Starcrossed

ago.” Claire grabbed Helen in a hug.
    “You know about . . . stuff?” Jason asked, surprised, not sure how much he should say.
    “I told her,” Helen admitted as she pulled out of Claire’s enthusiastic hug and rubbed her sore neck.
    “But I’ve always sort of known. I just thought she was undead or something,” Claire said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Believe me, I’m much happier you’re all part Greek god instead of part something disgusting like bat or wolf or mosquito.”
    Jason and Lucas shared a look over Claire’s head. Helen explained what had happened as quickly as she could while Lucas took Jason outside to look at the tracks, but it was too late to try to follow Creon. They came back inside with grim looks on their faces to find Helen and Claire had switched the lights on to assess the damage in the entryway.
    “Are those pieces of a knife?” Claire asked.
    “Yeah. He kinda stabbed me in the heart,” Helen said tentatively, not knowing how Claire would react.
    “You can still do that? Stop blades?” Claire asked, unsurprised. “What about the lightning thing? Can you still do that, too?”
    “How do you know all this about me?” Helen sputtered. Claire sighed.
    “After I pushed you off the roof . . .” she began.
    “After you what ?” Lucas yelled.
    “It was when we were seven! And she wasn’t hurt!” Claire yelled back. “Anyway. I knew about the knife thing because, well, I tried to stab you once, too,” she continued bashfully. “But I already knew you’d be fine because of what happened with Gretchen and the scissors in second grade. Remember?”
    Helen grimaced. “Oh, yeah! Gretchen and the scissors! She really was trying to kill me, wasn’t she?”
    “Yeah, she was. She was crazy jealous of you. But I never wanted to hurt you, I just had to be sure I wasn’t losing my mind. It was scary, you know?” she asked apologetically.
    Helen smiled, forgiving her instantly.
    “I guess I can’t blame you. But how’d you know about the lightning-bolt thing?”
    “Remember when we were nine, we were going off island on the ferry to see the Boston Aquarium, and that creepy guy with that huge gut kept trying to talk to us? Remember how he kept ‘accidentally’ bumping up against you and stroking your hair?”
    Helen did remember, even though she had spent a lot of time trying to forget. There had been that horrible smell of burnt hair, and the empty look in his eyes. Helen nodded, shivering at the thought, and dreading where Claire was going.
    “Remember how he just disappeared suddenly before we docked? Well, he didn’t just disappear. He tried to grab you, Len, and I saw an electric spark jump from you to him. It blew him right off the deck of the ferry. It looked like lightning, except it came out of you .”
    “I think I killed him,” Helen whispered, needing finally to admit what she had done.
    “Good! He was a child molester! You should probably get a medal,” Claire insisted. Helen looked at Claire’s earnest face. The man probably did mean to do something terrible, but did that justify frying him?
    “First, you don’t know that you killed him. Second, it was a reflex. Whether he deserved to die or not isn’t the point. You shouldn’t feel guilty about something that was done in self-defense,” Lucas insisted. He touched Helen’s shoulder. She moved away from him uncertainly, not knowing how to feel. Luckily, Jason changed the subject.
    “So you’ve always known she wasn’t entirely human,” Jason said to Claire with a wry smile. “Didn’t that ever bother you?”
    “I was a little worried she might try to drag me off to hell and drain my essence at some point, but I figured that was still better than having Gretchen for a best friend,” Claire said with just enough honesty to get a laugh. “Plus, I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but this island is full of white people. Not exactly easy growing up Japanese here. But with Lennie around I always knew no matter how strange I was, she would always be way stranger. So that was nice.”
    “And you never told anyone else over all of these years? You never mentioned it to someone when you were little, even by accident?” Lucas asked skeptically.
    “Come on Lucas, I’m not stupid! I saw E.T ., you know, and I know what the men in the white coats did to him and Elliot,” she replied with a disgusted look on her face. “I’d never tell on Lennie. Or you, for that