Broken Wings (24 page)

For the sixth time, someone pounded on the front door. Rye glared as if she
could see through the intervening wall. She wanted to stomp out there and beat
the shit out of whoever it was.

Shortly after the knocking stopped, Holly opened the living room door. She
looked excited. “Rye? I’ve been thinking. You could get us ident numbers today.
You can buy everything if you know the right people.”

Having tried this method herself, Rye was unsurprised at the suggestion. “No.
That’s not the answer.”

“But why not? I bet we could find someone around here or the burrowers to sell
us ones.”

“If you get caught with a fake ident, you can kiss your citizenship application
goodbye. And those scholarship people wouldn’t be very eager to give money to a
girl with a criminal record.”

Holly scowled. “You stomp on everything I want to do, don’t you?”

“Only the stupid stuff.”

Holly stormed back into her bedroom and turned her music up even louder. That
and the occasional pounding on the door made Rye feel like a cornered animal
cowering at the back of her cage. It didn’t help her to shore up the belief that
she was on top of her problems.

Rye fetched herself another beer. She usually didn’t drink more than one a day,
but this was an extraordinary morning.

Holly’s music momentarily blasted louder. Her bedroom door shut again. Rye
listened. The bathroom door opened and shut.

Rye swallowed some of her beer and noticed that she’d doodled Flora’s name all
over her notebook. If only she had really been the bogle-brownie mixed-breed
person she passed herself off as rather than the fairy she was. If only she were
not an illegal immigrant. If only she had been some rich, talented, famous
person who knew which was Flora’s favourite table at the restaurant. If only she
had not kissed Flora in the park.

Rye sighed. That music was getting irritating.

Rye went into the hall to knock on Holly’s door. “Holls? Can you please turn
that down? It’s bad enough that we’re stuck in here without driving each other
mad. Holls?”

Rye opened the door. The room was empty. She turned the sound volume down.

About an hour later, Rye knocked on the bathroom door. “Holls? I’m busting for a
pee.”

No reply.

Rye tried the door. It wasn’t locked, so she pushed it open. The room was empty.
Devoid of not only Holly but any steam from a shower or bath. There were no wet
towels on the floor or Holly’s discarded clothes draped over the towel rack.

“Crap. No. She wouldn’t.”

Rye darted into the hall. The front door bolt had been slid back. Rye strode
outside. Of course, Holly was nowhere to be seen.

Rye knelt to mend the phone cord. She dialled the Barks’ number.

No one answered. She belatedly remembered Holly telling her that they’d gone to
a wedding.

Rye strode into Holly’s bedroom. Holly’s privacy be damned. She rummaged through
the books and notes on Holly’s desk. She had to have a list of her friends’
phone numbers. Rye yanked the drawers open. She found a dog-eared little
notebook. It contained addresses, phone numbers, and cryptic comments about
Holly’s friends.
Moss F. 645-239. Cute. CTWE!! MM?? Kissed!!!! First time?

Rye dropped onto Holly’s bed. First time did not refer to being kissed. Rye knew
that for a fact. First time must mean sex. Holly had had sex with this boy Rye
had never met? Other girls Holly’s age were sexually active, but Rye had not
imagined that Holly would have lost her virginity by now. She had not thought of
Holly as beyond handholding and kissing. She seemed so young. She did not have
her wings. Fairy women didn’t go to the men until they had their wings. But this
was not Fairyland.

“Fey.”

At least Holly would not be in danger of an unwanted pregnancy. That could not
happen until she finished her physical development, as signalled by the
appearance of her wings. But what about diseases? Had Rye covered that in her
inarticulate, acutely embarrassed discussion about sex? Had Holly been
listening?

“No point worrying about this now. I’ve got to find her. We can worry about sex
later.”

Rye phoned Moss’s number. His mother told her that he was not home. He’d gone
out early this morning. She did not know when he might be back. No, she had not
seen Holly Woods.

Rye returned Holly’s notebook to the drawer. Mr. Bumble watched her from the
bed. Rye sat and picked him up.

“I bought you for her at a second-hand shop. She loved you. She wouldn’t let you
out of her sight for years. You had to sleep with us every night. She cried when
she couldn’t find you. She told you everything. Does she still tell you things?
No? Me neither.”

Rye sighed and smoothed one of Mr. Bumble’s bent wings.

“Where did we go wrong, Mr. B? How did I make a complete mess of my life? All I
ever tried to do was make things right. I tried so hard. I couldn’t give her
everything I wanted to. I thought I’d given her what she needed. But it turns
out I didn’t even manage to keep her safe.”

Rye set Mr. Bumble on Holly’s pillow.

“I can fix it, can’t I? I have to.”

Rye sagged back onto Holly’s bed and stared up at the ceiling. A patch of fungus
grew up there.

“Flora. I loved her so much. I still do. More than anything in Infinity.” Rye
threaded her hands into her hair and tugged. “Not more than Holly. Different. Do
you understand, Mr. B? I never felt so good about myself as when I was with
Flora. I was happy when I made her happy. It killed me to see her cry. Being
with her on those Fifth Day mornings was like stepping into a different world.
A happy one.”

Rye frowned.

“I’m proud of Holly. And I love her to death. I’d do anything for her. But
Flora… ”

Rye sighed and turned her head to look at Mr. Bumble.

“Am I ever going to find someone else remotely like her? Something died in me in
that gallery when I watched her walk out with that Frond.”

The phone rang.

Rye leaped off the bed and dashed into the hall to snatch up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hello, ma’am. I’m trying to get in touch with Ms. Rye Woods,” a strange female
voice said.

“And who the fuck would you be?”

Pause. “I’m Constable Maple, ma’am, from the Hollowberry Police Station. Would
you be, or know the whereabouts of, Ms. Rye Woods?”

Rye could feel her eyes widen with shock. Police?

“Hello?” Constable Maple said. “Ma’am? Are you still there?”

“Um.” Rye swallowed with difficulty. “Yeah.”

“We found this contact number for Miss Holly Woods. I really need to find Rye
Woods because –”

“Holly? Oh, shit. Is she okay? Has anything happened to her?”

“You are Ms. Rye Woods?”

“Yes! Yes, I’m Rye. Holly’s sister. Please. What has happened?”

“Holly is currently being held in the Youth Section at Hollowberry Police
Station.”

“Held?”

“She was a passenger in a carpet which was involved in a traffic incident. She
–”

“A crash? She’s hurt?”

“No, ma’am,” Constable Maple said. “Your sister was in the back. She was
unharmed. However, she is intoxicated and some of the occupants of the carpet
were found in possession of certain restricted substances.”

Rye sagged against the wall with a hand to her head. Drunk. Drugs. Fuck. She
would kill Holly for this.

“She was using drugs?” Rye asked.

“Miss Woods did not have any restricted substances about her person,” Constable
Maple said. “Though her proximity to others so in possession will require her to
undergo a course about drug abuse. This will all be explained to you at the
station, ma’am. We need you to come to pick up Holly.”

“Yeah, of course.”

Rye set the handset down. Holly drunk and in a carpet full of idiots who were
doing drugs! What the fuck was she thinking? And now she was at a police
station. Rye’s chest tightened. She drew a restricted breath. They would take
all sorts of details. Her species? If Holly was drunk, would she tell the usual
story or would she blurt out the truth? And ident number. The police would want
that.

“Crap.”

Rye’s hands shook as she put her jacket on. Her body moved reluctantly as if
some back part of her brain was sending secret, panicked instructions to her
limbs not to go anywhere near the police.

She climbed on her broom and flew off down the street. She remained in the low,
slow lane. She tried talking to herself in an effort to keep calm. Slow, even
breathing. She wiped sweaty palms on her thighs.

The kauri tree had Municipal Police engraved across the front and highlighted in
bright orange lights. She, Rye Woods, illegal alien, had to walk in there,
amongst all those police, and get her sister back. Rye could hear her own
breathing. Shallow and fast. Her primitive survival instincts tried to elbow
aside her rational self. The organism that was Rye craved safety. Every fibre of
her being wanted to turn around and flee.

A pair of police pixies came out the door. Rye flinched. They walked past
without giving her a glance. Rye’s heart hammered so hard that it might break
out of her chest.

“Holly,” Rye whispered.

She took a deep breath and strode down the narrowing tunnel of her vision to the
door.

A sprite woman in a police uniform stood behind a large desk. Doors with hand
pad locks were the only way out of the foyer apart from the main doors. Posters
on the walls recommended ways to deter burglary, shoplifting, and carpet theft.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” the spite asked.

“Um.” Rye clenched her fists tight enough to dig her short fingernails into her
palms. “Um. I got a call. About… about my sister. Holly Woods. I’ve come to take
her home.”

“Is she being held, ma’am? Is that what you mean?”

“Um. Yeah. Youth Section.”

“Okay, ma’am. Let me just check.”

Rye chewed her lip and sweated while the sprite tapped something beneath the
level of the desk. The main doors opened. Rye started. A couple of brownies came
to stand behind her. She forced her hands to unclench. Stay calm.

“Here we are,” the sprite policewoman said. “Holly Woods. Ma’am? Are you feeling
okay? Perhaps you’d like to sit?”

“Um. No, thanks. I’m fine. I have to take Holly home. Where is she?”

The sprite’s antennae twitched. “I’ve notified one of the officers in the Youth
Section. He’ll be here shortly, ma’am.”

“Oh. Right. Thanks.”

Rye stepped aside and let the brownies talk to the woman at the desk. She
sweated profusely. The veins in her neck throbbed uncomfortably. But she could
conquer this. For Holly.

One of the locked doors opened. A tall bogle policeman stepped out. “Ms. Woods?
I’m Sergeant Rivers, ma’am. If you’d like to come this way.”

He held the door open for her. Rye did not want to go any deeper inside the
station. Not past locked doors. But she had no choice. Holly needed her.

“Holly isn’t in very much trouble, ma’am,” he said.

“She… she’s a good kid.”

“I’m sure she is. We see this sort of event all too frequently. A group of
teenagers together.”

He said more, but Rye found it hard to concentrate. She walked past desks at
which uniformed people sat. Some glanced at her. Her wing muscles hurt. She was
feeling light-headed. Her breathing would not slow down.

“Here, ma’am.” Sergeant Rivers pointed to a chair. “If you’ll take a seat. We
just need a few details from you.”

“I thought –” She could feel her brain shutting down. “Holly. I… I came to take…
to take her home.”

“Ma’am? Are you feeling all right? Please sit. I’ll fetch you some water.”

“No. I… I want Holly.”

“Of course,” Sergeant Rivers said. “She’s not under arrest. We’re only holding
her because she’s intoxicated. But there are some details we need about her,
ma’am. Her full address, citizen ident number, date of birth –”

His other words slipped into sounds without meaning. Rye tried hard to
concentrate, but thinking was so hard.

“Ma’am? Why don’t you sit down? Should I ask the apothecary to come here? You’re
really not looking so good.” Sergeant Rivers put a hand on Rye’s shoulder.

Rye hit him. Her mind blanked.

“Ms. Woods? Are you back with us at last?” Rye peeled open her eyes. She lay on
her side. A young gremlin woman peered down at her.

“How are you feeling?” the gremlin asked.

Rye didn’t feel anything. Neither surprise, nor curiosity, nor much of her body.

“We’ll soon have you up and about again.” The gremlin wore a nurse’s green tunic
almost the same shade as her skin. She fiddled with something near the end of
the bed.

Rye noted the rails on the side of the bed, the empty cleanliness of the room,
and the antiseptic smell. This must be an infirmary. When she tried to take
stock of herself, she discovered stiffness. Every muscle ached and protested at
her slightest move. What, in the name of the Almighty King and Queen of the Fey,
had she done? The brown chitinous cast on her right arm jogged no memories of
how she had broken it. When she rolled onto her back, her right wing bud
screamed with pain. Rye gasped and awkwardly rolled back onto her side.

A tall, lithe banshee woman wearing a doctor’s red tunic entered. Very
attractive. Though not a match for Flora. “Good afternoon, Ms. Woods. I’m Doctor
Trefoil. How are you feeling?”

“Um. Confused.”

The doctor catalogued Rye’s broken arm, snapped wing supports, and miscellaneous
contusions.

“Is that why I feel so stiff?” Rye asked.

“You reacted badly to the standard antidote to the police stinger.”

“What?”

Rye listened with incredulity as the doctor explained, in not always
straightforward language, that she had been brought into the infirmary four days
ago from a police station. The police had stuck her in the back of the thigh
with the stinger they used to immobilise violent perpetrators. Something in her
fairy metabolism had reacted adversely with the antidote that the doctors had
administered to reverse the stinger. That had sent her into some weird fever and
left her unconscious for those four days.

“Police station?” Rye said. “Why was I at a police station?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask the police that.”

Rye cooperated passively with the doctor’s examination. Police station? Fey.
What had she done?

After the doctor left, Rye lay frowning at the tips of her fingers protruding
from her cast. What had happened? What could she remember doing last? That
annoying gremlin reporter? No. She’d argued with Holly.

Rye went cold.

“No,” she whispered. Not Holly. Anything but that. Don’t let me have hurt her.

Rye squeezed her eyes shut and saw her mother lying dead at her feet.

“No!”

Rye shoved herself upright. Her muscles shrieked protest. She awkwardly jerked
the sheet aside one-handed. The railings on the side of the bed made it
difficult and uncomfortable to climb out. Her feet hit the floor and sent a jolt
all through her body. Rye gasped and grabbed the railing. Fever? It felt like
they’d put her through a blender for several days.

The door opened. The gremlin nurse came in.

“Ms. Woods! You shouldn’t be out of bed.”

As the nurse gently but firmly herded Rye back to bed, Rye saw an
orange-uniformed policeman at the window in the top half of the door. Rye felt
like her heart stopped.

“What did I do?” Rye asked. “Did I hurt Holly? I have to know.”

“My job is to take care of you while you’re here,” the nurse said. “Now, let’s
get you under this sheet. Please lie back.”

“I have to know.”

“Perhaps you’d better ask the policeman. Now, let me check your temperature.”
The nurse stuck something on the side of Rye’s neck.

“Can you ask him to come in. Please? It’s important.”

Shortly after the nurse strode out, the policeman entered. His presence
triggered a familiar jolt of fear.

“Yes, ma’am? The nurse said you wanted to say something.” He held a pencil and
notebook. “I should remind you that you’re still under arrest.”

Something hard and large and cold dropped through the bottom of Rye’s stomach.
“Arrest? What… what for?”

“Assaulting a police officer. Resisting arrest. And damage to government
property.”

Rye’s breath caught in her throat. It took her several long moments to get it
back. “Did I hurt anyone else?”

The policeman wrote in his notebook. “I believe you hit several officers in the
station, ma’am.”

“Anyone else? My… my sister. Is she okay?”

“Your sister, ma’am? I’m afraid I don’t know nothing about anyone else.”

Rye lay chewing her lip. If she’d hurt Holly, surely they would have charged her
with that, too.

Much later, though how much Rye couldn’t tell because there was no clock in the
room, the door opened. A male leprechaun and a female sylph walked in. Both wore
dark suits. The sylph exchanged a quiet word with the policeman. That stopped
him from following the suits into the room. Rye’s wings tried to tighten
defensively against her back. Her broken one hurt. Rye greeted the unidentified
pair with a wince.

“Ms. Rye Woods?” the leprechaun said.

“Um. Yes, sir, I am.”

He showed her his mobile. The screen display identified him as a Senior Officer
of the Special Investigations Bureau. Rye’s life felt like it began draining out
of her toes.

“I’m Senior Special Officer Evening,” he said. “This is Special Officer Peach.”

Rye glanced at the sylph’s mobile. The sylph then pressed a couple of buttons.

“We’ll be making a recording of this conversation, ma’am,” Evening said.

Rye looked between them. Implacable. Professional. She guessed what was coming
before Evening spoke.

“Would you prefer to be called Rye Woods,” he said, “or Righteous?”

Rye had difficulty swallowing.

“You are the fairy female, Righteous, who is the bonded servant of the Vengeance
Valley temple in southern Fairyland,” Evening said, “and who left Fairyland
eleven and a half years ago without a travel permit, are you not, ma’am?”

“Um,” Rye said.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t catch your answer,” Evening said.

“What… what is this about?” Rye said.

“The government of Fairyland, through their ambassador, has filed a request for
repatriation of one Righteous and her sister, Holy Word. Who are both Fairyland
nationals.”

Rye’s gaze jerked up to him. They’d got Holly, too.

“The information we have about you and your younger sister, known, I believe, as
Holly Woods, fits that supplied by the Fairyland authorities,” Evening said. “Do
you have any comment, ma’am?”

“I… I want to be a refugee,” Rye said. “Both of us. Me and my sister.
Refugees.”

“Your residence status is the subject of this investigation, ma’am,” he said.
“Now that the doctor has given clearance, we’ll be moving you to a more suitable
facility while we conduct our enquiries.”

The nurse who helped Rye dress bristled disapproval of Rye’s removal from the
infirmary. Special Officer Peach looked utterly impervious. When the nurse
finished with the lace on Rye’s shoe, Peach stepped forward and snapped a
handcuff around Rye’s left wrist. It joined to the Special Officer’s right
wrist.

Outside the infirmary room, Senior Special Officer Evening waited with a
policeman. The latter found himself curtly dismissed. Patients, visitors, and
infirmary staff stared as Rye and her escort made their way out to a waiting
carpet.

Rye’s broken wing made it uncomfortable to sit in the back of the carpet. She
stared out the windows, but had little idea where they were going. The carpet
finally slowed and halted at a guarded gate. A security fence and a dense
tangled hedge of thorny blackberry surrounded a squat totara tree stump.

A blue-uniformed imp opened a thick door in the base of the stump. Rye took a
last look at the sky before Peach tugged her inside.

They made her strip and searched her before giving her a loose, bright yellow
overall. It had inmate printed across front and back in large black letters. Rye
struggled to get it on. Peach stood impassively watching.

They took her fingerprints, inventoried her possessions, and made her sign a lot
of forms left-handed.

“Is my sister here?” Rye asked. “Holly Woods. Did they bring her here, too?”

The guard shrugged and scooped her papers into a file. “I can’t disclose
information about any other inmates.”

“She’s my sister. My kid sister. I’m the only family she has.”

“All in order?” Evening said.

The guard nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Peach and Evening departed without another word. The female imp and a
half-goblin female guard herded Rye toward a barred door. They escorted her down
a grim, empty corridor. She had to stand a certain distance from the next barred
door before the guard unlocked it.

“What is this place?” Rye asked.

“They didn’t tell you?” the guard said. “Scrub Street Detention Centre. Through
here.”

Rye turned into another corridor. This one contained many doors that all looked
the same with hand pad locks and dark picture screens. The female guard
activated one of the doors and swung it open. Rye paused in the doorway. She
faced a tiny room with a cot, a stool, a toilet that projected from the back
wall, and a tiny table. No window.

“In you go,” the guard said.

“How long am I going to be here?” Rye asked.

“I can’t tell you that.”

Rye glanced around at all the other doors. “I’ve got to know about my sister. Is
she here? Holly Woods. She’s just a kid.”

“A kid? She won’t be here if she’s a juvenile. In you go.”

Rye shuffled forward. The door clanged shut behind her. She heard the whir of a
lock being activated.

Rye slumped on the cot. Detention centre. Prison. Next stop Fairyland.

Rye dozed fitfully. She roused every time she rolled over and pressed her broken
wing against the cot or the wall. Her thoughts were as uncomfortable as her
sleep.

She had never had much in the way of possessions to lose. What really mattered
was Holly. And Flora. Now that she would never see Flora again, Rye realised
that some part of her had never given up hope that they would get back together.
Perhaps after Holly had grown up and moved beyond Rye’s care. Perhaps one day
Rye might have been able to offer Flora something. Not much, probably, but
something. If only love could have been measured in a tangible way, maybe then
Rye could’ve proved herself. Surely no one could love Flora more than she did?

Did Flora ever think about her? Would she ever learn that Rye had been sent
back? Would she feel anything?

The morning after Rye had cooked Flora’s dinner for her posh arty friends had
probably been one of Rye’s happiest. She and Flora had to be careful not to
betray themselves with Holly around, but having the two women she loved together
like that had been magic. Holly and Flora did have a lot in common. Holly had
never spoken of Flora except with admiration, respect, and enthusiasm. Flora
liked Holly, too. Rye could hardly ask for more from relations between her
sister and her lover. If only it could always have been like that.

She had once read that the only things you regret are the things you don’t do.
She hadn’t agreed, until now.

Rye did so very deeply regret not overcoming her fears and getting Holly’s
immigration sorted out properly. She would have given anything for the chance to
tell the kid how proud she was of her, and how much she loved her. And how sorry
she was that, in the end, she had failed her.

Rye wished she could wind back time to that art gallery. Instead of thinking
about throwing herself at Flora’s feet, she would’ve done it for real. Begged
Flora to let them see each other. How trivial all her worries and fretting
seemed now. They had loved each other. Surely they could have worked it out?

Rye would regret to her last breath that her final glimpse of Flora had been
that second time, in the gallery, when Flora walked away.