“Lil?” It was George, followed by more rapping on the door.
I didn't answer. It's okay, I thought, everything is okay now. My wings fanned back and forth. The air streamed through them, the feathers, and they were weightless. Beautiful. I smiled into the floor, allowed myself that moment of relief, the joy of release. If every moment, I thought, could be like this.
“An ambulance is on its way,” George said through the door. “You'll be okay. Everything will be okay. Don't be scared.”
I sat straight up, not even wincing when my right wing smashed into the shower rod and the curtain came crashing down.
“A what?”
“I know you don't like doctors,” he said, his voice low, soothing. “But they'll take good care of you, I promise.”
I looked around wildly. I was in a small bathroom, no windows, nothing. A pain came into my stomach and the back of my throat, beating behind my eyes.
I shook it off and stood up. With every ounce of strength I had, I concentrated and pulled my wings back in, ignored the ripping as they folded in like an accordion, feather by feather, and clamped down against my skin. Grinding my teeth, smashing my lips together, I focused in and made one last push, until my wings folded in and lay flat against my back.
I bent down and picked up my ripped shirt—a loose black shirt, in tatters. I looked around frantically for something else, seeing only a stack of towels. Then I caught sight of myself in the mirror, standing there with my breasts hanging down, my skin wrinkled and shining with sweat, my face panicked, afraid. I flipped the shirt around and slid into it so that it was open and ripped in the front but my back was covered. I pulled the shirt in on both sides. There was enough fabric to cover me, if I had a way to hook the material.
“Lil, are you okay in there?” George again, his voice high and tense.
“I'll be right out!” I said, trying to sound normal, forcing my voice to stay low and still.
I pulled open the medicine cabinet, then slammed it shut again. I surveyed the shelves, the pots filled with Q-tips and creams and cotton balls. No safety pins, nothing I could use. I leaned in and pulled the two sides closed as far as they would go and knotted them together. I looked in the mirror again, my wrinkled soft stomach visible but the shirt covering me, my breasts and—I turned to see—my back.
I looked around the room, and at last I noticed the feathers everywhere, spread across the floor and the shelves, in the sink and tub. Panic moved through me as if it were a physical thing, and instantly I was on the floor again, gathering them with my hands, whole fists of them, almost crying out when they slipped from my grasp and back into the air.
“Lil!”
Under the sink I found a small broom and dustpan and grabbed at them, tried to sweep up as many feathers as possible and throw them in the toilet. They flew into the air and scattered onto the floor again. I dropped back onto the floor and swept desperately, keeping my hands on the piles. They seemed to be multiplying, growing. I grabbed at them, handful after handful, and pushed them underwater.
When I finally opened the door, George was practically beside himself. “My God,” he said. “I thought you were dying in there. Are you okay? What's going on?”
I watched him step back and look me over. A few people were lingering in the area; I could feel their eyes on me. I held a towel over my stomach.
“George,” I said, as calmly as I could. “I'm fine now. I was a little sick, that's all. Food poisoning, I think.”
He just stared at me.
“What happened to your shirt?”
From the street I heard sirens. I glanced back into the bathroom and saw feathers lying on the sink, on the floor, the toilet.
“I need to go home,” I said. “I'm sorry.”
He didn't say anything. His eyes were wide and dark.
I caught sight of a terrace where people sat around a large table that had an umbrella jutting out of the middle talking, eating, and laughing. Behind them the sky was fading, purplish, and the buildings rose in layers, their lit-up yellow windows like wounds in their sides.
For a moment it seemed so beautiful, like the night of the ball, like everything I could not have—either then or now—because of what I'd done.
“They're here, Lil,”he said. “Just let them look at you.” “I have to go,” I repeated, squeezing his arm, and with that I moved to the door, pulled it open, and ran down the hallway to the stairs.
Chapter Ten
SHE WAS READY. MY WORK WAS DONE. I STOOD back and looked her over. I had outdone myself, I thought. But I didn't feel satisfied. Not even close. Her face was radiant, perfect. The smudges of dirt were gone, the circles under her eyes disappeared. Her eyes were almost shockingly blue. Her starlight hair lay piled on her head, with long tendrils hanging down her neck. The gown nipped in her waist, flared out over her hips, and shimmied along her as she moved, stopping just above the glass slippers that shone like diamonds from under the hem. The dress's soft blue color lit up her skin, making it luminous and pale, almost iridescent. I looked at her and thought of pearls, the insides of shells.
We were rarely moved by human beauty, but I found myself frozen in front of her, with my heart caught in my throat. I loved her then, despite the ache in my stomach. She seemed absurd in the dusty stone room, standing in front of the cracked mirror, next to the straw mattress on the floor. I thought of her mother, her fairy blood. No matter how much magic I had worked on her to sweep up her hair and brighten her cheeks, it was clear that her beauty was something inside her, a gift she'd been given.
“Does it suit me?” she asked. “Do I look right?” Her voice was so hushed that it seemed like the rubbing of silk against the stone floor.
I forced myself to smile. “You look beautiful,” I said. “Like a princess. No one will be able to take their eyes off of you.”
Gently, I touched her shoulder and turned her to the glass. “Look,” I said.
I stared at her face as she watched herself. The shock in her eyes that turned to wonder. The happiness and anticipation that seemed to bleed off her and color the room. I could feel it moving up over me, and I winced, resisted the urge to slap it off.
This is what you are supposed to do, I told myself. This is who you are.
“Thank you,” she breathed. “I can't believe it.” She turned her head back to me. “You have no idea how much I have dreamed about this.”
“Oh, I think I do,” I said, smiling, trying to keep my voice kindly but hearing that same sharp edge creep in. I glanced forward, into the glass, and caught my own face next to hers. My human face, with its hair like autumn, its green-gray eyes. The face he had seen. Oblivious, she leaned back against me in a gesture of caring and thanks. I put my hand on her shoulder. Maternal. Soothing. I breathed her in, that same desire and longing, and when I closed my eyes, her thoughts became my thoughts. The feel of glass on marble as we walked up the silver stairs. Toward him. His arm circling around.
She was so close to me, I thought. I could reach up and snap her neck.
I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror. This is who I am, I thought. And then, It should be me.
I stepped back and breathed in. I needed to get her to the carriages, I realized, as soon as possible. Stay focused. I thought of Maybeth's words: Everything they long for, we already have. I thought of her voice at the fairy lake, her wings spreading out in front of me as we raced along the shore. How happy I'd been, before the day we went to the palace. How full I'd been, how complete. Maybeth was right. It was human need that had infected me.
But the thought kept rankling, creeping up and sliding against my neck. You don't have everything, it said. You don't have him.
“You don't want to be late,” I said, trying to shake it off, all of it. “Not too late, anyway, just late enough. Your sisters left an hour ago, though. There is nothing to be afraid of. This is your destiny.”
Destiny. I held the word on my tongue and rolled it around, memorizing it, will
ing it into my blood and bone. I reached back to her and gestured for her to move forward.
“Down we go,” I said.
She smiled shyly and walked past me, lifting her gown with both hands and watching her slippers as she moved. “I have never worn shoes like this,” she said. She tapped them against the stone, like a little girl. She stepped forward, thrusting her ankle forward and swiveling her foot so she could see the heel. It sparkled up at her like a piece of ice sculpture.
Child, I thought. I watched in disgust, feeling my resolve crumble. “We don't want to be late,” I said then. “We still need to get you a carriage.”
It took every bit of willpower for me to not make my voice a knife and lash her with it.
She looked back at me. “Sorry,” she said, giggling, and I watched the dress move against her curves as she walked ahead. Her body looked lush and languorous under it. I thought of the way his face would change as she entered the room. She had been made for him, they said. She was everything he'd ever wanted. That's what they had told me.
She was growing more at ease in her new clothes, her new self, with each moment. Becoming who she was meant to be. This is what I had been brought to her for. Each human had so many selves, they said, and so much confusion. They do not know how to be who they are, who they were meant to be. That is how we help them.
She moved toward the door, started down the stairs. I followed her, watching her hair glow in the dark stairway, the tiny diamonds I had sprinkled throughout.
I could have ripped her apart with my bare hands.
I just wanted her out of the house, at the front steps. Just minutes, I thought. It had all come to this, and all this was was minutes. I had lived for hundreds of years and would live for hundreds more. This was nothing. Just get Cinderella to the ball, to her destiny. That is what they had said.
I REACHED the first floor, my wings straining against the fabric holding them down, and pushed my way through the lobby and into the street.
With one hand I kept a grip on my shirt in front so that it wouldn't fly open; with the other I clutched the towel to me. A group of pigeons leaped into the air and took flight before me, and suddenly it seemed that the air was full of feathers: gray and white mixed together, hurtling in the breeze and raining over everything.
I couldn't control the images in my mind, the memories so real and immediate I could taste and smell them, feel the way the air changed, hear the flapping of wings when they came upon me.
The sky was deep purple now. I began walking as fast as I could up the street, across Thirty-fourth Street, past the pizza parlors and fast-food places. Past my apartment and up into Times Square. I wasn't sure where I was going, why I was passing the safety of my own apartment, but it was as if an invisible string were pulling me.
Everywhere I looked, I was sure I saw birds swooping over us, their feathers drifting down to the street. They're not real, I thought, and all I wanted was to outrun the terrible battering wings, the feeling of reaching out for the glittering golden door as the coachman opened it, lurching for the red velvet seat with them just behind me, closing in.
Lights glowed all around, from the neon signs and marquees, the hundreds of cars moving past like fish in the water.
The air smelled of garbage and food and cold. There was a parking garage, a Blockbuster. I clung to them as if they were anchors. I touched my black shirt, fingered the knot in front. I touched mailboxes and lampposts as I passed. Just ahead, Broadway swerved over Eighth Avenue, the streets curving into a circle, and right in front of me, as I crossed, was the bright golden statue, angel-like, that guarded the southwest entrance to Central Park. Behind it lay the lush dark green of grass and trees, of forest.
I could feel my wings spreading. I understood, then: I was going to fly. They were coming back for me, were forgiving me, and I was going to fly.
My wings began to unfold, but it was okay now. I moved past the statue and through the gate and into the grass, leaning down to pull off my boots and then letting my feet sink into the ground. Normally I would have avoided Central Park at night, any exposure to danger, but as my wings began to rise up like baking bread, like a breath, I did not care. I moved through the dark, and I felt a smile take over my face, something I couldn't control. I walked and walked, plunging into the park's secret, dark places. The air was cool and smelled of grass.
No one can hurt me, I thought, and for a moment I felt powerful, otherworldly, proud. I was a fairy, I thought, and laughed out loud, stretching out my arms. I was so beautiful I would have made everyone mad with it, everyone on this earth.
When I'd been walking a good while, passing through an underground passageway and past statues and small, strange buildings, when the park seemed to be empty and the lights gone, I stopped. I looked around again and stood stock-still, listening. I could hear cars, shouts, but from a great distance.
Once I was convinced I was safe, I reached down, untied my shirt, and pulled it off. Let my wings unfold right into air, feather by feather, extending to their full span. Leaned back my head and stretched out my arms. There was no feeling like it. The tips of my wings curled toward each other, forming a giant heart.
The air slid along my bare breasts, through my feathers, seeming to smooth out and erase everything. The ache in my back and legs seemed to disappear bit by bit until there was only this, this moment with my wings flapping back and forth, slicing through the air. I breathed it in and let it move through me. I felt young again, smooth and beautiful.
Suddenly I could not bear it for one more minute, being confined to the earth. There was a power raging through me, and though I had no idea where it came from and why it had come now, I felt it flare up and through each feather, each quill and barb filling me until I could no longer even see straight. All I saw before me was an expanse of green, and sky. And then I closed my eyes, and I remembered: the earth far, far below as we swooped and glided or just drifted along on our backs, the way every color pierced and burned, and how the sky was every kind of blue and purple and pink as we streaked through it. This is what I had lost.
I started walking, more and more quickly. Back then it had been my world, I thought. I had had no idea that I could lose it. That he would come along and make me believe that love was more important than she was, than any of it was. I walked faster, and before I knew it, I was running, racing, my arms out to the sides and my wings pushing the air in waves on either side of me, cutting right through and propelling me forward.
How could anything have been more important than what I was? I jumped up and came back down again, my feet sliding along the grass. I could barely breathe, but it didn't matter. How could one feeling have been more important than this? I sped up, sped up until the entire world blurred, and then, with one lunge, one breath, I leaped right up into the air and folded my legs underneath me. I looked up at the sky, reaching for it. I felt it. I was flying. The air became a waterfall, streaming down my sides.
And then, before it could even register, I was on the ground, on my side, one of my wings smashed and twisted between my body and the grass. I looked around and realized: I had barely moved. I stared up at the sky, and for a moment I was sure I saw a flicker, a glance.
“Help me,” I whispered. “I'm sorry. Come back to me.” I blinked, and the sky was dark again, completely still.
I tried again. I pulled myself to my feet and ran forward, letting my wings spread out on either side and lift me into the air.
But they didn't. I couldn't go anywhere. I ran forward and pushed myself into empty space, only to end up on the ground again, my cheek pressing into earth.
I must have stayed there for hours, curled up, the dark like a blanket over me and the grass pressing into my arms. The pain in my back moved up and down in waves. When I shifted, there was blood in the grass. I pulled my wings in, close to my skin, but they jutted out all wrong. Pain shot through me, like needles, where wing met bone. Feathers fell to the ground. I moved my body. Feathers
covered the ground, mixed in with grass and blood. I closed my eyes. Sobs racked my body, and I just pushed my face into the earth, let them pass through me.
I did not want to ever move, ever get up again. I could not fly, and yet the memory of flight was inscribed in my bones. I thought of the photographs of the fairies, pale and ghostlike, fluttering in the frame.
I lay on my stomach, clutching the ground, and let all the memories wash over me. All of us sitting around the fairy lake, the leaves sprinkling down over us, the water the color of berries. How all I could think about was his face, the feel of his skin on mine. How I had longed, for the first time, to be somewhere else, to be someone else entirely.
There was a pain in me as heavy as a universe, it seemed, as I remembered. I did this, I thought then. I had entered her dream, taken on her desire until I forgot my own place completely. Who I was, and was meant to be. What I was supposed to do. I wanted to stop everything, and die. I had done this to myself. There was no relief for me.
Get up, a voice said. I lifted my head and looked around. Even that movement sent pain shooting down my back. Get up now.
I thought I heard voices, in the distance.
“Maybeth?” I whispered. I listened, but all I heard was a faint sound of wind. And then, from far away, voices again.
“Lucibell?”
I tried to pull my body up. Gasping with pain, I burrowed my palms into the earth and pushed, inching my back into the air. But all I could think was, There's someone here.
I felt something wet trickling down my back. My wing jutted out and brushed my arm in a way it had never done before. There was a searing pain, a feeling as if I'd been ripped through.
I blinked and felt someone there, dashing past me. “Hello?” A wing to my right. I turned my head but saw only empty space and blackness. I stopped and listened again. “Maybeth?” The wind whooshed through the leaves and grass, my bent feathers. Tears streamed down my cheeks but I forced myself to ignore the pain and sit up. I had no idea how long they would wait for me.
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