Chapter 18

Heather threw the magazine towards the foot of the bed in frustration and rubbed at her still bleary eyes. It lay face-down at the edge with one page hanging over the side. It slowly slid further from view before finally dropping to the floor.

Heather watched it fall and sighed.

She had not been sleeping as well as she used to lately. The change in her mother's behavior had only made it worse. She used to sleep in on holidays and weekends, and now she was up before Melinda most mornings. This bothered Melinda to no end, and was just another source of friction between them.

Though better friction than other feelings, she realized.

As if on cue with her thoughts, the bathroom door opened, and Melinda trotted out. She was still nude from having just had her shower. She barely paid any attention to Heather as she padded over to the dresser.

Heather, however, had her attention riveted on her younger sister.

It had not abated in the least. She still felt a tingling in her sex whenever she saw Melinda naked. Even now her eyes roamed over the girl's body. She felt a stronger tingle when she looked at Melinda's breasts, or when she glimpsed the shaved pussy.

Heather noticed that there was not the least bit of stubble or regrowth on the latter. She figured Melinda must be taking pains to do it regularly.

Heather watched as Melinda bent over to snatch some underwear from one of the bottom drawers. When Melinda straightened, she noticed the scrutiny and looked over to Heather. "What?"

Heather felt herself growing damp in her sex. In her frustration, she vented. "Melinda, do you have to do that? Do you have to parade around naked like that?"

Melinda stared at her older sister. "Huh? What, you expect me to take showers with my clothes on, now?" she snapped.

"You could at least put the bathrobe on."

"After you've used it? Eww."

"Well, a towel or something then."

"Crying out loud, Heather, it's just until I get across the room! Oh, wait... I know. This is going to be some joke about me being ugly, right?"

Heather took a deep breath. She wished that were true. "No, Melinda, I wasn't going to..."

Melinda turned more fully towards Heather and took a step forward. "I'll have you know that you don't have to have curly red hair or big boobs like you to look nice to a guy!"

"I never said that, Melinda, I..."

"Jason happens to think I look great. I'll remind you that I'm the one he's boinking, not you!"

Heather swallowed. "Melinda, stop it, unless you want Mom to hear that," she said in a shaky voice. "Look, I wasn't going to say any of that, okay? Shit, Melinda, get a grip."

Melinda paused and then sighed. "Sorry," she said curtly, turning away. She procured some other clothes from the dresser, slamming the drawer shut each time. "I'm just pissed at you because you had to get Mom mad at us."

"Huh? Me? I didn't do anything!"

"Then why'd she take away both our telephone privileges, huh?!" Melinda cried shrilly. "Thanks for nothing, Heather!"

"That wasn't my fault! That was right out of the blue! I have no idea why she did that!"

"Yeah, right," Melinda muttered as she pulled her panties on.

Melinda really did know that Heather didn't do anything to provoke their mother. She needed someone to blame, however, and it was useless to blame her mother. Her mother was not someone she felt she could vent to anymore. Not with that aura around her. Melinda had the crazy notion in her head that if she got her mother angry enough, her mother could somehow send the aura to attack her. She knew this was ridiculous, but the fear was persistent.

Heather suddenly pounded a single fist into the mattress and leapt off the bed. She threw open the door hard, letting it swing back and bash against the doorstop, causing a poster to fall from the wall with a clunk.

Melinda looked at this in confusion and then mounting concern. She hurriedly dressed and ran after her sister. She stopped at the top of the stairs when she saw Heather coming around the bottom step and grabbing the phone from the little table. Just as Heather was about to hit the speed-dial, her mother's voice called out from the next room.

"Heather, put the phone down." Her voice grew closer as she continued to speak. "You remember what I told you about weekend calls."

"It's Monday," Heather said tersely, hitting the speed dial button.

Penny quickly came into view. Melinda noted with some surprise that she was dressed for work. Penny reached out and pressed the "off" button on the receiver.

"I don't care, Heather. This is a holiday weekend. No calls."

Heather yanked the phone from her mother's grip. Melinda's eyes widened and she leaned over the railing for a better look.

"I need to call Diane," declared Heather. "She was very upset when I talked to her yesterday. She thinks I'm not her friend anymore. I have to talk to her."

"Let it wait until tomorrow."

"No, I can't."

"Heather, don't talk back to your mother..."

"I'll talk to you any way I damn well please."

Holy shit, Melinda thought in astonishment. This was the first time in years she could remember a row like this between Heather and their mother. Heather was usually the complete darling that could do no wrong.

Penny made a grab for the phone. Heather kept it out of reach. This repeated several times as Penny tried to speak to her daughter again.

"That's it, Heather, put the phone down now... put it... Heather... Heather!"

"Fine!" Heather shouted. "You look like you're going to work, anyway. I'll just wait until you're gone and then use the phone when you can't stop me."

Melinda's jaw dropped. Yes, that's exactly what Heather would do in the past on the rare occasion she was punished for something by restricting a privilege. She would just wait and do it anyway when her parents were not looking. Melinda just never heard Heather actually declare her defiance this openly ahead of the fact.

There was a long silence. Finally, Penny sighed. "Use the phone. And see if the price was worth that little temper tantrum. You're grounded for two weeks."

"Yeah, fine, whatever, mother," Heather said. She turned away from Penny and thumbed the speed-dial.

Penny shook her head and turned away.

Melinda quickly retreated and headed back into her room. She was astounded by what she just saw. Heather had barely blinked when their mother had grounded her! With as much as Heather liked to date and socialize, that...

Melinda furrowed her brow. She had just realized something. When was the last time Heather had gone out on a date?

As she looked back on it, she realized only now that Heather had not been on a date since she dumped Brad shortly after the House. For the first week or so afterward she could understand. They were all in something of a state of shock after the House. But since school started, nothing. True, they were worried about what was going on at the school, but Heather had not even shown a passing interest in it anymore.

Now she wondered just what was up with her sister. She realized that Heather had been profoundly changed by the House, but this didn't feel right to her.

Melinda resolved to call Jason later. If Heather could get to use the phone, so could she. And she wouldn't give a shit if she were grounded, either.

"Diane, honey, are you all right?"

Diane blinked and looked up from her cereal. "Huh?"

Janet Woodrow cocked her head to one side, black wavy hair spilling over one shoulder, and regarded her daughter with a skeptical look. "You've been awful quiet and withdrawn these last few days," she said, fixing her dark eyes on Diane. "Is there something you want to talk to me about?"

Diane paused a moment. "I'm not sure."

Janet simply nodded and took a sip of her orange juice. If there was one thing she had learned about her teenage daughter, it was that the girl needed to talk about things at her own pace. If Janet pushed it, it would make Diane shy away, or cover her true feelings with wit.

Diane was telling the truth. She was upset, but she was not sure which of the two problems was bothering her the most. The first was the perceived issue with her friendship with Heather. The second was the school nurse.

"Does this have anything to do with your friend Heather?" asked Janet.

Diane opened her mouth to reply and had to pause when the sound of a circular saw from the other side of the house drowned out her initial words.

Janet sighed and rolled her eyes. When the saw stopped, she half-turned in her seat and yelled, "Ralph, close the door to the garage! I can't hear myself think in here!"

"Yes, dear," came a resigned voice, followed by the creak and slam of a door. The next time the saw started up, it was greatly muffled.

"Sorry," Janet said. "He promised me he'd catch up with some repairs around the house today."

Diane nodded absently.

"So what is it? Something wrong with you and Heather? It's like you haven't been interested in hanging out with her as much anymore."

Diane didn't feel comfortable going there, not when there were other feelings that she had to deal with. Her mother was open-minded about a great many things, but she had no idea how Janet would react to the idea that her daughter had a possible bisexual streak in her.

But the nurse was another issue. What Heather had told her about that had truly worried her.

"Heather told me something about the school nurse," Diane said finally.

Janet paused, searching for a connection. "I guess I don't understand, honey."

"You remember me telling you about the medical program at the school?"

Janet hesitated again. "Um... I think so..." She had to pause another moment before finally nodding slowly. "Yes, now I remember. Are they still doing that?"

"Well, yeah, of course. Mother, they only just started a few days ago."

"Yes, of course. I don't know why I didn't remember that at first."

"In fact, you weren't all that crazy about it."

Janet nodded again. She thought it odd that she had not recalled that immediately. "Yes, that's right. I'm still not, but, well, if that's what the school wants..."

"Heather told me that there may be something wrong with this nurse, that she might not be a real nurse."

Janet stared at her daughter with a suddenly very serious look in her eyes. "Wait a minute. Not a real nurse? What do you mean by that?"

"That's just it, I'm not sure. Heather had to get off the phone before she could explain it any further."

Janet leaned back in her chair. "Does she have any proof?"

"I don't know. She said she and her friends were trying to get proof."

"Why don't they just go to the principal with this?"

Diane shrugged. "I don't know. This is the first time she's mentioned it, mother."

Janet sighed through her nose. "You know, I really am not at all pleased with this policy," she said. As she continued to think hard about this, the fuzziness that had settled into her mind about the medical program disappeared. Now her thoughts came in crystal clear on the matter, as did her opinion. "No, I am not pleased about it at all."

"I remember Heather being upset about this when I talked to her last week," said Diane. "She was worried about being in the room alone with this nurse."

Janet looked thoughtful for a few moments. "I think I'm going to call up the school tomorrow morning and ask a few questions about this medical program."

"Um, maybe you better not mention the stuff Heather told me..."

"I won't, dear. These are my own concerns, really. I can't for the life of me figure out why I didn't think of them before."

Diane nodded. At least she felt a little better about that problem. She would leave it in her mother's hands.

Unlike a lot of teenage girls, Diane had a very good relationship with her mother. She trusted her mother not to interfere in her own life too much, so that any questions that were asked Diane knew were well-intentioned. So she was perfectly willing to defer this matter to Janet.

The only odd thing was that Diane did indeed remember her mother voicing these concerns before, but for whatever reason, they were not acted upon. Janet got distracted by something with Ralph, and after that was over, she seemed to drop the matter. Diane had assumed that her mother had decided it was okay and had left it that.

"So is there anything else you need to tell me?" asked Janet.

Diane paused a moment and then shook her head. "No, that was my main concern, I..."

The phone rang.

Janet stood up and picked up the kitchen extension. "Hello?... Oh, yes, she's right here, Heather, hold on..."

Diane looked up quickly and jumped out of her chair. Janet gave her daughter a small smile as she handed over the receiver.

"Hello?" Diane said. Her mother quickly slipped out of the room to give her daughter some privacy.

"Hi, Diane. God, Diane, I'm really sorry about yesterday. Mom was really being difficult for some reason."

"It's okay, Heather.'

"No, it isn't. You're right, I have been neglecting you, Diane. I'm really, really sorry about that."

Diane managed a smile, twisting the cord around her finger. "Really, it's okay," she said in a softer voice.

"Listen, you doing anything today? If not, why don't we go out somewhere? Just find some place to hang out and talk, okay?"

"Sure! Sure, I'd love that."

"I need to get my mind off things..."

"You mean like the school nurse?"

A sigh. "Yeah. Especially that."

Diane debated with herself briefly about whether to tell Heather what she had said to her mother. She decided not to risk Heather being upset over having revealed it in case it was meant to be a secret.

"Feel free to talk more about it with me, Heather," said Diane. "If you need to."

"We'll see. I'd rather just catch up."

Diane grinned. "Feeling out of the gossip loop?"

Heather chuckled. "Yeah, something like that. I'd be interested in what I missed."

"Oh, I'm sure I can scrounge up something."

"Scrounge up? Diane, you can tell me more in one day than most news services can cover in a week."

Diane giggled. "Yeah, I'm bad."

"You sure are. I'll meet you at ten?"

"Ten's fine."

"Okay, see ya then. Bye."

"Bye."

Diane hung up the phone with a wide smile on her face.

"You're going out?"

Heather flinched as she hung up the phone and cast a startled look up at Melinda, who was leaning over the railing at the top of the stairs. "You were listening to my call, runt?"

"Just the last part," Melinda said. "You're going out?"

Heather sighed. "You're not going to invite Jason over, are you?"

"Now, why would I do a silly thing like that?" She smiled sweetly.

"Mom may be at work today, Melinda, but Dad's still going to be home. He's working in the garage."

"Yes, I know. But he'll let me have Jason over, because I'm daddy's little girl and I know how to push his buttons."

"You have no shame about that, do you, runt?"

"Nope, not one bit, Miss Bubblehead."

Heather sighed and shook her head. "You're not going to try anything with him, are you?"

Melinda blinked innocently at her older sister. "Why... whatever do you mean?"

"Stop it. Don't pull something that's going to get you into really big trouble, because it will get me into trouble along with you."

Melinda rolled her eyes as she came down the stairs."Look, just don't worry about it, okay? I'm not stupid. I just miss having time alone with him."

Heather eyed Melinda suspiciously.

Melinda recognized the look immediately and clicked her tongue. "Heather, I've told you before, stop acting like Mom."

Her voice faltered a bit at the end. They both knew that even Mom was not acting like Mom anymore.

"All right, fine," said Heather in a lower voice. "I'm sorry I got on your case about it. I just don't want to mess anything up. Bad enough we have to mess with everything that's going on at school."

"Yeah, I know. And maybe I want to forget about that for a bit."

Heather gave her sister a wan smile. "Yeah... you and me both, runt."

Melinda returned the smile as the two of them reached a rare understanding. She stepped over to the phone and picked up the receiver as Heather bound up the stairs. She waited until her sister had gone before punching in the speed dial for Jason's number.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Jason, it's me."

"Melinda!" There was a sigh of relief at the other end. "Damn, I've been worried about you."

"You have? Why?"

"I tried to call last night and your Mom said you and Heather weren't accepting any calls."

"Oh, that," Melinda said with an exasperated sigh. She lowered her voice. "Thank Heather for that. She says she didn't do anything to piss Mom off, but you know how she is sometimes."

"I heard that, runt!" Heather called out from their bedroom.

"Hold on, Jason..." She clamped the phone to her breast. "Shut up and stop listening in!" Melinda yelled back.

Melinda paused until she heard the bedroom door close.

"Sorry about that," said Melinda into the phone. "Miss Bubblehead again."

Jason actually laughed, as if relieved to hear Melinda talking about her sister like that again.

"So why were you worried?"

"Because I thought maybe Nyssa was preparing to do something against you two."

Melinda tensed. "Jason, you don't really think she would do that, do you?" she asked in a tiny voice.

"Well, if nothing unusual has happened since yesterday..."

"Only the thing with Mom cutting off the phone for us. Nothing else has happened. Shit, don't scare me with stuff like that."

"Sorry, I just think you both should know about anything suspicious, and I thought her cutting off your phone suddenly was very suspicious."

Melinda bit her lip. "Yeah, it was kind of unusual. But... I-I don't want to think about her being controlled by the school nurse, okay?"

"Well, it's probably not true if you two are okay, but now I'm mystified as to why she did it."

"Never mind that, Jason. Look, can you come over today? Please? I really need to see you."

"See me?"

Melinda detected the bit of playfulness in his voice. She giggled softly but then sighed. "I wish it could be more. Mom and Heather will be out, but Dad's home."

"Oh." The disappointment was obvious in his voice. "Well, that's okay. We'll figure out something else fun to do."

Unfortunately there was only one "fun" activity that was on Melinda's mind at that moment, and it was making her skin flush and her pussy tingle madly. "Yeah, fun," she said in a weak voice. "When can you get here? Heather's leaving by ten."

"It will have to be right after lunch. At least then my Dad will be tied up watching the ballgame and won't be paying much attention to me."

"Okay, I'll see you then. Bye, Jason."

"Bye, Melinda."

Heather and Diane emerged from the burger-joint, giggling madly at a shared bit of gossip between them. Heather made another comment to Diane that made her double over with laughter, nearly causing the soda she still held to spill onto the sidewalk.

"Oh my God... he actually... did that... ?" Diane panted, wiping tears from her eyes as she kept giggling.

"On the first freaking date!" Heather declared.

This just set Diane off again. Heather started laughing as well. She had forgotten how much fun it was to just hang out with Diane and gossip.

Heather had managed to divorce her mind from what was going on at the school. Otherwise she found herself trying to come up with too many possibilities about what was happening and what might happen. It was too much for her to bear without a temporary respite from it.

In addition, she felt the false sense of security a lot of people felt on a day like this when under stress: it was a holiday. For all intents and purposes, the Darkness was required to take a day off as well.

"Oh, God... what a dork..." Diane said, still giggling.

Heather just grinned and sipped her drink as they wandered towards the intersection.

"Wow, I never knew that about him," Diane said when she finally regained her composure.

"I thought I had told you at some point." Heather shrugged. "Oh well, now you know. So don't ever date that guy."

"Well, I never intended to anyway. He takes a shower, what, maybe once a month?"

Heather smirked. "So your turn. What's the next thing you got for me?"

"Hmm. I think I might have told you everything... oh, no, wait. I did hear something but I'm not sure. Might not be true."

Heather laughed. "When did that stop us?"

Diane grinned. "True. Okay. Well, you know Debby Vance?"

"Hmm... sounds familiar, but..."

"Oh, you know her. She was the one I told you about over the summer. She had that creep of a boyfriend that tried to make a sleazy move on her."

By this time Heather already remembered who Debby was, for she was one of those that she and Melinda had spotted with a weak aura at church. "Uh, yeah... now I remember. Um... who was her boyfriend again?" she asked, dreading the answer.

"James Nells."

Heather's heart felt as if it had skipped a beat. "Uh... who?"

"James Nells. You know him. Dweeby looking, sorta sandy-brown hair, bit of a smart-ass."

"Um, yeah, I know him," Heather said in a lower voice. She forced a smile and tried desperately to put what she knew about him out of her mind. "So what's the deal?"

"Well, you know how Debby dumped him for good? Never wanted to see him again? Never wanted him to even look at her again? Well, I heard she's back together with him."

"Oh, really?" Heather asked, trying to sound casual.

"But that's not the weirdest part, Heather, which is why I think this may be bogus info. Get this: Not only was Debby seen following James around like a little puppy dog, but her sister Karen was with them. And she was acting the same way! They both were just, like, hanging on his every word."