Feathers and Flight

Chapter 6

                                                     Learn to Fly… Again

It was hard to tell when morning came because so little light reached the back cave. I turned over, the weight of what had happened yesterday trying to crush my soul into the ground. Fizz was sleeping next to my pillow and looking past him, I saw that my friends were already up and gone. I decided to follow their example and got up too.

Since I didn’t have a change of clothes I decided to put my suit on and go take a bath. I grabbed a bar of soap, some shampoo, and headed for the tunnel. My friends weren’t there so I bathed in solitude. I wrapped my towel around myself and went to find the others. They were outside eating granola bars and yogurt on the ledge.

“Hey Selene, you sleep OK?” Jamie asked, coming over to give me a hug and some food. It was a beautiful day and a light breeze playfully tugged at my good wing. I went over and sat down on a rock, staring out across the city and munching on honey flavored granola bar.

“What have you guys been up to?” I had been wondering if they had been looking around and found any more caves.

“We found a couple smaller caves and a spring farther up.” Jared said as if he had read my mind, Kallie and Jamie ran and leaped off the ledge and into the air. The sight filled my heart with longing and it gave me an idea.

“I’m going to try using my wing today, it didn’t bother me last night and my other wing is feeling lazy so I think I’ll try to get the hurt one moving. I know its only been a day since you shocked it but I really want to get flying again. Have you charged up today?” I looked at Jared’s hands, you could barely tell in the sunlight but they were hardly glowing.

“Honestly, I’m afraid to. I don’t want to hurt anyone again. I’m not sure I can control the energy.” He looked worried but I reassured him that he would be fine and he went into the tunnel. When he was gone I stood up and let out a really loud and shrill whistle. Jamie and Kallie flew down to see what was up.

“We’re not dogs you know, that was highly unnecessary.” Kallie was kind of miffed but she got over it quick when I explained my idea. “Do you want help getting the bandage off your wing?”

“Sure and maybe some help unfolding it.” I turned around so she could start working on the ace bandage. It ached a bit and definitely hurt when she started pulling it open but it started to loosen up the more she worked it, it might just be doable. I moved it experimentally. It was stiff and sore but I could move it and flex it much easier than I thought I could. I tried flapping, slowly at first, but faster and faster as I adjusted. In a second I was lifting a little off the ground, then about a foot or two. I tried giving one big, powerful flap, and my wing collapsed. I cried out when I fell and Jamie caught me before I killed my knees on the unforgiving, stony ledge.

“It’s a start, albeit a clumsy one but it’s definitely better than nothing, right?” Jamie, always the cheerful one, pushed me upright and examined my wing. “It’s a little skinny which is probably just from it being bound so tightly, you really just need to get the blood flowing again. Hopefully you’ll be up and flying soon!”

Us three girls sat down and chatted for a while about unimportant topics like new movies that were coming out, cute guys we saw on TV and the upcoming clothing sales at the mall. Anything to keep the topic away from our current situation. Ten minutes later Jared came back out of the tunnel blazing like a miniature sun until he came out from under shadow of the stone. I decided to see if he was a walking lightning bolt. Before he could react, I stood up and lightly touched his arm, no pain.

“Guess that solves that mystery, the new one is why it happened to begin with.” Kallie commented, coming over. Jamie hopped up after her and we circled up, something we haven’t done in way too long. Jared looked at his hands, still glowing brightly and then at his feet with an inscrutable expression on his face.

“I wonder what’s going on with me. When I was charging up, it was the weirdest thing, I could see things I can’t normally see. When I looked around I could see little lights in the corners of the cave and in the moss, crawling all over the place. When I touched one, its little light went out and absorbed into my hands. I don’t know what it was but it kind of freaked me out, like I stole its light or something, it didn’t feel quite right.” Jared’s face showed a range of emotions in rapid succession. If we hadn’t know him so well, we probably wouldn’t have been able to decipher what he was thinking.

Confusion, what is going on? Regret, I didn't mean to take the light. Panic, what if I hurt someone else? Tentative happiness, are my abilities progressing? All of which flashed across his face in a matter of seconds.

“Don’t let it get to you, we have plenty of time to figure out what the changes will mean and we’ll help you through it, like we always have and like you have always done for us.” I smiled at him encouragingly and he smiled back.

“So what do we do now? I mean, yeah, we live here now but what are we going to DO? We can’t just live here our whole lives; we need answers and a game plan.” Jamie looked at me as if looking for instructions. I shifted uncomfortably when Kallie and Jared did the same.

“Don’t look at me like that, it’s not like I call the shots around here. The only idea I have is that we lay low for a couple days and figure stuff out.” That Idea seemed to be just fine to them because heads nodded all around and we all went and did various things to pass time. Truth was, I had no idea what we were going to do, I had been hoping they would know. One thing was certain, though, I was never going anywhere near where the orphanage used to be, even if it killed me.

                                                                        ***

Turns out, a couple days turned into a couple weeks and by that time I was dying to do something! We had done everything there is to do when living in a cave with three other people. We had swam, explored the other caves, played hide and seek, learned how to throw rocks with deadly accuracy, gone shopping, played with Fizz and I had been working my wing every day.

It was healing slower than I would have believed possible. I could only fly for about 15 minutes at a time before it would start aching horribly so it was definitely on the bittersweet side. We did find out if Fizz could actually fly with his thin, gossamer wings because at one point he fell off my shoulder and instead of splatting on the ground, his wings opened up and he flew back up, no problem.

That night, when we were getting ready for bed, I glanced over and decided to broach the well avoided topic of what to do next.

“Hey guys, I think it’s time for us to decide what were going to do now.” Instead of giving them wiggle room to get out of the conversation I decided just to be blunt and get it out there. I went back to getting my PJ’s on and awaited my answer.

“Why do we need to do anything at all? I love it here, and we have enough supplies to last us awhile. I say we stay here.” That was Jamie, I wasn’t surprised she wanted to stay because if she really liked a place, it would be really hard to get her to leave without an unbeatable reason.

“I’m ready to head out, or at least get something going. I mean, it’s great here but it’s almost too much of a good thing.” Kallie sounded mildly exasperated and bored. I waited for the final input of opinion.

I had always admired Jared’s logic and valued his advice but I was afraid that he, like Jamie, would want to stay and the decision would be split fifty-fifty. Finally, after a minute or two of silence in which I was turning blue from holding my breath out of nerves, Jared spoke up.

“I think we should stay here” My heart sank but Jared continued “But I also think we should try to find out what happened to the orphanage. In my opinion, this is our home now so we should keep living here but we need to start figuring out why this became our new home in the first place.” Relief flooded through me; that was exactly the answer we needed.

“That’s a great idea, but I’m not going back to that place. I don’t even think I can go back. You guys feel free to go, but I won’t.” I crawled into bed and turned over to face the wall, not wanting to see the pity in my friend’s eyes.

The next morning it was decided that Jared, Kallie and Jamie would all go scout out the orphanage while I stayed and held down the fort. As I watched them drop off the ledge like a bunch of penguins into the ocean, I got a peculiar feeling. I felt spineless and even a little apprehensive as if not all was right with the world.