Captain Starlight to the rescue.

Housewife and Secret Superhero.

Inspired by this prompt on #Jessicasquill

Winona sighed as she prepared dinner. Her husband Jervis would soon be home and if his meal weren’t ready when he stepped through the door, he wouldn’t be happy.

“What have you been doing with your time,” he would be bound to ask, “it’s not as if you had anything else to do all day.”

If only that were true, she thought, as she stirred the pot of stew. Her shoulders ached, from a day filled with unconventional exertion. At first, the idea of being a kept woman, as Jervis so eloquently put it, had been fun.

Jervis earned a good salary, at Johnstone’s Widgets, enough to support them without her having to join the commuting throng. And there were others like her in the neighbourhood, bored housewives whom she could socialise with. They could chat about gardens or play a round of golf.

At least they could if she were a normal person. But she was not. It was something that Jervis must never know.

He thought that she came from Mobile, Alabama. The truth was, she was brought up in the swamps of Louisiana.

One day, she had taken a different way home from school and found an old woman, lying by the side of the road. “Are you alright?” she asked, helping her to stand. “Can I help you to your home?”

“Thank you, dear,” said the woman, her accent thick and barely understandable, “Most folk here would pass me by.”

“Why?”

“You don’t know me, do you? I’m Mother Thibideaux. People fear me because they know what I can do,” she mumbled.

Although she’d heard tales of the power of the Cajun woman and her strange power over the animals of the swamps, Winona wasn’t frightened. She could see that the woman needed her help.

“You won’t hurt me,” she said, “not while I’m helping you.” She took the woman’s arm and helped her to her home. She lived down a lane, in a shack surrounded by water and thick trees covered with Spanish Moss. The woman slumped into a chair while Winona made her tea.

“Now I must repay you for your kindness,” she finally said. The tea seemed to have revived her. “Come with me.”

Suddenly sprightly, the old woman took her hand and led her out to a place in the trees, a natural depression in the ground, thick with vegetation and heavy with the smell of snakes.

“Now, child,” the woman said, “I can grant you a favour. What do you most desire?”

“To help people who can’t help themselves,” Winona said.

“I can give you that power,” said the woman. She took Winona’s hands. There was a rustling in the trees, a stirring in the undergrowth. Winona felt suddenly afraid as the woman muttered in a language that she couldn’t understand.

“Don’t be frightened,” she said, looking straight into her eyes, into her soul. “When you’re older, you will do great things. But you must never tell anyone.”

At the time, the words both thrilled and scared her. She had no idea what the great things they might be, but she couldn’t wait to find out. Before she realised, she had left Mother Thibideaux and found herself on the road home. When she went back to see the woman, two days later, the shack, and Mother Thibideaux, had vanished.

On her eighteenth birthday, everything changed. She understood what she was and how she could use the power she had been given.

She thought back to nine this morning. Jervis had gone to work and she, at least in theory, had the day to herself. It was then that her senses began to tingle. Something was happening in the city. Someone needed her help.

Moving to the basement, she opened the box that appeared to contain nothing but old clothes. Quickly she changed into the costume of her alter ego. Thanks to the powers of Mother Thibideaux, she could indeed help those who needed it.

She gave the stew a final stir as she heard a car pull into the drive. It had been a rewarding day, Jervis came in, pecked her on the cheek and sat to eat his meal.

“What have you been doing today?” he asked.

“Nothing much,” Winona replied, desperate to tell but determined to keep the secret.

“You know what,” he said. “Captain Starlight saved a family today, from a burning house. I heard it on the radio. What a woman she is. Makes your day seem kinda boring, eh?”

Wiona ignored the jibe. She knew that Jervis was in awe of the superhero’s exploits. Winona thought that he was secretly more in love with Captain Starlight, the town's resident superhero than he was with her.

If only he knew.

I’m Richard Dee and I write all sorts of stories. Read more of my sci-fi by searching my lists. Or, join my mailing list and claim your free novella using the link below.