Wings

The house is dark and still as he pulls me through it, his parents both at work and his siblings in day care. My eyes flit around, taking in the numerous family pictures on the walls and the scattered toys on the floor of the family room. My mind racing with pounding thoughts, no. This is a horrible idea. He’ll reject you then tell everyone about what he sees. Then they will reject you. But you trust him. But he’ll despise you. But he wouldn’t actually do that. He’s reassured me that nothing will change. He defended you when they tried to rip the cloak from your shoulders. He will stick with you, he won’t abandon you, not like the rest of them, as he pulls me farther up the staircase, passing more family photos. Their eyes follow me as we pass and I squirm under my cloak. Tread carefully Aderyn. He pulls me into his room, then flips on his lamps, chasing the darkness into the corners. I stand as still as a statue, watching his movements. He turns to me, giving me a reassuring smile, but I can see the curiosity in his eyes. I can see it in everyone's eyes. They can’t really help it. They all want to know why I wear a heavy black cloak made in the 17th century.

I give him a small smile back and reach up to grasp the clasp on the heavy cloak. I look away from his face as I let it fall. I feel them slowly unfurl, my wings, my huge black ravens wings that span eleven feet. I can feel him watching them, watching as they open, blocking out the light and releasing the darkness from the corners once again, then close around me like a shield. Not a sound escapes, and the world holds it’s breath.

I force myself to meet his eyes, searching for something that revealed what he was thinking, that it was ok, that he didn’t care. But after the wonder faded, his eyes turned dark, hard, filled with disgust. A moment after he found his voice. It was serious, mean and the slightest bit scared.

“You’re a monster. And will never be anything but one. Get out of my house.”

I recoil as if I had been slapped. I want to ignore his words. Allowing my stark black hair to fall into my face, keeping his traitorous eyes from finding my teary ones, I reach down and pick up my cloak. Was it really worth it? But instead of donning the cloak I drape it in my arms, then throw open his window and leap out, fleeing into the awaiting sky 

The air whistles as I fly, above the clouds, above the Earth, above everyone. The tears came, only to be stolen by the wind as it buffeted my face. Far too soon I’m above my house, and anything seems better than going home. So I circle the neighborhood, staying high enough that no one can see me but low enough that I can still see them. I see a group of boys wandering the streets, probably walking to the school, and suddenly it feels like my chest is being torn open. Everything will change. He will tell everyone and then they will hurt you and fear you. No one will actually care for you. My mind speaks as if it’s a real tangible thing in front of me, taunting me. I begin to plummet, falling down to earth, only to open my wings on the last second and I pull up, swooping into the tree in our front yard. I glance to the group of boys. Naturally, their music is so loud that they can’t even hear themselves think, let alone a monster, like me  fall from the sky. I pull on the cloak and climb down, entering my empty house and wandering to my room.

I pace the room for a while, my mind swirling, my thoughts never settling, like sand in a windstorm. The tears no longer fall, but chills bite my skin whenever I repeat in my head what he called me. A monster. I told you so. Everyone thinks you are strange. Why would he be any different? And now he knows the real you, the truth.  I shake my head, remove my cloak, allowing my wings to stretch out for the second time that day. I sit down on my window seat and begin running my fingers through my feathers, preening them, as if I could rid myself of the foul words aimed at them. At you. I pick up my sketchbook and pencil sitting next to me and begin to draw. My hand seemed to move on its own accord, making line after line, mark after mark, soon a picture started to form, a girl with pure white wings holding the hands of humans around her, all looking happy, as if an angel graced their lives instead of a monster. The wings took up the whole width of the page, and even curled around the humans as if they were her friends. I rip it out crumple it into a ball and throw it out the window, watching it fall into the dirt below. It’ll decompose now, return to nature like it should. Maybe you should return to the Labyrinth. That's where they threw the Minotaur, the half-bull prince, when he was old enough. I pick up the pencil again. This time I take one of the discarded feathers from one of the growing piles in my room and began drawing that in detail. Every curve, dash and highlight. This one gets to stay in the notebook. I immerse myself in my sketching, allowing it to sweep me away from this terrible reality.

By the end of the night, on my desk sits a drawing. The drawing is of a monster, a monster with dark black wings, a monster who stands alone.