Heroine's Journey

by Sarah Kuhn

  Evie’s brow creased with genuine worry as she comforted the woman. My sister’s heart is butter soft—she’s truly one of the most empathic people I know. Aveda, meanwhile, shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable at such a loud, sweeping display of emotion. It isn’t that Aveda doesn’t feel for people; she’s just dedicated to getting shit done above all else. She wanted to find Carmen, to help Tori by accomplishing this mission. But Tori’s extended crying jag was keeping us from doing that. Meanwhile, I was sitting here, neither comforting nor getting impatient. Just kind of bored. Truly extraneous. Good Cop (or Bad Cop?) 2 felt more like Okay Cop No One Actually Needs.

  “I wish she’d come baaaaaaack!” Tori wailed. “I wish I could calm down and approach this logically—”

  “That would be helpful,” Aveda muttered under her breath.

  “But I’m so worried, I just caaaaaaan’t!” Tori cried, then buried her face in the scarf again, sobbing away. “I wish I didn’t feel this way, but . . . but . . .”

  I wish I didn’t feel this way.

  Tori’s words played back in my head, over and over.

  I mean, that was within my power to change, wasn’t it? It might be too casual of a power usage for Evie’s liking. But wouldn’t it help with this investigation? Move things along and get us back on track so we could possibly save the missing Carmen from whatever evil had befallen her? And with the added bonus of making Tori feel momentarily better, which she’d just expressed a desire for anyway. This definitely fell into the greater good category. And that was part of my code.

  I breathed deeply and focused on Tori, who was still sobbing into her scarf. Then I concentrated on a feeling of calm. A sensation of sunlight washing over your arm, a breeze ruffling your hair, chocolate melting on your tongue. I focused on that until it was thrumming through my entire being. Then I sent it spinning in her direction. I turned it up so it was stronger than the usual initial projection I might send toward someone—Tori needed more than a freaking aromatherapy candle to calm her down, that was for sure. I kept it thrumming in her direction for a good, long moment. And slowly, her sobs subsided, and she looked up from the scarf.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice quavery but more assured. She sat up straight, brushing away the last of her tears. “I’m so worried Carmen got eaten by one of those giant stone monsters. And I wish I could provide more information to help, but that’s all I’ve got: she was here, and then she was gone.”

  “What you’ve told us is totally helpful,” Evie said encouragingly. She looked surprised at Tori’s sudden emotional about-face, but she was obviously pleased and wasn’t going to question it. “Why don’t we go through it again from the beginning? There may be some detail in there, something that seems innocuous, that’s actually a clue. Maybe go back even farther if you can—how did you and Carmen find your way here yesterday?”

  “Yes,” Tori nodded, her expression turning placid and focused. “Yes, I can do that. Carmen and I were having a girls’ reunion weekend. We hadn’t seen each other in five years, and we thought, why not do something to get away from it all? Now, San Francisco wasn’t my first choice, it’s much too expensive, don’t you think? I mean, the hotels in our budget were pretty much all glorified rat holes, but Carmen is so stubborn—have I mentioned that yet? And she had her heart absolutely set on San Francisco.”

  I groaned inwardly as she yammered on. How much more of this useless minutiae were we going to be subjected to? I snuck a glance at Evie and Aveda. Evie was rubbing Tori’s back and nodding attentively while Aveda regarded her with razor sharp focus, clearly doing her best not to let any possible clue escape her.

  Well. Since they were doing such a good job listening, they didn’t need me. I pumped a last blast of extra calm feelings in Tori’s direction, then got to my feet.

  “I’m gonna go, uh, check out the area where Carmen was last seen,” I murmured.

  No one responded. I gathered up the trap Rose had given me and slipped off.

  I walked the short distance to the edge of the waterfront, searching the area, trying to take everything in. It looked . . . normal. Who was I kidding? There was nothing. Tori was probably the exaggerating attention hound Aveda suspected her of being. Maybe Carmen had just wanted some quiet time away from her friend’s detail-obsessed chattering. And if she had disappeared, Evie and Aveda would figure it out. They always did.

  “What’s that?”

  The question startled me out of my reverie, and I turned to see a teenage girl with stringy brown hair and tiny round glasses staring at me inquisitively. She was clutching a sketchbook and a pen and—oh. It was the same girl I’d thrown myself in front of the day before, the one who’d cried out for help. Odd that she and Tori were both so eager to return to the scene of a giant monster attack, but I imagined that if I were a civilian, the thrill-seeker in me would’ve prompted me to do the same thing.

  “Sorry, what?” I said.

  “That—the thing in your hand,” she said, gesturing to the trap with her pen. “What is that?”

  “It’s a supernatural trap,” I said, trying to sound as officious as Aveda. “It contains certain kinds of demons.”

  “Huh.” The girl cocked her head to the side, sizing me up. “Are you trying to trap something around here?”

  “Um, that’s classified,” I said, straightening my spine. Hmm. I actually did sound a bit like Aveda. It was fun.

  The girl nodded, looking like she was pleased to be let in on this bit of non-information. “Gotcha.” She turned and faced the water, her gaze going contemplative. “It’s nice out here tonight. Quiet.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But you know, you probably shouldn’t hang out for too long. We don’t know yet if this area is stable. It’s supposed to be off-limits to the public for now.”

  She shrugged, still staring out at the water. “I’ll wait for someone to officially kick me out. The quiet really helps with my inspiration.” She gestured to her sketchbook.

  “Are you an artist?” I didn’t know what was compelling me to keep talking to her. Maybe it was the simple fact that this was marginally more interesting than our talk with Tori the blabbermouth. Or maybe it was because talking to her kept me from doing what I really wanted to do, which was emotionally project onto her to stop getting in Rose’s way and get the hell out of here. But that definitely wasn’t for the greater good.

  “I am an artist,” she said, giving me a small smile and flipping her sketchbook open. “And a poet. Wanna see?”

  I leaned in gamely and perused her sketches; soft, intricate pencil scratchings on paper. “These are super good,” I said, meaning it. Her sketches had a general theme—sequential drawings that seemed to tell loosely connected stories of ordinary-looking women morphing into various kinds of monsters. One became a giant squid with an elaborate web of tentacles. Another grew a lion’s head next to her own, turning into a two-headed beast that roared in fury. But the soft, fluid lines kept all of these creatures very human, hinting at warm empathy from the artist. It reminded me a bit of Leah’s work—offbeat interpretations of fantastical creatures. Leah would totally dig what this girl was all about. The sketches were surrounded by poems rendered in big, loose script—they seemed to mostly address the idea of hidden monsters and finding the power within.

  “Thank you,” the girl said. “I dunno. No one else seems to think so. Mr. Frankel—that’s my art teacher—says I’m wasting my time on cartoony junk. And the other kids at school think I’m a fantasy-obsessed freakazoid.”

  “Wow, so freakazoid is an en vogue insult again,” I said. “Didn’t realize that one had come back around.”

  “Uh-huh,” the girl said, giving me a quizzical look that seemed to say: Are you really trying to relate to me here, Old Lady?

  I answered with an encouraging smile. Even though I wasn’t that much older than her—maybe five or six years?�
��she saw me in that adult box, someone who couldn’t possibly understand her day-to-day experience. But I understood what she was feeling more than she could know.

  “Things will get better,” I said, trying to sound encouraging. “Eventually you’ll find people who recognize how cool your stuff is. How cool you are.” But even as I spouted these PSA-ready aphorisms, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of . . . something. I mean, did I really believe that crap?

  I’d actually been super popular in my tween years, poised to become one of the fabulous queen bees of my eventual high school class. Nicole and I had plotted our reign as co-prom queens, how we’d rule the roost with perfectly manicured iron fists.

  Then Mom died and I’d kind of gone off the rails. I’d started wearing all black and doing my goth-y makeup thing. I’d stopped wanting to talk to anyone or hang out or do much of anything, really. I’d been in so much pain, I felt like my heart was being shoved through a cheese grater. And that pain hadn’t left room for anything else. I’ll admit I’d pushed Nicole away pretty hard. I’d started answering any query from her—whether it was about crushes or a cute new skirt or whatever we used to talk about—with a noncommittal shrug. I’d declined every social invitation she extended, and I hadn’t even tried to come up with good excuses. I’d just kept saying, “I don’t want to.”

  Everything had come to a head one day when I’d told her no, I did not want to go to the mall after school, and she was overcome with frustration.

  “Why not?” she’d demanded, putting her hands on her hips. We were outside in the quad, where we usually ate lunch.

  “I don’t want to,” I’d said, for what seemed like the millionth time.

  “What do you want to do?” she’d said. Her mom had just given her the okay to try a little makeup, and she was wearing this terrible sickly green eyeshadow that somehow made her look even more indignant. And also a little bit like she had some kind of plague.

  “I just want my mom back,” I’d muttered, pulling my too big cardigan around me like a cocoon.

  “Bea.” She blew out a long, exasperated breath. “I’ve . . . I’ve been trying so hard to make you feel better. But you don’t want to do anything. You’re so . . . sad all the time.”

  I’d shrugged, pulling my cardigan more tightly around me.

  “You have to get over this,” she’d said, frowning.

  “This isn’t something you just get over, Nicole.”

  “Well . . . then at least stop being such a freak about it,” she’d exploded, storming off.

  We’d stopped talking after that. She’d confided in all our friends that I was an irredeemable weirdo, and they’d stopped talking to me too. But I guess you could say things had got a little better since then.

  I’d started to come out of my metaphorical and literal cardigan cocoon when I’d begun lending a hand at Tanaka/Jupiter HQ, assisting Nate with his research and updating Aveda’s social media. I’d felt like I had a purpose again. And now I was a full-blown superheroine . . . who was currently feeling simultaneously weirded out and kind of bored by her first day on the job. Did that qualify as “getting better”? I didn’t know that I could answer with any sort of clarity.

  “Thank you, Bug.”

  My head snapped up, my jaunt down memory lane obliterated. Had the little artist-poet standing in front of me really just said . . . but, no. No way. Surely I must have misheard.

  “Um, what?” I said, trying to ignore my quickening heart rate.

  The girl tilted her head to the side and gave me a smile so peaceful, it seemed eerie. “I said, thank you, Bug.”

  I let go of the girl’s sketchbook and took an inadvertent step back, all the blood draining from my face. There were only three people in the world who called me that: Scott, Dad, and my dead mother.

  “Wh-who are you?” I managed. “What . . . how do you know that . . . ?” My brain was short-circuiting and I couldn’t seem to think of what the right question was. Beyond, you know, what the actual fuck.

  “I’m with you. Still,” she said, continuing to give me that eerie smile. “And I need you to look for answers. Please, Bug.”

  “Answers to what?” I gasped, tears filling my eyes. Seriously, had Mom moved on from leaving me stalker messages on bathroom walls to, like, possessing some random person and using her to talk to me?

  “Find me,” she said.

  “I . . .” I stepped forward, closing the gap between me and the girl. I dropped the trap on the ground and grabbed her by the shoulders. “How?” I said, shaking her a little. “Mom, are you still alive? I don’t understand . . .”

  A shadow passed over the girl’s face, and she shook her head, as if trying to shoo away unwelcome thoughts. Then her eyes focused on me, and she looked totally confused.

  “What are you doing?” she said, frowning at me and trying to pull away. “Let go!”

  “What was that?” I said, tightening my grip. “What were you just saying? Please, I need you to talk to me!”

  “Get off me, you freakazoid!” she shrieked, wrenching herself away from me. Clutching her sketchbook to her chest, she ran.

  “Wait!” I yelped, taking off after her.

  But she had a head start and was way faster than me. I could only watch her get farther and farther away, casting a last, fearful glance over her shoulder.

  Dammit. I stopped, breathing hard, watching with mounting frustration as she got smaller on the horizon. Maybe I should take up running. Or . . . wait a minute.

  I could project onto her, convince her that she wanted to stay and tell me everything about how she’d just channeled the spirit of my mom. True, I usually couldn’t get people to do the total opposite of what they actually wanted, but maybe if I made the feelings way stronger, turned my aromatherapy candle way up, I could—

  “Bea!” Evie’s hand clamped on my shoulder. I whirled around. She and Aveda stood next to me, regarding me with concern. “Why are you chasing that girl? Does she know something about Carmen?”

  “I . . .” I cast one last look at the girl, now a tiny dot way off in the distance. “I’m not sure,” I said, a feeling of helplessness rising in my chest. “I’m not sure of anything right now.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I’D HAD ONE hell of a first day as a full-fledged superhero. And I was all-too-ready to recap when Sam opened the door to his apartment.

  “Soooooo,” I said, before he could get a word in. “My dead mom tried to talk to me again at the Wave Organ. Only she was, like, talking through this girl. Maybe she was possessing her? I don’t know. Between that and the bathroom wall, I feel like she’s trying to get a message to me. But I have no idea what it is. And . . . wait, you know what? I am totally just having this realization right now, but there was also this weird-ass voice in my head at the Grand Lake Market. Remember how I said I was feeling wonky? There was actually a voice in my head telling me not to buy a pretzel. Even though I totally wanted one. Maybe it’s all connected. Maybe my mom is trying to reach me in, like, all the ways. What if she’s still alive? I mean, I don’t know how that would even be possible, but we live in a world where the impossible happens all the time, right? With the demons and the superpowers and—oh! Maybe she’s a ghost? Ghost Mom? That could be cool. Holy crap.” My eyes widened, my excitement ratcheting upward. “This is my first mission as a legit superheroine, Sam! I have to totally freakin’ find Ghost Mom!”

  “What did Evie say about . . . any of this?” he managed to get in, once I’d stopped to take a breath. Pancake, who was hoisted under his arm, snuffled inquisitively.

  “I didn’t tell her,” I said, breezing inside and dumping my bag on the floor. “She and Aveda are looking for this tourist that went missing by the Organ and that seemed more important in the moment? Plus, they’re still monitoring the Organ to make sure it doesn’t rise up and try to kill us all again, so you know. Pr
iorities.” I paused. “Also, I figure I can take some decompression time tonight and put my encounters with this mysterious Mom Voice in some kind of coherent order to present to them, so they don’t think I’m just getting distracted by shiny things.”

  “Posterboard time?” Sam said, closing the door behind me.

  “Posterboard time,” I confirmed. “But first: eating time. Something smells amazing.” I inhaled deeply, taking in the delectable scents of curry and frying panko. That comforting aura of spice soothed my jangled nerves, made my shoulders relax. It’s weird how something as simple as the promise of beloved foodstuffs can make you feel like everything’s gonna be okay. “Do you have something I can change into? Maybe something one of your latest Not-Girlfriends left behind? This outfit is great for superheroing, not so great for slobbing around and pigging out, which is my whole plan for tonight.”

  “Nah, I have a very strict policy when it comes to leaving shit behind,” Sam said, setting Pancake down on the floor. He scampered off in the direction of the curry smell. “You take whatever you brought in with you. That way, no easy excuse for ‘just popping by’ and turning our perfectly wholesome few hours of fun into something messy, complicated, and not fun.”

  “Did you really just confess that ‘a few hours’ is the longest you can manage to pleasure someone?” I said, cocking an eyebrow. “Don’t let that get out. It will ruin your reputation.”

  “My reputation is well-earned, well-maintained, and needs no defending.” He flashed me that beaucoup fromage smile. “But as far as clothes, you can pull stuff from my workout pile. It’s in the bin next to my bed.”

  “Mmm, workout clothes,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the thought of scratchy basketball shorts rife with old sweat stains. “Do you have anything in, I don’t know, the pajama category?”

  “I don’t wear pajamas to bed.” He shrugged, his grin turning extra cheesy. “I don’t wear anything to bed.”

  “Guh.” I made a gagging face. “Cut that out, please. Turn Calendar Sam off. I came here for Curry-Making Supportive Friend Sam.”