Max and Emmy are the reason any of this exists.
After the second birth, she had felt the Watcher sitting in her mind, its eyes turned on her. Inside her, of course, it had no eyes but her own, yet that was how it felt. A lump of burning coal in the back of her head. Sometimes it clung to her shoulders, though she could turn to her reflection and see nothing there. She didn’t know now if those had been hallucinations left over from post-rebirth sickness, or if she’d simply grown used to the sensation. Either way, she no longer felt it. And the Watcher hadn’t spoken to her since that first day, when it had made the bargain with her.
Her body for its power.
CHAPTER 5
Over the next few days, I finish two more pages. I could go faster—I can finish a page in a day if I try—but the quality will start to deteriorate, and that’s the last thing I want at this point. We’ve already gone through so much of the comic, it should only be getting better from here, not worse. I sketch out the pages in school, doing as much of the line work foundation as I can before it ever gets on the computer. I do these in class when no one is watching, or at lunch while I sit by myself in the drafty courtyard outside the cafeteria. Soon it’ll be too cold to sit out here at all, and I’ll have to find a table inside, which should be fun considering all of the tables are taken every day I walk in.
On Friday, the day of our homecoming game, everyone is dressed in typical Westcliff gold, adorned with football jerseys and face paint and gold ribbons tied in ponytails. In the main hallway, there are five different homecoming banners encouraging the football team to GO FIGHT WIN. On my walk to fourth period, it is banner number three that detaches from the wall as I walk beneath it. The world goes dark. I smack at the banner to get it off, and snickers erupt in the hallway behind me. The banner falls to the floor.
Travis Stone and Deshawn Johnson, the only two students in this school who scare me even on a good day, lean against the lockers nearby and watch me struggle. Travis Stone looks like a vulture in sagging jeans and a buzz cut, and Deshawn Johnson is a kid who half the time is too cool to hang out with Travis and the other half the time not very cool at all. Ten years ago they were two sweet little boys at my grade school who played tag with me on the playground, and they would’ve helped me with this banner instead of watching.
“Nice hair,” Travis says. I brush a hand over my head and find an ungodly amount of glitter trapped there. The look on my face sends Travis and Deshawn into new rounds of laughter.
In the bathroom, attempts to remove the glitter fail. All I manage to do is fill a sink with gold glitter dandruff and get a few other girls to give me strange looks, like I did it to myself. All hope of happiness and a bright future dies.
I walk outside at the end of the day to a gloomy sky, a sharp breeze, and lines of cars vying to leave the parking lot. In a few hours everyone will be back here for the football game, crammed together in the stadium behind the school, shouting their support to the chilled night air and huddled together with their friends. There will be class floats paraded around the perimeter of the football field. There will be a moment of silence and a short memorial for the band members who went off Wellhouse Turn last summer. There will be football jerseys and parties and revelry deep into the night.
I rearrange my backpack on my shoulders and hold my sketchbook in both hands. There are too many cars. I bet college doesn’t have parking issues like this. I bet college is great.
I turn and find Wallace sitting on that same bench again. He has sat there every day this week. I found out yesterday that his last name is Warland, which seems appropriate for someone of his size and stature. Capable of inflicting destruction wherever he goes.
Today, Wallace Warland is not alone. Flanking him are Travis Stone and Deshawn Johnson, forever and always the bane of my existence. Running into my long-forgotten friends once a day is bad enough—twice is asking for trouble. Deshawn stands by the bench with his arms crossed, and Travis lounges beside Wallace like they’re old buddies. Wallace sits stiffly, with his hands covering the papers he’s always writing on, his eyes stuck on the sidewalk somewhere to the left of Deshawn’s shoes.
Wallace did not strike me as the kind of person to begin a friendship with the likes of Travis Stone, at least not High-School-Dickbag Travis Stone. Curiosity makes my feet inch a little closer, pretending I’m debating going to my car. I pull out my phone and stare at the black screen.
“. . . must have typed this. No one can write that good. What is this again?”
Travis tries to take one of the papers. Wallace clamps his hand down.
“What’d you call it? Fan . . . fan . . .”
“Fanfiction,” Deshawn says.
No way in the nine circles of hell. No way is Wallace Warland writing fanfiction. Fanfiction of what? What does Wallace Warland enjoy so much he writes fanfiction about it? Can you have fanfiction about professional sports teams?
“Lemme see.” Travis tries to take the paper again, which makes Wallace lock down tighter.
“I think it’s for that online thing,” Deshawn says, peering down at the paper. “That sea thing.”
All the hair on the back of my neck prickles. My heart rate ratchets upward. They are not talking about Monstrous Sea.
Wallace Warland cannot write Monstrous Sea fanfiction.
“Leave him alone.” I’ve spun and headed toward them before I can stop myself. My voice comes up from some black reserve of courage inside me, a place usually saved for speech class, or going to the dentist on my own. My face crumples in on itself; my legs shake. My heart beats like I just sprinted a mile.
Travis and Deshawn both turn to me and smile—well, Deshawn doesn’t really smile, and all of Travis’s smiles look like leers. God, I remember when those smiles used to be nice. Wallace stares at me, expression unreadable. Does he realize how futile this is? Maybe I can at least give him a few seconds to run. The only thing I can’t do is stand idly by while a fan—if not a fan of Monstrous Sea, then definitely a fan of something—gets ridiculed for what he likes. LadyConstellation wouldn’t stand for that, and for this exact moment now, neither do I.
Travis fakes surprise. “Oh my god, Murky can actually speak.”
We’ve been in school together since the second grade. He knows I can speak fine, unlike some of our other classmates, who believe I am an actual mute.
“Leave him alone, Travis.” My voice is already too weak for this. Emergency courage reserves depleted.
“Why’re you standing up for him, Murky? Does someone have a crush?”
My face flames instantly. I press the edge of my sketchbook into my thighs. I know this is his go-to to make a girl either stop talking or get so flustered she can’t make a rational argument. He started using it in middle school, when I became too weird for anyone to hang out with. If I can push through it, maybe I’ll knock him off his game.
“No. Shut up,” I warble. “I just—you . . . let him write what he wants. Whatever it is, it’s none of your business.”
“None of my business? I’m not trying to hate on him for it, Murky, I just want to read it! What’s your problem?”
“He obviously doesn’t want you to read it!”
Wallace stares at me the whole time I’m saying this, and heat seeps into my ears too. So I’m distracted when Deshawn slips my sketchbook out of my hands.