by Kelli Kimble
“Jacob, I’d like you to meet two of the Alpha Nu. This is Shirley and Gilda. They’ve been a huge help in getting all of this set up.”
“Then I have you ladies to thank,” He gave them a shallow bow and smiled.
“Iris, you never said he was a heartbreaker,” Gilda said. She was holding her hand up the way she would when she’d be holding a cigarette, except the studio didn’t allow smoking. She flicked her thumb against her fingers as if she were knocking ash from the end of her cigarette.
“I never said because he isn’t going to break my heart. Are you?” I put an arm through his and pressed close to his side. He smelled like home and leather.
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to, could I?” We laughed at our shared personal joke. Gilda and Shirley laughed, too, though they couldn’t possibly understand that we laughed because we’d been permanently bound to each other.
I sipped my punch. “Hm. This tastes even better now that there’s ice in it.”
“I bet it does,” Shirley said. Gilda punched her in the arm. “Ow,” she rubbed at the spot. “That hurt.”
“Here, let me refill it for you,” Gilda said. She winked at Jacob, who also accepted a refill. We moved away as more people crowded around.
“Have you eaten today? Maybe you should have a little something,” Jacob said.
“No, thank you. I’m here to dance and have fun. Eating can wait until later.”
“Okay. Then drink that punch and we’ll get back on the dance floor.”
We danced to two more songs, then stopped for more punch. The room felt warmer and warmer. I took off my evening gloves, but that barely put a dent in it. Jacob pressed an ice cube against the back of my neck, which led to a brief trip to the coat room where we kissed madly in a corner until someone came to hang up their coat and startled us out, giggling and red-faced.
We took again to the dance floor. The dim lights and the balloons and the crepe paper and the way I felt the sound of the other dancer’s feet swishing through my chest— it all felt magical. A slow song began, and Jacob didn’t even bother to hide that he was kissing my neck.
“Will our wedding be as wonderful as this, you think?” I asked, sighing.
“It’ll be a thousand times better.”
The song ended, and Patty got up on the stage to give a speech while the band took a break.
“Hello, Alpha Nu, and welcome, Omega Nu. We’re so glad that these two groups have come together across campuses to make new and lasting relationships. I want to give a special thank you to the freshmen who planned this party, and especially to two ladies in particular. They hatched this plan together and did a great deal of dirty work. Please, Iris and Siggie, won’t you come up and take a bow?”
I stood gaping at her until Jacob gently nudged me in the small of the back. I moved to the front, where Siggie was also making her way up onto the stage.
“Yes, here they are. Our favorite two freshmen. Thank you, ladies!”
We clasped hands and bowed as if we’d just performed Hamlet. The crowd clapped, but Jacob whistled and hooted from the back. His last hoot rose until it was almost a howl. My eyes were drawn sharply to him. He waved.
“We’re so pleased with the results of your work, ladies. Thank you again. And is there anyone from Omega Nu who would like to speak? Buster?” She shaded her eyes to look into the crowd. Siggie and I stepped down in time to find ourselves face to chest with the Omega Nu president.
“Ladies,” he said, stepping aside so that we could pass.
“Jacob has some pretty attractive friends,” Siggie said, just a little too loud.
Buster took the microphone from Patty. “Hello, everyone. I’m Buster and I’m the president of Omega Nu. I’d also like to thank one of our members. I understand he and the ladies worked very well together to bring all of this to fruition. Thank you, Jacob.”
There was clapping and the crowd shifted to look to Jacob. Shirley sidled up alongside Siggie and I and handed each of us a glass of punch. “You two gave the council something to really think about,” she said. “How are they going to choose?”
“Easy,” Siggie said. “This was all on Iris. She even got us this space. I was just along for the ride.”
“Don’t be so modest, Siggie. You sell yourself short,” I said. She turned to me, “And you need to speak for yourself, young lady.” She turned and walked away before I could respond.
The band appeared and Buster wrapped up his speech. He came off the stage and approached Siggie and me.
“I know Iris is spoken for, but perhaps you would like to dance?”
Siggie smiled big enough to see more than just her canines. “Here,” she handed me her untouched punch and she took Buster’s hand. “Don’t wait up.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me as he pulled her onto the dance floor.
Annoyed at Shirley’s statement, I drank both of the drinks before Jacob found me. He held two more.
“This punch is amazing,” he said. I stacked up my empty glasses on the edge of the stage and he pressed a fresh one into my hand. “There’s something special about it. The bowl is never-ending.”
“No,” I said. “It’s just punch.”
“Must be the company, then.” He had an arm around my waist, and he dipped his head to nuzzle against my neck. Something in my brain tried to click into place. Something about the punch? What was it? I couldn’t form coherent thoughts while he was so close.
I finished my punch and he pulled us to the dance floor as a slow song started.
Chapter 13
There was something lumpy underneath me. When I moved to push it away, a spike of pain shot through my eyeball.
“Ow.” I clapped a palm to my eye, as if I needed to keep it from falling out of my head. I tried to roll over, but I reached the end of the bed. I turned to roll the other way, but something was wrong about that, too. Something wasn’t right.
Tentatively, I opened the eyeball that wasn’t experiencing a red-hot poker. I was in a dark room. Something rustled. I turned towards it and the world started spinning. I closed my eye. “Ugh, what is wrong with me?”
“I’d say you have a doozy of a hangover,” someone said.
“Who’s that?”
“Shirley. Drink this.” A glass of something was pressed into my hand. I struggled to a sitting position and drank it. My mouth felt like a hundred angry spiders had spun webs inside it. It was so dry that I couldn’t even taste what I’d just been drinking.
“This is weird,” I said. “I don’t have any saliva.”
“Just keep refilling that glass and drinking. You’ll feel a lot better when you aren’t so dehydrated.”
She replaced the empty glass in my hand with a full one.
“Geez. I feel terrible. My eyeball is rebelling. It feels like it’s going to pop out. Is it popping out?”
“It’s not popping out. Drink.”
I did as she told me. This time I could tell that it was just plain water.
I eased my hand away from my pulsing eye and tried to look around. I was in the dance studio, on one of the waiting room sofas. The lumps I’d been laying on were my left shoe and my tin foil headdress, which was now smashed into more of a tin foil pancake.
“What happened?”
The couch seemed to rock like a boat. It was Shirley sitting down beside me. “You don’t remember?”
“I remember dancing. I remember going up on stage and taking a bow. I remember more dancing, and punch.”
She laughed. “The punch. You didn’t know that I doctored it, did you?”
“Doctored it?”
“By the end of the night, that punch bowl was basically straight vodka. And you were drinking it full-on guppy style.”
“Oh.” I settled my chin into my hands and looked around the room. It was a wreck. Miss Helga would have an absolute fit if she saw it. “Where’s Jacob?”
“Uh, listen. There are some things you might not remember about last night.”
&nbs
p; I winced. “Could it be worse than the way I feel right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Do I want to know?”
“I don’t know all of what happened. I was at the bowl. But you did something that upset the crowd and made Jacob really mad. You two came in here and he yelled that he was leaving and not to call him. He said he needed to clear his head.”
I slumped against the arm of the sofa. “That sounds really mad.”
“Yeah.”
“He’ll come around. That wasn’t so bad, I guess. Our first fight.”
Shirley made a huffing sound. “That wasn’t all. Whatever you did or said — Patty caught it. And she didn’t like it. She pulled you from consideration for the board. They gave it to Siggie.”
“Siggie?”
“She was pretty upset, too. Though she said she’d be back to help clean up this morning.”
“Why didn’t I go home with her?”
“You passed out on the sofa. It was weird. Everyone seemed afraid to touch you. And there was all this talk about ferocious dogs. But nobody was dressed like that for the party.”
My stomach felt like it had dropped to the floor.
“You look a little green,” she said. “Maybe you should go to the ladies’?”
I stumbled to a stand and listed to one side as I took a step and realized I was still wearing my right shoe. I put a hand against the wall to steady myself while I kicked it off, then I made my way down the hallway that suddenly seemed to triple in length while trying to keep from losing my . . . water all over the place.
My head was spinning. I’d done something that angered Jacob, people were frightened, and I wasn’t on the board. That could mean only one thing: I’d allowed my alternate form to appear during the party.
I made it into the restroom and went into a stall. The floor seemed too far away, and even though I was revolted by the thought of touching the bathroom floor, I lowered myself to my hands and knees. My hair hung in stringy curls and it touched the bowl of the toilet, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
I don’t know how long I was there. The nauseous feeling slowly passed but I didn’t move. Eventually there was a tentative knock at the door.
“Iris? Are you in here?”
Siggie.
I tried to compose myself, but it was too late. She saw me on the floor.
“Oh, Iris. Shirley said you were in here, but what are you doing? The floor here is disgusting.”
“Apparently making a fool of myself,” I said.
“Here.” She helped me up and propped me against the sink. She pulled a hankie from her pocketbook and dabbed it around my face.
“Siggie,” I said.
“Stop. I don’t want to know.”
“But I don’t know. What happened last night?”
She wet the hankie and began wiping at the eyeliner that was caked around my eyes. “Iris. You’re my best friend. And you’re not even a person. What are you?”
I caught her wrist and she jumped. “I’d never hurt you, Siggie. You’re my best friend, too. The only one I’ve ever had.”
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it.” She tossed the now-ruined hankie into the trash. “How could you pretend to be just like everyone else when you’re not? How could you just lead me on like that? And Jacob! I’m sure you’ve broken his heart.”
“Siggie, I’ve got something I need to tell you.”
She gave me a dubious look. “Why should I listen to anything you have to say?”
“Because what I have to say involves you, too.”
“All right.” She crossed her arms with her watch on top and leaned a hip against the sink. “You’ve got three minutes.”
I took a deep breath. It seemed best to start from the beginning. I told her every detail I could think of; from being attacked by Gary and nearly killing him, our house burning down, moving in with Mr. Anu, my father’s arrest, quitting school, to falling for Jacob.
“Iris, I don’t mean to sound like these things aren’t interesting. But what does any of that have to do with what happened last night?”
I winced. “I know it sounds like a lot of unnecessary backfill. But do you remember how the first time we went to the dining hall together, Trixie made fun of your teeth?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. So?”
“This is going to sound crazy, so I’m just going to blurt it out.” I took one more deep breath, and then didn’t breathe again until I was done. “Mr. Anu is the Egyptian God Anubis. He’s here to reclaim his status as a god and he says that I’m supposed to help him. And the reason I’m supposed to help him is because I’m one of his descendants. I’m half Anubian, half human. And so are you.”
Siggie laughed. Not just a laugh. It was a full-on, clutching her belly and leaning over-laugh.
“Siggie. See? I knew you wouldn’t believe me. But if it’s not true, then how can I do this?” I let my alternate form shine through, even though the fur was uncomfortable under my dress.
She screamed.
“No, Siggie. It’s okay, it’s just me.” I returned to human form and reached my hand out. “Look. You’re approaching your own end date on finding a mate. It’s sometime between about eighteen and twenty four. Remember how you said you couldn’t wait to have a passionate fling? It’s your instincts. You need to find your mate so that you can rise to your full potential. Jacob and I . . . our souls are joined. And once we’d been joined, Anu was able to grant us Anubian powers.”
Her nose wrinkled. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not. We went through a ceremony and everything. Jacob can change his form, too.” I couldn’t have Siggie doubting me, so I played my last card. “Remember when Trixie stopped harassing you? Do you remember anything special about that week?”
“You mean besides her tormenting me and you basically calling me a chicken for dropping the class I had with her?”
Ugh. Could this go any worse?
“No, I mean, wasn’t it the first werewolf sighting?”
She stood up a little straighter. “What?”
“Jacob and I went to her dorm room and scared her into leaving you alone. You weren’t even the only person she was harassing. But we made sure she knew to stop bullying people or she’d regret it.”
“Then what about all of those other sightings?”
I shook my head. “Just rumors. Once people started talking about seeing us, people just wanted to see us, so they said they did.”
She started pacing back and forth in front of the sink. It only took her three steps to get from one side of the room to the other, but it didn’t stop her. “Now all of Alpha Nu and most of Omega Nu has seen you, too, Iris.”
“I don’t care about that. Not right now. What I care about now is that you’re my best friend, and I didn’t keep this from you because I wanted to. Professor Cane thought it would be best if I didn’t tell other students what they were —”
“Professor Cane? What does he have to do with any of this?”
I fought the urge to pull at my own hair. “Professor Cane is Anubian and knows Anu. Turns out Anu was his mentor when he was our age, too.”
“And how many other students are we talking, here?”
“All of Alpha Nu. There are others, here, too. For some reason there is a large cluster of females here at Garfield. It’s our instinct to find each other and socialize.”
“You’re saying we have a pack mentality.”
“Exactly. And Omega Nu, too. Jacob says there is a much larger population at Lowry. There’s more than one fraternity.”
“This is crazy, Iris. I don’t know how you expect me to believe any of this.”
“You think I can fake turning into a werewolf?”
“No, but there must be some logical explanation. I mean, you must’ve put something in the punch, right?”
I rubbed my finger over my still-throbbing eye. “I didn’t put anything in the punch. Shirley did. If you had any of the punch then y
ou were at least a little tipsy, maybe even fall-down drunk. Apparently, I was.” I sighed. “But you’re not drunk now, are you? Should I change my form again? Do you want to touch it?”
“What? Eww, gross. No, I don’t want to touch it.”
“Siggie. You can hear things better than most people. You can smell things better than most people. You have extra-sharp canine teeth. You aren’t attracted to so-called good-looking humans. You told me yourself that back home you never thought the popular guys were good-looking. It’s because they were just regular guys. Humans. You’re attracted to Anubians.”
Siggie shifted her gaze to her feet. “So, you’re saying that my family is Anubian, too.”
“Yes. Both of your parents are half human, half Anubian. You’re a demi-god, Siggie. Have you ever been seriously ill? Have your parents? Do people in your family seem to live way longer than other people?”
Her face scrunched in concentration. “I guess. Then why haven’t they ever told me?”
“They can’t tell you what they don’t know.”
“That seems awful convenient.”
“Anu has been waiting for the right time to rise again. His time has come, and I’m supposed to help him. I think you can help, too.” I held my hand out to her. “Please, Siggie. Take this leap of faith with me. I don’t know if I can do it without my best friend.”
Siggie frowned but took my hand. I lowered my eyes as the hope that she might still want to be friends washed over me.
“Fine,” she said. “But only because I need someone to be my roommate in the Alpha Nu house.”
My eyes snapped back to her face. Her lips were twisted into a stubborn smile.
“Really? Can you forgive me?”
“I wouldn’t say you’re forgiven. But I can’t abandon my best friend in a time of need. Besides, who else is going to help me rise to this potential you keep talking about?”
“Oh, Siggie. I’m so sorry. Really. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“It’s behind us now. Let’s just go clean up the mess out there before Miss Helga comes and strains a muscle.”
We left the restroom and went about cleaning the studio. I tore down the balloons and decorations while Siggie gathered the glasses and plates before rinsing them and putting them back in the box. We didn’t have a proper place to wash them, so we’d have to take them back to the Alpha Nu house and do it there.
