Page 3 of Where Broken Wings Fly

Twisting so that I could retrieve my pack from my back, I pulled out the last necklace, a spoon, and my container of brown goo.

Setting the latter two down against the earth, I sucked in my last deep breath as I let the dark sapphire on the end of the necklace roll in my palm. Life was buzzing around me in the form of ladybugs, flies, gnats, and little iridescent dragon-flies that moved from flower to flower around my feet. At first, I thought it was the shadow of persistent dread that I hauled around like a trophy that they were attracted to, but it was the flourishing of pollen that surrounded us on all sides.

“You know, I was going to deposit the final necklace in the castle,” I hummed as I dropped my gaze down to the jewel. “But just for making me do that walk, you can stay here.”

I chuckled to myself as if she could hear me while I opened the compartment.

“I hope it’s glorious, wherever you are.” Whispering my final goodbye, I tipped the pendant towards the earth and watched the dust settle amongst the blades of grass. With a half-smile that was born of sorrow, I gently set the necklace upon that pile, scooted a foot away from it, and pulled my breakfast along with me. Ushering a quick curse under my breath as I realized my spoon had been touching a wild mushroom, I wiped the end furiously on my shirt while I pried open the container full of porridge and condensation.

My first bite of that concrete mash was worse than I expected. Questioning the water that I had poured from the motel to create it, I spat out the small mouthful I had taken. With a growing pain for this whole trip, I tipped the container of porridge over and let it slap the ground to my side, soaking into the earth within seconds and leaving strange clumps behind.

Just as I started to rise from my spot on the hillside, a hoarse throat was cleared from behind me. Followed by a deep voice.

“Well, what a strange assortment of offerings you have provided.”

2

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“Who-who’s there?” I coughed out, spinning wildly on my heel until the world was a blurring motion around me. No matter where I looked, I couldn’t pinpoint the stranger's voice.

In all my panic, I almost missed the second, more-feminine voice. “What’s this? Porridge?”

Still no bodies in sight.

A third woman's voice, deeper and more powerful than the first. “Looks like it. Your favourite.”

“Yuck!” the second voice squealed. “I think it’s poisoned!”

The same guttural voice that spoke first let out a cackle. “Perhaps she is not a friend after all.”

You’re losing it.

The third voice matched his cackle. “Not poisoned, idiots. She just can’t cook.”

“Who’s there!” I screamed again, still spinning around like a topper-toy. “Show yourselves! I-I kno-know karate!”

“What’s karate?” one of them snickered.

“Something that she doesn’t know,” another answered.

All three of them erupted into a bout of contagious laughter that floated high into the clouds, forcing the sun to somehow shine brighter upon me. Upon my deathbed.

Damn you, Charlotte. It was starting to look like I would be reunited with her far sooner than we planned.

A crack sounded against the earth that resembled a whip, followed by what I swore was a misting of purple dust.

Then a person. From nowhere.

“W-w-what the –”

“Easy, now,” he murmured, one hand stretched out as if to balance me. Stammering backwards, my heel hooked on a small rock and sent my whole body whirling down to the ground. All that I had left was to look up at him, at this strange hallucination that had appeared from thin air. But his voice, I recognized it immediately as the one who had spoken to me.

For a moment, the world halted around me. It would have been logical to leap to the occasion and defend myself against the sudden stranger, but I was rooted within my own dread, my whole body taken hostage by exhaustion and an overall lack of care. So instead of doing what any logical person would do, I dropped my eyes to my knees as I pulled them to my chest.

“I’m going insane…” I began to mutter to myself, rocking back and forth on the hillside as he stared down at me with a predatory slant to his neck. Long, dark-brown hair that bordered black — even beneath the sun — slid along his neck, the waves and kinks of it curtaining his face until he reached up and pushed some of it back.

“Calm down.”