by Wendi Wilson
The pain subsided despite my laughter, but I wasn’t quite ready to open my eyes. I knew what I’d find. Everyone would be staring, waiting, even hoping, that I’d lost my mind. It would be premium entertainment to see the new girl lose her shit. Even more so than seeing her fall on her face.
I gave myself a few moments’ respite before rolling up into a sitting position. I raised my knees and rested my arms across them, letting my head hang down as I took a few breaths. Rallying my courage, I lifted my head to look around.
My mouth flew open to scream, but no sound emerged. I scooted backward, my butt dragging against the floor, until my back slammed into the wall. I pressed a fist against my open mouth as tears burned in my eyes.
No one was looking at me. They must’ve lost interest while I was lying on the floor. They were back at work, grappling on the wrestling mats and stretching and climbing ropes and performing martial arts.
Some were running. Some were lifting weights. Some were even dancing.
But what had me mesmerized in fear was that all of them, every single one, had a pair of wings attached to their shoulders.
The tears trickled down my cheeks as I studied the appendages that hadn’t been there a few minutes before. Thin and frail-looking, like what the butterflies might have had before they became extinct, the fluttery wings seemed to come in every color of the rainbow.
Pale pink, sunny yellow, deep blue. And every color in between.
They fluttered as the students moved, nearly hypnotizing me. One boy jumped into the air to kick out at his sparring partner and his violet wings flapped, keeping him suspended for a brief second while he spun his leg around to make contact.
It was official. I’d lost my damned mind.
I pushed myself to my feet using the wall for leverage. Keeping my back against it, I slid sideways toward the locker rooms, hoping to escape before anyone noticed me. I blinked repeatedly, but each time my eyes opened, the scene was the same. The wings didn’t disappear.
I had almost made it when my gaze collided with the steel blue one of Ms. Jeannie. She hollered something, pointing at me, then at the track, but I couldn’t hear her. All I heard was the whooshing of blood through my ears that matched time with the pound of my heart against my breastbone.
I tore my eyes away from hers and spotted a flutter of orange over her right shoulder. My breath caught in my throat as I whimpered and pressed the back of my hand against my mouth to hold the sound in. She had wings, too.
I turned and sprinted toward the locker room, not caring who saw me. I had to get out of there. I needed to leave, before someone realized I was certifiably crazy and sent me to some hospital to live out the rest of my days in a padded cell.
By the time I was back in my uniform, I’d decided I just needed some rest. I’d had a lot of upheaval in my life—I was stressed, being bullied, and I’d hit my head.
I was, very obviously, hallucinating.
I made it back to my room without seeing anyone and breathed a sigh of relief as I closed the door behind me. All I needed was a nap. I’d be fine. Everything would be fine.
I stumbled to the bed and fell onto it. I felt the pull of sleep instantly. I surrendered to it, letting the blackness fill my mind, pushing out thoughts of butterfly wings and magical powers.
The next thing I knew, I was being shaken awake. I groaned and pulled my pillow over my face, not ready to leave the land of dreams quite yet.
“Come on, December. Wake up,” Shaela’s voice called out, bringing me further into consciousness. “You’re going to miss dinner.”
I threw the pillow aside and rubbed my eyes. My mind was foggy and I couldn’t quite remember why I was in bed, sleeping in the middle of the afternoon. I rubbed a palm against my mouth to make sure there was no drool and froze mid-motion.
Everything rushed back to me. The fall. Bumping my head. The wings.
I swallowed thickly, letting my eyes drift over to where Shaela was standing in the dim light of the room. She had her back to me as she rummaged through her desk. My whole body started to shake. I tightened my hands into my blanket, fisting the material and using it as an anchor to hold me in the real world.
A pair of translucent wings, the color of the leaves on the trees surrounding the school, fluttered against Shaela’s back. She turned to face me, but I could still see the upper curves of the appendages peeking over her shoulders.
“What?” she asked, propping her hands on her hips. When I didn’t respond, she added, “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, the motion fast and furious as tears leaked from my eyes. Shaela stepped in my direction and I sat up, pushing myself into the corner where the mattress met the wall.
“December,” she said, her voice calm and her palms out as she slowly moved toward me, “it’s just me. Shaela. Your roommate.”
She was talking to me like I was an idiot. Like I didn’t know who she was. But I wasn’t mad. No, she had every right to question my sense, because I was acting like I didn’t have any.
But I couldn’t help it. Every step she took in my direction brought those strange green wings closer to me.
She sat on the edge of the mattress, her hands folded in her lap and looked straight into my eyes. I focused on her green irises, hoping that, if I was having a hallucination, it would end before I let my gaze stray to her back.
“Tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help.”
I took a few deep breaths and came to a decision. I knew what I had to do. I needed to know.
I leaned away from my corner and held out my hand, palm up, to Shaela. Ever so trusting, she placed her palm in mine, squeezing my hand with a reassuring expression on her face.
“Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out,” she said.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Before she could respond, I jerked her toward me. With my free hand, I reached over her shoulder and brushed my fingertips across the top of one wing. Shaela squealed and pulled out of my grasp, those leaf greens wings pumping to pull her across the room in an instant.
“They’re real,” I breathed. “Oh my God. They’re real.”
“December, please let me explain.”
“I need to go,” I said, ignoring her plea in my panicked state.
I leapt from the bed and swung the door open before dashing through it and down the hall. I didn’t even know where I was going. I just knew I needed to get out of there. Away from Shaela. Away from the realization that nothing was as it seemed at Oberon Academy.
I turned a corner and skidded to a halt, barely stopping before plowing right into Rowan Dobbs. He stared at me with his kind eyes, his lips turned up into a sad smile. He crooked out an elbow and, despite my previous haste to escape, I tucked my hand into it and let him lead me straight to his office.
My eyes skittered to the side, checking his back. I released a sigh. There was no sign of wings. No lumps under his clothes where they could be hiding. I slumped into the chair he offered as he made his way behind his desk.
“I put them away. I thought it might make you more comfortable.”
“What?” I asked, unsure what he was talking about.
“My wings,” he clarified. “I put them away.”
And just like that, the calm that had settled over me shattered. I started to stand, intent on running, but Rowan’s voice stopped me.
“Sit down, December.”
My legs crumbled beneath me, my butt hitting the chair. Rowan had never been anything but kind and gentle with me, so his harsh tone shocked me.
“I’m sorry, dear. I don’t want to seem intimidating or demanding, but we need to talk about what happened today.”
I swallowed against the lump in my throat and nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I’d let him talk, then I was out of there.
“Your altercation with Ms. Avery was most unfortunate,” he said, folding his hands on the desk in front of him.
What? Why the hell was he talking about Tiana
? I just found out that everyone around me had wings. Who cares about a freaking mean girl trying to bully me?
“It was your clash with her that caused the Glamour to begin to crumble,” he explained. “When you hit your head in gym, it collapsed completely.”
“Glamour?” I asked, speaking for the first time.
“Yes, Glamour,” he said. “Because you were yet unaware of our true nature, I cast a Glamour over the entire school and all of its inhabitants. I knew you needed them to appear human in order to give this place a real chance.”
“So everyone here is a…”
“Sylphid,” he supplied when my words trailed off. “Yes, we are all Sylphids at Oberon Academy.”
“Why am I here?” I asked, needing to know, though I was dreading the answer.
“Because, my dear December, you are like us,” he said, his face pinching with empathy. “You possess the blood of the Fae.”
Chapter Sixteen
16
Nope. Nope. Nope and double nope. Rowan was crazy and I was not going to go down that rabbit hole with him.
After the big reveal, as I’d come to think of it, a calm fell over me. I’d stood, asked Rowan to arrange a ride for me, and went to my room to pack. I changed into my old clothes and grabbed my ratty backpack which still held the rest of my meager wardrobe and the baby blanket.
Thankfully, Shaela was gone. She must’ve went on to dinner without me. Even though I was confused and hurt by her deception, I knew I’d have a hard time saying goodbye to my first friend.
Celeste Greenly knocked on the door a few minutes later, saying she was my ride. She was as kind as ever, and didn’t ask any questions.
We were half way back to the city when I decided to speak for the first time.
“Did you know?”
“Did I know what, dear?”
I clenched my back teeth. She knew what I was talking about, but she was going to make me say it.
“Did you know that Oberon Academy is full of faeries and Rowan thinks I’m one of them?”
She was silent for a beat. Her mouth twisted up as she chose her words. When she finally spoke, she kept her eyes on the road.
“Of course, I know they’re all Sylphids, December. Not only am I an employee of the academy, I also attended classes there.”
“You’re one of them?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“Yes,” she responded with a nod.
“But…you don’t have any wings.”
Her tinkling laughter echoed through the interior of the car. “Yes, I do. I have them hidden for your comfort, on Rowan’s advice.”
I bit the inside of my cheek as I mulled that over. So, Celeste was a faery recruiter for a faery school full of faery students and faery teachers.
“Then, why did you recruit me?” I asked. “I’m obviously not a Sylphid. I don’t have wings. I don’t have magic.”
Her eyes darted from the road to me and back again. She didn’t answer my question and it looked like she wasn’t going to. Frustration rose up inside me, making my palms itch.
“I don’t fit in there,” I said. “All those beautiful people with wings and magic and—wait. Do all Sylphids have blonde hair?”
She nodded, but didn’t speak.
“Well, there you have it.” I jabbed my thumb into my chest. “Not a Sylphid.”
“You do have magic, December. And as for the dark hair, well, that’s because you’re only half-Fae.”
“I don’t have any magic, Celeste. That’s just…crazy,” I said, ignoring the half-Fae comment for the moment.
“Do you remember the day we met?” she asked, her voice gentle.
“Of course,” I said.
“Do you remember why you thought you’d been called to the principal’s office?”
I gasped, the vision of Lauren Blackburn wailing as clumps of her hair fell out in front of her very eyes. Only in her eyes. It wasn’t actually happening, but somehow, she was convinced that it was. Right after I’d wished it on her.
“I see that you do,” Celeste says. “Albeit unintentionally, you used your Glamour to make that awful girl think all of her hair fell out.”
“No,” I said. “That was just a coincidence. She was probably high on Lox or something.”
Celeste shook her head. “And what about what happened with Tiana in the dining hall?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, my fingers clinging desperately to my delusion of normalcy.
“December!” Celeste exclaimed, her kind voice raising in volume for the first time. “I know you know what I’m talking about. I saw the security footage.”
“There are cameras in there?” I asked.
Anything to change the subject. I didn’t want to hear any more.
Not a faery. Not a faery. Not a faery, I chanted over and over in my head.
“Yes, there are cameras throughout the common areas of the school for security reasons.”
“But why would Oberon Academy need such tight security?”
“We’re a school of hidden magical beings, December. Of course, we need certain security measures. But no more changing the subject. I know you felt the flash of power that rushed out of you and into Tiana, sending her sprawling.” She paused for a moment, a grin full of satisfaction curving her lips before she cleared her throat and continued, “I know you saw the wind. Wind that you didn’t feel, because it was coming from you.”
“No,” I said, choosing to remain in denial, though I knew, deep down, that she was right. “I didn’t feel or see anything.”
“December—”
“No!” I shouted, cutting her off. The steam rolled out of me and I felt bad, so I said, “I’m sorry, Celeste. I don’t mean to be rude, but I won’t accept this. I can’t.”
“I understand, dear. I think, with time, you’ll come around. And you can take all the time you need.”
I didn’t respond to that. Celeste had been nothing but kind to me since the day I met her. She rescued me from the Holts, from public school and a life of destitution.
And when asked to take me right back to all that, she’d done it without complaint.
“Wait,” I said, thinking of Gretchen and Todd, “did you, ah, do something to the Holts to get them to agree to let me go?”
She frowned, and I thought she wouldn’t answer me.
“Yes,” she said, her voice filled with anger. “Those people are truly awful and never should have been given custody of you to begin with. I used telepathy to manipulate them mentally, making them think it was their idea to let you go, and that they’d be better off without you.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s impressive.”
“It’s ridiculous that I’m taking you back there.”
“Celeste, please.”
“I know. I know,” she said, her voice tinged with a note of resignation. “This is what you want.”
Right on cue, she pulled to the side of the road with those words. Todd and Gretchen must’ve had every light in the house on, because the entire place glowed from within. I grunted. If I ever left a light on like that, I’d be in serious trouble with both of them.
I opened the car door, and the sounds of screaming voices echoed through me. They were fighting again, and it sounded like one of the bad ones. I took a deep breath and turned to Celeste, attempting a smile. The look on her face told me she wasn’t falling for it.
“I can take you somewhere else,” she offered.
I shook my head and climbed from the car. I wished I had somewhere, anywhere else I could have asked her to take me. But I didn’t. Leaning back in to grab my backpack, I gazed into her eyes and spoke from the heart. It would be my last chance to really thank her for her kindness and support.
“Celeste, thank you so much, for everything. No one has ever been as supportive and as kind to me as you have. You took a chance on me and changed my life, and I’m so sorry I didn’t turn out to be what you expected.”
“But December, you ar
e. You are everything I’d hoped and so much more. You just don’t see it, yet.”
I pressed my lips together into a tight smile, gave her a nod and closed the car door. I turned to face the house and fear consumed me. I couldn’t believe I was being so stupid. Why would I willingly go back to that house?
Gathering my resolve, I started to walk across the dirt yard. I heard Celeste’s car pull away, and I had to fight myself not to turn and run after her. I had made the choice, and I had to live with it.
“You, stupid bitch!”
I jumped at the shout, thinking Todd had spotted me, but he was still inside and wasn’t peering out of any of the open windows. He must’ve been talking to Gretchen.
“Don’t call me that, asshole!” she shouted.
“If it looks like a bitch, and talks like a bitch…”
“Shut up, Todd. I don’t have to take this shit from you.”
“You’re my wife. You have to take everything I give you,” he said, and the suggestion in his voice made my skin crawl. “And you have to like it.”
“No, I don’t!” she shouted.
“Oh, yes you do,” he said. “And all I have to do is pretend. Pretend you’re not so bitchy. Or so ugly. I just pretend you’re a hot little thing like my December baby and I actually enjoy it. That’s the only way it’s any good.”
Gretchen started yelling something, but I couldn’t hear it over the blood rushing through my ears. I whirled around and ran. It was dark and I had no idea where I was going, but I knew there was no way I could go into that house.
I had no idea why I ever thought I could in the first place. It was a stupid, idiotic plan.
My feet moved with a mind of their own, taking me straight to Sycamore High and my not-so-secret-anymore hideout. I could spend the rest of the night there, then figure what to do and where to go in the morning. Not much of a plan, but it was all I had.
I was sprinting by the time I reached the school property. I vaguely recognized that I’d never moved so fast in my life, and I barely felt winded, but I pushed the errant thought to the back of my mind. It was my imagination spurred on by Celeste and Rowan’s delusions of me being a faery.