking moment?

Sometimes a second seems longer than that. Sometimes it's more significant than it truly has any right to be. This was one of them. Time seemed to stretch on forever as the lights appeared in front of them, yet it still wasn't long enough for Meg to find her voice, to say something, anything...

Megan's eyes came open again, two half-familiar figures standing over her. "She's awake," the first whispered.

The second hurried over to her side, kneeling down by the bed. "Megan? Honey, are you okay?"

Meg nodded, not really feeling like it, but not wanting to worry Mrs. Mingus.

The door opened, a man in white entering solemnly. Mrs. Mingus quickly grasped Megan's hand. The man slowly shook his head. When Mrs. Mingus turned back to Megan, tears glistened in her eyes. "Honey, I have some bad news..."

A small voice piped up from a chair at the other end of the room. "And some good news!" it exclaimed. A nine year old girl stood, walked over to the bed and taking Megan's other hand. "Hey, Megan... How would you like to be my sister?"

Meg looked up at her best friend, smiling for the first time since she had woke. "H-How?"

Cherise shook her head. "That's not important now. The only thing that's important is that you know that I love you, and I'll never let anything hurt you, never again."

Megan giggled. "I already knew that. That's what best friends do..."

Cherise grinned. "That's right, Megan. That's what best friends do. And that's what sisters do, too."

"And we're sisters now?" Megan asked, still feeling a little confused.

Cherise smiled, her eyes shining with wisdom way beyond the nine years that she had appeared to have lived. "Forever."