Chapter 9

The man whipped around, to see Wolfe stumble as she tried to land on her feet. She almost seemed to forget that she was injured as she tried to stand on both feet. She hit her wing on a trunk, thus spinning her around, into the arms of the stranger in front of me.

      “Wolfe, are you okay?” the man and I almost shouted at the same time. Then he continued. “What happened to your leg?” He sounded sincerely concerned like he knew her. In that second of concern I decided I could trust him. The man set her down and she steadied herself.

      “Pastor Lightlance, am I glad to see you!” she exclaimed.

      “Please Wolfe, just call me Grey. Is this your friend here? She tried to skewer me with that dagger that she has.” He smiled taking the sting off the last statement.

      “Oh sorry, please excuse Elsa, her reflexes are quite strong.” She shot a glare at me as if to reprimand me for simply being defensive and drawing my dagger on this ‘Grey’.

      “Hey, I was just following the path, and he snuck up on me and startled me.” I defended myself, sounding weak in the process.

      “You were the one hiding in the bushes, with weapons at the ready.” He countered.

      “Why don’t you all stop arguing in the woods!” came a woman’s voice, shouting from across the clearing. We all froze. Grey’s head sagged and he mumbled a sad ‘Come on’ as he marched towards the woman.

      “Wolfe, you need help?” she called, recognizing her shimmering wings in the sunlight. I guessed that she had noticed that Wolfe was limping.

      “I’m okay Miss Betty,” Wolfe called, Elsa’s got me.” I reached Wolfe just as she called to the woman. Drawing closer to say woman, I noticed that she was a fairly tall woman. She had curly blonde hair, naturally bleached by the sun. She also had ice blue eyes that seemed to be piercing my soul. A small memory struck me there, she was of Scandinavian heritage. She was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans that looked very natural on her.

      “What’s all the commotion out here?” called a younger voice. A head popped out of the cabin, and a body followed. A boy, around 14 came out of the cabin and stood next to his mother. “What are you girls?” he asked.

      “Coal! That is no way to talk to our guests!” exclaimed his mother. “Don’t mind him, he is always talking out of turn.” His mother apologized. I got a better look at the boy. He had golden hair, curly and shoulder length. Seeing him next to his mother, who I assumed was Miss Betty, he looked just like her. He had an athletic build, and looked like he used it to his advantage a lot.

      “I was just asking,” he defended himself.

      “That’s alright kid.” Muttered Wolfe. She was limping towards the woman that she called Miss Betty. “Miss Betty, this is Elsa Nightingale. I believe that she is from the Nightingale clan from her name and features, but we’re not certain. I found her outside of the village one night without her memory, and now we’re traveling to the monks of the Wing Corps.” Wolfe explained. Seeing the look on Miss Betty’s face, she explained our journey so far.

      “Well then, would you like some tea to take away the harshness of the journey?” Miss Betty asked.

      “Actually, we’d better get back to— “

      “We’d love some tea,” Wolfe interrupted as she shot me a look. “Lead the way.”

      We headed into the cabin, which was bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside. The two dogs came up to me, and the older one nudged the younger one as if to say ‘stay off the visitor’. Petting them both, the bumped me as well, as if to remind me that they needed petting.

      “You two are very sweet,” I said to them, rubbing their ears.

      “Yes, golden retrievers are very sweet and friendly. Very bad guard dogs.” said Miss Betty, overhearing my comment to the dogs. “The younger, redder one is Echo, and the lighter older one is Gracie. They sure seem to run and play, of course there is lots of room to do that around here in the middle of nowhere.” she chuckled at her own joke. “Wolfe, why did you come here?” she asked. “We’re pretty out of the way if you’re going to the monks.” Wolfe limped in using a crutch that she had found.

      “I hurt my leg, and I figured that you were the best one to come to.” she responded.

      “I don’t know much about how to treat human injuries like this, let alone yours, but if you want me to look at it, I’ll see what I can do.” she offered.

       “That would be great if you could,” Wolfe said as she sat down on the couch, “I guess that I’ll just sit here then.” she muttered to herself.

      “Do you need me?” I asked, not really wanting to stay, but offering anyway.

      “No, I think that we’re good.” replied Wolfe as Miss Betty removed the splint. “Why don’t you see what Coal is up to?”

      “Okay, I’ll do that,” I replied. I was so happy to get out of there that I nearly skipped out of the room.

      Leaving the cabin, I found a small almost mangled tree. Up at the top, there was a small black lump. Then it moved. I realized that it was Coal, climbing in it. I thought of a good prank, and snuck around to the back of the cabin, climbing up a nearby tree. Scrambling up, I rested at the top, the jumped, snapping open my wings instantaneously. The ground rushed towards me, then my wings caught the air and I soared skywards.

      Bursting through the canopy, I hovered, trying to make my wings as quiet as possible. I leaned forwards in the direction of Coal. The air tickled my skin, being surprisingly humid. When I was over him, I circled, perfecting my aim. I closed my wings, shooting straight down. When I was low enough, I caught a large branch across from Coal to stop my fall of doom.

      “Aghh!” he cried, and he almost fell off of his branch that he was sitting on.

      “Oh, man!” I laughed, pulling myself up on my limb. “You should have seen your face!” I nearly fell off my branch that I was on. “Totally the best prank ever.” I said catching my breath.

      “What…were you…thinking?” He gasped “I could have fallen!” he exclaimed.

      “But you didn’t,” I countered.

      “How did you even do that?” he asked bewildered. “I didn’t see anyone else up here when I climbed up here and plus, we’re in the top branches!”

      “News flash,” I said, “I’ve got wings. I flew up here from behind the little cabin in the woods.

      “Wait,” he said puzzled, “you can actually use those things?” he asked. Now I could see that he was really confused.

      “Yes, I can use these ‘things’ called wings.” I said, “Come on, let’s get down, I want to show you something.” I said as I easily dropped from my branch, making the whole tree sway. Coal chose to climb down, and that took up valuable time. “Hurry up, I don’t have all day.” I complained.

      “Hey, I’d break something if I tried to jump.” he tried to explain as he finally got to the ground.

      “Yeah, yeah, let’s go.” I urged, anxious about what I was planning in my head.

      “Alright, let’s go, by the way, where are we going?” he asked as if he was tired of waiting for answers, even though it hadn’t been that long at all.

      “I’ll give you one clue, up.” I said.

      “But we just got down from the tree.” he said.

      “Not up the tree again, silly.” I said as I threw him over my shoulder.

      “Hey, what’s going on? What are you doing?”

      “I said that we were going up.” I responded, almost laughing at my own joke. I spied a large stump, and charged over to it, Coal bouncing on my shoulder.  The stump drew nearer and I used longer strides, snapping my wings open. I placed one foot on the stump, sank so that my thigh nearly touched my ankle, and pushed. This time it was a lot harder to push off with Coal on my shoulder. I still managed, but just barely. To compensate for the extra weight, I pumped my wings hard when I was on the stump. Gaining altitude immediately, I hugged the boy tightly to keep him from falling. I felt the pressure of his hands between my wings, trying to stay on.

      “EEK, that’s cold and wet.” I heard Coal say. I guess that this was his first-time bursting through wet cold clouds. There was still a thick blanket of clouds above us that we had to burst through to get to where I wanted to go. I pumped my wings hard, creating a hole in the clouds as I burst through, the water flying off of us.

      The sun struck us hard, the warm rays helping to dry us off. We were enveloped in warmth and I hovered a moment so my wings could dry off more. Breathing hard, I shifted Coal, so that he could see well. Once between my wings, he gasped.

      “Is something wrong?” I asked.

      “No,” he responded, “It’s just so pretty.” I finally looked at the scene in front of me. The tops of all the clouds were laid out as far as we could see. They were all tipped in pink from the sun setting behind them. “So, cool,” Coal whispered as if to not disturb the silence of the beautiful sunset. I was low enough to the clouds that the draft from my wings stirred the tops, sending wisps of different colors swirling around us. “Do you want to see something really cool?” Coal asked moving a hand to rest against my wing.

      “Sure,” I said, not really thinking through what I had agreed to.

      “Then follow me,” he said, and he jumped off my back, diving into the clouds.