Wings of Creation

by Brenda Cooper

  Liam had come up beside me, Jherrel clutched tightly to his chest. “What happened?” he demanded.

  Kala had caught enough breath to speak in full sentences. “Caro is screaming about Kayleen. She says her mommy Kayleen is lost. Jill told me to get you.”

  The peace of the mandala garden shattered. We hurried after Kala, Samuel trailing us. Kala, the quiet and serene, looked frantic. If Kayleen was hurt, where was Joseph?

  We found Caro in Jill’s arms in a small garden I hadn’t even known about. The two of them sat on the lawn, Caro staring toward us, but seeing something else. Her face had gone sea-sand white and her eyes were red from crying. Liam called her name and ran toward her. She lifted her hands, fastening her eyes on him. “Daddy!”

  He put Jherrel down and folded Caro in his arms. She burst out into such deep sobs that she couldn’t tell us what she felt for a few moments. I knelt down and held Jherrel, who trembled as he watched his big sister bury her face in her dad’s shirt. Liam stroked her hair, his eyes so worried I thought for a moment he might cry himself.

  Jill’s face had lost almost as much color as Caro’s. She explained. “We were working on shielding—teaching her to block out data she doesn’t want to be bothered with. I’ve never tried to teach anyone so young . . . usually kids are six or seven before it becomes a problem, but Caro’s not even four yet.” Jill’s voice shook. She must feel guilty. I glanced at Caro, still sobbing, and waited for her to go on.

  Mohami came in the door and sat down silently on the floor, watching us all. It felt like he brought a tiny bit of serenity with him, enough for Jill to continue. “She started screaming for her mommy. I thought she meant you, Chelo, but then she started calling for Kayleen. She said Kayleen’s lost, and she needs to be found.

  “She called for her uncle and for her mom and she almost passed out—her eyes rolled up in her head. Then she started screaming. I tried to follow her into the nets, but I couldn’t.” Sweat beaded Jill’s brow and her eyes looked worried and faintly guilty. “That’s not how I teach. Not me following. Me leading.”

  She paused again. Mohami smiled at her.

  “Shhhh,” I said. “It’s not your fault.”

  Jill swallowed and licked her lips. “I couldn’t follow her. She’s stronger than me.”

  I wasn’t surprised. One look at Liam told me he wasn’t surprised either. He clutched Caro even closer to him, and stroked her spine, his hands big enough to cover half of her small back.

  Mohami signaled Samuel, who brought water.

  We drank, and waited.

  Caro quieted. Jherrel left his snuggle with me and walked over to Caro, very solemnly handing her his own glass of water. She drank, her eyes still wide and the glass shaking in her hand. Jherrel took it from her and offered it to Samuel, and my heart went out for him. So like his dad, to be there and take care of whatever needed to be done.

  Liam whispered to her. “What happened?”

  “Mommy Kayleen is gone in the nets. Uncle Joseph is looking for her. She’s lost, and she needs me. But I can’t find her either.”

  “How do you know she’s lost?” Liam asked.

  “ ’Cause she told me.” Caro’s lip quivered. “She told me she loves me and if she doesn’t come back she’ll always love me.”

  What was Kayleen thinking? Poor Caro. Poor Kayleen. Why would she say such a thing? “How do you know the message was really from Kayleen?”

  “Because I know what she feels like in the data.”

  Well, I didn’t have any way to argue with that.

  Caro curled her little hands into fists and looked up at Liam. “We need to go find her, Daddy.”

  Jherrel said, “I’ll help.”

  Mohami put his hand on Caro’s arm. “We’ll send someone out to look.”

  Caro contemplated him for a moment, her eyes narrowing so she looked older than she was by years. “If Uncle Joseph can’t find her, no one can.”

  Smart kid. “She’s right.” I watched how Liam held his daughter, and remembered how I’d held Joseph when he was only a little older, and Kayleen later, in the cave during the war. Even a Wind Reader needed touch. Maybe touch could help bring her back. I’d done that before, over and over. I’d have to go. “Have you seen Seeyan?” I asked Mohami.

  He shook his head.

  “Should you have seen Seeyan?”

  His voice was quiet. “The Keepers network is often interrupted. She may have had a task to do. We are Keepers first, and only then we are what we strive to become.”

  I didn’t understand that, except that it meant Seeyan was late. It was time to test whether we were captives or guests. I glanced at Liam. “Will you stay here?”

  His eyes widened. “We should all stay here.”

  “But Kayleen!”

  “I know,” he said. “Joseph is surely looking.”

  “I abandoned her once before. Remember?”

  “We both did.”

  Mohami interrupted. “You should stay here, Chelo. We will send someone.”

  Maybe I liked it here too much. No matter that the morning ceremonies connected me with everyone, Kayleen lived deeper in my heart than any stranger. “I’m going.”

  Liam shook his head. “They want you. Maybe this is a trick to get you out in the open. We know people are hunting for you and Joseph. We don’t know anyone is hunting for me.”

  “But I’m more likely to know what to do with lost Wind Readers.”

  Mohami stared at me, his face unreadable. Samuel busied himself with the water glasses. Kala sat on the floor with her legs crossed, her face serene, her eyes fastened on some point on the wall visible only to her.

  I looked at Caro, who still clung to Liam. “She needs you. And I need to do this. Neither of us is a Wind Reader, but I could often find Joseph at home just by knowing where he is.” And all of my meditations here had made me more open. “I’ll find him. And that means I’ll find her.” I addressed Mohami directly. “I must go.”

  I was used to seeing joy on his face. Or serenity. Or even love, in a sort of universal fashion. A few times, puzzlement. What I saw then was sadness. “We all must meet our destiny.”

  I clutched Jherrel to me, smelling his hair, absorbing his warmth. I would do this. Mohami’s words had made it real.

  Liam wanted to argue. Dear sweet Liam who wanted to lead everyone. Every muscle is his face had tensed with worry, but to his credit he just met my gaze and nodded almost imperceptibly. This was mine to do. Not only would Caro be happier with her dad here, but I owed it to Kayleen from a long time ago. Plus, I knew Seeyan better. “I’ll start at the festival and see if this Juss Seeyan told me about knows where she is. She knows where Joseph and Kayleen are.”

  34

  ALICIA: CAPTURED

  When the gray flier called my name, I froze. He had looked at me. He’d seen me. One glance his way suggested he still saw me. The red-winged flier was still on her knees, an awkward pose for a winged woman. I so wished I hadn’t caused her lost and pained look. It stripped her some of her flashy, ethereal beauty. She raised a hand and called out to the gray flier. “Amalo. Help me.”

  “In a moment.” He hadn’t stopped looking at me. “Even if you get away from us, you cannot leave the compound.”

  “How do you see me?”

  He sounded impatient. “There are mods available to fliers. I can see in the dark, which means I can see heat.”

  Oh. Well then, we were well and truly caught. At least for now.

  He stood still and regarded me, letting me think about this new wrinkle.

  Well, I needed someone to ask about this place, and about Paloma and Ming and the others. I flicked my mod off. The wingless in the circle showed relief and, maybe, a bit of wonder as I blinked into full existence right in front of them. Usually, it entertained me when I surprised people, but right now I felt vulnerable, and guilty. For being caught. For hurting a flier, even though I’d made sure she wasn’t hurt badly. And for picking up the f
eather, which was now visible in my left hand, like an advertisement about how stupid I was. I walked over to her and extended my right hand, helping her stand.

  Her gold eyes watched me. She looked puzzled, but kept her silence.

  I held the red feather toward her. “I’m sorry. This . . . this is yours. I should not have kept it.”

  She took a step back and shook her head. “I can’t use it now.”

  Amalo spoke, slowly, as if addressing a child. “Alicia. I know you will have heard that fliers’ feathers bring luck.” He paused, clearly for effect. “But taken in anger, they bring a different sort of luck. You will have to live with whatever Marti’s feather brings you.”

  Great. I felt the importance of this moment, but I didn’t know what to say. Induan was nowhere to be seen, so perhaps my mistake had helped her get away. She could be standing right next to me, but I didn’t think so. If Amalo could see me, he could see her.

  Hopefully she’d escaped.

  If so, I was on my own, and this wasn’t anything like what I’d hoped, which was just to rescue everyone and get out.

  There was more than one way to take a risk. “I need to know what happened to my friends. I believe they’re here. Can you help me?”

  He didn’t seem surprised by my question, although he offered a very different one. “Would you have a cup of tea with us?”

  Surprised, I said, “Sure,” before even thinking about it.

  He nodded at the guards and the other two people. “Thank you. Please return to your duties.”

  They melted away as fast as they had come, clearly used to moving quietly and used to taking orders. Amalo turned to me. “Keep the feather, but know you owe another flier a good turn some day to make up for what you did to Marti.”

  If that was all, it was a light sentence. “I will.”

  “Come on, then.”

  If I didn’t know better, I’d assume he’d been watching for me. But that didn’t make sense; how could he have known to look in this compound?

  Amalo didn’t lead me and Marti into the same building the black flier had risen from, or the one that Induan and I had been stalking. Instead, we crossed the compound to a low-slung building with soft light pouring out of wide windows.

  Simple perches and benches lined a deck outside the building, all empty. Amalo and Marti perched near each other, and I clambered up onto a perch so I could look them in the eyes. Marti sat still and examined the heels of her hands, which looked scraped and red. Amalo watched me. I looked back and forth between them as I struggled to find a comfortable way to balance on the perch and hold the feather all at once. There was, of course, no back support, so I had to find a way to hook my feet together for stability.

  A tall wingless woman in a long dress came out, and Amalo asked her to bring tea. After she left, I asked, “Do you know where my friends are?”

  He sat back in his chair. “Of course I do.” He waved a hand out at the other buildings. “I’ll take you to them after this. But I have been looking for you, and I’m pleased to find you so easily.”

  I made sure I didn’t sound cowed. “Why do you want me?”

  “I know you want to be a flier.”

  Wow. Tsawo must have told him. But why would Amalo care about that? And what did it have to do with Amalo or Seeyan or Juss or whoever was running this show wanting to capture Chelo and Joseph? One part of me wanted to be silent, and another wanted to lie, and I also wondered if Amalo could help me.

  And more than anything, he was right. I wanted to be a flier. I wanted to be a flier so hard I could barely answer him. The words got stuck in my chest and then my throat. But finally they came out. “Yes. I want to fly, with real wings. But what does that have to do with my friends? I need to know they’re okay.”

  “They’re fine.” He looked like he was trying to suppress a laugh.

  I decided not to be mad at him for laughing at me.

  The wingless woman came back with real tea, rather than col. I sniffed it, delighted with the heady, herbal aroma. I looked up to thank the woman but she had already turned away.

  I sipped. The tea tasted like Paloma’s lace-leaf and dried pongaberry tea, except a tiny bit sweeter. Marti and Amalo drank, too, and for a while no one spoke. It felt surreal to sit outside with two beautiful and silent fliers who had captured me and now fed me tea. Quite strange. From beyond the wall, the faint sounds of music, and sometimes laughter, reminded me of the festival, and Bryan.

  I studied my companions. Amalo, whose gray eyes matched his gray wings and gray clothing. His wings had black barring on them near the tips, but were otherwise a single color designed to drink light rather than reflect it. His face was long, his eyes even wider than most fliers, and his hair caught back in a long braid. All things about him spoke of quiet, composed power, and it dawned on me he reminded me of Marcus. He didn’t look like Marcus, but he felt like him—calm, and sure of himself. In clear contrast, Marti’s showy colors didn’t quite match her diffidence. She met my eyes but looked away quickly, glancing at Amalo as if he would have the answer she wanted.

  He broke the calm. “What does it mean to you to be a flier?”

  I didn’t know how to answer. It was something I’d wanted since I first saw a statue of a flier.

  “Just say whatever comes to mind,” he prompted.

  “It’s freedom. You’re so beautiful and so free. So calm.” When I paused, the other two remained silent until I spoke again. “When I was young, we lived on another planet, not one of the Five Worlds, and I was very different. People wanted me to be like them. They didn’t want me to run as fast as I could, or climb as high, or even be as strong. I got in trouble when I didn’t pretend to be the same as everybody else. They even tried to kill me for it.” I paused, sipping my tea, thinking. “But you don’t have to be the same as anyone. You are just . . . yourselves.”

  Amalo’s mouth quirked into an ironic half-smile. “You can’t fly away from who you are. If you didn’t like people telling you to slow down, why would you like people telling you to fly?”

  “No one is telling me to fly. In fact, most people are telling me not to. They say the risk is too big. But I want to fly. I’ve wanted to ever since I saw my first flier, and even more since I got here.”

  “So pretend you have wings,” he said. “What would you do with them?”

  “Fly.” I sipped the bottom dregs of the tea, which were more bitter than the top of the cup had been. I wasn’t convincing them. The looks on their faces told me that. I paused a moment, thinking. “When we first got here, I watched the fliers out of my window in the morning, as long as I could. Humans need flight, or at least I do. It’s the most beautiful state ever. As if all our evolution has been striving to become free of the ground.”

  Marti spoke. “You can already fly.”

  “It’s awkward and heavy, and I can’t even do it well.”

  She gave a little half-smile at that, making me wonder if she knew how truly badly I did fly. “But you think you can transform with wings?”

  I couldn’t let them see any doubt. “Of course I can.”

  Amalo looked at Marti, and they shared something between them—unspoken. She nodded, briefly, and he spoke to her. “Marti. Can you share why you chose to become a flier?”

  Oh. Wow. So she was a successful mod? From wingless human adult to flier? I looked more closely, but didn’t see anything to suggest she was less a true flier than Amalo or Tsawo or any of them. I couldn’t even see signs of the change in her face—her eyes were closer to the sides of her head, like other fliers, maybe a little less, but she had a flier face. Her bones seemed as fine as Amalo’s, and her chest large, like his.

  For the first time, it dawned on me how much change I wanted. Everything would change. I might not know myself in a mirror.

  But I wanted wings. I wanted blue wings in a hundred shades of blue, sky and river and summer-flower and near-violet. Marti looked directly at me, her gold eyes another change. I
would keep my violet ones. She was waiting for me to say something. “Please, tell me why you changed.”

  Her voice was very soft. “To fly is to be the soul of humanity.”

  Huh? “That seems like something Mohami would say.”

  Amalo’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t discount Mohami, who is the soul of human giving.”

  Marti held up a hand. “There is balance in the world. The Keepers are necessary so that we can fly, and their equivalent exists in all humanity. We respect Mohami, who keeps our traditions alive. Our job is to display the beauty and the pain of all that humans strive for. The pain is in how we are made, and the beauty is in how we fly.”

  “And that,” Amalo said, “is why it is so sacred when regular humans become one of us.”

  Meaning it was more special to go from human to flier than to be born flier?

  “Why?”

  “Because if you succeed, the pain will mark you for life.”

  No one had told me that. It made me want it more. My throat was so dry I could barely ask, “What do I have to do to become one of you? How do I ask?”

  “Are you asking?” he asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “And someday we will answer.”

  No. I wanted to know now. He was hard to read, but still felt like Marcus. He wouldn’t give me anything for free. He’d make me earn it. “How do you choose?”

  His eyes and his facial features softened. “We will know.” He stood up. “But you aren’t my captive. I was merely called to find you and since I have, I have other business for now. Come with me, and I’ll take you to your friends.”

  35

  JOSEPH: DOWN IN THE CAVE

  Marcus hurried up steep stairs behind a door I’d never noticed and along a cold hallway that opened to rooms and offices. I suspected it was the area we’d glimpsed when we sat on the roof talking to Tsawo and Angeline. Kayleen hung limp in my arms, as much a rag doll as a human. Her face was completely white, her eyes closed, her head lolling so I held her the way one holds a baby, supporting her neck. Her feet banged against my thighs. Sasha trailed behind, whining softly.