“Totally fine, Wren. You never have to go all-out for me. Just your company is enough. Besides, it’s hearing all about your trip to see your dad that I’m excited about, even as hungry as my run made me.”
“I’ll be right back, then,” Wren said, and she went into the kitchen and grabbed her bag full of food.
The walk into the woods felt like it took a little longer than it had the last few times, and Wren realized it was probably because of her current company. No matter how much she cared about her best friend, Nicole didn’t cause the level of excitement to spread throughout Wren’s body that Sia did. She didn’t make Wren’s pulse race when she touched her, and she wasn’t someone Wren wanted to dance with, either.
The clearing was almost too warm where the sun managed to reach the ground, so Wren laid out the blanket she’d grabbed from the hall closet in the shade instead. She figured Nicole would be pretty warm from her run, and the heavy bag and the summer heat had made eating in the sun unappealing to Wren as well.
She unpacked her backpack and poured each of them some soda, and they dug into the food. Wren found her appetite wasn’t at its usual level, but Nicole more than made up for her, remarking between bites about how delicious everything was. When they were both done eating, Nicole drained the last of her soda and turned to Wren, her face more serious than Wren had seen it in ages. “So, now Torien is back in your life, and you’re going to go see him. Time to spill, Wren. Tell me everything.”
So Wren shared as much as she could, telling Nicole that her stepmom (although she made sure to still call her “mom”) was driving her there, a fact that made Nicole gasp. She knew a bit about Wren’s dad’s departure and the havoc it had wreaked on Denise’s and her lives. Wren had to admit that the idea of Denise driving her to see her dad after her immense heartbreak was rather unbelievable. So she told Nicole that her “mom” was choosing to leave the past in the past. She said Torien wanted to fix things, not just between himself and Wren, but also with her mom. Wren wished her lie were actually the truth, and she also almost told Nicole her plans for trying to get them back together, if Denise could ever forgive him enough to let that happen. She wouldn’t blame her if she wasn’t able to, though, and that part she did tell Nicole.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you couldn’t, either,” her friend said, and she looked as though she meant it. “I’m not sure you’re making the right move here, but I can understand your choice, at least, to go see your long-lost dad. I don’t know if I could ever forgive my own dad if he’d done something like that. You’re made of pretty tough stuff, Wren…pretty damn tough stuff.” Nicole wrapped her arm around Wren’s shoulder and squeezed her against her side. Wren knew in that moment that she had to tell Nicole everything, or she’d never be able to forgive herself. Nicole had to know that she might not be coming back, no matter how high the cost might be for her revelation.
“There’s more, you know. There’s something I’ve been keeping from you for a while, and it’s time I told you the entire truth.” Wren got up from the blanket, reaching for the bottom of her tank top, ready to pull it over her head.
Right when she began to lift her shirt, she heard some rustling in the trees behind her back, and a familiar female voice said, “I’m the entire truth.”
Sia stood in front of the path they’d taken to her cabin two nights back, wearing a loose, summery dress and a less-than-believable smile. Normally Wren would have been glad to see her, but she’d been so ready to reveal her wings to Nicole that this interruption wasn’t as welcome as it could have been. In fact, as Sia walked over to Wren and took her hand, she realized it wasn’t welcome at all, despite how good her new friend’s hand felt against hers. “I’m the one who convinced her dad, Torien, to get back in touch with Wren. And Wren and I, we’re kind of seeing each other now.”
“Really? Wren, that’s great! Why don’t you join us, uh…”
“Sasha. I’m Sasha. Sure, I’d love to. After all, I’m happy to meet any friend of Wren’s.” Sia, or “Sasha,” flowed into a cross-legged position on the blanket, with a level of grace Wren felt she’d never attain herself. The sudden appearance of her attractive teacher had completely prevented Wren from following through with her big reveal, and she wondered if Sia’s showing up was intended as more than just a pleasant surprise. It certainly seemed that way, especially as Wren was pretty sure they weren’t “seeing each other,” no matter how much Wren wanted that to be true. Wouldn’t Sia have told her that, if it were the case? Could a single dance turn a friendship into a romantic relationship? Wren would have to ask her about that later, if she could work up the nerve.
Sia polished off the rest of the food as she told Nicole a string of lies about everything they’d spent the last few days doing, all of it made up except for how they’d met. Then, just as abruptly as she’d arrived, Sia told Nicole it was very nice meeting her, but she had to go finish packing, because she and Wren were leaving the very next morning. “Bright and early!” she said, and then she was gone, and now it was only a very confused Wren and a talkative Nicole who remained in the clearing.
“That’s a pretty big thing to keep from your best friend, dude!” She punched Wren lightly on the arm. “Any other big secrets? Do you have a brand-new magical power, like the ability to spin straw into gold? Or are you a Martian?”
Nicole’s two guesses held a grain of truth, as actually, Wren did have a magical ability, or at least she would soon, and she was also from another world. But instead of telling Nicole anything more, she just laughed and put up her hands. “You got me! My alien overlords and I are going to take over Earth and turn everyone gay. Except for you.”
“Nah, you can turn me gay if you want, as I just got dumped. Dumb ex-boyfriend, he told me over that fancy meal he took me out for, then had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to make out in his car one last time.”
Wren offered her condolences, and they talked about Nicole’s upcoming college plans and all the hot guys she’d probably meet there. Any mention of Wren’s future, to her relief, was forgotten for the rest of the afternoon. It had probably been a bad idea, telling Nicole the truth and showing off her wings. Wren could always tell her later, once she’d been given the chance to save Earth. Because if she failed, it wouldn’t matter whether she’d told Nicole or not. It was only then that she realized that if she failed, she probably would never see Nicole again. In fact, her best friend might not even survive if she didn’t succeed.
Wren’s endless cycle of thoughts about the future distracted her from the rest of her visit with Nicole. She only managed to half-listen to her friend’s words as they left their picnic spot and walked back to Wren’s house. Nicole had to leave then, she told Wren, but she insisted Wren call her from San Francisco, and email her, and send postcards and telegrams while she was at it.
Wren had done her best to hide her fears from Nicole, and it looked as if she’d been successful, because her friend left with a smile on her face. Wren’s own smile disappeared as soon as Nicole had jogged away. She knew then that she couldn’t make herself accept this being the very last time she saw her closest friend.
So right then, at that moment, Wren decided that she would dedicate everything she had to making sure Earth and everyone on it was kept safe. Who knows, she thought as she shut the front door, maybe it’ll even work. Maybe she’d manage the impossible and save everyone. It was a pretty tall order, as she’d told herself again and again. But a tiny spark of belief deep within her had flickered into life the previous night. And if Wren was lucky, its glow would only brighten over time.
She still had the problem of getting her mom out to the clearing, though, a feat that could go wrong in so many ways. As Wren started to clean up from her picnic she wondered if Sia would even let her take her mom with them. Could she trust her new friend, even if she’d just said they were dating? Wren was almost positive she wouldn’t be able to step through that portal to Shyon if Sia refused her request, no matter how man
y people depended on her doing so. She just couldn’t leave her mom behind. It was utterly unacceptable, so Sia simply had to agree, she thought with a larger-than-usual touch of conviction. She had to let Wren’s mom, who was her true mother in everything but blood, join them in Azyr.
Chapter Sixteen
Wren had decided that since this would be her last night on Earth, at least for the foreseeable future, she should make tonight’s meal special. So she went to the town’s best butcher to pick up some organic Cornish game hens. Then it was off to the small grocery store closest to her home to get some fresh rosemary, a lemon, and some garlic, along with several fingerling potatoes. Her last stop was Nancy’s Fancies, where she bought an exceptionally expensive flourless chocolate cake. She’d had her eye on it for ages but had never been able to justify its sky-high cost. She was pretty sure that leaving your home planet to save a few billion people did, actually, justify paying thirty dollars for a cake. If that didn’t make her purchase okay, that cake had no right to exist.
Wren felt her own right to exist emerging, bit by bit. She was finally able to begin adding to the small reservoir of inner strength that had kept her afloat during all these years of challenge and heartache. Now she would be free of every single thing that had held her back; now she was finally ready for a big change. Maybe not one as epic as her near future seemed to hold, but only time would allow her to see if she could handle all this upheaval. She wondered, as she slid the Cornish game hens into the oven, if her mom could handle it, too. She wouldn’t even have a day to adjust to this immense change in her life, not like the weeks Wren had been given to adjust to her wings, and to the greater purpose she’d gained upon receiving her dad’s letter.
She went into the living room to get her mom as soon as the hens and potatoes were done roasting. Denise was, of course, camped out in front of the TV. When she looked up from the screen, she told Wren how good dinner smelled. Her words were a little slurred, but for the first time in her life, Wren was glad she was drunk. It would make that night all the easier, so she didn’t try to talk her mom out of opening a bottle of wine. Nor did she try to stop her from pouring herself a third full glass of it, near the end of the meal.
After dinner, her mom took the remainder of her glass of wine into the living room, and Wren waited until she was settled into her favorite chair to enact the first part of her plan. After turning the heat up to eighty-five, she went upstairs, the rising temperature on the ground floor already making her sweat a little as she reached her bedroom.
She didn’t know what to do to fill the hours until the time came to walk away from her house. What did a person normally do when they were going to leave everything familiar behind?
Large parts of what she’d soon be doing didn’t allow for “normal” actions. Wren guessed that no one had ever done what she was about to do, leaving Earth for another populated planet. Not just any planet, either, but one full of magic and winged beings, as well as entirely empty of humans. One human would be there in just a few hours, though.
As long as Wren’s plan actually worked.
She tried to write in her journal, hoping it might help her maybe manage to process the coming events, but her brain seemed to have turned to mush. All she could write was a jumble of questions and doubts. Just like what was going through her head right then, and sadly, those uncomfortable questions and doubts were the only things she had to keep her company on that night. She was almost certain she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she tried anyway, lying down on the bed she’d slept in for so many years. No matter how familiar it was, this bed was now one she might be using for the last time in her life.
These thoughts didn’t provide any comfort. But the heat from the night and the downstairs furnace were reaching out tendrils of exhaustion until Wren was completely entwined. She passed out from the rising heat, barely having the forethought to set her alarm before she sank into her mattress and into sleep.
*
The alarm that woke Wren from her deep sleep was the least welcome it had been in ages, especially because it had yanked her out of a dream full of delicious food and even more delicious kissing. She slowly came back into wakefulness and the immense reality of the night ahead. As she did, she noticed something at the foot of the bed, something she definitely hadn’t put there herself.
On the very end of her bed’s covers lay what looked like a robe, and when she got out of bed and picked it up, she saw that it was a robe. Furthermore, it was identical to Sia’s. She could tell, though, even with only the barest hint of moonlight coming in through her curtains, that unlike Sia’s robe, it was pale blue, a blue that would match her wings perfectly.
She smiled at her friend’s thoughtfulness, quickly getting over the brief annoyance at both her intrusion into Wren’s bedroom and the fact she hadn’t woken her to say hello.
She would be seeing Sia soon enough, Wren reminded herself, and besides, she had more important things to think about right now. Like whether her plan for her mom would work. She quickly changed into the robe, leaving her wing-shirt and jeans on the bed, and scanned her bedroom one last time.
Then she went downstairs, where she heard loud snores coming from the living room, snores that told her at least part of her plan had already worked. Her mom was deeply asleep on the living-room couch, and it was no wonder—the ground floor was almost hotter than Wren could stand. Her strong wishes to get out of this feverish room pushed her over to where Denise lay, and Wren began to shake her sleeping mom awake. That took quite a few strong shakes.
“H-huh? ’hat you, W-Wren darrrling? What’s…it’s hot, so hot.” Denise looked up at her with only half-open eyes, the heat and her drunkenness clearly making the act of waking up close to impossible. Both of those things were in Wren’s favor, for once.
“You’re…you’re dreaming,” Wren told her clearly wasted mother, “and you need to follow me outside. There’s a fairy waiting out in the woods, and she’s going to grant your wishes, all of them.”
Slowly, Wren managed to pull her into an upright position. “Slowly” because her mom felt heavier than a load of metal bricks, which was quite the feat for a woman who couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds, soaking wet.
Once her mom was sitting fully upright, or at least leaning upright, Wren got her off the couch, noticing that her mom’s hands were damp with sweat. Wren’s own forehead was beginning to be drenched as well.
“Ho’kay. Leht’s go meet the fairy, dream Wren. I want a mush-huled hunk hoo’ll mow my lawn and paint my nails.”
Once they were outside in the hot night air, Wren began to lead her mother in the direction of the back fence. Reaching it took longer than ever before, at least five minutes of weaving back and forth while putting up with her mom’s strong suggestions that if she were dreaming, the fairy should have sent a chariot to carry them to her.
Wren wouldn’t have minded a chariot, but she didn’t even have a wagon to carry her mom in, much less the dragon-pulled carriage her mom kept going on about. They didn’t exactly reach the clearing in record time, but they did manage to reach it, both of them equally sticky with sweat, from the hot night as well as the struggle it had taken them to reach their destination.
Wren’s jaw dropped when they entered the clearing, and she also almost dropped her mom, whose eyes were currently shut from either exhaustion or the effects of alcohol.
Her jaw had gone slack because in front of her stood Sia, her back turned to Wren and her mother. Sia was holding out her portal-making necklace, which had apparently managed to do its job, because a few feet in front of Sia stood one of the most beautiful sights Wren had ever seen, a fast-growing circle of shimmering blue-and-gold opalescence.
She was so awestruck by its beauty that she forgot about everything else, just long enough for her crucial grip on her mom’s waist to loosen.
Long enough for her mom to stumble forward.
Long enough for her mom to take three incr
edibly awkward steps toward the portal, and long enough for her to trip over a root, fall forward, and to dive, headfirst, straight through the shimmering opening.
So what could Wren do but run right past an angry-looking Sia and dive through the portal herself, with absolutely no idea whether she’d reach her mom in time, or any ideas about what else would await her on the other side.
*
Sia couldn’t believe Wren had brought someone with her to the portal. Nor could she believe that this person, whoever she was, had managed to fall straight through the portal that led to Shyon. But she knew what she had to do.
She let out her wings, and just as they were beginning to exit her back, she took two large steps backward and steeled herself for whatever waited for her on the portal’s platform above Azyr. It would be good to be home, no matter what, she told herself.
With the small-yet-hopeful thought that at least something might go right, she took off at a run toward the portal’s quickly closing opening. She heard it snap shut behind her, just as the last of her left leg left the portal’s Earthly side.
Chapter Seventeen
Wren now knew what moving at the speed of light felt like: crappy. Her stomach was in knots seconds after she leapt after Denise, and her cramps only tightened and grew as she continued to fall, tumbling end over end. The cramps were quickly joined by nausea, but before both of them had come terror. She was moving so fast she was unable to think anything but “Stop! Stop! Stop!” over and over again.
Wren could just barely see the form of her mom, also tumbling end over end a few feet beneath her, and she could also hear what sounded like someone yelling at her from behind, a voice she finally managed to recognize as Sia’s.
After traveling through the dark-blue tunnel for what felt like far too long, things got even worse. Located about a hundred feet below Wren and her mom was what must have been the end of the portal’s pathway, and a number of feet below that was a flat, metal circle, lying at what looked to Wren’s scattered mind like a very strange angle.
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