Chapter 12 Wings
Wings
I stare upward, mouth agape, as Posey’s purple wings become just a sparkling speck in the distance.
Oh my gosh. She did not just—
She did. She left me.
She gave me this whole speech and then left me!
Frustration and anger and shock start to surface.
I try to snuff it out. Posey looked hopeless when I first saw her. She looked defeated.
Somehow, something in me pulled strength out of her. And maybe… maybe I can let her strength become my own, too.
This world is ever-changing.
So am I (let’s hope).
I look up at the light above. I focus all my attention on it. I try to sprout wings, just as she did. I almost feel my feet lift.
But something weighs me down.
Has it… gotten darker down here? I look around, only to see that the shadows have lengthened.
Now that they don’t have Posey in their clutches… it seems like they’ve turned their attention to me.
No. I’m going to get out of this. I look up again.
And something blocks my vision.
A memory.
No—not just one. A flurry of them, like a wall of bats.
My worst moments, crashing into me.
I’m seven years old, and I’m yelling at Robin, You’re not my mom! when all she’s doing is trying to help me.
Her lips are parted in shock, eyes full of pure pain. “I know I’m not, Barbie,” she answers quietly. “Trust me, I wish she was here, too.”
Her look of devastation instantly melted my anger, back then. I never wanted to disappoint her again.
So I didn’t.
Next memory: my first and only stint in detention, thanks to one of Sunny’s pranks that went momentously wrong. It was innocuous enough, but when I saw Robin’s look of consternation and disappointment that evening, my heart sank.
She already had so much on her shoulders. I didn’t want to be a burden. Or more of one than I already was.
So I never got in trouble again.
Then… of course, I’m walking to the window on Boxing Day, Fateless.
The worst part is, Robin doesn’t even look concerned about my lack of Fate. No, she looks concerned about me.
And that’s worse.
She took me in. She told me I could live with her in the school; she always gave me a home.
And look at how I thanked her. By failing her, in the worst way, publicly.
Then going directly against her wishes and fleeing Heartland through the mists.
She looked devastated. Terrified.
It’s all my fault.
Everything is my—
I shake my head against these dark thoughts. This place is trying to bring out the worst in me, but I won’t let it. Robin loves me. She’ll understand why I had to finally take a risk.
And look where all this risk got you, a dark voice says, seemingly from the shadows. You failed. Again.
I swallow. No. I didn’t. I think about what the woman said. There’s always a way out—
Then leave, the shadows whisper. Go on.
And those shadows… they reach toward me, just as those trees in the forest did. I close my eyes, grip my necklaces, and try. I try to escape.
But I’m filled with such regret… such shame…
See. We knew you couldn’t do it. And look at you now.
I open my eyes and gasp. I can’t—I can’t see anything. Only darkness. The shadows have closed in completely. I look up…
And the sky is just an inky smudge beyond the pit. All the light has vanished.
Posey’s words are in my head. Light exists in even the darkest places. You just have to find it.
But there isn’t any left. And my soul… it feels heavy, as if drenched in sorrow. My skin feels cold. My pulse is slowing.
My knees buckle. My legs hit the sharp ground, but I barely feel it. No, I’m just filling to the brim with this debilitating hopelessness.
I could stay here forever.
Yes, stay… the shadows hiss.
I wouldn’t be Robin’s burden anymore.
She would be free of you, finally…
Tears prick my eyes. Robin deserves to be free, without a Fateless girl hanging around who isn’t even her real daughter…
She doesn’t want you. She never did.
I grimace. Maybe the shadows are right. Maybe Robin just felt obligated to take me in because of her friendship with my mom.
Stay here.
Where you belong.
I sink deeper into the ground.
Everything goes dark and quiet and still.
Until a laugh echoes from the depths of my mind, searing through the shadows.
Robin’s laugh as she catches up to me in the corridors.
The shadows start to hiss, but I can’t hear them. Not through the laughter.
Light exists in even the darkest places. You just have to find it.
I have light in me. It lives in my memories—the beautiful ones. I let those come to the surface, let them smother my worst moments, let them pour into me:
I’m running, giggling through Swancrest’s halls as a kid, being chased by Robin and her birds in a game of tag.
She always played with me. She smiled and laughed and—it doesn’t look forced. She wanted to play.
I was wanted.
I’m gasping, tears streaming down my face as I show Robin a skinned knee, and she picks me up and with a wave of her fingers, makes my knee whole and new.
I’m struggling with a math problem, throwing down my pencil in frustration, and then watching as that pencil becomes a dragonfly that flies to my nose and makes me smile. Then Robin sits next to me and says, “What do you say we try again?”
And all those numbers are peeling off and floating, and that’s how she explains the equations.
She turned darkness into light.
Always.
So can I.
I open my eyes, and the shadows scatter. My necklaces beam a pink so bright it cuts through all of them.
And from the back of my outfit bloom magnificent pink wings.
I look toward the opening, at the surface. Push off the ground.
And race up to meet it.