Starcrossed

I attacked him,” Helen said. “And the worst thing is that the attack isn’t the worst thing.”
    “Oh, you’re going to have to explain that,” Kate said. She put aside the money. “Come on. Tell me. What’s the worst thing?”
    Helen shook her head and started pushing the broom around.
    There had always been a voice in her head that would whisper possible explanations for her strangeness, words like freak or monster or even witch . No matter how deftly Helen silenced that voice, it always came back eventually.
    The absolute worst thing that Helen could think of would be to find out that she really was one of those things.
    “It’s nothing,” Helen said, unable to look up.
    “It isn’t just going to go away because you don’t talk about it, you know,” Kate pressed. Helen knew she was right, and she also knew she could trust Kate. Besides, she needed to talk to someone about it or she’d go crazy.
    “I’m having nightmares. Actually, it’s the same nightmare that I keep having over and over, and it feels so real. Like I’m going someplace while I’m sleeping.”
    “Where do you go?” Kate asked gently. She came out from behind the counter and made Helen stop sweeping and focus.
    Helen pictured the barren, hopeless world she had been forced to visit the last few nights.
    “It’s a dry place. Everything is bleached and colorless. I can hear running water in the distance, like there’s a river somewhere, but I just can’t reach it. It’s like I’m trying to find something, I think.”
    “A dry land, huh? You know that’s pretty common in dream imagery,” Kate assured her. “It comes up in every dream book, in every country I’ve ever been to.”
    Helen swallowed her frustration and nodded. “Yeah, but I wake up in the morning and my feet . . .” She stopped herself, hearing how crazy she sounded. Kate studied Helen for a moment.
    “Are you sleepwalking, honey? Is that it?” Kate took Helen’s shoulders, encouraging Helen to look her in the eyes. Helen threw up her hands and shook her head.
    “I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’m so tired, Kate,” she said. A few exhausted tears slipped out. “Even if I manage to fall asleep, I wake up and I feel like I’ve been running and running. I think I’m going crazy.” She let out a nervous laugh. Kate pulled Helen into one of her pastry-scented hugs.
    “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out,” Kate said soothingly. “Have you talked to your father yet?”
    “No. And I don’t want you to, either,” Helen insisted, drawing back to look directly at Kate. Kate gave her a searching look, and Helen continued. “Next week, if I’m still crazy, I’ll tell him, but I think we’ve both had enough drama for one week.”
    Kate nodded. “You decide when you’re ready to talk about it with your dad, and I’ll be there. My little loca ,” she teased smilingly. Helen smiled back, grateful that she had Kate, who could listen to her seriously when she needed it, and then stop being serious at just the right time.
    “I think we can leave the rest.” Kate gave Helen one final squeeze. “Ready to go?” she called over her shoulder as she went behind the counter and put the money in the safe.
    Helen stowed her broom and made her way to the back door. Switching off the lights, Helen turned to lock up as Kate headed across the alley toward her car, keys in hand.
    Neither of them heard a thing. There was a blur and a faint flash of blue light in the corner of Helen’s eye, and a smell . It was a nauseating yet hauntingly familiar odor of sizzling hair mixed with stale ozone. Then Kate dropped to the ground like a puppet with her strings cut. Helen instinctively bolted forward, holding out her arms to try to break Kate’s fall, but the attacker took the opportunity to put a bag over Helen’s head from behind.
    She was too startled to scream. As she was pulled backward against a soft chest, it suddenly registered in Helen’s head that her attacker was a woman.
    Helen had always known she was strong—and not just strong for a girl. Strong for a bear. She bent her knees and braced the balls of her feet against the pavement, ready to give her would-be abductor the shock of her life. She flexed her back and tried to break out of her attacker’s arms, and was surprised to realize that she couldn’t. The unseen woman was just as impossibly strong as Helen. But Helen had more to lose.
    The soles of her sneakers shredded under the