inside, and could restrain herself no longer. She reached in and pulled out a small brown bag, in which a half-eaten slice was pressed inside a folded paper plate. She sat down and shoved half of it in her mouth, feeling an instant sense of relief. Much to her chagrin, the loud couple didn’t go far.
“You know, one can always smell freshly-made meat,” said the girl. Anna looked up, and could see their faces change, their hands clench into toothy fists.
“What are you?” moaned Anna tiredly through a mouthful of food, as she still couldn’t put the pizza down. “Why do you hurt us?”
The girl laughed. “It’s a shame to die, without knowing why. Suffice to say your kind caused our fall, and we’ve been hating and hunting you ever since.”
Anna stuffed the last of the crust in her mouth, savoring the cold tomato sauce with her tongue. While she knew she faced imminent danger, she couldn’t help but feel relieved to finally have food in her belly.
“A last supper?” jeered the boy. “That’s good, ‘cause you don’t got much to feed on.”
“Then don’t try,” pleaded Anna. While she had the affect of a victim, in truth, she never felt stronger. The weakness caused by the manifestation of her skeletal wings had passed, and their presence had been integrated into her consciousness. She could feel that one day they would be thick and full of feathers like her mother’s, but even without such plumage, they could still conjur arcs of power like she saw her mother use.
“Before her death,” whispered Anna, as she thought on her mother’s last moments. “Killed by one of you.”
The girl’s face twisted and contorted, as a yawning chasm ringed with teeth took over. Anna may not have seen it clearly before, but now, fully focused, her mouth seemed dimensionally bigger than possible. It was more like an entranceway into another space, another plane of existence, and it cried to her with a seductive siren call.
“What . . . what is that?” cried Anna, taken aback with fear.
“Just relax, and let us feast,” said the boy, quickly edging closer, his mouth dripping with acidic saliva. “It’ll all be over soon.”
Anna snapped back into focus. “Not with me!”
She brought the upper tips of her wings together as the boy lunged. The power shocked even Anna; a focused bolt of blue energy burned the boy instantly to ash. The girl stopped in her tracks, her eyes fixated on the black smudge that was her friend.
“You’ll pay,” she hissed, backing away. “Maybe not now, but I never forget. You’ll pay!”
Anna leaned against a cold pillar, watching as the girl ran off into the wilderness of cars. She suddenly felt weak again, and knew the bolt she emitted siphoned off her energy. As she turned, anxious about what might happen next, a blue Passat sat quietly a few cars away. She brought up her key fob, pressed one of the small buttons, and the car chirped in response.
Finally!
In an instant she was inside the car, putting the key in the ignition. Before she could turn it over, she heard a shifting sound from behind her.
“Who –”
A thick, bloody arm encircled her neck, and when she tried to move, she could feel tiny pinpricks stab into her skin, like the thorns of a rose.
“I’ve got you in my embrace, my little sweet,” hissed the figure in the back seat. “Aren’t you the powerful one? You’ve only just emerged, and here you’ve killed one of my kin. I wish I hadn’t just eaten, or I would let your blood mingle with that of your mother’s.”
As she realized it was her mother’s killer, she tried to struggle even more, but something was muting her responses and paralyzing her body.
“No, no, you won’t be moving for a little while.” She could feel him bring his mouth close to her ear. “I’ve got something to tell you . . .”
Something wet and slimy worked its way around her ear, before diving below. She tried to scream, but couldn’t make her vocal cords work. She knew it was his tongue, and it went down deep into her skull. She could take it no longer; she passed out to the sound of his muted laughter. The last words she heard him say were;
“I won’t kill you now, but you will surely die soon . . .”
4
Anna woke a few hours later, started the car, but sat there, frozen. After all, she was only fourteen.
The weight of the day settled on her soul like quick-dry concrete, entombing her in a mountain of grief. A small picture of herself tucked into the windshield visor was the trigger. In it, she could see her mother standing off to the side at the beach, while she and her dad posed with beaming smiles.
I always thought she hated me, and here she put herself before me, to save me. The thought of her mother being consumed in another’s mouth was too much. She clenched the steering wheel with all her might, digging her nails into the leather, crying in a loud groan. Never before had she felt such pain. Her heart raced with a terrible thumping, and when she surfaced for a minute to take a breath, stars filled the screen of her eyes.
“Gotta do this,” she said to herself. “She meant for me to get out of the city. I have no idea how many more of those things there are. But where will I go?”
The image of herself standing in the middle of the arctic wilderness thumped into the forefront of her mind, and she knew her destination. She put the car in drive, and slowly crept forward, drawing on her three short driving lessons to get out and onto the massive Interstate called Ninety-Five.
Several near-accidents later, she was moving up through New York and into Vermont. For a while she was scared she wouldn’t be able to remember where the cabin was. But acting on a hunch, Anna accessed the GPS and found the location stored.
My mother probably knew that place by heart. This was put here for me to find, just in case.
As she slowly made her way up the congested roads, she reexamined her relationship with her mother. They had always been like enemies, fighting each other with her father serving as the mediator. She could remember being hugged more times by him than by her. She could remember her father at soccer practice, egging her on and comforting her the first few times she got injured. When a boy kissed her for the first time, she told her father, and she could still remember how her cried with a big, wide smile.
“You’re growing up,” he said. “Most parents would be scared, but I know you’re gonna make me proud.”
“But I left you,” she moaned quietly. “What will you think when you come home and find neither of us there? I’ve got to go back, when I’m stable. I can’t go on without you.”
Near the city of Glen Falls off I-87, she pulled into a rest stop. She felt a terrific weight on her head, and her stomach was growling constantly. The coat her mother gave her had some money, so she decided to risk being among people again.
The only problem was her long, bony, bloody wings.
She couldn’t do anything with them. She knew they must disappear somehow, as her mother never showed them before yesterday. Anna concentrated, trying to will them back into her skin, but it was useless. So she drew the long overcoat close around her, though the tips still peeked out from underneath.
Too bad, they’ll just have to look.
It was early in the morning, and she got a small booth near a window facing her car. A waitress about her mother’s age came quickly to her with a pot of coffee.
“Looks like you could use it.”
“Thanks,” said Anna.
Anna put the car keys on the table, and poured a cup. The waitress stood over her, and Anna saw she was looking at the keys, then at her, then back again. If there’s one thing her mother taught her, it was that anger can quiet the most persistent of questions. So Anna snapped, and said;
“Problem with something? Can I get a menu?”
The waitress, whose nametag said ‘Lisa,’ smiled knowingly, and nodded.
“Yes ma’am.”
Anna drank some of the coffee, and felt the warmth fill her chest. She wanted to relax, but her wings were extremely uncomfortable. And w
hile she thought the fresh air would do her good, her head was still heavy and filled like a water balloon. She picked up a chrome napkin dispenser and looked at her face, not seeing anything different.
As she waited for the food, Anna thought; I wish I could check my e-mail and text. I can’t believe this. My mother’s dead, I killed someone, I’m on the run, and all I want to do is check for messages.
Across the diner she could see a father sitting with his daughter. He droned on and on about the countryside, while she sat with her attention glued to a small smartphone.
Lisa came back with a menu, and Anna ordered pancakes, bacon, eggs, potatoes, and orange juice. She returned only a few minutes later with the order. But before Anna could dive into it, Lisa leaned over sand said;
“Be careful; you’re a little young-looking to be driving. Get to where you’re going without another stop. You’re at a precarious point in your life, and you don’t know whom to trust. Take it from someone who’s been there.”
Anna nodded, capitulating to the sentiment of the moment, and gave Lisa a genuine smile.
After several hours back on the road, the GPS guided Anna up through Vermont, and into a small town called Castleton. She headed west, then north, up Route 30, turning off down a small road that she could finally remember, at the end of which stood her family’s vacation home overlooking a large, frozen lake. As she pulled into the driveway, she couldn’t help but smile. For the first time since early