Grounded

by Narrelle M. Harris

  ‘Sorry,’ Clementine said to the others when she returned to the table and her cooling cup of tea. ‘Exhibition business.’

  ‘And a fine exhibition it is too,’ said the Dean warmly. ‘I was livid about the vandalism when I heard.’

  Clementine grit her teeth at the intrusion of that memory into the day.

  Benedick’s leg pressed against hers under the table.

  ‘Thanks for your help today, Dean Wendham,’ he said. ‘I have a lot to think about.’

  ‘My pleasure, Captain Sasaki,’ said the Dean, shaking his hand. ‘Don’t hesitate to call if you’d like to discuss your options further.’

  ***

  The Sasaki brothers and Clementine retired to Takahē Café for their debriefing. Benedick was expressing his frustration at having too many choices. ‘Law, physio, forensics. Hell, I could study politics, IT, media, maybe education …’

  ‘You could, but you’d hate IT. All that desk time.’

  ‘Peri, anything I do from here on in will be desk time.’

  ‘Widen your thinking, Ben. In physio or forensics, you’d be in the field, even if you’re not flying. With IT you’d be hunched at a desk behind a computer, coding till your feathers fall out. It’s a whole other birdcage, that.’

  ‘Okay. Point conceded. That leaves six others to choose from.’

  ‘Process of elimination, then. Let’s make some lists …’

  Clementine stirred half a spoon of sugar into her coffee and ignored the river view in favour of watching Benedick and Peri write lists and engage in earnest discussion.

  The men shared the same oval face and long, straight nose, though Peri’s mouth was wider. Clementine found herself looking at Benedick’s mouth, though, and how expressive it was. It flashed in a moment from a stern line into a warm smile. The corners tucked up into little dimples when he laughed.

  Their hair was different too. Peri dyed his naturally dark hair an oceanic swirl of blues, from navy through to a pale blue-tinged white. Vivid and beautiful, in an artistic sense, but all Clementine could think about was how Benedick’s straight, black hair framed and accentuated his cheekbones and his eyes, and how soft it felt against her fingers.

  She thought Benedick’s dark wings were more handsome than Peri’s tan ones, even with the blue wave patterns Peri had dyed into his plumage. Benedick might have joked about being the family blackbird for going into active police work, but his little brother was definitely more of a peacock.

  Peri’s golden skin was also paler than Benedick’s, which made the deep blue water-dragon tattoo winding around his nape stand out. The inky tail reached to Peri’s clavicle on one side, the scaled snout to his earlobe on the other. Benedick didn’t have any tattoos on his sun-kissed skin. Clementine idly wondered how a red mountain dragon might look over his chest, but decided she liked him just as he was, his perfection unembellished.

  Peri was also full of fidgety energy and prone to not taking anything seriously, a counterpoint to Benedick’s composure and thoughtful humour. Yet Benedick still had a sense of playfulness, gentler and therefore more appealing than his brother’s.

  Not that she was comparing them. They were like thunder and lightning, or sun and shadow. Related but not the same at all.

  ‘What’s the verdict?’

  She found the brothers looking at her, waiting for a reply to a half-heard question.

  ‘The accessibility is excellent,’ she said. ‘And their law program is very highly regarded. It might suit your background particularly well, since it might be considered an extension of your police career. Unless you want a complete break from that.’

  ‘No,’ said Benedick, ‘I like the idea of … moving forward but without having to leave everything behind.’

  ‘Law compartmentalises into specialised areas down the track too,’ she reminded him. ‘Property law, aerospace law, commercial, criminal, and then there’s government policy specialisations.’

  Peri nudged Benedick cheerfully. ‘Told you. And the Dean reckons with your background, there’ll be no trouble with advanced standing or being accepted next term. Come along, brother Ben, and be a Mighty Griffin with me. I’ll show you all the best spots to catch a nap in the library before lectures.’

  ‘I think your idea of study and mine might be a bit different,’ said Benedick, but his eyes were laughing at his brother’s silliness.

  ‘Fine. Spurn my wisdom.’

  ‘You have wisdom?’

  ‘Certainly I do. I built it myself out of fibre optics and nanobots in my second year.’

  ‘I can see it advised you on your coiffeur, at least.’

  ‘Don’t diss the water dragon.’ Peri shook his head dramatically so that the wave effect of the shifting blues was more obvious.

  ‘You and your water dragon obsession. You know that story of the dragon who came out of a brook has two meanings, right?’

  Peri raised his arms in a dramatic flourish. ‘I am a great man emerging from surprisingly humble origins!’

  ‘I’d like to hear you say that to Mum’s face.’

  ‘It also means you’re an imoogi sea snake, out of your element trying to earn favours to reach heaven and become a dragon again,’ Clementine told Peri, deadpan.

  ‘Oh, I like you,’ grinned Peri, ‘Sassy. You’re keeping my brother from being a stern old puffin, which is a hell of a job, I admit.’

  ‘I’m more of a serious penguin, these days,’ said Benedick, cocking an eyebrow and shivering his wing feathers.

  ‘Emperor penguin,’ asserted Clementine. ‘The noblest of all the penguins.’

  ‘That’s me, put in my place,’ said Peri, laughing. ‘Hey, now all the Planning of the Future has been done, do you want to go out on the river? It’s a gorgeous day.’

  Benedick cast an eye towards the broad-decked boats on the water, and the people hanging onto the rails with the wind in their hair and feathers. He seemed hesitant.

  ‘I’d love to,’ Clementine declared firmly. ‘We can stand in the prow with the slipstream kids.’

  Benedick’s gaze met hers, his mouth pulled into a slight frown. She lifted her chin with a hint of defiance as she held his gaze, daring him to suggest that speeding down the river at the prow, with the wind pulling at them, would be a bad idea.

  ‘Sassy and a daredevil,’ declared Peri. ‘I can see why Ben likes you. Come on, then!’

  The three of them boarded the Little Kingfisher, painted blue and white to match its namesake. The narrowed point of the boat was crowded with teenagers hanging onto the rails so they could let their wings stretch and flutter behind them in the breeze. They found a place together on the starboard sweep of the prow.

  Once in the middle of the wide river, the boat powered up to 35 knots, and the slipstream kids started to have their fun, laughing and egging each other on to fold their wings into the wind so that their feet were lifted from the deck, only their grips holding them to the boat until they allowed their wings to be swept back, where they no longer provided lift.

  Clementine found herself between the Sasakis. To her left, Peri hung onto the enamelled railing and angled his wings behind him as the Little Kingfisher picked up speed. To her right, Benedick also had a firm grip. He’d stretched his wings behind him too, though less elegantly than Peri.

  ‘You good, Bento?’

  ‘Flapper keen,’ said Benedick mildly.

  ‘Cheeky rook,’ Peri responded, unoffended, ‘How about you, Clem?’

  Clementine took one hand off the rail to give him a thumbs-up. In that moment, the wind picked up her very light body. She clenched her left hand—the only one now connected to the moving vessel—onto the cold, wet enamel. As she tried to latch onto the railing with her free hand, another gust of feather-plucking wind snatched at her. Her fingers slipped the railing and lifted her.

  Peri and Benedick both tried to grab hold of her, but in releasing their own grips on the rail, the wind pushed their stance to an angle and then caught at their
wings.

  Peri was able to let his own dark wings trail in the slipstream, diminishing the wind’s force, but Benedick’s right wing wasn’t so flexible, and a nightmare memory of falling, falling, flooded him with terror as he fell prey to the rushing air. Unable to halt his body, it was thrown into Clementine’s at an angle; Clementine lost her hold on the rail and in a flash she was lifted up, over the rail and into the water.

  Shouts of alarm rose up. The crew swung into rapid emergency response, the captain turning the vessel port-ward while throttling back, to avoid ploughing over the woman overboard. Crew seized life preservers, took wing and dropped the rings close to Clementine before she could sink.

  Benedick had climbed over the railing and was leaning out, one hand clamped to the rail, the other reaching towards Clementine as his lopsided wings spread, trying to keep him balanced.

  ‘Clementine! Clem!’ His voice cracked.

  Peri was behind the rail still, holding tight to his brother’s arm.

  Then Benedick saw Clementine, her head above water, clinging to a life preserver—and she was laughing.

  ‘I’m okay!’ she then called out. ‘Benedick, I’m fine. I can swim, remember?’

  From the look on his face, he certainly had not.

  ‘Get back on the boat!’ she called out, using the preserver and kicking her way through the water.

  Benedick didn’t climb back to safety. He stayed where he was until she reached the ropes on the side of the boat and started to climb up. He grabbed a handful of her wet shirt and pulled, nearly losing grip himself. Peri had to clutch a handful of Benedick’s shirt too, until Clementine was pulled back on board.

  Once Clementine was on the deck and dripping water, first Benedick wrapped her in a desperate hug, breathing so hard he couldn’t even say her name. Then he took her by the shoulders and pushed her back until he could look in her eyes.

  ‘What the hell were you playing at?’

  Clementine frowned. ‘I wasn’t playing at anything.’

  ‘You could have drowned.’

  ‘I can swim,’ she said, glaring.

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘I’m a grown woman, Benedick,’ she snapped. ‘If I want to slipstream and get blown into the water, it’s my own damned lookout.’ She wrenched herself out of his hold. ‘I don’t need saving. I don’t need you. I told you that at the start.’

  Benedick took a sharp, hissing breath through his teeth. ‘Yes. You told me that. Pretty emphatically, as I recall.’

  Heedless of the circle of onlookers, Clementine bristled and jutted her chin out furiously. ‘That’s right. You were warned. I don’t need you, I don’t play nice, I don’t bloody pander. Not to you, not to that sun-blighted stalker, not to anybody.’

  ‘I don’t want you to be nice,’ Benedick snapped back. ‘I want you to use some common sense and not put yourself in danger just to make the point that you don’t need anybody. You’re taking stupid risks so you can show off how perfectly independent you are, just because some lunatic flapper is playing mind games with you. You’re angry about that? Fine. Be angry. I’m angry about it. But don’t let it make you make stupid decisions, and don’t cast me in the role of Disapproving Stiff. I used to have a career in preventing people making bad decisions, from hurting themselves and other people. Before one of the storm-blighted buzzards shot me.’

  Clementine, water still dripping from her clothes, fell mute. She reached out towards him. ‘Benedick. I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I just like the boat.’

  ‘You could have drowned and I couldn’t reach you.’

  ‘I’m okay …’

  ‘You could have hit your head, the boat might have hit you, you might have been overwhelmed by the waves, you might have just been unlucky and then what? Then what?’

  Clementine took a deep breath and exhaled it shakily. ‘Then you and Peri and the crew would have fished me out of the river. And told me off for falling in it. Just like you’re doing now.’ She offered a wobbly smile.

  ‘I couldn’t reach you,’ he said miserably.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. It was an accident.’

  Clementine wrapped her arms around him and pressed against his chest, and Benedick held her close, not caring about the dampness or the smell of river water, or anything but holding her close against him. His wings curved around her, keeping her warm.

  ‘Hey.’

  They looked up to see Peri offering them both towels.

  ‘Someone’s bringing tea to warm you up,’ said Peri, very deliberately not talking about their fight. ‘Which as restoratives go is on the low-flying end of the scale. What are the chances of going back to Ben’s place for a Scotch?’

  ***

  Peri leaned against the kitchen bench, Scotch in hand.

  ‘Clementine Torres is something else, isn’t she?’

  The woman in question was in her own flat, changing into something dry and warm. Benedick had already changed into drier clothes and was staring moodily into his glass without replying.

  ‘Bit hard on her, weren’t you?’

  Benedick swirled the liquid round the tumbler before taking a sip.

  ‘She didn’t do anything wrong, Benedick.’

  ‘I know she didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone swim before though. It was weird. She’s like a little fish—’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘It was kind of fish-like …’

  Benedick slammed his glass down on the coffee table. ‘Don’t say it’s weird.’

  Peri held his hands up. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it, Ben.’

  ‘You don’t call people weird and mean nothing by it, Peri.’

  ‘Okay, fine. But it’s nothing I’ve ever seen before. Or you. You’ll agree it’s not … usual.’

  Benedick huffed out a breath. ‘I’ll agree it’s not usual. Clementine isn’t usual. Nothing about her is usual.’

  Peri regarded his brother solemnly. ‘You’ve got it bad, haven’t you? You only met her a week or so ago, didn’t you?’

  Benedick scrubbed his fingers through his hair and went to refill his glass. ‘Turns out it’s not the length of time you know someone. It’s the impression they make.’

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘She fell in the water and all I could think was she’ll drown, and I can’t get to her.’

  ‘Even if you could still fly, that would have been true,’ Peri pointed out gently. ‘The crew were way more experienced and they weren’t jumping in after her. They got the life preserver straight out to her and they were going to tow her in. Must happen from time to time, mustn’t it? Remember the ferry that sank a few years ago? The riverguard managed to get towropes to everyone in time. They’re experts. And your Clementine wasn’t having a problem.’

  Benedick paced the room. ‘No. She wasn’t. She’s extraordinary.’ He looked straight into his brother’s eyes. ‘Which is a much better word than weird, by the way.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Peri, genuinely contrite. ‘And she is. Do you really think she was just showing off because of those threats?’

  Benedick shrugged. ‘Maybe. I’ve seen people behave like that before. All bravado because they’ve been scared, and then their judgement goes off.’

  ‘Are we talking about Clementine or you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ And he really didn’t. Benedick thought he’d got used to the idea that he wasn’t a policeman anymore, but the moment Clementine had hit the water, he was desperately calculating how to get her back on board the safety of the boat. His wings had flapped hard and he’d tried to fly, but he’d risen at a shonky angle and then his right wing had spasmed.

  The thought of her being harmed was terrible, but not as terrible as his terror that he couldn’t help.

  I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination, he thought with more than a hint of desperation. The potential f
or success and happiness reside in me. Do what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and one day I may achieve what seemed impossible.

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘I hate feeling helpless.’

  ‘You weren’t helpless. You were over the edge of that boat like a river rat and as soon as the crew towed her near enough, you got hold of her and pulled her onto the deck. So what that you weren’t her hero of the hour? She’s safe, you helped, you’re both fine. Isn’t that what matters?’

  Silence.

  ‘Benedick?’

  ‘I just. I.’

  ‘Hey. Hey, it’s …’

  Benedick’s first sob shocked even himself, and then Peri’s embrace was pulling him in, his wings cocooning him, shielding him from a storm that was raging inside his own head and heart. Benedick drew his bedraggled wings in miserably close against his body and leaned into Peri and he cried. Great sobbing gulps of tears. His shoulders shook and his wings shuddered with it. He clutched onto Peri’s shirt and buried his face in the cloth and he cried and cried.

  Peri didn’t try to hush him or tell him not to cry. He held Benedick and said, ‘I’ve got you, bro.’

  ‘I used to fly,’ Benedick managed to say at last. ‘The air was mine. I’m not supposed to say how much I miss it, now that I can’t have it anymore. But I miss it. I want it back.’

  ‘I know you do, bro.’

  ‘I don’t know who to be without the sky, Peri.’

  Peri held him tightly and kissed the crown of his bent head.

  ‘I used to think about falling. On purpose. Falling and finishing it.’

  That admission brought silence and Benedick was terrified to see the look on Peri’s face, so he didn’t look. But Peri only wrapped his wings more closely around his brother, as though that could protect him from the things he’d already lost.

  ‘I don’t anymore,’ he whispered. ‘But sometimes I feel like I’m still falling. I want to be allowed to miss it. I don’t want to have to be everyone’s brave little soldier.’

  ‘You’re allowed to be sad, Ben. You’re allowed to grieve.’

  Benedick took a shaking breath, then another.