The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender(42)

He offered his hand and pulled me up easily. I was surprised by how small my own hand looked wrapped in his. I blushed. I adjusted the cloak one last time and let him lead me toward the group, his hand gently pressed against the small of my back.

Cardigan sat on the edge of the reservoir with two boys and a girl. The boys were twins, identical in every way. The girl was small and bone-thin, her wrists like crane legs.

Cardigan stood and, with a flourish toward me, announced, “This is the Living Angel,” resurrecting the name the newspapers had given me on the day I was born. On the day Henry and I were born.

The three stared at me, then the girl said, “Isn’t she supposed to have wings?”

The twins laughed at her. I gaped at Cardigan, shocked that my best friend would give me away just like that. Some friend, I thought, glaring at Cardigan.

“She does!” Cardigan said. “They’re just — hidden.” Her face fell as she sat back down. “It is her, though.”

Rowe moved slightly, shielding me from the group. He frowned at Cardigan. “You can’t be s-serious,” he said to her quietly. “You don’t kn-now how they’re g-going to r-react.”

Still believing it was all a joke, one of the boys said, “I heard her wings are, like, six feet long.”

“Twelve feet, five inches across actually,” I murmured.

“Like an eagle?” he dared.

“Wandering albatross.”

The other twin stood and crossed his arms. “So, if they’re so big, how d’ya hide ’em?”

I sighed and moved out of Rowe’s protective stance. I pulled the green cloak open just far enough to reveal the front straps of my harness.

One of them whistled. “Off the wall. That looks painful.”

“It is,” I admitted.

“Why do it, then?” the girl asked. She had a soft, wispy sort of voice that made me think of dandelion clocks. I shrugged.

“Take that thing off,” the girl said. “We don’t mind.”

“Yeah, do your thing, baby,” said one of the twins.

The other boy grinned. “And don’t feel like you have to stop there either.”

So I took them off. First the heavy cloak, then the harness. My wings popped free and opened, the tips stretching toward the sky. Suddenly everyone around the reservoir grew quiet. Conversations forgotten, they gathered around the mythical creature whose story they’d heard once as children but had mostly forgotten or never really believed.

“Let’s see ya fly,” a boy called out.

“I can’t —” I began. I dropped my wings back to my sides. Flying had never felt like something I could do. But, then again, neither had leaving my house on the hill.

“Yes, she can!” Cardigan’s excited voice echoed across the water.

I stared at her. “No,” I muttered. “No, I can’t.”

“Of course you can!” she insisted, manic elation gleaming in her eyes. “Why would you be given wings if you weren’t meant to fly?”

I didn’t have an answer for that.

Cardigan grabbed my wrist in a tight grip. I clawed at her hand, begging her to let me go. I searched the faces around me for the one I could count on: Rowe’s. But I couldn’t find him.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” she said, laughing. “This will be fun.”

Followed by a fervent and growing crowd, Cardigan gleefully dragged me to the end of the reservoir, where the ground fell away — a ravine.

I stood alone at the edge of the cliff. The kids crowded around, close enough that I could hear their enthusiastic calls, but distant enough that I couldn’t grab and drag one of them with me if I should plunge to my death.

A body broke through the crowd and walked purposefully toward me. The next moment I was wrapped in Rowe’s arms. I felt his twitching muscles in the quickening of my heart, his anger and indignation through my hands on his chest.

“Rowe!” Cardigan objected.

“Enough.” His tone said it all.

Into my ear he murmured, “You don’t have to do this.” He gently moved his hand down my arm to steer me away. “I can take you home.”

I let my head drop against the itchy wool of his jacket. The fabric felt coarse on my cheek. I found it comforting. Like his arms wrapped around me. And how perfectly I seemed to fit into the spaces of his body.

I breathed him in, wishing that I had my mother’s gift and could smell him — the essence of him — the way that she would be able to. He made me feel safe. Protected.

But I’d been protected my whole life, forced to watch the world through the lonely window of my bedroom while the night called to me, like a siren luring forlorn sailors onto a rocky shoal. I didn’t want to be protected from the world anymore.

I pulled away from Rowe and moved back to the edge of the cliff. I shuffled my feet. Dirt and pebbles gave way and bounced over the jagged rocks lining the side of the cliff.

I smiled back at Rowe, who looked at me quizzically.

“Watch this,” I said.

I turned and spread my wings open, as wide as they would go, feeling the wind comb its cold fingers through my feathers. One feather came loose and danced its way down into the dark ravine below.

In my mind’s eye, I could see myself arching upward. I could see the awe on the kids’ faces. I could feel the ground fall away from me and a heavy ache in my shoulders as my wings lifted me up into the night. For a moment the act of flight seemed possible.