Fly

Chapter 1

It was the spring that my father gave me my first pocket knife.

It was my birthday, May 5th. In just a few hours, I'd 'officially' be sixteen years old. When I was younger, I remembered having a conversation with Raven, my best friend, who informed me in a superior way that she had been born 'right at noon, on the dot'. So I had asked my mom what time I was born. She frowned for a moment, then turned me around to re-braid my pale blonde hair, which had come undone during my afternoon of playing out-of-doors near the lake.

"You were born around four in the afternoon, I think." she said carefully. "I can't remember for sure, but I'm fairly certain it was close to four."

After she was done fussing over my hair, I proudly strutted out and announced to Raven that I was born later than her, so I was definitely cooler.

Years later, and here I was, still feeling a tingle of excitement at the thought of being just a little older than I was yesterday. Being able to tell people that you're sixteen is ALWAYS more impressive than telling them you're fifteen.

But that morning, we were visiting Chicago, a few hours south of where we lived in central Wisconsin, in a tiny town called Rib Lake. We were here for my birthday, to visit downtown and see some sights, then go to the lakeshore further along and have a picnic on the beach. Though it had only been an hour or two since we had started walking around, I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling a dull ache at the base of my skull. I almost never got headaches except when I was sick. I really hoped I wasn't going to be ill on the first day of being sixteen.

That would suck.

We had already visited the Museum of Natural History, and were now wandering Grant Park, stopping to sit on the edge of the massive fountain in the center. It was one of my favorite places to visit in the city, with the view of the lake on one side and the entire skyline on the other. The day was unfortunately cloudy, but not nearly as windy as usual for Chicago - which meant there was still a fair breeze flapping my hair around into my face.

As we sat, my dad stood up and turned to stand in front of me, pulling a small, wrapped box out of his pocket. He handed it to me with a wink, while my mom watched curiously. "Happy birthday, Fiona."

I opened it eagerly, the lid coming off to reveal a small, beautiful pocket knife. It had two blades, one at each end, larger and smaller. The longer one was nearly three inches long, while the smaller was only a little over an inch. The grip was mother of pearl, and it gleamed despite the grayness of the day. I grinned. I had always wanted my own knife.

"Thanks dad!" I jumped up and gave him a hug, and he swung me around like I was little again, while I squealed and struggled a little in mock panic. "Put me down you ape!"

He set me on my feet again, a matching grin on his face. "Why should I? I can only do that for another few hours. Then you'll be 'too old', right?"

I pushed playfully at him, which didn't budge him at all. "I'm already too old!"

He snorted. "You'll always be a baby to me, little girl."

I groaned and walked back over to where mom was sitting, watching us with amusement. I plopped back down on the fountain, and examined my new knife in better detail. I opened the larger blade, and to my surprise, I saw that it was engraved on one side in tiny letters, 'To my daughter, Fiona, on her 16th birthday'. I ran my thumb across it gently, careful not to get it near the edge, then flipped it closed and put it deep in my pocket.

"Where to next?" mom asked, pulling out our crumpled map of downtown. Before I could reply, the pain in my head seemed to double, making me rub my eyebrows and groan. At the same moment, my stomach growled loudly.

Dad flipped his Packers hat back onto his head - despite being in the middle of Bears territory, he still insisted on wearing it, as if we didn't look touristy enough already - and gestured back toward where we had parked. "Maybe we should hurry along to the beach. You've probably got a hunger headache, so we should go eat."

I nodded, smiling up at him, and hopped down from the rim, walking between them back to the car.

_____

Almost an hour later, we were sitting on the beach, munching sandwiches and chips, bottles of soda stuck in the coarse sand around us like tiny monoliths. My headache had only worsened, enough so that when we arrived, I asked mom for some ibuprofen before heading onto the beach. She gave me two, though they hadn't seemed to kick in yet.

Seagulls were hovering around us, waiting for the chance to swoop in and take our scraps. Their cries seemed to grate on my eardrums, and my heart beat faster with every breath. I felt like I might throw up. I knew it. I'm sick. Great. Well, might as well go get it over with. Maybe it's just food poisoning, and once I get it out of my system, I'll be fine.

I stood up carefully, and told my parents where I was going. They looked concerned, and my mom made as if to go with me. "No no, I'll be fine," I waved her off, "I'll just be a minute. Hopefully I'll be back to normal after I have a chat with the old porcelain throne." I tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a grunt between teeth suddenly clenched. Fire seemed to shoot down my spine, and I whirled and sprinted toward the public restrooms near the parking lot.

My legs burned with more than just the effort of pushing through the sand, and my arms seemed to have needles stuck through every joint, blazing red-hot. My stomach felt like soup left too long to boil. I could feel the hot foam coming up my windpipe, almost choking me. I wasn't going to make it to the restrooms. Instead I made an abrupt turn into the tall dune grass at the edge of the beach, stumbling behind a low rise until I knew I was hidden from anyone casually looking. Just as I reached a small patch of bare sand, my legs collapsed, sending my crashing to the ground like a fallen tree. Every muscle strand seemed made of steel wire, pulled painfully tight and hard beneath my skin. I arched my back and vomited, tears rolling down my face as it burned the inside of my mouth. I slumped to the side as waves of hot and cold washed over me like tsunamis, cracking my eyes open to see the fluid I had spewed bubbling in the sand, as if it were really boiling. That's.... not........ normal. I thought, before darkness slid through my mind like a creeping shadow.