“Isn’t there an easier way of doing this,” he groaned, standing and walking through the feathers. They stuck to his feet and ankles, thinning into his skin and raising his energy level.
Daniel needed all the feathers back into his body because it was the product of him and his energy, and energy wasn’t easy to come by, especially not in the measure that Daniel used. But he was nearing the age of full ability, and full potential, yet every morning he displayed signs that he still wasn’t maturing, and that he still didn’t have full control over his abilities.
He hunched his back and arched his shoulders as the peak struck; numbing his fingers to a tingle. He ruffled his hands through his shaggy black hair and stretched to his tiptoes as he yawned. He bent down to pick up another white t-shirt from his open drawer and slipped into it, pushing the drawer shut with his foot. “Can’t go wrong,” he said pulling at the bottom of his t-shirt to straighten the kinks.
Daniel stepped down the stairs slowly, a hand trailing the cool rock face which the house had been built into. Before he took the last step into the living room, he paused for a second while another fragment of his dream toured his mind. It had happened in the living room, and again, briefly. He shook himself out of it and glared straight ahead at a dark grey overcoat hung on a peg beside the front door. He glanced from that to a man sitting in his father’s chair. He frowned and looked the man up and down; he was wearing a black pinstripe suit, and with his right hand, he'd placed it on the tip of a black onyx walking aide. Daniel smirked, thinking
sure enough he’s from the Upperlands
.
“Where’s dad?” Daniel asked.
His mother walked in from the kitchen with a hand on her hip. “Oh, thought you’d have at least changed out of your pyjamas. This is Reu- Mr Reuben Croft.” She tilted her head to the man, “of the Croft Academy.”
Reuben stood and pulled at his pants to straighten them out. Daniel approached him and shook his hand. “Daniel Satoria?” Reuben asked and shook his hand harder while Daniel nodded.
“I’m fine you know, I already told my mum that I didn’t wanna go to school,” he said, and nodded to himself.
“Your mother thinks it’s in your best interests,” he said, “and I will be the judge of whether you’re Croft Academy material. Shall we begin?”
“But I don’t have adolescent power.”
His mother held a hand to interject. “He’s due to change anytime now, it’s been ten years already.”
Reuben nodded. “What can you do with the most skill?”
“I can grow wings like a seraph,” he said and saw the blank expression on Reuben’s face, he was unlike other people; after he’d told them their eyes would be full of wonderment. “I read a book about them once.”
“Oh really, and who told you that you could
pull
it off?”
“It’s just projecting an image in your head and then shifting.”
“You sound like you know
a lot
, do you read often?”
“Yes, yes, he reads all the time. My husband – his father works in a library,” she said. “Oh, and he’s good at shifting. Show him son.” She nudged Daniel with her elbow.
Reuben sighed. “If you’re going to join my academy, I’ll need a demonstration of
this
ability.” It was a common tone to use, considering every parent he visited bragged about the gifts of their child and how fitting they would be in his school, Daniel knew the tone too well.
He stared from Reuben to the excited expression on his mother’s face, he felt both obliged and compelled to do right by her choice of inviting the owner of the most prestigious school on the island, and to prove a point that he was good. “We’ll need to go outside then,” he said, and led them out the front door.
There are three regions on Templar Island, the Lowerlands, closest to the sea, the Upperlands, closest to the sky, and the Centrelands, well Daniel lived in the Centrelands, on the 3rd Tier, that closest to the Lowerlands. There are three tiers of the Centrelands, each built from dropping cliff faces with houses built inside and the tiniest landing ledges which could only account for the room to open a door. Daniel’s house had a huge ledge with tree, which you could say they were lucky to have, considering Daniel’s slopping landings.
Daniel stood in his dent; a usual landing spot. He has his back turning on his mother and Reuben. He took his t-shirt off and threw it to the ground behind him.
“Daniel, honey,” his mother said. He turned around; Reuben stood shading his eyes from the sun, while his mother swayed with a grin on her face. “Do me proud.”
Daniel nodded to his mother and smiled. He turned and puffed out his chest. He rolled his head on his shoulders until the quietest crack coiled inside him. He then arched his back. The air stopped in his lungs and his face turned red. He pushed himself up to his tiptoes and then fell to his knees with a crunch, the bones in his spine shot up out of his back, leaving two clean lacerations.
Using energy which he didn’t have wasn’t his strongest suit. He whispered to himself, “in through the nose, out through the mouth,” whilst gritting his teeth together to keep composure. And with the thought of his nightmare he couldn’t help picturing his skin as the bone cut through it to resemble his clothes ripping at the seams and being stretched. He sucked it up in a deep breath, and stood with the look of ferocity in his strained face. His spine glittered with sweat as he shivered again and in the same instance ashy white feathers defined the bones on his back as wings.
“Can you use them?” Reuben asked.
Daniel grinned, it wasn’t everyday he could show off in front of someone as renown as Reuben Croft. “Of course,” he said, and Reuben tilted his head at him to take the stage and
perform
. Daniel smiled as he envisaged Reuben tipping a fancy top hat his way.
He felt his wings go limp on his back. He flexed his shoulders and then led his wings to curl inside and create two neat rolls, like wringing a wet rag out, he paused at the peak of the twist. Reuben watched, waiting to be impressed while Daniel’s mother chewed on a fingernail. His wings spread and enveloped the morning sun, painting a giant shadow over his mother and Reuben.
Reuben raised an eyebrow while pulling his sun-guarding hand away from his eyes. Daniel had never put on a ‘show’ before and if school didn’t work out for him, he could probably perform and act out as a seraph. With that in mind he jumped into the air, being caught by his wings he was thrust higher.
“He’s been doing that since his first shift,” Daniel’s mother said.
“It is impressive. Do you have records of your bloodline to hand?” he asked glaring into the shaded spots of the sky where Daniel was gaining height.
Daniel watched from fifty feet above, hovering in a gentle flap of his wings. It became old quick, and he didn’t know how else to show him his power. He continued to keep the height above the ground, and glanced up the cliff faces trying to see beyond Tier One; the land, the air, the people, the schools.
Without stopping, his wings flapped hard against the air, blurring into shadows on the ground. First blood broke; it coated his feathers like an infection, and each feather touched, started to free fall and dot the ground.
“Are you okay up there?” Reuben asked.
Daniel wriggled in the sky under the reign of his tempered wings, convulsing his body as if to tear them from him. His mother held a hand to her mouth as she gasped and told herself that it was a stunt. A drop of blood touched the grey slate ledge, and the moments went by in slow motion as his mother looked from that to her son whose wings were now flapping hard against each other. His left wing flopped to his side and swung on a ligament, becoming loose and flying off over into the forestry of the Lowerlands. The soft sound of its crash against the branches brought Daniel back to the searing pain on his back as he spun around in circles.
“Daniel,” his mother said.
He dropped, the remaining wing batted against the up thrust as he fell from the sky. He landed on his knees with a thud and several snaps from his body; he let out a small cry before falling quiet.
“Daniel!” His mother rushed over to him and knelt by his side. Her hand hovered above the large fleshy cut on his back showing the muscle tissue beneath it. She sniffled and wiped her eyes on her blouse. “Hush,” she said, and bit her tongue, she couldn’t feel anything from him, he wasn’t healing, he would’ve started already. “Hush, baby,” she said, stroking his hair.
“This seems to be a sign that his power wants to kick in, it’s a shame that blood must be shed for it to happen,” Reuben said. “His death is more likely.”
“Can you help?” she whimpered.
“I cannot intervene, and neither can you.”
“He said he’ll know how to handle
this
change.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on her arm.
“If he pulls through, he’s accepted, but if he dies, then my condolences.”
“You- You- You’re not staying?”
“No, Mrs Satoria, I have two more boys to see in the local area,” he said, materialising his coat over his arms. “I do wish you the best of luck.”
“What – should – I – do?” she asked, her breaths now hooked at the back of her throat. “What should I do?”
“Be there for him. Everyone has their purposes – some are born twice to live, while others are being sacrificed for the first lot.” He shrugged his shoulders and gave a crooked smile. “Adieu,” he said before tipping his head at Daniel’s mother and disappearing.
She burrowed her head in her arms and burst out into a sob. The wound on her son’s back had started to bleed and coat his skin, even the smallest of cuts and grazes started to open up and bleed out into the dent he’d landed in. She shook her head and covered her eyes, taking one peek through the space of her fingers, she couldn’t stop looking. The wing on his back propped up like a white flag, rotting at the tip; the feathers dropped from the bone, and the bone crumbled over his sallow skin.
“Do this,” she said, and wiped her eyes again. She combed a hand through her hair and tied it back into a ponytail. “You can do this.” She inhaled, and then sighed, wiping all the tears out of her eyes.
“I can help,” she choked, and picked up her son’s t-shirt. She wrapped it around her hand and held it above the wound on his back, cooing as she dabbed at it softly. “It’s going to be fine. Everything will be fine. You’ll go to school and live in the Upperlands, everything will be better.”
“Mum,” he said, his voice weighed down with phlegm. “We win?”
She sniffled and her eyes started to well. “Yes son,
you
won.”
“It h—hurt.”
She opened her mouth to say something back and instead smiled. She rubbed the back of her hand against his arm and felt the goose pimples layer his skin. “No.” If her memory served her well, which it did, she knew that she wasn’t to alert him. She closed her eyes and firmly placed her hand on his arm, but there wasn’t enough will in her blood to teleport them both. Her hands shook as she plied them from him. “It’s already in motion,” she whispered.
She clambered backwards to her feet and pulled her son’s blood stained t-shirt from her hand. “Eric” she said and sniffled, looking out over the canopy of trees in the Lowerlands. “Eric!” she shouted, throwing the t-shirt.
She looked down at her son and the small black bugs that had started to fly around him. She rushed inside and scrambled up the staircase to her bedroom. As soon as she reached the room she pulled at things with her energy; the drawers in her dresser flew across the floor, and the doors of the wardrobe swung on their hinges. She pulled at everything until she found a small blue suitcase and took it to the side of her son. She wafted the bugs away with the back of her hand and unzipped the case.
“It’s going to be fine, sweetie,” she said, combing a hand through his hair. “I can patch you up, ease the pain and speed the healing.” She glanced inside the case; full of bandages, vials of liquid, and needles. It also carried the memories of lives she had saved with it.
“Is this – is this a – a dream?” he asked.
“You fell and hurt yourself, honey. I’m helping,” she said and wiped her eyes again.
She wriggled a hand into a white glove and picked up a needle. With her other hand she sparked flames and sterilised the metal until it started to glow, she then collapsed the fire in her palm and picked a vial of heavy sedative from her collection. She filled the needle with it and let it hover beside her while she tugged Daniel’s arm free from his side. He groaned at the pain, and she hushed him gently, as she tapped his wrist thrice. She found a vein and plucked the needle from the air, rubbing his skin before she injected her him.
“It’ll all be over when you wake.”
Chapter Two
Daniel woke to his mother blotting his forehead with a warm cloth. He blinked at the dust and sleep in his eyes before seeing the silhouette of his parents above him. While he continued to blink, the dim orange glow of the candle light upon his parents’ faces came into focus. He tried to raise his hands to his eyes to rub away the irritation and woke something else. He winced inside his duvet as the pain of a thousand splinters breaking off into his skin shuddered through him.
“He’ll be okay,” his mother said cresting a smile.
“Thanks to you,” his father said.
“Well, it’s a gift.” She grinned. “Do you remember when we met?”
“Yeah, all I went to you for was a bug bite.”
She smiled and looked into his eyes. “You know I lied about how fatal it was. I just wanted to see more of you.”
“I’m glad you lied to me, even though for about a week I thought I was going to die.”
She grinned and then bit her lip.
“Did you really?” he asked.
She nodded, and then dipped to Daniel’s side, taking the cloth from his forehead and rinsing it in the bowl on the bedside table. “My mother told me that one day I’d know, and it was then.” She wrung the cloth out and patted it back on Daniel’s forehead. “I shouldn’t have pushed him, Erik.”
“We can teach him here, Jac can teach him stuff. He’s still
ours
. Do we have to give that up?”