Broken Wings

by L-J Baker

  Rye was slow to realise what was happening. It didn’t seem real that Flora might be granting her a reprieve. She turned to stare incredulously.

  “Do you really think I’m wonderful?” Flora asked.

  “Yes.”

  Flora smiled. “Do you still want to get out?”

  “No. And… um. For what it’s worth, I can’t believe that I really wanted to leave you on Fifth Night either.”

  “Oh, no. You were most emphatic.”

  Rye scowled. “What… what did I do?”

  “You developed this highly unflattering look on your face and bolted without a backward glance. Is this a medical condition? Is it something I have to look out for in the future?”

  “Um. It doesn’t happen often,” Rye said. “Future? You mean-?”

  Flora reached forward to turn on the carpet’s magic. “I’m not making any more plans where you’re concerned. I’ve given that up as a waste of time. Let’s just see where things take us, yes?”

  Rye grinned. “Um. Yeah. Please.”

  “You’d better strap in.”

  “Oh. Right. Um. Before I do… Can I kiss you?”

  Flora turned to her. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Rye leaned across and met Flora’s lips halfway. Almighty King and Queen of the Fey, that felt good!

  Flora smiled and stroked Rye’s face.

  “Um,” Rye said. “When we had sex did we undress?”

  Flora smiled self-consciously. “No. We barely made it into the carpet. We didn’t take the time to remove a single piece of clothing.”

  Rye mentally sighed with relief and patted Flora’s hand.

  Flora looked thoughtful. “Do you have a problem with-? Never mind. I’d better get you home.”

  Chapter Four

  Holly leaned against the kitchen door post. “That smells good. A zillion times better than your singing sounds. I thought you were putting a weasel through a cheese grater.”

  Rye stopped singing and reached for the shaker to sprinkle pollen on the grilled sparrow’s wings. “Knowing what you consider good music, I’m flattered.”

  Holly poked her tongue out then dropped into a chair. “Wow. This looks great. You don’t usually do your special cooking during the week. What’s the occasion? Did you do so well at school that they had to invent a new letter better than A for you?”

  “You’ve got that school trip on Fifth Day morning, haven’t you?” Rye asked.

  “What a waste of a day off! Staring at stupid ruins. Who cares about them? If the limping old tree is so important, how come they let it rot? And a bunch of boulders. It’s not fair that they’re making me go and stare at the stupid things for hours.”

  Rye smiled. Fifth Day. Flora Day.

  Rye had never shopped so fast. She set her bags down near the intersection of Dandelion Avenue and the Citrus Flyway. She was a quarter of an hour early. She nervously fidgeted. She wished she could tell if her armpits smelled. Not that they were going to have sex. No. Definitely not. She dare not risk that again. And it seemed highly unlikely that Flora would want to do it again if last time had been so awful. Not that Rye didn’t think about sex and Flora about every five seconds. The gods seemed cruel beyond imagining that they’d let her forget having sex with Flora.

  Rye turned around to check her appearance in the window of a large broom salesroom. She stepped closer and peered inside. They had all the latest shiny models displayed to excite the greatest envy in potential shoppers. The price of a second-hand broom was going to be difficult enough to find. No point looking at new ones.

  Rye sighed and turned back to watching for Flora’s carpet. This last week had been exhausting. Still, her body would get used to walking to the building site every day. She wouldn’t have minded so much if it didn’t take a good two hours out of her already short days. Realistically, she would only be able to see Flora on Fifth Days. How many school trips would Holly be taking this semester?

  Rye had not been on a second date before, so she wasn’t sure what happened. But it wouldn’t be sex. Too much depended on Rye’s continued concealment. Holly could not be more than a year or two away from getting her wings. That would signal her transition from child to adult. Had they still been in Fairyland, it would mean the commune council would give Holly her own piece of land to work, she could legally own possessions, and she would take her place on the benches at the front of the temple. Most importantly for her continued residence in the United Forestlands, getting her wings meant, under fairy law, that she became legally responsible for herself. So none of their aunts or cousins back in Fairyland could get her deported by claiming guardianship over her. And since she had been a wingless child when Rye took her out of Fairyland, Holly could not be held accountable for her departure or any laws she had violated in leaving. So they couldn’t get her back on those grounds either. Once she developed her wings, she would be safe.

  In breaking her strict celibate habit of the last eleven years, Rye courted danger for them both. Flora might guess that she was a fairy. But Rye couldn’t help herself. Flora was so good to be with. Rye had not experienced much friendship before. Surely this couldn’t hurt?

  Flora’s carpet pulled up. Rye put her bags in the boot and climbed inside. Flora smiled at her. Rye’s return smile was just the outward show of the tingling warmth and pleasure Flora’s proximity sparked inside her.

  Flora steered her carpet to the end tree in Whiterow Gardens and zoomed up the ascending lane to the very top. She lived in the penthouse. Rye glimpsed a swimming pool in the groin of a branch before the carpet descended into a garage. The deep unease that Rye had felt when she walked to Whiterow Gardens failed to materialise. Whenever she was with Flora, something strange happened to the tiny speck of Infinity around Rye. It bent into a more optimistic shape that centred around Flora Withe and feeling good.

  “Do you have anything that needs to be put in the cooler?” Flora asked.

  “Um. Yeah. Do you mind?”

  Flora grabbed a couple of Rye’s shopping bags from the boot before leading the way inside. Rye’s first impression was of tidiness, tasteful and pristine hard-to-keep-clean colours, light, and space. Flora’s living room alone was larger than Rye’s whole apartment. A wall of windows looked out onto a private deck containing the swimming pool. The pale carpet looked like the only foot traffic it received was when someone walked over it behind a vacuum cleaner. Rye grimaced down at her boots.

  Flora led Rye through into the kitchen. Rye stopped and stared. It was as if she had walked into her dream: enormous stove with plenty of burners, acres of bench space, a vast table, a chopping block, and shiny rows of pots and pans hanging within convenient reach. You could really cook in this kitchen.

  “Cooler’s here,” Flora said. “I’ll make tea.”

  When they returned to the lounge, Rye slipped her boots off. To her horror, both her socks had holes. She tried to keep her feet tucked out of sight when she sat on one of the sofas. Flora sat on the other end of the same sofa. Close but not dangerously so. She looked very good in a tight top and little skirt. Rye sipped her tea and imagined immigration officials beating down her door to come and arrest Holly and herself. No sex.

  “How is Holly?” Flora asked. “Shopping this morning?”

  “On a school trip. And hating every moment. Not that I can blame her this time. It sounds very boring. History. It’s not Holls’ favourite subject.”

  “What does she like?”

  “To hear her, nothing,” Rye said. “She’s bursting for the day she can leave school. I had hoped she’d go to university, but she doesn’t seem at all keen. Maybe she’ll change her mind. She does that as often as she changes her clothes.”

  “You’d like her to take a degree?”

  “No one can take your education away from you, no matter what else they do.”

  Flora frowned and cocked her head.

  “I want Holls to get a good job,” Rye said. “A degree is her ticket to th
at. But I’m not sure she hears me over the noise of her crash music.”

  Flora smiled. “I’m surprised that she doesn’t like art. She has natural talent.”

  “She gets average grades in most subjects, but I know she could do better if she tried. She used to when she was younger. She was more interested in school then. If they had classes on giggling about boys, gossiping with her friends on the phone for hours and hours, and playing loud music, she’d be a straight-A student.”

  “We all go through that, don’t we? It’s that dreaded adolescence. There isn’t a creature of any species which doesn’t suffer it, is there?”

  Rye turned away and drank to hide her frown. Her own adolescence had been very different from Holly’s. But then, that was what Rye worked hard for.

  Rye’s gaze snagged on a pair of wall hangings with patterns that almost matched, but didn’t quite. They made her feel that they should and that it was her eyes that were wrong, not the symmetry.

  “Did you make those?” Rye asked.

  Flora turned to look. “Magnificent, aren’t they? A friend wove them. They’re the best things she has ever done by a wide margin in my opinion, though I don’t tell her so in quite that way. But it’s nice of you to think they might have been mine.”

  Rye took another look around the room. She hadn’t noticed the paintings and pots before.

  “Would you like to see what I do?” Flora asked.

  “Yeah, I would.”

  Flora smiled warmly. Rye’s heart gave an odd flutter.

  Rye slipped her hand into Flora’s and let her lead her through the apartment. They entered a room alive with light and colour. The windows started partway up the walls and curved around to cover half the ceiling. Rye could see green leaves, blue sky, and white clouds. Balls, skeins, and hanks of threads of every material and hue spilled out of baskets on the floor and formed rainbows on the shelves.

  “Sad to say,” Flora said, “but this is my closest companion.”

  Rye stared at the loom which dominated the room. It looked large enough to make a good-sized rug on, though it was only partly threaded now.

  “If I worked out how many hours I’ve spent with this,” Flora said, “compared to the time I communicate with people, the answer would be thoroughly depressing to any normal being.”

  Rye looked around at the colourful bits of cloth and rough watercolour sketches tacked to the walls. She stepped across to peer at a circular piece of cloth.

  Flora moved closer. She glanced between the cloth and Rye. “Well? Or would I be better not asking?”

  “Art and stuff usually makes me feel very stupid,” Rye said. “As though my brain is missing the bit that other people have which lets them make sense of shapes and colours.”

  “This doesn’t?”

  “Not as much. I don’t understand what it’s supposed to be. But it feels okay to look at.”

  Flora smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say anything. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “You gave me your honest reaction. I can’t ask for better.” Flora gently stroked Rye’s sleeve. “I don’t know many people who are unafraid enough to be as honest as you are. I don’t just mean this. I was thinking about in the carpet the other night.”

  Rye frowned down at the floor. Honest. That was the last thing she could be.

  “I’ve upset you,” Flora said. “I’m sorry.”

  Rye shook her head. She discovered that she was holding Flora’s hand. She lifted it to her lips to lightly kiss it. She was suddenly aware of Flora’s body so close and the musky smell of Flora’s perfume. Flora took a deep breath and her fingers curled around Rye’s. Her eyes looked dark and intense. That elusive hint of pine sap diffused up into Rye’s brain again. She pulled Flora against her to kiss.

  “Oh, Elm,” Flora whispered.

  Their lips parted and their tongues joined eagerly. Flora pressed warm and pliable all against Rye’s front. Her chest rubbed against Rye as her breasts firmed with her arousal. Rye groaned and buried her face in Flora’s neck.

  Flora stiffened and pulled away. She put her hands against Rye’s ribs. Her hardened chest rose and fell rapidly.

  “Is this a good idea?” Flora said.

  Rye swallowed and tried to get her brain working again. She stumbled back. Her wing buds pressed against the wall. Rye used the discomfort to help bring herself back to sanity.

  “Fey,” Rye said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to – Shit.”

  “You’re not going to run out on me?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s go and sit down.”

  As Rye trailed Flora back into the living room, she wriggled her errant wing buds back into place.

  “Look,” Flora said, “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know when I say that I am very attracted to you. But I’ve been burned. I don’t want that to happen again. You came on like a falling tree. I wouldn’t have minded, but I think I need you to tell me when you’re ready.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t mind. If you say today, I’ll be more than happy to pick up where we left off. If we have to wait, I shall. There’s more to a relationship than sex. Or should be, to make it worthwhile. But you have to tell me.”

  Even though Holly was not due home for another hour, Rye felt nervous about Flora flying her all the way up to the apartment’s parking pad. She should’ve asked Flora to drop her off at the corner of the street, just to be safe.

  “When can I see you again?” Flora said. “Second Night is your night class, isn’t it? How about Third Night?”

  “Um. I can’t. I’ll be working.”

  Flora frowned. “You work nights, too?”

  “On First and Third Nights. Second Night and every second Fourth Night is night class.”

  “You have two jobs?”

  “How about next Fifth Day?” Rye said. “I’m sure I can work something out with Holly.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. Call me.”

  “Of course.”

  Late on Fourth Day afternoon, Rye stood in the line at the pay hut door.

  “You coming to the bar, Rye?” Knot said.

  “Nah,” Rye said.

  “You got a hot date?” Blackie asked.

  “Real hot,” Rye said. “I’ve got to fix the bloody table leg.”

  “If it’s stiff legs you want to play with, Rye,” Budge called from farther down the line, “reckon we could find someone at the pub for you, eh, Knot?”

  Most of the blokes within earshot laughed. Rye made an obscene gesture suggestive of Budge’s inability to hold an erection.

  “Woods!” Grub called. “Wake up.”

  Rye stepped inside to stand at the table.

  “Full week,” Grub said. “No deductions. Sign here.”

  Rye signed her name beneath all the X’s, thumbprints, and claw indentations of her fellow workers. She took the pay packet outside and opened it to count. Three hundred and twenty pieces. One hundred and sixty-five for rent. Ninety for food. Twenty-five for lights and fuel. Eight for water. Twenty for that new pair of shoes Holly needed. Twelve for unexpected stuff that always came up.

  Rye tucked the packet in her back pocket, hefted her bag, and strode through the gates. She waved to Knot and the boys, then turned the opposite way for the long walk to the Hollowberry Municipal School for her night class.

  A low-flying carpet passed Rye, an old song trailing from its speakers. Rye picked up the tune with a whistle. She was smiling to herself as she trotted down the Rootway underpass. A shower of fat raindrops did nothing to dampen her high spirits. Life wasn’t so bad.

  Rye strolled through the school gates ten minutes early for her class. She had just stepped inside when the lights died.

  “No panic!” A goblin caretaker hurried down the corridor with a torch bobbing in his big grey claw. “Power dead. Go outside.”

  Rye went to stand out in
the parking lot. She nodded to one or two of her classmates. More students arrived and the time for the start of class passed, but the school remained black. After about a quarter of an hour, one of the teachers came out to say that the classes had to be cancelled.

  Rye shouldered her bag and headed for the gates. When she hit Lowbranch Street she automatically turned right, but she had not gone more than a dozen paces before she stopped. A large transit carpet flew past, crammed with people going home from work. Rye frowned. She had two hours before she was due home. Holly would be around at the Barks’ house. She had her pay in her back pocket.

  Rye ran back down the street and stopped at the first public transit node. She quickly scanned the flashing timetables. Newbud. There had to be a route that could get her there. Yes. The brown carpet to the bridge district node and the taupe carpet to Newbud. She felt only a slight twinge for her extravagance as she handed over four pieces for her fare. She would not buy beer this week.

  She had changed to the taupe carpet and was whizzing north from the bridge district before it occurred to her to wonder that Flora might not be at home, or might have company.

  Rye jogged to Whiterow Gardens. The flutters of unease and sense of not belonging didn’t stop her from looking for the call panel on a decorative but also sturdily functional gate around the base of the tree. There were only ten buttons. That meant each apartment occupied a whole level to itself, unlike the sixth of a wedge that Rye lived in. She wiped her hands on the back of her pants before pressing Flora’s button.

  A jogger in trendy gear shot Rye a disapproving look as he passed. Rye craned her neck to see if she could see any lights in Flora’s penthouse.

  “Crap,” Rye said. “I should’ve called first.”

  Click.

  “Rye!” Flora said. “What are you doing here?”