“Well, this is nice,” Lauren admitted, her expression almost suspicious.
We approached the bank, searching for the best place to set up. We found a little patch of grass, and I dumped the bag there before pulling out the items we needed. We stripped to our swimwear, examining the ground more cautiously now that we were barefooted, and then approached the water. It was surprisingly cold, but a welcome contrast to even the relatively cool forest air—we had all grown sticky during our walk.
Goosebumps ran along my skin as I waded deeper, the soles of my feet slipping along the smooth stones of the riverbed. Our eyes darted around the murky water, searching for leeches. When the water was up to our waists and we’d spotted none, I bit the bullet and submerged myself all in one go—Lauren and Angie following suit.
I billowed to the top, gasping for air. “Awesome!”
Lauren quickly set about scrubbing all the dried and cakey shampoo off her hair, and I moved back to the bank to grab the shampoo and conditioner bottles. After the three of us had completed the ritual—which actually took less time than it would have in a regular shower or bath, due to the movement and volume of the water—we started frolicking about like graceless mermaids, and things soon descended into an all-out splashing war. We were only vaguely aware of the time passing from the amount of sunlight that trickled through the treetops, and by the time I pulled away to check my watch on the bank, we needed to start heading back, unless we wanted to get trapped in the woods after nightfall.
“Oh, dang,” Lauren said as Angie and I were leaving the water. “Where’s the shampoo?”
We whirled around to see her pointing toward a stone jutting out into the center of the creek, where we had set down the bottles while we swam. Angie and I had totally forgotten they were even there, and now only the conditioner bottle remained standing.
“Oops, that sucks,” I said. “One of us must have knocked it accidentally. Looks like we’ll be stuck with Mrs. Churnley’s homemade shampoo for the rest of the trip…”
With that prospect ringing in her ears, Lauren surged toward the stone, snatched up the conditioner and threw it to me. “You two get everything packed up,” she ordered. “I’m looking for that shampoo.”
“Need your glasses?” Angie offered with a smirk.
“Just pass me a long stick,” Lauren muttered, staring down.
Angie and I left the water and hunted around for a broken tree branch until I found one that seemed thick and long enough to be useful. I chucked it toward Lauren, and then Angie and I turned away from the water and began drying off.
Lauren’s shriek a minute later made us whip back around.
“What the—” She swore.
“What?” Angie and I called, staring at her as she splashed toward us, her eyes set on a patch of water about five feet away from the rock where we’d kept the bottles.
“I dislodged something!” she panted, still backing away from whatever it was she’d spotted in the water.
I was expecting it to be a leech, or a group of them, but then I saw it. Something was rising from the depths of the creek. A long, dark shadow at first, but as it broke the surface, it was… My eyes bugged. It took my brain several moments to put a name to what I saw.
“A wing?” I blurted.
It was a huge, black, shimmering thing—several feet across—with protruding veins and a startlingly pointed tip. It looked like… some kind of giant, prehistoric bat wing.
Angie was already wading into the water for a closer look, passing Lauren and grabbing the stick. By the time she reached the thing, Lauren had climbed out of the water and snatched up her glasses so she could see in detail past more than a few feet. Angie used the stick to guide the wing to the bank, and once it was close enough, I wrapped the edges of my towel around my hands to act as gloves and kneeled over the edge. I gingerly got a hold of the edge of the wing and, in spite of how offputtingly heavy it was, managed to haul it up onto the grass. We gathered around it, our mouths hanging open.
“It must’ve been stuck between some rocks on the riverbed,” Lauren breathed.
“What is it?” Angie mused, bending down. She cautiously poked a bare finger against its leathery surface, and it gave way at her touch. Her nose wrinkled. “Ew… Feels supple.”
I hesitated to ask why that might be. Was there some kind of rare bird species inhabiting this area that could have shed such a thing? If there was, I sure didn’t want to come face to face with it. Now that the thing was out of the water and I was looking closer, I could make out the reason the tip looked so sharp—there was a gnarly hook attached to it… It looked predatory.
Our gazes slowly raised, in unison, to the treetops above the creek, as if expecting to suddenly spot the owner of the wing perched among the branches and glaring down at us with red demon eyes.
Lauren gulped. “I, uh, think Mr. and Mrs. Churnley should see this.”
“I agree,” Angie said, her voice slightly hoarse. “If there is some kind of weird animal living around here, they ought to know.”
Our eyes returned to the wing, and silence reigned once again. Judging by my friends’ expressions, it wasn’t just me who found the idea of lugging this back with us through the woods, bringing it back home, creepy.
I cleared my throat, realizing we had wasted too much time already. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but the atmosphere suddenly seemed a lot darker than it had only a few minutes ago.
“Let’s get going,” I mumbled.
I slipped on my shorts and top over my dry-ish swimwear, and we hurried to pack up our things—Angie and Lauren not bothering to waste time drying off, just wrapping a towel around themselves. That left my towel and two of the other spare ones we’d brought with us to use in carrying the wing. We wrapped them around our hands to prevent direct contact. Angie lifted our bag over one shoulder, taking her turn to carry it, and we gingerly grabbed hold of the wing and started to tug it away from the creek.
I knew I was stupid for getting spooked over this—there was probably some perfectly rational explanation for what the wing was—but somehow I couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes watching us as we trekked our way back home.
Chapter 3
“What on earth?” Mrs. Churnley gasped.
We reached the house just as the last slivers of light were disappearing from the sky. Panting and sweating, we lugged the wing into the center of the kitchen/dining room and dropped it on the wooden floor. My hands were aching from having clutched the thing for so long; extra strain had been applied from squeezing tightly to keep the towel in place.
“Yeah… We really don’t know,” Angie said, wiping her brow with a towel.
Mr. and Mrs. Churnley rose from the table where they’d been sipping iced tea and hovered over the wing, their faces set in utter confusion.
“Any clue what it is?” I prompted.
“It looks like a giant bat wing!” Mr. Churnley exclaimed, voicing my initial impression of it, his eyes bugging with awe.
“Where did you get it?” Mrs. Churnley demanded, bending down and slowly reaching out to touch it.
“Lauren, uh, excavated it from the bottom of the creek,” Angie replied, the shadow of a smirk on her lips.
“My, my, my,” Mrs. Churnley blustered. “I have absolutely no idea what it could be, or why it would be sitting at the bottom of the water. It definitely does look like a wing, though.”
“I’ll go visit Mr. Doherty tomorrow,” Mr. Churnley said, making his way back to his seat, his eyes remaining glued to the specimen. “Bring him here to take a look at it.”
“Good idea, cupcake,” Mrs. Churnley said. “Maybe he’ll have a better idea. In the meantime, girls, maybe stay away from the creek?”
Lauren let out a dry laugh. “I do think so, ma’am.”
We eyed the wing a few tense moments longer, before Angie made for the staircase. “Not sure about you, Lauren and Riley, but I’m pretty exhausted after all the fresh air and surprises we’ve h
ad today.”
Lauren and I nodded, saying goodnight to the old couple before following Angie to the staircase. Once in our bedroom, we collapsed in our beds. I was exhausted after the day’s events, and all the physical activity I wasn’t used to, but at the same time, the last thing my mind felt like doing was shutting down. It was still downstairs, stuck in that kitchen, mulling over what the heck the strange wing belonged to.
“I wish we had internet right now,” I muttered, rubbing my forehead. I lay on my back, facing the shabby ceiling.
“Yeah. Could’ve Googled… “giant bats of Texas”, or something…” Lauren mumbled, trailing off. I could hear the fatigue in her voice. Unlike me, she did sound ready to drop off. I guessed that cool water had really gone to her head.
Angie, taking the hint, switched off the light, and we lapsed into silence, listening to the distant murmuring of the Churnleys’ conversation downstairs, then the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. They were probably moving the wing to one corner of the room, where it would wait for us till morning… Then came the creaking of stairs, the Churnleys retiring to bed.
Lauren’s first snore of the night filled my ears, followed shortly by Angie’s, and I turned over on my mattress to face the open window, to which I was closest. The moon’s rays filtered through the thin curtains, casting pale light upon my face, and a gentle breeze caressed my skin.
I closed my eyes, hoping to begin coaxing myself to sleep, and slowly, my thoughts pulled away from the externals—from the weird wing, the creaky old farmhouse, and this crazy vacation I found myself on with my two best friends—and withdraw deeper into my subconscious, and the thoughts that I had locked away there, waiting for me just beneath the surface.
It wasn’t a surprise that my parents were the first among those thoughts. Their faces, drained, and looking… so much older than the day I’d left home. It was a memory of the last time I’d seen them face to face—a little over a month ago, before my eighteenth birthday, when they’d appeared illegally outside my school, claiming that they just wanted to see me. That they’d brought me a gift. Jean had already arrived to pick me up, so I hadn’t stood there behind those school gates, facing them, for long. But it was long enough to receive their little brown parcel in my two shaking hands, and the sight of them remained burned in my brain as if it were yesterday.
You should see them, a small part of me whispered, as it often did when the lights were out and the night was still. They’re your parents, and they won’t be around forever, especially given their lifestyle. If you deny them even a simple meeting after all these years, and something happens… you’ll live with that for the rest of your life.
My parents had conceived me late in life, and I was a shock to them as much as I was to the doctors, when my mother checked into the hospital with a stomach complaint. My parents would both be sixty-one next year and were already riddled with various medical issues.
It was nights like this when I felt like a terrible person. I hadn’t even opened the gift they’d come all the way to my school specially to give me. It still sat under my bed at home, where I’d shoved it to try to forget about it… because I feared what it would hold.
Because I knew what it would hold.
Its contents were the same as the last little brown parcel they’d sent me, six months prior. I’d rattled it to check; it sounded like photographs. Opening the previous set had left me a trembling mess. There had been almost twenty of them, snapshots of a little blue-eyed girl, ranging from two to five years old, a toothy grin always plastered across her face—often eating ice cream or some other treat—and enveloped in the protective arms of her parents.
It was as if they thought sending me these photographs could rewrite history. Erase the childhood they had given me—everything that had happened in between the moments when a smile crossed my face for the camera—and replace it with the one they were presenting… and make me feel guilt. Make me seem like the monster.
The worst part was that it had worked. I hadn’t been able to sleep that night, and barely functioned the next day at school. I’d suddenly found myself battling with doubt. I hadn’t even remembered them taking photos of me as a kid, and I’d been nine when I left home. So very young. Could I have been exaggerating things, in my immature little mind? Could there have been another side to things that I just couldn’t see? They were my parents, after all. Surely they loved me? Why would they have bothered to take pictures of me if they didn’t care?
Thankfully, Jean had been there for me when I returned home from school that day. It had been a difficult conversation for her to have with me for sure, because on the one hand she didn’t want to demonize my parents, but on the other, she cared deeply for me, and she didn’t want me suffering further because of a toxic relationship. In the end, she had simply stated facts: the police had found them guilty of physical, alcohol-fueled abuse and consistent neglect of a minor. They had gone to jail for it.
After she’d calmed me down, I had been able to remember why I was staying away from them, remember that it wasn’t out of hate or vengeance, like they might have me believe. I wasn’t doing it because of them, but for me. It would be a lie to say I didn’t resent them at all, but that had faded, like a scar fades with time. I was keeping my distance because I was carving out a new life for myself. By genetics and upbringing, I was fated to follow the same path as them—just like so many young adults with dysfunctional childhoods who fell by the wayside later in life. But, by God, I wasn’t going to let that happen to me. I wasn’t going to be the repeat of an old song; I was going to be the damn definition of avant-garde.
That’s why I avoided talking about my past life with my friends—even Lauren and Angie. I never told them that doubts still haunted me from time to time. Because they were my future. The people I had chosen to let mold me, with their happy childhoods and bright futures. They were part of a painting I was creating, stroke by painstaking stroke, of a beautiful spring morning, and I didn’t want any black ink seeping into it.
I wasn’t sure the niggling doubts would ever fully go away. Maybe one day I’d actually feel ready to face my birth parents again, but I couldn’t pressure myself—or allow them to pressure me. They’d made their choices, and I’d been forced to make mine.
A sudden grating noise broke through my thoughts. It sounded like the gate bordering the yard outside. My first thought was that it must be one of the Churnleys, but why would they be leaving the house’s compound at this time of night? And I hadn’t heard any creaking stairs either. My eyes shot open, and I turned to look over at Angie and Lauren. They were both still sound asleep.
I slipped out of bed and crept closer to the window, looking out in time to see a tall, dark masculine silhouette moving with alarming speed toward the house.
The next thing I knew, there was a loud bang downstairs, and the dogs erupted into barking. Lauren and Angie woke with a start, eyes wide and gazing around.
“Wh-What was that?” Angie murmured.
I was already halfway across the room. “Shh! Stay there!” I hissed.
My brain was in a haze of panic, and all I knew was that my instincts were telling me to keep quiet. If this person was a burglar, then we should just let him come in and take what he wanted, rather than try to fight him off. There was literally nothing to take anyway—which made the situation even more bewildering. Who would break into an old shack like this? Whatever the answer, for all we knew he was armed.
The Churnleys’ door opened as I reached the landing, and Mr. Churnley stepped out wearing nothing but a long nightshirt and underwear, his eyes bleary.
“Which one of you—?” he began, but I quickly held a finger to my lips, cutting him off.
“What’s going on?” Mrs. Churnley emerged wearing a cotton nightie, her hair in curlers.
“Someone broke in,” I breathed. “We need to stay quiet.”
“Riley?” Angie whispered from behind me. She and Lauren were s
tanding in our doorway, looking pale and utterly terrified.
“J-Just stay where you are,” I repeated, barely daring to breathe as I inched toward the staircase, a shaken Mr. Churnley following me.
“What the devil,” he cursed beneath his breath. “My gun’s downstairs.”
I prayed none of the floorboards creaked too loudly beneath my feet as I lowered myself and craned my neck to look down in between the banisters, trying to catch a glimpse of what the intruder was doing.
From my mostly obscured view of the kitchen, I caught a blur of black sweeping past the edge of the dining table—heard rapid footsteps pounding across the floorboards, and then, to my confusion… head outside. The gate groaned seconds later.
My heart was in my throat, and I stayed frozen in my position for several moments, wondering what on earth had just happened. Had I heard what I thought I’d heard? Had the intruder seriously already left? It remained quiet downstairs—save for the barking of the dogs—so I could only conclude he had.
“I think he’s gone,” I managed, my voice raspy as I rose to my feet. My knees felt shaky from the shock and the adrenaline still coursing through me, so I kept gripping the banister for support.
“Maybe he heard us wake up,” Lauren said, her voice uneven.
Swallowing hard, I proceeded down the staircase, and the others followed. Arriving in the kitchen/dining area, we analyzed the room, looking for signs of disruption and anything that might be missing.
Nothing looked immediately out of place. The chairs were still drawn neatly around the table; all the kitchen cupboards and drawers were closed. He’d been down here for barely a minute, and clearly hadn’t had time for any rummaging around.
Then what had he been—
“He took the wing!” Mrs. Churnley suddenly exclaimed.
Everyone stilled, scanning each corner of the room.
Indeed. The wing was gone.