Starfall (20 page)

Standing in a corner, Nadine watches her mother and grandmother dote on her brother. Her body is rigid, as if she's leaning against a wall or being propped up by unseen hands. She is, of course, the same age as Napoleon, but where he is having trouble maintaining his balance and remaining upright, Nadine seems to have already mastered these motor skills. Regardless of her accomplishments, she already seems to know that nothing she does will receive the same applause and adoration from her family that her brother's actions do. Lessons learned early are lessons never forgotten.

Quietly, Nadine walks outside and is drenched in sunlight. She shuts her eyes from the onslaught, but when she opens them she sees an area that looks very much the way it does now. Slightly overgrown, completely natural, and able to hide things from a curious eye. Like her father.

About a hundred yards from the cabin, Thorne is standing behind a group of trees. He isn't working the land or cutting low-lying branches; he's simply watching, waiting until someone calls for him, or more realistically until he finds the strength to join the family that doesn't care if he lives or dies.

If Nadine sees or senses that her father is nearby, she doesn't react to him; she appears to be as lost as Thorne. Wandering to the side of the house, Nadine seems to be walking randomly, just following her own footsteps, moving without thought, but when she stops next to a lilac bush I see what she was chasing: a butterfly.

Perched on a pink petal, the butterfly flutters its wings in greeting. Its yellow and black wings are winking hello to Nadine, staring at her as if it's the first time it's seen a little girl. I don't know if that's true, but it will definitely be the butterfly's last.

Nadine extends her hand and offers her finger to the butterfly, which willingly accepts. The two are connected as the butterfly steps onto Nadine's tiny finger, a small stage for the young girl to witness nature's beauty. And destroy it.

With her free hand Nadine grabs hold of one of the butterfly's wings tightly. Sensing a game change, the butterfly's other wing flutters more urgently, but is prohibited from making any further movement when Nadine grabs that one too. Holding the butterfly up by both wings like a fresh, cleaned shirt from the laundry, Nadine smiles at her prey. It's the last vision the butterfly sees before its wings are plucked from its body.

Without looking down Nadine steps on the butterfly's remains with her patent leather shoe and rubs the wings across her cheeks, smiling approvingly at the softness, lolling her head to the side, triumphant in her glory. Her victory is short-lived when she turns around to see Luba standing behind her.

“Next time do not hesitate,” Luba says. “Don't be a weak fool like your father and give your prey the chance to escape.”

Luba returns to the cabin, leaving father and daughter alone to contemplate her words. Neither of them responds verbally, but when Nadine puts the wings into the pocket of her dress like a well-deserved treasure, Thorne understands that once again his mother has emerged exultant from battle.

I feel the starlight wrap around my body, and I know before I'm airlifted that our trip will continue. Since this isn't my inaugural jaunt as a time-traveling passenger, I know that our next stop will be several years into the future, so I'm not at all surprised when we land to see that Nadine and Napoleon have aged. Now they're teenagers, thirteen or fourteen, and I assume we're in Cos Cob, a few years before they returned to Luba's birthplace. The hazy blue of night reigns, but the sky is still lit up, not by sunlight, but by the first sparks of a fire.

In front of a burning building, Luba stands in between her grandchildren. They're untouched by the flames, but they're standing close enough to the fire that their faces are glowing red. Luba's eyes are closed, an ecstatic smile latched onto her lips. On either side of her, Nadine and Napoleon look unsure as to how to respond. Once they do, their reactions seal their fate.

“We can't just stand here,” Napoleon says. “People are still inside.”

Annoyed by the intrusion, Luba slowly opens her eyes, and without moving her head looks over at her grandson. “Countless hours I've spent praying to Orion that a boy would take my inferior son's place,” Luba seethes. “Hours spent in vain.”

“Grandmother,” Napoleon protests. “These people are innocent, they haven't done anything to deserve this.”

Luba raises her hand. A stream of black energy shoots out of her palm and into Napoleon's chest, and he is tossed up and through the air until he lands on the rocky ground a few hundred yards away, writhing in agony. Luba then turns to Nadine. “Perhaps the girl child shall lead us.”

Shaking with excitement and fear, it's as if this is the moment Nadine has waited for her entire life. The same moment she has dreaded and hoped for. Deliberately avoiding looking at her brother's still-twitching body, Nadine gazes at the building, her face sheened with sweat. She raises her hands and closes her eyes so she doesn't see the building suddenly erupt into an inferno. Six-foot-tall flames dance and twirl and engulf the quiet air, transforming the night sky into a blend of colors, red, yellow, orange, mingling with one another, devouring the building and the people within it until there's nothing left but burned flesh, ash, and memory.

The twins look at the destruction, and both their mouths drop, Napoleon's in horror and Nadine's in astonishment; neither can believe what she's accomplished.

Luba's demonic laugh, unchanged after all these years, severs the night with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel directly into the hearts of her grandchildren. She lifts her left hand, and with thumb and pinky finger touching, she points three fingers toward the dark heavens.

“Orion has chosen!” she proclaims.

Frantically I try to shake away this vision as well as Vera's stranglehold on me.

“This is what Orion chooses?” I cry. “Pure evil?!”

Whipping me around, Vera makes me see the vision in its entirety, not just the part I want to focus on, and I see Napoleon kneeling on the ground, tears falling from his eyes, his hands clasped in prayer. I hear his words, much quieter than Luba's rally roar, but equally as intense. He's praying to God to embrace the souls of the people who died in the fire. He's begging God and the angels to take the dead souls into their arms and show them the love and compassion that Luba and Nadine tried to burn out of them. He isn't thinking of himself; not once does he ask for forgiveness or revenge; his only thoughts are with the lives that have just been lost. He knows that his own life is lost as well, but he doesn't feel that he deserves to be spared from whatever fate awaits him. It's just like Jess said; balance can be found everywhere. Goodness and evil are alive and well only a few feet apart.

“Are you trying to tell me that Nadine never stood a chance?” I ask. “That the only way for her to survive and be noticed in her family was to turn to wickedness?”

“I don't mean to tell you anything, Dominy,” Vera replies. “Just show you the truth. How you wish to interpret it is your choice.”

What's there to interpret?! Nadine was born into a disgusting, sin-drenched family. She could've chosen a different route like her brother and her father, but she chose darkness and power and hasn't looked back ever since.

“And if you let her continue, if you don't stop her, who knows what else she'll do, who knows what else she is capable of doing,” Vera states.

Sitting back in the pew listening to Father Charles wrap up his sermon, I glance over to Nadine, and I'm more confused than ever. I've always considered Nadine to be a lost cause, but I've just been given proof that she wasn't born evil. The repercussions of that revelation are astounding.

Because not only does that mean that Nadine's children can be saved, but maybe it means that Nadine can be saved as well. Maybe she doesn't need to be destroyed like Luba wants; maybe her wickedness can be reverted, maybe she can be reformed, salvaged in some way.

When I catch Luba staring at me, her eyes practically penetrating my thoughts, I realize Luba is not at all happy with my change of heart.

And I have to wonder if I've joined forces with the wrong witch after all.

Last night was my first transformation of the New Year and as far as a GTWT—girl-to-wolf transformation—goes, it was completely uneventful. Snuck out of my room, feasted on an unexpected pair of wild turkeys, explored yet a new part of Robin's Park, lounged around for a bit waiting for someone to show up, but wound up spending the night alone. No Vera, Nadine, Luba, Louis, no one. Before I got to school this morning I took it as a positive omen. Now, I see that I was mistaken.

“Ladies! When I say run, I do not mean jog: I mean run!”

It appears by the way Miss Rolenski is acting that she did not have a relaxing and/or enjoyable holiday break. She's normally on the motivated side of type A, but today she sounds like she's crossed over and is in a zone that cannot be alphabetized, or controlled.

“Deeanne Ulrich!”

Miss Ro's voice is never girlie-girl feminine, but her scream sounds like gravel against sandpaper.

“That might pass for running on the cheerleading squad, but in
my
gym it's called walking!” she bellows. “Now I said run!”

Startled into action, Deeanne runs faster than I've ever seen her run before. I'm not exactly sure what's gotten into Miss Ro today, but I'm not going to risk her wrath. Today is one of those days that I'm thankful to be blessed with wolf-speed.

My third time around the track I realize that I've passed all the girls in my class, some of them twice, so I slow down and act as if I'm having some trouble breathing so it looks like I'm experiencing normal gym girl fatigue. As a side benefit, I can now overhear Gwen talking to Nadine on the bleachers.

Naturally, Nadine is excused from taking gym because she's pregnant, but because Dumbleavy and the brains behind Two W don't want the other students to claim they're favoring Nadine and giving her any undue advantages by allowing her to take another class or have a study period, she has to sit in the bleachers each day and watch her classmates sweat it out on the gym floor. In some warped adult way I'm sure they think they're showing Nadine everything that she's missing. Luckily, my superhearing doesn't allow me to miss one word of Nadine and Gwen's conversation.

“My father says your pregnancy is coming along fine,” Gwen mentions innocently.

“Your father talks to you about my pregnancy?” Nadine asks without a trace of innocence in her voice. It's all accusation.

“Oh no . . . no, no, no! He would never do that,” Gwen stutters. “I just asked him over dinner one night because, you know, I'm concerned, and I know that your due date is really, really soon, and he hasn't mentioned your name so I wanted to make sure that you're okay. You and your . . .”

“We're fine,” Nadine says curtly. “There's nothing for you or your father for that matter to be concerned with. Women have been having children for centuries without the benefit of modern medical intervention, and they and their children turned out fine.”

How Gwen cannot recognize that this is the perfect time to say “gotcha, Nadine, good luck” and get the hell away from her amazes me. But instead, Gwen continues the conversation and antagonizes Nadine with her subsequent comment.

“But that's just the thing, Nadine,” Gwen says, placing her hand on top of Nadine's knee. “You aren't a woman; you're still just a girl.”

Oh, Gwen, you are so wrong about that! Nadine may not be an adult in the eyes of the courts, but she has killed any trace of the little girl who used to live inside of her. And the way Nadine is staring at Gwen's hand, if Gwen doesn't remove it from her knee immediately, Nadine may add Gwen to the list of people she has killed.

Before I can intervene and shout Gwen's name to challenge her to a sprint as a way to separate her from the Four W, Miss Ro unwittingly does it for me.

“Gwenevere Schültzenhoggen! Are you taking lessons in how to ruin your life?”

Not only does Miss Ro get Gwen's attention, but she gets the attention of
everyone
in the gym.

“Leave the unwed Miss Jaffe alone so she can witness the life she's letting pass her by,” she barks. “And get back on the track!”

Like angry claws, two streams of charcoal black energy emerge from Nadine's body and begin the long trip toward Miss Ro. They move slowly; they're in no rush because their prey has no idea she's being stalked.

“And Gwen,” Miss Ro adds. “You may want to choose your friends more wisely.”

I have never heard Miss Ro or really any teacher at Two W speak so harshly to or about a student before. Did no one get the memo about being sensitive and politically correct to the student body? Especially when that body is housing another body? Or two! But the way that Nadine's been flaunting her pregnancy this year, it was bound to backfire at some point. I just never thought the insults would cross over from the student population to the teaching staff. As shocked as I am by Miss Ro's outburst, my classmates seem thrilled that an adult has finally given voice to their feelings.

“Serves her right for acting like getting knocked up should win her a blue ribbon,” Deeanne whispers to one of the girls on the squad. How quickly she forgets that Miss Ro just chewed her out a few minutes ago. Nadine's memory can't be erased that easily.

Looking over into the bleachers I see Nadine's lips moving quickly and in direct contrast to her black energy that is languidly undulating in the air between her and Miss Ro. Her back straight, her hands clasped in her lap, Nadine is motionless except for the frantic movements of her lips. At first glance she looks like an obedient schoolgirl reciting a memorized poem, but since no sound is coming out of her, she looks downright eerie. Whatever she's saying, whatever spell her lips are forming, she has no intention of sharing the words or their intent. The only thing I know is that Miss Ro is in danger.

But more than two minutes later when the class bell rings, Nadine still hasn't taken any action against Miss Ro. I hold back from the crowd and follow Nadine into the locker room so I can investigate further. The room is empty; most of the girls have done a quick-change and have left or are taking showers at the end of the hall. Seizing the opportunity, I take a seat on the bench next to danger herself. Her black energy is for some reason no longer following Miss Ro but is floating around Nadine's body, either showing off or patiently waiting to strike. I think I'll strike first.

“What are you doing here, Nadine?” I ask. “Break a sweat chanting in the stands?”

Smirking, but silent, Nadine shifts her weight on the bench, and her sneakers let out a loud squeak.

“Sounds like your sneakers are having a tough time handling all that extra weight,” I say. “You really have packed on the pounds. Must be one giganto baby you have tucked away in there.”

Beaming with pride, Nadine caresses her engorged stomach. She's so preoccupied with showing off her treasure, she has no idea that I know her treasure comes in two parts. “You'd be surprised by how much I have tucked away in here, Dominy.”

Hmm, not really. But before I slip and mention that I know she's carrying twins, this is a good time to steer the conversation in a new direction. Watching Miss Ro through her office window, sitting at her desk riffling through some paperwork, I've found the perfect distraction.

“This pregnancy must be siphoning some of your power,” I say, staring at Miss Ro. “Looks like you're losing your touch.”

“Really?” Nadine replies, turning to look over at Miss Ro. “My pregnancy is hardly taking power away from me. In fact it's helping me to become stronger than you or anyone could ever imagine.”

“Even Luba?”

As cunning as I can sometimes be, I can also be just as stupid. And this time my stupidity makes Nadine react more horrifically than ever before.

My comment, meant to give me the upper hand, seems to have given me away. From her intense reaction, Nadine is obviously suspicious of my comment. She knows that I know that she is keeping a secret from Luba. Does Nadine know that I've uncovered the truth that she's carrying twins and is planning to murder her grandmother so she and her children can become Orion's triumvirate and she can be promoted to the apex of their triangle of evil? Not sure. But from my uttering two little words, Nadine is certain that I know she's hiding
something,
and that bit of knowledge has forced Nadine to go into panic mode.

The black light that has been prancing around Nadine's body without purpose or direction has suddenly found it: me. With laser-beam accuracy the light zeroes in on my mouth, and before I can fight against it, I feel a burning sensation, like electrically charged fingers working frantically to pull my lips apart.

I clamp my mouth shut, but the burning only becomes more intense, and it feels as if my flesh is turning to liquid and splattering to the ground. Reaching up, I grab on to the light, but the temperature is scalding, and I feel my skin on my palms and fingertips sizzle. I have a flashback to when I was in Weeping Water River trying to yank open the wolf's mouth to let out my golden light. Now it's just the opposite. I want to keep my mouth shut. I'm not as lucky this time. Involuntarily, my mouth opens to let out a scream that is automatically silenced when Nadine's blackness rushes into my mouth.

My eyes are pools of tears, frightened and angry and desperate, so I can barely see Nadine in front of me. But I can see enough to witness her smiling at me. Despite any qualms I might have had about her, despite the fact that she might have been led toward evil with a gentle push by her grandmother, she has chosen to live her life there, regardless of the consequences to her soul and any poor fool who gets in her way. Like me.

Struggling against Nadine's attack I glance over and see Miss Ro through her window still focused on her paperwork. She has no idea what's happening outside her door. Good. I've got to keep it that way. The girl understands the need not to cause a disturbance that might attract Miss Ro's attention; the wolf doesn't.

Against my own will I feel it starting in the pit of my stomach, a violent reaction, the only real reaction to the beating my body's taking. Unfortunately, I don't think it will be a reaction that can remain unnoticed.

I feel the red cloud churning inside of me. I don't know if it's rising on its own power or if Nadine is tearing it from me, but the result is the same: The wolf is being awakened and dragged from its sleep.

“Nooooo!!!!!”

My screams have no voice, thanks to the red cloud filling up my throat. Puffs of it are starting to trickle out of my mouth and swirl around the black light, as if trying to grab hold of it, rip it off of my flesh, separate the good from the evil. But it doesn't matter because now the lines have blurred. Good has meshed with evil; girl has combined with wolf.

The heat from Nadine's light is matched only by the fire coursing through my veins. The pain gripping my flesh disappears when my limbs start to invert and break. This can't be happening! I'm transforming right here in the locker room, in plain sight of Miss Ro, with Gwen and some of the other girls showering down the hall, with Nadine laughing at me! The horror of it is that I know it's not completely Nadine's fault; she's awakened the beast within me, but I've allowed Nadine's fury to latch onto my emotions, and in doing so I've allowed the wolf to break free. Watching the red fur encase my arms, I know there's no turning back. For any of us.

“Dominy!!”

Miss Ro's scream slashes through my eardrums. It's pure terror; it's the sound that is let loose when someone comes face-to-face with unimaginable fear.

“Run!!”

I know that my voice is muffled; I know that it's more growl than scream, but she must have heard me—she must have heard me tell her to run! If she heard me, why is she just standing there? Why is she looking at me and not moving? Why isn't she running for her life?!

Nadine bends over and whispers in my ear, “Because her life is over.”

When I transform completely, Nadine lifts her arms, one in front of her and one to her right, and I hear the doors leading to the gym and to the showers slam shut. There's no way out now.

“Dominy!!”

Miss Ro's horrified voice burrows into my brain.

“What . . . the hell . . . is
happening?!
”

Even if I still had Dominy's voice, I couldn't respond to Miss Ro's cries, because I don't have an explanation. Is Nadine now just as powerful as Vera, thanks to the twins growing inside of her? She must be. How else did she force me to transform in the middle of the day? If this is what she can do while the twins are still in her womb, what will she be capable of after they're born? I can't speculate on that now; I have to do everything I can to make sure I protect Miss Ro and that those doors remain closed so Gwen and the others don't have to see what she's already witnessed. But I'm not sure I am strong enough.

“Dear God . . .
Dominy!
” Miss Ro screams. “What's happened to you?!”

Her voice is shaking like a leaf twirling from a branch to its death. Desperately trying to stay afloat, knowing that its life may be prolonged a while longer by a random gust of wind, but inevitably it will fall to the earth and die. I know this is the thought going through Miss Ro's mind not because I can see into her soul, but because I want her dead.

Her smell is so pungent that it fills my nostrils until I think my head may burst. My tongue lifts and sways across my fangs as I watch her thick legs shake and her muscular arm reach out to hold on to the locker to steady her body so it doesn't topple over, so it doesn't collapse onto the floor as an offering to me. Too late. Nadine has already served up my meal, and I'm too hungry to fight it.

“No!!”

I don't know whose voice that is—Miss Ro's, maybe Gwen's coming from behind the shower room door, or mine—but it temporarily breaks the spell. Like a caged animal, I run in circles, banging into the lockers, frantically looking for a way out. The only choice I have is to break down the door and run through the gym, hoping no one gets in my way. I leap into the air, and my front paws crash into the door, but it doesn't budge. My strength is no match for Nadine's spell. Or for her ingenuity.