Wings of Boden (17 page)

First thing this morning we had unloaded the
cart and put everything away. I’d pushed my scooter over to the
carport that stands beside the barn, parked it next to the family
Jeep, then plugged it into the charging box.

Now, at the breakfast nook table, still in my
dirt-stained clothes with my body covered in grime, I sat with the
sorrowful feeling that it was my fault. So I stayed in the kitchen
in solitary reflection. A cup of tea steamed before me. Thoughts of
the nightmare that had become reality set in. The heat of my cup
seeped into my palms as I took a sip, gazed out the bay window to
an uncertain future.

How could such forested- and flowered beauty
give way to such darkness? It was as if two opposite dimensions
shared the same space; ruled by the sun or moon.

Bub was munching on his breakfast crunchies.
I glanced over to see Angie strolling into the kitchen, her
sundress flowing around her legs. Freshly showered, I sensed, as
the scent of her lilac body wash drifted by. When I turned back to
the window, she said behind me, “Are you sure you’re okay, Ellie.
Can I get you anything?”

Morning fog was crawling up a distant
mountain, seeming alive as it moved over and around the forest,
sliding through the trees. Moistened air hung in the front yard,
filtering the waking sunlight like a soft blanket. “I’m fine. It’s
so beautiful out there.” I took another sip from the edge of my
cup.

Angie’s teacup and saucer tapped to the table
as she took a seat across from me. “Yeah, I know. It’s strange
isn’t it?”

With a small nod, I agreed, and turned to
her. My sister, the pro, knew how to mix and match to create an
effect. Her trimmed eyebrows, a hint of blush on her cheekbones,
and the teal color of her dress accentuated her exotic green eyes.
She had also conditioned her wings, I noticed. Damp brown hair fell
to her chest. Lips were colored transparent peach.

“I like that lip gloss,” I said, “where’d you
get it?”

“Yeah, it’s Mom’s. She really stocked up from
Angel’s Closet. You should see all the stuff she got.”

I blew out a breath that vibrated my lips. “I
swear, if I don’t get to go there soon, I’m gonna freak out.”

“We’ll go, don’t worry about it. Maybe next
weekend. We can catch a movie too.”

After a pause, and some sort of grin, a
feeling of guilt churned in me. I set my cup to the saucer and
placed my palms on my lap, tilted my chin down and said, “I-I’m
sorry, Angie. I mean, maybe we shouldn’t have taken the cart. And
we should’ve stayed in Vinger. It was all my idea. Please don’t be
mad at me.”

“Oh, Ellie, nobody’s mad at you. It was a
mutual decision, all of it. Everyone knows that. Things just
happen. Don’t worry. We all love you.” She gave me a sympathetic
look. “Is that why you’re staying here in the kitchen all by
yourself?”

I nodded a slow frown. My bottom lip quivered
and I thought I was about to cry, but I blinked it away …
eventually said, “What are the others doing?” I’d been in the
kitchen all morning, wanting to visit with them, and now realized
it was my own delusions of guilt that had kept me here. It must
have been some kind of post stress thing, I figured, or I’m an
idiot.

She picked a butter cookie off her saucer,
dipped it. “Planning. Flexing their muscles. You know, male stuff.”
She bit the cookie, chewing as she added, “I heard you got Dakarai
good, huh?”

“Not good enough.”

“Do you still want to— I mean. I watched out
the window and that was kinda …” She trailed off with a lip curl,
dipped her cookie.

“I know, right? That was crazy wasn’t it?
Hunters are so mean, and ugly.”

“I was so mad at Jaydenn.” She paused. “But I
was happy Dad got to the barn anyway. You shoulda seen Mom though,
she was freakin out”—she held her fingers like a pinch—“I was this
close to slapping her out of it.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at that
image.

Angie squinched up her face. “Not to be rude
or anything, but, Ellie, honey, you stink.”

After pulling some hair to my nose, I
sniffed, cringed. “Eew, yeah. Sorry about that.”

“That’s okay.” She reached out. “Here, have a
cookie. We’ll get you cleaned up in a little while. I’ll come up
with you so we can talk.”

****

Strolling through the foyer, we passed the
bronze hawk before I heard my name brought up in a conversation
from the living room. I crept over to the corner of the entryway,
motioned for Angie to join me for a little listen. She paused,
smiled, snuck over to join me.

“She’s too small to fight those things,” Mom
tried to keep the volume down.

“It’s not just about size, Celeste,” Dad
replied.

“I know, but, we have to be realistic. She
just can’t handle that. And what about what you told me, it’s just
a phase, remember?”

A muscle worked in my jaw as I narrowed my
eyes.

Dad said, “I don’t know, maybe I was wrong.
It does happen once in a while.”

“It’s not funny. This is our daughter’s life.
Do you really want to risk that?”

The room went silent … Dad heaved a sigh.

After clearing my throat, I stepped into the
room on a giggle. Angie caught the hint, giggled back and said, “It
smells pretty bad all right.”

“What are you guys talking about out here?” I
asked with an innocent grin.

Dad was on the couch with one arm draped
across the back cushion. He looked back over his shoulder at me.
“Nothing much, just plans, you know. I’m gonna make some calls,
check up on the damage. Then get the boys up here to help with
Vyn’s lab. Shouldn’t take long.”

Vyn was on the loveseat to the right,
grinning at me. Mom was in Dad’s chair across the room in her
morning sundress, her legs crossed and hands holding her knee, hair
draped down her chest. By the look of all their fresh clothes,
clean and showered bodies, it seemed I was the last smelly angel
left in the room.

Dad said to Vyn, “We can transform the cellar
if you think that’d do. We’ll fix it up nice. We don’t use it
anyway, haven’t been down there in years.”

“Yeah, that’d be great,” Vyn replied.

“How’s your leg, Dad?” I asked.

He glanced at his thigh. “Just a scratch.
There’ll be many more. You wrapped it good, though. Maybe you
should be a nurse too?” He sent Mom a look.

Mom seemed to have smelled a breeze through a
window of opportunity. “She
did
do a good job, didn’t she,
Phil.” Her eyes glittered at me. “Maybe you should, Ellie, maybe
you
should
be a nurse. You two could be nurses together.”
She pulled a curtain of hair off her face, revealing a desperate
smile.

Angie and I exchanged glances, chuckles,
mutual thoughts of Mom’s pathetic attempt.

“I need a shower,” I said, then wheeled
around and walked off.

****

The shower hissed a spray over my wings,
grime swirling down the center drain in the floor. The upstairs
bathroom shower is a large oasis smelling of flowered soap, and
filled with girl stuff: body washes, sea sponges, shampoos and
conditioners. The pebble-stone-tiled floor and matching bench adds
a rustic touch like a wilderness streambed and waterfall. Once the
glass door is thoroughly steamed up, it’s not that difficult to
envision this place as a secret spot by some river. We girls
claimed this bathroom; the boys can mess up the other two all they
want, just stay out of here.

Angie was sitting on the marbled vanity
counter, legs dangling, keeping me company.

“You know, Ellie, maybe it isn’t such a bad
idea. I mean, they do need nurses.”

“Are you trying to talk me out of it too?” I
questioned through the mist.

“No. I’m just saying. The hunters are— I
don’t wanna lose you, sis.”

After grabbing a bottle of shampoo from the
stone shelf, I whipped up some bubbles in my hands, began frothing
up my wings and hair. Eyes closed while rinsing, I said, “So,
you’re not worried about yourself then? Did you change your mind
about joining me?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. But I
will
protect you no matter what.”

Hair rinsed, I lifted my foot to the bench,
began foaming my leg with the sponge, my mind wandering. She would,
wouldn’t she? She’d protect me. What if she got hurt, or— No, it’d
be my fault. I could not live with that. “Well, Ang, you’re
right”—scrubbing—“Maybe you should help out here, I mean, instead
of being out there with me.” I turned to rinse.

“Yeah, maybe,” she replied in a somber tone.
“But …”

Catching her tone, I rubbed a spot off the
shower glass, observed her for a moment. Long hair fell around her
face as she held her gaze at the bathroom floor, chin to chest. She
didn’t know I was watching her. “Are you okay, sis?”

“Yeah. I’m just worried about you, that’s
all.” She swiped something off her cheek.

A lump knotted inside me. How could I do this
to her? I pulled back from the glass, stuck my face in the shower
stream. What do I do? Oh Source, what do I do? Mom was one thing.
That was her job, to worry. But Angie, my sister. My partner
through everything that’s good and decent in life. I can’t. I just
can’t see her suffer because of me.

After a long moment of contemplation under
the spray, I backed my face out of the stream. “Maybe you’re right.
I’ll think about it. Please don’t worry about me. Maybe I should
just hang back with you and patch up the boys.” I glanced out the
glass. Her face showed a little more light. The corner of her mouth
turned up into the slightest of smiles. Much better. I couldn’t
tell her it was a lie. “Can you hand me a towel, sis, please?”

She hopped off the counter with a bit of
newfound energy.

****

In short yellow shorts and a girl cut
T-shirt, I sat at my bedroom vanity table, brushing my hair while
Angie stood behind rubbing Dr. Danyell’s Feather Gloss into my
wings. We discussed anything except the horrible issues in the
night.

Earlier, just after my shower, we had some
closet-raiding sister time in Mom’s closet, trying on this and
that, giggling and commenting while we did so:
Oh, look at this.
Oh, my Source, I just love this color. Oh my, look at this. I can’t
believe Mom would wear something like this. What is that supposed
to cover, it’s like, barely here. I don’t think she wears it for
her. Giggle, giggle.
That little garment had guided our
interest to Mom’s new Angel’s Closet purchases: camisoles,
sundresses, nighties and gowns, bras and panties, lotions and soaps
and angel-wing jewelry. I’d thought about “borrowing” one of her
new
Angel Curve
silk bras, but I didn’t feel like stuffing
half a roll of tissue paper in the cups, so, sadly, I’d resisted
the urge. Maybe I could borrow one of Angie’s bras. At least it
wouldn’t take half a roll of stuffing, maybe just a quarter, or a
sock or something.

Ugh
, I need to get to that store. This
is pathetic.

So anyway, when we finally made it
downstairs, in short shorts and T’s, we noticed through the windows
that Vyn and Jaydenn were outside, so we stepped over for a little
entertainment. While they stood on the dirt driveway, Jaydenn was
apparently reenacting last night’s scene, demonstrating how he’d
swung the piece of wood around into the hunter’s head.

“Just look at them,” I said. “Vyn’s looks so
cute, like a little boy waiting to share a toy.”

Jaydenn tossed the spear and Vyn snatched it
out of the air. He gave it an awkward thrusting movement. I
wrinkled my nose at Angie. “Maybe he should stay in the lab,
huh?”

Angie chuckled. “Yeah, I think that’d be a
good idea.” She placed a hand on my shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go talk
to Dad. I wanna know what he did with that dead hunter.”

Dad sat in his desk chair with the phone held
to his ear. “It’s that bad, eighty-seven lost? Uh-huh, yes.” Pause.
“Uh-huh. Well, I’ll do what I can.” Pause. “Uh-huh, yes. I’ll take
care of it. We’ll get a plan together. Take care now.” He dropped
the phone to the charger, rocked back in his chair, and requested
we sit with a tilting gesture of his head.

Still in shorts and T’s, we lowered into the
chairs before his desk. He seemed to be mulling something over as
he stared at us.

Those words he’d said flew through my mind,
sinking my heart; eighty-seven lost.

“Girls,” he finally said, “I think we may
need your help.” His eyes landed on mine. “Ellie, just listen to
me, okay?”—I gave him a silent nod—“I wanna get your mother off our
backs. So, whattaya thinka this.” He bent forward, laced his
fingers together on the desk, deepened the creases on his face with
a tight-lipped grin and dropped brows. “How ‘bout you stay away
from the hunters and—”

“But Da—”

“Just listen for a second, will you,
please.”

Even as I sent him a disagreeing scowl, he
just twitched a crooked grin, then added, “You two killed some
dreks and—”

“It was a mi—” Angie tried to voice her
opinion.

“
Cheett
,” Dad cut her off with a chirp
and a lifted hand. “Just listen. Can you girls just please let me
finish.” He waited for a response as Angie and I sat without a
word, staring at him. “As I was saying, you two killed some dreks
so you know how it’s done. I think it’d much safer in the daytime.”
He directed eyes at me. “And, Elle, you could go after the dreks.
If you still want to help, that is. You wouldn’t have to go out at
night, so Dakarai wouldn’t be a problem for you. Just don’t get
caught out there after sunset.” He turned to Angie. “And you, Ang,
you could help her if you want.” He leaned back, laid palms on his
lap, waited….

Us, a team of drekavac hunters, I didn’t have
to think about it anymore. I was in. Images of children displayed
in my mind. Yeah, this was my purpose. Save them. Angie didn’t
appear totally convinced.