When We Have Wings

by Claire Corbett

  Footsteps came towards her room, the tread heavier than Avis’s. Peri smoothed her hair, her heart racing so hard her chest hurt. Why would Peter risk coming here, with Avis in the house?

  Peter entered her room, carrying Hugo, who was fussing, sucking at his hands. ‘You need to feed him,’ Peter said, sitting on her bed, his weight sinking him into the mattress. Peri took Hugo, feeling unaccountably shy, and began to nurse him. Peter watched her, his expression unreadable in the dim light. This was the closest Peri had been to him since she’d got her wings. His presence, the scent from his wings, the weight of him on her bed made her dizzy. She missed him so badly that just being near him was like being drugged. Peter stood up.

  ‘Wait, please,’ said Peri. ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  She leaned over, one arm holding Hugo in place, and reached into her bedside drawer.

  She held out the glass ball with the rose in its centre and he took it. ‘Thank you.’

  Oh, god, I am such an idiot. He’s going to hate me for this. What’s he supposed to do with it?

  ‘Bring Hugo out when he’s finished,’ Peter said as he left.

  She had edged into the living room with Hugo twenty minutes later, blinking as she came into the bright lights. She looked around for Peter but he was out with most of the guests on the broad rock ledge overlooking the sea. The ledge was outlined with lights, and pink, lime and turquoise spotlights illuminated the rocks and waves so far below.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ said Peter, who’d obviously had something to drink and seemed to be feeling reckless. Rather than sending her straight back to her room he handed Peri a glass of champagne. Shocked, Peri took it, her other arm still balancing Hugo. What are you doing? Peri wanted to ask but instead she had to smile politely while Peter introduced her to the guests who’d crowded around her, fascinated by Hugo and by her too, the nanny with wings. ‘Oh, no,’ Peter was saying to a tall, very thin woman, ‘of course it’s not dangerous that she has wings. It’d be dangerous if she didn’t. Don’t you see? She’ll be able to look after Hugo properly, keep up with him when he fledges.’

  Avis swept onto the terrace, a shower of gold wrapped around her from neck to thigh; it glittered as it ran but stayed in the same place. When Avis moved the streaming gold flickered to emerald, to ruby, to opal. It scattered a scented cloud around her. Was there any sort of real fabric there, Peri wondered, or was it some kind of illusion? Peri had never seen anything like it before.

  Avis took Hugo from Peri to show him off to the guests. Peri twisted her silver ring. Hugo should be drowsy and content after his feed but the lights and the music, the noise and crowding from all the strange people when normally he’d be sleeping was unsettling him. Be good, Hugo, be happy, please, Peri prayed under her breath, but of course Hugo would not cooperate. Avis jiggled Hugo, put him over her shoulder, walked with him; she did everything right, Peri thought, but she couldn’t do anything right. Hugo’s grizzling intensified into red-faced wailing.

  Avis virtually threw Hugo at Peri who hurriedly took him to the nursery, where she had him settled and snoring in ten minutes.

  Peri’s memories of the night blurred after that. She remembered shivering in horror in her room as she heard Avis scream at Peter after the guests had left, something about Peri humiliating her in front of their friends. She couldn’t hear what Peter said but Avis didn’t let up. It wasn’t the first argument they’d had about her but it was the worst.

  If only Avis knew. Peter hadn’t touched her since her surgery. Just as her wings were inflaming Avis, they seemed to repulse Peter.

  One day a few weeks after the party, Luisa had shown up at the Chesshyre-Katon house, asking for Peri and Hugo. And lo and behold: she had wings! So that was why she hadn’t been to the park. They wanted a sister for Violet, Luisa explained. Baby Amy. Nothing more needed to be said.

  Except that Luisa had told Peri her horrible secret: a device had been implanted that tracked her and limited her flying range. It’s an electronic leash. They can bring you right down out of the sky with one of these. Just a precaution, they said, now that you have wings. So there it is, she’d said, shrugging. Real bastards, aren’t they, with all their fake religion? Just like the self-righteous creeps I grew up with. Your bosses haven’t told you? I’d check anyway.

  At last she had a friend to fly with in the little free time they shared. They’d talked a bit about their earlier lives and mostly they talked about flying but they did not discuss the price of their wings. Not until Luisa came to her one day, upset, saying, I’ve seen someone I used to know. Never, ever thought I’d see her again. And she was pregnant. Working for a flier family, like you. Like me. I tried to talk to her but she wouldn’t speak to me. Pretended not to know me. She was jumpy. Oh, Peri, I was so shocked. I never thought I’d see anyone from that hellhole ever again. Two weeks later, Luisa had contacted Peri, extremely agitated, wanting to meet her at Salt Grass Bay. She had something to tell Peri, she’d said. Something important . . .

  Cold air hit Peri’s cheek, snapping her out of herself. The wind was picking up. Turbulence was increasing along the convergence zone and Peri decided it was wiser to fly above it for now. She shook her head, feeling tears prick at her eyelids. There’d been no time to mourn Luisa and now, at the beginning of her long journey, was not the time to start. Thinking about her life in the City, though, she was wondering. She was almost at the river delta. If she made that turn, kept going to the other side, she’d be just another illegal immigrant. She didn’t want that life, how could she force it on Hugo? Maybe, just maybe, the extremity of her flight would give both Peter and Avis pause. He was their child. Maybe they’d come to realise that they’d miss him, that all along they’d really wanted him, just the way he was. Surely they’d be full of remorse by now? Perhaps she’d done a good thing after all.

  Time to return Hugo to his family.

  Warm relief flowed through her muscles at the thought of not making that turn up the river delta, of not, perhaps, having to outfly a Raptor. How much easier to keep going, back to the City, back to the only place in this world both she and Hugo belonged.

  And now there was Zeke, who’d said he’d help her. If he could find out what happened to Luisa he might be able to protect her. After all, Peter didn’t kill Luisa and if I give Hugo back he won’t kill me. At least I don’t think so.

  Peri saw herself, all those times with Peter, each one more dangerous than the last. She saw herself pinned to the edge of a building, higher than she’d ever been before. She’d gone of her own free will, sort of, though she remembered feeling Peter’s firm grip on the back of her neck as they ascended in the lift, wondering what Peter was going to do with her; not presuming to ask, not sure what she hoped or feared or wanted from him.

  He’d taken her right to the edge that night, walking her along the bare girders of his unfinished tower, then laying her down so that her head hung back into the abyss, lights winking and moving so far below her, the other bright towers of the City suspended upside down in the sky, the rush of air over her face and neck, Peter’s usually bland voice rough with desire, saying, Don’t be afraid, I won’t let you fall, but of course she had been afraid, that was the point, and her terror subsided only a little as he held her in his arms and covered her with his wings, sleek and warm, the sandalwood scent of his skin and peppery spice of his feathers enveloping her as he entered her again and again, fiercely, no depth or closeness ever enough.

  She’d wept with fright and pleasure that night, the two so mingled that she could not separate them for she had never felt anything so intense, her whole body quivering like a plucked wire. As trust in his strength flowered in her, she relaxed a fraction, just enough to enjoy the sensation of warm wind breathing over them both and the blurred lights and sounds of the City rising up from so far below.

  Oh I love you, she’d breathed softly i
nto his shoulder, so low he couldn’t hear her.

  They never spoke about what happened between them that first night. But they had an understanding.

  Every few weeks, without warning, Peter would take her somewhere new: one of his constructions, a cliff high above the sea, the arch of a bridge. Each time she allowed it, letting him hold her life in his hands. The rush of each encounter left her floating for days, euphoric.

  Even scarier were the times he’d taken her in the house, in his own bed, every encounter riskier than the last.

  That’s not love, my dear, said Luisa, when Peri confessed her secret, dying to tell someone. That’s adrenaline.

  Peri didn’t care. She was drunk on her new-found power. She could never have dreamed that this worldly, powerful and reserved man, this high-flier that half the City looked up to, was obsessed with her, let her see his feelings at their most unguarded and raw. She, Peri Almond, saw a Peter Chesshyre no-one else knew.

  Peri had never known such passion could exist; she knew she would have given him her life. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  Breathe in the rhythm of Flight. She must settle into a tempo that would carry her all the way back to the City, the work of it emptying her mind. Instead it was always while she was flying, her mind streaming with impressions from the sea and sky, the feel of the wind and sun on her wings, that her thoughts crowded in on her. This was the only time and space in which she could think, up here, in Flight.

  The air over the ocean was fracturing into cold sharp winds slicing at Peri, the sky was hardening. The water below her was changed too, the transparent green of that morning, the deep blue of the afternoon swell, was now sullied by brown clouds drifting through the water. This wasn’t sand. There were bits of wood and tangles of floating rubbish; outflow from the river delta. She soared higher but still she couldn’t see the river itself, just the spreading murk from its load of dirt emptying into the sea. This was it; she’d fly on. No turning back. She twisted the silver ring on her finger, round and round. She’d keep her word and return Hugo.

  A strong wind sprang up, blowing from the south-west, buffeting Peri’s face and her right side, pushing her away from land, further out over the sea. If the wind grew any fresher she would not be able to make headway against it.

  Peri searched the cloud ahead and to the right of her, trying to make out what the weather had in store for her and Hugo. There was something wrong with this cloud. It was hundreds of metres high and darkening fast, blocking the slanting rays of the mid-afternoon sun. It was too tall. That was it. Fair-weather cumulus did not grow that high. Worse, it was not alone. The cloud ahead was one among a series of towers merging into a wall along the south-western horizon. Her beautiful fair-weather cumulus had grown into towering cumulonimbus and now formed a dark bank. A squall line.

  Why hadn’t Peri noticed what was happening to the cumulus? She’d ignored the most basic lesson of Flight. Pay attention. Don’t fly with a head full of distractions, Havoc said. Pay attention. She’d done the opposite, flying along absorbed in her own memories, worries and plans. Well, now she had something to worry about.

  The sky was roiling, coming to a massive rolling leaden boil. Dark, crackling with fire.

  Peri turned her head towards the land. She must get down, out of this wind, and find somewhere to wait out the storm, but as she looked behind her she saw it.

  Her wings faltered for a moment and she had to force herself back into her flying rhythm. Flying far behind her and to the right, on her landward side but coming fast towards her over the sea, was a black dot. A raven. That must be it. It must be. But what raven would follow her out over the sea into a storm?

  Peri looked back at the clouds, at the blackening squall line ahead, now visibly closer. Whatever happened she must not fly into that. Her stomach plummeted with dread. Every take-off is optional. Every landing is mandatory.

  A squall line was one of the most dangerous weather formations. A squall line ran extreme winds at its leading edge. A squall line at best meant severe weather but the clouds directly ahead were burgeoning up and spreading out at their top into the anvil shape of a supercell storm, the most dangerous storm of all, with its rotating cyclonic updraft.

  When Peri glanced behind her again, the black dot was larger and gaining on her. It was bigger than any bird. It could be only one thing. This was the Raptor Zeke had warned her about, the one she’d looked for all day. Now here it was, Peter’s Raptor, so intent on tracking her that he too was flying into the storm. Oh god. There was no way of letting him know that she really was returning Hugo. Maybe they didn’t care about that, maybe they just wanted to be rid of her, once and for all. Over the water, away from prying eyes on land, the Raptor would kill her and grab Hugo.

  Peri had been cruising, using as much low-energy soaring as she could. Now the wind was pushing back at her and her breathing grew laboured as she drove harder with each wingbeat, trying to stay on course to the south. Her flight muscles burned, depleted from the hours she’d flown already. The increased power she now demanded of them was too much. Soon, all her muscles would give out. If only the storm had been coming at her from the sea she would have been able to turn inland, try to outrun the storm that way or find shelter and hide. Now, with the Raptor gaining on her, that course was too dangerous even if it had been physically possible.

  Peri concentrated on forcing herself forward as fast as she could.

  What should I do? Let the Raptor catch me, give him Hugo? Better than risking both of us being killed in the gathering storm. But the Raptor won’t just wait for me to hand Hugo over. If he catches me, he’ll kill me, drive me down into the sea. No-one will ever find me. So easy, much easier than letting me live. I’m a nuisance to them alive; I’ve proved that over the last few days, haven’t I? Luisa’s body rolling in the water. It was a good plan. Except for those clouds looming. Neither of us planned on them.

  Visibility dropped by the second as the sky darkened and the wind whipped drops of water into Peri’s face. She couldn’t tell if the wetness was rain or water whisked up from the sea raging below. Peri shook her head and clawed her damp hair away from her face. So hard to think in the mounting roar of the winds and waves.

  Hugo was crying and Peri put her arms around him. ‘It’s okay, little man, don’t worry.’ The rising shriek of the wind tore her voice away.

  The Raptor would have real trouble tracking her now. He had no more control in this weather than Peri did. Even if she were to risk her own life to hand Hugo over to the Raptor, there was now no safe way to do it. Both she and the Raptor had to concentrate on survival. Above all, she must keep away from those clouds. If she had to fly in cloud she would not be able to keep her wings level and then she could spin into a death spiral and not even know it until she stalled, far too late to save herself.

  Peri burned more of her failing energy by forcing herself higher, though she had no way of telling, in this wild dark air, if she’d fought her way up another twenty metres or another fifty. The higher she was, the further away from the downbursts, the less likely she was to smash into the ground. You’ll fall. But there’s no way to fly over the top of this storm. No escape that way. Cumulonimbus blows up into the tallest clouds of all, twelve thousand metres or more.

  Peri glanced over her shoulder and was appalled to see the large black shape, illuminated by light hitting the sea through tears in the cloud, about a kilometre behind her. My god, he’s sticking to me, even in this chaos. Is he mad?

  Peri drove herself forward grimly. No chance of outrunning the squall line now. I’m crossing over the threshold into my worst nightmare. Every flier’s worst nightmare.

  I am flying into a big storm.

  Flying blind.

  She hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings and now she would be punished. If only she could land, get Hugo to safety, it woul
dn’t matter what happened to her. But landing was impossible. Dropping meant losing lift, losing the little power to manoeuvre she had. She’d be heaved sideways, as if she were no more than a wisp of straw. She’d seen birds blown about by strong winds in Pandanus. How did they get to safety? Maybe they didn’t. Birds died in storms; she’d seen their broken bodies washed up along the tideline.

  The air grew more turbulent. It was more frightening than being smashed by a big wave. This was surf too, the wildest she’d ever felt: one minute she and Hugo were tossed up fifty metres into the air, the next they were slammed sideways a hundred metres. The updrafts building this stormfront, whipping this dark froth so high, were blowing fifty knots, maybe more.

  Hugo had been screaming, his tears torn from his face by the storm, but now he was quiet, silenced by terror or the wind snatching his breath away.

  The cloud looming in front of them could be the height of a skyscraper. Or a mountain. No way to tell, nothing in the sky to give it scale. Lightning above stabbed closer. Thunder terrifying beyond thought: a wall of sound breaking, denser than dumping surf, air is a fluid and this crashing fluid was deafening, crushing. The very atmosphere cracked and rolled away in pieces.

  Lightning too close now, sky splitting like a rip in space opening onto the sun, eyes shutting against her will and still the light searing through lids and when they opened again she was falling through a black world, her sight burned away. When it returned, strange lights and sparkles crawled over the darkness. Another strike any closer than that and we’ll die.

  The lightning was playing tricks on her eyes. She could have sworn she saw something in the light of the last flash. Two things. Big and black. Wing shapes. There couldn’t be two Raptors following her. No. Eyes must be deceiving. After-effects from the brilliance. Now they were everywhere. Dark shapes swarming. Another flash. No, there was nothing.