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fpb“What happens to the world, if all the heroes lose?”
(Jack Kirby – Captain America 211)
As any car owner will tell you, to properly dust and clean a car is a demanding job. Any car, even the simplest, has a million little corners and hidden spots, that the eye does not usually even see, and where bugs and dustballs can nestle undisturbed. So it was in the little but hard-working Nissan that Laura Latini had driven to Heathrow to pick up a young American girl who wished to reach Hogsmeade. And so it was that, not far from Dawn’s feet as they rested, stretched out ahead of her – she had taken off her shoes for comfort, and only thin silk lay between them and the car floor – nor yet from Laura’s short deformed legs, a number of insects hid and buzzed. Insects… or things like insects.
“So you’re an American witch?” said Laura to Dawn Summers, as they drove north along the M1 motorway towards Scotland.
“I guess… I don’t know. I have done some magic. I banished a demon once.”
“You… Hey, that’s strong magic!”
“I didn’t do it right. I trashed the house and injured myself. And I’m not sure that the Big Bad who owned the demon didn’t want it that way anyway.”
“Rubbish. Demons never go away unless banished. Anyway, Dawn, if you did magic, you’re a witch.”
“You say that like it was a rule.”
“Of course it is. Didn’t you know? The difference between witches and Muggles… Muggles are…”
“…I know, ordinary people.”
“Well, we think we’re ordinary. We think it’s Muggles who are weird. Anyway, Muggles are people who cannot do magic. Cannot do it, period. It’s just a natural disability, like being born blind.”
“What do you mean? I mean… if an ordinary guy, a Muggle I mean, wanted to learn magic… they couldn’t?”
“They wouldn’t even think of it, Dawn. Not off their own bat. Muggles are just plain blind to magic. They only ever find out if they marry a wizard or a witch by chance…. And even then, they can’t do a thing about it.”
Laura Latini carried on with a meditative air. “There is a lot of prejudice among us against Muggles and mixed marriages… It’s nonsense, mostly. But if you think how unhappy many mixed marriages must be, with one partner completely cut out of the important things in the other’s life… you can see how the prejudice arose. I’m surprised more mixed marriages don’t end in divorce.”
Dawn’s mind was still struggling rebelliously with the concept of innate magic. “Look, we always thought Willow was a Muggle until she started reading Giles’ books. Would she have stayed a Muggle if she hadn’t met him?”
Laura’s eyes went wide and round. “Oh, God, I’d forgotten. You actually are a friend… of Willow Rosenberg?”
………………………………………………………………………………
An elegant, youngish, shaven-headed black man sat in the sun outside a bar in Santa Coleta, trying to make his Bloody Mary last and wondering what to do with himself. Suddenly someone spoke his name:
“Principal Wood? Principal Robin Wood?”
The tall, polite young man with the Midwestern accent, Wood noticed, wore his suit and tie very badly – like someone more used to overalls, or army fatigues. Wood could not place him; he could have been a young farmer visiting neighbours, or one of the less rambunctious kinds of soldier, or even a young preacher. The one thing he was clearly not was a member of Wood’s own urban background; yet, Wood had guessed, with surprising certainty, he had something to do with Buffy.
Riley Finn considered the other man in turn, drawing on an experience rather more extensive and cynical than his ingenuous, fresh-faced looks suggested. Young for a Principal, he thought. Muscles under that shirt; in excellent training. Authoritative – guess being a Principal breeds it in you. Definitely a commander rather than a follower. A moody, powerful face, suggesting a secretive inner life, yet somehow indefinably trustworthy. He was silent and he was reticent, but he was not… Riley groped for the word… twisted. He was used to making up his mind alone; he would not give himself away, he would reach his own decisions, but he would not be cruel or pursue personal agendas. Soldiers would trust him. Riley had served under officers like him, and trusted them.
“The name is Finn – Captain Riley Finn, U.S. Marines. I guess we have a friend in common.”
……………………………………………………………………………
“My friend? Well, she was, certainly… I still mind terribly…”
“Since she tried to destroy the world?”
“No. Oh, no! That was all perfectly understandable. We all forgave her for that. No, I mean, since she took my sister to bed…. Careful! You’ll have us against those trees!”
“Sorry… Just an automatic movement. Are you telling me…?”
“I am.”
“Let’s see if I get this right. The legendary Willow Rosenberg is a lesbian.”
“Yes.”
“And her lover is the Slayer.”
“Hm-hm.”
“You know, that’s quite a bit of news… it’s like being told that David Beckham has a boyfriend and that it is Tony Blair.”
“Oh! I hadn’t thought of it that way… you see, I was only seeing it from my viewpoint.”
“And you don’t like it.”
“And you don’t like me not liking it?”
“Me? I don’t know enough, Dawn…”
“You know, I still haven’t understood why you are using a car to drive me to Scotland. Aren’t there magical ways?”
“And you wouldn’t be trying to change the subject, would you?”
……………………………………………………………………………………………
“We were interested to hear you had taken up the Sunnydale job. And even more interested to hear you had employed Buffy Summers as a student counsellor. You see, we had heard of you before.”
“Do tell?”
“Eight years ago you began your career in Santa Barbara. During your period there, vampire deaths dropped significantly. Two years after that, you became the youngest assistant Principal in the state of California, after getting your PhD from UC Berkeley while working full-time. At this time, we started hearing about a black, free-lance vampire hunter in the LA area. Three years ago, you moved to Fresno to get your first headship in a failing inner-city school. You were unable to turn it around in spite of your best efforts, but your presence there coincided with the complete collapse of the vampire presence in Fresno, Clovis, Easton, Sanger and Fowler. One particularly intractable vampire nest in Castle Mountain also went out of business about this time – curiously, they are last heard of shortly before you took a summer holiday.”
“Ah, yes. A walking holiday in the hills, as I recall. Very enjoyable – till I’d got my PhD, I’d never had a holiday for five years.”
“Three captured Hostiles again tell us about a black vampire hunter – tall, bald and slant-eyed. Then we find that you are pulling every string in sight to get the job at the rebuilt and expanded high school in Sunnydale. Well, we were interested, so we did a little string-pulling of our own. We had an interest in Sunnydale ourselves.”
“Did you? And I did not hear of it? I usually get to find out this sort of thing.”
“Our Sunnydale facility was mothballed at the time. We relied on Miss Summers and her friends to keep the vampire population within reasonable bounds… however, an extra asset such as yourself on the ground certainly would not hurt. Then, of course, next thing we knew, you had hired Miss Summers – an extraordinary step for an untrained young woman, especially since we know that you insist on professional competence among your collaborators.”
“Miss Summers was extremely competent at the duties I envisaged for her.”
“I dare say. I found that out myself. Well, the point is, Principal, that Sunnydale is now destroyed – and so is your school, and our facility. They say, in an earthquake – though the rest of Southern California suffered hardly at all. Funny kind of an earthquake, that…”
Wood leaned forwards. “Now look, Captain, this is all great fun. So you know about me – well, as a taxpayer, I would be disappointed if you didn’t. And the fact that you are talking to me like this means that you have no problem with what I do. Great. But what are you doing here, and why are you talking to me?”
“I was hoping you would ask. But I have to ask a few more background questions first.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
“There are plenty of magical means to cross space in an instant, from Floo powder to Portkeys. The fact is that some are fallible, and practically all are disagreeable, especially to beginners. I just thought you had had enough traumas of late, and you might like a long relaxing drive in a Muggle car… Plus, I rather enjoy it myself.”
“I know… until recently, I’d been counting the days to when I’d be old enough for a driving license.” Dawn looked at Laura with some interest. Giles had not only acted very ruffled around her, he had practically warned her against her – though not in so many words. But she could see nothing wrong with this person – she’s sharp, intelligent, fun, and even thoughtful, it seems. What was his problem, then? “Now I guess I’ll be learning to fly brooms instead, hey, Miss Latini?”
“And don’t joke about it, Miss Summers, because that’s exactly what you will be doing.”
“You cannot be serious! Brooms?”
“And broomsticks. And my name is Laura.”
“Well, mine is Dawn – show you mine if you show me yours…” And as the implications of this formulaic sentence sank in, Dawn suddenly gasped and blushed. “Oh my God, sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“No,” said Laura, looking at her keenly, “no, I rather thought you did not.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
“I’ve never known her to be so careless of the results of her actions. Buffy has always been responsible… she had to grow up early.”
“Guess that was the point, Captain. With the end of the Hellmouth, she felt the pressure on her had ceased. She was not going to consider what arose from it… You might say she went ‘demob happy’.”
Riley smiled slightly at the outdated military term. “Yes, Principal, I’m sure that was the case. I am, however, surprised that you went along with her. You had a cooler mind and were more able to see what lay ahead… You had all those girls, even, in front of you. What happened to them, anyway?”
“Most of them have made their way back to their parents or their families. There’s a few who are orphans or won’t tell us about their homes – runaways, I guess. Kennedy is looking after them.”
“Kennedy?”
“A Potential herself. She’s rich, and she tends to take charge. She might end up to be one of you guys – she’s already told me she had thought about enlisting. She’s a lesbian, too, in case that matters.”
“It doesn’t, much – except some of the girls probably won’t want to serve with her. But I’m glad to hear there’s a potential leader in the group, apart from yourself.”
“Two, actually. There’s Faith, who’s proven herself. She’s a convicted murderess and a fugitive, but I should think you guys can cope with that.”
“If you are thinking about secret Government conspiracies and military secrets, the stories you have heard” – Riley smiled – “are mostly true. That’s how I got to meet Buffy, when I was working in a secret Government initiative to investigate supernatural violence. These days, they consider me like some kind of expert on the subject.”
Riley’s voice dropped slightly, and lost its mocking edge. “Tell me, Principal. I think you are an intelligent man, and I think you can see where this is going. How would you like to continue your career in education with the Pentagon?”
…………………………………………………………………………………….
The two young women were too taken with their own thoughts to notice the strange background buzz, a buzz that was not of the engine or of the car; and that had grown softly as the Slayer and Willow Rosenberg were mentioned, only to decline sadly when the conversation shifted briefly to magical and muggle means of transport. Now the buzzing rose again in volume, as a stammering Dawn tried to give shape and form to her confused whirl of feelings about her sister and her best friend.
“…I guess perhaps I would not have come to a decision so badly if it hadn’t been forced on me. I mean, I’d only just begun to really think about the subject, when up pops my sister – who is, like, my twin, even though we look different – and she is in bed with Willow, and it’s so in my face!”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, my family always were liberals. Homophobia was like the dirtiest word there was. We were always taught that there was nothing wrong with homosexuality and that to hate homosexuals was wrong… and mind you… I still believe it. I mean, when Willow came out and set up with Tara, they were the coolest people I’d ever seen. I started to do magic because they were doing it. Even now, if someone wants to treat them badly they’ll have me to reckon with… I mean, I don’t stop loving them just because they’re gay.”
“But I was never thinking about the sex, Laura. It was the sex. I grew up thinking homosexuality was like a sort of very strong friendship. I wasn’t thinking about what women actually do with each other. I thought… if I thought at all… that it was just, like, cuddling and holding hands. I’ve really known the details for years, but I didn’t think about it. And anyway, at first, I didn’t even realize that… I mean, I didn’t understand what they were really up to, I mean Tara and Willow. I thought that, when my mum didn’t like me to go with them, it was because they were witches.”
“Pardon me… I mean, you say your mom didn’t want you to go with them?”
“No. She was never easy about it.”
“And you said that your family were keen liberals and so on?”
“You said it. And still I didn’t see through it – and when I realized… and I didn’t realize it at one go, it just stole over me… there were my family views all ready-made for me to step into.”
“And then, I guess I was growing up, and I began to actually envisage… and I don’t want to be vulgar, but EWWW! I mean, licking down there? Are they mad? And other things that… that I don’t even want to think about.” Laura wondered which, exactly, of the various fetishes Dawn was speaking about; as for herself, she had known lesbians who were coprophiles and lesbians who were sado-masochists, and, like Dawn, did not want to think about it unless she had to.
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
“The rise of the Slayers changes everything; which is why we need a central establishment. We have been running a few educational programs here and there for a while… one I know about is for invisible girls…”
“Invis-- ? Oh, I can see this is going to be an interesting job.”
“I think I can say it will, Principal.”
………………………………………………………………………………………..
“All right. Now let me set out my terms. As Principal, I want the ability to hire and, if necessary, fire my own staff. I want to run the place as I see fit. I will accept Pentagon supervision only in a general sense; I accept that they can fire me if they find my performance unsatisfactory, but until then I want to perform on my own. I will take advice about what the military need from my establishment, but I and the teachers will decide about the curriculum. And if you have made a study of me, you know that I am very hot on academic subjects – I am not interested in running a teenage ninja moron school. Kids who study with me are going to study.”
“That seems all perfectly reasonable. I am not the person you will be answering to, but I think I can say that your terms fit into what was envisaged for the first United States Secret School.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Night was swiftly falling, and Dawn’s face was almost invisible in the darkness. Laura kept her eyes on the road, but she could still see her in the corner of her eye, looking ahead of her and speaking almost as if in a void, more to herself than to her.
“And it was Buffy who forced the issue on me. Let’s get this straight: I still love Buffy. I love Willow. They are super girls, and I’m quite ready to get myself killed for either of them… they did it for me, after all. And for that matter, I loved my Mom and I loved Tara, and I simply can’t bear it that they’re gone! I don’t know what to think about what Mom taught me, whether she was right about what she said or about what she did.”
“But I cannot bear what they are doing to each other… I mean, when anyone does anything to Buffy’s body, it is as though they did it to me. I can feel the probing and the crawling and the dirt… I can imagine it as though I was doing it.”
After an interval, she went on: “She’s my sister for Crissakes! More than… I can’t really tell you why, but the bond we have, it’s like we were twins. What is done to her…” And she fell silent. The road still unfolded everlastingly north in the dark, and for a long while neither Laura nor Dawn said a word; and the noise of the car drowned the buzzing of some things in the shape of insects, that hid in the shadows and listened and listened.
(Jack Kirby – Captain America 211)
As any car owner will tell you, to properly dust and clean a car is a demanding job. Any car, even the simplest, has a million little corners and hidden spots, that the eye does not usually even see, and where bugs and dustballs can nestle undisturbed. So it was in the little but hard-working Nissan that Laura Latini had driven to Heathrow to pick up a young American girl who wished to reach Hogsmeade. And so it was that, not far from Dawn’s feet as they rested, stretched out ahead of her – she had taken off her shoes for comfort, and only thin silk lay between them and the car floor – nor yet from Laura’s short deformed legs, a number of insects hid and buzzed. Insects… or things like insects.
“So you’re an American witch?” said Laura to Dawn Summers, as they drove north along the M1 motorway towards Scotland.
“I guess… I don’t know. I have done some magic. I banished a demon once.”
“You… Hey, that’s strong magic!”
“I didn’t do it right. I trashed the house and injured myself. And I’m not sure that the Big Bad who owned the demon didn’t want it that way anyway.”
“Rubbish. Demons never go away unless banished. Anyway, Dawn, if you did magic, you’re a witch.”
“You say that like it was a rule.”
“Of course it is. Didn’t you know? The difference between witches and Muggles… Muggles are…”
“…I know, ordinary people.”
“Well, we think we’re ordinary. We think it’s Muggles who are weird. Anyway, Muggles are people who cannot do magic. Cannot do it, period. It’s just a natural disability, like being born blind.”
“What do you mean? I mean… if an ordinary guy, a Muggle I mean, wanted to learn magic… they couldn’t?”
“They wouldn’t even think of it, Dawn. Not off their own bat. Muggles are just plain blind to magic. They only ever find out if they marry a wizard or a witch by chance…. And even then, they can’t do a thing about it.”
Laura Latini carried on with a meditative air. “There is a lot of prejudice among us against Muggles and mixed marriages… It’s nonsense, mostly. But if you think how unhappy many mixed marriages must be, with one partner completely cut out of the important things in the other’s life… you can see how the prejudice arose. I’m surprised more mixed marriages don’t end in divorce.”
Dawn’s mind was still struggling rebelliously with the concept of innate magic. “Look, we always thought Willow was a Muggle until she started reading Giles’ books. Would she have stayed a Muggle if she hadn’t met him?”
Laura’s eyes went wide and round. “Oh, God, I’d forgotten. You actually are a friend… of Willow Rosenberg?”
………………………………………………………………………………
An elegant, youngish, shaven-headed black man sat in the sun outside a bar in Santa Coleta, trying to make his Bloody Mary last and wondering what to do with himself. Suddenly someone spoke his name:
“Principal Wood? Principal Robin Wood?”
The tall, polite young man with the Midwestern accent, Wood noticed, wore his suit and tie very badly – like someone more used to overalls, or army fatigues. Wood could not place him; he could have been a young farmer visiting neighbours, or one of the less rambunctious kinds of soldier, or even a young preacher. The one thing he was clearly not was a member of Wood’s own urban background; yet, Wood had guessed, with surprising certainty, he had something to do with Buffy.
Riley Finn considered the other man in turn, drawing on an experience rather more extensive and cynical than his ingenuous, fresh-faced looks suggested. Young for a Principal, he thought. Muscles under that shirt; in excellent training. Authoritative – guess being a Principal breeds it in you. Definitely a commander rather than a follower. A moody, powerful face, suggesting a secretive inner life, yet somehow indefinably trustworthy. He was silent and he was reticent, but he was not… Riley groped for the word… twisted. He was used to making up his mind alone; he would not give himself away, he would reach his own decisions, but he would not be cruel or pursue personal agendas. Soldiers would trust him. Riley had served under officers like him, and trusted them.
“The name is Finn – Captain Riley Finn, U.S. Marines. I guess we have a friend in common.”
……………………………………………………………………………
“My friend? Well, she was, certainly… I still mind terribly…”
“Since she tried to destroy the world?”
“No. Oh, no! That was all perfectly understandable. We all forgave her for that. No, I mean, since she took my sister to bed…. Careful! You’ll have us against those trees!”
“Sorry… Just an automatic movement. Are you telling me…?”
“I am.”
“Let’s see if I get this right. The legendary Willow Rosenberg is a lesbian.”
“Yes.”
“And her lover is the Slayer.”
“Hm-hm.”
“You know, that’s quite a bit of news… it’s like being told that David Beckham has a boyfriend and that it is Tony Blair.”
“Oh! I hadn’t thought of it that way… you see, I was only seeing it from my viewpoint.”
“And you don’t like it.”
“And you don’t like me not liking it?”
“Me? I don’t know enough, Dawn…”
“You know, I still haven’t understood why you are using a car to drive me to Scotland. Aren’t there magical ways?”
“And you wouldn’t be trying to change the subject, would you?”
……………………………………………………………………………………………
“We were interested to hear you had taken up the Sunnydale job. And even more interested to hear you had employed Buffy Summers as a student counsellor. You see, we had heard of you before.”
“Do tell?”
“Eight years ago you began your career in Santa Barbara. During your period there, vampire deaths dropped significantly. Two years after that, you became the youngest assistant Principal in the state of California, after getting your PhD from UC Berkeley while working full-time. At this time, we started hearing about a black, free-lance vampire hunter in the LA area. Three years ago, you moved to Fresno to get your first headship in a failing inner-city school. You were unable to turn it around in spite of your best efforts, but your presence there coincided with the complete collapse of the vampire presence in Fresno, Clovis, Easton, Sanger and Fowler. One particularly intractable vampire nest in Castle Mountain also went out of business about this time – curiously, they are last heard of shortly before you took a summer holiday.”
“Ah, yes. A walking holiday in the hills, as I recall. Very enjoyable – till I’d got my PhD, I’d never had a holiday for five years.”
“Three captured Hostiles again tell us about a black vampire hunter – tall, bald and slant-eyed. Then we find that you are pulling every string in sight to get the job at the rebuilt and expanded high school in Sunnydale. Well, we were interested, so we did a little string-pulling of our own. We had an interest in Sunnydale ourselves.”
“Did you? And I did not hear of it? I usually get to find out this sort of thing.”
“Our Sunnydale facility was mothballed at the time. We relied on Miss Summers and her friends to keep the vampire population within reasonable bounds… however, an extra asset such as yourself on the ground certainly would not hurt. Then, of course, next thing we knew, you had hired Miss Summers – an extraordinary step for an untrained young woman, especially since we know that you insist on professional competence among your collaborators.”
“Miss Summers was extremely competent at the duties I envisaged for her.”
“I dare say. I found that out myself. Well, the point is, Principal, that Sunnydale is now destroyed – and so is your school, and our facility. They say, in an earthquake – though the rest of Southern California suffered hardly at all. Funny kind of an earthquake, that…”
Wood leaned forwards. “Now look, Captain, this is all great fun. So you know about me – well, as a taxpayer, I would be disappointed if you didn’t. And the fact that you are talking to me like this means that you have no problem with what I do. Great. But what are you doing here, and why are you talking to me?”
“I was hoping you would ask. But I have to ask a few more background questions first.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
“There are plenty of magical means to cross space in an instant, from Floo powder to Portkeys. The fact is that some are fallible, and practically all are disagreeable, especially to beginners. I just thought you had had enough traumas of late, and you might like a long relaxing drive in a Muggle car… Plus, I rather enjoy it myself.”
“I know… until recently, I’d been counting the days to when I’d be old enough for a driving license.” Dawn looked at Laura with some interest. Giles had not only acted very ruffled around her, he had practically warned her against her – though not in so many words. But she could see nothing wrong with this person – she’s sharp, intelligent, fun, and even thoughtful, it seems. What was his problem, then? “Now I guess I’ll be learning to fly brooms instead, hey, Miss Latini?”
“And don’t joke about it, Miss Summers, because that’s exactly what you will be doing.”
“You cannot be serious! Brooms?”
“And broomsticks. And my name is Laura.”
“Well, mine is Dawn – show you mine if you show me yours…” And as the implications of this formulaic sentence sank in, Dawn suddenly gasped and blushed. “Oh my God, sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“No,” said Laura, looking at her keenly, “no, I rather thought you did not.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
“I’ve never known her to be so careless of the results of her actions. Buffy has always been responsible… she had to grow up early.”
“Guess that was the point, Captain. With the end of the Hellmouth, she felt the pressure on her had ceased. She was not going to consider what arose from it… You might say she went ‘demob happy’.”
Riley smiled slightly at the outdated military term. “Yes, Principal, I’m sure that was the case. I am, however, surprised that you went along with her. You had a cooler mind and were more able to see what lay ahead… You had all those girls, even, in front of you. What happened to them, anyway?”
“Most of them have made their way back to their parents or their families. There’s a few who are orphans or won’t tell us about their homes – runaways, I guess. Kennedy is looking after them.”
“Kennedy?”
“A Potential herself. She’s rich, and she tends to take charge. She might end up to be one of you guys – she’s already told me she had thought about enlisting. She’s a lesbian, too, in case that matters.”
“It doesn’t, much – except some of the girls probably won’t want to serve with her. But I’m glad to hear there’s a potential leader in the group, apart from yourself.”
“Two, actually. There’s Faith, who’s proven herself. She’s a convicted murderess and a fugitive, but I should think you guys can cope with that.”
“If you are thinking about secret Government conspiracies and military secrets, the stories you have heard” – Riley smiled – “are mostly true. That’s how I got to meet Buffy, when I was working in a secret Government initiative to investigate supernatural violence. These days, they consider me like some kind of expert on the subject.”
Riley’s voice dropped slightly, and lost its mocking edge. “Tell me, Principal. I think you are an intelligent man, and I think you can see where this is going. How would you like to continue your career in education with the Pentagon?”
…………………………………………………………………………………….
The two young women were too taken with their own thoughts to notice the strange background buzz, a buzz that was not of the engine or of the car; and that had grown softly as the Slayer and Willow Rosenberg were mentioned, only to decline sadly when the conversation shifted briefly to magical and muggle means of transport. Now the buzzing rose again in volume, as a stammering Dawn tried to give shape and form to her confused whirl of feelings about her sister and her best friend.
“…I guess perhaps I would not have come to a decision so badly if it hadn’t been forced on me. I mean, I’d only just begun to really think about the subject, when up pops my sister – who is, like, my twin, even though we look different – and she is in bed with Willow, and it’s so in my face!”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, my family always were liberals. Homophobia was like the dirtiest word there was. We were always taught that there was nothing wrong with homosexuality and that to hate homosexuals was wrong… and mind you… I still believe it. I mean, when Willow came out and set up with Tara, they were the coolest people I’d ever seen. I started to do magic because they were doing it. Even now, if someone wants to treat them badly they’ll have me to reckon with… I mean, I don’t stop loving them just because they’re gay.”
“But I was never thinking about the sex, Laura. It was the sex. I grew up thinking homosexuality was like a sort of very strong friendship. I wasn’t thinking about what women actually do with each other. I thought… if I thought at all… that it was just, like, cuddling and holding hands. I’ve really known the details for years, but I didn’t think about it. And anyway, at first, I didn’t even realize that… I mean, I didn’t understand what they were really up to, I mean Tara and Willow. I thought that, when my mum didn’t like me to go with them, it was because they were witches.”
“Pardon me… I mean, you say your mom didn’t want you to go with them?”
“No. She was never easy about it.”
“And you said that your family were keen liberals and so on?”
“You said it. And still I didn’t see through it – and when I realized… and I didn’t realize it at one go, it just stole over me… there were my family views all ready-made for me to step into.”
“And then, I guess I was growing up, and I began to actually envisage… and I don’t want to be vulgar, but EWWW! I mean, licking down there? Are they mad? And other things that… that I don’t even want to think about.” Laura wondered which, exactly, of the various fetishes Dawn was speaking about; as for herself, she had known lesbians who were coprophiles and lesbians who were sado-masochists, and, like Dawn, did not want to think about it unless she had to.
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
“The rise of the Slayers changes everything; which is why we need a central establishment. We have been running a few educational programs here and there for a while… one I know about is for invisible girls…”
“Invis-- ? Oh, I can see this is going to be an interesting job.”
“I think I can say it will, Principal.”
………………………………………………………………………………………..
“All right. Now let me set out my terms. As Principal, I want the ability to hire and, if necessary, fire my own staff. I want to run the place as I see fit. I will accept Pentagon supervision only in a general sense; I accept that they can fire me if they find my performance unsatisfactory, but until then I want to perform on my own. I will take advice about what the military need from my establishment, but I and the teachers will decide about the curriculum. And if you have made a study of me, you know that I am very hot on academic subjects – I am not interested in running a teenage ninja moron school. Kids who study with me are going to study.”
“That seems all perfectly reasonable. I am not the person you will be answering to, but I think I can say that your terms fit into what was envisaged for the first United States Secret School.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Night was swiftly falling, and Dawn’s face was almost invisible in the darkness. Laura kept her eyes on the road, but she could still see her in the corner of her eye, looking ahead of her and speaking almost as if in a void, more to herself than to her.
“And it was Buffy who forced the issue on me. Let’s get this straight: I still love Buffy. I love Willow. They are super girls, and I’m quite ready to get myself killed for either of them… they did it for me, after all. And for that matter, I loved my Mom and I loved Tara, and I simply can’t bear it that they’re gone! I don’t know what to think about what Mom taught me, whether she was right about what she said or about what she did.”
“But I cannot bear what they are doing to each other… I mean, when anyone does anything to Buffy’s body, it is as though they did it to me. I can feel the probing and the crawling and the dirt… I can imagine it as though I was doing it.”
After an interval, she went on: “She’s my sister for Crissakes! More than… I can’t really tell you why, but the bond we have, it’s like we were twins. What is done to her…” And she fell silent. The road still unfolded everlastingly north in the dark, and for a long while neither Laura nor Dawn said a word; and the noise of the car drowned the buzzing of some things in the shape of insects, that hid in the shadows and listened and listened.
