Gwen dragged herself out of bed, wincing as she slipped and put weight on her legs. She stifled the cry that tried to force its way past her lips. If her foster parents heard her cry out again, they'd insist on rebuilding her bedroom.

You need it. You're handi-capable, after all.

She swore at herself quietly as she slipped her wrists into the cuffs of her crutches. She could walk without them, but balancing was an iffy proposition. Falling to the ground was something she didn't care to repeat. It happened far too often as it was. If she wasn't careful, she'd wind up on the floor every few minutes. If that happened, there would be no chance to avoid the whole ‘room rebuild, treated like a cripple’ kind of thing.

You're going to be treated like a cripple because you are one.

Across the room she staggered, step by step, until she reached the bathroom. Quietly, she considered the bottle of tiny pills in the medicine cabinet. One would take the pain away, take the edge off at least. Two would wrap her mind and body in cotton batting, thick and soft. She would look and sound like an idiot if she tried to talk, but nothing short of amputation would reach her. Even that would be dulled, blunted, a pragmatic concern, not an unthinkable torture. Three and she would be unconscious; all that would be left for surgical prep would be the sterilization.

More than that, and the only prep needed would be the mortuary.

Do it, coward. Tip that bottle back and spin the wheel again. It can't be worse than this.

Gwen carefully filled the plastic cup next to the sink with water. After a long, slow breath, she tossed it into her face. Spluttering, she set the cup down and began her morning routine. She painstakingly choreographed each step, each motion to minimize her movements. Some things, like brushing her teeth, were painful no matter what she did. Others, like brushing her hair, she did away with completely by having the hairdresser put her long, flame red locks in tight cornrows. It meant weekly trips to the hair salon, and her braids were usually still damp when she reached school, but she was headstrong, not masochistic.

Sure you're not. That's why you don't take your pills.

She un-strapped her crutches and left them leaning against the sink. After brushing her teeth and washing her face, she moved into the shower. She sat down on the small seat for most of the shower, then bent down and completed her bathing. Too often she'd been lumped in with kids who were incapable of caring for themselves.

You'll never be like that, will you? Until the pain gets too much for you to move, right?

She climbed out of the shower, each movement careful, slow, avoiding the slippery tile and keeping her feet to the traction matting. With more force than usual, she punched the button that started heated air flowing through the room. One of her few concessions, the fans dried her like a giant version of a 'sanitary' rest room fan, while she stood, still, in the center of the room.

It was humid today, and drying off took longer than it normally did. Light filtered through her bedroom window curtains. If she didn't hurry, the bus would leave before she arrived at the stop. Just another way Van Buren High tried to maintain the image of a normal high school. Of course, at a normal high school, the regular school bus wouldn't have a handicapped lift. It wouldn't have bulletproof polycarbonate in the windows. It wouldn't have an armed driver, or an armed 'teacher's aide' in each of the back seats.

Woolgathering now? Going to cut again today?

She'd never cut school in her life. She had a lot of days out at the doctor. She had a standing medical excuse to stay home. She'd used it twice; once when her foster mom had decided to spike her food with painkillers, the second time when she'd fallen down the stairs rushing for the bus. She wasn't about to use it again today. She had a chronic condition, she was going to be in agonizing pain every day of her life until something pressed too hard on the wrong nerve and she died, but she refused to be a victim.

You're not a victim to your body, but you're certainly a victim of fate, aren't you?

"Shut up," she muttered to herself as she strapped her crutches back on to her arms. Her fingers slipped a little on the slick vinyl of the straps, and she ruthlessly snugged them down tight. The bus wouldn't wait for her, and she wasn't about to miss an entire day of school. She took a step, leaning heavily on her crutches for support; a four-point stance was less likely to wind her up on her...

Look out!

The humidity was worse than she thought. She didn't see the puddle on the floor until it was too late. Her right crutch slipped out entirely when she put her weight on it, and once more gravity reminded her why she moved slowly, carefully, with calm consideration. Agony tore through her, and she lost all sense of time, or place, or person.

I'm sick of reminding you. Slow and careful. I'm cursed, remember?

Gwen unclenched her jaw. As a measure of how much the impact hurt, her lip, bitten through, didn't really register. Dimly, she heard her foster mom's voice calling up the stairs.

"Are you ok, Gwen sweetie?"

A breath to focus, a breath to concentrate, and a deep breath, pain spiking, to call down the stairs in a faux cheerful voice, just a touch of frustration showing through.

"I'm fine, Mom. I just dropped my friggin' books on the floor."

"Watch the language, sweetie. Do you need some help?"

"No, Mom. I'm fine."

"Just holler if you do."

"I will!"

You won't, and you know it.

"Shut up."

You're masochistic, deceitful, prideful, and you hear voices in your head.

"So does everyone. It's called thinking. Now shut up."

Angry now, she pulled the crutches off and dragged herself to her feet, scaling the bathroom cabinet like a cliff. Handhold by handhold she pulled herself upward until she leaned on the counter, staring at the incongruous bright green eyes in a face so dark it might have been carved of jet.

The skin was a legacy of her father, a native of sub-Saharan Africa. If her mother had ever found out exactly where, she'd not confided in Gwen, nor had she left the information in her journals. The eyes were her mother's, as was her hair, a red only slightly lighter than the blood that ran down her chin from her split lip.

She opened the medicine cabinet for a gauze pad to sop up the worst of the blood. The bottle was there, beckoning. Inside, there were thirty pills, each slightly smaller around than a pencil eraser. Thirty days of pain dulled enough to be functional. Short days, but did anyone do anything for more than four hours at a stretch?

You'd like to do things with Artemis for more than four hours at a stretch.

"Shut. Up."

Touched a nerve, did I?

Two pills and that nagging voice, the one that drove her, the one that goaded her, the one that forced her to look at herself in the worst possible light no matter what that meant, would go away. She would be in a drugged stupor, barely coherent, but it might be worth it.

That's right. Chug 'em down. You're a cripple, no one expects you to be coherent.

Her teachers knew her. She always sat in the front row. She always answered every question they asked, even when no one had an answer. Her answers always were thought out, even when they weren't right. If she showed up out of her mind on drugs, they would notice.

Her foster parents couldn't afford the tuition at Martin Van Buren. Gwen qualified for entry into the school based on her parents' professions; both had been diplomats to the States when she was born. She qualified again on her foster parents' jobs; he was a mathematician with some obscure government Agency, and she was a linguist with the same Agency. However, despite its pretensions to normalcy, MVB was a private school. While many of the students had their tuition paid for by one nation or another, Gwen had no such support.

She worked every summer during junior high studying for the entrance exams. In an effort to live up to the school's motto, the student with the highest score on the exam earned a full academic scholarship. That scholarship had several caveats. Gwen had to maintain a four point oh grade point average in all her academic subjects. She had to avoid all appearance of impropriety, and coming into class stoned would certainly appear improper.

So would canoodling with the school's cheer captain.

Gwen looked down to see the bottle of pills in her hand. With a stifled cry of frustration and rage, she threw them into her room. Once she stopped shaking, she staggered step by step into her bedroom, where her clothes lay on the dresser where she'd left them the night before.

Item by item, step by memorized step, she put her clothing on. Her movements, constrained by how little she could flex without pain, resembled someone putting on something far heavier, making her look and feel like she was putting on armor. First were her panties. They were of a style she'd first found in an erotica catalog; tied at the side rather than forcing her to bend down and reach her toes. Her fingers ached as she tied them, but that small ache was better than the shooting pains when she tried to reach her toes to slip something over them. Next came her bra. Again, she endured an ache in her fingers to avoid outright pain in her back and sides. Searching a formal evening dress catalog had found her a bra with not only a front clasp, but shoulder straps that could easily be detached on the front. She routinely undid one side when taking them off and redid it the next day to avoid having to stretch her arm into an uncomfortable position. She'd considered removing the straps entirely, but that seemed too much like giving up.

You really need to learn to choose your battles.

"That doesn't mean choosing just the easy ones."

Next came her blouse. Sleeves loose enough to slip into easily gave her the appearance of someone who spent far too much time at ren faire, probably thought she was the reincarnation of Cleopatra, and believed in the healing power of crystals.

Because my own reincarnation is much more likely, right?

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"You could shut up and think of something productive."

The shelf full of crystals really adds to the ambience of the room, too.

Angrily, Gwen cinched down the ties on her skirt. It was another find from an erotica catalog; like her underwear it tied down one side. She compensated and avoided looking like a total tramp by wearing two, so each covered the side the other didn't. The layered skirts made her look even more like a reject from the sixties, but she wasn't immobile from pain by the time she finished dressing. Resting a moment leaning against her bed, Gwen found her hand wrapped around the bottle of tiny pills.

Go on. You'll look good when they find you.

"Oh, shut the hell up."

She stared at the bottle. The side was covered with warnings and specifications in Spanish. Gwen had taken enough years of the language in school to know that the bottle wasn't from a legitimate pharmacy, but it was mocked up to look like it was from one. It had cost her foster parents each quite a few favors to get the pills made, to get them slipped through customs, to get the legitimate looking labels for them. She still wasn't sure how her mother managed to get more every few months, but she'd looked so pathetic when Gwen refused to take them that Gwen started to lose a few down the toilet every few months. After all that effort, all that sincere concern, Gwen wasn't about to repay them by overdosing on a gift they'd given out of nothing more than care for her mental well-being.

Sad that they'd care so much about something that isn't really there in the first place.

Sighing, Gwen shoved her feet into the loafers she kept just under the edge of the bed, where she could tease them out with her feet when she was ready for them. Looking at herself in the mirror, she sighed again. She didn't look like a cripple, until someone saw the exaggerated care with which she moved. Of course, the first time she'd met her soul mate had been at the mandatory in all but name school sports tryouts.

Oh, Lord. Here we go again about the soul mate thing.

"You've never told me I'm wrong."

For once, the nagging voice in her head was quiet, pensive, staring at the reflection in the mirror as she shouldered her purse. The bottle of pills went into the inner pocket. That done, she slowly walked to the bathroom, collected her crutches, and strapped them back to her forearms. As she left the room, she hooked the small bookcase beside her bed with one of them, tipping it over and spilling the books across the floor.

Foster-Mom's voice floated up from the kitchen.

"Sweetie, are you sure you're ok?"

"Yeah, Mom." A theatrical sigh echoed down the steps. "I just spilled the books on the floor again, and tipped the case trying to put them back in."

"Again?"

"Yeah, Mom. Again. I'm running late for the bus. Can you pick them up for me?"

Mom stuck her head around the end of the stairs to look up at Gwen, who was just beginning her laborious descent.

"Sure I can, Sweetheart. Do you want to replace those old shelves? They're really meant for someone much younger than you."

"I know, Mom, but I still like them. They remind me of... I just like them, OK?"

"Of course, Gwennie. I'm just worried, this is the third time this month they've fallen over."

"I'll try to be more careful."

Mom kept watching her, trying to hide her wince each time Gwen's face tightened with pain.

"Are you sure you don't want us to get one of those electric chair things?"

"Sure Mom. Call Texas, maybe they can ship up Ol' Sparky."

The hurt in Mom's eyes, immediate and unfeigned, was enough to make Gwen feel she deserved every jolt of pain as she worked her way down the stairs.

"I'm sorry, Mom. It's just getting to me today."

"Did you take your pill today, honey?"

"Not yet Mom. I'm not sure I could finish dressing if I did."

"You could always call me up to help."

"No! I refuse to be a cripple."

"I didn't say you were."

"I know, Mom. But if I can't dress myself, then I'll think I am."

"I understand. Can you make it to your chair while I get your lunch?"

"I can make my own lunch, Mom."

"Plenty of High School kids have bag lunches. Would you prefer I give you lunch money?"

"No thanks, Mom. It's Friday, and I'm not in the mood for sushi. I'm sorry I snapped. Lunch would be great."

Mom went to get her lunch, and Gwen worked her way down the steps without further mishap. The door to the garage was only a few steps from the stairs, and years before her foster parents had converted it for her to use as a den. They'd left the garage door, and her wheelchair sat just inside. All in all, it was a fair compromise; neither of her foster parents was wealthy, which meant they couldn't rebuild the whole house to accommodate her. In addition, Gwen refused to discuss some of the changes they'd suggested. It was her who vetoed the idea to retrofit the garage with a full bathroom and bedroom, letting her avoid the treachery of the stairs entirely. She'd done the same with the idea of a stair lift.

But you're not masochistic.

"I refuse to allow my condition to define me."

She muttered her mantra over and over as she lowered herself into her chair, removed, collapsed, and stowed her crutches, and buckled herself in. By the time the garage door was ratcheting upward, pulled by the rickety old opener, she had almost convinced herself it was true. Just before she reached for her wheels, Mom came through the door to the house carrying a canvas bag.

"Here you go, sweetie. Meatloaf sandwiches again, I'm afraid. I wish I had time to do up a salad for you."

Gwen forced a smile for Mom. Mom acted like it was real. For a moment, both were convinced that the other accepted their ruse as reality, and all was, if not right with the world, a convincing replica.

"That's ok, Mom. I'm not really going to fit into the latest fashions in any case."

"Honey, that's baloney."

"I thought you said it was meatloaf?"

"You know what I meant, you smart-Alec you. You barely eat enough to keep a bird alive."

"I don't exercise as much as a bird."

"Sweetheart, you do more work getting yourself to school than the other kids do in gym class."

"Mass times distance equals work. I've got less mass than most of them, so I do less work, Mom."

"Which still proves my point; you weigh less than your classmates. If they can fit into the latest thing, so can you. You just let your dad and I know what you want, and we'll see what we can do."

"So I can look pretty sitting in my chair along the wall at the dance?"

"Don't underestimate yourself, Gwen. Some of those boys at Johnson High would love to date a girl as pretty as you."

"Sure. I can't walk home, I'm not rich enough for my own car, and I'm pretty sure my painkillers would screw up any tests for roofies."

Gwen's foster mother just stood there, looking appalled, until Gwen reached for the canvas bag.

"I'm sorry, Mom. It's really bad today. I have a test, so I can't take anything now, but I'll take something on the way home."

"Ok, sweetie. Give me a call from the bus and I'll come out to get you."

Lying to your mother now?

A swift peck on the cheek, and Gwen was rolling down the drive, letting the chair build up a little speed. Braking with one hand to turn herself on to the sidewalk, she used the other to wave to her mother. After a few pushes to be sure she had enough momentum to roll her to the corner at the bottom of the slope, she hit the button on the garage door remote. Looking in one of the rear views Lane had bolted to the arms of her chairs, she saw Mom standing there until the door hid her from view.

***

The bus pulled away from the stop as Gwen rounded the corner. Her fists clenched on the arms of her chair, and pain shot through her entire body as she tensed. In a moment of pain-induced clarity, Gwen realized that she hadn't been lying to her mother; the pain really was worse today.

It happened. If she got sick, she wound up with the normal aches anyone did, just layered on top of her existing pain. She'd never not known when her period was going to happen; twelve hours before her guts felt like she'd been run through with a dull branding iron. If she did something that left a bruise or strain, it would hurt like a fresh wound until it healed.

Other than her fall this morning, nothing came to mind. She wasn't due for another two weeks. She wasn't running a fever. The fall had been bad, but she'd mostly managed to catch herself. The sad part about her condition was that she never seemed to lose sensitivity.

That's because it's a curse, not a condition.

Sighing, Gwen shoved herself forward. Once she was rolling forward at a decent rate, one she could maintain with one hand, she pulled out her cell phone. Speed dial was a wonderful thing.

"Hi. This is Gwen MacAdams. I missed my bus today. I'm going to be late. No, I don't need the bus to turn around; that will just make everyone late. No need to send a car. I'll check in when I arrive. I'm sorry for being a bother, could you let my teachers know I'll be late? Thanks."

Not masochistic, we're just wheeling our way to a school that would turn the bus around, or even send a van for us, just because it's our own fault we missed the bus.

There was only one real hill between the MacAdams' and Van Buren High, and it wasn't high, but it was painfully long. Coming home was relatively easy; all Gwen had to do was get to the top of the hill Van Buren was just on the other side of. Getting to school, on the other hand, required nearly an hour of hard pushing before she reached the crest of the hill, after which she could just about roll to school.

Mom and Dad would pay for tutors. We could probably get our diploma via correspondence and get into one of those online schools.

Gwen ignored the nagging voice that gave her all the reasons her perseverance was stupid. Ignored the voice that told her that there were easier ways to do things. Ignored the voice that cajoled her to take a break, to call Mom for a ride. Ignored the voice that pleaded with her to give her burning arms a rest. She must not, could not, would not miss a day of school, or show weakness in getting to school.

It's her, isn't it? That's the only reason we keep getting up, keep getting out of bed. Just to see her. Pathetic.

It was pathetic, she realized. It was also depressingly, exhilaratingly normal. As the crest of the hill hove into view, a much-needed endorphin high rushed through her. She wasn't sure whether the reason was physical, from the exertion, or mental, from the realization that the only thing pathetic about her was pathetic in the same way every teenager in America was. She liked someone, and they didn't know she existed.

You're utterly cracked, you know.

Gwen realized that she might be right. She might be cracked. But if so, she was cracked in a way that let her believe, if only for a little while, that she had triumphed. She wasn't a cripple. She wasn't a freak. She wasn't cursed. She wasn't the reincarnation of a betrayer damned to be aware of her own damnation while not being able to believe it. She was just a normal teenager.

She crested the hill riding that high, a grin on her face, and was the only one to see the gateway open, directly between her and the school.

Look out!

It started as a searing point of rainbow light. Then it twisted, scintillating, and stretched itself into a line. Next it rotated, expanding to become a circle drawn on the air, behind which lurked a veritable wall of fanged, clawed, scaled death. Finally, the circle inflated like a balloon, and demons straight from a canine hell came pouring out onto the grounds.

Pray!

Gwen was a rational young woman. Her intent, should she live long enough, was to pursue a degree in science: chemistry, biology, or both. She believed in logic, in the power of her mind and senses, in reality. She didn't believe in magic, in gods, in demons. She stared at the things as they loped slowly across the green, languidly hunting students who had been on the lawn in front of the main entrance. Her hands clamped down and shoved her backwards as one saw her and lunged.

Blinding pain seared through her calf, but Gwen was used to pain. She also didn't need her sight to clamp down on the brakes of her chair. After only a few moments of clamping the brakes down, pain flooded through her hands. The demon thing pulled her backward, dragging her slowly toward the scintillating sphere which even now faded from view. Somehow Gwen knew that if she crossed into that volume she would be pulled into the world from which these things came.

I said pray!

Gwen didn't believe in magic, or gods, or demons. She believed in science. A hysterical giggle slipped from her lips, ruthlessly quashed. She was a cripple, but there was nothing wrong with her mind. In fact, a lifetime spent dealing with crippling pain had sharpened her mind rather than dulling it. Perhaps sharpened it by breaking it, but sharpened it nonetheless.

"Fine. I'll do science to it. Observation; a horde of furred, scaled, quadrupeds of unknown origin just appeared above my school. Hypothesis; mythical references to demons refer to these things. Proposed experiment; expose a sample creature to a substance purported to affect demons in some way."

There remained one problem. Gwen was a brilliant girl, possessed of a will of iron, and with a tolerance for pain that had been exercised until it was of epic proportions, but there were also things she was not. She wasn't vain; she didn't wear jewelry, so she had no silver. She wasn't superstitious, she didn't carry any good luck charms, of cold iron or any other substance. She wasn't the hippy she dressed like; what she knew of herbs began and ended with those which were later refined for use in pharmaceuticals. She wasn't religious, she didn't know any prayers.

She was, however, being dragged inch by inch toward a portal to whatever Hell these things came from.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent. Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help. Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.

Fear, fire, foes! Knight, to me!