Starfall (4 page)

His mouth opens up, and he gasps a little, but he hears the words I haven't spoken.
Leave the girl alone because we wouldn't want someone pestering us to share our secrets with the world. Let Gwen have her privacy.

“Thanks, Dom,” she says. Then she adds with a wink, “I knew you would understand.”

When she whips around, her towel-cape skipping in the air behind her, I wonder if Gwen is smarter than she appears. Does she know the truth about me? Does she know my secrets? No, that's impossible; she can't know that I'm cursed and once a month play werewolf underneath the full moon. Watching her plop onto the ground in between my brother and his friend, Jody, the three of them cackling about some unheard, inside joke, I realize I'm wrong. Not everyone's secrets are deadly or supernatural or unexplainable; some are just personal and silly and girlie. And if I know one thing, I know girlie. At least I think I do.

“She has got to be dating a band geek,” I state firmly and according to Caleb, pompously.

“Domgirl! Don't be so superficial,” he chastises. “Gwen could be going out with someone as hot as me.”

My boyfriend's ego is huge, yet correct.

“ 'Cause remember, Caleb is a geek without even being in the band,” Arla snaps.

And now bruised. Which of course makes us laugh even harder than before. Soon, however, our laughter turns to crying, at least for one of us.

“Winter?” Caleb asks. “What the hell? Are you all right?”

Archie buries his face in his hands, and for a few seconds his shoulders shake, indicating that his outburst may quickly get out of control. But just as suddenly as it took control of him, it's released. Roughly wiping away his tears, Archie composes himself, but he's obviously upset by something. Or someone.

“Sorry,” he says. “It's just that . . . well, this is the first time I've laughed since Nap died.”

Softly, Arla rubs his back, just so he knows he isn't alone. Unfortunately, it only reminds him that he is.

“I guess I didn't know how lonely I was,” Archie says quietly. “Until I was no longer alone.”

Now it's my time to turn away and remain silent. I know exactly how Archie feels. I have my friends, my brother, Louis, Jess, this wolf-spirit, all living inside of me or next to me, and sometimes I catch myself feeling desperately lonely, unreasonably so, but still it's powerful and consistent and hypnotic. Despite the fact that I have my Wolf Pack and so many other people in my life standing by me, not judging me, it's hard to shake off the feeling that I'm completely and utterly alone. Without Napoleon, that's how Archie feels.

The way Caleb and Arla are bowing their heads, I can tell they feel as stupid and selfish as I do. Sure, time ticks on, and life resumes no matter what happens—I know that better than anyone—but pain clings onto a heart and a memory and refuses to let go. Even when the source of pain is unwanted.

“Oh my God!”

Okay, now Archie is about to turn left onto Embarrassed Boulevard and make a fool out of himself in front of everyone and not just the three of us. I don't care how superficial that makes me sound, but the rest of the kids are not going to be as sympathetic toward Archie or understand that his emotional outburst is because he misses his boyfriend, because not everybody knows that he and Napoleon were a couple. It's time to pack up and move this party to a location without an audience. Turns out we don't need to flee our audience, just our nemesis.

“I cannot believe she has the guts to show up looking like that!” Archie exclaims.

Turning around, we all see that Archie isn't getting excited because a Jaffe twin has died; it's because the other Jaffe twin is still alive and walking this way.

I don't know if there was a sale on some magical Kool-Aid at the Price Chopper, but Nadine, like Gwen, has undergone a makeover. In Nadine's case, however, it isn't that she's lost weight, but that she's gained. And pregnancy becomes this witch.

She looks completely different from Gwen, but just as surreal. As she walks toward us, a breeze stirs around her as if the air is parting so it doesn't have to touch her flesh. The result is that she looks like she's floating instead of walking.

Her brown hair is longer than I last remember, falling to her shoulders, and it's curling at the edges—not sure if that's natural or from spending the morning with a curling iron, but it frames her face nicely and softens her appearance. She's not wearing any makeup, but her complexion isn't as pale and gray as it used to be; there's color in her cheeks, and her forehead and nose are a bit sunburnt. Thankfully, she's had the decency not to wear a bikini, but her sundress is just as flattering. It's sleeveless with elastic just underneath the bustline, so the cotton fabric that falls to about two inches above her knee has enough room to billow and bounce as she walks. It's plain white with just a few yellow daisies decorating the neckline and the hem. Seriously, I don't know what's worse: the fact that she looks good in it, or the fact that I would totally wear it myself.

Regardless of how cute her dress looks, it can't conceal the fact that she's a few months pregnant and her belly's already showing. The wind picks up, and she instinctively clutches the sides of her dress, doing that girl-thing that I've done thousands of times before so you don't give a free show to the rest of the world. I feel my heart beat a little bit faster. I'm not nervous that the enemy is approaching; I'm angry because the enemy is more like me than I care to admit.

“If she keeps expanding at that rate,” Arla observes, “she's going to look like the
Hindenburg
before her second trimester's over.”

At least she gets the chance to look bloated and fat and about to explode. It's something that, thanks to Luba and her psychotic clan, I'm never going to get to experience. I've decided I'm not going to have any children. As much as I would love to know what it feels like emotionally and physically to give birth, I just can't risk the possibility that I may pass this curse along to my child. My fear may be groundless—Luba did place the curse on my father's firstborn only—but we don't know the extent of Luba's abilities, and now that the curse is in my blood, my DNA may have acquired power of its own. Getting pregnant isn't worth the risk of ruining another innocent child's life. There are other ways to experience motherhood.

I've already thought about adopting someday. Way too soon to make such a lifelong commitment, I know, but when I'm older, maybe married to Caleb or someone who's just as good and kind and strong as he is, we'll adopt a child and raise it as our own. I'll do everything for my son or daughter that my father did for me, and everything my mother would've wanted to do for me if she had had the chance.

I'm so lost in thought I don't realize that my breathing has sped up and is dangerously close to sounding like a wild animal's panting. Not much I can do about it, not when I'm in the presence of a hunter who I know wants me dead.

“Hi, guys,” Nadine says cheerfully.

No one responds, not from our little group anyway. In the distance, however, Gwen waves to Nadine, as do a few others, and Nadine's eyes brighten and she waves enthusiastically to them as if she truly cared about their acknowledgment and friendship. But she doesn't care about anyone except herself. Well, maybe that baby she's carrying. The baby who has an unnamed father out there somewhere.

I take several deep breaths to try and remain calm as I look from Caleb to Archie, wondering if one of them could possibly be Nadine's baby daddy. Please no; please don't make that the case; please spare them that fate! Looking around I scour the area for other potential suspects. Could be Jody Buell; he was quite a vocal participant of the vigilante squad. Or The Dandruff King. No, Nadine's gross, but not even she could be that gross. Then my eyes fall onto Barnaby. I know that Nadine said he wasn't the father, but she could've been trying to steer me off course, away from the bull's-eye. With so much uncertainty in my life and surrounding Luba's great-grandchild, I'm going to opt to believe Nadine. I don't know if it's the wisest decision, but I do know that it will destressify my life and help me focus on more important things than the horror that I could be about to become an aunt to the Antichrist.

And even if I'm terribly wrong and Barnaby is the father, it doesn't look like he wants anything to do with Nadine either. He's staring at her with pure disgust. For a time I thought that Barnaby was under Nadine's spell, but that time has obviously passed. Either he's grown strong enough to break free of her charms or Nadine has moved on, tired of trying to overpower an unwilling recruit. Whatever the reason, I'm thankful Barnaby can see her for what she really is. I wish Archie could do the same.

“Hi, Nadine,” he says. “You look great.”

What?! Wasn't he just shocked to see her outside strutting her impregnated stuff? What's going on? The silver light isn't emanating from Nadine's body; it's not reaching out to twist Archie's mind and thoughts and words, but could she be doing it telepathically?

“Thanks, Archie, you too,” Nadine replies. “Love your hair.”

Absentmindedly Archie rubs the top of his head; he really looks like he's mesmerized by the vision and voice of Nadine. I don't know what's going on, but the tears burn my cheeks even before they start to fall. I can feel them from the inside out, where all my secrets and pain and anger live. I don't know why they're springing to life; maybe because I hate what Nadine and her family have done to my friends and me, or because I know that the Jaffe family's vendetta isn't finished. All I do know is that I don't want to cry in Nadine's presence. But I have less control of girl-cries than I do wolf-howls. Sometimes the body just takes over when it knows the mind is too overwhelmed. Which is why I find myself running toward the river.

The water feels cool and invigorating and very familiar. A few nights ago I reluctantly sought refuge in this same river, but now there isn't any struggle; I don't have to fight the wolf to stay under water; I know this is where I belong.

Letting my body relax, I feel myself start to float. I see my red hair spreading out around me like freshly drawn blood, and for an instant I think that I'm dying, that my life is being pulled out of me so only the wolf can remain, and remarkably in that instant I'm consumed by a sense of peace more radiant and jubilant than any I've ever known.

I look up, and I'm lost in a glow of sunshine so strong that it penetrates the surface of the water to brighten what lies beneath. The light is like Jess's friendship, amazing and cherished and pure, and I marvel at how a thin layer of water bewitched by the sun separates me from the chaos on the other side. Is this feeling warranted, manufactured, a premonition? I don't know and I don't care; I just want to stay in this tranquility forever. But I have to breathe.

Breaking the surface of the water my body stiffens because I'm leaving peace behind and entering enemy territory. When I open my eyes, however, I'm startled to see that I've brought some of that peace with me. Nadine is nowhere to be found.

I race over to my friends and am filled with such glee that I practically pounce on top of Caleb. He recoils from my touch; my boyfriend is not in the mood for playtime. Matching dour expressions are clamped to Archie's and Arla's faces as well. I offer my friends the gift of peace and this is how I'm repaid? Ingrates!

“What's going on?!” I shout, standing over them. They suddenly look far, far away. “The wicked witch may not be dead, but she's disappeared, which is almost as good.”

“Nadine wasn't looking for an invite to stay,” Caleb informs me.

“As if anyone was going to pony up an invitation,” I reply. “Right?”

I can't help myself, and my eyes linger for a few seconds on Archie's face. He doesn't answer my question, but he does provide some insight as to why my friends look like the end-of-summer bash has turned into a pity party.

“She, um, just stopped by to show you . . . this,” Archie says, handing me a rolled up newspaper.

I open it up to see that it's this week's edition of
The Weeping Water Weekly,
and immediately I know that their impromptu party is being held in my honor and that Nadine, despite her softened appearance, is still made of barbed wire. One touch and she can wound.

The headline of the
Three W
is one word, but it only takes one word to destroy my world: W
EREWOLF
.

I feel like I'm still under water. I know that I'm standing. I know that my bare feet are pushing down into the grass. I know that my arms are pressed against the sides of my body. I know that I'm completely stiff and immobile and stationary, and yet I feel like I'm floating.

A wind gust travels past me, and my hair is lifted; for a second it's horizontal, and I'm reminded of how it looked while I was submerged within the body of the river, separated from my friends and from the rest of the world, while I was at peace. I want to be there now. I want to be on the better side of the water's surface, where words have no sound and headlines have no meaning.

“Dominy?”

The wind is gone, and my hair falls to my shoulders. Its landing is gentle, but it feels as if a huge boulder has crashed onto me, making my knees buckle and my arms shake.

“Dominy!”

Finally, I gasp, and the warm air rushes into my lungs, revitalizing me, bringing me up from the water's depths and back to the present, to where I don't want to be.

“Domgirl, sit down.”

Caleb is speaking, but I can't see him clearly just yet. My vision is lagging behind my breath. I feel his hand on my left arm. Someone else's hand takes hold of my right arm, and together they help me descend, not to the bottom of the river, but to the safety of my towel.

My legs stretch out listlessly in front of me, so the heels of my feet glide across the soft fabric, while my hands press down at my sides and my fingers grip the thick cloth tightly. Peace and destruction, living together simultaneously; my body is in perfect balance. My mind is in perfect chaos.

“They know,” I say. My voice is soft, barely a whisper, but it's made of fear, so it sounds to me like I'm shouting.

“No, they don't,” Caleb replies. His voice is just as quiet, but it's different, it's confident. “It's just a stupid headline.”

Archie holds the paper up again so I can see the word—WEREWOLF—and it's like someone has pressed a white-hot branding knife into my eyes. The burning sensation is so ridiculously painful and it penetrates so deeply into the core of my brain that at first I don't feel a thing; for a moment the meaning of the word escapes me. But then my mind kicks in, and it remembers the word's definition and origin and implication, and pain roars throughout my body.

Thankfully, when my mouth opens, no sound rushes out, so no one else knows that my world has officially collapsed. No one else hears the girl screaming and the wolf howling and all the other sounds blasting inside my body; it's my own silent symphony, my own unheard expression of fear and panic and sorrow. And worst of all, my own inevitable capture.

“Caleb,” I say, my voice so much calmer than my thoughts, “I've been found out.”

Lines appear on his forehead as it scrunches up and his eyebrows come closer together. For some insane reason his lips elongate into a smile. “No, you haven't,” he replies.

I grab his wrist tightly, too tightly, more like an animal and less like a girl, but I can't help myself. “Read the headline,” I seethe.

“No,” he says, his voice getting louder, braver. “You read it.” He grabs the newspaper from Archie's hands and shoves it into mine; it feels like lava. “Read it carefully.”

It's only one word; how carefully do I have to read it?

“I don't know how, Caleb, but they've found out what I am,” I declare.

“No, Dom,” Archie interjects. “They have no idea what you are. It's only speculation.”

It isn't speculation; it's discovery! God, I hate when people act like idiots! When they can't see the truth or when they deliberately avoid the truth when it's right in front of their eyes. Like I'm clearly doing right now.

“That's why they added a question mark,” Archie says.

I reread the headline, this time seeing it for exactly what it is, and it's like I'm seeing a sliver of hope. Lars Svenson hasn't presented fact to our town, not at all; the editor of the
Three W
is simply playing a guessing game. Gigglaughs rip out of my mouth when I realize that grammar really does save lives. Plug a question mark after the word
werewolf,
and it takes on a whole new meaning, one that's rife with doubt. And even though doubt is just fact without the certainty, it has to come from somewhere; there has to be a reason that compelled Lars to plaster his paper with superstition. All I have to do is skim the opening paragraph to find it.

That word sounds so foreign to me—
human
—like it doesn't have any place in the sentence or in my world. What's it doing there? That's the same question Lars seems to be asking.

Unholy? Really, Lars? Talk about trying to incite a riot. Then again, when I realize this curse began thanks to Luba's unholy alliance with Orion, Lars's choice of adjective is less sensational than it is accurate. But is it believable?

“Do you think the question mark really makes that big of a difference?” I ask.

“Totally!” Archie cries.

“Absolutely!” Arla shouts.

“You know it does!” Caleb yells.

Lots of noise, but is it just noise to cover their lack of conviction? My friends know, just as I do, that there are three groups of people in this town. The first group will read this article and laugh at Lars's attempt to mix fiction with fact, forgiving him for letting his creative juices overflow onto the newsprint. The second group, the one that nurses a less favorable view of the man because of the editorial monopoly he holds over Weeping Water's readers, will believe they have proof that Lars has once again succumbed to his paranoia and memorialized one of his conspiracy theories. They'll feel they have written confirmation that he's a quack. That leaves the third group, and while this might be the smallest, it's also the most dangerous. This group is comprised of the people who willingly accept superstition as truth and myth as fact; they're the ones who passionately argue that aliens are being bred in a huge hangar in the Nevadan desert for secret scientific study and that man didn't walk across the face of the moon, but across an elaborately designed Hollywood soundstage. These are the people I'm afraid of, because this headline is all the proof they need that someone like me really does exist.

“Liars!” I reply. “You all know what this means.”

Three blank stares. Has Stupid Girl Academy gone coed?

“The people in this town with vigilante tendencies are going to throw a party,” I explain. “Attacks that only take place when there's a full moon, human and wolf DNA swimming together in the same petri dish—this is like the grassy knoll suddenly developed a mouth and the power of speech and said ‘Hell yeah, there was another gunman!' ”

“Even if some people do latch onto Lars's outlandish theory,” Arla begins.

“Which we all know is unoutlandish,” I clarify.

“Even if they do, who is really going to believe him? It's ludicrous,” she finishes.

“Them's there are some big words, Arla,” Archie says. “But people are scared, and trust me, scared people will grab hold of possibility like a life preserver. It's human nature.”

There's that word again. Well, this girl is only part-human, so my flesh tingles and my fur stands up on end when I feel the outside world closing in tighter and tighter around me. My nature is to fight against the inevitable. But how?

“What do we do?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

And it's official: Caleb is SGA's valedictorian.

“I can't just do nothing,” I protest. “This is like a public relations nightmare.”

Caleb rubs some sunscreen onto his arms, the white cream making his muscles look like a snow-topped mountain range; he's obviously more interested in protecting his pale skin from sunburn than in protecting my life from ruin. “There's nothing you
can
do, Domgirl,” he says, his eyes focused on his task and not his girlfriend. “Without exposing yourself to everyone and sabotaging yourself by making your own worst nightmare come true.”

“Bells is right, Dom,” Archie adds. “If people are that susceptible and that willing to believe that Comic Con is a cover-up so supernatural creatures can safely show their ugly heads in public, there's nothing you can do to stop that.”

“Are you saying that when I'm a wolf I'm ugly?” I ask.

“I so knew she was going to go there,” Arla chimes in. “Riddle me this, Dominy, does the wolf ever wonder if she's a pretty girl when she transforms back?”

“Bite me,” I joke. Grateful that I still have friends who make me smile, when all I really want to do is cry.

“If you would learn not to bite first,” Arla replies, “you wouldn't be in this situation.”

Friends who also make me question why they're my friends in the first place. “Arla!”

“I'm sorry, Dom, but it has to be said,” she continues, not backing down. “I know that Nadine probably had something to do with Gallegos's going all bounty hunter on you, but you have got to learn how to take control when you find yourself in these out-of-control situations. Otherwise . . .”

The next headline is going to replace the question mark after the word
werewolf
with an exclamation point, and my photo is going to be directly underneath. Grammar can save, but it can also kill.

Sighing heavily, I lie back on the beach towel and look up at the sky. I can only see an immense stretch of blue; no sun, no golden light is anywhere to be seen. It reminds me of the absence of Jess. If only she had shown up when Gallegos was pointing his gun at me, she could've created a distraction, some illusion like an abrupt fire or yellow lightning to make Gallegos pause and give me time to flee into the night. But Jess never came. I know it's not her fault. Well, that's a complete lie; it's at least sort of her fault, but how can I blame her? She was my first victim and my first savior; she doesn't owe me anything. I've just come to think that whenever I'm in danger, Jess will rescue me. Time to start rethinking my options.

But why do I have to think about survival techniques on such a beautiful day? Why do I have to do anything other than look at my hot boyfriend's bathing suit ride up the length of his thigh? Because I'm cursed, that's why. Cursed by a psychotic old Native American Indian woman and her pregnant granddaughter. Which reminds me.

“Shouldn't Nadine be staying home at night taking prenatal vitamins instead of hiking through Robin's Park and hypnotizing cops?” I ask, absentmindedly tugging on the little hairs just above Caleb's ankle.

“She was probably foraging through the woods looking for some root herbs to make a potion so her baby won't grow up to be as vile as she is,” Arla replies.

I smile because my friend knows exactly the right button to push to make me feel like I'm nothing more than a superficial, gossipy girl. And Archie knows exactly which button to push to make me tumble back to reality.

“Unless her baby daddy is some unbelievably smokin' Abercrombie & Fitch flip-flop-wearing dude,” he ponders.

It's as if Caleb's invisible string is pulling at me to look at him, but I refuse; there is no way that he's the father of Nadine's baby. I won't accept it, and I can't believe for a second that it could be true.

Turning my head in the other direction is just as bad because I see Barnaby hanging in midair, about to plunge into the river. Stay under, Barnaby; stay where it's peaceful; don't ever come back up. My wish is ignored, and seconds later he pops up, shaking his head from side to side and spraying Gwen and Jody with water. The three of them quickly engage in a splash fight, and I wish I could watch them forever, but there's something nagging at me in the pit of my stomach, the same something that's growing inside of Nadine's. The next generation of evil has got to have a father. Then again maybe not.

“You are not going to believe this!”

In one quick motion Caleb, Archie, and I are surrounding Arla, looking at the screen of her iPhone.

“And just why are we looking at a jellyfish?” Caleb asks.

“This isn't an ordinary jellyfish,” she replies. “It may also be a jaffefish.”

A what?

“This type of jellyfish reproduces asexually.”

I'm only mildly better at science than I am at math, so I can't follow Arla's lecture. Luckily, Caleb is a left-side brain person, and he gets it instantly.

“You think Nadine could've impregnated herself?” he asks.

Archie and I make the same face, as if we just realized we bit into a booger burger; we are beyond disgusted to think that Nadine did the nasty to herself. Teenagers, however, are incredibly fickle, and grossed out quickly turns into engrossed.

“And you will never ever guess what this type of jellyfish is named,” Arla taunts. “And by never ever I mean never to the infinite power.”

Well then, why should we even try to guess?

“It's called a
moon
jellyfish!”

The three of us gasp so loudly that the cluster of kids near us looks over to investigate. Luckily their interest is only mild, and they soon continue with their own conversations, and we follow suit.

“Let me see that!” I demand, ripping Arla's phone out of her hands. She's right! The only type of jellyfish that can reproduce without any help from another jellyfish is called the moon jellyfish. That can't be a coincidence because I've already proven that there are no coincidences. No, this is a sign; the universe is telling us that just as the moon controls me, it's controlling Nadine. My boyfriend's thoughts are less sophisticated.