Supergirl (12 page)

Zaltar's bracelet was glowing.

Linda Lee refused to believe it. She put her hand behind her back so she couldn't see the bracelet. Read a book, she told herself. Study. Wash out your socks. You're imagining things. Deceiving yourself, and you know whyI Just because you want something doesn't mean you should make it up.

She held out her arm again, afraid to look. If the berry bracelet was still glowing, it meant the Omegahedron was somewhere not too far away. And if not . . . She didn't want to be disappointed. Cautiously, she turned her head and peeked. Her heart quickened. It was bright, beckoning, pulsing like a tiny heart, reminding her that it was truly a bit of living Argo.

At once her fatigue left her. Where? Tell me where to go? She held her wrist out toward the wall, the ceiling, the window, held it in all four directions. This way . . . this way . . . this way . . . it pulsed to her. She followed its glow down the hall, past Mrs. M., who was snoring in her chair, and out the door. Now . . . up the walk . . . past the scene of her battle . . . the bracelet lead her on, pulsing, seeming to call her, Hurry! Hurry! This way! It led her through the gates out to the street . . . but here, whichever way she turned, the pulse seemed equally strong. "Zaltar . . . help me . . . ?" she whispered. And when she held the bracelet to the north, the pulse grew stronger.

Hidden behind a bush, Ethan adoringly watched his one true love hesitate outside the gates of the school grounds, then move down the street. He had been hiding behind this bush, waiting for her, for what seemed forever . . . yet to wait for her forever was no time at all for such a one as he. For him, he thought, biting into one of the chocolates from the box he was bringing her, were love poems written. For him were lovers named God's fools. He would wait gladly into eternity for his darling dear. He buried his nose in the bouquet of sweetheart roses he'd bought for her and sneezed. (He was prone to allergies.) Chocolates and roses . . . how beautifully right for her: her complexion was roses, her eyes chocolate—or, wait a second, were they blue? Better check that one out. He followed her down the street.

Inside the Ghost Train, Selena held up the whirling Omegahedron, its light casting blue shadows across her face. "Now . . . now . . ." she began chanting. But Bianca, that turkey, spoiled it all, squawking like a goosed chicken.

"Slow down, Selena. Whoa, there!"

Concentrating on the Power in her hands, Selena refused to look at Bianca. She was up to one of her little tricks, jumping on the floor and making everything rattle. Really! Such a juvenile bid for attention. If Bianca wasn't her oldest friend, and if she, Selena, didn't have other, more important, things on her mind, she just might have to do something about her.

"What're you doing? Sele-na!" Bianca wouldn't let up, and when Selena finally looked around, she discovered that not just the floor was vibrating; the entire room was shaking like a railroad car. The bed bounced, the shelves rocked, the mirror with its mother-of-pearl border clattered like a tin can. "It's that—that whatchamacallit," Bianca said, pointing. "Put it back!"

And, indeed, as soon as Selena put the Omegahedron into the Coffer of Shadow, the room settled down. Selena frowned. Something was disturbing the whatchamacallit. She opened the lid of the Coffer. Pillows flew across the room, and the zebra-striped canopy behind her bed flapped as if it were caught in a high wind. She closed the Coffer of Shadow. The hurly-burly died down.

Sooo . . . What was it? Who was messing with her Power? She brought the Coffer of Shadow toward the mirror and a blurred image appeared. Closing her farsighted eye, she tried to make it out.

Bianca nudged her. "It's her again. You know, the one the gorgeous gardener, like,
kissed
."

Selena's lips tightened at this reminder of an unpleasant event. She leaned closer to the screen, then closer still, hardly able to believe the good news her nearsighted eye was bringing her. "Bianca, do you see what I see?"

"I see the string bean."

"N-n-n-no! Something else, my dear Bianca" Selena couldn't contain her joy. "Where
is
the string bean?" Without waiting for an answer, Selena said, "Bianca, darling, Midvale School's very own Jolly Green Giant is
right here
, on the carnival grounds." Selena purred. "Right under our very noses."

How odd, Linda Lee thought. Zaltar's bracelet had led her to this abandoned carnival. Why here? And why had the bracelet glowed so intensely for so long . . . and now was dimming? She rubbed it against her shirt, as if she could burnish it back to life, and for a moment it did burn brightly again. Then the light faded, leaving only a faint glow to remind her of her search. And what should she do now? Which way to turn? Which building to enter?

"Oh, stay calm, my wildly beating heart," someone said in her ear.

Linda Lee turned. Oh, no. This, she was not prepared for, not now.

"Be not afraid, sweet, lovely one. 'Tis only me, my one true love." He pushed flowers and a box of candy into her arms. "Sweets to the sweet. Roses to the rose—wait! Tell me, is your name, could it be, is it—Rose?"

Linda Lee shook her head. A madman, obviously totally weirded out. "Please," she said, not wanting to get him excited, "this isn't a really good time to—"

"—to let everyone know I love and adore you?" he finished for her. "Sweetness! How modest you are, how full of all the fair virtues. Let me shout it from the rooftops, let me sing it from the highest hills, let me—" He seemed, for the moment, to have run out of words. But not action. He grabbed Linda Lee around the waist, lifted her into one of the carnival rides, the Waltzer, and leaped into the seat next to her.

Grrr. Linda Lee came as close to growling as Linda Lee could. "Look, I have this important business, and you're sort of, well, in the way."

"I'm disturbing you?" he said, struck with horror. "Oh, no!" His hand flew to his heart. "I shall leave thee in peace, my adorable, blessed girl. Only tell me your name so that I may murmur it through the lonely night to comfort myself."

Linda Lee sighed. Clearly certifiable. "Linda Lee," she said.

"Linda. Lee. Linda Lee. Linda Lee. Oh, let me say your name in all its wondrous glory . . ."

"Be my guest."

"And my name . . . won't you say my name? Ethan. Say it and let me die happy."

"Ethan, is it? So, Ethan, now that you—"

"She said it!" He slumped over the bar.

Dead? Just from her saying his name? Awesome responsibility this, having someone fall in love with you. Should she do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? "Ethan," she said anxiously, touching his shoulder.

His eyes opened. "I would not leave you so soon alone on cruel earth," he said. "Anyway, thy soft caress did renew the beating of my poor battered heart."

Oh, boy. "Ethan, I have to ask you something "

"Anything. Ask me anything!"

"Have you ever been, er, hospitalized?"

"Do you mean, am I crazy? Only for you, Linda Lee"

He somehow sounded just a tad saner than he had five minutes before. Maybe she could talk to him after all. "You know, you followed me and that's not very nice."

"I'd follow you up hill and down dale, across the seven oceans and three continents. . . . Linda Lee, I do love thee."

She had to smile. Obviously out of his mind, but sweet. And as gorgeous as ever. And something else—she didn't know what to call it or how to think about it—but there
was
something about him, crazy as he was, something about the way he looked at her, that got her feeling all confused again . . . and not minding one bit.

"Ethan . . ." she said, faintly, leaning toward him.

"Linda . . . Lee," he said, equally faintly, leaning toward her.

Linda Lee and Ethan looked into each other's eyes. They sat in the Waltzer, a car that swung in a semicircle on a moving carousel. Now came a moment of truth. Under Ethan's spell, Linda Lee had fallen once again into that delicious state of confusion in which she forgot no less than—everything. Who she was, why she had come to the carnival grounds, and what she was looking for. It was more than a momentary lapse. Time passed. One minute? Two minutes? Ten? Nobody was standing around with a stopwatch, but time passed . . . Time meant nothing to Ethan, but everything to Linda Lee. How could she forget, even for a second, her mission on Planet Earth? Yet she forgot, and time passed . . .

Let's not blame Linda Lee too much. Older and presumably wiser hearts have given way with less reason (if passionate declarations of everlasting love on a moonlit night in a deserted carnival can be called reason). Anyway, clearly, Ethan and Linda Lee were absorbed in each other, and in their innocence thought they were quite, quite alone.

Wrong. Quite, quite wrong.

Mistake. Bad, bad mistake.

It has to be said that all their tenderest, most private moments had been observed and commented on by Selena and Bianca, the occult odd couple. A select audience, but not an appreciative one. Selena was incensed; Bianca, although more philosophical, still didn't like to see her best friend put down. "They're just a couple of whey-faced, lily-livered, lovelorn saps," she said in a consoling sort of way to Selena.

With Bianca in tow, Selena stormed out of the Ghost Train. No plan in mind; improvisation was her forte. She had had enough of having her Creative Genius frustrated on every side. One way or another, vengeance would be hers. It better be! She had had it up to her keister with her plots and plans going haywire. Every time she thought of that Midvale School green bean, she was especially wrathful. Ethan, after all, was just a man; one couldn't expect too much of him . . . (Anyway, she'd straighten him out soon enough.) Onward to the Waltzer! She'd soon have that preppy puppy and gadding gardener dancing to her tune.

Selena arrived at the Waltzer in her usual manner, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, rather grand. Selena actually never arrived anywhere. She Arrived. She swept onto a scene, head high, eyes cool, aware that her Presence was an Event, a Happening, an Occasion.

Ethan and Linda Lee, absorbed in each other, failed to notice her. This did not sweeten her disposition. "Whaaat—a—touching,
touching
," Selena started to say, and ended screaming, "
SCENE
."

That got their attention. Their heads whipped around. Their eyes opened. Their mouths dropped. They turned pale. Selena threw back her head and laughed. They did well to turn pale! "You . . . You . . ." She couldn't think of anything sufficiently evil. Anyway, the hell with talk. She pointed one long, red-nailed finger, and things began to happen. For starters, the Waltzer took off. It would be inadequate to say it began to turn, or it circled, or it moved around. Rather, it went from a resting position into motion so swiftly, so completely, that, whirling and spinning, it was nothing but a blur of pale color.

Bianca, chewing gum, tapping ash from her cigarette holder, said cozily, "So, like, you want to kill 'em both, huh?"

"Round and round they go . . . and where they stop . . . only I know." She pointed her finger again, and the Waltzer came to a screeching halt. Ethan sat alone, his eyes unfocused. Linda Lee was gone.

"The girl's not there anymore," Bianca said helpfully.

Selena was slightly shaken by this but toughed it out. "Of course she's not there. I've done away with her, and now—"

"And now," B ianca said hastily as something plummeted out of the sky straight toward them, "I have the feeling we're in for a really, really big surprise." She jumped back as Supergirl made a one-point landing directly between her and Selena.

Supergirl and Selena eyed one another. Selena drew herself up to her full height. "Who are you?" she demanded.

"Kara of Argo, daughter of Alura and Zor-El," Supergirl said simply. "And you?"

"I—am—Selena. And if you do not fear my name now, you will. Soon, very soon. All the world will know my name . . . and shiver when they hear it. I have Powers. Sublime Powers. I warn you—don't—interfere—with—Selena."

"I bow only before Truth and Justice."

Selena looked over at Ethan, who had just convinced himself he was in the middle of one of his keener dreams and would wake up any moment. "You'll change your mind, Kara of Argo" Selena pointed a quivering finger at Ethan and—(before he could even say, Oh, lady, not that finger
again
)—he was transported from a seat in the Waltzer to the floor of the dodgem car tent.

And there his next ordeal began. The dodgem cars went into action, roaring toward Ethan.

Pow . . . biff . . . bang . . . smash . . .
Ethan jumped aside as a car attacked . . . another one was coming; he rolled out of the way . . . still alive, but only for the moment. The cars circled Ethan, congregating like a pride of lions closing in on their prey.

Dizzily, Ethan thought back to his childhood when his father had read him fairy tales. To win fair Princess, didn't handsome Prince always have to do three really hard nasty things, like climbing a glass mountain or pulling himself out of quicksand? Since Ethan had always secretly thought of himself as a Prince in disguise, it was but one tiny mental step to believing all these demento things that were happening to him were, somehow, tied up with winning the hand of fair Linda Lee. Hadn't he (a little extravagantly, he now admitted) told her he'd do
ANYTHING
for her? He really hoped she'd think of something easy for his third task, like jumping off the Empire State Building.

Supergirl was in a rare state of anger with herself. She had underestimated Selena, and now Ethan was in real danger. Her fault! But what ought she to do first? Save Ethan, or take care of Selena? Her mind worked fast—but not fast enough. Just as she concluded Ethan's rescue was her first priority, Selena made her move. "Gada, geedee, gada!" she cried, and Supergirl found herself surrounded by a wall of Selenas, red-mouthed and jubilant. Whichever way Supergirl turned, the wall of Selenas turned with her. "
Trapped . . . trapped . . . trapped
" they chanted, or was it her own desperate voice? The jeering images of the witches pressed against her. Helpless. Supergirl was helpless! All she could do was watch Ethan's agony.