Welcome To Swampwood

A piece from the book I'm hoping to get published. This is the first "chapter" and I'm posting it to see if it hooks anyone or is interesting enough to get attention. Also, everyone has wings.

Criminals infest the dank cellars and broken streets here--penny-ante con men and pickpockets, second story artists and headcrushers, gunmen and their molls, w****s and their pimps, witches and their supposed proxies--all scratching and clawing for a leg up, for any advantage, and it was easy to get caught in the crossfire of the created madness.

There is only one place in the entire world that provides this exquisite clash of culture and flavor, a city that was built on an ongoing battle for territory and popularity: New Orleans.

And, right now, any hobo, hooker, street performer, or voodoo witch in the making was in school.

Allegedly, Swampwood High School was haunted. At least, that’s what that one ghost hunting television show that came through to film a couple of years ago said, but their episode wasn’t exactly very accurate in terms of realness. They went running around the hallways at night spooking each other and trying to exorcise ghosts, except those ghosts were really just some senior kids who went out to mess with the crew. They made weird noises and drew symbols on the walls until they got sick of it and went home. The ghost hunters determined that they had released the poor souls of the damned, and that was that. They got another happy ending for their show.

But Swampwood was anything but happy. It was a high school. Is true joy really ever possible inside their walls?

Alas, there wasn’t anything to be done. All you can really do is push through the struggles--or take the easy route and just drop out or get expelled, though you would then have to face the wrath of your parents, so was really it worth it?

Well. At least Swampwood had an indoor pool.

And if they wanted to swim in it, a winglet of girls would have to complete a very ancient, important trial.

Harpyball.

“Alright, ladies!” Coach Byers called from the roof of the school. “Let’s try to make a goal! Come on, you can do it!” She was a muscular, dark-skinned woman with powerful wasp wings that buzzed with energy behind her. She looked exactly like the insect she took after, clad in a yellow and black tracksuit and her usual shiny silver whistle, amber eyes scrutinizing her class carefully.

Above her, the sky was stretched out into an endless blue plain. Girls flipped and hovered and weaved in the air, clad in black biker shorts and sports bras. Shirts caused more wind resistance when in flight, so they weren’t worn when playing. Fine with Lily, personally, she enjoyed the feeling of the sun on her skin.

Rivulets of sweat ran down her sun-kissed dark skin, shimmering in the sunlight and setting her red-spotted purple butterfly wings aglow with color. She always thought the name was ironic, because instead of red and purple, her wings were ebony black and dark sapphire blue with spots of deep sunset orange-gold.

Her sharp-tongued, gremlin-like older cousin, Heather Beasley, floated up beside her and flashed her a smirk before pumping her wings and lunging through the air to go after the served ball. She was a Hydra, with powerful, bright blue wings that had sea green and emerald green inkblot-like splotches all over the interior. Her seam ripper-shaped horns were darker blue and tipped with sea green, and her luscious auburn hair usually wreathed elegantly around them if it weren’t for the ponytail she had.

Lily copied her, going after the ball to stay on defense. She canted her huge wings, narrowly avoiding crashing into another girl. Swooping upwards, she torpedoed her body in between a pair of reaching Avems and snatched the ball out of the air. Alarmed squawks of shock made a smirk pull on her lips. She quickly threw the ball to one of her teammates before it could be taken again.

This process repeated, bobbing and weaving, tossing and stealing, swooping and diving, until Heather zipped through the goal area with the ball grasped tightly in her talons. Loud cheering from her team instantly broke out at the gain of a point.

“Yeah!!” Heather cheered. She glided over to Lily and twirled around her. “I am the best Harpyball player ever! Bow down to the queen!”

Lily laughed and bowed. Heather beamed at her, fluttering the tips of her ruff. From the roof of the school, Coach Byers shook her head fondly, then signaled for the girls to get ready and Lily and Heather parted, ready to get their team a point.

But they didn’t.

Because the ball was passed far and the girl who was supposed to be occupying the airspace was standing on solid ground, shirt still on, staring dumbly at the ball that thumped in front of her.

All eyes turned to Keaton Fox, the witch in a mortal world.

She was an undernourished, stunted mess of an avian. Lanky and gaunt, with a narrow chest, hollow cheeks, and sunken eyes that were so bright moon silver that she appeared to look blind in the sunlight. Shaggy snarls of red hair fell around big yellow Honduran bat ears, and yet she also had long blue, green, and copper crest feathers folded back along her skull.

A hybrid.

Keaton was only 15, a sophomore and two grades below Lily, but Lily had known her since elementary school. Everyone did. Even in a wild city like New Orleans, everyone knew about the Swamp Witch with her weird name and her crazy mother. And that made her a target for even the lowest of losers. There had been years worth of teasing and messing around with this girl. School days full of pinching and tripping and knocking books over. Bubblegum matted in too-red-to-not-be-bloody hair when she was sleeping in Algebra and inappropriate notes slipped into her binders. Scorpions put into her shoes, thumbtacks poised on her chairs, lunches dumped over her head. Dozens of games were created to see who could make Keaton cry first or who could make Keaton beg for forgiveness or who could dunk Keaton underwater the most in the canals until she drowned. Slurs and rude nicknames were tossed her way, worms were put in her food, and spit was spat on her as she passed by. Feathers ripped out, ears pulled on, dewclaws smashed in doorways. People laughed when she presented, people begged the teacher to switch partners when they were put into a group with her, people destroyed her work so she would have nothing to turn in when she got to certain classes.

Everyone made fun of Keaton Fox, and if she knew this, she never did anything about it.

Keaton lifted her head like an impeded cow and blinked slowly at Coach Byers, who was frowning pitifully at her. She looked back down at the ball, then the sky, and then she took a shuffling step backwards, hugging her arms tightly around herself.

“Do you think she’s retarded?” Tori Norris not-quite-whispered to Lily and her friends. Her golden pheasant wings were like dancing beams of sunlight in the air, but her long, flowing tail feathers were bobbing like squid tentacles around her legs. Dark brown eyes scrutinized Keaton with great distaste that she didn’t bother hiding on her face.

Lily shrugged.

“I bet she is,” Impish Ruby Wyatt said, glancing back at Keaton, who was slowly inching further and further away from the edge of the playing field. She was well named because of her scarlet macaw wings, which were dripping with sweat and fluffing up from the humidity, but she didn’t seem to really care. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Does she never take that necklace off?” Harper Hansen said, her green eyes staring at the silver key on a chain coiled around Keaton’s gangly neck. She was a Vespertilio, a little brown bat, to be exact. But instead of brown wings and brown ears, the skin on her wings and ears were a weird washed out white color when she had insisted on bleaching them when she bleached her hair. She had instantly regretted that decision, having not prepared for the intense burning that came with her actions.

“Doubt it,” Tori said.

“I bet she thinks she’ll die if she does,” Ruby tittered. “That the bungalow of witches she’s a part of will strike her down for taking off their sacred crest!”

Ah, there it was. Everyone’s favorite thing to ridicule Keaton with- the claims that she was a witch.

Ruby did a dramatic reenactment of what she thought witches mauling a girl would probably look like and the group burst into giggles. Coach Byers glanced at them, eyebrows furrowed.

“Alright, let’s get Keaton Fox in the game.” Their coach announced, much to everyone’s dismay. But nobody looked more dismayed than Keaton, who gave Coach Byers a miserable, fearful look. Coach Byers frowned at her again. “Sorry, honey. You can’t sit on the sidelines forever.”

Keaton stared nervously at the class, then glanced one last time up at Coach Byers. When she must have realized that she wasn’t getting out of this, she took off her shirt and spread her wings. The other girls watched her impatiently.

Lily wasn’t sure what was more daunting, how skinny this girl was or her wings. On the outside, they were almost pretty, sporting showy golden plumage with patches of shimmering green and iridescent blue, as if someone had crushed emeralds and sapphires over the feathers. But the insides were plains of smooth white flesh, baring only visible membranes and bones and blood vessels. All the excess feathers seemed to go to her chest instead, which was fluffed with amethyst purple. Black and white bands wrapped underneath the breast and--god, this was why Honduran white bats and mandarin ducks never mate with each other. That, and other reasons.

Keaton vigorously pumped her wings to get up to the height the rest of the class was at. She seemed to struggle with flying, though that was probably because she was missing several flight feathers. She eyed the other girls nervously, swiveling her ears back against her head.

“Good,” Coach Byers said, smiling at Keaton proudly. “Okay, serve. Let’s get this game back on track.”

So, Harpyball started again, and someone had the bright idea to pass the ball to Keaton. She held it tentatively, as if it were a fragile dragon egg, and then a Hydra girl came at her in a flying tackle, slamming into her stomach and knocking her out of the air.

“Are you f*****g kidding me?” Heather said.

“Watch your mouth, Beasely.” Coach Byers snapped.

Keaton floundered in the grass like a beetle stuck on its back before she was able to roll over. She muttered a weak “sorry”, then flapped back into the air to try again. She didn’t actually touch the ball for the rest of the game as she tried to sink into the sky and disappear forever.

Lily’s team ended up losing the game seven to sixteen because the other side kept passing the ball to Keaton, knowing she wouldn’t be able to get it or defend the goal. Everyone kept glaring at her and shooting barbed remarks her way each time she failed at both defense and offense, and Coach Byers did her best to ward them off, but not even their coach could catch every insult hurled her way.

“‘Oh, look at me, I’m a retarded little hybrid who can’t play a simple game!’” Ruby cried woefully in an awful imitation of Keaton’s voice. She whacked the top of Keaton’s head with one of her wings as she flapped by to land. “Learn to play, mutant!”

Keaton flinched back so hard she nearly fell right out of the sky. She landed slowly, then instantly wrapped her wings around herself like she thought they would protect her.

“Is it pool time?” Harper asked Coach Byers eagerly.

Coach Byers sighed in amusement. “Yes, yes. Go have fun.”

The girls cheered and herded back into the gym to get to the indoor pool. Keaton stayed behind, stiff like a statue. Coach Byers looked at her pitifully.

“Come on, Keaton,” Coach Byers said, peering down at the misfit child. There was something in her voice that gave the impression that she spent a lot of time managing this particular student. “Go wind down in the pool. Chlorine is better than sweat if you ask me.” She tilted her head at her, noticing creases of affliction on Keaton’s face. “Is everything alright?”

“M-my stomach…” Keaton whispered so quietly Coach Byers almost didn’t hear her. “It hurts…”

Coach Byers frowned. “I’m sorry, Keaton.” She said. “You can go to the nurse after you get changed? I can write you a pass if you’d like.”

Keaton shook her head, then slowly shuffled into the gym.

The sound of splashing echoed loudly throughout the enclosed area, the smell of chlorine thick in the air. The girls had jumped into the water without even bothering to change into their bathing suits, preferring to romp around in their biker shorts and sports bras. They swam and floated and had overly aggressive water fights while Keaton watched fearfully from the side of the pool.

“She’s so stupid,” Heather muttered, side-eyeing the hybrid. “Is no one worried about our safety?”

“What?” Lily looked at her.

“I heard they spread diseases.” Heather said.

“Really?” Harper blinked.

“Am I ever wrong?”

“Dumb b***h,” Ruby growled. “Does she think she’s better than us by standing there?”

“Maybe she just doesn’t want to get in,” Lily said.

“Hmph. I’ll be back.”

Lily and her friends watched as Ruby climbed out of the pool from the far ladder and circled around the pool so she was behind Keaton. Despite having bat ears and keen hearing, Keaton apparently didn’t hear Ruby coming. By the time she did, it was too late.

Ruby shoved Keaton into the pool.

Laughter instantly exploded throughout the pool, rebounding off of the high-vaulted ceilings and coming back like a sonic boom. Keaton floundered in the water, slapping her wings against the surface in distress. The pool was only five feet deep, but Keaton was also only five feet tall, a problem Lily didn’t really consider until that moment.

“Swim, witch!” Ruby chortled. “Or else you’re gonna melt!”

Keaton dug her claws into the edge of the pool and hung on for dear life, heaving desperate breaths. Her ears were folded back and her wings were trembling, sending ripples through the slowly-blackening water.

Wait--

“EW!!” One girl shrieked. “What IS that?!”

The water. It was turning black.

Whorls of ebony billowed throughout the pool like thick dark storm clouds. It seemed to be coming from between Keaton’s thighs, though they couldn’t be seen because of how dark the water had become around her.

“It’s plasma!” Harper said.

“Oh, ewww!” Tori squealed. “Really? In the pool? That’s so gross!”

“What do you expect from a dirty hybrid?” Heather said in disgust.

“HA!” Ruby barked a loud laugh. “She INKED!”

Loud laughter bubbled up from that comment. Even Lily found herself laughing, even though secondhand embarrassment was surging through her so much that her ears were heating up.

“Guess she’s part squid, too!” One girl yelled, and giggling ensued once again.

“Aww, the baby got scared and inked on herself!” Another tittered.

Keaton looked absolutely petrified. Her claws curled tighter around the edge of the pool, clinging to it as if it were a boat and she was a drowning woman. Her bulging grey eyes were locked on the black liquid spreading throughout the pool and didn’t look at anything else.

“Keaton, get out of the pool.” Lily said a lot harsher than she intended.

But Keaton didn’t get out. She didn’t move at all, not even her wings. She remained frozen, as if the pool was filled with arctic waters and she was suffering from hypothermia.

“God, are you f*****g deaf?” Heather snapped.

No answer. Not even a tiny whimper. Keaton’s mouth just stayed half open, but emitted no noise.

“I wonder what it’s from,” Harper wondered.

“Passing the blood you drank?” Tori asked the scared hybrid. “That has to be what it’s from! She drank blood!”

“I bet it was a little boy!” Ruby declared. “Remember that Amber Alert we got a few days ago? I bet you kidnapped that kid and ATE him!” She leaned over the pool. “You did, didn’t you? This is the plasma from his blood you’re leaking out everywhere! You killed him!”

She’s fifteen… Lily was thinking. Surely she knows what this is… She’s part Vesper for god’s sake…

But by the look on Keaton’s face, she didn’t seem to know what was going on.

“Get out of the f*****g pool and clean yourself up!” Heather yelled. “This is disgusting!”

A tiny whimper finally came out of Keaton’s quivering lips. Her face had gradually become paler and paler as the seconds ticked by and her breathing was starting to hitch. Was she having a panic attack?

“Come on, girl!” Heather went on. “Piss it all out in front of us or get out and clean yourself up!” She beat her wings, sending a tidal wave of blackish plasma-contaminated water splashing over Keaton.

Shrieks of disgust filled the gym. Plasma water dripped off of Keaton’s face, but after looking closer, Lily realized those were also tears.

“I don’t think she’s going to get out.” Harper said, looking up at Lily and Heather.

Heather smirked widely. “Then let’s clean her up ourselves.”

As if this had been planned beforehand, Ruby suddenly knelt down and shoved Keaton’s head underwater.

An immediate struggle ensued. Keaton snapped out of the horrified trance she had been in and swung her claws desperately, squirming like a drowning snake. Her screams could be heard from even above the water, but nobody was making a move to save her. They all just watched with morbid excitement in their eyes.

“We’re just cleaning you, girl!” Heather shouted. “Calm down!”

Bubbles exploded across the surface of the pool. Keaton’s wings flapped in a panic, but they did little to help her get free. She had to be swallowing so much of the plasma water.

“DROWN THE WITCH!”

It was impossible to discern who let out the first cry; Lily thought it may have been Tori, but it didn’t matter because once was enough.

Everyone began to join in.