Blackbird (11 page)

              Her head snapped up in panic discovering she was not alone as she had believed herself to be. The light from a small desk lamp across the room didn’t totally illuminate his face, but there was no mistaking who he was. Robert was sitting there looking straight at her. A look of concerned fear in his eyes.

              Chelle let out a small shriek and got to her knees. As she did the wings, seeming to sense she needed protection, wrapped themselves around her, cloaking her in a makeshift feathered fortress. Her breath caught in her throat and she felt herself beginning to hyperventilate.

              Robert put his hands out in front of him in a gesture of ‘I mean no harm’ and leaned forward.

              Both of them stared at each other for a long moment, an awkward silence passing between them. There was no hiding it anymore. Someone had at last found out. After years and years of working to hide it, someone finally knew her secret. Although he couldn’t see anything through the feathers but her eyes she suddenly realized she was topless and covered her bare chest with her arms. The wings ruffled more as if sensing her vulnerability.

              Finally she broke the silence, her voice faltering with tears of alarm. “Are…are you going to call the cops?”

              Robert raised his eyebrows in surprise that this was the first thing she’d ask. “Call the cops? I’m not sure where exactly I would begin.”

              Chelle took a deep breath. “Why are you here?
How
are you here?”

              Robert’s face suddenly became awash with guilt and he looked at the floor, then back to her, then back to the floor again, almost as if he were unable to face her. “I followed you. My brother told me I needed to get you to the hospital and…”

              “I’m not going!” she didn’t realize it but she was screaming.

              “Ok. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” Robert waited for a moment, trying to screw up the courage to speak again. She knew what he was going to ask, and she also knew she didn’t have an answer. “Chelle, what
is
this?” His voice was more filled with wonder than anything else.

              This was the question she’d been asking herself for the last ten years and she was no closer to understanding it than she had been on the very first night it happened. Tears of anger and frustration began to spill down her cheeks and she wiped them away with one hand, keeping herself covered with the other. “I don’t know,” she cried. “Robert, you can’t tell anyone. Please. I’ll go away and never come back. You never have to see me again, nobody does. I’ll go, I promise. Just please, don’t say anything.”

              She could see the look of stunned confusion as he leaned forward. “Go away? I didn’t say that. Where would you go?”

              “Somewhere else. I can take care of myself. I’ll be gone by tomorrow. Just don’t say anything.” Her wings sensed the anxiety and shuffled again causing her to cry out.

              “You’re bleeding all over the place, Chelle. Let me…”

              “I know that. It’ll stop after a while. Robert, please?”

              “What would I say? Who would I say it too? Are you telling me you don’t know what’s going on?” He eyed her wings again with wonder, his mouth hanging open. “How is this even possible? My god…” He reached out, touching a feather lightly. Nobody had ever touched her feathers before. It was as if a spark of electricity went off inside her stomach. In a very good way. To her surprise he wasn’t looking at her in disgust, the way her parents, the only other people who’d ever seen them, had looked at her. “It’s like…”

              “Like what?”

              “It’s like…a miracle.”

              “Miracle?” The wings ruffled again, this time expanding slightly, as if enjoying the touch. He ever so gently ran the tips of his fingers up and down the black feathers, and the wings relaxed, opening up. Now he could see her and noticed she was covering her chest. Immediately he pulled off his jacket, handing it to her. She covered herself with it up to her chin, protecting herself as best she could. Robert was quite a bit larger than she was and the jacket served as a makeshift blanket.

              Robert sat on the floor cross legged only a few inches from her and looked her in the eye so intensely that it made her want to look away. She tried but found she couldn’t. He was locked on to her and was looking at her in a way that made her feel both safe and nervous all at once. “You won’t say anything?”             

              “Again, not sure where I’d even begin with that. I can safely say I won’t be telling anyone. Who would believe it?” He reached for her hand and the gesture surprised her. She gave it to him tentatively from underneath the coat and he squeezed, smiling warmly as he did. “I’m not sure what to make of this, so I can only imagine how you’ve felt if it’s been going on for a while and you don’t even know yourself.”

              Chelle wanted to cry again, this time with happiness. She had felt so alone, like such a freak, and now here she was with someone else. Someone knew her secret and wasn’t pointing a gun at her. He was smiling and holding her hand. He had even called her a miracle. “Tell me, Chelle,” he said. “I want to know. Tell me everything.”

              “There’s not much to tell. It happened for the first time, about ten years ago. I was just a kid. Fifteen. My parents…” Chelle trailed off not wanting to relive the memory, as if she hadn’t relived it in her dreams on a regular basis.

              “What happened?”

              “They kicked me out. Told me to leave and never come back. I never did.”

              Robert’s eyes grew sad. “And you’ve been on your own since then?”

              “I have.”

              “This is crazy,” he said examining the wings once more, looking them over as if seeing them again for the first time. “They’re massive and you’re not. How? Where?”

              She knew what he was trying to ask. He wanted to know how she concealed something that was now so obvious from the world. “I wish I knew. They go back inside…somehow.”

              “Go back?”

              “Yeah. They become smaller. Fold themselves down almost and then go back inside. But…”

              “But they’ve left scars. That’s why you’re scarred.”

              “Mostly, yes.”

              “Mostly?”

              A significant amount of the scarring on her back came from the wings, yes, but, some of it hadn’t. Some of it came from a simple, gun toting alcoholic Chelle had come to think of as a backwoods redneck, courtesy of his belt buckle. “Yeah. Mostly.”

              He didn’t push, which she had to give him credit for. Most people weren’t good at reading nonverbal cues, not Robert. “Ok,” was all he said.

              They sat on the floor for a long time in silence. He staring at her wings, she staring at him which she hoped he didn’t notice. “I’d give anything to make it go away.”

              He squeezed the hand he was still holding. “Don’t say that.”

              “But it’s true.”

              “Chelle, we all have things about ourselves we don’t like. Granted this is a little unusual.” A little unusual? That was like saying the Goodyear Blimp was a little large. “My mother always liked to tell us when we were small that everyone is here for a reason. Everyone out there is here for a reason, and that includes you. You’re here, just the way you are, for a reason, Chelle.”

              He touched the wings again with a reverence that made her tremble. The wings felt it too and swayed happily as he worked his fingers in them, examining the feathers where they morphed into a metal that was as bright and shiny as steel. “Careful!”

              Robert pulled his hand back as if someone had set it on fire. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be doing that. I didn’t even ask you if I could. Geeze, I’m an asshole. Not thinking.”

              “No, it’s not that. They’re sharp.”

              “Parts of them seem to be, yes.”

              “Robert, you really think everyone is here for a reason?”

              He smiled, bobbing his head up and down. “I do.”

              “How come you don’t want me to work for you anymore?”

              “What?” Robert was genuinely surprised at the question and Chelle knew in that moment that Bitch Billie had lied to her. “That’s the last thing I want. What leads you to believe that?” She could tell by the angry look on his face that he already knew the answer. He just wanted to hear it from her.

              “Billie fired me tonight.”

              “I see,” he said through clenched teeth. “The name on the door is mine and I’m the only one who does any hiring and firing around that place. You still have a job, Chelle.” He let go of her hand and stood up, then extending it to her once again to help her stand. She took it and attempted to use it at leverage to get to her feet when suddenly he was face first on the floor next to her, landing with an ‘oouf’.

              “Oh god. I’m sorry.” Chelle stood as quickly as she could, helping him up. At least she thought of it as helping, she stood him up practically taking his arm out of his socket as she did.

              “Yikes!” he howled again. “Careful. Jesus, you just lifted me up off the floor. The other day you couldn’t even lift a case of beer.”

              Chelle looked at the floor, ashamed. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

              Robert moved his arm in circular motions, testing out his shoulder and swinging his arm back and forth. “No harm, no foul.” His eyes lit up in excitement as a thought crossed his mind. “So you get amazingly strong too? What else can you do?”

              She had to laugh at his question. “That’s it,” she said. “Sorry to disappoint. Wings and freakish strength aren’t enough?”

              Robert smiled at her and as he did the room spun for a moment, and time seemed to stand still. Now that she was on her feet the wings stretched out to their full capacity in the small space, just barely avoiding various household items in the Gwok’s residence. If she wasn’t going to break anything she had to remain perfectly still.

              Robert’s eyes searched the room as if he were looking for something. “Hang on,” he said, disappearing around the corner. “A-ha!” she heard him say, and then he reappeared in front of her, holding a crow bar.

              “Where did you get that?”

              “The storage closet.” He held it out to her.

              “What?”

              “Can you bend it at all?”

              “It’s not mine.”

              Chelle stopped cold, knowing she’d given herself away. Robert didn’t seem to catch on, simply holding it up for her to take. “Come on. It’s just a crowbar. I’ll replace it if you break it. They’re everywhere.”

              “I can’t exactly hold it,” she said clutching the jacket to her chest.”

              “Oh god,” he said, flushing slightly. “I’m sorry.” He turned away.

              “Wait.” Chelle slipped her arms in the sleeves, effectively putting the jacket on backwards. “Give it here.”

              Robert held the crowbar up and Chelle reached back, taking it in her hand. She’d held this crowbar before, having slept with it by her side the first few nights for protection. After she’d felt safe she’d put it back in the closet. The weight of it in her hands before now had felt heavy and laden. Now it was almost like holding a toothpick.

              Gripping it by each end she bent them together with little to no effort, until the curved end met the straight end, forming a ‘U’ shape. Robert registered a look of amazement and for the first time, Chelle experienced something she’d rarely felt. Pride.

              “That…is…fucking…amazing!” Robert held out his hand and she handed him the now bent crowbar. He stared at it, mouth agape and turned it over in his hands. “I know who’ll be hauling the kegs upstairs from now on.”

              Chelle huffed. “Don’t hold your breath. I can’t do it without them.”

              “They make you strong?”

              “I guess. I’m not sure how it works. Only that the two go together.”

              Just then the tip of the right wing brushed up against a silver picture frame, knocking it to the floor. Robert bent down to pick it up, the Gwoks smiling back at him from the glass that now had a crack through the center.

              “Oh no.”

              “It can be replaced.” She was trembling now. Robert noticed and put the frame back in its place. As he did Chelle took another glance around and finally saw the mess she’d made when her anger had gotten the best of her. “Oh, no…” she said again.

              “This isn’t your house is it?” Chelle knew that was more of a statement than a question. Without waiting for an answer he said, “Why are you staying here? You don’t know these people, do you?”

              Chelle hesitated. If she told him this then he truly would know everything. “I don’t,” she confessed.

              “So you’re squatting in an empty house. Why?”