Clipped Wing

Chapter 2

Chapter 2    

    Adelaine had her maroon hair tied back in a severe bun that most likely meant a headache by bedtime. Her flawless skin gleamed and hid her real age frighteningly well. As pretty as she was, she had accusation written all over her expression, and that was what made my coughs even more desperate and high-pitched. I couldn’t stop choking long enough to speak, but I shook my head rapidly and prayed she understood. Instead, she quirked a skeptical eyebrow, 

   “Oh? So that smog that hovers above the desk was in today’s weather forecast?” Adelaine fanned the dark air dramatically with her palm.

    My lungs cleared enough to let me to form some words, and I protested, “Adelaine, I swear. It’s only an ink cloud. I could have launched it at home. But I wanted to catch up on some reading here. And I also hoped to give you these pastries,” I pleadingly held out the sweetened dough treats with eyes squinted and head bowed in apprehension. They had been expertly glazed with kumquat marmalade.

     “Are you bribing me?”   

     “What? No! We’re friends, Adelaine… Ar-are we not?”

     The cross-shaped birthmark on Adelaine’s right cheek lifted. “Why yes. How silly of me. I forgot. I guess it must be the old age playing with my memories.” She shot me an angry look as if she had read my thoughts and knew the exact notions populating my brain.

    I sent her an apologetic look. “I fear disappointing you, Adelaine. I thought you were upset enough to charge me of a crime or worse, banish me from the library.”

   “Calla, you do not disappoint me,” Adelaine chuckled loudly, her laughs bouncing off the limestone walls. It took a few moments for her to compose herself, and even then, she had to eek out words through the laughter, “To prove that, I’ve never seen anyone so riled over ‘banishment’ from a library.”

    Still grinning, she scooped out holy water from a bronze basin attached to the nearby limestone and handed me a metal cup. I gratefully nodded and swished the translucent liquid in my mouth, washing away the taste of ink. The ink may have been toxic, but holy water could easily disinfect nearly every poison.

  “So, how is Lark?” Adelaine asked me. “Keeping himself busy?” she gestured to the smoke knowingly. “It’s been a long while since he visited me,” she added, trailing off in disappointment. She was good friends with my father. Everyone was.

    “You know the ink cloud is for him?” I asked with wide eyes.

   “Well, yes. Who else would it be for? You’re always taking care of family.” Adelaine beamed with pride, and I was quickly reminded of how much she cared for me. She almost thought of me as her own child. Or more like great-great-great-grandchild. Somewhere far, far down the family tree. Adelaine flicked my forehead. So she was reading my mind. Curses.

    “I’m still in my prime, I’ll have you know.” Adelaine plucked a manuscript lazily from the stack on my desk and thwacked me on the head with it. “Written in Enari,” she mused as I rubbed my head, “Impressive.”

    I thought it was too, honestly, because Enari was a difficult language to learn. There seemed to be a competition among the Enari thousands of years ago in the invention of words: who could stack the most consonants side-by-side without giving in to vowels. It had taken me years to decipher. “Only a handful understand this, Calla. Why are you reading it instead of one of those cookbooks you’re obsessed with?”

   I dropped my voice to a whisper which may have been foolish because we were the only ones there, but I felt like what I wanted to say should be kept a secret. “They tell of a forbidden fruit, Adelaine. One much like Eve picked, maybe the same. But they do not call it an apple as we were meant to believe. It’s something wilder, succulent and endangered. An elusive sixth taste! Imagine! Experiencing a sensation other than salty, sweet, bitter, sour, or even umami-” I stopped when I noticed her expression, or lack of one.