Chapter Text
hiraeth
(noun)
- A homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.
The dreams started when Becky turned ten.
Her birthday had been a magical affair – she’d awoken to a house bedecked in sparkling streamers that looked like they’d been peeled off the end of a rainbow. Balloons had hung above her head in pastel shades of rosy pink and azure blue; clusters of cotton candy clouds. Presents, more than she could have ever hoped for, were piled up in shaky, rectangular towers. Outside, the world held a sun-kissed gleam – dewdrops glistened like diamonds on the grass, and every candied leaf or honey-furred animal that came to rest in their backyard.
All her friends had come, waving their cursive stained invitations in the air like flags as they stepped to the door. The rest of the afternoon was a colorful blur – jumping in a lofty bounce house and feeling momentarily weightless, laughter heavy in the air. Chasing one another through the fray until the sun had cast the sky in shades of russet and gold. Being crowded around by her friends and family, the lights dim and sweet-smelling cake in front of her, ten melting candles bearing ten wavering flames that glowed with a promise.
After everyone had left, Becky had treated herself to more cake, read some of the gifts she’d gotten, and curled up in bed with Bob at her side, happy and content.
At first, the images flashing through her head were meaningless and indistinct, water poured over a camera lens – an anomaly, given how vivid her dreams typically were. First came snapshots of picturesque, homey scenes: a blurry grove of plants that looked like Venus flytraps, footprints in ruddy soil, swirling whorls of yellow buttercream clouds.
She saw people – people with wispy white hair and caramel skin and bright orange eyes, all wearing various body suits adorned with coats or long-legged boots as they trekked through a nameless city. She felt like she was being lead along, someone grabbing her hand as she stumbled through a hazy, unknown world. She glimpsed trees laden with fruits that resembled apricots and deep, purple plums.
Becky peered up the murky dream sky, gasping at the sight of twin rings, glistening golden and carmine, striped across the sky.
And then she’d awoken, clutching her cold blankets in worry and wonder. Her eyes rapidly scanned her surroundings – striped, faded blue wallpaper, shelves of priceless unicorn figurines gathering dust, paper-cut out stars hanging from the ceiling. She was back in her room, on Earth, a planet where the soil was brown and the sky was blue, and where a bright silver moon shone in the sky instead of rings. It’d been eight years since her involuntary dispatch from Lexicon, and not once had she remembered much about her home planet, except from what she could garter from books in the spaceship library and Bob’s occasional mumblings.
Maybe, one day, she’d be able to go back. But for now, Becky was enjoying just being one of the humans – living out her day-to-day life, fighting with her annoying younger sibling, gushing with friends over concerts and TV show re-runs, and going to sleep underneath a sky of bright stars that matched the ones stitched into her newly fitted superheroine suit.
She sighed and nestled back onto her pillow, drowsy from a full day’s worth of fun, not realizing that her body was floating just inches above the bed, in a way no human ever could.
⚝.
The first incident, Becky should have drowned.
It was the first day of summer, and the minute school let out, she pushed through the throng of excited students pouring out of the ajar doors, brimming with excitement. She enjoyed class, but was glad to recline, relax, and bask in the overwhelming leg room she had. She’d made plans with Violet and Scoops – they'd pick strawberries, have picnics, spend every Saturday at the amusement park, and camp out in the woods until daybreak. There were so many things she wanted to try, places to go, new sections of the library to devour – and they had two whole months to spare.
The minute she arrived home, her parents ushered her into the car for a family beach day, another Botsford tradition. Her father assured her that the flavor of summer tasted best on the first day, that the air was a little saltier and the water a little cooler. She was sure the pier would be crammed with families who shared a similar sentiment, but didn’t think about it as they piled into their old blue station wagon and sang off-key sea shanties while waiting in traffic.
Her father had been right – the beach looked especially beautiful today, a painting polished just for that special evening. The shore sparkled like the golden sands of an hourglass, and the sun beat down on the water, making its sapphire surface glisten. Serene, foam-tipped waves brushed against the soggy land, leaving behind trinkets from below: tiny shells, strands of seaweed, and the occasional crab.
Becky had also been right, too. Towels of every shape and size covered the strip of beach from one end to the next, umbrellas propped up and spilling shade to the citizens lounging beneath them. Children pocketed shells in their pails and waddled through the crush, building sandcastles or licking popsicles with sticky fingers. A group of toddlers stood teasingly at the edge of the water, then ran away, screeching with laughter as they dodged the tide.
TJ bemoaned the lack of space, but Becky jumped out of the car, too thrilled to let anything irk her. Her flip-flops hit the ground with a slap and she scurried around, finally finding a little nook at the far right of the beach. They settled down, her mother reminding them of their beach rules as she smothered their backs with sunscreen. Once she’d finished, they dispersed, TJ playing mock-volleyball with Johnson, Bob inspecting shells, and Becky rushing towards the rippling waves.
Before, she hadn’t been allowed to wade out very far, but now she was older and could swim. Tentatively, she stuck a foot into the frothing water. A crisp chill struck her, an absolutely exhilarating sensation that seized every sunbaked fiber of her being. She walked in, the liquid pooling at her knees. It seeped into her swimsuit, droplets clinging to her arms, then shoulders. The sounds of laughter and conversation had quieted, and her feet barely grazed the bay’s sandy bottom as the sea swallowed up her torso. She quickly yanked on her goggles, anxious to experience the feeling of being underwater in a way completely different from dunking her head in a shallow bathtub.
So, in one impulsive move, Becky ducked under the waves.
She blinked, her lashes fluttering against the plastic of her goggles. Her soft brown hair fluttered against her head into a wavy, caramel halo. Bubbles spiraled around her like iridescent, fragile pearls that broke with one touch. She swept her head around. The sun’s rays seemed to dance on the pale grains swirling around her feet. A few silver fish nibbled at her toes, and she giggled, shooing them away. Further away were rocks polished like agates, and clumps of plaster-white barnacles clinging to them as the current swept through the place like a gust of wind.
Becky tumbled onwards, her limbs pushing to swim further. The sandy ledge she seemed to have been walking on sloped downwards, towards a dazzling coral reef. It looked like a busy garden - bright, fuchsia coral shaped like cauliflower clustered together in one corner; a few shaped like stag’s antlers plunked in the sand stood tall above them, and another species that looked like an elaborate red fan swayed beneath sun-burst-hued anemone. Fish of all kind swarmed around them, hiding in the coral folds or snacking on algae growing on their limbs. Some had stripes of black over their eyes, others had rainbow-colored scales, a few were pock-marked with blotchy shades of violet and sandstone. Seahorses clung to kelp, their curly tails clinging to the green grasses as eels swam past.
She was in awe, wishing she’d brought something to capture a photo with; though she wasn’t sure if a photo would do it justice. Instead, she grabbed one of the nautilus shells, with their spiraling loops and polished edges, and glanced up at the surface, her stomach eager for lunch. The sun’s image was distorted by the water, and its light bounced through, making the azure ocean sparkle like a stained-glass mosaic composed of tiny sea glass shards and starlight.
Then, a blurry, dark silhouette blocked the sun, and a tanned hand burst through the water, grabbing her by the arm and yanking her out.
A thousand different things hit her at once. The brisk feeling of wind brushing against her wet skin, the cacophony of sounds roiling on the bay, and her mother, eyes blown wide and tears brimming in them.
“Oh, Becky!” she wailed, drawing her into a hug. “Are you alright?” She fretted, pushing back Becky’s bangs and inspecting her forehead.
“Yeah, mom,” she said confusedly, “I was just swimming.”
Mrs. Botsford inhaled a shaky breath. “Honey, you were underwater for five minutes and didn’t come up for air once! I thought you’d been swept away by the current or...or nabbed by a shark! Oh, Becky, I’m so glad you’re alright. I could’ve sworn...”
Becky let her mother squeeze her tightly, dazed as they treaded back to the soggy shore. Her father gave her a firm hug and an even firmer chastising – Becky, don’t go so far out into the water, we need to be able to see you and make sure you have your floaties next time! - then wrapped a towel around her shoulders and let her sit in the shade to catch her bearings. An ice cream cone appeared in her hands, and she let the vanilla melt into a puddle before nibbling on the cone, her tongue still salty from the ocean’s taste.
Five minutes , her mother had said. She faintly remembered Bob telling her that Lexiconians didn’t breathe oxygen nor depend on it like humans did. When she’d disappeared under the waves, she hadn’t felt anything except for water in her ears, the consistent trill of the sea, and wonder that sparked like newborn stars as she took in the quaint reef hiding beneath.
When humans stayed underwater for as long as she did, their lungs filled with liquid, their vision plunged into darkness, and they drowned.
Becky let the thought sink in, barely moving from her spot in the shade, content with watching the fun unfold instead of taking part in it. The sand stuck to her feet as she listened to the beach chaos dwindle down, until it was just them and a few select families packing up their gear into cars. They drove home, TJ ranting about something, her parents murmuring little jests under their breaths. She went home and slipped into her clothes, reading by flashlight atop her bed while everyone slept, afraid to fall asleep and find the reef lurking in her dreams.
The next day, they went to the beach again. Scoops and Violet were there, and they kicked around a beach ball before deciding on having a race. Becky stood from the sidelines, watching them wallow into the fizzy surf, giddy and unafraid. They were the ones who could drown, yet they let themselves be carried by the tug of the horizon, while Becky lingered on the side, holding the breath she didn’t need.
That summer bled fast, and she was sure they’d gone to the beach at least once a week. It was the same ordeal – she would bask in the radiant warmth and eat cucumber sandwiches and build magnificent, elaborate sandcastles tipped with starfish and embossed in curvy shells. She would spectate as little children, chubby and clumsy, took steps into the water, yelping as it hit their feet and receded back towards the endless azure.
The sun burnt a bridge on the sea’s surface, warm and tingly and inviting, but Becky was determined never to cross it again.
⚝⚝.
As a child, the repairmen came to Becky’s house often.
Becky was only five when she had her first accident. For other children, this could’ve meant a plethora of things – that they’d wet the bed, stepped on sidewalk cracks (which was taboo; along with breaking any hopscotch rules) or accidentally swallowed gum and believed that they were doomed to eternal constipation.
For Becky, it was accidentally breaking the living room sofa.
It wasn’t entirely her fault. She just got so excited when Pretty Princess came on that she would jump up and down on the cushions. She barely understood her abilities at the time, and so understandably panicked when she heard a sickening crunch after three consecutive bops. Her father hadn’t thought much of it, repairing the frame in just a few hours while five-year-old Becky looked on in worry. He’d reassured her that the wood might’ve just needed to be replaced and that she had nothing to do with it.
Becky trusted his advice and kept it in mind when she chose to shimmy to the tune of Pretty Princess’s theme song the very next day.
Needless to say, the couch broke in half.
“I don’t understand,” her father had mumbled while examining the damage. “I fixed it just yesterday!”
“Maybe we just need a new one,” her mother suggested. “I’ve been wanting to visit that new furniture depot downtown...”
And so, they ordered a new couch the color of tortillas and uniform polos. An ugly piece of upholstery, and young Becky used her dramatized revulsion of it to excuse why she’d suddenly taken a fondness to sitting on the floor. Everything was fine for about a week, until Violet came over to sleep at her place. It was their very first sleepover, and both were ecstatic to do all the sacred sleepover-y things: they’d braided each other’s hair and had a movie marathon, nibbling on caramel popcorn all the while. They’d pranked TJ with an invitation to a Wordgirl exclusive party, and sang horrible parodies of their favorite songs using combs as microphones and wearing backwards caps doused in glitter.
They were both determined to stay up all night – who slept during a sleepover, anyways? That, and the fact that they were too hyped up on sugary cupcakes to consider even closing an eyelid. Becky heaved her best friend onto the bed and they jumped together, giggling breathlessly as they flashed goofy poses and hit each other ruthlessly with pillows. She remembered Violet whispering, higher, higher! So Becky did just that, jumping with all her might, grinning wildly as the mattress groaned.
There was a moment of glee, the unsuspecting kind that comes before terror, where Violet had her arms outstretched, as though she were a bird flying through the air.
Then the bed creaked and snapped, and her best friend fell.
Violet bounced on the cushions, laughing, then took in the slanted shape of the bed and gasped.
Their sleepover had ended on a bittersweet note – the sounds of the bed had awoken Becky’s parents, and unlike before, where the couch had appeared to have broken of its own accord, they had jumped on the bed. It seemed natural to assume that their reckless action was at fault, and both girls were grounded for two weeks.
Becky was relieved, though. It could’ve been worse, especially if she hadn’t convinced her dad to let her fix the bed by herself using the manual. It’d be good for the future, she’d pointed out, and he thought that was mature and responsible and not spurred on by anything suspicious. Because unlike with the broken bed, there was no believable explanation for the cracks forming in the floor.
⚝⚝⚝.
Becky loved school – most of the time.
Today was not one of those times.
She thumped her head on her desk, groaning. Typically, she adored writing assignments. Not just because she finally had a use for her extended, less casual vocabulary, but because it was a passionate outlet. Research was interesting to her, and diving into different rabbit holes in the library was a favorite pastime. The constructive writing process itself was enjoyable – plus, she got to use all of her cute Pretty Princess themed stationary, which added a little zing to the experience.
Except that nothing – not even the princess and unicorn zing factor – would spell away her dread for the assignment Ms. Davis had handed out that morning. The concept was relatively simple, and she only needed to write a page, which she would’ve complained about any other day. How was she supposed to fit all of her ideas onto a four paragraph, double spaced, indented essay? It was completely ludicrous.
But now, she was almost ( almost ) grateful that she only had to write a page. It would be easier to lie if she was restricted in the number of words she used – being vague was key. She couldn’t prattle on, though, or else points would be taken off. Chewing on the cobalt eraser of her Count Cloudy pencil, she gently pressed the nub against her lined sheet of paper, mind blank.
The prompt stared back at her like a black eye: Write about your culture and how it is significant towards your identity.
Becky sighed, shoving the paper away. There were hundreds of essay subjects, and her teacher had to pick the one topic she just couldn’t answer.
Culture was a picky thing for her. Her parents were of African American descent, but their traditions so completely Botsford that she had a hard time correlating the two. The herb-hiking, secret recipes, and wishbone contest felt exclusively theirs . And if it was theirs, it was hers, too.
At least it should’ve been that simple. But Becky couldn’t help feeling incomplete. Botsford or not, she was also from a galaxy lightyears away, with a culture she’d barely ever known. Lexicon would always be a part of her, but her heritage was only as thick as her blood. Her friends were had their own unique customs that stemmed from actual ethnic groups. She, on the other hand, was just the adopted kid who knew nothing about herself or her past, and even less about her future.
Significance? Zero.
Becky sucked in a wobbly breath. With one swift tap to the chest, she turned into Wordgirl and went to her spaceship hideout. Tucked in the maze of doors was a library – its walls circular and painted the color of blooming roses, bookshelves filled to the brim, a model of Lexicon poised in the center. She’d read some of the books there, but between learning to control her unpredictable powers, constantly fighting villains, and trying to balance her home life, she hadn’t had nearly as much time to inspect and pore over every detail.
Heart beating wildly, she walked into the room and perched on the miniature Lexicon, her legs resting between the sculpted rings. Above, a mural depicting people clad in suits flying over a cloudy, russet sky covered the ceiling. Whenever she’d felt homesick as a child, Huggy would take her to the library. There had been something comforting and familiar about those smoky orange backdrops and suits that made her three-year-old self think, home .
When she looked at it now, all she saw was a puzzle.
Wordgirl flew over to the shelves, her hands running over the rugged spines, the pleasant scent of paper penetrating the air. There were so many books, and she had no idea where to start. Closing her eyes, she grabbed the first hard thing her fingers came in contact with – a book with musty pages and a cover the color of freshly picked mint. Her body shuddered as her imagination supplied her with images of what she might unearth – perhaps a Golden Record, but in written form, if she was lucky enough to have everything displayed that easily.
One thumb under the book cover, she flipped it open to the first page. At the top, one word winked at her.
Aardvark.
Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me , she thought irritably, slipping past the pages. It was a dictionary – not that that was a huge surprise, but she’d been expecting more from her first cultural-excavation. She shelved it away with as much gingerly care as her unease would grant, then pulled out another book: Aardvark.
She slammed it close, then winced, her love for literature not allowing her to act aggressively with novels no matter how much they aggravated her. Silently fuming, she reached for another book, then another, and yet another, until a few dozen books were piled around her, all English Lexicons.
Eventually, she’d gotten through two-thirds of the library, novels stacked around her feet. Despite her frustration, she had learned a few things – there were words in the dictionaries that, for once, she hadn’t known. Hexvor; the name of an insect-devouring blossom. Yamja, a dish made of sweet potatoes and eaten with warm flatbread. And a new definition for infinity that she’d never heard of: when two rings appear to interweave in the sky as their orbits overlap.
She mentally marked these words for further investigation and floated towards the shelf next to a marble statue of an old man with a novel cracked open on his head. She expected more dictionaries, but was surprised to find a worn journal hidden behind a fifth edition encyclopedia of “All Things Earth.” Its cover was jaded and worn, the same shade of garnet as the walls. A silk ribbon cut halfway through the crinkled pages.
Inside was something other than that dreaded word – a double-paged spread stained cobalt from watercolors. With golden ink, a circular chart resembling that of a horoscope had been painted on the paper. In the places of the Zodiac, however, were other constellations, symbols for each one, and beneath that, images of moon phases drawn out in silver.
Not an immersive diagram of the stars or a fate-reading illustration – it was a calendar; unlike any she’d seen before.
Her eyes sparkled with the newfound information. So they use stars to tell time. The night sky had always felt magical to her, with its mysterious and endless nature. The way they’d been depicted in the book, their ethereal light trapped within each graceful, elegant stroke...it was positively spell-binding.
She eagerly flipped to the next page, where more constellations had been hastily drawn out with pencil, and then moon phases, then ring cycles – ring cycles. They had names – Syntax and Phoneme – and separate orbits, which were, according to the book, used to commemorate special occasions. She wondered how they did it, and what said special occasions were.
On the next page was another calendar, except more like the ones she’d seen at school, in all its dull rectangular glory. Holidays were listed underneath the months. Under the first one, Caelum (or Cae for short, as written below in smaller print) had something called “Cae-Day” which Wordgirl assumed was like New Years, except for the fact that it happened every two years. In the month of Vela (the human equivalent being March) there was International Uma Appreciation Day (what or who Uma was, she didn’t know.) Antilia (April) had Naming Ceremonies, and Lyra (August) had Infinity Week, which might have had something to do with Lexicon’s rings.
Her grin grew the more she read, poring over the different images and eloquent scrawl. After a few minutes, she had reached the end of the book and went back to the shelf in search of more, but then paused halfway.
She still had a report write, and none of this would be able to make it in. She knew that. She’d known when she’d come to research that, while enlightening, wouldn’t be possible to include.
Taking one last forlorn look at the library, she sped out of the spaceship and re-entered her bedroom through the window. Her empty paper remained blank, and her collection of unicorn figurines stared at her from the shelf above her desk, scrutinizing her with their beady gem eyes.
Fine, fine , she thought, pulling her chair aside. The prompt gave her one last glare and she shooed it off. Her stomach roiled with apprehension – she'd been closer to learning more about Lexicon, but she no matter how much research she did, she couldn’t publicly identify as an alien. She could only investigate and analyze her origins in private, and never truly get to actually experience. Not that she disliked being a Botsford – it was just that, well, she wasn’t only a Botsford. It was just all she got to be .
Becky stretched out her hands and leant in, her desk lamp illuminating her deft fingers and stationery sprawled over the wooden surface. She took a deep breath; shoved all thoughts of home to the back of her mind.
And pencil in hand, she began to fabricate.
⚝⚝⚝⚝.
She’d gotten an A on the paper, naturally.
Still, Becky’s heart skipped happily as she strolled out of the basement, dust-coated boxes in hand. “Mom, I’ve got them!”
“Oh, wonderful!” Mrs. Botsford replied from the kitchen, wrapping a dish of carrot-apple casserole in tin foil. Becky winced, the wavy crackle of the aluminum straining against her ears like thunderclaps. “I’ll be there in a minute, sweetie.”
Her daughter nodded and opened the boxes, coughing as dust flew everywhere. “Gosh, how long have these been down there?”
Her mother’s face became wistful as she walked over. “Oh, ages, honey. It’s been a while since you and TJ were toddlers.” She sniffed. “You kids grow up so fast!”
Becky blushed. “Aw, mom...”
Mrs. Botsford ruffled her mussed locks. “Now that you and TJ are older, we can give away some of your baby things.” She drew out an old blue rattle and cooed. “Sunita will love these!”
“Sunita?”
“My friend and fellow co-worker at the office,” her mother clarified. “She’s having a baby, and tomorrow’s her baby shower, so I thought I’d bring her a gift. I wonder if it’s a boy or girl...anyways, I’ll need to have these all washed and clean by then!”
Becky nodded and pulled out another toy, this time a purple ball, and her mother let out another nostalgic sigh. “Oh, TJ loved that ball. He’d never let go of it! Even while he was sleeping. He wouldn’t let us drive them apart, especially before baths. It was just the pacifier all over again!”
“I remember TJ telling me that Grandpa Bampy gave it to him on his second birthday?”
“He did. Your Bampy always gives the best gifts. Like the unicorn plush he gave you on your fifth birthday – what was her name again?”
“Uni,” Becky recalled. It’d been her first unicorn themed item in possession. Released straight from its strangling plastic confinements, it had started out with a glossy brown coat and luscious blond hair. After a few months of experiencing baby slobber and other typical child affections, it bore applesauce stain scars and splotches of sticky peas, with hair tangled from constant sink-baths. Even in its worst state, she’d cherished all the moments they’d shared: sipping apple juice together during long car rides, playing tea party with Violet’s stuffed pegasus (Peggy, because of course), and exchanging secrets in the dead of night, when she couldn’t sleep and the walls of her crib were too daunting to climb.
Despite the generic toddler-level name she’d given it, Uni had practically been her soulmate - at least until she’d lost it at the city fair. Idly, she wondered where it had ended up.
A tug to her sweater pulled Becky out of her reminiscence. Mrs. Botsford enthusiastically handed her a carton filled with old socks, shirts, and pants that had belonged to her or TJ at some point. “Could you sort these out for me so I can put ‘em in the washer later? Blacks and whites, remember.”
“I know, Mom,” Becky told her, but the woman had gone back to gushing over baby toys, so she reluctantly turned to her box and got to work. Most of the clothes were a little worn, some with barely noticeable tears in the fabric, but it was nothing her father’s sewing machine couldn’t fix. Her mind wandered as she pried apart rolled up balls of footwear and brushed dust off of shoes that seemed too tiny for any human feet. When her eyes snagged on the very last articles of clothing, though, she let out a small gasp of surprise.
With two hesitant hands, she lifted her green sweater and pink overalls out from the cardboard cage. Seeing the striped pattern of sage and olive paired with those adorable maroon overalls struck her heart like a mallet. It’d been ages since she’d worn this. For some unexplainable reason, she felt compelled to pull it to her chest, as if she was trying to approximate its size, even though it obviously wouldn’t fit anymore.
“You found your favorite overalls,” her mother popped in, “you loved that sweater.”
She sniffed. “Yeah. Yeah, Mom, I know.”
Her fingers traced the faded pink, until they came across irregular stitching on the lower back. She turned the overalls over and noticed a light, rose-gold thread embroidered there, spelling the letter B on the far left, then K in the middle. At first, she thought it was a pair of initials, but then came to the conclusion that there were letters missing, given the small holes poking through the textile where a needle must have gone through. B in the beginning, and K as the second-to-last letter:
B_ _K_
“Mom,” Becky whispered, “there’s something here.”
“Oh, that,” she pursed her lips, pulling at the faint reins of past times. “I figured there was a name there, but with all the trampling you did in the woods, it must’ve gotten torn apart!” She said the last part with misplaced joviality. “We got your name from there, see?”
She traced the remaining letters of Becky’s name into the blanks. “Took your father every last bit of savvy scrabble skill to get that one.”
“Uh-huh,” Becky murmured, dazed. “Mom, could I, maybe...hold onto this? I know it doesn’t fit me anymore, but I’d like to keep it for sentimental reasons.”
“Of course, honey! I know I’ll have trouble giving this stuff away, too,” she agreed. Then she plucked an octopus onesie out of her designated carton and dissolved into tittering, wispy sighs. Becky neatly placed the folded clothes next to her and climbed the stairs, each step ridiculously heavy, her feet composed of lead as she entered her dimly-lit bedroom and slid against the door, holding the overalls in her hands.
Becky pondered plenty of things. Her mind was never empty, curiosity never satiated.
Still, she’d never acknowledged that her name was not her real name.
Her thumb rubbed against the soft, silky ribbon-like threads that held the remnants of a life never lived. She thought back to the dreams she got occasionally: little snapshots of Lexicon, everything in focus but completely blurred out. In several of them, she was running towards a figure clad in red, with soft brown hair like hers and a fuzzy face.
She wondered what they said before she ran to them. What they called her.
One palm flew to her head, which throbbed horribly thinking of all the possible combinations that could fill in the blanks. The letters B and K flew through her vision like meteorites, teasing as they crashed to the ground. Perhaps it would’ve been better if she’d just let her mom give the clothes away, instead of torturing herself with this cryptic information that gave her everything but nothing at once.
Instead of two letters, three blanks, and a name forever lost in the dust clouds of the cosmos.
Casually hanging out with Tobey was a surreal experience.
Becky had grown conditioned to their usual relationship, which consisted of backhanding the other with daedal, verbally intricate insults that stung if you understood them. There wasn’t much to it – enter class, bite back at Tobey’s usual morning remarks, and then continue onwards until the end of the school day. She hadn’t imagined this ending anytime soon, but after three months of stagnant criminal behavior and a lack of robot tomfoolery, a small, utterly irrelevant part of her brain thought, maybe he’s gotten sick of villainy and quit.
Then he’d proceeded to nearly destroy the city with his stupid board game unless she admitted to him that she was Wordgirl, and that idea went straight into the garbage chute.
She’d been so sure that it wouldn’t work. Bob had come to the rescue with his superb climbing skills and TJ’s stolen Wordgirl doll, and for a moment, Tobey looked stunned. Cornered, even.
Then he’d quickly activated another camera, this one expanding from the robot’s head like an antenna, which he maneuvered until it panned out and showed Huggy standing over the eyes and pressing the button that made the doll repeatedly cry, “Here’s a new word for your vocabulary: justice!”
“Here’s three,” he’d quipped smugly, showing her the screen, “attempt, failure, and embarrassment .”
“Oh, shut up,” she’d hissed. But he wasn’t wrong – they had failed, miserably. Their attempt to diverge his suspicions had only given him more of a reason to believe that she was Wordgirl. With the city in danger and Tobey knowingly staring at her, she knew any lie she told would instantly be flattened like a bug underneath his mounting evidence.
So, she told. Becky had expected him to cackle and declare his ultimate superior intelligence (which he did, of course), but she hadn’t foreseen him asking – in a tone she could only define as sheepish , the last word she’d ever use to describe McCallister of all people - if she wanted to keep playing, only without the threat of absolute annihilation breathing down her neck.
What a gentleman.
Nevertheless, they’d found themselves playing multiple rounds, with Tobey asking questions in between moves. There was a bounce to his words that made it sound like his heart was leaping bounds; a sparkling awe hidden behind his glasses. She peered over at him dubiously from her side of the board, anticipating an upcoming attack, but she didn’t hear the tell-tale earthshaking footsteps of his robots. It was obvious from the way his eyes flitted up to her that he was planning something, though, and each subtle drumming of his fingers on the table or readjustment of stray hair strands made her flinch in a way his gargantuan metal creations never could. His fidgeting reminded her that, no matter how casual he seemed, he was still cradling her secret in the palms of his hands. Or, more appropriately, holding it captive.
But you couldn’t just let go of a secret. Once you had it, you had it forever.
Becky held in a groan, doom hanging over her head like the thundercloud whorls outside. She tried to concentrate on the game. Maybe playing would appease him, and he would reconsider blackmailing her. Maybe, by the grace of Pretty Princess and all things magical, he’d have such a spiffing time that he would simply forget she was Wordgirl.
Ha.
“Red two?” she asked, voice weak.
“By Jove, you’ve wrecked my robot,” he said with glee. From his side of the board, she could hear the mechanized miniature robot short-circuit and monotonously yell in protest. Then, hesitantly, he questioned, “Is your favorite food really peas ?”
She scoffed. “Tobey, I told you that one. To your face.”
He grimaced. “But...peas?”
“What’s wrong with peas? They’re nutritious and savory, what’s not to like?”
“The dull green color, stupidly inconsistent taste-”
“It’s called variation -”
“-fifty-percent of it is simply lukewarm water, the soup looks like sewage sludge-”
“It does not .”
“-and finally, peas don’t go well with any other edible food,” he finished.
“Finished desecrating my opinion?”
“It’s been drawn, quartered, and roasted to perfection,” he remarked, a smirk on his lips. “Would you prefer I scatter or bury the ashes?”
“Extended metaphors,” she grumbled. “Make your move already.”
“Hm. Yellow seven?”
“Nope.” She scanned the grid. “Purple five.”
He shook his head, blond hair falling out of the prim hairstyle previously arranged. He swept back a few rebellious strands and met her eyes again, questions brimming on his tongue. “Why did you stay?”
Becky tilted her head. “Stay where?”
“Here,” he pointed at the ground for emphasis. “Earth. In your interviews, you say you’re from another planet. Lexicon, was it?”
She nodded, unsure whether to feel weirdly flattered that he’d bothered to watch her interviews, or anxious due to how far a stretch this topic was from lighter, generic subjects like best word or favorite color or peas.
“Why didn’t you just go back to Lexicon, then?” he inquired. “I can’t imagine you prefer it here, on Earth. You hardly know anyone except for that monkey of yours, and...” he paused. “Nevermind.”
“Finally realized that if I take your word to heart, that’ll mean you’ll never see me again?” she tried for sarcastic, despite the growing weights dragging her mood further into despair.
Tobey blushed, flicking a non-existent piece of lint off his shoulders. “Of course not. What I mean to say is...what I’m trying to convey...” he stammered, moving his hands limply. She wanted to take joy in his nervousness like she typically did, but it was harder to do so when her own anxiety was enough to crack though glaciers.
He cleared his throat, dislodging all the clunky sentence fragments in one inhale. When he spoke, his voice went a bit softer, the haughty undertones momentarily gone. “You had a family there, didn’t you? Why didn’t you go back to them?”
His words struck a thousand xylophone keys within. The dreams that had neither blessed nor plagued her during the last few years unfurled beneath her like petals on a spring blossom. The better ones, she believed, showed innocent clips of toasted flatbread, lanky long branches heavy with yellow pears, or unassuming buildings scratching the twin rings of rock and ice spinning above.
The worst ones had people. She often glimpsed feet next to hers as her phantom self was led through a memory; her younger body stumbling to catch up to the other person nearby. They were always walking through a grove of marble-white trees that shed dainty yellow petals, her hand firmly held in a larger one when they trudged through the golden leaf-litter. Every time, she would stumble over the tangled roots on their path, and every time, a sound like bells would chime and the hand would let go, swoop underneath her little arms, and launch her into the air like a rocket. The sound of bells would multiply tenth fold as she nuzzled into the person’s neck, content to lay there for the remainder of their stroll.
It took Becky months to realize that the sound of bells was truly laughter, muffled and distorted through the dream’s inner workings. It took her longer to understand that this person had to be her mother. She had the same warm, brown skin, dark hair that fell in chocolatey waves past her shoulders, and a pull that made her younger self gravitate into those strong, muscular arms, the arms that could lift her up and make the world of trees look like little stubs beneath her feet.
Then there was the man, who she assumed was her father. He always appeared around the table, either making food or serving it. In the one dream he was the focus of, he had pushed her a plate of quivering purple pudding, watching as she ate it. He said nothing; a contrast to her mother, and though she couldn’t see his face, she felt the smile and his happiness drift through the air like a sweet wind.
Becky barely knew them, but the dreams gave her something to latch on and peel apart until her affections were raw, pulsing creatures that desired more. And yet they couldn’t have more. Her ship would never fly again, and she had responsibilities and friends and a new family that kept her tied to the ground.
Why didn’t you go back to them?
“I had people to protect,” she said stiffly. “I can’t just leave.”
“Why not?”
“Unlike some people -” she shot him a look of disdain - “I can’t just make selfish decisions on a whim without consequences. Besides...” she toyed with one of her robot chess pieces. It didn’t matter if he saw where they stood. The game had long ended. “...my ship’s engines are ruined. Even if I wanted to take a weekend trip and managed to work out my disappearance with my friends, family, and the villains, I wouldn’t be able to get off the ground.”
Her voice quivered like the pudding, a metaphor she instantly despised the moment she thought of it. Tobey looked speechless, and she might have laughed if she didn’t feel like bursting into tears.
She settled for both when he mumbled, “green two?”
She snorted, blinking away tears. His response was flippant and, to put it bluntly, insensitive. It was such a Tobey rejoinder and shouldn't have been surprising, but the last few hours had been one revelation after another. Perhaps she was delirious from the juxtaposition of laughing and sobbing, but she was grateful that his horribly-timed actions had stopped her from completely breaking down.
“By Jove,” she said with a sniffle, “you’ve wrecked my robot.”
He didn’t look up at her, as if sensing that she needed some time to get herself together. Though that could’ve just been a positive rendition of his actions, and not him intently analyzing his grid in an attempt to ignore her tear-stricken face, something she knew Tobey from days ago might’ve done.
But this Tobey was sitting in her living room at that very second consoling her in the most roundabout method possible, so she was inclined to believe her grief-warped reality, if only for a little while.
“Blue three?”
“No,” she murmured, smoothing out the wrinkles in her skirt. “Hey, Tobey?”
“Yes?” His mouth had snapped shut quickly, as if he weren’t sure whether to say Wordgirl, Botsford, or Becky.
“Why did you ask?”
She didn’t need to specify. He stared at the rain thrumming against the window outside, formulating an answer. “I suppose I could...relate to where you’re coming from, though the circumstances are largely different. I wanted to see how you were dealing with the absence of family.” He fiddled with his bow tie, eyes darting everywhere but her. “I know it’s barmy, but I assumed you would handle it with ease, given that you’re...”
“Wordgirl,” she finished sourly.
“Exactly. I didn’t consider that just because you were able to carry so much on your plate, your load wasn’t any less heavy. And although I hate to say we have anything in common, Botsford, you deal with that issue in the same way I do.”
One eyebrow rose. “Which is?”
“Not at all.”
“Didn’t I just talk about it now?” she countered.
“And that tallies up to a grand total of one time.”
She fingered with her sleeves, hyper-examining the little details on the game board. There was nothing Tobey found more satisfying than being right, but he didn’t appear to be relishing the victory. Instead, he kept fumbling about, extremely restless. “Same score for you, McCallister.”
“I never said mine was higher.”
Becky had nothing to say to that. Let the conversation die. Maybe his mother would come soon, and they could pretend this exchange had never occurred, except that he knew she was Wordgirl and would most likely pest her incessantly for all eternity, if he didn’t decide to spill her secret to the rest of his chummy pals in the villain society first. Her stomach clenched at the thought, and the tears burnt in her eyelids, pushing past her meager defenses. They fall quietly, too quietly compared to the raging storm of emotions ripping apart her insides. Her fingers fisted on the couch, and she knew that she had to be gentle or else the skin would split. She was too old to be making such juvenile, predictable mistakes with her powers.
But goodness , she just wanted to tear the stupid, ugly thing to shreds.
She wanted to dig her nails into the fabric and split apart the seams like one took in a breath of air. She wanted to watch as the tasteless yellow fluff pathetically drifted to the ground and was then obliterated into dust. One kick and the table would crash through the window, and glass would scatter over her but wouldn’t cut her skin, because glass was a speck and she was colossal . She wanted to fly through the walls and see the plaster crack, then the twining crevices split like ice as everything crumbled around her, and when the dust settled it would only be her in the wake of debris and destruction and utter ruin.
Becky caught herself. What was she thinking ?
“Becky?”
She leant up. Tobey gazed at her, his expression indifferent, which was a relief. Not that she cared what he thought, but she hadn’t wanted him around to witness this breakdown, and his lack of reaction was better than the relentless stream of insults she’d prepared for.
“Yes?” she croaked. Her words were thick with exhaustion, and all she’d done was sit and play a board game.
“Throw that pillow.”
The retort balanced on her lips collapsed. “What?”
“I’d offer my board game, but I won’t allow my ingenuity to be destroyed out of ire.”
“I-”
“I would also prefer if you don’t throw the pillow at me ,” he casually advised, “because it takes quite a bit of time to do my hair in the morning, and I can’t have you mussing it up. Throwing the cushion two paces to the left should be fine.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “Tobey, I can’t do that.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” he shot back. “You can’t do that? You’re Wordgirl . You’re Becky Botsford .” He said the names like they were the exact same person and not two wildly different identities.
“Tobey,” she sighed, “I can’t just let loose so easily. My superpowers could cause significant damage if I don’t think before using them. I might end up hurting more than just the wall.”
He violently swept a hand towards the window, the storm churning like her gut. “You save the miserable arses of this city every day. If you can’t throw a pillow at a wall when you feel like it – if you can’t get angry in the slightest - then this city doesn’t deserve your protection.” His voice dripped with malice.
“They - they don’t have to deserve it! It’s my job. My duty .”
“Your duty? Isn’t it also your duty to take care of yourself?”
She clutched one of the cushions, her fingers digging through it. Breathe in, breathe out. This isn’t new. “I do.”
Tobey pointedly stared at her. “No. No, Botsford, you don’t. Stop trying to be immaculate. I can tell you’re a moment’s away from popping. Throw the pillow. You’ll feel better.”
“When have you ever cared about how I feel?” she cried out, an audible slice expanding through the cushion she was holding. Tufts of filling spilled out like white blood. Her heart drummed against her chest, and her skin felt clammy and hot, like she was on fire. She’d only ever felt this angry since...well, she couldn’t remember. Irritation, annoyance, little sparks of chagrin that made her eye twitch and her sneer curl.
But this felt like an explosion waiting to happen. And Tobey was playing with the fuse.
He ran a hand through his now unkempt hair. Whatever he was trying to say, it wasn’t coming out.
“That’s what I thought,” she hissed. “You aren’t lecturing me about this right now, McCallister. You are the last person to do so.”
“I believe we’ve already brushed upon this fact,” he said warily, “but I’m a selfish person.”
Becky knew that , but his blatant admittance of it was out-of-character. He would never willingly say he had a bad quality.
“Not to say that I don’t have many other charming qualities,” he amended, “but I am selfish. The wonderfully rotten kind. I prioritize myself above all else. If I see something particularly foolish, I destroy it. Simple as that. If I’m angry, I take it out on the infrastructure. Everyone expects this behavior of me. They can’t see my true brilliance, so they don’t anticipate otherwise when I do something they don’t agree with. Not that their pea-sized brains understand what it is I’m exactly doing, but they disagree all the same.
But you, Botsford, have...other traits. I’ll admit that you’re smart. You have good grades to show for it. You help out our classmates even though you clearly have better things to do, and you do it all while discreetly fighting crime. You’ve made Fair City a safer place with your strength and dedication, though your impressive vocabulary is wasted on these mindless twits...”
Tobey cleared his throat. “What I’m trying to say is that you, someone with so many exceptional qualities, can afford to be selfish once in a while.” The edges of his mouth curled up, a ghost of a smile. “As a treat.”
Becky blinked rapidly. Her mind already spun, dizzy from unspent fury and choked exasperation. Her entire being, which had felt so furiously ready to plow through the layers of the Earth, now barely held itself together. One gust of wind and it would dissolve like dandelion fluff.
“I wouldn’t even call it selfishness, if you’re only taking care of yourself,” he continued nonchalantly. “Also - red two?”
“W-What?”
“The game.”
She’d completely forgotten about it. It was almost funny how the stakes had changed to dramatically over the course of a few hours. Peering down at her board, she replied, baffled, “that’s-that’s right.”
He hummed disapprovingly, despite the sound of her robot crumpling to its feet signaling his win. “There’s a catchphrase. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that, too?”
Tobey let out a muffled cry as her pillow collided with his face, shoving him to the ground with the sheer force of her throw. He peeled it off him, red-faced and seething.
Becky glanced at him from her spot on the sofa. She gave him an innocent smile, the first to crack through her skin. “You were the one who told me to do it. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that, too?”
He pushed himself to the ground, grumbling as he sat down. “Touche.”
The door opened, and Bob sauntered into the room, his fur matted from rain. He took one look at the two and squealed.
“It’s a long story,” she told him.
“One that I don’t have the patience for,” Tobey added unhelpfully. “Here’s a brief rundown: I won the final round.”
“Actually, I did,” Becky corrected, his words swirling in her mind.
As a treat.
“I’d love to hear how,” he asked indignantly. “Because I quite clearly recall my intelligence crippling your final robot.”
“It’s a game of luck,” she tutted.
“Skill and savvy, neither of which you can identify with-”
“What happened to ‘exceptional qualities?’”
“One can only be cordial for so long.”
“You can’t be nice for more than five minutes?”
“Does it not mean enough that I was nice for five minutes and voluntarily let you throw that horrendous piece of furnishing at my head?”
Becky was about to retort when Huggy tugged on her arm, pointing towards the window. Tobey’s mother loomed in the distance, her hulking figure walking towards the door.
“My savior,” she said wryly, savoring Tobey’s frown. “Come to rescue me from uncertain doom.”
“I’m flattered that you think I'm so dreadful,” Tobey quipped. “However, there is one thing I need to get from you before I leave.”
“Three hours of my time wasn’t enough?”
“Selfish, remember?” He rested his chin in the crux of his joined hands, something dark glinting in his sharp blue eyes. “And I believe it’s high time you started being selfish, too. Do you happen to have the blueprints for your ship?”