suddenly it pulled its wings in tight and dove towards the ground.
Silvia stared after the demon for a second as the creature faded like a lost helium balloon, until she couldn’t be sure what was and what wasn’t. The fat man beside her never looked up from his screen, and with a shiver Silvia stared out into the sun.
Two weeks previously.
The weather had finally turned warm, and Lucy looked out of her bedroom window with a frown. The sky was cloudless, a perfect April day, warm and beckoning. She brushed her blonde hair, enjoying its silky feel before pulling the strands into a thick ponytail. She applied her makeup carefully, trying to conceal the altering shape of her face. Finally satisfied that she had covered as much as possible, she turned at an angle to the mirror and watched as she unfurled the growing wings from her back.
The bone structure was dark, in stark contrast to her Scandinavian coloring. Translucent skin was intertwining around the bones, binding them together, sealing the new bones in and nourishing them with red tendrils. Lucy stretched the wings out, clearly amazed at her twelve-foot wingspan.
“Lucy, you ready for school yet?” her mum called up the stairs.
Lucy’s cheeks pinked, like she’d been caught doing something naughty and collapsed her wings. She put on her school shirt, pulling the fabric tight fasten the button then shrugged on her winter coat. She took one last look in the mirror, twisting her face from side to side as she examined the new contours. With a sigh, she pulled out the hair band, allowing her hair to fall around her face.
With shadows on her skin, and her jacket already making her hot in the spring air, she left for school.
Two weeks previously.
“Goddamn-it!” Lucy swore as she twisted her arms behind her in an effort to scratch her back. Her skin had been unbearably itchy, like bugs had been let loose in her veins and were uncomfortable in their new home.
She felt scabs seconds too late as her fingernails grasped at the edges and pulled them off. Ignoring the slippery sensation Lucy continued to grate at her back, unable to resist a particularly irritating patch of skin. She tried throwing her arm over the top, just another few seconds of scratching before she jumped in the shower.
That was when she heard the popping sound. Like when you pull your finger out of your mouth quickly or yank a tooth from its socket. Lucy felt suddenly satisfied, before she felt a strange new sensation from behind. She stared at her face in the mirror above the sink and began turning slowly. The first thing she saw was blood weeping down her slim back, then she noticed the stumps of bone that had emerged from either side of her back. Her shock at seeing the blood turned to curiosity as she discovered that she could move them.
Crimson trails dribbled down the backs of her legs and soaked into the bathmat while Lucy stared wide-eyed into the mirror. She wiggled the nubs with growing confidence, her expression sitting somewhere between horrified and amazed. She scratched absentmindedly at her face as she wiggled her new appendages.
Two weeks previously.
Lucy’s bedroom had that thick scent of sleep. The curtains ruffled in a slight breeze and Lucy tucked her feet back under the covers. She made quiet smacking sounds and flopped her head to the other side before settling once more.
The curtains moved, too erratically for the draught, followed by a thudding sound as something landed on the carpet. A beetle like creature emerged from under the drape of the curtain and scuttled under the bed. It climbed up the corner of the bed frame, arriving by Lucy’s pillow, her hot breath making its feelers tremble. It rested for a moment before clambering up onto the pillow and then up on her exposed neck.
Lucy twitched at the creature’s sharp little feet pricked her skin, but it was already at the raised contours of her backbone. It stopped, chittering its pincers, giving them a warm up before biting around the bone. Lucy stiffened in the moments before an anesthetic spray from it’s mouth hit her skin, numbing the area almost instantly. The creature held on for a long while, occasionally grasping harder as she tossed around the bed. Eventually Lucy rolled onto her back and the creature suffocated between her skin and the mattress.
In the morning, she noticed a red swelling on the back of her neck, put it down to puberty and decided to wear her hair down for a few days while she waited for the boil to go down.
Camilla
Tom Metabus sat hunched over, preparing to head down the dark tunnel once more. As he tried to find a vein in which to pierce with his needle, he ignored the screaming from the other room. Janice would see to Camilla, she knew it was his turn to jack up. Tom finally gave up on his arms and began searching his legs. Somewhere, there would be a place to stick the needle in.
“Jesus Christ, Janice, can’t a bloke get high in peace?” Tom threw the needle down in disgust. He just couldn’t concentrate enough to steady his hands. He climbed off the sofa, ignoring the stains and smells, and stalked over to the bedroom.
It stank in there, it stank of rotten nappies and urine and vomit. The curtains were really just scraps of dirty grey netting doubled and slung over a curtain rail that had been there when the council gave them their flat. There was a bed with no sheets, just a mangy duvet with no cover and a few thin pillows. The cot in the corner was the nicest thing about the room, painted white, and not yet stained in the grime that covered everything else. Inside the cot a tiny baby tossed her arms and legs around, making a plaintive cry for milk.
“Janice, get up, the baby wants you.”
Janice lay partly under the duvet. Tom prodded her before going to pick up Camilla. The shaking in his hands rippled up his arms and down his body, his mind returning to the honey colored liquid waiting for him in the syringe.
“Janice, get the fuck out of bed, Camilla needs her mum.” He kicked her legs, waiting for movement, swearing, anything. “What the fuck, girl,” he said after he’d pulled the covers off her body.
Tom cried for a long time, sometimes with tears, sometimes with drugs. Camilla began to grow up, knowing that she wasn’t always going to be fed when she wanted to be, receding inwards to become quiet and withdrawn. One day, Tom sat crying on the bed clutching the elastic in his hands as he searched for a place to inject. Camilla stood in her cot that was no longer white, leaning on the bars and watching her daddy as he cried and slapped at his skin.
“Daddy make better,” she said in her sweet infantile voice.
Tom looked up, his eyes grey and his face pallid. He stared at her for a long time, sorting out a great debate in his head. Eventually, he found a vein and injected the poison.
“Time to go Camilla,” Tom told her, picked her up out of the cot and left the flat.
He paid a visit to the Social Services, found a social worker that appeared to understand and signed the paperwork she put together there and then. Then the hard part came, when he had to hand little Camilla with her carrot curls over to the woman at the desk. Camilla’s lower lip quivered as Tom backed away, but he knew it had to done.
Six months later, Tom left the city, his friends, his acquaintances and his dealers and hopped on a train. Three hours, two changes and a bus journey later, Tom arrived in a small town he’d never been to, and rang the bell of a house he’d never seen before.
“Tom… hi. I’m Lucy!” she said in the over happy voice of someone who actually enjoyed life.
“Hi,” Tom said, trying to at least smile. He was tired. It had been a long hard few months.
“I suppose you want to see Camilla,” she said, opening the door wide. “Camilla,” she called, “Look who’s here to see you!”
Down the hall a little girl tottered, a little girl in ginger pigtails, a pretty dress and a wide smile. Her face was clean and covered in pale freckles. Tom couldn’t remember any freckles. He scooped her into his arms, tears in his eyes. He swore never to let her go again.
Tom got a job nearby on a local estate. He learned the art of forestry, and Camilla grew up to respect nature. She would be outside, no matter how hard the rain fell,
how furious the blizzard or how bright the sun shone. So it was no surprise when she excelled in sport, loving to run, swim and ride her bike down winding trails.
After Camilla left home, Tom would sit in the pub with a beer in one hand and the other pointed at the television whenever her face appeared. And he swore that Camilla could run so fast that blades of grass merely tickled the souls of her feet, and that she could cross a river without a single drop of water touching her skin.
Motherly Love
Sally took a clean bottle from behind the sink, stifling a yawn as she reached for the formula milk. The baby alarm came to life as the infant upstairs found his second wind and started howling again. For a moment she thought about the codeine pills she’d tucked away in the back of the cabinet. She could grind a few of them up and mix the powder into the formula milk.
She shook her head, and put both hands on the counter, fighting exhaustion, avoiding him as he screamed in his room. He’d taste the drug and throw the bottle back at her. She’d disguise the bitterness with chocolate milk. In the morning. Put it in his sippy cup so he wouldn’t be suspicious. She just needed a little rest. Not be worrying all the time about what Walter might do next. A few minutes, half an hour… Sally started, her eyes had been closed, only for an
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