Fly Girl Volume 1: The Origin of Flight



  THE ORIGIN OF FLIGHT

  by Russ Anderson, Jr.

  Published by Pro Se Press

  Part of the SINGLE SHOTS SIGNATURE line

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this publication are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. No part or whole of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing of the publisher.

  The Origin of Flight

  Copyright © 2014 Russ Anderson, Jr.

  All rights reserved.

  "OH. MY. Gawd."

  "Isn't it cool?" Caryn Clay said, throwing out her arms and twirling in a slow circle.

  "It–it doesn't suck," Angie agreed. "Caryn, you... You're..."

  "Flying," Caryn finished, and she was. She definitely was. At that moment, she was floating three feet over the spotty grass and dust in the back yard of her Phoenix, Arizona home.

  "Well, don't keep me in suspense, you cow!" Angie hissed. "How are you doing it?"

  Caryn laughed and dropped to the ground, her bright red hair boiling out behind her.

  "What's so funny?" Angie demanded.

  "Your face! You look like you're ready to faint."

  "Of course I look like I'm ready to faint. Caryn, you were flying."

  “More like hovering," she sighed. "But I can go higher, and I get the feeling I could go really fast if I wanted to..."

  Angie crossed her arms and leaned back on one foot. Her blue eyes were narrowed and her thin jaw was jutting out. "How?" she said.

  "This," Caryn said. She reached into her purse and pulled out the longest, widest feather Angie had ever seen. It was a glossy, dark purple, lightening to blood red near the bottom. These color shifts were subtle though, and from a distance the feather just looked black.

  "Eeeww... where did you pick that up?"

  "It was given to me. My grandma–"

  "Oh," Angie said, more subdued this time.

  Caryn nodded. "She willed me and Joey each a box of stuff when she died, and this was the only thing in the one she gave me. I was mad at first. I mean, I know Joey was her favorite and all, but..."

  "I thought you didn't get along with her."

  "I didn't really. I mean, she hated that I was always dyeing my hair. Said I didn't even look like a Navajo anymore, to which my response was, 'Well, gee, Grandma, I'm only half Indian. The rest of me is all white girl.'"

  "My grandma would beat the hell out of me if I talked to her like that."

  "Well, I always said it under my breath of course. I didn't want to give her an aneurysm or something. But still..."

  "And you're sure it's the feather that's letting you..." Angie trailed off, flapping one hand vaguely in the air.

  "It's the only thing it can be. I mean... nothing else has changed, you know. When I'm holding it, or when it's nearby, like in my purse, I can fly."

  "Can I–can I try it?"

  Caryn blinked, and for a second her eyebrows drew down low over her eyes and the hand with the feather in it moved closer to her chest. The morning sky seemed to darken, and Angie took a step backward.

  "Never mind, never mind. It's yours. I shouldn't even ask," Angie said.

  Caryn's eyes cleared and widened. She straightened. "No. No, I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. Here."

  She handed the feather over. It seemed gigantic to Angie, like if she tried to grab it, its weight might drag her down into the dust at Caryn's feet. But when she finally found the courage to grasp it, it was light as... well, as light as what it was.

  "How does it work?"

  "I don't know." Caryn shrugged. "Just think about flying."

  Angie closed her eyes and thought about rising off the hard packed earth. Thought about going up and up past the top of the lemon tree, hovering near the level of the roof for a moment before moving out over the street. She could almost feel the wind on her face, but when she opened her eyes, she hadn't moved an inch.

  "Well," she said, handing the feather back, "that’s that. What is this thing, Caryn?"

  "I'm not sure. It didn't come with an instruction manual, you know. But... I've been thinking about it, thinking about the stories Grandma used to tell me, and..." She trailed off, twirling the feather thoughtfully in front of her eyes.

  "I think this might have come from a Thunderbird."

  "SO COYOTE, THE Great Trickster, said to Thunderbird, 'This tree is much taller than it looks, old friend. I have climbed too high, and if I try to go back the way I came, I may fall. Help me to the ground, and I will grant you a boon."

  Eleven year old Caryn Clay risked a glance at her watch while her grandmother was looking away. Next to Caryn, her brother, Joey – only seven years old – sat, mesmerized by the tale. The old woman did this every time Mom brought them over here, sat them down on the floor and tried to bore them to death with stupid old stories. What Grandma's tiny house really needed was an X-Box, but fat chance that would ever happen. The old bag wouldn't even have a television if her granddaughters hadn't pitched in to buy her one. The one time Caryn had asked to watch Vampire Diaries, her grandmother the super Indian, had told her that, back in her day, television was called 'telling stories'. Then she'd cackled like one of Oz's witches.

  She was thin, with deep set suntea-colored eyes that she had somehow managed to pass on to Caryn, two generations removed. Her skin was dark brown, and her hair was almost completely gray–not yet white, not even at her age, but the gray had completely washed out the lustrous black Caryn had seen in old photographs. The lines on her face looked deep as canyons, and that gave her a drooping, bulldoggish look.

  "Thunderbird knew of Coyote's reputation for mischief, and he knew that a boon from the Trickster would likely bring more harm than good, but he felt obliged to help his fellow remain free. So he tucked his mighty black wings into his side and dove toward the tree, scooping Coyote up in his great talons. As soon as they were in the air, and before Thunderbird could lower the Trickster to the ground, Coyote reached up and plucked one of the feathers from Thunderbird's underbelly.

  "'Why would you do such a thing?' Thunderbird asked. 'Why, when I have helped you?'

  "'I can trade this feather for food and jewelry,' Coyote replied. 'And you were doing nothing with it, so don't begrudge me this small theft.'

  "Thunderbird set Coyote down on the ground and said, 'Very well, old friend. Keep the feather, for I know it is in your nature to be deceitful, and it was foolish of me to expect otherwise. But know this: You will never trade it, and you will never get rid of it. It will act as a symbol of our dispute until the end of the world and will only be carried by you. Such is my revenge upon you.

  "And Thunderbird was right. As soon as he left, Coyote ran to the nearest tribe and tried to trade the feather. But the story of Coyote's deceit had been carried ahead of him by the wind, so the people of the tribe knew who and what he was, and would not trade with him. Nor would the next tribe, nor the tribe after that. Frustrated, Coyote tried to throw the feather away, but he'd taken barely two steps before the feather was in his hand again, unbidden. He tried burning it, but it would not burn. He tried burying it, but in the night it emerged from the earth and returned to him. He could not get rid of it and, as long as he carried it, he would always be marked as the traitor, Coyote."

  "What happened to him, Grandma?" Joey asked, once the proper break in the story had come.

  "No one knows what becomes of gods in the end
, but usually they become something else," Grandmother replied, a little coldly, Caryn thought. "That is not the point. The point is that Thunderbird had to be true to himself just as Coyote was. Despite the fact that Coyote took nothing that really mattered from Thunderbird, the theft and the disrespect had to be repaid in kind.

  "We must all be true to ourselves," Grandmother said, fixing Caryn with a stare that was neither subtle nor kind.

  "GRANDMA ALWAYS LIKED to tell me old Navajo stories, their mythology. Stories about the Snowy Owl Woman and Coyote the Trickster. And Thunderbird."

  "And these were all, like, their gods?"

  "Yeah, I guess so."

  Angie and Caryn were standing on top of a mountain. South Mountain, to be precise. Angie had taken them up the main road, but had cut off into the scrub, maneuvering her father's little VW up a barely visible path until they'd reached a small outcropping of rock on the west side of the mountain. If any of the park wardens knew they were up there, they'd probably call the cops, but Angie seemed confident that wouldn't happen. She had apparently been here before. Caryn kept talking as her friend got an old duffel bag out of the car.

  "Thunderbird was this enormous bird, either red or black or blue, depending on what story you listened to. And he brought the storm with him, and could fly as fast as the wind. Sometimes he would help the Navajo and sometimes he would carry off their children or their animals. Totally unpredictable. Grandma said this was because he was a force of nature, not a god."

  "Well, look, do me a favor, willya?” Angie grunted, dropping the duffel in the dirt. “Next time a strange artifact gives you superpowers, do not tell me about it until after school. You know how hard it was to concentrate on anything after that show this morning? Even Mr. Barnard's heavenly butt couldn't make me focus, and you know that's the only reason biology's my best class. Think fast."

  Caryn turned, and had to scramble to catch the object Angie lobbed at her. It was a pair of aviator goggles. "What's this for?"

  "To protect your eyes, duh."

  "Oooooh, no..."

  "What did you think we came out here for? To neck?" Angie slammed the trunk. "No... you're here to practice. You said this morning you thought you could go really fast if you tried. Well, here's all the space you could want." She waved, indicating the broad expanse of hazy, but wide open air all around them.

  "It's broad daylight!"

  "So what... you have a secret identity now? Just go to the south and nobody's going to see you except maybe a couple of Cessnas. And nobody will believe them, 'long as you don't go into their rotors."

  "Into their–?"

  "Kidding! Kidding!"

  Caryn looked down at the goggles. "Where did you get these?"

  "My brother was on a pilot kick a few years back. He left all sorts of gear when he went off to U of A. And that’s not all." She rummaged in the bag and came out with a brown leather bomber jacket. “Ta-da!”

  “It’s a little warm for that, don’t you think?”

  “God, no wonder you can’t hold onto a boyfriend. No fun at all.” Angie dropped the jacket and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse. Grinning, she tapped one out and lit it.

  "Just get out there," she said. "You know you want to."

  Caryn sighed, stuck the goggles between her legs, and pulled the feather out of her purse. Dropping the bag on the ground, she reached up with both hands, and tied the feather into her hair.

  "Hey, I like that," Angie said. "Very Pocahontas."

  Smirking, Caryn pulled the goggles on over her face. Then she moved forward and, very carefully, stepped off the cliff.

  "MOM! I'M home!"

  Caryn closed the door and dropped her purse on the floor next to Joey's book bag. Her little brother was what some might charitably call a nerd, and – true to form – he had brought home enough books to hold the house down in case of a tornado. Caryn wondered sometimes where her mother had found the little freak, because he couldn't have sprung from their gene pool.

  "Hey honey," her mother replied, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen. She was stocky and dark, shorter than Caryn, but with the same silky hair. She was holding a glass in one hand and towel drying it with the other. "How was your day? Were you out with Angie?"

  Caryn nodded and squeezed past into the kitchen.

  "Well, make sure you get home at a decent hour tomorrow. We're having company for dinner."

  "Really? Who?" Caryn asked, her head burrowed deep in the open refrigerator.

  "The Conrads."

  Caryn paused, her hand hovering over the pickle jar. Slowly, she rose and squinted over the top of the door.

  "Is Jeremy coming?"

  Her mother said yes, and Caryn sighed. She'd known Jeremy Conrad since they were both a year old. He was a brat then, and a brat he had remained down through the years. The last time she'd seen him – which had been maybe six months ago since, thank god, they didn't go to the same school – he'd spent the entire time staring at her chest. He was an utter creep. Unfortunately, their families had been close since the Mesozoic Age, so simply erasing the guy from her life was out of the question.

  "Is that the feather Grandma gave you?"

  Caryn put a hand to the back of her head where the Thunderbird feather was still wound up in her hair. She pulled it out, letting the bright red locks her grandmother would have hated fall down to her shoulders.

  "Yeah," she said, shutting the fridge. She'd suddenly lost her appetite.

  “I like it. It’s very pretty, tied in your hair like that.”

  "Mom… do you have any idea why she gave this to me?"

  "No, I don't." The older woman sighed and leaned against the doorjamb. "Your grandmother loved you, honey. She didn't agree with some of the things you do, but... you have to keep in mind she was very old fashioned. To her generation, their heritage was everything."

  "Then why did she let you marry a white man?"

  Her mother shrugged. "My relationship with her was complicated, Caryn. But maybe she knew that the heart wants what the heart wants." She smiled. "You've always marched to your own drummer, and whether Grandmother liked that or not, she respected it. Even if she could never bring herself to admit it."

  Caryn didn't reply, just regarded the feather. And wondered.

  "YOU NEED A name."

  "I do?"

  "Of course you do. 'Caryn Clay' is no kind of name to strike terror into evil's heart."

  Caryn grinned. She and Angie were sitting in the school quad for lunch hour, both working on cream cheese-slathered bagels. "Well, that logic is... sound. I guess. Who said I wanted to strike terror into anybody?"

  "Okay, forget I said that." Angie dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a napkin. It was a surprisingly dainty gesture. "Think of it more like a stage name."

  "What do you suggest?"

  "Well, there's always Thunderbird..."

  "It's taken," Caryn said, returning to her bagel. "I asked my brother what he knew about Thunderbird last night, just trying to pick his brain, and the first thing he thought of was this comic book superhero that had that name. Big, dumb Indian guy, of course."

  "Oh. Well... fine, then. How about Bird Woman?"

  "Bird Woman?"

  "Feather Girl?"

  "God, you suck at this."

  Angie reached over and punched her in the arm. "Excuse me! I don't hear you coming up with anything better."

  "That's because I still don't understand why I need a name."

  "She doesn't understand why she needs a name." Angie rolled her eyes up to heaven. "Fuggedahboutit. You'll never be much of a superhero until you start flying faster anyway."

  "I am not going to be a superhero."

  Angie wadded the plastic wrap from her bagel up and tossed it at the garbage can. Two-pointer. "Where do you think your grandma got the thing anyway? Do you think she knew what it could do?"

  "I don't know what to think about Grandma anymore," Caryn said quietly.

  "ARE Y
OU AFRAID of looking like a Navajo?" the old woman had demanded of her when she was ten years old. That was when Caryn had showed up at her house with her normally long black hair cut to her shoulders and dyed blonde, an act of camouflage perpetrated one monsoon-swept Friday evening while her parents had been across town playing euchre with the Conrads. As furious as her mother had been about it, Grandma had been livid. And that had pretty much set the tone for their relationship for the next six years.

  The truth was that Caryn actually was a little afraid of looking like a Navajo. She was only half Native anyway, but she had still come into the world with dark, dark skin and hips that leaned more toward earth mother than supermodel. And the nose, of course. The sharp nose that turned her otherwise not bad face into a hatchet in profile.

  But Caryn never would have said all this to the old woman, not least because she hadn't been able to admit it to herself back then. She'd simply hung her head in shame, as was proper, and thought about how she might look with pink hair, or red.

  "Your heritage is the most important thing," the old woman had lectured, waving her finger. "Where you come from will decide what you become. This is especially true for you, Granddaughter.

  "Especially you."

  "–ET FROM YOUR grandmother, Caryn?"

  Caryn straightened, blinked, and really looked at the woman she'd been blankly staring at for the last three minutes. "I'm sorry. What?"

  Marlee Conrad, all full blooded Navajo and dark, dark eyes, smiled back. "Joey was just telling us about all the books he inherited from your grandmother. Did she leave you anything?"

  "Um..." Caryn shot a pleading glance at her mother, but she was involved with her roast beef. No help at all. Directly across the table, Jeremy Conrad was watching her with dark eyes that matched his mother's. He was lean and wiry, and his skin was a shade lighter than his mother's, diluted by his father's Swedish blood.

  "A feather," Joey said from Caryn's elbow. "She gave her a feather."

  Marlee blinked. "Oh," she said. Then she said it again, as if doing so would make the sudden discomfort in the room go away. "Well, that's very nice."

  "It's a huge feather," Joey elaborated, spreading his hands wide to illustrate. "Probably came off a Steller's eagle. They get to be like twenty pounds, you know."