The Once-Dead Girl

by Laer Carroll

  She let those “sights” and odors and the sounds of the surf fade almost but not all the way to nothing. And sank into herself.

  This interior universe was large and complex. Her consciousness roamed at will in it, a habit she’d picked up and practiced almost since she returned from the dead.

  For a time she checked on and tweaked the dozen or so changes she was making in her body, making for instance her hips and shoulders wider and tougher to better handle her enormous strength. She spent a lot of very careful monitoring time on her spine. Since she’d told her body to grow to a middle height from her short one she’d grown almost to 5’ 7”. Some of that had been her spine and she wanted to be very sure none of that complex and delicate structure suffered in any way.

  “Time,” said Naomi. Bethany and everyone else woke from their dozes and turned onto their bellies to let their backs and rears get their equal amount of sun carefully rationed by their bossy black nominal guardian. Beth had to do a finicky bit of adjustment to her Superlite chair to get the not-exactly-flat platform she wanted.

  Sinking back into her body she realized she’d not spent a lot of time on tweaking her skin. It already would react in a variety of ways to outside forces such as heat, cold, sharp pointy things, and punches. But those were all automatic.

  She had wondered recently if she could change it other ways. Smoother, wrinklier (if she wanted to impersonate an older person), hairier, less hairy, with more or less fat underneath it, and so on. She especially wanted to be able to change her skin color.

  Uhm. Best not to try that here where her friends could see. That would blow her superhero cover as an ordinary 16-year-old girl for sure!

  After a bit of exploration of this new area of shapechange Beth quietly got up and took up the smaller of her two bags. Naomi turned her head from viewing something on the info slate she’d placed on the sand below her head. Beth formed her lips to silently say PEE and Naomi nodded and turned her attention back to her slate.

  Alone she walked over the sand, angling to reach the public restroom built in the sand at the edge of the green strip. Inside she sat on a toilet until the room was empty and approached the wash stands to gaze in the mirror.

  A deeper tan to her creamy skin, that would be nice. And in seconds she felt a faint brush of Something over her skin. It turned brown, then browner, and she stopped it from turning all the way to black.

  She looked down at her legs. The skin there had changed with all that she could see in the mirror. She turned to look over her shoulder in the mirror. All of her back matched.

  Now reverse. And even more quickly her skin returned to cream then to palest white.

  Wow! She looked like a ghost! Even her eyebrows had turned white! And her head hair!

  Someone approached the door. From the sounds of the sand crunching under their feet she knew they were heavier than any of her friends. Nevertheless she leaned close to the mirror and pretended to be working on her eyes.

  It was a heavy black woman in a skimpy bathing suit. She spoke sympathetically.

  “Eye lash in your eye?”

  Bethany mumbled. “Almost got it. Just a little bit….”

  A little bit lasted almost till the woman left when she said, “Still not got it?”

  “Yes. Thanks for asking. Now I’ve got to get it….” She made enough eye rolling and grimacing to “adjust” her eye till the woman exited. But then a group of young girls arrived and Bethany retired to a stall till they left.

  In the stall she spent time working on her hair. It was long enough that she could see the effects of her attempts. She managed to make it shorter, longer, and curlier or straighter as well as change it to all sorts of colors. She was experimenting with strips of purple and green when she heard the footsteps of Gerard approaching.

  “Wonder Girl! You in there?!”

  She stood up, quickly returning her hair to normal. “Yes! Be right out!”

  He was not above invading the women’s room. He’d done it before. Most of the girls at the school tolerated it, knowing he was gay. But the most recent group of women in here would not be happy.

  Well. Some might find it cute. He was hot and not obviously effeminate most of the time. Especially if he got all rescuey and concerned for his “little sister”—a scam he’d pulled more than once.

  Outside as they walked toward a snack vendor he explained his trip.

  “Naomi wondered if you’d got mugged or something. Besides we all want drinks.”

  “Hah! Anybody who messes with Wonder Girl is going to be sorry!”

  “Hey! All that aikido and stuff you’ve been studying won’t make you a superhero, you know.”

  She snickered. If he only knew!

  Then she sobered. He could never know.

  At the snackery they loaded up on two big cardboard holders of the several drinks everyone wanted and returned to their staked-out tempo beach home.

  “We wondered if you’d gotten lost,” said Brigitte as she accepted her drink and thanked Bethany.

  “Thanks,” said Naomi to her. “Or hooked up with some hot boy and lost your virginity in an alleyway.”

  Lee said, “The alleyways are too light and public. Thanks, Sweetie. You got a drink for yourself?”

  Bethany lifted her fruit juice in reply and the group fell into a discussion of virginity and bets on who of their group would lose theirs first and who last. And why. It was not a new discussion and quickly expanded to all the girls they knew at school.

  By the time they’d finished their drinks they’d squeezed all the juice out of the discussion and the day was edging into the late afternoon. The wind and the surf was picking up, so more surfers were arriving to take advantage of the mild waves off the VeniceBeach shore. More sailboats were out in the water further offshore, moving like great swans back and forth under the flawless blue sky.

  “OK,” said Gerard, standing up. He fished a large black plastic garbage bag out of his stash of supplies and began pitching the emptied drink cartons in it, adding a few exhausted water bottles and the wrappings of a snack Bethany had brought with her. “I’m going to the loo and then I’m hitting the water.”

  Overly sweet voices greeted this announcement.

  “Oh, the LOO.” “He’s hitting the LOO.” “Be sure wash up after you’ve gone to the LAV.”

  Gerard had recently become an Anglophile and begun peppering his “convos” with Anglicisms. He finished gathering up all the trash, adopting a noble above-it-all air, and departed.

  “Think we over-did it?” said Bethany.

  “No, he loves it,” said Brigitte. She understood him better than the rest, though she had known him only for two years.

  “Who stays first to watch our stuff?” said Lihua.

  Naomi rose to the challenge. She’d play guard first. Then she apportioned the rest of the guards.

  Lee whooped and rushed to beat the others into the water, her short legs a blur. Brigitte forsook her umbrella in a mad dash of flashing white limbs, followed by Beth at a more leisurely pace. The other two were already far out in the water when she dove into the foam.

  At the first rush of lukewarm salty water a shock went through her. Her hair came alive.

  She’d been noticing mild sensations in her hair since she woke up from a coma. But nothing like this.

  She could feel the water all along the length of her hair. And taste it. Salty, faintly rotten, strongly green and alive with water plant scents, traces of sun block and fainter traces of body lotion, and a dozen more scents. The water seemed to open up to her in fascinating three-dimensions of space and of sensation. It was as if she’d become a creature native to the sea.

  Indeed, she felt urges in her body to change and become a water-breather of some sort.

  Quickly she quelled those. Bad enough she’d become a superhero! Becoming a sea monster would be even worse!

  She rose gasping from the water and stood as the foam washed in and out around her. Trying h
ard to quell the shifting in her guts and bones and blood and flesh.

  She stood that way a long time, looking out at the water, keeping an eye on Lee and Brigitte swimming around and splashing each other. She also focused on the surfers and the sailboats and the sun, staring straight into it, her eyes adapting to the glare and showing her tiny details in the sun.

  “Hey!” said Gerard, smacking her bottom. “Look away from the sun! You’ll blind yourself.”

  Beth turned a smile on him. “Yeah. Hey, ready to swim?”

  He looked at her for a moment, considering. “Yeah. Beat you past the curl!”

  “No. I think I’ll spell Naomi early. I jumped up a bit too fast and I’m a little dizzy.”

  “You sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes, Unca Jerry. It’s sweet of you to worry. But don’t. Go play.”

  Brigitte and Lee were calling to them like two sirens of the sea. He grinned at her and turned and was gone into the water.

  Naomi took more convincing that Bethany was all right. But finally she hitched her tiny bikini around her lithe tall body and was gone whooping into the water, all Great Leader attitude forgotten.

  Brigitte came out of the water first, walking out of the waves like Aphrodite born from the waves. For the first time in a long time Bethany saw how perfectly and extraordinarily beautiful she was.

  No wonder she’d gotten a few jobs already as a high-fashion model in the modest Los Angeles fashion world, despite her lack of interest in the job. Brigitte had heard too many tales from Lee’s mother about how tough the job was. She had her mind firmly set on literature and an academic career.

  “Are you OK?” she said to Bethany as she toweled off.

  “I’m fine. A little tired from all the walking. Plus I’m getting hungry.”

  “Hmm,” said her friend, a bit skeptical. They all knew Beth’s stamina. But then she HAD been eating more than usual since her coma. Maybe it was hunger her friend was feeling.

  “Get the back?” she said.

  Beth took a drier towel which Brigitte proffered, sat behind her on her Superlite, and began to carefully ease the water out of her fine platinum hair.

  Beth stayed out of the water as her friends returned to the sand to take up their turn as guard. Finally Naomi practically ordered her into the ocean.

  “Just sit in it and see if you feel better. It’d be a shame not to spend a little time in the water.”

  So Bethany did, accompanied by Gerard to make sure she wasn’t really sick. Finally, convinced that she wouldn’t change involuntarily into a sea monster, she jumped on him, pushed him under, and fled laughing into deeper water.

  It seemed to welcome her in her human form. She easily eluded the revengeful gay and cavorted with him and Lee and Naomi till they became tired.

  Lastly they showered in the communal shower and left for the SUV. By the time they arrived there the warm dry air had completely dried their bodies and beach wear. They drove to Santa Monica to a hotel owned by Naomi’s parents, dressed in more dressy clothes, and dined in the rooftop restaurant while watching the sun slide below the sea.

  ·

  Bethany missed her friends that summer but found plenty of activities to ease her pain. She got a job with Miguel and Kendall at the modest personal-services firm they’d started. From their security jobs they knew plenty of celebrities personally, a few of them even becoming very friendly if not friends.

  She basically was a high-priced decorative go-fer and body servant to a number of famous women. Secretly she also boosted their health, even that of a notoriously picky and cranky young starlet. Bethany found, upon probing the woman’s body while making her hair dressings more secure, that she’d been emotionally abused as a child. She’d even been beaten but not raped by her father.

  Which was lucky for him when he accosted his daughter for more money at a party.

  “Oh, shit!” said Stella. They were at a private party given by a movie producer. Dozens of the rich and famous sat and stood nibbling expensive snacks and sipping drinks. They were at a round table covered by a snowy table cloth and surrounded by gorgeous men and women.

  “How did he get past security?” said one of the star’s closest friends, herself a rising star in movies.

  “I knew they should have picked Miguel’s people for security,” said Stella. She was trying to hide her fear of her father, a big handsome guy with an uncertain employment history.

  “Come with me, you little bitch. I need more than that miserable pittance you give me.” He bulked over them and grabbed Stella’s nearest upper arm .

  One of the gorgeous men stood.

  “Get your hands off her.” He tried to sound tough but just came off as petulant.

  Rick, Bethany suddenly recalled, rounded on the man.

  “Stay out of it if you don’t want to get hurt.” He let his sports coat fall open to reveal a pistol stuck in his belt. The man returned to his chair.

  Beth stood up to get a better look around the room. No security was in sight and most of the nearest guests were avoiding looking their way.

  She looked down at Stella. The woman was wilting into herself. Her body reeked to the shapechanger’s sensitive nose of utter fear.

  Rage began to warm inside her at this bully, this beater of little girls. She felt herself start changing to something very old, strange, and deadly.

  She blew out a breath and commanded her body to cool her anger. She eased up to the Rick.

  “Sir, you are not welcome here. Please leave.”

  He looked down at her with utter contempt. He didn’t bother to threaten her verbally. He raised a hand to shove away the pretty, fragile teenager dressed in a flowing black-and-white confection loaned to Bethany by a fashion house favored by Stella.

  In motions too swift and subtle for the human eye to followed his arm was directed down and around behind his back. And up.

  He raised up on his toes and squeaked. He groped for his gun with his other hand but she sensed his intent through his body. She injected an urge to vomit into him and he hunched over, free arm drooping, retching but bringing up nothing.

  She eased up on his arm, injected a soother into his system, and guided him stumbling into a hallway .

  No one followed them out. The hallway was empty. Good.

  Bethany eased her leash on her monster self. It spoke to him in a growling, snarling language not heard by anyone in a hundred thousand years. Her body made him understand its words.

  “You will forget you had a daughter. Anyone who speaks of her, any speech you will hear about her, will make you deathly ill. Sight of her will send you screaming from her.”

  In English she said, “Stay here. Someone will come to you.” She injected sleepiness into him. His eyes drooped. He slumped to half-sit half-lie against a wall.

  Back in the ballroom she saw two tuxedoed men hurrying her way. They were big and athletic.

  “He’s sitting down. Out there.”

  They barely glanced at her. Each had a hand underneath a coat when they peered out into the hallway. Seeing that Rick was no threat they relaxed as they passed through the door.

  The excitement was already dying down and the crowd’s buzz was returning to normal. Bethany hurried to Stella’s table without seeming to, taking long flowing steps which eased her through the crowd.

  At the table Stella was being comforted by another gorgeous young man and by her best friend. She turned tearful frightened eyes to Bethany.

  Beth eased the young man out of the way and sat by Stella opposite her best friend.

  In a calm voice she said, “He must have been drunk. He’s passed out in the hall. Security is taking care of him.”

  Stella clutched at her arm. “He might come back.”

  Beth sent reassurance and calm into the woman. Plus a big dose of what she thought of as BelieveMe.

  “Probably he won’t even remember it happened. Drunks are like that, you know.”

  Her friend took
up the refrain, telling about an uncle who had that problem. She even managed to make an episode involving the uncle mildly funny. Stella grinned weakly to please her friend.

  Bethany eased back into her role and fussed with Stella’s hair. The elaborate hairdo was gorgeous but needed periodic maintenance. She also injected messenger’s into the woman’s body which would ease the pain of bruising and cause her body to heal overnight.

  By the time the celebration was over Stella’s memory had faded enough to recede in her recollection. But Beth’s part had not been forgotten by Stella’s best friend when she and Beth left Stella’s mansion that night.

  “Thank you ever so much, Beth. How ever did you manage to handle that man?”

  “My brother and his firm do that sort of thing all the time. And he’s been teaching me since I was a little kid.”

  “Thank God for that! And thank you!”

  She hugged Beth as the shapechanger’s taxi pulled up to the curb, then turned to walk the few feet to her own car.

  ·

  Rick was entered into a rehab facility a few days later and never bothered his daughter again. The events at the party were smoothed over and Stella’s life entered onto smoother waters. But she never asked for Bethany again. She did give her a huge tip and recommended her to her friends and acquaintances. Beth’s job calendar became fuller.

  Kendall and Miguel heard more about Bethany’s participation in the Rick incident through their contacts in the security firm which had handled Stella’s celebration that night. Three weeks later they took her to dinner at a fashionable upscale restaurant in Hollywood.

  After the food had been ordered Kendall sat more upright.

  “Good job at that Rick thing. What really happened? We’ve been hearing all sorts of wild tales. ”

  She’d already planned what she’d say when the topic finally came up.

  “Stella’s dad showed up. I don’t think he was drunk. At least he didn’t smell like it. But I think he was on some drug. He tried to get her to come with him but had some kind of seizure. I helped him out into a hall and got security.”