Heroine's Journey

by Sarah Kuhn

  “We’re sorting minutiae. Which I thought you enjoyed?” Leah said, cocking an eyebrow at me.

  “I do when it’s data on action-packed demon attacks,” I said. “Not so much when it’s an endless parade of people who have to pee.”

  “Hopefully there’s some bit of information in here that will help,” Leah said. I marveled at her ability to remain determined—and awake—after hours of going through footage. I stifled a yawn as we watched the millionth nondescript customer enter the bathroom. I was having the same feeling I’d had yesterday while I was checking out the Pussy Queen portal with Aveda and interviewing the distraught tourist. Like what we were doing should have felt way more exciting than it actually was. I mean, at the very least, shouldn’t a superheroic investigation be more exciting than serving—

  “Coffee?” My head snapped up to see Nemesis Nicole rattling her stupid empty cup at me. “The café section of your establishment appears to be unstaffed. Again.”

  “It’s closed right now,” Leah said, her eyes not leaving the laptop screen.

  “How can it be closed when there are customers?” Nicole huffed.

  “The only customer in the café is you, and you’ve been sitting there for three hours reading a bunch of books you’re not going to buy,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Leah said. “Purchase something and we’ll talk.”

  Nicole glared at us. “I don’t see a posted policy about that.”

  “So put that fancy paralegal training to good use and sue us,” I said.

  Nicole looked like she was winding up to say something else, then settled for turning on her heel and stalking back to the café area.

  “I should probably go in there and make sure she doesn’t take her rage out on anything expensive,” I said, yawning again. I rubbed my eyes. “But I don’t want to break from watching the footage, because that will just make it go on longer.”

  “You look extra tired, Bebe,” Leah said, leaning her head against my shoulder. “Sam came by to drop Pancake off and said you guys took apart one of those trap things. Now that’s the kind of minutiae you enjoy, right? Breaking electronics into tiny pieces to look at their guts?”

  “Um, yes.” I flashed back to the other things Sam and I had done last night. And I wondered if Sam had told Leah anything about it. Although, if he had, surely she would have greeted me with some kind of shriek or demand to tell her more. As if reading my mind, Pancake raised his head and gave me an accusing stare.

  “Bebe.” Leah lifted her head from my shoulder and turned to face me. “What’s up? You went all stiff. Did you see something on the footage?”

  “No,” I said, feeling a flash of guilt as I realized I hadn’t even been looking at the laptop screen for the last five minutes. What if I’d missed the one crucial moment of importance lurking in the vast sea of boring? Ugh. This was so frustrating. I’d thought my new superheroing life would have me experiencing a multitude of thrills by the minute, but instead I was doing the same thing I’d done every day for the past four years: slogging my way through boredom with Leah and Pancake and fending off annoying customers. I’d tried to liven things up earlier by mind-mojo-ing a cute guy who’d come in to ask for directions—you know, to set Leah up with. But she’d nixed my efforts yet again.

  Well, if we were going to be stuck looking at this stupid video footage for hours on end, I might as well introduce some scandalous discussion into the proceedings. I hit pause on the laptop and turned to face Leah. “Sam and I made out last night.”

  The shocked face she gave me was the most excited either of us had looked all day.

  “Whaaaaaaat!” she cried. “Oh my god, Bebe!” Then she shook her head and dissolved into giggles.

  “Excuse me,” I said, my boredom/irritation cocktail swiftly replaced with indignation. “Why is that funny?”

  “Because the two of you are so ridiculous!” Leah exclaimed, whacking me on the arm. “You both need so much drama in your lives. And if it’s not happening, you’ll go out of your way to create drama.”

  “That is not true,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “It’s not like we planned it, we were both drinking and then we started talking about rebuilding the trap, and then we just got caught up in the moment and—”

  “—and you’re both phenomenally bad at impulse control so you decided to smash tongues,” Leah said. “Makes perfect sense. I love that it was all that tech-y talk that turned you on. Let me guess: you weren’t just talking about rebuilding the trap, you were fighting over who had the best approach to rebuilding the trap.”

  “I can’t believe you’re reducing us to horny teenagers,” I said, my face flushing. No way was I gonna tell her she was right. “If we’re so bad at impulse control, how have we avoided tongue-smashing shenanigans all these years?”

  “Pancake and I are always around, for one thing,” Leah said, poking her pup affectionately. He flicked an ear at her. “Y’all never had the magic cocktail of too much alcohol, arguing over nerdy shit, and being alone together.”

  “That is . . . that is not . . .” I sputtered, reluctant to cede ground.

  “So how was it?” Leah said, linking her arm through mine and putting her head on my shoulder again. “How far did you get? Was there any nudity happening?”

  “Kissing. And some touching . . .” My face flushed again, but for different reasons. “He’s a really good kisser, Lee.”

  “Not that you’ll ever admit that in his presence,” Leah said.

  “Never,” I agreed. “We don’t need his head getting any more massive than it already is. But what do I do now? I’m already dreading the awkwardness of our next interaction.”

  “I’d guess that the one interaction will be awkward, and then you guys will decide it was a fun mistake and move on to whatever your next exciting drama is,” Leah said with a shrug. “Easy.”

  “Really? That’s it?”

  “Bebe.” Leah gave me an appraising gaze. “The two of you are always chasing whatever the next thrill is. And making out with your previously platonic best friend is only thrilling and naughty and weird the first couple times. After that . . .” She shrugged. “You’ll both get bored.”

  “I . . . I guess.” Why was this making me feel so deflated?

  “What else do you want it to be?” Leah pressed. “Do you want to date Sam?”

  “Ew, no.” I gave a little shudder.

  “Exactly,” Leah said. “So skip the ‘oh gawd this changes our friendship forever’ agonizing. In this case, I don’t think it does.”

  I was nodding, but something was still bothering me, making me feel deflated and restless. Had last night’s make-out session really only happened because I was so desperate for excitement? And if so, why was that bothering me? Shouldn’t I want things to be simple, want my relationship with Sam to be as easy as it usually was? Shouldn’t I feel relieved?

  “Bea!” Leah and I swiveled to the bookstore’s entrance, where Evie was bustling in, waving at me enthusiastically. Aveda, Scott, Nate, and Lucy trailed in behind her. Aveda was toting one of the scanners, and Lucy was carrying a large, domed Tupperware.

  “Hey, guys. Luce, is that . . . did you bring a cake?” I said warily.

  Lucy was a notoriously terrible baker, but she was so enthusiastic about her creations, nobody had the heart to tell her. Also, she was good at everything else, so it didn’t really matter.

  “Indeed I did!” she enthused, setting the Tupperware down on the counter. “I thought we should have something to celebrate your first official mission as a full-fledged superheroine. Well, really it’s more like your third mission, but who’s counting?” With great flourish, she lifted the dome off the Tupperware. “Ta-da!” she said, revealing a . . . umm “blob” was probably the best description for it. It was a sickly off-white color and oozing all over the serving tray so that it had no disce
rnable shape. The texture looked somewhere in the realm of extra lumpy split pea soup. YAY, BEA! was spelled out on top in bright purple icing.

  “Don’t worry,” Evie whispered in my ear. “We got you an actual cake from Cake My Day. We’ll have that later as a second celebration. But she was super excited to make you something.”

  “It looks so good, Luce,” I said, feeling genuinely touched. “Is it, ahhh, vanilla?”

  “I think so,” she said, her brow furrowing. “You know, I just kind of made it up as I went along.”

  Pancake sniffed the cake and recoiled, scampering to the other end of the counter. He side-eyed the blob cake disdainfully.

  “I’m sure we all can’t wait to try it,” I said. “But what do you mean, mission? And what are you guys doing here? I thought you were gonna wait for me and Leah to submit our findings before doing any kind of scan.”

  “There are no new disturbances by the Wave Organ, and we haven’t been able to track down the missing tourist and your mysterious teenage poet,” Aveda said, shaking her head in frustration. “It felt like a dead-end morning, so—”

  “Not all dead ends,” Nate said, giving her a disapproving look. “I finished my analysis of the scans Rose took of the Pussy Queen portal yesterday.”

  “The ones with the weird gibberish,” I remembered. Damn. Yesterday morning seemed like it had happened centuries ago.

  “Correct,” Nate said. “The results were fascinating. It appears that the ‘gibberish’ was signaling something—the atmosphere around the supernatural energy from the portal was heavier, somehow. More concentrated than usual.”

  “But the energy is still dormant because it’s from the portal, right?” Aveda said, rolling her eyes. “Booooring.”

  “Not boring at all,” Nate said, stiffening. “It is, in fact, quite intriguing, and I would like to conduct further research—”

  “Yes, yes, we know,” Aveda said, waving a hand at him. “But in the meantime, we thought the best use of our time might be expediting the scan of the bookstore.”

  “‘We’?” I muttered under my breath.

  “She was going stir crazy at home,” Evie murmured in my ear. She gave me a conspiratorial grin. “Sometimes part of being a superhero team means knowing how to really listen to your partner and meet their needs.”

  “Sounds like being married,” I said, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Kind of the same thing,” she said with a laugh.

  We shared a smile, and I felt a surge of easy warmth between us, the same easy warmth I’d felt in the kitchen that morning. I wasn’t accustomed to that, I realized. Evie’s and my relationship had always been mercurial, marked by big, loud bursts of feeling rather than even keel companionship. And they weren’t all bad feelings: I loved her more fiercely than I could imagine loving anyone. But this everyday sisterhood thing was new to me. It was nice.

  “I also have a spell I’d like to try on the bathroom wall writing,” Scott said. “I’m going to try sending a mental connector out and see if there’s anything on the other end to—for lack of a better word—catch it.”

  “Like you could maybe communicate with the writing on the wall?” I asked.

  “That’s the basic idea,” he said, grinning at me.

  “Way cool,” I said, giving him finger guns. “Let’s do it.”

  “So that means we can pause this thrilling video surveillance?” Leah said, gesturing to her laptop. “I guess I could go see if Her Highness Nicole wants more coffee.”

  “No!” I said, holding up a hand. “Not unless she buys something. We just made that rule, now we have to abide by it.”

  “Then I should go make sure she hasn’t broken anything,” Leah said with a laugh. “Take Pancake with you to the bathroom—you know animals have a sixth sense when it comes to creepy shit. And Pancake is extra intuitive.”

  “That he is,” I said, scooping up Pancake. “Come on, team.” I beckoned everyone to follow me to the bathroom.

  “Yes, Bea, lead the way,” Aveda said, giving me an approving nod. “This is the perfect opportunity for another important superheroing lesson: When you’re the team member who’s most familiar with an investigation site, take charge and do so with confidence. Confidence always wins the day.”

  “We like her,” I whispered in Pancake’s ear. “And I think she and I could form a meaningful superheroine bond. But she’s a little much sometimes.”

  I entered the bathroom first and flicked on the light. The craft wall looked as cool as ever. Other than that, it looked like . . . you know, an adorable bathroom in an adorable Bay Area bookstore. Nothing weird happening.

  “Wow,” Evie said, zeroing in on the message I’d been obsessing over. “It really does look like Mom’s writing.” She ran her fingers over it and swallowed hard. I knew she was feeling what I had felt when I’d made the connection between the writing and the letters: that bizarre emotional gut punch. We’d gone through Mom’s letters together before I’d departed HQ for my bookstore shift—another nice moment of sisterly bonding. I shifted Pancake to one arm and reached over to squeeze her hand. She squeezed back, then briskly scrubbed a hand over her eyes. “Let’s try scanning first.”

  It felt like we were collectively holding our breaths as Aveda stepped forward, flicked the scanner on, and waved it over the bathroom wall. Nothing happened. No beep, and the read-out area remained blank. We all let out a long sigh.

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean there’s nothing here,” Aveda said, glaring at the scanner. “I really can’t wait for these things to get an upgrade.”

  “Let me try the spell,” Scott said. He flashed Aveda a teasing grin. “Though remember, it has the potential to be as unreliable as the scanner.”

  “So much nicer to look at, though,” Aveda said, arching an eyebrow.

  Scott smiled at her again, then turned to the wall and placed his hand on top of the writing. He closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and concentrated.

  And once again, it felt like we all stopped breathing for a moment. The air in the room became weighted, quiet except for the sounds of everyone shifting apprehensively from foot to foot, waiting to see what would happen. I felt like the heavy silence was pressing against my skin, making me itchy and uncomfortable. Pancake let out a tiny whine.

  Then, just when it seemed like we’d been living in that silence forever, just when I was certain Scott was going to drop his hand and step back from the wall and be all like, “Sorry, nothing here” and give Aveda another flirty grin . . . it happened.

  Scott’s head snapped up, his eyes went wide, and he jumped back from the wall.

  “What?” Aveda demanded. “What is it? Is there something here?”

  He didn’t answer, just started shaking his head back and forth. “It’s . . .” he said, then whipped around and flung an arm out, like he was trying to throw something off of him. “It wants . . .”

  He turned further. And looked straight at me.

  “What—?” I started to say, but then—

  WHOOM

  The sound blasted through my head, like a massive gust of wind whooshing in one ear and out the other. My vision went black, and I had the sensation of falling, but not landing anywhere. It was like I was suddenly floating through an expanse of starless night. I thought I could hear Pancake barking faintly in the background, but I couldn’t tell if it was real or all in my head. He definitely wasn’t in my arms anymore, though.

  “Wha—what!” I gasped, my hands flailing, clawing the air around me. But there was nothing there. Nothing for me to grab on to, nothing for me to see, nothing for me to do except scream into the void, hoping someone would hear. Panic seized my heart in its icy grip and I swallowed hard, trying to keep the fear at bay. I still couldn’t see anything except an oppressive veil of complete darkness. “Where am I, what’s happening?! Evie . . . an
yone, can you hear me?”

  Bug.

  The voice echoed through my head, silencing me. Gentle, musical, so familiar. And even as I kept thrashing around, trying to find something to anchor me in the empty air, my eyes filled with tears.

  “Mom?” I cried out, my voice sounding strangled. “Is that you? Is that—”

  Please, my darling. I’m trapped here. I need you.

  “Trapped?” I squeaked. “Where? What is this place?”

  I need you to look for answers.

  “Answers to what?” I managed. I stopped flailing for a moment and allowed myself to float. It was such a weird sensation. There was nothing supporting me, nothing holding me in place. Yet I didn’t fall. It was like being suspended in one of those weird oxygen tanks.

  The evil that took me. It’s back.

  “I need . . . more than that,” I said, frustration welling in my chest. “Please, Mom, tell me what’s going on.”

  It will take more of us. We will all be trapped in this demon dimension if you don’t act.

  Tears filled my eyes. What was she saying? I wanted to talk to her, dammit, to have an actual conversation, to be able to touch her and ask her questions and—

  WHOOM

  That same whooshing blasted in my ears again, and then the floor materialized beneath me, and my eyes were blinking open, and I was gasping like I’d just been held underwater for a very long time.

  “Bea!” Evie shook my shoulders, her face pale. “Are you okay?”

  “We were just about to call 911,” Nate said, leaning over to inspect me, his brow creasing with concern.

  “What happened?” I croaked. I sat up slowly, feeling lightheaded. “I mean, what did you guys see happening just now?”

  “After Scott turned to you, your eyes got really big and you collapsed,” Lucy said. “It was very dramatic, darling, and I planned on commending your swooning once we determined you were okay.”