Dancing With Monsters

by M.M. Gavillet

  Chapter Fourteen

  April

  I had wings protruding from my back like the kind you find in the Halloween costume section in a store-except mine were real. I couldn't see them very well, but from what I strained my neck to see, they weren't really a color, but glowed in a yellowish light. Eveie seemed pleased as if she had been waiting for this for a long time. I sat outside of Eveie's fairytale-style cottage and looked at the landscape surrounding me.

  Just a few weeks ago, all I wanted was to leave Sunrise Acres and my life there with it, and hopefully have a normal life. All I've done is escape from foster homes, institutions, and the darkness that followed me like a shadow.

  "Keep fluttering them or they'll get stiff." Eveie said, coming out of the house and into the sunshine that she smiled up at. "It's a beautiful day, and I'm not saying for what finally happened, but the weather is really nice-almost like it is celebrating with us."

  I closed my eyes trying to let everything soak in. I should be running around half-crazed at what has just happened. I mean, how was I to wear clothing and take a bath, or do I just flutter around in some birdbath somewhere that Eveie has probably got around here somewhere? I felt I couldn't think anymore-I wanted to run away. That's what I've been doing my whole life-running away and always searching for that safe paradise over the next hill that was just out of reach. But I've reached that hill, and I was in paradise. Only paradise wasn't what I expected, or was it? I knew and felt I was always different, but not this different.

  "You look like you are thinking about something deeply." Eveie sat next to me, watching.

  I looked at her. She was the darkness that followed me, saved my mother from death, and feared thinking one day I'd conquer that shadow that followed me and finally be free. The darkness that haunted me as a child wasn't evil in the end, but held the answers to questions I didn't know I had.

  "What about my father? Who was he?" I finally asked.

  Eveie took in a deep breath, and gazed out at the sunlit scenery. "He's Fae and lives here on The Isle of Stars."

  My heart skipped a beat. "Here?" I said, standing up pointing towards the ground. "You said he died, and never got the chance to see me."

  Eveie gazed at me with her blue eyes surrounded with the silver scales that caught the light. "His name is Eldon, and his lives in Braithwaine in the east. And as far as what I said before, it was a lie to protect you," she said without emotion as if she was reading it from a book or letter.

  "April," she said my name as I turned away. "We are safe here, and protected. As long as we live quietly here, nothing will bother us."

  I swung around just as she tried to reach for me. I gazed into her eyes, now filled with nothing but tenderness. "I want to go and see him."

  "He is the crowned prince of The Isle of Stars; we can't just go and see him." She pushed my hair back, and for some reason, I let her do such a motherly thing to me. "When he met your mother, he had no intentions of being with her and caring about her. The Fae are that way-they leave the ones they touch suffering in a sick love that nothing can cure. I'm sure Eldon had no intentions of you even being born as they can control that, but your mother really did want you and so do I."

  I sat dangling my feet letting them skid across the grass-covered stone as my thoughts melted together. How can this have even happened and when was I going to wake up? I had wings for goodness sake!

  "April?" Malachi said, standing in the doorway.

  I turned around with my heart jumping into my chest as I tried to fold my wings behind me to hide them. But all they did was awkwardly flutter. Malachi and I looked at each other, and I didn't know how to explain this to him.

  I felt like running into the green hills until I knew no one could see me. I still felt this was a dream, and I would wake up at Sunrise Acres. Part of me wanted to run, and the other wanted to stay here staring into Malachi's confused, blue eyes. But I knew that wouldn't happen, and running away never did solve many problems. Knowing I should feel scared, I didn't have an ounce of fear in me. As I gazed at Malachi, something clicked like a switch inside of me. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was finally complete and had reached the point that I was supposed to be at.

  "Yes, I have wings." I stated the obvious. "Eveie," I looked at her for a moment, "had them sprout out of my back and I'm not just a monster." I stepped closer to Malachi. "I'm a Fae-monster-demon-bit girl with wings."

  Malachi shifted his eyes from me to Eveie as a sour looked filled his face.

  "She did this to you?" He asked with slight disgust.

  For a split second, I felt he found me suddenly mutilated rather than beautified.

  "No, she didn't. They were already there waiting to come out." I placed my hand in his. "My father is a Fae, but doesn't know about me. Eveie brought me here, and has protected me my whole life. She saved my mother from death by doing a Taking. She risked protecting me even though her sisters didn't want her to. She risked everything to bring me to this point." I gently touched the bruise on his neck. "And she healed you otherwise you'd be dead by now."

  Malachi quickly glanced at Eveie who stood away from us, but close enough to hear our conversation-just like she had all my life-looming in shadow protectively watching.

  "I'm free of my sisters, Malachi," Eveie said, stepping beside me. "I'm free to make my own decisions and put into action what I want."

  "And what is that?" Malachi's voice was laced with suspicion. "You're still demon."

  Eveie, for a moment, had a hurt expression flash over her face, but faded with a smile. "You don't understand all demons, Malachi. Ebony thought the same as me, this I know, because I have her power, we both want demons to be not known for the evil they can spread, but gain the trust of the angels as we once did. For too long we have been judged by the actions of just a few. I intend to start anew and prove my alliance with the archangels."

  Eveie looked like a newly opened flower-all white and pure without the weathering of the elements to age her. "You are both young, and haven't lived enough to see the things we have witnessed from the shadows unable to help or correct as they happened. Our bodies were confined along with our spirts in the darkness to have learned much, but unable to act." She switched her blue eyes from me and then back to Malachi as she placed her hands on each of our shoulders. "Not all angels are pure of heart, not all monsters should be feared, and not all demons are evil."