Queens of Wings & Storms

by Angela Sanders et al.

  “Do you have the balcony door open for a reason?” Lizzy frowned at the sliding door. A stiff breeze, along with the sounds of the city filled the apartment.

  He shook his head. He risked everything in trusting a girl he’d only met a few times, one who he was here to try and save. He couldn’t explain why.

  “Just needed air,” he mumbled.

  Lizzy studied him for a moment and then left the door the way it was. “Ranger…” she began and then shook her head and went to the kitchen.

  He stood there, the truth beating inside him. He needed to tell her. Otherwise if something happened, she wouldn’t be prepared.

  Tomorrow. He’d do it tomorrow.

  “How was your day?”

  Ranger’s stomach rumbled. “Fine,” he said. “I ran into Taimi, walked her home. That mom of hers keeps her on a tight leash, that’s for sure. I’m surprised she even allows her to go to school. Why not homeschool her? That would be safer.” That was good. Now that Lizzy had been told he’d talked to Taimi, if Miranda came pounding down the hallway, there would be a reason besides Ranger telling Taimi his truth. Of all the things his parents had taught him, keeping his secret was a must. Yet he’d blurted it out to a near stranger. He was an idiot.

  Lizzy gave him a speculative glance but then turned back to the refrigerator where she was removing ingredients. “I wondered about that as well. When I moved here five years ago, it was odd to me that she wasn’t homeschooled. Miranda is a careful woman. Then I met Hester. She told me stories about everyone in the building. She’s lived here for decades, predating Miranda’s purchase of the place, and is grandfathered in under some law. She has lots of things to share and she’s into regulations and laws. She may have power. My feeling is that while Miranda wanted to home school Taimi, it would have raised suspicion and she prefers to keep a low profile. By letting Taimi go to school, she maintains the illusion of normalcy while still keeping her under her control. Taimi may be able to go to classes but she is far from free.”

  “I guess.”

  She stirred the mixture on the stove, casting him a speculative glance. “Is there anything you need to tell me, Ranger? Did something happen at school?”

  Tomorrow. He’d tell her tomorrow.

  “Nah. Just that I walked her home.”

  Lizzy nodded. “That’s good. Things will come to a head soon. The trees are anxious. The more she trusts you, the better it will be.”

  “Why are they so worried?”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Lizzy frowned. “Dryads live a long time but the way Taimi’s living is unnatural. The trees sense a shift in her, perhaps puberty, although she’s very late for that. Soon she will be more than she is now. Her continued imprisonment is risking her life. She may die before she has a chance to live.”

  “Why not just snatch her, get her away from Miranda?”

  “We’ve considered it. Miranda is a strong witch. We would have to get the tree down those narrow stairs. In all likelihood there are safeguards or booby traps to prevent that. We need another plan, another way. If we can get Taimi away from here and into the hands of the dryads, they think they can reverse the spell, allow Taimi to be both tree and girl.”

  “What about when she turns into a girl? Why can’t you just grab her then?”

  Lizzy shook her head in a slow movement. “From what we’ve been able to find out, Miranda has a piece of her mother in the soil, and that keeps Taimi tethered to this place. Without moving the pot, the girl is not safe, and we can’t get to the container. Hence why we have not acted. The trees tell us…”

  “You keep saying that, but what do you mean, the trees tell you?”

  Lizzy pointed outside. “See the skyscraper the next block over? Those trees have a view onto this rooftop. They are aware of their trapped sister. They asked for our help. That is how you got involved. You are a dragon.”

  “Why now?”

  Lizzy shook her head. “Things are coming to a head. I can’t read the future, but I am aware that something is happening.”

  His mind raced while he struggled with the new information. “So we can’t just kidnap her and take her to Canada. Not without the piece of her mother.”

  “That’s right. It could mean disaster.”

  “That makes it way more complicated.”

  “Unless we can break the spell, yes.”

  He nodded, but his brain was faraway. Ranger had been hoping he could convince Taimi to join him with his aunt, and that would be that. By telling her he was a dragon, he hoped to show her other ways of living, but that wasn’t how it was going to be.

  He didn’t have any idea what the right course of action was.

  She wasn’t sure when she’d become aware that Ranger was there. She’d been dozing and when she woke, he was on the bench and staring up at her. Taimi dipped her branches.

  He examined her trunk as though he could observe her face.

  “I guess you didn’t tell your mom,” he said and breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thanks. It was stupid to tell you, but I thought you would be happy to know you aren’t alone. That others were different, too. It’s not so easy for me, either. Can you imagine what they’d do if they found out?”

  It was unclear to Taimi who “they” were, but she dropped a single branch, hoping he would understand that it meant “yes.”

  Her leaves and bark gave her sensory data. The evening was cooler than it had been, the heat easing off a bit. She didn’t always mind the sway and rustle of her other self. It was nice to have more body to observe with, to taste the scent on the air and feel the other plants.

  But nights like this it would have been great to talk to Ranger, to share stories and cuddle under her branches while she was human. She longed for him to show her his dragon but there was no way to ask.

  When she’d gotten home that afternoon, her mother was in the other room. Taimi threw her pack down on the dining room table and rummaged for food in the kitchen. She had homework to do and little time to finish it. Her limited schedule kept her from being anything but an indifferent student, but she was able to get by in her classes.

  This was the city and people tended to get swallowed up here. What would happen in a year and a half when she turned eighteen? There was a big, bad world out there that she couldn’t explore. She couldn’t fly and had never gone anywhere other than car rides to local destinations. Anything else was too big a risk.

  Her mother’s footsteps signaled her arrival. Taimi only had seconds to compose herself. When her mother emerged, Taimi understood that she wasn’t going to say anything to Miranda. Ranger was like her, in a way, and she could hug that to herself—it made her feel special. He had trusted her with something huge, and she wouldn’t betray that to the woman who held her captive.

  “How was school?” Her mother eyed her with suspicion.

  Taimi took a deep breath, controlling her breathing and trying not to reveal anything. Her mother, in addition to being a witch, was great at sensing nonverbal cues. She had to be careful.

  “It was fine.” She debated for a moment and then decided she had to say something. “That new boy, the one staying with Lizzy, walked me home. He’s a grade ahead of me. I don’t have any classes with him, but I ran into him on the way out.” Better to say something than nothing. Saying something implied she had nothing to hide. Saying nothing would raise her mother’s eyebrows and might cause a scene.

  “Wanda saw you leave with him. Mr. Gilligan watched you go by.” That affirmed what Taimi believed. She shuddered to think what would have happened if she had kept it to herself. The idea that she could be trapped as a tree for a week or more, while her mother told the school she was sick, caused the blood to drain from Taimi’s face.

  “We go to the same school. We get out at the same time. That’s all.” She busied herself with taking her books out of her pack. She had mere hours before nightfall and homework to do.

  “Be sure that’s all it is,” Miranda said, coming up
behind Taimi. She didn’t touch her, but her proximity let Taimi comprehend that her mother was suspicious.

  “That’s it,” Taimi said, hoping her mother couldn’t hear the pounding of her heart. She’d learned at a young age that emotions could get her punished and had near perfected the ability to school her face into impassivity. It was this face she turned to her mother now before turning away again to extract another book.

  “He’s trouble. That boy is trouble,” Miranda continued, and Taimi fought the urge to keep from reacting. Part of Taimi thought about telling her. It might gain her a free night or two. She could betray Ranger to Miranda and watch as he was driven from the apartment, he and Lizzy both. Then where would she be? He might be a friend, and it had been years since she’d had one of those.

  A friend…or more…

  Her senses were different as a tree than as a human. It was more sensory stimulation, although she did have a kind of sight. She processed information differently, too, like tasting the pollen in the air and the touch of the other plants in her rooftop prison. Sometimes she thought she detected other trees, but she could never be sure.

  She tried to form words, to project them through her branches.

  Didn’t tell…didn’t tell…

  It was more a swishing moan than real words, but he dipped his head in understanding. Ranger touched her bark.

  “You’re a pretty tree. I did some research on dryads, and you’re more often oaks or poplars. I like the dogwood. It suits you.”

  She shook her branches in acknowledgment.

  “It feels weird, talking to you without you being able to answer, but maybe you can tell me some of it tomorrow,” he said and leaned his head against her. Her bark detected his presence and she moved a branch to touch him on the shoulder. Ranger jumped and then relaxed, stroking her leaves and twigs with his hand.

  “Thank you for not telling your mom my secret. I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. My other form is how I get up here. I just shift my wings and fly up.”

  Risk…you might get caught.

  He grimaced as though in understanding.

  “I’m glad it’s me who’s here. Taimi, I…” He broke off and stared up into her foliage as though he could detect her.

  She dipped her branches, wishing she had the courage to do what her instincts were urging her to do. She had tried to fight against turning into a tree when she was younger, and every time she’d been punished for it. Her mother was too powerful. And yet…and yet she struggled against it now, trying to will her other form to life so she could sit there and talk to Ranger.

  Nothing happened. No skin punched through the bark. No limbs formed where branches had been. She was a tree and that was all there was to it. She would stay that way until, or, unless her mother lifted the spell. She doubted that day would ever come.

  She was stuck. There was no escaping her fate.

  Chapter 3

  “Hey, Tams, come with us to the store!”

  Taimi whirled to face Desi, one of the popular Latina kids in the school. She had short hair and her pack was slung over her shoulder with an insouciant air. Taimi knew from experience that Desi was whip-smart.

  “I wish I could,” she said with regret. She would have liked to be this girl’s friend. Desi had people around her all the time. Before Ranger, Desi had been Miranda’s greatest nemesis. She didn’t like the bold, outgoing teenager and made no secret of that fact.

  Desi said something under her breath in Spanish that Taimi couldn’t hear.

  “That mom of yours has got to let go sooner or later,” she said, her voice having a hint of Spanish flavor to it. “She’s a real pain in the ass. It’s just a store. A little window shopping, and then grab a bite at Crown Fried Chicken. Mamacita never lets you out. She doesn’t watch it, you’re going to run away with some dangerous type and leave the country.”

  Taimi managed a thin smile, her attention wandering to Ranger. She could run away…or fly away. With him.

  And she’d still turn into a tree at nightfall. She’d still be summoned back because of the piece of her mother. The truth of her situation made her shoulders slump.

  Desi caught the movement and her face shifted to one of sympathetic understanding. “Hey, just kidding. No big deal. Open invite if you ever can, okay?”

  She ran off, leaving Taimi to stare at her, wondering what her life was like. She was like many kids in their urban school, with brothers and sisters and an extended family crammed into a too-small apartment building. As far as Taimi was aware, she didn’t have much, and yet she was richer than Taimi in the things that mattered.

  Taimi put her head down and started down the stairs to head for home. Wanda was nowhere in sight but Taimi imagined she had watched her leave, just as Miranda’s spies would be set up along the way to ensure that Taimi didn’t stray from her path. She was as much a prisoner as if Miranda had homeschooled her. She would never break free.

  “Hey, hey,” Ranger said, falling into place next to her. Her heart leaped, cutting through the fog of depression that threatened to overwhelm her. “Thanks for…” He trailed off and watched the kids still streaming out of the school. “Thanks for not saying anything.”

  She nodded, clutching the straps of her pack. “You shouldn’t come by,” she said in a flat voice. Something about the encounter with Desi had jarred her, reminding her of the futility of her existence.

  His expression faltered. “Are you saying you don’t like seeing me?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s just…Ranger…” She clamped her lips shut, walking fast to get away from the others. Ranger followed. She wondered which of the shopkeepers were watching her, which were in her mother’s pocketbook, and which would tell that this boy, for the second day in a row, had walked with Taimi.

  Yet she yearned to talk to him, and not when he was on the roof and she was a tree. Now. When she was human with skin and eyes and a mouth.

  She tried to push ahead, but he fell into step with her and she didn’t tell him no. All her life she’d been her mother’s creature. She could have this for herself. She deserved it.

  “A soda?” He suggested it with a defeated tone. “It’s not that I don’t like talking to you when you’re not you. You’re a good listener, it’s just that, well, it’s not right. You’re sixteen, right?”

  She nodded.

  “You should be allowed to have some fun.”

  Just a few minutes wouldn’t hurt. If she ran, she wouldn’t be late.

  “Okay. We can grab a drink.”

  He hadn’t expected her to agree. He’d had girlfriends in the past, ones he made out with—and tried to do more. Once he’d even succeeded. This girl made his insides flip, even if he should run screaming as fast as he could. He had to rescue her from her fate.

  They entered the crowded Little Roy Coffee Co. shop and went to the counter. Ranger was aware that Taimi was tense, her hands tight on her backpack straps. She may be in human form, but she was still a prisoner.

  They got their lattes and left the shop. Ranger could feel Taimi’s tension and cursed himself for pushing this. She had things in her life he had no idea about. He was just a kid, and all he had to offer was his dragon self.

  “Tell me about what it’s like to fly,” she said. “You can fly, right? You said that was how you got on the roof.”

  He nodded, taking a nervous sip of his coffee. “Yeah. I’m good at it. We have a place in Canada where I practice.”

  “How are you…how did you…how is it you’re a dragon? Are your parents’ dragons?”

  He shook his head. “It runs in the family, but it doesn’t come out every generation. Before me, it was my great grandmother who was the shifter. The dragon line is rare. There aren’t that many shifters like us in the world—most are in Europe.” He brightened and gave her a quick glance. “Like the dryads. You come from Europe, right?”

  “I do, but what does that have to do with anything?”

 
He debated for several moments on what to say. If he told her the truth, then he risked everything.

  “Taimi, do you ever hear the other trees? There are more than just you in this city.”

  To his relief she didn’t reject it out of hand. “I think I do, sometimes, when I’m a tree. It’s hard to explain what it’s like to be in my other form.” She glanced at the crowded street, but nobody appeared to be paying any attention to them. They continued to walk back toward the apartment building at a slow pace. “How did you know that?”

  He had to say something. Ranger searched for a suitable lie, found none, and took another sip of his drink to stall for time.

  “Your mother isn’t the only one with power,” he said. “The trees…” He paused. “The trees—the other dryads—are trying to rescue you from the rooftop. Taimi, they feel your pain. At least that’s what I’ve been told. A dryad should never be forced to do what you’re doing. You should have free will. You’ve been trapped for too long. I’m here to help you. That’s why I was sent here.”

  She stared at him and then shook her head. “My mother will never permit me to be anything other than a tree,” she said, dropping her half-finished latte in an overflowing trash can. “She will never let me go.”

  He gulped past the sudden dryness in his throat. He needed to shift and carry her away. However far and long he could fly.

  “Don’t you yearn to be free?”

  She paused, which surprised him.

  “It’s the life I have,” she said. Her voice shook, and for an alarming moment, he believed she was going to cry. “I’d love to be able to go to movies. To see the moon with human eyes and not as a tree. I’d like to go dancing or do a sleepover or a ton of things that I never get to do. It’s hard to sleep when you’re a tree at night. There are so many things, but none of it’s possible, Ranger. My mother has spelled me, and I can’t break it. It’s my lot in life.”