Starfall

by Michael Griffo

  The next morning in my bedroom the pain hasn’t softened; it’s still as strong as it was last night. But at least now I’ve transformed back, and Arla is with us, so Archie is surrounded by friends. Left to his own devices, I’m not sure what he would do. The only thing I’m sure that he wants to do is speak with Napoleon, but it doesn’t sound like that’s going to happen unless Nap also wants to have a conversation.

  “I told you, Archie. It doesn’t work that way,” Arla says. “I have no control over when Nap uses me as a cross-dimensional microphone.”

  “But you’re connected,” he replies.

  “Yes, we’re connected,” she confirms. “But that doesn’t mean it’s an equal partnership. Nap calls all the shots. I’ve just begged him not to take over my body when I’m at the wheel of a car or taking a test. I’d rather not crash on the road or academically, and thus far he seems to be holding up his end of the bargain.”

  Arla’s presented her argument, but Archie won’t take no for an answer.

  “But if he’s meeting your demands on those counts,” he counters, “he must be listening to you. Please, Arla, ask him to talk to me.”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing all morning?!” she blurts out.

  Sounds like sometimes Arla isn’t in control of her own voice even when Nap isn’t taking over.

  “So he just doesn’t want to speak with me,” Archie declares.

  “I don’t know, Arch,” Arla explains. “I honestly don’t know how our connection works. You guys hear his voice; I don’t. In fact, I don’t remember anything about the conversations he has with you, so I’m just guessing that he’s heard my request. It could be nothing more than dumb luck.”

  “Or it could be that he’s disgusted with me for killing Lundgarden,” Archie states.

  I may not know anything about psychic connections, but I do know a thing or two about killing. It’s my turn to interject.

  “First thing that you have to remember, Archie,” I say, “is that you didn’t kill anyone.”

  Jumping off of my bed, Archie grabs Jess’s old Hello Kitty pillow and squeezes it so tight that I’m afraid she’s going to start screaming a string of Japanese obscenities.

  “I know you were in wolf form last night, Dom, but I also know that you were witness to everything,” he states. “I most certainly killed Winston Lundgarden.”

  “No, you didn’t!”

  Arla’s and my voices conjoin to create one outraged sound.

  “Then who did?” Archie asks.

  Once again, Arla and I reply in unison. “Nadine!”

  Archie slams the pillow onto the floor with such force that Kitty rocks back and forth a few times before stopping, her impish smile never leaving her face.

  “Nadine might have started all of this, but I’m the one who gave in,” Archie begins. “I’m the one who attacked an innocent man and didn’t stop punching and clawing at him until he was dead!”

  He turns away from us so he doesn’t have to look at our faces any longer and winds up facing his own reflection in the mirror. Wolflexes take over, and I leap off of the bed to grab Archie’s fist before he smashes it into the mirror, saving Kitty and the rest of us from being showered by flying fragments of glass.

  “You didn’t give in, Archie; you didn’t want to kill,” I explain. “Nadine’s black energy took over. It’s the same exact thing that happened to me . . . when I . . .”

  After all this time it’s still hard for me to just say the words. I take a deep breath and try again.

  “When I . . . when I killed Jess.”

  There, I’ve said it, but the problem is I don’t one hundred percent believe in the comparison. I was cursed; I still am cursed, but in the beginning I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me. I wasn’t really even aware that anything was happening to me. Archie, however, has had warnings. He’s known that he has both Jess’s golden light and Nadine’s dark energy flowing through his veins in equal measure. He’s known for quite some time now that all he has to do is make a choice, decide to fight against the darkness that has unnaturally been placed within him. He did make a choice, but unfortunately, it was the wrong one.

  I don’t want to bring all this up now. I don’t want to discuss it because it’s only going to appear as if I’m judging him. I mean, it took me a while to corral my primal instincts; it took my almost blinding Arla for me to truly understand that I had to somehow find the strength to fight back and take control of who I am away from the devilish forces living inside of me. Guess I should cut Archie some slack since he’s on a similar journey. But looking into his eyes now, my instinct is telling me that our journeys are going to be completely different.

  “The Archie I know is not a killer, but he is a fighter,” I declare. “He wouldn’t let schoolyard bullies pick on him; he wouldn’t let society convince him that he was born unworthy of love or respect; he fought back, and that’s what you have to do now.”

  “But how can I, Dom?” he asks. “I took a life.”

  He says this to me as if it’s something I know nothing about.

  “And so did I, Archie. You know that!” I shout. “All this time you’ve been standing beside me, telling me that I was not responsible, that I’m a good person and I only acted barbarically because someone had taken possession of my body. I think it’s time you started listening to your own words.”

  “She’s right, Arch,” Arla adds. “Take your own advice.”

  Archie covers his face with the palms of his hands to hide from us, but he can’t hide from the horror that’s still so pure and ripe. His hands turn into fists and then into weapons, and his face becomes prey. Bam, bam, bam, he slams his fists into his face until Arla and I each grab one hand to prevent him from doing any permanent damage.

  “Stop it!” I cry.

  “Let go of me!”

  “Archie, c’mon, you have to stop,” Arla pleads.

  “God forgive me, I liked it!!”

  He liked hitting himself in the face? He needs forgiveness for that. No, oh no, it’s much worse.

  “You don’t understand! I liked killing Lundgarden,” he confesses. “I enjoyed it!”

  His startling admission produces no rebuttal, no response, no remonstration. How can we answer or argue against something we can’t fathom?

  “You don’t know what you’re saying, Arch. You . . . you can’t mean that.”

  Poor Arla. She has absolutely no idea how wrong she is. It takes me a moment, but finally I understand Archie’s comment.

  “I think I did too,” I say. “I think I must have enjoyed killing Jess.”

  The thought of it makes me gasp even louder than Arla. It’s the first time I’ve ever thought about how I must have felt as a wolf during her death. I’ve been so preoccupied with blaming myself for her murder and then forgiving myself, or trying the best that I could to forgive myself. I even thought about what must have been going through Jess’s mind when I was killing her, the terror, the panic, the sheer un-understanding of the entire situation. I mean she was the first person ever to watch me transform. I know that she was horrified, but then to be killed by this thing that she thought was her friend—it’s unfathomable. But I never, not for one second, thought about how I must have felt while I was taking her body and her life and her soul from her. I must have been joyful.

  “It makes sense that I would have, right?” I say, not bothering to wipe the tears from my cheeks. “A wolf likes to kill, it’s in its nature, so why wouldn’t I have enjoyed killing Jess?”

  I feel like I’ve just taken two giant steps backward in my Wolfaholic Anonymous treatment, but I pray that my admission is helpful to Archie.

  “So you . . . you understand?” he asks. “You get how I enjoyed it?”

  I nod my head a few times first, because the sobs are preventing me from speaking. “Yes, Archie, I do.”

  We hug each other tightly, and when my mouth is pressed against his ear I whisper, “But you have to fight a
gainst it, Archie. You have got to fight with every ounce of strength you have. You cannot let Nadine win.”

  When we pull away from each other, I see that she may be winning already. His eyes are brimming with tears, but they’re also brimming with blackness.

  A few days later at Winston’s funeral mass, St. Edmund’s Church is packed to the rafters. Who knew The Cell Keeper would have so many mourners? Of course Lars Svenson is in attendance; he’s got to be the first one to get the scoop on all the local gossip. And Elkie is here wearing a gorgeous black satin pantsuit with a red rose in her lapel for a splash of color and defiance. Since she has arrived in the dual capacity of employee and almost-a-relative, thanks to Essie’s once-romantic relationship with the deceased, Elkie has VIP seating. I see Officer Gallegos just in the nick of time before he walks past me. He’s out of his uniform, wearing civilian clothes, so I almost didn’t recognize him, but luckily I had enough time to turn away before he looked into my eyes and recognized me. But the most surprising pew member of all is Melinda Jaffe.

  Unlike at Napoleon’s funeral where I could tell that she was acting the role of grieving mother, she now wears her sadness as if it’s her own and not borrowed off some rack that specializes in mournwear. Perhaps it’s because she’s alone this time—Nadine is home resting after her traumatic childbirth with Luba as protective guardian and watchdog—but Melinda looks as if she’s truly affected by Winston’s death. I’m still convinced that her heart is made of stone, but there might be the smallest crack on the surface.

  I’m not the only one who’s noticed.

  Arla reaches over and grabs my arm when Louis walks up to Melinda, and, after exchanging a few words, sits in the pew next to her.

  “Wolf up, Dominy,” Arla commands. “I want to know what he’s saying to her.”

  Reluctantly, I switch over to wolf-hearing to eavesdrop from the other side of the church, certain that I’ll hear something incredibly private that will destroy whatever lingering innocence I still might own, but I’m wrong. I don’t know if hearing her son’s voice rebuff her from beyond the grave or witnessing her ex-lover’s death has changed her, but the inappropriate response she displayed after Winston died might have just been bravado. I can’t detect a false note in her voice.

  “Thank you, Louis,” she says. “That’s very sweet of you to say after . . . well, after everything that I’ve done to you.”

  Melinda may not be able to look at Louis, but he can’t take his eyes off of her.

  “That’s in the past,” he says. “What’s done is done.”

  As she turns to face Louis, I can’t see Melinda’s expression, but the way that she’s touching his face, I imagine it must be tender. She’s tracing his cheek with her finger, and I recall the time she did the same thing to Winston and ended up digging her fingernails into him and ripping off some flesh. Now she simply holds Louis’s chin in her hand.

  “You are the sweetest man I’ve ever known, Louis Bergeron,” she states.

  What?! I’m thrilled to hear that Melinda is retreating, scaling back her bitchery, but deep down she couldn’t possibly have changed that much in just a few short days, could she? Arla grabs my arm tighter, and I know that she’s thinking what I’m thinking: We have to interrupt this scene before it escalates and Melinda and Louis reunite in the shadow of Winston’s casket. Once again while we deliberate, my brother jumps to action.

  “Louis,” Barnaby says, standing behind him. “Could I see you for a moment?”

  “Uh . . . uh, sure,” Louis stammers. “Is, um, everything okay?”

  Playing his role as interloper with conviction, Barnaby nods reassuringly. “Everything’s fine. You just need to speak with Lars Svenson before he prints more lies in the Three W about Mr. Lundgarden’s death. I know none of us would want any falsehoods printed.”

  Turning back to Melinda, Louis still looks empathetic, but the allure of a possible re-romance has been broken. “I have to take care of something,” he says.

  “Of course,” Melinda replies, a bit crestfallen.

  Standing up, Louis turns to follow Barnaby, but turns back at the last moment to say one more thing to Melinda.

  “But I meant what I said,” Louis adds. “If you ever need me, just call.”

  Again, I can’t see Melinda’s face, but I know her expression has to be happier than the one Barnaby’s wearing. And definitely more joyful than the scowl that appears on Arla’s face once I present her with a verbal transcript of their conversation.

  During the rest of the mass I try to zero in on Archie, make sure that he doesn’t freak out and throw himself on the coffin while giving some eleventh-hour confession, or worse, that he doesn’t break down if he begins to relive the tragic event that ended Winston’s life. He remains quiet throughout the mass though, sitting with his family, who must have known Lundgarden in some capacity. Archie’s expression is sometimes dour, but always respectful and appropriate for the setting.

  I’m a different story. By the end of the funeral my gigglaughs threaten to destroy the serenity of the proceedings, because it dawns on me just as they lower Winston’s casket into the cold ground that this is the first unexplained death in this town that I really had nothing to do with. I look over at Melinda and even Archie, and I know it isn’t right, but I feel a little relief. I hated the man, but I didn’t want him dead, and I did try to prevent his death from happening.

  Right or wrong, I whisper out loud three words that I never thought I’d hear myself say. “Thanks, Cell Keeper.”

  Chapter 25

  Thin Nadine doesn’t look right.

  I guess I got so used to seeing her fat and swollen and pregnant that now with a flatter stomach she looks somehow wrong. Her transformation isn’t as impressive as mine, or even Gwen’s when she went from hog to hog-wild, but there’s something physically different about her. I look at her from the waist up and find the culprit: The change isn’t in her waistline, it’s in her face. During her pregnancy she was all smiles; now she’s wearing a permascowl. Is it possible for witches to suffer from postpartum depression?

  The one thing that remains the same is her signature sound. I’d know that squeak anywhere. Even if I didn’t know she was returning to school today, nobody makes that noise walking down the hallway except Nadine. Today, however, her tempo’s a bit more rushed than usual.

  “Hey, Speed Demon, accent on the demon, catching up on lost time?” I ask.

  “Where’s my daughter?” Nadine asks back.

  Okay, number one: That was a funny joke that deserved some kind of reaction. And number two: It’s taken her almost a month to figure out that she only has one kid around the house when she was supposed to deliver twins? I know the first few weeks of motherhood can be a difficult time, a whirlwind of epic proportions, but she couldn’t find a spare moment in between nursing and changing diapers to pose this question to her mother or Luba?

  “Why don’t you ask your grandmother?” I reply.

  As I start to walk toward my locker to retrieve my physics book, which is too big to carry around unless I’m heading directly to class, Nadine grabs my arm. And by grab I mean latches onto me as if her hand is hermetically sealed to my body.

  Wolf-sneer to witch-scowl, I bark, “Get your hand off of me!”

  “Not until you tell me where my daughter is,” she demands. “I know you had something to do with her disappearance.”

  Glancing around the near-empty hallway, I don’t see anyone staring at me, so I use my full strength to pry Nadine off of me with my free hand and shove her across the hall. She squeaks to a halt just before crashing into a row of lockers.

  “And I told you if you want to know anything about your daughter you should ask that psycho you call grandma!” I shout.

  When I turn around to face my locker, I face Nadine instead. She’s witchraveled in public to move from one side of the hallway to the other in the blink of an eye. Really fun way to move from point A to point B, but not a smart id
ea if you want to appear completely human to your fellow classmates. Nadine’s always been a risk taker, but now she doesn’t care if she gets caught, which means she’s upped the risquo-tient to certifiably insane.

  “I’m asking you!” she screams.

  If her flash drive didn’t attract attention, her screech has, and now several of the kids in the hallway have stopped moving and rummaging through their lockers and are staring at us. They’re not even pretending not to listen; they’ve gone from apathetic students to interested audience, and now they’re waiting for my next move. So is Nadine.

  “Are you going to answer me?” she screamasks. “You know how I get when I’m ignored.”

  Unfortunately, I do. And one false move and several unlucky members of Two W are going to find out as well. Where is Vera Bailey-Clarke when you need her?! Whenever Nadine would see Vera walking toward her, she would run the other way; if only Vera would show up now, maybe the twinemy would flee the spotlight. But ever since stargirl left with Nadine’s daughter, Vera gave up the charade of playing high schooler, which means she isn’t around to scare off the teenaged motherwitch.

  Taking a deep breath more for a chance to collect my thoughts than out of necessity, I stare at Nadine, and surprisingly I don’t see her black light trickle out of her body like usual. But in the silence while everyone waits for me to speak, I do hear her squeaking again. How can that be? She’s not even walking. Wait a second! I have no idea if a witch can suffer from postpartum depression, but she clearly can suffer from an old-fashioned case of the nerves. Nadine’s light isn’t making an entrance because she’s nervous and therefore not completely in control of herself. Motherhood really does change some people.

  Using my newfound knowledge to my advantage, I decide to toy with Nadine’s fragile emotional state.

  “Are you talking about the baby girl with the thick mop of brown hair?” I ask.