Page 152 of The Other Side

Osian smiled. “Come on.”

He drew them both upwards.

The air caught beneath their wings, lifting them gently until their feet drifted clear of the grass. Drum made a frightened noise and clutched harder.

“Don’t look down,” Osian said. “Feel the air. It wants to carry you.”

“My feet aren’t touching anything.”

“I know.”

“I’m flying.”

“You are.”

Drum’s wings beat once. Too hard. He lurched sideways. Osian steadied him before he could panic.

“Slower. Listen to them.”

“Listen?”

“They know what to do. Stop thinking.”

Drum laughed breathlessly. “That’s impossible. Falling is all I can think about.” But he began to rise under his own power. “Osian…” His eyes were shining. “I’m doing it.”

“You are.”

“Don’t let go.”

Osian looked at him for a long moment before shaking his head. “You let go.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Drum loosened his grip. For one terrifying heartbeat he hovered alone. Osian suspected he was as terrified as Drum. Then Drum’s wings found their rhythm and he shot upwards with a startled yell that turned, almost instantly, into wild, uncontrollable laughter.

Osian laughed with him. He swept past Drum in a graceful spiral, kingfisher wings scattering droplets of mist as they skimmed through a low cloud.

“Catch me!” he called. He banked sharply left.

Drum chased after him.

The first few turns were clumsy, his silver wings overcorrecting as he wobbled through the sky like a fledgling bird. But every beat taught him something new. Every sweep grew surer than the last. Osian was so proud of him.

Soon they were flying side by side. The garden became a patchwork of muted colour below them. The house shrank until it looked like something from a child’s toy box. Fields spread across the valley, stitched together by winding hedgerows and drystone walls, while the river glittered like a ribbon of polished glass.

Drum threw back his head and laughed again. Not the careful laugh he’d learned to give when he wanted to reassure everyone that he was all right. This was different. This was joy, bright and untamed.

Osian had never heard a more beautiful sound.

For a while they simply flew together. They’d had to wait twenty years for this moment.

When they were finally back on the lawn and the wings had gone, Osian’s back into his body, Drum’s into the aether, Drum wrapped his arms around him.

“Thank you, my love. You made this day right again.”

“Happy Birthday.”

“One I’ll never forget.”

“There will have been lights over Sparlow tonight.”