Uncle Thomas attached the tether to a khaki vest around Matthew’s chest and waist. The other end was strung around a thick
oak that sat high on the side of the mountain. This was as good as it was going to get. The trap for Max was set.
Thomas checked the tether to make sure it was secure. He had grown up on farms and ranches. He knew about animals and birds,
how to treat them.
“Go ahead and fly. You have my permission. You also have my permission to call out for your sister. Now, fly! Go and fly,
Matthew.”
Matthew did as he was told. He couldn’t wait to get off the ground. With a sudden flourish he unfurled his wings. He ran as
fast as he could away from the big oak until he figured he had enough speed for liftoff.
He flapped his wings hard and they appeared to unhinge. Then Matthew was airborne. He banked in a slow circle, drifting down
a lazy vortex toward the rising sun.
He felt so free that for a few breathtaking seconds he almost forgot what he was doing, why he was up here.
But then he heard Uncle Thomas from his hiding place below. He hadn’t believed a word that had come out of Thomas’s mouth.
He and the other guards were down there with rifles. They were a firing squad. They were killers, and they were going to shoot
Max down as soon as she appeared.
“You call for her! I don’t hear you yet, Matthew!”
Matthew flew out as far away as he could from Thomas and his taunting voice and the sturdy tree he was bound to.
He was thinking
:Can you see me, Max? Are you watching me fly? Are you nearby?
Matthew finally began to yell at the top of his lungs. “Max! Max! Max! Can you hear me?” he called. “Can you?”
And then Matthew raised the volume. He knew what he had to do to save Max. He began to screech even louder.
“Stay away. Stay far away from me. Max! It’s a trap! It’s Uncle Thomas and the others. Get away from here, Max! They have
guns.”
M
AX WAS NOWHERE NEAR THE PLACE where her little brother was shouting his warnings. Another morning had broken. She’d made it
through the night without being caught or torn into bite-sized pieces and eaten by a bear or a mountain cat.
She had a big breakfast and then played the CD-ROM game Tomb Raider II. She
loved
Lara Croft, the game’s heroine. She wanted to be Lara Croft.
She left the safe house where she was hiding at around seven-thirty in the morning. She wanted to explore.
Max peered through the interlaced branches and leaves of a bush covered with plump, ripe blueberries. She saw something that
interested and terrified her at the same time. Her eyes blinked fast and hard a couple of times. Her pulse was racing just
about off the charts.
She stared through the berry bushes at two little kids. They seemed a lot like her. Like her and Matthew, actually. The kids
were obviously out on an early-morning walkabout in the woods, too. Had they already spotted her?
The girl was dressed in blue-jeaned overalls, a Red Dirt T-shirt, high-top sneakers. It was a pretty cool outfit. Her red
hair was half caught in a purple scrunchie; the rest of it curled around her face. She was picking berries that matched the
color of her funky nail polish.
The boy was probably four or five and reminded her of Matthew when he was that little. He was banging a rhythmic beat on an
aluminum pail with a stick, singing a song Max had never heard before.
A-rumpty-rump-dump.
A-rumpty-rump-dump.
Max’s skin rippled. Her inner voice urged her to fly away, but she was stuck. She had to stay there. Anyway, she wanted to
talk up a storm to the kids. She desperately, desperately needed help, and she had secrets to share. God, did she have
huge
secrets to tell. What would Lara Croft do at a time like this?
A-rumpty-rump-dump.
She was definitely scared, but what was she afraid of, she wondered. She was bigger than either of them. She was a whole lot
stronger. No contest there. She had special gifts, and she was probably smarter, too. No big deal, but she was.
The little boy looked up from his pail drum and spotted her green eyes staring into his bright blue ones. He stumbled backward,
shouting, “Hey! I see you!
Hey!
Who are you? Hey!”
Max was so unnerved, she screamed, and the two children began screaming, too.
The girl recovered first. She grabbed her brother’s hand and gave it a good, strong jerk.
“Stop it, Bailey,” she commanded. She kept her distance but didn’t back away farther. Her eyes were wide with fear. “Who are
you? This is
our
family’s property. It’s private property. Posted everywhere on the trees. You must have seen signs!”
The girl was probably around eight. She was huffing, puffing, and her face was beet-red, but she was putting up a brave big-sister
front.
Max was impressed. God, she ached to talk to these kids, to play some games with them. She just wanted to
talk
to somebody.
“Who
are
you?” the girl asked again.
That, Max thought, was a very good question. As she considered it, the girl continued to talk at her. Nervous pitter-patter,
which was okay with Max.
“I’m Elizabeth Ellers, all right. This is my little brother, Bailey. He’s five. I’m nine. Now, what are you doing out here?
Speak your piece.”
Little Bailey stared Max up and down, then he pulled away from Elizabeth and walked closer. He made a wide circle around Max.
Amused, she turned as he turned, trying to keep him from getting too good a look at her wings.
“What’s wrong with your arms?” He blubbered a few words.
Max hesitated. What would these little kids think of her wings? Did she dare? She wanted to. She really wanted to.
She shrugged her shoulders, locked her elbows into position. Then Max slowly extended her forearms and the joints unfolded.
Her feathers realigned with an enticing, whispering sound.
Bailey’s and Elizabeth’s blueberry-stained mouths dropped open—wide. Bailey
oohhed,
and popped his purple fingers into his mouth.
Max knew that her wings were quite beautiful. The primary feathers were arranged in tiers of snowy-white shafts; the barbs
of each shaft nestled tightly against the next, forming an airtight seal. The undersides of the wings were lined with smaller
secondary feathers, and her skin glowed through them. It was rosy-pink from freshly oxygenated blood.
Ooohh!
J
EEZ CARAMBA!” Bailey exclaimed. Whatever was that supposed to mean?
Jeez caramba? Cheese caramba?
Was that the was kids talked around here in the Colorado boonies? Guess so.
Jeez caramba? Okay, fine then.
Max extended her index fingers, forcing her wings out to their fullest length. Her wingspan was nearly half again as wide
as she was tall.
“Ooohh!”
Bailey shrank back toward his sister. His blue eyes were bigger than ever. He was actually a little cutie, though.
“Are they real?” Elizabeth Ellers finally got up the nerve to speak again. “They look like it.”
Max grinned. She knew she was trying to get the other kids to like her. “Of course they’re real.”
“Do it,” Bailey whispered. “
Please
do it. Fly for us.”
Elizabeth held Max’s eyes. She whispered, too, as if this were an outdoor church or something. “We won’t tell anybody. We
promise.”
The small boy nodded solemnly. Up and down, up and down, and then sideways. He made a hurried sign of the cross where his
heart was. “Cross my heart and hope to die. Cross both our hearts. Please. Do it. Just do it.”
“If I do, you can’t tell. It’s just between us,” Max said. “And
never
cross your heart and hope to die. It could happen.”
“We won’t tell,” the boy said.
“If you do, I’ll come get you.”
“Are you a vampire or something?” Bailey asked. He looked nervous and afraid again. His eyes crossed.
“Yeah, I’m a vampire.
No,
I’m not a vampire. Are you a little midget Martian? Are you from
Mars?
”
Elizabeth finally laughed out loud and Max could have hugged her. “You got that right. He’s definitely from Mars. What’s your
name?”
“Oh…
Tinkerbell.
”
They all shared a pretty good laugh. She wanted to show off, but she also wanted to share something about herself. She loved
to share, actually. She had always been a good girl, thoughtful, kind to others. She believed that sharing was essential to
a good life. There was one absolutely true thing she’d learned at the School: what goes around comes around.
Max saw that the path ahead of her was flat and free of rocks and roots. She started to run.
It only took four or five steps before the air seemed to split around the thick leading edges of her wings. The air currents
lifted her, raised her aloft.
“Jeez caramba!” she yelled, wondering if the kids got the humor?
She flew straight up—then dived at Bailey and Elizabeth. Instinctively they ducked, and Max laughed hysterically. She loved
to play with other kids. Loved it more than anything.
And she desperately, desperately wanted to tell them the secrets. Except if she did, they would be in danger, too. Cross their
hearts and hope to die.
Max beat her wings up and down, up and down. She was free-floating now! She circled overhead, tracing the outline of a cloud.
Softly banked left, then right.
Down below, Elizabeth and Bailey Ellers watched in stunned silence. They held both hands out over their eyes, staring up intently
without blinking.
Soon the kids were very small below her, but she could see their upturned faces, their O-shaped mouths perfectly. Max knew
they couldn’t help. They were too little; they were helpless themselves—helpless and clueless. Besides, she couldn’t bear
it if they got hurt because of her and what she knew.
She waved her hand “bye-bye.” Bailey and Elizabeth waved back.
“We won’t tell!” Bailey hollered. “Cross our—
nothing.
”
“Come back,” Elizabeth Ellers called. “We can be friends.”
Max missed them terribly, almost before they were out of sight. Bailey and Elizabeth. Nice kids. Good people. Maybe they could
have been friends if she could have hung around for a while.
And she missed Matthew of course. She missed her own little brother so much. It tore a huge, ragged hole in the center of
her chest.
As she soared high across the brightly golden meadowland that adjoined the woods, she felt achy and alone. Inside somewhere,
she knew she wasn’t meant to be alone.
She was just a little kid herself.
A-
rumpty-rump-dump.
A-
rumpty-rump-dump.
D
AVID’S ARMS were thrown limply over my shoulders, and I was dragging him through a desolate, bone-white desert that seemed
familiar. The sun was a big clock in the sky and the second hand was ticking off the seconds between life and death. I’d been
here before.
“Hurry, Frannie. Please,” David panted. He whispered hoarsely against my cheek. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you have to hurry.
We don’t have much time.”
I was tired, so tired from dragging David’s limp form, and yet I couldn’t put him down. “Hold on,” I said to David. “Please.”
I felt his warm sticky blood at the back of my neck and my hair bristled. Tears flowed down my cheeks.
“I’m here,” he said. “I’ll always be here for you.”
His feet dragged in the sand. He was so heavy. I adjusted my grip, but didn’t stop moving forward. My arm muscles were incredibly
sore and weary. I could feel his heartbeat against my back, but it was faint, almost gone.
As he always did, David began to tell me stories about our marriage. Joyful, happy stories that only reminded me about how
full our life had been. Two successful practices; serious talk about having a child, maybe two or three kids if we were lucky.
“We should have had kids, Frannie. We shouldn’t have waited.”
“Don’t,” I said. “Please don’t, David. I don’t want to hear this.”
But he wouldn’t stop. “Remember our fifth anniversary? We stayed at that perfect little inn in Vermont, you know the one.
Made love all day, Frannie. Had breakfast, lunch, and dinner in bed,” he said.
“Of course I remember, David. I’ll never forget Vermont.” He started to hum. It was the lovely, haunting theme from
A Man and a Woman.
He’d adored that movie. I had, too. We’d seen it five or six times. I stopped walking suddenly.
“Are we there?” David asked.
I looked into the distance. I saw only the glare and shimmering heat of the endless desert.
“Yes,” I said. “We’re here.”
I let David down from my back and tenderly laid him out under the sun. I stretched his strong arms straight out to the sides.
His hands and feet were bleeding; so was the gaping bullet wound near his heart.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” David said. “I’m so sorry, Frannie.” I didn’t understand what he was saying, why he was sorry,
but I nodded as if I did.
I took off all of my clothes and made the softest possible pillow of them. I tucked the pillow of clothes gently under his
head. It was the single most heartbreaking thing I have ever done.
“Thank you,” said David. He looked at me with clear, loving eyes. “I knew you wouldn’t let me die.”
Then David died again—just the way he always did, every single morning.
The alarm on my windowsill went off. I awoke from the disturbing dream. It seemed so real, but of course David had died in
a parking lot in Boulder, not in some mysterious desert.
I opened my eyes in my tiny bedroom at the animal hospital. My bare arms were stretched back and holding on to the headboard
above me. My eyes were teary, my cheeks wet. My chest ached, as if I’d been struck with a hammer. I remembered that not so
long ago I’d had a good life. There had been someone I loved, and who loved me.