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"No, but then it's not all that comprehensive."
"I'm going to try it. I'm going to talk to it."
He looked up from the computer desk. "You're not going without me."
"Okay," Kaye said. "I just thought that it might be dangerous."
"This is the real thing," he said, voice dropping low, "and I don't want to miss even one little bit of it. Don't even think of running off."
She held up both hands in mock surrender. "I want you to go with me. Really, okay?"
"I don't want to wake up someplace with a screwed-up memory and nobody ever believing me. Do you understand?" Corny's face was flushed.
"C'mon, Corny, either your mom or Janet is going to hear you and come in here. I'm not leaving you."
Kaye watched as he calmed somewhat, thinking that she should stop trying to anticipate what was going to happen next. After all, when you were already in a slippery place, reality-wise, you couldn't afford to assume that things would be straightforward from here on in.
The metal of the car made her feel heavy and drowsy and sick, the way that carbon monoxide poisoning was supposed to make you feel before it killed you. Kaye rested her cheek against the cool glass of the window. Her throat was dry and her head was pounding. It had something to do with the air in the car, which seemed to scald her lungs as she breathed it. It was a short drive, and she was glad of it, practically tumbling out of the car when Corny opened the door for her.
In the daylight, it was easy to see rows of houses beyond the trees, and Kaye wondered how it could have seemed like a great woods when she had stumbled through here. The stream, when they found it, was thick with garbage. Corny leaned down and smeared dirt off a brown bottle that didn't look like it was for beer. It looked like it should be holding some snake-oil salesman's hair tonic or something.>"Oh, God," Corny said. "You have wings."
The damp things moved feebly.
The sight of it sent a thrill through him, despite the fear. This was the real thing.
"C'mon," he said. "My house."
Chapter 6
"Down the hill I went, and then,
I forgot the ways of men
For night-scents, heady, and damp and cool
Wakened ecstasy in me."
—Sara Teasdale "August Moonrise," Flame and Shadow
Kaye sat down gingerly at the edge of the couch, so that her new wings hung off the edge and wouldn't get crushed if she moved suddenly or leaned back.
She was wearing a pair of Corny's jeans, belted and rolled at the cuffs, and a black, hooded sweatshirt. Corny had taken a pair of scissors and cut a large section out of the back of it so that they could feed her wings through. Her skin was so sensitive that she imagined she could feel particles as they drifted through the air.
Corny poured himself a glass of Mountain Dew. "Can you drink soda?"
"I think so," Kaye said. "I could before."
He poured some in a mug and handed it over to her. She didn't sip it—it was the same color as her skin.
She could smell the soda, smell the green dyes and the chemical carbonation. She could smell Corny, the acid of his excited sweating and sourness of his breath. The air she breathed tasted of cigarettes and cats and plastic and iron in a way she had never noticed before—it nearly made her gag with each breath.
"It's starting to sink in," Corny said. "I can almost look at you without wanting to bang my head against the wall."
"I'm not sure how to explain. It started a long time ago. I'm not sure I remember important things."
"Recently, then." Corny sat down on the couch. He was staring at her with what looked like a combination of fascination and repulsion.
"I rolled in some clover." She gave a short laugh at the absurdity of it.
