Free Superhero in Disguise (Adventures of Lewis and Clarke) by Kitty Bucholtz

 
     
    FINALLY, a place where I can be myself. No more hiding.
    Tori Lewis grinned as she and her sister Lexie dropped Tori’s mattress on the floor. She put her hands on her hips and caught her breath. For only a double size mattress, that sucker was heavy. Especially when they got it stuck in the doorway of her new house.
    A place all her own, even if it was only studio sized. There was a time Tori would never have believed she’d have her own home. When she’d moved in with Lexie three years ago, she was sure that was how her life would end—two old women bickering good naturedly with each other in between visits from the nephew/son who adored them, no other men in sight.
    Yet here she was, totally psyched about her new digs. The first time she’d seen the place, the Hallelujah Chorus had sounded in her head. It was a tiny little building in the backyard of another house, a few blocks deeper into a not-so-great area of the city than where she and Lexie lived now. Peach stucco with white trim on the outside, peach and white paint on the inside, it was totally cute without being girly-girl. The main house, a three-bedroom ranch, sat at the front on the street, and another little one-bedroom house leaned up against the alley.
    Now Tori had her own bathroom, two—count them, two —parking spaces in the trash-filled alley, and a little patch of actual green grass. Well, browning grass. Halloween in Northern Michigan, and no snow in the forecast. Awesome.
    Tori glanced out the rear window at the empty lot next door. Weeds the size of small trees and a dozen feral cats added a bit of Halloween spookiness even though it was still daytime.
    A shiver tingled down her spine. Was she really going through with her plan, Operation Freedom? Or was she just pretending?
    But a look through her front window showed a well-kept, if tiny, lawn with struggling rosebushes lining the sidewalk. The rosebushes were the reason Tori had signed the lease. If they could survive and thrive, so could she, right? Okay, so maybe they weren’t thriving . They just needed some tender loving care. She would nurture the roses, and somehow they would help her grow stronger, too. She’d just have to mimic the front yard of her new home, not the backyard.
    Tori sighed happily. She used one foot to maneuver the mattress up against the rear wall between two windows. “Well, the bedroom’s all set up. Let’s get started on the living room and office.”
    Lexie laughed with her and took in the entire house in one not-so-long glance. “A three-hundred-square-foot room, huh? It’s not much.”
    “Three hundred and forty-three,” Tori corrected. “And it’s all mine.” She threw her arm around Lexie. “For the first time in twenty-seven years, I don’t have to share a bathroom. I don’t even have to worry about the neighbors hearing the TV through the walls. It’s a little house , not an apartment, and it’s all mine!”
    Tori squeezed her sister’s shoulders to keep from clapping her hands. But the excitement came out through her feet, and she bounced on her toes. Her face was going to hurt if she didn’t stop grinning. Her plan was a good one.
    “Well, if this is what you want,” Lexie said with a shrug, “I’m not going to rain on your parade.”
    But Tori could feel her sister’s disappointment. It gathered and ebbed in the air as Lexie tried to hold it in. It was a weird Lexie-thing that no one could explain. Whenever she suffered a strong emotion, it radiated out. People nearby would begin to feel what Lexie felt, sometimes to a debilitating degree. It frightened their mother, Dixie. Their stepdad (who was really just “Dad”) and younger siblings seemed more curious than frightened, but Dixie wouldn’t allow anyone to talk about it. It was one of the elephants in the room at the family zoo.
    Tori had learned to push back against the overpowering billows of Lexie’s emotions, and she did so now. Pretending her sister’s feelings