Winter Sparrow (14 page)

Mary let go of the snapshots of her past. She didn’t want to war with them anymore.

Gently, she dragged Lucas’s hand off her chest and placed it beside her on the mattress, kissing it first. Stepping out of bed, she searched for her nightgown and put it on. She bent over to scratch an itch on her ankle, and when she did, she caught her reflection in the mirror on the other side of the room. She walked toward it, marveling at what she saw. A second hole had appeared in her back. A new opening that looked as though thin fingers, cartilage and tendons, were crawling out of it.

She whispered, “It’s a second wing.”

Mixed with the shock was gladness. A joy that had been planted at the root of her entire being. She flipped the hair away from the opening, and the flesh surrounding it squirmed. The wing was alive. With shut eyes, she envisioned it, along with its counterpart, reaching out and expanding. In seconds, each wing fluttered out in a fantastic way. Exposed. Free. Once unfurled, her wings eclipsed any artificial light in the room, encompassing her in the shade of their splendor. 

Neither wing appeared sickly. Both possessed full feathers and an undeniable, majestic color that she swore did not even exist in the spectrum. Mary wanted to wake Lucas. But she didn’t. Instead, she concentrated the muscles in her back, and with gritted teeth she drew the wings once more into place inside her body. The feeling was peculiar but also pleasurable.

Again, she tried to extend them. And again, the wings spread out, unraveling the air behind her. There was a sudden
whoosh
and then no sound at all. How seamlessly and rapidly the extension of these muscles, these organs, whatever they were, occurred. Perhaps even more remarkable was the fact that such a thing happened at all. What made a human being suddenly develop wings?

“It doesn’t matter how it happened. They’re incredible. They’re strong. Beautiful.” That was the way Lucas described them when he touched the opening last night as the warm water from the shower head splashed against their faces and the union of their bodies.
Beautiful.
Like wonder. Like angels.

She shut the wings up a second time, barely capable of holding in her excitement. Like tasting a piece of fresh fruit for the first time. She felt whole and complete.

As she turned around to walk toward the bed where Lucas still slept, she felt a swelling in her forehead. It came upon her at once. But she ignored it as nothing more than startled nerves.

Mary painted for the next few hours on the balcony outside their bedroom. She wondered if Lucas would ever wake. Perhaps he was still bound by a dream. A dream, she imagined, similar to the one she painted. It had a magical, breathtaking color to it. With trees and flowers. She gazed at the trees as they swayed. She imagined them with powers. She didn’t recall where this idea came from or why, but it lingered.
The trees have power. The woods have power.

Mary included a grand garden in the piece. This garden could be more real than any one on earth. It wouldn’t die. It couldn’t wilt or hurt. She dipped the brush into a pale blue and began adding shades to the sky. With every stroke, she imagined getting lost inside the image, like Lucas in his dream. She was safe in her created, cloudless heaven, protected by its color and warmth. 

It was almost complete.

A few of the flowers needed another splash of vibrancy in their petals. And the garden’s front gate could use an angel or two to shelter the flowers. She added the heavenly beings more out of superstition than because she believed they possessed any real power.

The painting looked so real by the time she was done that she half expected herself to touch it and be sucked into its landscape. But when she blinked, Mary realized how silly the thought was.

To her surprise, she then started sweating. That feeling from earlier had returned. With the back of her hand, Mary rubbed her forehead and cheeks, forgetting her hand still had some paint on it. She probably looked like a clown now. What she felt like, however, was a clown with a fever. But it couldn’t be a fever, could it?

Mary got out of her chair and stepped away from the canvas. She blinked, and the scene before her suddenly started to blur. She tried to swallow but couldn’t. She turned toward the bed. Lucas wasn’t there. She turned back to look at the afternoon sky, but it wasn’t there. Instead, there was only darkness. It had changed in a split second. But how was that possible? Day didn’t just become night. Clouds didn’t suddenly disappear and become stars, did they?

The heat from her forehead moved toward her belly, making her think she might vomit. But it wasn’t vomit; it was blood staining her shirt. Scarlet blotches soaked into the material at the center of her, ruining the pure fabric. Mary gasped. What was happening to her? With every breath, the magic faded more. She took another step toward the bed. “Lucas? Lucas!” she called out in a panic.

Where was he?

Mary was afraid. She had to know what was wrong. Her memory was a twisted metal cage filled with jagged edges and no center. “Lucas! Where are you?” She took another step, and her vision flashed white then black. Then blurry once more. The bed seemed so far away. So very far away. Before the sound in her eardrums cut out, Lucas’s faint breaths invaded the room.

He spoke her name as she collapsed on the floor.

“Lucas,” she gasped. “Lu…cas.”

Through the blur, she saw him drop down on his knees, placing his hands beneath her head. She could make out slightly how he kissed her forehead as he held her. But when he looked into her eyes, she saw someone else—a man with a hat and an unsettling grin. The clothes Lucas had on had changed. He now wore a tattered shirt and a long trench coat that snaked around her legs. A lengthy, chipped nail dragged across her lips.

“Lucas?”

“Yes, my Mary,” she heard him say, the sounds muffled. “What is it?”

“Something’s wrong. I don’t feel right.” She dabbed her stomach. The smell of copper clouded her nostrils. “My baby. I lost my baby.” A tear slipped from her eye as she said it. “I lost…Help me. Please, won’t you help me? I can’t remember it all. I want to remember.” An image of the night of the accident stormed her mind. She had fallen. She was sinking in the mud and rain. He was there to witness the fall. Lucas Fisher, the drifter who had touched her and healed her.

He laughed a breathy laugh. “Forget, my sweet. Forget! Don’t you see? I
have
helped you. I gave you a gift. The transformation took some time, but finally you accepted it. The pain will stay with you for a little while. It will feel like torture, but that’ll go away…in time.”

“You did this to me? But how?”

“There is power in these woods, Mary. Unimaginable, unfathomable power.” He paused, eyes slanted. “I control these woods. My power exists in the trees, in the air, all around us. So much of this world can’t see it, can’t know it. But
you
can. You experienced it the night you fell, didn’t you? Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”

She swallowed hard.

“I set you free, baby.”

Mary shook her head. She shut her eyes. Joshua was there in her mind, painting the walls of his mansion. She opened her eyes to Lucas’s haunting grin. She shut them again, and Joshua put the finishing touches on a family room. Their children would play there. They’d be happy. Her lids peeled back again, and this time, Lucas’s shadow grew and dripped over her. In that moment, she could not be sure if it was the light playing tricks on her or if what she saw—Lucas looming over her in a new bat form with torn, mutilated wings and fangs that dripped red—was real.

“What are you?” she asked, her hands slick with sweat. She tried to crawl away from the creature, to draw closer to the mirror so she could see him for real, if her eyes didn’t spite her.

“I am your beloved. And you are mine now. Don’t squirm. You’ll only make it worse.”

“I thought you were—”

“What? You thought I was what?” he growled. “Your savior?” He cackled. “I saw something in you that I liked. I always liked you, Mary. But he wanted you too.”

“Joshua?”

“Yes,” he said with a snarl, his hot breath consuming the air around her face.

“He does exist.”

“Over the years, you’d think of that wretched fool, cry for him. So I let you out to see if a hurt, broken thing like you could ever find her way back. I did what I never allowed the others to do. I let you roam the woods. I let you experience that precious love lost, and it worked, you see. You always came running back. I can’t explain our connection exactly. But it’s real, I can promise you that. Our romance is more real than anything that pathetic man ever gave you.”

Her eyes were heavy. Confusion clouded her consciousness. Mary felt hate crawl up her gut. “You deceived me. You
are
a monster!”

“Am I? I gave you your heart’s desire. You wanted wings. You wanted real love. I am lord of these woods. I am all you need.”

She crawled, scratched at the floor with her nails.
Get away from me
, she thought.

“My true form frightens you, doesn’t it? Well, soon you will come to know me and my form. Like your art. Like poetry. Our souls have intertwined.” His shadow engulfed her body. “You’re changing too, Mary. Even now, I can see your form becoming more. The change is taking over.”

“Take it away, Lucas. Take it back! I don’t want it anymore.”

“That’s not how it works. I will not take it back. We are one now.”

With desperate hands, she pulled herself toward the mirror. Strength was leaving her. Her vision splintered and blurred even more. Sweat pooled under her drooping, blackened eyes. At once, the holes beneath her shoulder blades began to rip even more, the tears in the flesh expanding and stabbing down her spine. She cried out.

Lucas, the black bat in a trench coat, spoke again. “Joshua wanted you weak. He held you back! He imprisoned your true nature.”

“I hate you,” she said. “You…lied to me.” She caught the distorted reflection in the glass. Squinting, Mary saw the hideous bat hunch over her shuddering body, his large, scaly legs and gnarled claw feet crushing her. There was a crunching sound, and the wings crept out of her, slowly this time. It was strange; they were not like wings at all but more like limbs from an exhumed corpse. She no longer loved them.

“I never meant for this. I didn’t know.” The colors in her eyes reflected darkly in the mirror. And so did Lucas’s blood-red glare. His ugly snout unloosed a crippling slur.

“You don’t have to fight it this much. You are so beautiful, Mary. You were always beautiful to me. Here you will find your place among my brides.”

The door that led to the hallway suddenly opened, and three winged creatures slowly pulled their bodies closer. One of the creature’s ribcage was exposed, pieces chewed off like a vulture had picked at her flesh for several hours. The middle creature’s skin dripped lazily off her cheek bones. She looked old, with gray hair and black teeth. The last had enough strength to climb the wall and skulk closer. Mary heard her breathing, whispering in some language she didn’t know. This last bride frightened her the most. Long, black hair cascaded down scaly shoulders. A feather torn loose from one of her mutilated wings had been shred in certain parts. Ice-blue veins blistered a wrinkled forehead. Drool bled out of a gaping mouth, with fangs and a tongue that searched the air.

“She is one of us,” they all chanted together.

“Yes,” Lucas hissed.

“We…were pretty once too, weren’t we? Like this pretty one,” the creature on the wall asked.

“Be still, my sparrows.”

“Let us get her first, pretty, pretty please,” the one with the exposed ribcage begged. Her protruding bones scraped against the floor, creating an eerie, tempting sound.

“No,” Lucas said. “She is mine. She is…special.”

The brides shrieked, flapping their wings in protest. “Give her to us! We have not fed in so long. Must you be so cruel?”

Lucas clutched the weakest by the neck and squeezed her throat until her eyes started to pulsate. Mary feared what might happen to her if she continued to question Lucas’s plans.

At once, she felt the ground tremble. Her ears took in the vibrations in the floorboards. Footsteps. Dragging bodies. Flapping wings. It was so loud in the mansion now. She could only surmise that more of these grotesque beings were coming.  How many more? She didn’t know. Had they always been here, invisible to her?

Lucas dropped the dead bride from his grip. Her body squirmed some, her wing stuttered on the floor, but in seconds she died. The others ate her flesh.

The sound was closer now. Mary’s breaths grew shorter and more desperate. She had to get out. One of the creatures clawed at her ankle. Her fingernail was a rusty talon scratching at flesh that already began to turn.
What will
I
become?
Mary wondered.

“Mary…Mary,” the two creatures moaned in unison, their jaws satiated for the moment. But she knew they wanted her too.

Closer. Closer. The noise. The footsteps shook the floors, the walls, the ceilings. She imagined all the creatures attacking her, clawing at her until there was nothing left but
her
ribs,
her
rusty, misshapen claws.