4.
Chloe, Pete, Emily, and Lana accosted me the next day after school - the afternoon before the big homecoming madness. "You're not going to believe what we found," Chloe insisted, and they led me to the school library. "So, former Smallville High jocks keep turning up all over town with heavy electric shock injuries. There have been three this week."
"Which is especially bizarre in a town where crime almost never happens," I commented. "It sounds like it's all the work of one person."
"Exactly," said Lana. "So we were at the scene of the third shock yesterday, for the school newspaper… and, well -"
"I noticed a weird looking guy in the crowds," said Pete. "Looked about our age. I didn't recognize him, which is weird, because my family's lived here for six generations and I know pretty much everybody in town. And especially everyone in school. I mean -"
"It's not a big school," I agreed, nodding. "Yeah. So?"
"We had Chloe take a picture of him," said Emily intently. "And then we did some research."
"His name is Jeremy Creek. This is a picture of him twelve years ago." Chloe plunked a Smallville High yearbook down in front of me, pointing to a photo of a skinny, pale young kid with straw-colored hair. "This is the picture we took yesterday." She pointed at her computer screen. It was… the exact same kid. He hadn't even aged. He looked like he was trying to blend in with the crowds.
"I said it must be a kid who looks like him," said Lana.
"I said Jeremy Creek must have had a child," said Emily.
"And my money was on the evil twin theory," finished Pete. "Till we checked with missing persons."
"Jeremy Creek disappeared from the Kansas State Infirmary a few days ago, where he'd been in a coma for twelve years," said Chloe seriously. "They say he suffered from massive electrolyte imbalance. That's why he hasn't aged a day."
"So he just… randomly woke up, got up, and walked away without anyone noticing?" I asked dubiously.
"There was a huge electrical storm and the hospital's generator went down," said Emily, shaking her head.
"When it came back on, Jeremy was gone," said Lana, looking troubled. "Chloe has a theory. A really creepy theory. She says -" Lana swallowed. "She says the meteor rock that fell all over town twelve years ago causes mutations. That the electrical storm charged Jeremy up, and now he can use electrical attacks on other people."
"Wait - how did Jeremy come into contact with meteor rock?" I asked, confused.
"Jeremy Creek was chosen as that year's freshman Scarecrow," said Pete grimly. "And as you know, when you're chosen as Scarecrow -"
"You're stripped down to your boxers and strung up in a field," I said slowly, disturbed. "Yeah."
Emily handed me a printout of a news story. Comatose Boy Found in Field, Twenty Yards from Meteor Strike, read the headline.
"That's when he fell into his coma," said Emily. "Think about it. The jocks are always the ones who carry out the Scarecrow tradition. And all these victims were senior jocks -"
"When Jeremy was a freshman," Chloe finished. "This is not an isolated incident." Her eyes were firm. "I have a website full of hundreds of weird freak mutations around Smallville since the meteor strike to prove it."
She pulled up the website for us. Wall of Weird, read the headline for the page. And you could click on, literally, hundreds of articles. From three-headed calves to mysterious murders and disappearances.
I stared, disturbed. So the meteor rock didn't just affect me, giving me allergy symptoms when I was around it. It also affected humans - by mutating them, warping their brains and bodies.
"Maybe it's a good thing you don't wear that necklace anymore," I told Lana.
Guilt had filled me. I was responsible for all this. I had brought it here. I wished I could find a way to stop it - I felt like I had a duty to, in some weird way.
"So what do we do with this?" Emily asked worriedly. "Do we call the police?"
"With a theory as crazy as this and no proof?" Pete asked disbelievingly. "They'd call the asylum for us."
"They'd think we were delusional," I agreed clinically, still staring seriously at the screen. "... I don't know what to do," I admitted after a moment. "I don't know what we're supposed to do with this information. Unless we see him or another victim turns up. We don't even know where Jeremy Creek is."
As we were walking back out of the library to prepare for homecoming, Lana looked downcast.
"What's wrong?" I asked her.
"... I was up there on that news site," she said, depressed. "The day my parents were killed, I was photographed crying in a stupid little fairy princess Halloween costume. I was pasted across the national cover of Time magazine. Heartbreak In the Heartland, they called it. I know Chloe didn't mean to be insensitive, but…"
"But it still hurt," I said sympathetically. "Yeah. I'm sorry."
"What did you do?" she asked rhetorically.
Everything, I thought.
"I mean, I was right there next to the three-headed calves. Sometimes it feels like all I'll ever be is a crying little girl in a fairy princess costume," Lana admitted, depressed.
"I don't see you that way," I said softly.
"I know, Morrigan." Lana smiled at me wearily. "You're the only one who doesn't. Even Emily… everybody else treats me different. It's why I always liked you."
"Yeah, well - I lost a home too." I shrugged. "It just makes sense."
"You never talk about your parents," she said curiously.
"I don't know anything about them," I answered truthfully. "I don't even remember what they looked like." And she fell silent.
I went to the homecoming football game that night with my friends, sitting in the bleachers and explaining football to Emily, Chloe, and Justin. Chloe and I argued over whether or not football was a waste of school resources - Chloe insisted they were, but I had to defend the football I'd always watched with my Dad.
Smallville won, partially thanks to quarterback Whitney, and Lana cheerleaded off to the side, and they met and went in for a kiss at the end, and pretty much everyone knew they were going to be crowned Homecoming King and Queen.
Justin slipped his hand quietly into mine as we stood for the cheering standing ovation, and I smiled, and couldn't say I minded.
Then we all went home to get dressed for the dance. Emily came over to my house, as her mother had died - so we got to have a girly bonding moment getting ready for the dance together, and Emily really was a nerdy, enthusiastic sweetheart in the best way - and my Mom took care of helping us both get dressed up in my room. She took care of Emily first, who went downstairs, and then she took special care with me.
I was wearing an old vintage blue dress of my Mom's from her own high school years. We curled my black hair and fluffed it, and I put on ruby red lipstick. I had decided to go for the classic look.
I smiled at myself in the mirror. I looked… pretty, I decided. Feminine for once. And I actually kind of liked it.
My Mom smiled at me in the mirror. "Now that's more like it," she said.
I appeared at the top of the stairs, and as I walked down my Dad had eyes only for me. "Oh, honey, you look beautiful," he said, his eyes shining, and I smiled and ducked my head, a little shy.
Justin and Dustin came by to pick up me and Emily, both in cars, and my Dad took Justin into the other room and sat him down for a "talk."
"Come on, Dad!" I complained, rolling my eyes.
"We'll just be a minute," he said firmly, and then they went into the sitting room and shut the door. I was pretty sure the shotgun was going to be involved in the talk. Justin came back out looking a little bit wide eyed and a bit paler, but he slipped my garter on and - after the mandatory hundred pictures my mother took of me and Justin, and then of me, Emily, Justin, and Dustin - we got in the car.
"Sorry about my Dad," I said immediately. "He can be a little overprotective."
"He, uh - he talked a lot about respect. And the fear of God," said Justin, uncomfortable. I winced.
All the same, it felt amazing going to the dance with a boy in his very own car. I was a bit giddy. We got to the auditorium, which was lit with fairy lights, and met up with our friends, some of whom were popular enough that soon enough there was a huge crowd around us. It was a little overwhelming.
Justin at last smiled, took my hand, and led me out onto the dance floor. We began dancing, and of course I was clumsy and awkward and I immediately messed up. I kept stepping on his feet. I was also a little taller than him.
Finally, we looked up and laughed a little, dorkily.
"Why don't we try this," said Justin uneasily, and we just swayed in one spot along to the beat. Then he leaned over and kissed me, suddenly. It was my first kiss, and it was wet and awkward and teenage and wonderful.
He pulled back, checking my face, and I smiled, a genuine smile that lit up my whole expression. He grinned back. I think that was the moment when I became human and demystified for him.
We meandered our way over to the snack table. Emily and Dustin were dancing in two entirely different ways, Emily wanting to be traditional but trying to keep up with Dustin's wild showing off. Chloe and Pete were having the time of their lives laughing and dancing a dance from an era completely out of step with the current music. Lana and Whitney were crowned homecoming king and queen, and we all clapped and cheered, and just as Lana and Whitney were beginning their romantic slow dance alone on the dance floor, gazing dreamily into each other's eyes -
Felice Chandler walked by and "accidentally" dumped fruit punch all over my dress. I stood there, dripping wet, and all the noise ground to a halt, and everyone stared at me, and Justin's eyes were huge, and it was terrible.
"Oops. Sorry," Felice simpered, and there was some giggling from a few of her friends on the dance floor behind her.
And I tried not to get teary as I wondered why - why, when Lana was homecoming queen - why Felice Chandler always chose to pick on me.
Right at that moment, the sprinklers went off.
"Someone playing a prank," I said as everyone shrieked. "I'll go turn them off!" And, my tears blinding me, I hurried out the side door, barely noticing Justin belatedly calling after me. I needed some air. Felice had just ruined my mother's perfect vintage hand-me-down dress.
I walked outside - and someone was fiddling around in the electrical box. He turned around. It was Jeremy Creek.
Water. Electricity. Shit.
Jeremy ran at me - which was good, because it meant the others were temporarily safe - and grabbed me, coursing electricity through my body. I felt a pleasant buzz and absolutely nothing happened.
I swung out a heel and kicked Jeremy in the stomach with my true strength, all the way across the road to the auto shop and into a car.
"Why are you doing this?!" I called. "Those people in there never did anything to you!"
"There's another Scarecrow out in that field tonight, you know. His name's Greg Arkin," said Jeremy, his eyes wide and crazed. Greg Arkin. The bug obsessed kid with the glasses and the acne? I felt a surge of pity. "And I realized - it will never stop. It will never stop. Not until the entire town, the entire place, is destroyed!"
"My home isn't perfect, but I won't let you hurt it!" I shouted.
Jeremy got in the car and put it in gear, surging it at me and attempting to run me over. I was smashed, without much pain, into a wall that had an emergency hydrant attached to it. The car, with me in front of it, burst through the wall, busting the pipe. Water leaked into the car, and Jeremy sizzled and writhed as he was electrocuted by his own power.
When the electricity had faded away, I yanked the truck through the rest of the wall and tore open the door of the car. Jeremy - lifted his head, looking confused. He had aged back to normal.
"Who are you?" he muttered groggily, slurring. "Where am I?"
The second electrical attack had taken back his powers, returning him to normal.
People had heard the commotion and were running out to meet us. "Morrigan, what happened?!" Justin had rushed over to me and taken my arm; my friends followed him.
"Jeremy Creek - he attacked me with electricity - he tried to run me over -" was all I could manage.
Justin took me into his arms and hugged me, rubbing my wet hair softly. "You're okay now," he murmured. "Everything's going to be okay." I relaxed into the false comfort.
False, because in that moment I knew. Everything was not going to be okay. It was my duty to save people from these meteor infected I had caused.
And that was exactly what I was going to dedicate myself to do.
A long line of cars full of my friends drove me home from the dance, Justin in the driver's seat beside me, holding my hand over his heart. He gave me a quick kiss, we grinned dorkily at each other, and then I got out of the car and headed back into my house. My friends honked on my way in, and I smiled and waved to let them know everything was okay. Then I walked inside.
"Morrigan! What happened?!" My parents stood from the dinner table where they were having tea, seeing my appearance.
I smiled sheepishly, and told them what had happened. The full story, the one I could only tell them. We sat around with warm tea, me wrapped in a blanket, in the aftermath. For the first time all night, I could relax.
"Well, Morrie," said my father. "I worry about this dedication, but at the same time I'm proud of you. I'm sorry we kept this from you for so long. I - my Dad didn't tell me he had cancer until he was nearly dead. That telescope you have was a parting gift. I came down one morning and there it was. That was when I got the news.
"I always promised myself I'd never keep something like that from my children." He frowned, troubled. "But I learned later - it's not always that easy."
"It's okay, Dad," I said. "You thought you were doing what was best." And I realized to my own surprise that I actually did forgive him.
"Now." My mother stood, looking over the dress critically. "The punch will wash out with some stain stick. And a little water never hurt anything. You can keep that dress - and the garter. To remember the night by."
I smiled, and she smiled back. "Thanks, Mom."
"So, Morrie." My Dad looked at me. "Are you okay? Really?"
I thought about it and smiled. "Can I answer that in about five years?"
My Dad chuckled. "Fair enough."
"Mom, Dad." My parents paused and looked over at me in surprise. "I'm glad you were the ones that found me."
My parents smiled. "I told your Dad the very first time we found you, Morrigan," said my mother. "The truth is, we didn't really find you at all. You found us."
I'd found my home. And maybe it wasn't my original home. Maybe it wasn't all part of the plan. Maybe I didn't always feel like I fit in. But this was my home, and these humans were my people.
And I would protect and love them just as if they were my home planet.