Five years ago...
Nefera shut the sarcophagus. She sighed. That was the last she would see of her sister. The Anubis guards were waiting outside the crypt, ready to carry her back down the mountain.
Something had changed within Nefera these past few days. The princess wished to do anything she wanted, and the genie helped accomplish that. But lately, she wanted more. She wanted her wishes to make a mark. She wanted the power she was destined to have.
It was the call from Headmistress Bloodgood that made it all click.
She overheard her father on the phone and knew exactly what that lowly pretentious woman was talking about: her senior year. The desire for rule overcame her, and she focused on nothing else but leading the Fear Squad, where she felt the closest to being a queen.
So she cheated.
It was the only way she was going to be free of that school.
Why would someone destined for greatness need to be subjugated by such trivial societal rules? She was a princess, was she not? She hated that she missed her time to rule.
She remembered it all. Running in fear. Wondering where her mother was. Waking up with her father and sister only to no longer be humans, but mummies centuries later.
Dead.
Nefera wanted to feel alive.
Later, she told the genie to meet her. Nefera wanted to see the last place she felt like a queen.
Monster High.
Maybe it could serve some purpose during her rule.
She tried her best to avoid all of her sister's friends. Although she was in Cleo's body, she definitely didn't want to deal with anything having to do with her. She locked that away in the sarcophagus.
After Monster High, Nefera went to the nearby farmhouse, abandoned by its former zombie tenants.
All through the way, she knew she was being followed. But she paid it no mind. The farmhouse was the perfect place to enact her spell. The charm burned in her fist.
Finally, she would get what she deserved.
It wasn't until moments later that she regretted it all.
I woke with a start, the walls of Bloodgood's former home glumly greeting me. Did I just receive another dream from Whisp? I looked to my side where she was sleeping on the loveseat beside the recliner I was in. How was she still sending me dreams? I tried to be careful not to wake the others as I reached out of my blanket and gently shook her shoulder.
She awoke with a flutter of her eyelids. "Frankie?" She let out a yawn. "Is it time to leave?"
"Not yet," I whispered. "I want to ask you something." I leaned in closer on my elbows, and she sat up on the couch. "Could you tell me why I'm having dreams? About the past? And getting headaches along with it or whenever I'm near you?"
Whisp raised an eyebrow. "That... that should only happen with the earrings I gave you." She looked at Cleo, cuddled on the floor with Deuce. "Maybe it only affects the mind." She sighed. "Those earrings are ancient charms I hoped would help you find me, and I could become your genie. That way, you could return to your original body."
"Wait a minute. How are you here in the first place? Nefera made you return to your lamp. She finished her wishes."
The genie huddled into her blanket. "It was Valentine. He's my finder."
"What?"
"Nefera wanted my power, and he sided with her." Whisp's voice broke. "He s-said he didn't want to..." The genie went silent for a long moment.
I shifted in the recliner. "But why? Why did Nefera want your power?"
Whisp took a steady breath. "Valentine... he said she needed me close. I never found out why."
I decided to change the subject. "I've had a few dreams. Even one about my past. But every dream since has been about your memories. Except for this one. This one was about Nefera."
She kept her gaze lowered. "And what about now? Did you dream?"
"Yeah. I did."
Whisp kept quiet. A strand of blue hair fell out from her bun. "I heard you left a friend behind."
Venus. I gave a weak smile. "I'm not worried. There's no way she'd go in there without some sorta plan."
Whisp perked up. "An escape plan?"
"Something drastic, I bet."
We were startled to see Toralei awake on the indigo couch across the den. She grinned at our surprise. The werecat's tail swayed languidly while she lay on her stomach propped up on her elbows. Her emerald eyes were bright with energy. "You should've seen the look in her eyes."
Whisp's voice was barely audible when she addressed her. "You were awake during our conversation?"
Toralei rotated onto her back and let her tail sway alongside the couch. "I'm awake during a lot of conversations."
"Keep your voice down, Toralei," I whispered as loudly as I could. "The rest are still asleep."
As if on cue, Cleo sat up from the rug on the floor. Her cyan irises barely peeked past her eyelashes. "What's going on?"
Toralei rolled her eyes and gradually slid off the couch until her feet touched the floor. "I'm going to get some food."
Cleo's eyes widened at the sight of the werecat. Then she let out a groan. "Oh. Right." She looked down at herself and scowled. "Ugh. Why did you have to dress like this, Frankie?"
I stifled a giggle. "Sorry, but your platforms weren't good for hiking."
She gasped. "Hiking? You made me hike? Dressed like this?" She looked horrified.
"I think you make it work," Deuce said suddenly, rising by her side.
A sad smile formed on Cleo's lips, but she kept herself lighthearted. "Thank you, Deuce. Although, I'm not sure a fashion opinion from a blind Gorgon is worth much."
"Are your snakes blind, too?" I asked.
He flinched when I spoke, yet he had on an easygoing smile. "I don't think so... Cleo?"
The mummy ghoul hummed in thought. "Well..." She poked at one of the green serpents on the Gorgon's head, and it was soon nuzzling against her finger. She giggled. "Definitely not blind."
"What about his powers?" Twyla asked from the love seat in the dark corner. "The 'turning-to-stone' thing."
Cleo scoffed. "Of corpse he still has his powers. The curse said 'wandering in darkness' not..." The room was dead silent the second she trailed off. Deuce had taken off his sunglasses and nothing was turned to stone. No virescent rays, just bright green reptilian eyes blinking listlessly in the open air.
Deuce's voice faltered, "Huh. Side effect." His grip on his shades loosened. "Weird."
His shoulders slumped forward as if an enormous weight pressed upon him. Cleo's touch didn't ease him, but she didn't pry or even try to speak—none of us did. We knew there was nothing we could do. Deuce was blind, and now he had to live with it.
When his sunglasses fell from his palm, and the room was still thick with silence, Deuce placed his hand over Cleo's and cracked a faint grin.
"I bet I have a pretty bad tan line."
"You know, it's not as bad as you think," said the ghoul on the other side of the bars. She knelt down on the dirt-covered concrete. "I can help you escape."
Venus' blue eyes shone lightly in the darkness of the cell. "No. You've done enough by just coming to talk to me. You know about the rebels so you can help now."
The other frowned. "But—"
"Clawdeen," Venus interrupted, "it's okay."
"But don't you want to go back to them?" Clawdeen asked.
Venus paused. Then shook her head. "There's something I plan to do here." She held out her arm, then pulled back her sleeve revealing dark thorns amidst an array of black veins on her pale green skin.
Clawdeen's voice dropped to a disbelieving whisper. "What happened?"
Venus sighed. "It's poison. Sometimes it happens to us plant monsters, depending on our environment. We react this way. No one else in my family has since my great-grandfather when his town burned down." She pulled down her sleeve. "Guess it's only fitting I have it now."
"Is it..." Clawdeen was afraid to ask. "Is it in your blood?"
"Not until recently," Venus said. "It was just in the thorns at first. It's basically a signal. It both keeps me alive and warns me that I need to go somewhere with more plants but..." Her expression hardened. "I can't go now."
Clawdeen grimaced. "It looks painful."
Venus sighed. "Like I said, it's a warning."
The Wolf's eyes widened. "Venus, if this hurts you-"
"Last night, when I was captured," Venus said, "the vampires threatened to drink my blood. Valentine bit me a while back before this got worse but should he try again now..." Her face possessed a blazing determination. "The Queen will lose her greatest asset. If I go down with him then so be it."
The werewolf's hand encircled one of the cell bars and she sighed. "Look, I know Frankie hasn't been herself lately, but you gotta believe that she's doing some good here. The city isn't a bad place."
Venus was already shaking her head. "The Queen was never Frankie. Nefera switched bodies with her and Cleo."
Clawdeen's ear twitched. "Come again?"
-.-.-.-
"How does the song go?" Skelita asked Clawdeen as she stepped out the Wolf's golden car into the heat of the afternoon.
The werewolf had her mind elsewhere. Now that she was exposed to the quietness of the cloudless day, thoughts of Venus' revelation resurfaced. Not only had Clawdeen been lied to the past five years but her loyalty had also been misplaced. She had assumed Frankie was a good leader—she couldn't expect anyone else in charge but it turned out she wasn't ruling at all. As Frankie, Nefera would keep to herself only to go out on rare occasions and express a small amount of gratitude to her followers. Clawdeen had thought perhaps the Queen was busy running her city, but to find out Valentine was pulling the strings? She was braced to feel betrayal, but instead she felt an overbearing wave of guilt. I should've known.
A clink of chains hauled Clawdeen out of her thoughts. "Who cares how the song goes?" A blur of poltergeist green drifted out the vehicle. "It's a concert. Just have fun."
Spectra's own chains sounded as her ethereal form came to hover beside the other. "It's not wrong for her to ask, Porter."
"It's not wrong to have fun either," he retorted, crossing his arms. "Besides it—"
Spectra quieted him with a swift kiss on the cheek, replacing his grin with a brief blush. She glided off toward the stadium and Porter soared after her.
Clawdeen rubbed her temples. Skelita laughed. "At least we're not stuck in the car with them anymore," she noted with a flick of her skeletal hand.
The werewolf let out a groan when she remembered their incessant giggling during the drive. "I love them, I do, but I'm so glad they went ahead without us."
Skelita smiled. "How long have they been together?"
"A few years now." Clawdeen started making her way through the stuffed parking lot and the skeleton followed.
"They act like it," she remarked. Then confusion came over her painted face. "But at the same time..."
"They don't?" Clawdeen chimed in. Skelita nodded. The Wolf chuckled dryly. "They're high school sweethearts and an old married couple combined. I don't know how it works, but it does."
Skelita gave a slight tilt of her head in response. "So I'm guessing that would explain the matching clothes?" She pointed ahead where the duo floated by the dome-shaped stadium.
The couple wore sleeveless black outfits, Porter in a t-shirt and jeans and Spectra in a dress that cut halfway down her thigh. The design, if one were to call it so, was an array of silver and pink splatter paint with "NOIR" scrawled in enormous white letters across the front of their chests. The ensemble made it seem like Porter had wanted to prepare for the occasion, and Clawdeen couldn't help but laugh.
She turned to her friend after repressing her laughter. "I think Porter just got a little excited."
The werewolf reached to pull her hair back and observed her own outfit, glad she had decided on a stylish leopard print skirt and purple halter top, which went great with her surprisingly comfortable gold-colored wedges. Skelita had gone more casual in simpler wedges, a denim skirt, and a traditional white Hexican blouse; her dual-colored hair hung loosely past her shoulders.
The ghouls merged into a herd of monsters filing across the pavement and toward the daunting stadium entrance. Skelita pointed at the ghosts again. "Should we catch up with them?"
Clawdeen shook her head. "They can't do anything until I get there. I have the tickets..." She unzipped her purse and tugged out four tagged lanyards, an amicably sly grin on her lips. "And the backstage passes."
-.-.-.-
The backstage passes had allowed Clawdeen and the others to visit Catty Noir in her dressing room where she was more than happy to welcome them. It was a moderately small yet spacious white-walled, poster-adorned room with black carpeting. A gaudy vanity rested in the corner beside a rack of flashy costumes, and a long pink couch curled against the wall with a silver ottoman across from it, a glass coffee table between the two.
Catty sat on the couch clad in a jewel-embellished pink dress that ran in slits down her legs. She gave a swift flick of her tail before leaning to grab an apple slice from the plate on the coffee table. "I can't tell you how great it is to see familiar faces before the show. I was getting really nervous."
Clawdeen lounged beside the pop star and waved her comment aside. "Don't worry, ghoul. It's totally understandable that you'd be nervous after all this time."
The glamorous werecat sent Clawdeen a small, appreciative smile. Spectra, hovering above the coffee table to face the pop star, scribbled furiously on her notepad.
"Hmm... Do you mind specifying why you're nervous?" the ghost asked.
Catty pushed back a strand of her magenta hair. Her ear gave a slight twitch. "I'm always nervous before a show."
Spectra momentarily bit her lip before speaking, "No, I mean could you specifically specify—Could you please stop?"
The ghoul glared at Porter behind her, who had been flying around in circles with a finger held out to rattle the chains dangling from her waist. Porter flashed her an impish grin and phased out through the ceiling. Spectra shook her head and flew up after him.
Skelita, who sat on the ottoman across the table, had her brown eyes wide with amusement the second they whooshed past her, and the rest of the ghouls burst into giggles. Skelita extended a bony hand toward the table.
"May I?" she asked before grabbing an apple slice.
Catty nodded. "Take as much as you want. Just be sure to leave at least four for me, okay?"
She took a bite. "Gracias."
"Still superstitious?" Clawdeen inquired.
"Of corpse." The werecat gestured at the broken glass at the end of her collar. "I'd never go anywhere without this."
"Oh!" The ghouls lifted their heads at Spectra's voice past the ceiling. "Still superstitious! That's something I can—Porter!" Spectra let out a frustrated huff while Porter snickered.
The ghouls burst into laughter for a moment and, when they had quieted, Catty exhaled deeply. She held her hands in her lap. "Honestly, the superstitions are the only thing keeping me calm right now. It's felt like centuries since I've been anywhere near Monster High."
An unnerving silence wafted amongst the ghouls, and they avoided eye contact. Clawdeen was the one to break the tension. She pointed upward. "What do you think of their outfits?"
The pop star's lips upturned. "The ghosts?" A laugh spilled from her mouth. "Well, it's nice to see some fan appreciation." There was a sudden buzz of vibration, and Catty's ears perked up when she reached to check her iCoffin. Her brows furrowed and her breath hitched. She rose to her feet. "It's been fun, ghouls, but you have to go."
A voice sounded from above, "Go?" Porter glided down. "But we just got here."
Spectra floated in, her arms crossed. "And you were doing what, exactly?"
He chuckled. "Good point." The poltergeist gave Catty a small wave before departing.
His ghoulfriend let out a sigh before facing the werecat. "I'm sorry about earlier. It's just, we haven't been together for a while and he's... I'll go after him." Spectra drifted out the room.
Catty's voice wavered. "Okay, ghouls, you too."
"Whoa, whoa." Clawdeen sprang from the couch. "Porter's right, Catty. We just got here. What's the big deal?"
"It's nothing. I just have to get ready for the show," she said hurriedly, already ushering Skelita and the werewolf out the door. It closed behind them with an abrupt slam.
"Hijole," Skelita exclaimed. "She seemed in a rush, didn't she?"
Concern etched onto Clawdeen's face. "Yeah... What could've shown up on her phone that made her so nervous to get rid of us?"
The other shrugged. "Maybe it's her manager? He could be really strict."
The Wolf nodded, but her doubts remained. She strode forward. "Come on, let's get to our seats."
Meanwhile, in her dressing room, Catty's magenta irises were glued to the screen of her iCoffin. She had only seen the text notification; the number wasn't in her contacts but she recognized it instantly. Although she regretted shoving out the ghouls, she knew she had to view it in private.
Catty tapped a clawed finger at the screen to view her messages, and a burst of apprehension and delight stirred inside her once she read it.
We found them.
Pressing stares bore into my back once we made it back to the camp. Agitating prickles crawled along my skin beneath the weight of their gazes, and I hastened after the other monsters, almost squashing Twyla's heel in front of me. With each step, another pair of eyes latched on, stunned and unblinking as if they were witnessing the arrival of a menacing beast. Gory and Bram were the only ones who braved any sort of emotion, the ghoul whispering into her boyfriend's ear and both sending wry smirks my way.
A shock of fiery orange poked into the scene, and Heath looked relieved once he saw us. He jogged a short distance to meet us. "How'd it go? Where's Venus?" His russet eyes met mine for a brief second, and I could feel the worry build up within me. He pointed in my direction. "Is that Frankie or Nefera?"
My voice came out timid from the back of the group, "It's me. Frankie."
He beamed. "Awesome. And I'm guessing you're yourself too, Cleo?"
"Undeniably," she intoned with a flourish of her hand and a self-satisfied grin. Then the mummy's face fell. "Although, Deuce..."
The Gorgon held up his hands. "I can't see."
Heath turned to look at him but pulled back immediately. "Is that why you're not wearing your sunglasses? Your powers don't work because—?"
"Because I'm blind." Deuce put on a lopsided smile. "It's a long story, but I don't regret it." He fumbled for Cleo's hand and she gently held it. She smiled, yet her demeanor radiated with despondency.
Heath grimaced. "So should I ask about details later or..?"
"We made it to the palace," Toralei said abruptly, striding up to him. "Then we searched for information about us and got rid of it. Sometime during it all, she," she looked over her shoulder at me, "ran off. When she came back, she had this Egyptian idol thingy that reversed the whole 'wrong body oopsies' and this one, that one, and Nefera were back to normal. But when Nef sicced her vamp on us, Venus decided to stay behind. Then we left."
Heath's eyes darted past us as he took in the information. Then his brows creased. "And Deuce is blind because..?"
"He activated the idol," Twyla chirped in. "The curse was permanent."
The other slowly nodded. "Okay. One last question," he pointed toward the group, "who's she?"
We followed Heath's gaze to Whisp, who was apparently uncomfortable under the sudden attention. Strands of pink and blue hair fell from her updo when she directed her eyes at the brittle grass.
"I'm Whisp... I don't know if you remember me..."
Heath squinted at the ghoul. Then he grinned and snapped his fingers. "Whisp! Yeah, I remember you. Hey, remember this?" He cleared his throat and gave a quick wiggle of his eyebrows. "So, you're a genie... mind granting my wish?"
A chorus of groans erupted—even from the monsters on the sidelines. Heath grinned shamelessly. "What? I couldn't help it back then." Then he caught us off guard when his expression grew serious. His voice was low, "Look, I'm glad you guys came back safe but... There's something you should know."
"Yeah." Toralei swished her tail and pointed up at the sun. "Where is everybody? It's only noon."
The fire elemental shrugged awkwardly. "It's a funny story, actually." He moved further into the camp and beckoned us to follow.
Our footsteps thrummed after him. We moved past the dining pavilion and into the garden where an even larger bunch of monsters surrounded one lone monster amidst the produce. I couldn't see him from where I stood so, fatigued from the trek, I sat. I kept my legs beneath me, worried to sit cross-legged in the nightgown Nefera had dressed my body in. My hair remained in the braid she had it in, but it felt so new that I didn't plan to unravel it anytime soon.
I sat alone in a sea of grass while the others ran off to see the cause of the commotion. It took a moment for me to notice the pair of sandals beside me, and I glanced up to see Lagoona smiling brilliantly.
"Frankie!" She knelt by my side, pushing a blonde tress of hair behind her finned ear. Her green eyes were alight with joy. "You're you!"
I giggled and we shared a quick hug. Then she rose and helped me to my feet. We headed toward the crowd. As we neared, I began to feel underdressed compared to the others; even Lagoona wore shorts and a tank top. She had clearly come to see what the fuss was about, but all her attention was on me.
Her enthusiasm made my heart swell, and I felt as if I wasn't being gawked at just minutes before. "So how'd you get back to normal, love?"
I opened my mouth to respond when the crowding monsters parted, and the source of their fixation took a step forward. A glint of reflected sunlight blinded me for a split-second, but then the voice came, and my jaw dropped open.
"Lagoona?"
The sea ghoul froze, and when she finally mustered up the ability to speak, her voice broke.
"Gil?"
