by M. Raiya
Okay. I flew back into the woods but not too far.
In less than a minute, Vin came back down, carrying his guitar case.
That stumped me. He hurried to the car, put the guitar case onto the back seat, and then got in on the passenger side. He sent another glance toward me, but I don’t think he had time to locate me in the trees. He sent another thumbs-up in my direction anyway.
I was not feeling very thumbs-uppy about this.
I heard the man say, “There was an owl here a minute ago. You see it?”
“Yeah, he hangs around a lot,” Vin said.
“Is he your muse?”
“You could say so.” And then the car was too far away for me to hear anything.
Well, I thought. Huh. Muse?
I followed behind the car, staying out of sight, until it got on the interstate and sped off at sixty-five miles an hour. I couldn’t begin to keep up with that. I watched it drive out of sight with the sinking feeling that this was only the first of many times that this was going to happen.
THE FEELING stayed with me. It was a long evening. The moon rose. Vin’s parents came home and did their usual stressing about numbers while they fixed dinner and ate, completely oblivious to the fact that their son wasn’t home. Finally, I realized that even they couldn’t be that unobservant. He must have called them and let them know. I felt a little better, but at the same time, I felt bitter because I was the only one who didn’t know what was going on. Clearly Vin had made these plans during the day. Something had come up, something to do with his music. That was all good, but I couldn’t help feeling in the lurch. Here I’d bared my soul to him last night, and he’d said he was eager to talk to me some more on his laptop. Not to mention my hopes to go out on his kayak with him. But what did what an owl want matter anyway?
I knew that wasn’t fair, but it just made me more resentful of my fate than usual. If I’d been human… I bit off that thought in a hurry. Or tried to. It kept hovering. Vin had told me he was gay. I knew I was gay. I still had a full complement of human desires and emotions. Just no way to act on any of them. Like everything else, I’d locked them away.
Vin was stirring everything up.
But even if I did suddenly, miraculously, get rid of the cursed elan, it was extremely unlikely that we’d have a relationship. Humans and shifters rarely fell in love. Way too complicated. Too many secrets. Such things were very heavily frowned upon by my kind. And to contemplate having a gay relationship with a human—nope. It would never be allowed.
Still, the sensation I’d woken with resurfaced in my mind. I’d reached out to Vin with my human hand. What would it feel like, to touch him with skin, not feathers? An image of him touching me back, touching my skin… I imagined his palm pressed against my chest, his fingers stretching up to feel my throat… I banished the image in a hurry, not sure where it had come from, or where it was going. Well, I knew it had come from the depths of my cloudy mind, and I knew damn well where it was going. Or would have gone once. Not now.
I suddenly wanted to laugh. I was the opposite of Icarus. He had been burned from flying too near the sun, getting too caught up in humankind’s age-old dream of flight. I could fly, well and truly. And if I continued this course, I was going to get burned equally severely for flying too near the ground.
I made myself stop thinking and went off to hunt.
HOURS LATER, the moon was high in the sky, and my worry was growing. I hadn’t gotten a good look at the guy who’d driven Vin away, but I didn’t trust him one bit. An older man might be very interested in the charm Vin didn’t seem to be aware he possessed. I reminded myself that Vin wasn’t stupid or innocent. But anybody could be seduced by a man of wealth and power. The man’s car had been expensive. Not that I knew much about cars. Sailboats had been my passion once—I locked those memories swiftly away.
Vin was especially vulnerable because he was a young man craving attention from older adults since he wasn’t getting any from his parents. And if the stranger slipped him a drug to get past Vin’s common sense… I felt a chill at the thought of what could be happening right now in a sleazy hotel room somewhere, Vin half-conscious and compliant….
Full of anxious energy, I flew back and forth, out over the calm water and along the shore, pausing to stare at the lonely blue kayak sitting all by itself on the beach. The moonlight was so bright that the boat cast a shadow. So much for an evening spent with me perching on the bow like a figurehead of old.
Finally, I landed in a dead tree near the shore not too far from the house and entertained myself with a good hooting spree. I usually kept my mouth shut, but once in a while it felt good to let loose, so I did. Blame it on the full moon. I know I scared every roosting songbird within a mile radius half to death, and a poor muskrat went belly up with terror below me, but I ignored them all and cried out my misery to the sky, which didn’t give a damn, but I felt better afterward. Sometimes a guy just needed to fucking hoot.
It was almost midnight when the black car pulled into the driveway. To my absolute joy, Vin got out of the front seat unharmed. I danced from limb to limb to get a good look at him. He seemed to be okay. He got his guitar out of the back. He said thank you to the driver, who laughed and said he was welcome and would be in touch. There was no hugging. Vin didn’t appear to be drunk or drugged as he crossed in front of the headlights and hurried up onto the porch. Strangely, though, he slid his guitar behind an outside chair before heading toward the door. The car turned around and drove away.
The outside light came on, and Vin’s father opened the door before I could fly down.
“Dammit, do you have any idea what time it is?” His father sounded like the world had just ended.
“Sorry,” Vin said quickly. “The chorus thing went really late, and then we got to talking and lost track of time.” He didn’t sound a bit tired. In fact, he sounded excited. But tense.
“It’s after midnight! You need to be rested for your finals.”
“I’m going to be exempt from them, Dad. I’ve got all As. And tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“Well, you made your mother worry.”
“Sorry.” He sounded genuine about that.
“Right, then. Off to bed.”
Vin slipped upstairs.
I was on his desk when he came into his room. Without turning his light on, since plenty of moonlight was streaming in, Vin closed his door and came straight to me. I hopped up onto his shoulder.
“Hi, you,” he said, stroking me as I settled. “I’m so sorry. You must have wondered what the hell was up.”
I wanted to be stern and aloof since I couldn’t remind him about safe choices and all that stuff, but I found myself making those stupid happy owl sounds again. He was home, and he wasn’t drugged.
“Shh, you’re going to get me yelled at. Listen, you won’t believe where I’ve been.” His eyes were glowing, and he looked about to burst.
I pulled my head back and managed to give him a dark look.
“What? Were you worried?” I couldn’t tell if he was upset or flattered. “Oh, that was Mr. Allard. He’s my chorus teacher’s husband. He’s perfectly safe. They’ve got two adorable twin baby girls.” Vin laughed and sat down on the desk chair. He turned on his laptop. I hopped over onto his history book. Did he still have my pencil? I didn’t want to claw up another one.
Vin went on. “Last month Mr. Allard heard me sing a solo at a school concert, and he liked my voice. He’s a songwriter, and he’s put together a group of kids who’ve recently graduated to sing his stuff at events and fairs and things like that around here. One of them just left, and he wanted me to try out with the others.” Vin paused for breath, and I shook the feathers he’d disturbed back into place. “It went really, really well. They sound amazing, and I love his songs—they’re deep and well written, and they all have these intense harmonies…. He’s got big plans for the group. As soon as I get up to speed, they’re planning a tour and a recording session, and—tha
t’s if they all agree to having me join. He said he’d let me know tomorrow.”
About a million questions came to my mind right off. None of which I could ask until the laptop booted up. Most importantly, I still wasn’t convinced about the chorus teacher’s husband’s honor. Having twins at home could be a good excuse to…. I shook my head. I had no reason to be negative about what was obviously so exciting to Vin. And that might mean he planned to stay in the area after graduation. That would be a good thing for me anyway.
But was this going to be another reason for him to have against going to college? I shivered inside. The situation that had led to me drop a knife out in the woods was still unresolved, and the deadline to decide was getting closer all the time.
As if following my thoughts, Vin let out a sigh. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. Mom and Dad ‘strongly discouraged’ me from playing last year so I could put all my time into studying. I haven’t stopped playing, obviously.”
I had yet to hear him play and sing, but I wanted to very much. I doubted I’d ever get the chance to hear him perform with this group, unless they performed outside, nearby, where there were a lot of trees.
Vin ran a hand through his hair the way I was learning he did when he was stressed. He was looking tired now the adrenaline was wearing off. “Think they’re asleep yet? I’ve got to go down and get my guitar off the porch.”
I listened hard. His father’s breathing was that of someone sleeping, but his mother was still reading on her tablet. I shook my head.
“You’re pretty handy,” he said, stroking my breast with the backs of his fingers. “These bands of feathers around your throat are so cool. And I love the markings over your eyes. Like eyebrows.”
I knew I should pull away, but…. He lowered his hand and shook his head. “I just don’t think I can do what they want me to do next year. I mean, college wouldn’t be so bad if it’s someplace I can play music, or better yet study it, but Cavendish—my God, the place is in Iowa, in the middle of a cornfield, and it’s got one music class called the history of music, which is an elective I can take my senior year.” He shuddered, and I didn’t like the way the corners of his eyes pinched. It reminded me of the way he’d looked that night. “And to be honest, I really don’t want to go to college at all. At least, not yet. Is it horrible to want a break and just be me for a while?”
Of course it wasn’t horrible.
“But my God, you should have seen their reactions when I mentioned taking a break year once. They looked like I’d said I was going to burn the house down. There just wasn’t any way to tell them I’d actually been serious. It was like I was speaking a foreign language. It was horrible.”
The laptop was finally ready. He opened a blank document and dug my pencil out of his pocket. I typed quickly, What you said about choices is true. More will always open.
“I know,” he sighed. “I’m just so afraid of that first big choice. It’s so easy not to make it at all. I’ve been locked on this course for years. But then….”
Yeah, I thought. But then. I didn’t like “but thens.”
“I don’t think you’d do anything anybody told you to if you didn’t want to.”
I snorted. That was a laugh and a half. My grandfather could compel any of us to do anything he wanted, anytime. That was what being clan leader meant.
Vin’s eyes were going from pinched to despairing in a way they hadn’t in a while now. I’d been hoping he wasn’t considering suicide as one of his options any longer. I hopped onto his shoulder and nipped his earlobe.
“Ow!” He tapped my beak with his fingernail, making a clicking sound. “Okay, don’t worry, I’m not going to do it, I promise. I just wish….” He squared his shoulders. “I’ve prepared for the worst. To be tossed out on my ass and have to fend for myself. I’ve got a bunch of money saved up in an account they don’t know about. It’s my ‘in case they find out I’m gay’ fund. But it can be the ‘if I don’t go to Cavendish’ fund. I just don’t know if I’ve got the guts to use it. I love them, and I don’t want to hurt them. It’s just….”
It both broke my heart that he’d had to hide money and made me feel glad that he had at the same time. I thought it was also positive that he’d gone to the audition. He wasn’t wallowing in helplessness, despite everything.
“And then there’s you,” he said softly.
And then there’s me, I thought. The inconvenient owl.
“Mr. Allard said you were my muse. I think he’s right. You inspire me.”
I would have blushed if I hadn’t had feathers.
“It’s all your fault. It’s the way you fly, you know.”
Lord, I thought.
“If I could have just half of your freedom. Your joy in the air. No, don’t deny it! I’ve seen how you look.”
I held still, not sure how to respond to that. Yeah, I loved to fly, but loneliness took the joy out of everything in a hurry.
I went to nip his ear again to get him to stop saying things like that. He was ready for me and put his finger and thumb around my beak and held it closed. “Ha,” he said. “Fooled you.”
My heart melted.
He let me go and went on. “Even if the music thing with Mr. Allard doesn’t work, I could get a day job and play in church basements and coffeehouses at night. And we’ll rent a little cottage on the shore somewhere, way away from people, and—”
And I can tend the rabbits, I thought. Damn, didn’t he know the best laid schemes always went awry? Still, I was really liking the “we” thing. Then I shook my head to clear it. What was I thinking? What was he thinking?
He looked directly at me. “That’s after we get the implant out of you, of course.”
I blinked in surprise. He kept talking as though he hadn’t just shaken my world with an impossible dream.
“I’m really sorry I just took off like that, but I figured you’d realize it was important. Listen, I’ve been thinking all day about what you told me. About your grandfather especially. What if we went to him and I talked to him? Told him what you did for me, and convinced him to hear your side of things? Maybe—hey, calm down!”
I was bouncing around the room and trying not to hoot right in his face. Vin meeting my grandfather was such a bad idea for so many reasons.
“Vin!” his mother called from down the hall. “You need to get off that computer.”
“Okay,” he called back. “Come on, you. Relax.” He picked up the sweatshirt I’d hidden under the first night and threatened to throw it over me. “I get it. Bad idea. But are you sure that talking won’t help? I mean, it seems like you’ve got nothing to lose.”
Vin still had that teenage belief that he was immortal. I’d lost that notion a long time ago.
I was almost hyperventilating, trying to keep my hoots in. I finally managed to pick up the pencil and type, Picture Voldemort.
“Oh.” He paused. “That bad?”
I kind of shrugged. I was sure my grandfather had the best interests of the clan at heart. But he was still a dictator. He hadn’t always been that way, but he certainly was now. All members of clan obey. He can compel us with magic.
“Well, he doesn’t sound like a very good leader if he has to do that. We’ve got to do something, because this just isn’t right. Maybe he’s mellowed. If you told him you were sorry—”
I flew out the window and did a few laps around the yard.
By the time I was calm enough to sit quietly on the history book again, Vin said, “Um, I take it you aren’t sorry? I guess you’d better fill me in on what exactly happened so we take the right approach.”
As far as I was concerned, there wasn’t going to be any approach. I didn’t even want to think about that terrible day, much less write about it. Nor did I want to risk messing up this wonderful experience I was having with Vin, now. It was going to be short enough anyway, until he took off on whatever his path was going to be. I was having a few glorious weeks of companionship, and then it was
back to my hollow tree for the winter. Why would he take any chance of wrecking that for me by risking my grandfather’s wrath?
“Please?” He held out the pencil.
I took it with the intent of typing, “Hell no.” But those damn blue eyes of his were pleading….
I was so agitated that almost every key I hit was the wrong one, and I kept having to backspace. Words didn’t come naturally any longer, especially about things I didn’t want to even think about.
“All right,” Vin said after a few minutes of watching me not make a lot of headway. “I’m going to go get my guitar, and you get your head together, all right?”
I nodded. I was pretty sure his mother had finally dropped off, and unless I made any more noise, she would stay asleep. He slipped out of the room.
Vin had a way of making me lose all sense of—everything. I needed to focus myself into my intent hunting mode. I finally managed to get organized and had typed up a full paragraph by the time he got back.
“Okay.” He ran a hand through his hair, not looking in the least bit tired. I had been up all day, I hadn’t had good luck hunting, and now I was exhausted, but my body was telling me it was time to be active.
“So look, I don’t want to stress you out,” he said. “I keep forgetting that you’re a wild animal, no matter what your past. Just being in a house must be upsetting. We need to make sure your needs are being met, here. Okay?”
He had to be the kindest person I’d ever known. Unable to help feeling a little proud, I gestured to the computer with one leg.
“Oh.” He almost mowed me over getting to it. He was utterly silent while he read.