Hero Blues

by Michelle L. Levigne

  "Let go, Timmy," she said through clenched teeth.

  As usual, the moment she touched him, Timmy kicked harder and held on tighter.

  "My plane!" he shrieked, and wriggled like a greased pig until she nearly lost her grip on him.

  Jane sighed. Of course, it was his plane. As many times as he broke his favorite toy, someone fixed it for him or bought him a new one, and he launched it up into the air—always straight into the branches of this very tree—which then meant Timmy climbed up, risking life and limb for a battered red balsa wood plane. Jane wondered if his parents had ever considered introducing him to the fascinating world of rock collecting.

  Then she thought of all the broken windows that would result from that hobby, or visits to the reservoir or the nearby ravines, in search of specimens. No, twice-weekly flights were much easier to handle.

  She spotted the missing, mangled plane, shot up through the branches to snag it, and floated down with Timmy still kicking in her arms. He did the most damage when he was wrapped in her blurring field and his density matched hers.

  Irony? Timmy was in a neck-and-neck contest with Georgie to be the densest child in Fendersburg.

  "What took you so long?" Mrs. Higgs snapped, the moment Jane let go of Timmy and the boy bounced to the ground and became visible again. "Do you know how long my boy has been hanging there, waiting for you to do your job and get him down out of that tree?"

  For a change, she aimed her diatribe at Jane, instead of two or three feet to the left. Jane stood still, fists clenched, wanting very much to become visible just long enough to slap the woman's face. But Anabelle Higgs bought pounds of makeup and exercise clothes, cleansing spray and body butter from Lazy Days Spa every month, and Jane knew better than to irritate the customer who always put her into the black.

  "Men!" the woman snapped, and reached down to grab hold of her son's hand before he headed up the tree again. "If superheroes were women, they'd pay better attention to children."

  "Why don't you pay attention to your own child for a change?" Jane muttered, and floated away.

  After her little exercise, the half apple she had eaten didn't satisfy at all. She landed, looked around carefully, and phased back into view. Then she headed down the street to Gertie's for a chicken barbecue sandwich and peanut butter chocolate malt.

  One of the few side benefits of the regular exercise of her Gift was the freedom to eat just about anything she wanted, and never gain a pound.

  One of the few side benefits.

  Sometimes Jane wondered if there were any at all.

  That afternoon, Jane tuned into the local radio station, with barely enough wattage to be heard at the borders of the county, long enough to hear another chapter of the endless debate on whether the Ghost really existed or not. Many people blamed the near-misses and inexplicable rescues variously on pollutants in the water, radiation, heat stroke, and inebriation of the witnesses. She snapped the radio off with an angry flick of thought and didn't once glance guiltily around the spa to see if anyone witnessed. Her current customer curled in the massage chair didn't notice, nor did the woman with her head under the dryer hood or the two in the tanning booths. Jane wondered if she had played the Ghost so often, nobody noticed her even when she was herself. Maybe she was becoming invisible even when she didn't want to be?

  That wouldn't be good for her business.

  Then again, did she really need her business that badly? Did she want to stay in Fendersburg, constantly snarled at because she didn't arrive fast enough and ignored when a simple "thanks" and a smile wouldn't have taken much effort at all?

  Did she dare just leave all these ingrates behind and find a life of her own?

  * * * *

  "Well, what do you expect from a man?"

  Jane cringed with one hand on the light switch and the other reaching for the bamboo shades to lower across the big bay window. Closing time hadn't come fast enough. She had done enough business in one day to make up for the last two weeks of slow business, but that didn't mean she could close the door with customers coming in at the last minute. Stepping back, she waited for the owner of the familiar, stinging voice to step into the recessed doorway of the spa.

  Mrs. Slodoski stomped right past, complaining to Mrs. Simperton, who was her best friend by virtue of never daring to interrupt or contradict her. Jane breathed a sigh of relief, but then choked when the next words slammed back at her.

  "You'd think the Ghost would appreciate how important that bake sale was to the Parks and Recreation fund. How can we build a decent swimming pool if we don't raise enough money for it?"

  Jane had stopped going to City Council meetings because Mrs. Slodoski had turned the last three into shouting matches. She insisted that no money had to be taken out of other areas of Fendersburg's budget to pay for the pool, as long as people were willing to donate. Each time, she always paused dramatically and gave a meaningful glare at Homer Bedlow, Fendersburg's resident millionaire.

  Homer was a millionaire because he never gave any money away, and rarely spent it on himself, as proven by his skeletal frame, the threadbare state of his clothes, his homemade haircuts, and the fact he walked everywhere instead of driving a car or bike.

  Mrs. Slodoski kept trying to get fundraising events started, no matter what anyone told her, and in spite of the underwhelming apathy of the general community. She conveniently ignored the fact that Fendersburg High School had an Olympic-size swimming pool, open from 8:00 a.m. until nine at night every day during the summer. Jane would bet her heat vision that Mrs. Slodoski had rammed the bake sale through by force of intimidation. That same force of intimidation meant that people stayed away from the bake sale so she couldn't make them buy overpriced plates of bland cookies and cupcakes that someone always sabotaged in an attempt to make them dietetic.

  "We were told not to set up there," Mrs. Simperton said, when her imperious leader paused for a loud, sighing breath. "Everybody told us it was a bad traffic area, children and dogs and bikes and whatnot racing through all day long."

  "The Ghost could have stopped those nasty little brats from knocking over our table and kept the dogs from eating my lovely sardine pork balls and bran muffins, but did he? No, he couldn't be bothered to help out. What kind of civic pride does he have?"

  "Civic pride doesn't mean a thing when common sense says not to come within twenty yards of you when you're in a snit," Jane muttered, and flipped the light switch. She let the shade drop with a bang, and retreated out the back of the shop without opening the locked door.

  So, it had finally happened. The Ghost was being blamed for things he didn't do, as well as the things he did that didn't suit the persnickety folks of Fendersburg. Jane wondered how long it would take before people blamed her for the heat and the fall rain coming too early or too late, and the noise of traffic heading down the Interstate.

  "Half of them think I don't exist, and the rest of them think I'm a man," she grumbled when she got home to her fourth floor apartment on River Road. Jane tried to laugh, but that sour frown had claimed territory on her face. "You're an idiot, you know that? Sticking around where people would as soon kick you in the teeth as say a kind word. And when you are visible, the only people who pay any attention are either slimebags like Otis, or people who want miracles."

  She sighed and sank down on the floor with her back against the door from the hallway.

  "You're out of the miracle business, girl. Time to find some place where you can be normal."

  And though she didn't say it, the thought echoed through her head: And where you can meet some normal men and go on normal dates and maybe fall in love the normal way.

  Was that too much to ask?

  "Is there such a thing as a town where people are normal? If there is, would I ever be allowed to settle there? Would I be able to fit in?" She sighed, and her sense of humor finally woke up. "Define 'normal' please?"

  What would happen if she just picked up and left Fendersburg?r />
  Her heart skipped a few beats. Could she do that?

  She got up and wandered around her apartment, fixing dinner without really paying attention to what she pulled out of the refrigerator while she played with the idea, coming at it from all angles. Honestly, would Reginald and Demetrius fight her on it if she said she wanted, needed to quit looking out for Fendersburg? They certainly seemed sympathetic. They had been disgusted with the town long before the proposed initiative to sue the Ghost for not following through on what the laziest morons considered "his" civic responsibilities. Hadn't Reginald said that part of her problem was her own fault, for being so easily guilt-tripped into picking up after everyone who had lost his common sense back during potty-training?

  Would they let her quit?

  Suppose they agreed? Would they just assign her somewhere else? Or would they let her take some time off? A sabbatical? Maybe let her pick where she wanted to live?

  "Convincing them is going to be the easy part," Jane told her peanut butter, salami, pepperjack cheese, spicy mustard on oatnut bread sandwich. With a full bag of barbecue chips to wash it down. "Escaping this place without it going up in a nuclear reaction before I step over the city limits will be the hard part."

  Even though Fendersburg thought the Ghost was a man, Jane knew better than to think she could just leave town at the same time the Ghost stopped operating. She also knew better than to just stop racing to the rescue every time she heard a cry for help or a crash or felt panic rippling through the air. No one would be able to put two and two together in this wretched town and get four. It most likely would never occur to them to put two and two together. For her own peace of mind—and prevent that threatened lawsuit, because out there was a lawyer stupid or greedy or desperate enough for notoriety to take the case—she had to warn the people of Fendersburg that no one was going to come racing to save their necks.

  Then, after a month or two of no Ghost in Fendersburg, she could leave town.

  It wasn't like anyone was going to suddenly wake up in a flood of remorse and realize how they had taken the Ghost for granted, and maybe express that remorse, try to make it up to "him" and lecture the people around them for their stupidity. No, Jane had no illusions on that score. She fully expected to hear complaints, maybe some people laughing, convinced the Ghost was playing a joke on them. Then as the days went by and people suffered the consequences of their bad choices and going through life in an oblivious haze, the groundswell of sniping and placing blame would be overwhelming.

  People would argue over who had driven the Ghost away, who had gone too far in their expectations. Placing blame would become the major form of entertainment in Fendersburg. Petty criminals would be more overt in their activities, and more people would stand around and scream for the Ghost to show up and do something instead of resisting or take measures to protect themselves. Finally, the police would become more active, City Council would try to hire a lawyer to sue the Ghost, and someone would get so fed up with the Ghost ignoring their demands that they would resume responsibility for their own lives.

  "Tough love," Jane mused through a sticky mouthful. She grinned. "The problem is, there was never any love on either side. Selfish brats."

  The thought of getting away, the relief she anticipated, soothed the deeply ingrained sense of guilt that seemed to be mostly asleep. Frustration was a powerful narcotic.

  That, and the certainty the Old Poops would support her.

  "Even if they don't, if they won't..." She sighed, hesitant to say it. At least, not aloud.

  Nobody was going to stop her. Her mind was made up.

  Even if the Council disagreed with her decision, they couldn't really stop her. Could they? At the very least, they couldn't haul her up on charges of endangering the ordinary Humans who depended on her if she warned Fendersburg the Ghost was leaving town.

  Step one—go through proper channels.

  * * * *

  "Hello there." Reginald remained hanging by his knees from the bar sticking out from the far side of the massive fireplace. The heat and gravity did wonders for the stiffness in his back. He watched Jane settle into an easy chair where they could have a comfortable conversation without either of them twisting their necks too far. Demetrius was absent, which struck Jane as odd. The Old Poops seemed to spend every waking moment—and most nights—in the massive library. "If you're coming about that meeting of the Council, you're premature."

  "You are meeting, though?"

  "Oh, absolutely. Demetrius and I had a long talk after you left. We're pretty much agreed that maybe it's time we assign someone, maybe a rotating team, to watch Neighborlee, track down every lost child who grew up and stayed in town and married each other, and see what has developed among their children. If they had any children. If they didn't lose their minds when odd things happened. Neighborlee has a tendency to act like itching powder if you don't quite fit in. It's like the town is aware, and it rejects you or welcomes you with open arms. Whenever we spent any length of time there..."

  "It's like the people who live there, who fit in, they don't notice the weirdness?" Jane offered. Since her visit to Neighborlee several weeks ago, she had done a lot of thinking, a lot of remembering, and talking with those who were closest to her in age who remembered their life before the Sanctum.

  "Exactly." He tipped his head to one side, which looked odd, hanging upside down. "Tell me something, cookie. What do you think of the town?"

  "I like it."

  "Hmm. Interesting. A lot of your classmates don't. I'm of the theory that towns where people like us show up—well, even where we don't show up—those towns are so full of whatever it is that empowers us, changes us, they develop awareness. They choose who they want around. And they let us know if they like us or not. Take this old pile of bricks." He reached out and patted the facing of the massive fireplace. "It was falling down when Demetrius and I found it eighty-some years ago. Practically dragged us through the shattered doorway, begging us to make it into a home and hiding place. Did you ever hear the stories about this place being haunted?"

  "No." Jane shivered, earning a chuckle from Reginald.

  "We heard lots of stories, but not a peep, not a rumble, not a flicker of an apparition from the moment we stepped across the threshold. Made it easy to buy the place. Almost begged us to take it. Over the years, we've been waiting for one of you to develop a talent for moving back and forth through time. The most logical explanation was that the ghosts were students from the future, playing games with time travel." He shrugged—also interesting while hanging upside down. "Hasn't happened yet."

  "But it might."

  "Anything is possible in this place. So much of our personal energy has soaked into the granite, the soil, the very air... Anyway, what brings you here? Besides curiosity about the Council meeting."

  "I want to quit, Reggie. Fendersburg. Just hand in my resignation letter and walk away. After a suitable wait, so no one will ever link up my leaving town with the Ghost going out of business," she hurried to add, as he opened his mouth to protest.

  "Thought about it a lot, haven't you?" He winked, and then he reached up to grasp the bar with both hands. With a grunt, he unhooked his legs and dropped to the floor, landing lightly on his feet despite his bulk. "What do you want to do? Where will you go? Can't see you coming back to this pile of bricks as a teacher."

  "Who is there to teach?"

  "Exactly. Need to dig deeper, change our criteria for tracking down more lost children, more Gifts, find new towns to investigate. I'm sure there have to be others like us out there, scooping up children and training them so they don't make a big splash when their Gifts activate. With the world getting smaller every day, all this online folderol and lack of privacy, it'd be impossible to hide when some wannabe superheroes take their adventures out of the comic books."

  "Reggie... What if whatever sent us here, from wherever we came from... What if that reason isn't there anymore? What if wherever we came
from isn't there anymore?"

  "What if the bad guys we are sent here to Earth to fight someday have been able to find the children and scoop them up and train them to fight on the side of the evil mutants?" He winked at her and settled down more comfortably in his easy chair.

  "All I know is that I need to get away. There has to be more to do with my Ghost talent than what I'm doing. If we're not experiments, if we're not mutants, if we come from somewhere that isn't Earth, or maybe from far in the future, there has to be something we're supposed to do. Something we're supposed to stand up against. There have to be more people with different theories about what's going on."

  "Uh huh. And that brings us back to Neighborlee."

  "How does that bring us—" She shivered, feeling as if the answer, a clear and reasonable explanation, was just beyond the reach of her mind. Jane thought of the time spent in Divine's Emporium, the sensation that Angela knew far more than she was letting on.

  "There are some incredibly clever, inquisitive people in Neighborlee. Charlie and Rainbow Zephyr are debunkers, just like we pretend to be. Hmm, now let's see, where's their latest..." Reginald heaved himself out of his chair and shuffled around the library from one set of bookshelves to another. With a grunt of satisfaction, he pulled a pile of hardbound books off a shelf in the far corner of the room and hauled them back over to the massive desk where he seemed to spend most of his time, drawing and diagramming and studying books and inputting information into his computer.

  He put the pile down upside down on the table, spreading them out so their backs were displayed clearly. Each book had a picture of the same couple smiling up at him and Jane. A tall man with a receding hairline and a long ponytail that changed from iron gray to snow white as the publishing dates of the books progressed, and a wide variety of colors of tie-dyed T-shirts. The woman with him only came up to his shoulder. She was delicately built and Asian, with long, straight hair dyed a different color in each picture, ranging from neon green to rose to electric blue and even shimmering white. Jane supposed her hair was the reason the woman was called "Rainbow."