Believing in Blue

by Maggie Morton

  Only one thing worked when her mind was this impossible to control, and so she closed her journal, went to her window, and shapeshifted, letting her ravenform take over.

  Anyone who saw her fly out of the woods wouldn’t have seen a dark-blue raven, as her feathers looked the typical black to any human’s eyes. Only fellow Winged Blue could see the subtle difference in her plumage. She didn’t have to think about whether a Winged Red would see her unearthly color, thankfully; the last thing she needed was to be detected in a world without any fellow Winged Blue. And their protection.

  But as she flew above street after street, she knew that wasn’t entirely true. Wren was in this world with her. She was even in the same exact same town that stretched out below Sia’s flying form.

  She was apparently in the exact same section of it, too, because with a few more flaps of Sia’s wings, Wren appeared below. She was sitting just a few feet away from the telephone pole that Sia almost flew right into.

  This flight had been intended to clear her mind, Sia grouched to herself as she landed on the phone wires directly above Wren’s head. Clear her mind, not fill it with the entirely current and three-dimensional sight of her inconvenient crush.

  To make matters worse, Wren somehow chose that exact moment to look up from her biscotti and coffee. Then the only person on the entire planet who could see through Sia’s disguise gestured to her and called out, “Hey, Miss Raven, you like biscotti?”

  Sia didn’t know if she did, or if finding out was a good idea, but she went ahead and flew down to Wren’s table on the off-chance that biscotti was as good as her brother’s crumble-cake. Just a few bites of the unfamiliar, oblong cookie, and she would be off. It was the only polite response to Wren’s offer, after all.

  “It’s dark-chocolate and almond, my favorite kind. I hope you like it.” Wren broke off a few small pieces of the biscotti and put them in her cupped hand, which she held out to Sia’s beak. Sia glanced around—good, no humans were paying any attention to her and Wren’s interactions. They were all too lost in their cell phones or laptops to even glance at the girl talking to a bird. She dipped her head down and took a small beakful of the cookie crumbs. Hmm, pretty good. She took another bite, bigger this time. No, really, really good!

  Her world and Wren’s contained similar animals and plants, but not all the same recipes, as she had learned shortly after arriving here. And this was another delicious discovery to add to her already lengthy list of delectable Earth dishes. It ranked slightly below chocolate-chip cookies, but she decided that biscotti wasn’t too far down on her “Must Eat Again” list. Not that she was likely to return to Earth: this might have been her first visit, but it was probably also her last. If they were going to protect Earth from the Winged Red, they needed to use the portal as infrequently as possible. Even opening it to bring Wren to Shyon held great risk, but not nearly as much as leaving her behind on Earth.

  Sia took another few nibbles of the biscotti and then bobbed her head once at Wren, who seemed to understand that Sia was saying good-bye.

  “Nice to see you, Sia,” Wren said softly. And then Sia was off, back in the sky and coasting along on the occasional updraft. It had been a pleasant diversion, running into Wren, but she needed some time to think. More important than getting rid of her mild (but possibly growing) crush on Wren was figuring out what she’d done wrong in her teaching attempts the night before, and how to turn things around in time. Wren had to be flying in just a few days, days that were slipping past minute by minute.

  At her temporary home once again, Sia changed back to her more human form. She made herself a ham sandwich, another new favorite human dish, and sat down to wait until it was time for Wren to arrive and for their next flying lesson.

  Her trip into town had been merely a momentary distraction from the importance of the next few days and nights. She could only hope that this afternoon’s lesson would be successful, but she found so far that the certainty of speedy success she’d begun her trip to Earth with was somewhat diminished since her first lesson with Wren had failed. Just slightly, though, because she told herself shortly before two thirty that today she was going to achieve her goal.

  Sia chose to hold on to that optimistic thought as she left her cabin and headed toward the spot where she and Wren were to meet. The spot where Wren would obviously learn in mere minutes today. Obviously…

  Chapter Seven

  When Wren got home, her mom was in her usual spot for pretty much any time of day. This afternoon she was watching one of the trashy shows she settled on whenever, according to her, nothing good was on: an unsolved-mysteries reality TV show. Wren had enough unsolved mysteries of her own to not pay it more than a few seconds of attention, but she did take a moment to lean down and kiss her mother hello on the cheek.

  The familiar scent of vodka was on Denise’s breath when she greeted her. “Welcome home, honey. ’S nice to see you. I wanted to ask you, is there any chance you could pick me up some tonic at the grocery store today? I’m fresh out, and I just don’t have it in me to get it myself.”

  “Sure, Mom, but I don’t know if I’m heading into town today. I’ll do it if I get the chance, I promise.” Wren didn’t like helping her mom with her drinking habit, but Denise was always so grateful when Wren picked the tonic up for her that it was worth it. Besides, even though she didn’t like her mom’s drinking, she’d come to understand it. It was a reasonable thing to do when you had someone like Tim around so much of the time, even if there was an obvious solution that was both healthier and more permanent. But Denise obviously wasn’t capable of making that choice, so Tim was here to stay, at least for the time being.

  But Wren wasn’t, beginning with going out for a short while this afternoon. And possibly, in the very near future, forever. She still hadn’t made up her mind, not completely. It was especially hard to decide what to do whenever she was reminded of her mom and where she would be abandoning her if she were to leave Earth for the world of the Winged Blue.

  But she had something important to do this afternoon, far more important than her mom’s errand, and so Wren ran up the stairs and let Denise return to her TV show and her drink. Once she was in her room, Wren changed into one of her wings-appropriate shirts and put a blouse on over it. Then she grabbed the fantasy novel she was already over half done reading, and with one last stop in the kitchen for an apple, she left the house the same way she had the night before, more than ready to escape.

  She was more than ready to see Sia again, too, but it was only 2:10 when she reached the clearing. She’d known she’d be early, hence her book and her snack, but in her excitement to see Sia again and to try to learn to fly, she’d made it there in what could be called record time. A little sad that she had so long to wait, she took off her blouse, sat down on the clearing’s narrow rock, and opened her book, placing the apple on her knee for later.

  She was so lost in her book that she only noticed the floating apple once it reached the level of her face. As she’d never seen an apple levitate before, especially in such a startling way, her mouth fell open and her book tumbled out of her hand, dropping with a light thud at her dangling feet.

  “Go ahead,” said a voice from a few feet behind her. “Take a bite. I hear flying apples taste better than normal ones.”

  “S-Sia? Is that you? And do you actually expect me to eat this apple? Its…its molecular structure might be completely different now, since apples aren’t really supposed to fly. It might taste like rotten fish now.”

  A familiar-looking blue raven landed on the rock next to her. “I’m sure it’s fine. After all, I’ve eaten lots of flying food before. Keeps your hands free if you’re reading or playing sports. Go ahead, it won’t kill you, not even if it does taste like rotten fish.”

  The apple, bobbing up and down a little, floated closer and closer to Wren’s mouth, so she decided to be brave. She leaned forward and took a small bite. Yep, it still tasted like apple, she thought. Thank
fully.

  While she was chewing the bite, the apple landed back in her lap. Sia startled her yet again when she stuck out a suddenly visible arm and wiped some juice off Wren’s chin with her sleeve. Wren really hadn’t wanted the next time she touched her to involve cleaning food from her face. That was a mother’s job, not one for a romantic interest. A very charming and pretty romantic interest. Wren attempted to take the gesture in stride, though. People whom you wanted to kiss you at some point probably didn’t want to be compared to your mom, either.

  “Much better,” Sia said. “May I take a seat?”

  “You can even have some of my apple, if you want.”

  “I don’t think I’ve had one of your world’s apples yet. A lot of my world’s language and yours is the same, as we often traveled back and forth through our portal to Earth, and we’ve managed to grow a lot of the same food and raise a lot of the same animals. Many, many years ago, people on Earth and people on our world interacted, at least the ones we could trust. But times have changed over the centuries, and now no one but you knows of us here. Sad, really, as I like your world almost as much as I like mine. Minus all the war and violence and bad television.”

  “I hear you there,” Wren told her, taking another small bite of her apple, which was now under the pull of gravity once again. “So, want some?” She held the apple out to Sia, who took it from her and took a bite twice the size of either of Wren’s.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled around it, wiping some juice off her own chin. “Didn’t mean to eat so much of it. It just looked really good.”

  Wren thought she’d looked particularly cute wiping off her wet chin, but she kept that thought to herself. “Yeah, Pink Lady is my favorite type of apple.”

  Sia was wearing the same robes she’d had on the last time Wren had seen her in the clearing, and now that she had her composure back, she noticed that Sia’s wings were out, too. They looked luminous and glossy in the dappled sunlight coming through the trees. Wren realized she’d never seen her own wings in the sun. She had always gone out to the clearing only under the cover of night, when she knew she wouldn’t be noticed entering it. She hoped that no one had seen her going into the woods this time, but it seemed unlikely, and even more unlikely that someone might have followed her.

  Instead of allowing herself to worry about it, she relaxed the spots on her back where her wings hid throughout the day and felt them slide out and unfold.

  “So, before you get started, I’m guessing you’re wondering about the floating apple, maybe?” Sia handed the apple back to her, smiling in a way that implied she was about to tell Wren something juicy.

  “Yeah, I totally am. What…is it magic or something? Did you do a spell when I wasn’t looking at you?” Wren placed the apple in her lap, giving Sia her full attention.

  “Something like that. We Winged, we all have a power, along with our wings, our ravenform, and our hysterically funny sense of humor.”

  “Your…that was a joke, right?”

  “Guess it’s not that funny after all. Anyway, we all get our specific powers shortly after we learn how to fly, so you should get yours soon enough. Probably a little after you arrive in Azyr, our capital and where your dad and I both live. They’re genetic, too, so we all get the power of one or another of our parents, and occasionally, very rarely, we get the power of foresight, too, the ability to see the future. Or possible futures, at least. But I doubt you’ll get that—it’s a pretty rare extra. You’ll probably have your dad’s power, which is power over the wind, because your mom, Passea, never gained a power, for some weird reason. No one knew why, and even our city’s strongest Seer, Piru, had no clue why that was the case. He never saw her getting one, either. Not that it ever stopped her from helping with anything she could, which is partially how your dad became the leader of the Winged.”

  Sia paused to take a deep breath. “So, any questions?”

  “Millions. But I guess I have just one main one. How are we getting back there, to your world? Mine, too, I guess. How does this whole portal thing work?”

  “Well, we have one above our land. It used to be able to take us to lots of places, but now we can use it only to come here. I took it here just a short while ago, and I have this to help me return.” Sia reached into her robe and pulled out the bottom of a mid-length, silver chain, the top of which had apparently been hidden under her robe’s high collar. Hanging from it was a perfectly round orb, which looked a lot like a marble, with circles of interlocking blue and gold contained within. “Go ahead,” she told Wren. “Take a closer look, if you want to.”

  She held it out to Wren, and Wren reached for it. Their hands touched for a few short, electric seconds. Once the orb was in Wren’s hand, she began to examine it. The round pendant felt surprisingly warm to the touch, and as Wren brought it closer to her face, she saw that the blue and gold rings inside it were slowly rotating back and forth.

  “Cool, huh?” Sia sounded like she found it just as impressive as Wren did, and Wren nodded in answer, but she didn’t want to take her eyes away from the glowing movements of the blue and gold. “Anyway,” Sia said, “all I have to do is tell it to open my—our—way back, and it’ll make a passageway from here to your home. Your real home, that is. And then we can take care of the small pesky matter of stopping the Winged Red, and after that maybe we can have some cake or something. I think you’ll deserve some once you’ve succeeded.”

  If she succeeded. Which Wren doubted was possible in the slightest. But that thought never needed to reach Sia’s ears. She didn’t want her to know that their world was counting on someone who was probably going to fail, and fail hard. So instead of sharing her thoughts of self-doubt with her teacher, she kept them to herself.

  When she handed the portal-opener back to Sia, she was as gentle with it as she could be. As it left her hand, there came the same flush of warmth and nerves when she felt Sia’s skin against hers this second time. Touching her soft hand almost felt magical, but Wren kept that non-sharable thought to herself, too.

  “So, how ’bout we get you and those wings into the air?” Sia asked.

  “Okay, sure. And I might have better luck today, since I’m not so tired. Coming out here during the day instead of at the middle of the night sure is different.”

  “I’ll bet. Yeah, if the little Winged were woken up at midnight to learn, I bet they wouldn’t do too well at first, either. Let’s give it a go, then!”

  She gave it a go, all right, for three-plus hours. Clearly, she had been wrong about the afternoon being different than the night. Finally, Wren sighed, letting her disappointment at her failure to fly get the better of her, and she went back over to her rock, grateful to rest her wings and her legs for the first time in far too long. She just hoped that Sia wasn’t as disappointed in her as she was in herself. But Sia’s smile, even if it did look a little forced, was joined by the words, “I’m really proud of how hard you tried, Wren, and I’m sure you’ll manage it tonight.”

  *

  Thankfully, Wren’s stepdad was going to be out of town the whole weekend, so it would just be her and Denise, whom Wren still thought of as her mom. After all, how could you call someone your mom if you’d never even met them before, and if someone else, another woman, had raised you and called you hers? It might not have been easy, with Tim in their lives, screwing everything up so badly, but at least Denise hadn’t been gone for almost all of Wren’s eighteen years.

  Denise was sitting in her recliner in a loose T-shirt and slacks when Wren got back, so at least she had bothered to get dressed today. Maybe that was because Tim was out of town, because Wren noticed she hadn’t refilled her glass yet, either. The lack of tonic water never stopped her from just drinking alcohol straight if she had to.

  “Hi, Mom. You about ready for dinner? I was just going to throw together some salad and defrost some of my pesto, maybe with some angel hair. That sound okay? I’m kind of tired, or I’d fix something better. I promise tomor
row night’s dinner will be an improvement on tonight’s mediocre meal.”

  “Oh, sweetie, you never have to do anything extra for me. I’d be happy eating tuna right out of the can as long as you’re eating it with me. Not that…not that I don’t love and appreciate everything, everything that you fix…cook, I mean. When would you like to eat? My show’s just ending now, so I can come into the kitch…the room while you cook, if you’d like.”

  “Sure, Mom, that would be great. I’d really like the company.”

  Denise grabbed her tumbler and followed Wren into the kitchen. She winced when she heard her mom stumble a bit as they entered the room. Apparently she’d had more to drink than Wren had assumed. Oh well, at least there would be no Tim here tonight to push her mom even further. Maybe if she got out some of the blood-orange soda she’d bought at Nancy’s Fancies and served it with the meal, her mom might be satisfied with that.

  But after Wren had fixed the meal and they’d sat down to eat, Denise poured about two inches of gin into her tumbler before Wren had the chance to serve her the soda. Her mom was still very attentive, considering how drunk she was getting, praising what Wren thought of as a rather lazy meal, telling her that no, the pesto didn’t taste in the least like it was months old, and of course the meal was wonderful. Why would Wren think otherwise?

  After dinner, Wren cleared the table and started washing up, her mom telling her she had a surprise for her on television tonight and to try to make it into the TV room before eight. It was only when Wren was placing the last plate in the drying rack that she realized it: she’d missed her high-school graduation. Her best friend—her only friend—had been forced to walk alone.