by M. Raiya
“So what kind of sailing do you do?” Anton asked.
Jack was still glaring at me. I heard Coleen begin to hiss in Jack’s ear something about saving it until later.
“I used to sail a thirty-two-foot ketch before I left home,” I said.
“Where’s home?”
“The Adirondacks.”
“I didn’t think there were any lakes there big enough for a thirty-two-foot ketch.”
I laughed. “There aren’t, not really. My parents own a small boat-building business, and my father built her for me. We use her as a demo for customers. The lake is just big enough for a good ride. Not like the lake here, though.”
“Yeah, I like to get up a little speed,” Anton said with a laugh.
I was spared having to answer by the beginning of the ceremony. With relief we all sat down. The principal welcomed everyone and spoke in glowing terms about the graduates and the school and the community. She introduced the speaker, who owned a local bakery. She told us to fill our lives with joy. I could attest that filling your life with anger and envy didn’t bring any benefits at all, which is why I’d never given in to either when my life had looked bleak. I’d settled for grim endurance. Now, I was ready for some nice joy. I hoped maybe we could detour past her bakery on the way home. Her cupcakes sounded very lovingly made. I had the feeling if I ever had my own car and money, I’d gain ten pounds in a week.
Then I thought about the owl pendant hidden in my bag of clothing. I thought about it hanging against Vin’s bare chest. And then I thought about another kind of joy, and what it would be like to share it with him. My boyfriend. I had a boyfriend. This morning the most amazing person I’d ever met had asked if he could introduce me to his friends as his boyfriend. I drew a deep breath. I couldn’t let myself be consumed with that idea right now. I had to stay on my guard.
Guard. It hit me suddenly that I’d gotten out of Vin’s parent’s car and walked to the school without even checking my surroundings first. Damn. I’d become human again too fast. It was so seductively alluring. How easy it would be to stay here with Vin’s family, eventually find a job, continue my education. Let go of my owl self as firmly as I’d been trying to let go of my human self for the last three years. Just be Vin’s boyfriend.
I knew there were a multitude of reasons that wouldn’t work. Vin liked my owlness too much to let it fade away. His mother seemed all set to make friends with my mother. I wanted to see my parents again. I wanted them to hold me in their arms, and I wanted to let them know I was all right. And I owed it to my people to expose my grandfather, assuming there was something to expose.
But when, though? It dawned on me that within another hour Vin’s graduation would be over. I’d been using it almost as a wall between me and the future. Once Vin had graduated, I’d deal with everything else. But I hadn’t exactly made any plans as to how I was going to do that. How was I going to get home, with no money or driver’s license? Keep borrowing from Vin? Ask him to borrow his father’s car again? When was I going to start this process? Tomorrow? Next week, after I’d fully gotten my strength back? Or in two weeks?
This afternoon?
My headache grew stronger. Flying was the only way I could get myself home. And I absolutely could not do that. No way could I fly through strange woods alone at night knowing those yellow eyes were out there. Just the thought of shifting made my heart pound so fast I thought of the vet’s caution about birds dying of fear. How true that was.
Yet could I really ask Vin to come into danger with me? What would we do, just drive to Moonview and walk into my grandfather’s office? Or go to my parents and tell them that elans weren’t real, disregarding the fact that I was banished and would spread it like the plague to anyone who listened to me?
I tried to stretch the tension in my neck and refocus on the graduation. The school chorus was getting up to stand on a set of risers in front of the platform. Several of the graduates rose and joined them. I wasn’t surprised to see Vin among them. Penelope rose too. He gently urged her to a place in front with the shorter people before taking his place in the back. I let my eyes rest on him, taking in every nuance as he stood there, relaxed and smiling, looking more gorgeous than I’d ever seen him, the blue of his robe reflecting the blue of his eyes and the subtle flash of blue in his earlobes. I thought of him sitting alone in the vinyl chair in the hospital next to me all those nights. No one around him knew what he’d done for me. My eyes burned. They sang a beautiful song about dreams coming true if you only worked hard enough to follow them. Then they returned to their chairs. Damn. I could have listened to them sing forever.
Next the class valedictorian spoke nervously about how much she’d learned and how great their school was and how many ways her classmates were going to change the world. I found my hands clenching. I knew that I’d had a very good chance of being the valedictorian of my own class. What would I have spoken about? I had no idea. Now if I were to speak, I would talk about finding inner strength, self-reliance, and ingenuity, the things I had learned as an owl. And yet I knew how important it was to have friends to count on. And how important it was to stand up to bullies, even if it meant having to pay a terrible price.
I thought about my friend Andrew, wondered as I had a million times, how badly he’d been hurt, even if he’d survived. What was he like now? What did he think about what I’d done? And did he have the same girlfriend, the one who I would never forget screaming at me. Her words came so clearly even now: It’s all your fault! Andrew is a hero because he didn’t reveal himself. You broke the law and shifted because you were afraid they’d hit you in the face too. And they only targeted him because they thought you two were lovers, because you’re so fucking gay acting. You’re a coward, a coward! And I hope you suffer….
I’d had three years of suffering because I’d shifted to save Andrew’s life. I hoped she had found her peace too. It was hard to imagine what Andrew had seen in her—maybe the opposite of his quiet, shy self. She’d only been in our clan a few weeks before the fiasco happened. My grandfather sometimes let newcomers in if they passed his rigorous background check, and she’d been a young shifter, recently orphaned. He’d probably felt sorry for her. I’d never learned the details. She’d latched on to Andrew really fast. What had her name been? Mary Ann? Something like that. I couldn’t remember. If she had spread her feelings around the clan for the last three years, I couldn’t see any way clear to survive what was coming in either form, human or owl.
If Andrew hadn’t survived, would it all have been for nothing?
Oh no. It had brought me Vin.
Now I was soon to become openly out, admittedly gay. I wasn’t afraid of that in the least. Nothing humans could hand out frightened me any longer. I hoped Andrew had found love too. If not with bitchy-girl, then with someone else.
Someone called, “Vin! Go, Vincent!” I jerked back into reality and saw Vin walking up onto the platform alone with a guitar. He waved at his fellow classmates, grinning as though everything was fine, and went up to the microphone. My heart took off again.
“This is a song I wrote a few days ago,” he said. “It’s called ‘Watching You.’” His gaze touched mine. I held my breath as he began to sing.
“I wondered about life
Before I began to live
I wondered about love
before I fell in love
I was afraid of both
Afraid of pain
Afraid to let them in
but there is beauty unsuspected
And worlds hidden below the surface
Things we do not see
Or believe
In the light of the moon
Reflecting on a soft, silent feather
My heart opens
Darkness fades
Life begins.”
Silence filled the huge room as the last haunting, simple chord faded. I only remembered to draw another breath when things started spinning. Vin looked across the cro
wd to me, tentative now.
I don’t know what my face showed, but he suddenly burst into a smile, and then there was applause. I couldn’t organize myself enough to clap. It suddenly hit me that I didn’t need to worry about him committing suicide any longer. I hadn’t been worried about that for a long time, I realized. I felt a surge of relief in the knowledge that however messed up my life had been, or however crazy it was going to get, I’d done something right. Something that mattered. Something good. Not everybody was lucky enough to ever get that feeling.
Yeah, I cried a little. Dammit. Just inside, mostly, and I didn’t think Anton noticed.
You’re so fucking gay acting. You’re a coward, a coward! And I hope you suffer….
I shuddered. Why was Andrew’s girlfriend’s voice suddenly haunting me?
Coleen and Jack were talking urgently to each other. They hadn’t heard him sing for a long time, I knew, and how anybody could have heard that just now and not realized this guy was meant to be a performer, I didn’t know. Anton’s mouth was open, and from the look on his face, I knew I was going to have to stake my claim soon or that black boat would be tied up at Vin’s dock every night. I needed to get the owl pendant around Vin’s neck.
“Damn,” Anton said in appreciation.
My patience snapped. “Taken,” I said impulsively.
He whirled to me. “Wait, what?”
“I’ll bet you can figure it out,” I said.
Anton stared at me, and I knew he was working out why I was sitting there with Vin’s family at last. I hoped going to California didn’t make everybody as dumb as he was.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked.
I wanted in the worst way to say, “His owl,” or, “Someone who doesn’t have to drug him to get his attention,” but I just said, “I’m Gabriel Lane,” and left it at that.
“Well, damn,” Anton said again. Then he nodded. “Maybe you’d both come for a ride with me?”
I really might have clawed his eyes out if Coleen hadn’t put her hand on my leg. I drew a deep breath and got myself under control.
The Allards had turned around. “You see? You hear that voice? You see his face when he sings?”
Jack was hardly breathing. “We’ll talk about this later” was all he said, and he shot me another glance. He knew all about where the “soft, silent feather” line had come from. But that was a lot better than some of the things Jack could have said. I felt a little sorry for him. He was having a tough couple of weeks.
Finally the handing out of the diplomas began. We had a while to wait. I lost track of Vin in the general movement of proud parents rising and going forward to take photos of their graduate crossing the platform. Some found adulthood on that platform, and some found it alone in a hole in a tree.
At last Vin’s row got up. Coleen grabbed her camera and took off for the front. I glanced at Jack a little awkwardly, but he was just a glowingly proud dad right now. “She’s exercising her mother’s right,” he said. “She told me before he was born that she’d get to hold him first and take his photo at all the graduations. She’s done kindergarten and eighth grade so far.”
“I’d love to see those,” I said, trying to imagine little, blue-eyed Vin and failing. I couldn’t imagine him as anything other than tall and… hot.
“He used to be a chubby little guy,” Jack said with a smile. “But he was born talking.”
That, I could imagine. I straightened in my seat, trying to get my eyes on Vin. He should be on the stairs now. I spotted Penelope. He should be right behind her. All the robes were making everybody blend too much. But no, the guy behind her was heavyset and blond.
I looked for Coleen with the throng of parents and found her quickly. I’d hoped she’d been smiling and focusing on someone farther back that I couldn’t see. But no, she looked like she was searching too. I shifted for a better angle.
“Can you see him?” Jack asked.
I shook my head, not taking my eyes off the graduates on the stairs. I was right on the brink where confusion was about to become alarm.
“Penelope Marie Angler.”
Penelope made her way onto the platform, but she didn’t look very happy as she shook her principal’s hand and received her diploma from the superintendent and made her way down the other side.
“Vincent Thatcher.”
He must not have a middle name, I thought. Another thing I hadn’t known about him. I didn’t have one either.
No one walked.
The kids on the stairs looked frozen.
“Vincent Thatcher?” the principal said, this time making it a question, eyes scanning the line.
The next guy shook his head and shrugged. A murmur went through the crowd.
“Samuel Robert Lafountain.”
The waiting guy went up and received his diploma.
“Amy Lynn West,” the principal said.
My world turned to ice.
“Dude, what’s going on?” Anton asked.
“Maybe he had to go to the bathroom,” Mary said. “Oh, the poor dear.”
“Well, stuff like that happens,” Adam said.
“Not to Vin,” Anton said, and I had to agree with him.
“How long since anyone’s seen him?” Jack asked tersely.
“Since he sat down from playing,” Mary said, and Anton and Adam both nodded. I, too, had focused on my thoughts and lost track of him then. Dammit. A good twenty minutes.
Coleen was making her way through the crowd to the row of graduates who had just returned to their chairs. Now one chair looked glaringly empty. How had I not noticed this?
“Let’s go,” I said to Jack, and quickly the two of us made our way to Coleen. She sent us a wordless, stricken glance. No one was sitting in the row behind Vin’s chair now, as those kids were in line at the stairs. We hurried along it to Penelope.
She saw us coming and got up to face us. “I don’t know where he is,” she said, half wailing. “He went with that woman, and he said he’d be right back, but he wasn’t!”
“What woman?” we all demanded at once.
“Some lady in the locker room door,” the kid who’d been on Vin’s other side said. “She beckoned to him like she knew him, and he got up and went over. They went into the locker room.”
A man in a dark suit came up while the kid was speaking. “Ralph Anders. Assistant principal. Are you Vincent’s family?” he asked us.
“Yes,” Coleen said. “Where is my son?”
He shrugged. “I just checked the locker room to see if he was okay and to put his name later, assuming that’s where he was, but he was gone. Does anyone have any idea who the woman was?” he asked the kids around us.
“I’ve never seen her before,” the guy who’d been next to Vin said.
“She was Maylee,” Penelope said. “Maylee Hower.”
My world turned to ice.
“She was in our PE class our freshman year. In Vin’s and my class. Just for a little while. She moved here, then she moved away.”
“Oh, so he knew her,” the assistant principal said. “But why would he go off with her?”
“Can you get outside from the locker room?” Jack asked sharply.
“Yes,” everyone said at once.
Jack took off at a run. Coleen started after him, but I caught her arm. I closed my eyes for a very brief second, doing a tight, fast scan of the area around us. Vin was no longer here. But I picked up something wrong, close by. I scanned farther, narrowing it down.
There was a blue plastic water bottle on the floor beside Vin’s chair, mostly empty. He would have drunk before he went up to sing with the chorus, and again before he played. And probably after. I started to speak, but then something cautioned me that I should keep a very low profile right now.
Keeping my eyes focused on the bottle, I nudged Coleen. She looked at it blankly for a second, then went very pale.
“Penelope,” she said, “did Vin say he was feeling sick? Was he acting st
range at all?”
“He was kind of weird,” she said. “Sleepy. He walked funny when he got up.”
“Is that his water bottle?” she asked, pointing to it.
Penelope nodded.
“You’d better grab that,” Coleen said to the assistant principal, and then raised her hands to her mouth as Ralph quickly moved the chairs out of the way to get to the bottle. Just before he touched it, he stopped and I knew he had thought of fingerprints.
“Okay, I need you guys to move away from this area,” he said to the other kids. “Go on, over there.” He pulled out his radio. This had quickly become a security issue. The last of the graduates were moving onto the stage. I knew that within a minute, police were going to shut down the building, and nobody would be going in or out until they were questioned.
“May I borrow your phone?” I asked Coleen.
She whirled to me. “Has this got anything to do with—you?”
“I’m going to find out,” I said, and held out my hand silently.
She pulled it out of her pocketbook, unlocked it with her thumb, and handed it to me. I entered my grandfather’s number. For a moment I stared at it. Then I steeled myself and pressed the green Call button. As it began to ring, the principal stopped reading names. A moment later, when everyone expected her to announce that everybody had now graduated and all the caps would go flying into the air, she said, “I need everyone to remain quietly in their seats until further notice. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Inner strength, self-reliance, and ingenuity. I drew a deep breath. Now I needed to know if I really had them, or not.
Chapter Fourteen
“HELLO?” MY grandfather answered.
I bowed my head. The room was strangely quiet. “It’s me,” I said.
There was silence.
“What has Maylee done with Vin?”
“Ah,” my grandfather said. “I think you will just have to figure that out for yourself, Gabriel.”
“Let him go. I’ll come back.”
“Oh yes, you will. But I promised Maylee her revenge first. She never felt like banishment was quite good enough for you. She wants you to know how it feels to have someone you love—damaged. Andrew is blind, you know. That makes it very hard to fly. You might want to hurry, Gabriel. There’s a storm coming your way. A big storm.” Then he disconnected.