Bird Song (66 page)

Robert grabbed a hold of my head, his two hands pressing against my own as they clamped down over my ears, and he looked into my eyes.
 
I saw his face, so beautiful, and yet so strange.
 
I could see the thoughts in his head as he frantically tried to see what was wrong with me.
 
I smiled at the glimpses of the two of us together that mixed in with everything else, though the pain continued to beat into me as the song continued.
 
I felt the weight of something on my chest, and I peeked down to see what it was, but saw nothing there.

Feeling weak, I felt my head loll to the side despite Robert’s hold, and I caught a glimpse of Lark, the branch-like appendages fully extended now, the tiny buds of feathers quickly forming and blooming into pristine white plumes that only further proved to me that she was, indeed, the most beautiful girl in the world.
 
Her eyes locked with mine and only when her mouth closed did the song stop.

I breathed a sigh of relief, only to begin choking as the pressure in my chest finally loosened its grip, sending up a hot rush of metallic tasting liquid from my mouth.
 
I could hear the voices of my friends as they all grew increasingly alarmed over what was happening to me.
 
I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak to tell them that I was okay.
 
I could only see the darkness pulling me down, covering everything with a deep, red stain…and then suddenly growing paler, a faint, yellow glow was encompassing me and becoming more and more opaque as the warm river of liquid continued to flow from my mouth.

Soon the voices became nothing but warm, soothing notes in the soft symphony that was now playing in my head, replacing the dirge filled choir that had brought me down.
 
The darkness was completely gone now, replaced by a massive expanse of glowing light that stretched beyond what I could see, beyond what I knew existed.

“Hello, Grace,” a strangely familiar voice said to me.

I blinked and stood up, the movement oddly quick and easy.
 
I reached my hand out to comfort my friends, but they weren’t there.
 
No one was there—I was standing in nothing but light for as far as I could see, and I was completely alone.

“Not alone, silly.”

I spun around, expecting to see the owner of the voice standing directly behind me.

No one was there.

“You remember this game, don’t you?
 
Follow the voice, Grace,” the voice teased.

“Who are you?” I asked.
 
Quickly, my hand went to my mouth, pressing down on my lips as the sound that came out was foreign.

Laughter reached me from what I assumed was a far corner and I proceeded to walk towards it, my hand still pressed against my mouth, refusing to let another unfamiliar sound come out.
 
I walked until the soles of my feet began to ache.
 
I raised one hand above my eyes to scan for the horizon, needing to see something that would hint as to just how much farther I had to go before I finally reached…something.
 
I squinted, hoping to see that faint line that spoke of an actual end to my walking but the glare was too bright.

“This is ridiculous,” I said to myself beneath my fingers.
 
“And why does my voice sound like this?”

A whisper of breath blew across my ear.
 
“Because that’s what you sound like, silly!”

I swung around, my arm flailing out defensively.

No one was there.

“Ugh—this is getting to be incredibly annoying.
 
And I do not sound like this…all, bell-like and…girly!”

I looked around the vast empty space around me and shook my head.
 
“I cannot believe I’m standing here in the middle of nowhere, arguing with nothing.”

“I’m not nothing.”

“So says the voice that’s coming out of thin air,” I said in retort as I turned around.

“I don’t think your father raised you to speak in such a manner.”

My lower jaw swung open, the movement so quick, I could have sworn I heard the creak and pop of the sudden motion.
 
Though her voice had been familiar, I simply hadn’t heard it often enough or recently enough to have recognized it without it being placed with a face.

It was one that I was instantly connected to, one that spoke of a history that I had never known, that had never been given an opportunity to be shared with me.
 
She wore a dazzling, if not sly smile, the mouth small yet with no loss for the delight that could be read on the lips that curled upwards, revealing a small, almost impish dimple in perfect, ivory skin.
 
The eyes were a strange, umber shade with flecks of brilliant gold deeply embedded inside the irises.
 
They were warm and inviting, the obvious joy in them paling in comparison only to my own.
 
Her arms were extended with welcome, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders like soot-filled waves.

“Mom?”

“It’s me, Abby.”

“Are you sure you’re not just another
Erlking
or something?”

“Do I smell like an
Erlking
?” she murmured as I approached her, her scent the oddly familiar aroma of warm amber, soil, and fresh-cut flowers.

“I don’t believe this is happening,” I whispered as I literally inhaled memories from my childhood.

“Believe what?”

I raised my head to look up at her, and smiled.
 
“Well, this; you’re here, in my dreams, and you know who I am.”

She laughed, the sound beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time.
 
“Grace, how could I not know my own child?
 
You look like me!
 
Far too much, I think.
 
And how else am I supposed to visit you?”

“That’s true, I suppose, but I always thought I looked a lot more like Dad.”

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
 
“It doesn’t matter.
 
Now then, we’ve got a lot to discuss before it’s time for you to go.”

“Go?
 
But I just got here…right?” I asked, confused and disappointed that I would be waking up soon.

“No, Grace, I’m afraid that you’ll be waking up far sooner than I’d like.
 
That Robert of yours is persistent.”

“He is.
 
Almost to a fault.”

“Well, his type usually are, dear.
 
Goody-two-shoes are always persistent when they should be exactly the opposite, but that’s not important right now.”

“Then what is?”

She turned me around and I frowned in confusion.
 
The never-ending expanse of white was gone, replaced now with the wooded backdrop I had left upon blacking out.
 
A scene was playing out in front of me, a scene that I would have missed out on otherwise.

“I cannot believe it—I didn’t expect it to be me,” a female voice said in surprise.

“It wasn’t you, it was me,” a male voice argued.

I shook my head.
 
“They never seem to be able to do anything other than argue.”

Stacy and Graham stood mere inches apart while facing each other, both of their faces pinched with annoyance, their jaws jutting out in stubbornness while Lark stood mute between them.

“I know more about this than you do, Graham—if it was anyone, it was me.
 
She didn’t change until I told her about my cancer,” Stacy argued, her finger jabbing into Graham’s shoulder forcefully.

“She was already stressing out before you told her, and that was because of me.
 
It happened because of me,” Graham countered, swatting away Stacy’s finger.

Off to the side I could see Robert on the ground, my limp body cradled in his lap, his arms gently pressing my head to his chest.
 
“Did the two of you ever stop to think that perhaps it was both of you?” he asked, annoyance and aggravation oozing from his tone.

Stacy gasped, her face indignant.
 
“I will
not
share this with him.
 
Besides, it wouldn’t be fair, he knows about her for less than twenty minutes and he gets to be her wing-bringer?
 
I don’t think so.
 
It’s got to be me.
 
I’m her best friend.
 
He’s just eye-candy.”

Graham scoffed at her insult.
 
“Eye-candy?
 
I think it’s been established that I’m more than that.
 
And I thought you were okay with Lark and I being together; why the tone?”

“I
am
fine with it.
 
I just don’t think that you suddenly becoming a couple automatically constitutes wing-bringer status.
 
I’m the one with the deeper emotional bond—you haven’t had time to form that yet.
 
And I still say that it happened because of my news and not because the two of you admitted to sharing hormones,” Stacy said, brushing his comment aside.

“It wasn’t either of you,” a soft voice said with surety.

Three pairs of eyes turned towards it, each one wide with surprise.

“What do you mean, it wasn’t either of us?” Stacy demanded.

“Yeah, what she said,” Graham concurred.

Lark shook her head and walked towards Robert, squatting down to push aside a stray curl from my face, her snowy white wings fluttering softly as they adjusted to her new position.
 
“I don’t know how it happened, or why it happened, but it wasn’t either of you.”

Robert looked down at my blood streaked face, his smile sad.
 
“She’s going to be quite upset about that—she’s losing the battle to be normal if she’s causing your wings to grow by doing nothing other than existing, little sister.”

“It wasn’t her simply existing that did it, Robert,” Lark snapped before standing up and turning around to stare at Stacy, a forlorn look upon her face.
 
“How could you know about being sick for so long without me finding out?”

Stacy shrugged her shoulders, and grinned.
 
“Well, I told you, I don’t think about it.
 
You’re not trying to dig into my head for my deepest darkest secrets—you’re just listening for the stuff running through at the surface, right?”
 
At Lark’s nodding, she continued.
 
“See, if you were a bit nosier like your brother, you might have known a lot sooner.

Graham coughed, and looked over at where I was lying.
 
“Shouldn’t she be waking up by now?”

Robert shook his head.
 
“She’s very sensitive to the sound of our pain, and with all that blood loss, it’s going to be a bit longer before she awakes.
 
I don’t think she’ll do so not knowing, however.
 
Her mind, even while unconscious, is very active.”
 
Robert frowned at his own words, his brows squeezing together as he thought over what it was he said.

“Well, I don’t like it,” Graham said, matter-of-factly.
 
“There’s a lot I don’t understand yet about how your kind works—I’m still tripping out about the wings…dude!
 
Black!—but I know that we’re not supposed to just start bleeding out of our eyes and vomiting blood for no reason.”

“It wasn’t for ‘no reason’,” Robert started to argue, but sighed and shook his head, the argument simply not worth it to him.
 
He grabbed a handkerchief from the front pocket on his jacket and began to wipe away some of the dried blood from around my mouth, a worried frown marring his face.
 

“Robert, I know you can do that whole healing thing with people, so couldn’t you try that with Grace?
 
I mean, she’s been out for a while, and even I know that’s not a good thing.”

 
“I can heal her body, Stacy, but not her mind.
 
Physically, she’s fine.
 
Mentally, she’s somewhere else, and that’s something that she’ll have to fix on her own.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle as I realized that mentally, I was right here.
 
“Can’t he even feel that I’m here?” I asked aloud, turning to face my mother.

“No, he can’t.
 
Angels are special creatures, but even they have their limitations.
 
They can hear the thoughts of those sitting around them, and some, like Lark, can hear the thoughts of those miles away.
 
They can heal, they can hurt.
 
They are capable of some of the most amazing feats of strength and skill, but they’re still lacking in many areas that humans have mastered.
 
Like feeling, for example.

“He’s tied to you emotionally, Grace.
 
I’m sure you are well aware of that.
 
But he’s not tied to you physically.
 
Not yet, anyway.”

I looked at her and frowned.
 
“What do you mean?”

She pointed to the way that Robert held my head, pressed closely to his chest, yet his body seemed strained, as though he were fighting to pull away just as his hands brought me closer.
 
It was something that I wouldn’t have been able to see had I been awake.