Haunted Heroine

by Sarah Kuhn

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shelby Tran nodding at me, looking up from her notebook-scribbling.

  “And finally, teenage girls are amazing—a teenage girl kicking ass with her magic powers and finding her place in the world and, dear god, having more than one person interested in asking her to prom is more believable than ninety percent of what you see in fiction. Especially all that old white man fiction you probably revere so fucking much.” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at Richard and tried not to spiral into all the excuses I was going to need to leave class immediately and figure out what was happening with my glamour. “So maybe you could stop shaming your students for what they like and actually try to, I don’t know, teach them something?”

  Richard stared back at me, opening his mouth, then closing it. A heavy silence fell over the class, punctuated only by Pippa murmuring “Damn” under her breath.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shelby Tran smiling slightly at me. I smiled back, then reached up to surreptitiously touch my hair—which definitely felt curlier than Eliza Takahashi’s.

  Shit. Fuck. Was I about to be exposed before Aveda and I even got started on our mission? I could just see Maisy’s headline now:

  City’s Beloved Superheroine Totally Bitches Out Esteemed Professor Over Whether Dragon-Fae Love Triangles Count as ‘Literature’

  “Well.” Richard broke the silence. His pseudo-charming smile was back in place, but it was clearly strained, fine lines spider-webbing their way around his blue eyes. “That’s a fascinating perspective, Ms. Takahashi, and I think we should leave the students to contemplate it for next time.” He turned his fake smile to the class. “You’re dismissed early—enjoy that late fall sunshine!”

  The students, needing no other encouragement to ditch the rest of what was clearly a class of questionable educational value, immediately broke into excited chatter and started to noisily pack up their things. I glanced back at Shelby, who was stuffing her notebook into a lumpy backpack. Maybe I could catch her on her way out, strike up a conversation. She’d seemed to dig my tirade against Richard, so maybe she’d be open to talking more.

  Except . . . if my glamour was wearing off, I probably shouldn’t approach her because she might recognize me. Then again, I clearly wasn’t getting invited back to this class, so when would I have another chance to talk to her?

  Argh. I curled my hands into fists, my raggedy-ass nails scraping against my palms.

  “Well,” I said, turning back to Richard, “obviously I’m fired. Or transferred to another class, whatever you do with unruly TAs. Sorry for debunking all your incredibly sexist theories about Dusk. Only actually not that sorry, because you’re an awful teacher.”

  And with that, I took off, weaving my way through the excited crowd of exiting students, trying to get eyes on Shelby. I saw her a little ways up ahead, her shaggy hair whipping around in the late afternoon breeze. The adrenaline that was already coursing through my veins kicked up a notch as I hurried to catch up with her.

  I had to admit: speaking up, laying into Richard like that, had felt incredibly good. Mouse Evie had been much too timid (and, okay, exhausted) to even think of disagreeing with a professor that way, especially in front of so many people. Sure, we’d had spirited discussions, but I’d usually let him win. I’d always seen him as so much wiser, so obviously more well read than I was. But watching him blather on in front of the class like that made me see that he’d pretty much always been a gigantic bag of hot air.

  I couldn’t help but wonder why Morgan College, supposedly so dedicated to educating young feminist minds, still employed him.

  I quickened my step, zig-zagging my way through the horde of students. I had almost caught up to Shelby when Pippa pushed past me and fell into step next to her.

  “What’s up, Shel, was that the wildest class or what?” Pippa hooted. “I kinda love that new TA.”

  “She’s all right,” Shelby said, her voice distracted.

  Hmph. I thought Shelby had been super into what I was saying, but maybe she’d just been excited to get out of class early.

  “Hopefully she’ll stick around, give that ol’ windbag some more back talk,” Pippa continued. “He made me feel like I totally didn’t know what I was talking about. But Cool TA thought I had some good points, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Yeah, she did,” I murmured.

  I slowed my pace, staying close enough to listen, but far enough away that I wouldn’t seem like I was following them and eavesdropping on their conversation. Maybe this was better than immediately trying to talk to Shelby directly, especially if I currently looked like myself. I could get a sense of what her life was like, find an in. I was already wondering if she was always this morose, or if this was an aftereffect of her encounter with the ghost.

  “So are you gonna go to that party tonight—the one in Mara Dash?” Pippa continued. “I hear it’s gonna be sick.”

  “I dunno,” Shelby said. “I have so much work to do, and I gotta get up early for crew practice.”

  “Try an experiment, Shel: pretend like you’re an actual college student,” Pippa crowed, throwing her arms around Shelby’s shoulders. “I’ll make sure you get to bed at a decent hour.”

  As they wandered off, Pippa still chattering in Shelby’s ear, I stopped and let them go. A party. Tonight. In the dorm Aveda and I were living in. That sounded like the perfect, organic opportunity to chat Shelby up. And if she proved to be standoffish, maybe her friend Pippa would help me talk to her—after all, Pippa kinda loved me. Er, loved Eliza Takahashi. Whatever.

  I nodded to myself, satisfied with my day of undercover TA-ing. I turned, preparing to make my way back to the dorm (and to figure out what the fuck was going on with my glamour), and nearly smacked into the tall, elbow-patched, thoroughly annoyed figure barreling in my direction.

  “Evie Tanaka,” Richard hissed, clamping a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know how—but I know that’s you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “HE SAID WHAT? And you did what?” Aveda turned from the mirror she’d been using to scrutinize her dorm party outfit and goggled at me.

  “He knew it was me,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “Maybe it was because the glamour started to fade, or maybe it was the way I argued with him that pinged something. I don’t know.”

  “I can at least help you with the glamour part.” Scott gave me his easy, lopsided grin—he’d made the trip over to the East Bay for emergency glamour assistance and was now taking in our cramped little dorm room.

  By the time I’d gotten back to our room, my Eliza Takahashi façade had unraveled entirely. My hair was curly, my freckles had resurrected themselves, and my nails were back to their raggedy state. This was decidedly not great if Aveda and I wanted to maintain our cover, especially considering that Richard had recognized me as soon as the glamour started to unravel.

  “I’m still confused about how he recognized you,” Aveda said. “I know the glamour was unraveling, but it wasn’t totally gone. And you always said you didn’t argue with him that much when you two were together—you were Mouse Evie.”

  “I referenced certain things when I was fighting with him,” I mused. “Things that someone he’d just met wouldn’t necessarily know. The kinds of books he likes, the tropes he favors, the stuff he deems good writing or whatever. Maybe it was just enough to remind him of me—maybe what I said seemed weirdly intimate.” I couldn’t help but feel the same little flutter of satisfaction I’d gotten when I’d been arguing with him. In hindsight, it probably hadn’t been the smartest move, but I just couldn’t help it. When he’d shut down, interrupted, and dismissed Pippa over and over, when I’d seen her deflate, the rage had just poured out of me and I hadn’t been able to stop it.

  “And how did you get away from him?” Aveda asked.

  “I kept denying it, telling him he’d confu
sed me with someone else. Predictably, he wouldn’t let it go—”

  “Ah, the kind of white man who’s convinced he’s right about everything, including other people’s lived experiences,” Aveda sniffed.

  “—until I gently reminded him that not all Asian people look alike,” I said, a smug grin playing across my lips.

  “Oh my god.” Aveda’s eyes widened. “Let me guess, he immediately pivoted to telling you how he’s not a racist, and is in fact quite woke, and then—”

  “He told me about that one time he visited Kyoto and tried to speak to me in Japanese,” I said.

  “I knew it!” Aveda shrieked—and we both dissolved into giggles.

  “Back to the glamour,” Scott said, giving us an amused look. “I’m so sorry, Evie, these are powered by a somewhat gentler magic than my usual tokens.” He scrutinized the glamour token in his hand, a round bit of wood about the size of a nickel. “Something about how that magic interacts with your body chemistry threw it off.”

  “Are you saying this is all because of my weirdo pregnant body?” I groaned. “Haven’t you ever glamoured a pregnant person before?”

  “Yeah,” Aveda said, looking indignant. “Next you’ll be telling me shit won’t work because I’m on my period or something.”

  “Not what I’m saying, Annie, my love,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender and chuckling a bit. “I have made glamour tokens for pregnant people before—I believe the issue here is that Evie isn’t just a pregnant person, she’s a pregnant superheroine. And her baby isn’t just part superheroine, it’s part demon. There’s a lot going on here that there’s absolutely no precedent for. Figuring out the magic component is going to require some experimentation.”

  “Well, great,” Aveda huffed. “Just make sure it works, please. Maintaining our cover is very important, here.”

  “Of course,” he said, giving her another disarming grin. And because Aveda could never stay irritated with him for long, she melted instantly, giving him a soft half-smile in return.

  “This one should be more stable,” Scott said, passing me a new glamour token. “The magic is stronger, and I tried to focus it on keeping up the illusion. But you might have to concentrate harder to maintain it—you’ll need to be more aware of the glamour. Call me immediately if you have any more problems.”

  “Will do,” I said, taking it from him and manufacturing one of my pasted-on smiles—even though all I could think was this was yet another thing for me to worry about.

  “And now I should probably go,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you two are going to a dorm party. Should I tell Nate?” He’d meant for that to be teasing, but I stiffened, my smile becoming more fake.

  “Um. Maybe best not to,” I muttered.

  Scott’s easy grin dissolved. “Are you guys okay? He was in kind of a mood when he got back to HQ yesterday. Although sometimes with him, it’s hard to tell if that mood is actually a bad thing or just an extension of his usual self.”

  “We’re fine,” I said, mustering a fake smile that made my face hurt.

  “Anyway, back to the mission,” Aveda said, studying me intently. I’d passed out last night before I could fully fill her in on my fight with Nate—all she really knew was that our visit hadn’t ended super well. “I’d invite you to the party, Scott, but I need to be on tonight.” Her brows drew together, her expression morphing into one of intense determination. “And you’re much too distracting to me.”

  “I can stay for a little longer,” he said, cupping her face in his hands. “Distract you before your mission?”

  “Ahem,” I said, making a big show of clearing my throat as they leaned in for a kiss. “Can you guys distract each other outside, please? This dorm room is very small and I love that y’all are so in love, but I don’t need to be part of your love. In that way.”

  “We’ll go out to the car,” Aveda said, sticking her tongue out at me. “I know you’re probably due for your seventh mid-day nap anyway. Or I guess this would be the early evening nap?”

  “True, true,” I said, trying and failing to suppress a mighty yawn.

  “Then I’ll leave you to that,” Aveda said. “But you know, Evie, as college roomies, we really need to think of some kind of signal for when one of us is using this room for sex purposes. I’m thinking the classic scrunchie on the door—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” I said, laughing through my next yawn. “I’m not sure that’s what the kids are doing these days, but where did you learn about the classic scrunchie on the door?”

  “I overheard some of my fellow students talking about it!” she said, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder. “And I want to fit in with them—for undercover purposes.”

  “Riiiiiight,” I said, still laughing. “All right, scrunchie on the door, you got it. Bye, Scott.”

  He waved to me as Aveda dragged him out of the room. I shook my head, letting my head flop back onto the pillow. I was suddenly so tired. But as I drifted off, Scott’s words floated through my head:

  She’s a pregnant superheroine.

  Her baby is part demon.

  There’s a lot going on here that there’s absolutely no precedent for.

  I was glad Nate hadn’t been here to hear that—it would have made him worry even more. I checked my phone, half hoping to see a text from him. But there was nothing. And before I knew what was happening, I was asleep.

  * * *

  I was awakened by Aveda gently shaking my shoulder.

  “Mmm,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Only about an hour since I left you here. We have plenty of time to get ready,” she said, grinning at me. Her cheeks were flushed, her potential dorm party outfit looked rumpled, and her previously pristine ponytail was askew.

  “Did you just have sex in Scott’s car?” I yawned, sitting up and running a hand through my tangled hair.

  “I sure did!” she sang out, dancing across the threadbare carpet and over to the mirror. “We almost got caught twice by people wandering by—totally hot.”

  “You are truly embracing this wild college lifestyle,” I said, laughing a little.

  “Did you ever do that when you were here?” She waggled her eyebrows at me. “Was Richard a fan of semi-public copulation?”

  “Most definitely not,” I snorted. “He was so paranoid about keeping his professor gig. It’s always been extremely important to him—getting caught having car sex would have been a blemish on his reputation—”

  “Getting caught having car sex with a student,” Aveda interjected. “That would have been more than a mere ‘blemish,’ I think.”

  “I guess now I can see why it was important to him—lording his terrible opinions over his students is the one thing that makes him feel superior and manly-like,” I mused. “Any affection had to be confined to where people wouldn’t see us—which is one reason coming across him in the library like that was such a surprise.”

  “Hmm.” Aveda made a big show of adjusting her ponytail in the mirror. “Isn’t it funny, Evelyn, that you claimed I’d be the one to lose it on Richard? But it was you.”

  “I know, I know,” I groaned, covering my face. “I had more pent-up rage than I realized. But yeah, I’m super embarrassed that I couldn’t get through a whole class without nearly blowing our cover. That doesn’t bode well for us accomplishing our mission.”

  “Nonsense,” Aveda said, crossing the room and flopping next to me on the bed. “I’m proud of you. You took down that pompous asshole, showed all those students they don’t need to listen to him, and you managed to get us a solid lead with the dorm party, where you can finally talk to Shelby Tran. That’s some top-notch superheroine detective work, Evie. You’re like—who are those British murder show ladies Lucy loves so much? Smart and Ailey?”

  “Scott and Bailey,” I said, giggling
again.

  Aveda grinned at me, pulling herself into a sitting position. “This is nice.”

  “What, us hanging out together?” I teased. “Don’t we do that all the time? Isn’t that basically our life at this point?”

  “Yes,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. “But I meant, it’s fun to hang out like this. Like we’re just two carefree college girls, getting ready for a party. I don’t think either of us ever got to be that, you know? I became Aveda Jupiter as soon as we got our powers, dedicated my entire life to that. And you . . .” Her gaze softened, and she reached over to brush my unkempt tangle of curls off my face. “You had so many responsibilities after your dad left. More than you should have.”

  “Yeah, but presumably I could have gone to more dorm parties when I was an undergrad,” I said, propping my head up on my elbow and studying Aveda’s Heroic Trio poster. “It just never really seemed like my thing. And then Mom got sick and I moved home and . . . well. Anyway.” My gaze wandered over Michelle Yeoh’s fabulous mane of hair, blowing in the wind. “I did actually go to one dorm party when I was here at Morgan. Richard and I stayed late grading papers and Bea had gotten in trouble at school that week, and I was just so stressed and exhausted . . .”

  I paused and shook my head, remembering that bone-deep feeling of tiredness, the way every inch of my brain had screamed at me for a break—just one fucking break. “I heard it happening as I was walking across campus to my car. Passed by the dorm and there was all this laughing and music blasting and people having fun. I poked my head in. Accepted one drink. Ended up getting drunk off my ass.”

  “Sounds like a good time,” Aveda murmured.

  “It was, in the moment. I also remember stumbling across campus after, knocking on Richard’s door, and trying to seduce him.”

  “What!” Aveda shrieked, punching me in the arm.