Landed Wings - By Skylhur Tranqille Page 0,18

even though she had done those things…well I didn’t forgive her, but my mother could be good to talk to…sometimes. For some reason though, I decide to open the door quietly. I get feelings sometimes, feelings that that are hard ignore. As I open the door, I hear my dad playing the saxophone somewhere in the house and my mother on the phone. I close the door quietly behind me and walk forward on my toes, to hear what she was saying. My mind goes blank for a second. It feels like somewhere, a coffin is closed and placed in cold wet ground. This coffin has my life in it. I run out, shrieking like the half-bird I am in anger and hurt, fiercely flying away. How could she? My own mother? I knew she was abusive, terrible, a horrible parent. But…I choke down a sob. I didn’t expect her to be a monster. I can’t go back there. I should go talk to Obsidian. To my father. To Ivory. But none of them seem right. I can’t go back home again. Where will I live? Where will I go? I can’t think, I just follow my wings. I know where they will take me. Despite barely knowing them, I feel my anxiety melt away at the thought of a pair of cappuccino eyes. It stops me again. I’ve never trusted in someone so quickly. A tiny voice in the back of my head is fearful and questioning my decisions, but a bigger one is urging me on. I know it’s silly, but I listen to the bigger voice. Besides it was my own. If I can’t trust my own voice, I can’t trust anything.

I notice the tingle is gone. I take it as a good sign. I fly down, in broad daylight, hardly caring who sees me, crying the whole time, the damsel in distress I’ve never wanted to be. I get down to the alley and look around. Will he be here? Oh course he will, he always is. I fold my wings into my shirt because I don’t feel any danger now. And I don’t care, really didn’t care this time. When I had told Mocha I didn’t before, I didn’t mean it. When your own home is a dangerous place to be, then who cares about the rest? If there is no safe base when you are playing tag, then you just fly and pray you’re not caught.

“We have to stop meeting like this Princess.”

It brings a smile to my lips, but I’m still crying and they

tremble.

“What’s wrong?”

He sounds…afraid?

“I – my mother -”

I can’t continue. My sobs get louder. I finally open my eyes, and Mocha looks at me in puzzlement.

“Come.”

He takes my arm and leads me away from the alley. We end up in some park, a park not unlike the one in the sky, maybe a little more rundown. We sit on a bench too, which I find ironic.

“Tell me.”

And so I do. Why not him - this boy I barely know but who makes me feel…something. I realize how naïve I’m being, but like I said, I need to tell someone. And I can’t tell anyone in the sky. They won’t understand. Once the words start to flow, they won’t stop. I tell him about my mother’s abuse, my father’s neglect, the kids at Volar High. I tell him about Raven, Persimmon, Cyanne, Pepper, Ivory, Bramble, Sangria, and finally Obsidian. I tell him about Ob’s approaching me at school. I tell him about my singing. And then…I get to my mother’s phone call. I don’t know who she was talking to but…

“What?”

I had stopped talking. Thinking about it made my mind turn into a whirlpool where the only place to go was down.

“What is it Ash? What did your mother say?”

“She said…she told them about me coming down here. She told them about me remembering her tortures. She accused them of not being careful enough with my memory pills. That she had only followed orders and that now her relationship was ruined with her daughter.”

That’s a hard one to swallow. Even if I hadn’t remembered, we still would have had a strained relationship. What mother would torture her own child because she was ordered to? And why me?

“She said that her cover was blown and that I was a liability. Then she asked if they wanted her to “eradicate the problem”.”

I couldn’t help it. I broke down again. I thought that I was

finally