Wings

ELEVEN

LAUREL’S WHOLE BODY WAS SHAKING NOW. SHE FELT David’s arms, warm and heavy around her, and it seemed like she couldn’t feel anything else. He was a lifeline, and she wasn’t sure she could survive the next few seconds if he let go. “What am I supposed to do, David?”

“You don’t need to do anything.”

“You’re right,” she said in a despondent tone. “I just need to wait for the rest of my body to realize it’s dead.”

David pulled her close and stroked her hair. She clung to his shirt as tears overwhelmed her, and she struggled to draw breath.

“No,” David murmured close to her ear. “You’re not going to die.” His cheek rubbed against hers, rough with a sparse growth of stubble. The tip of his nose traveled the length of her face, and her tears halted as she focused on the feeling of his face touching hers. He was so warm against her skin, which was always cool. His lips brushed her forehead, and a tiny shiver went up her spine. His brow rested on hers, and her eyelids opened of their own accord, her thoughts lost in the ocean of blue in his eyes. He brushed his lips ever so softly against hers, and a wave of heat unlike anything she’d ever felt spread from her lips across her face.

When she didn’t move, he kissed her again, a little more confidently this time. In an instant, he became part of the storm that raged within her and her arms twined up around his neck, pulling him in closer, tighter, trying to draw that incredible warmth inside her. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours — time was meaningless as his warm body pressed against hers and that slow heat enveloped her.

When David pulled back almost violently and gasped for breath, reality invaded Laurel’s mind. What have I done?

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Ssshh.” Laurel pressed her fingers against his lips. “It’s okay.” She didn’t let go of him, and when she didn’t seem to protest, David hesitantly leaned in again.

At the last second, Laurel stopped him with a hand on his chest and shook her head. She took a deep breath then said, “I don’t know if what I feel is real or just me panicking or…” She paused. “I can’t do this, David. Not with everything else going on.”

He pulled away slowly and was quiet for a long time. “Then I’ll wait,” he said, barely audible.

Laurel picked up her backpack. “I should go,” she said uselessly.

David’s eyes followed her as she crossed the room.

She paused to look back once more before stepping through the doorway and pulling the door shut behind her.

In biology, Laurel selected her usual spot but didn’t get her books out. She sat with her back totally straight and strained her ears for the sound of David’s familiar step. Even so, she was startled when he plunked his backpack down on the table beside her. She made herself look up at him, but instead of the tense, wary face she was expecting, she found a broad smile and cheeks flushed with excitement. “I did some reading last night,” he said without greeting, “and I have some theories.”

Theories? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. In fact, something about the expression on his face made her fairly certain she didn’t want to know.

He flipped a book open and slid it in front of her.

“A Venus flytrap? You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl.” She tried to shove the book back over to him, but he put both hands on it and held it there.

“Just listen for a second. I’m not saying you’re a Venus flytrap. But read a little about its eating habits.”

“It’s carnivorous, David.”

“Technically yes, but read why.” His fingers flew over the paragraphs he had highlighted in bright green. “Flytraps grow best in poor soil — generally soil that has very little nitrogen. They eat flies because flies’ bodies carry a lot of nitrogen but no fat or cholesterol. It’s not about the meat; it’s about the kind of nutrients they need.” He turned to the next page. “Look here, it talks about what to feed a household Venus flytrap. It says a lot of people feed it little pieces of hamburger and steak because, like you said, they just think, ‘Hey, it’s carnivorous.’ But actually you can kill a flytrap by feeding it hamburger, because hamburger has a lot of fat and cholesterol and the plant can’t digest that.”

Laurel just stared in horror at the picture of the monstrous-looking plant and wondered how in the world David could think she was like it. “I’m not following,” she said flatly.

“The nutrients, Laurel. You don’t drink milk, do you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It makes me sick.”

“I bet it makes you sick because there’s fat and cholesterol in it. What do you drink?”

“Water, soda.” She paused, thinking. “The syrup in my mom’s canned peaches. That’s pretty much it.”

“Water and sugar. You ever put sugar in a vase of flowers to keep them alive? The flowers love it; they suck it right up.”

David’s explanation made way too much sense. Laurel’s head began to ache. “So why don’t I eat flies?” Laurel asked sarcastically as she rubbed her temples.

“Too small to do you any good, I imagine. But think about the things you do eat. Plain fruits and vegetables. Plants that have grown in the ground and sucked up all those nutrients through their roots. You eat them and get the same nutrients as if you had roots and could get them yourself.”

Laurel was quiet for several seconds as Mr. James began calling the class to order. “So you still think I’m a plant?” Laurel asked in a whisper.

“An incredibly evolved, highly advanced plant,” David replied. “But yes, a plant.”

“That sucks.”

“I don’t know,” David said with a grin. “I think it’s kind of cool.”

“You would; you’re the science geek. I’m the girl who just wants to get through gym class without being stared at.”

“Fine,” David persisted. “I’ll think it’s cool for the both of us.”

Laurel snorted and caught Mr. James’s attention.

“Laurel, David? Would you like to share the joke with the rest of the class?” he asked, one hand on his skinny hip.

“No, sir,” David said. “But thank you for asking.” The students around them laughed, but Mr. James didn’t look pleased. Laurel leaned back and grinned. David, one. Teacher who wishes he was as smart as David? Zero.

On Saturday, Laurel and David met at David’s house to “study.” David showed her an article he had found online about how plants absorb carbon dioxide through their leaves. “What about you?” he asked. She was sitting on his bed with her petals unwrapped and turned toward his western window where they could absorb the sunlight. It was just one of the many advantages of “studying” in David’s empty house after school nearly every day. David even made a valiant effort not to stare — though Laurel wasn’t sure whether he was stealing glances at her petals or her bare midriff.

Either way, she didn’t mind.

“Well, I don’t have leaves — except the little tiny ones under the petals. Yet,” she added cryptically.

“Not technically, but I think your skin probably counts.”

“Why? Is it looking a little green these days?” she asked, then clamped her mouth shut. The thought of turning green made her think of Tamani and his green hair. She didn’t want to think about him. It was too confusing. And it seemed unfair to think about him while she was with David. Disloyal, in a strange way. She saved those thoughts for nighttime, just as she was about to fall asleep.

“Not all leaves are green,” David rattled on, without noticing. “In most plants, the leaves are the largest outer surface, and on you that would be your skin. So maybe you absorb carbon dioxide through your skin.” He blushed. “You do like wearing tank tops even when it’s cold.”

Laurel stirred her Sprite with her straw. “Then why do I breathe? I do breathe, you know,” she said pointedly.

“But do you have to?”

“What do you mean do I have to? Of course I have to.”

“I don’t think you do. Not the way I have to, anyway. Or at least not as frequently. How long can you hold your breath?”

She shrugged. “Long enough.”

“Come on, you’ve been swimming — you must have some idea. A rough estimate,” he pressed, when she shook her head.

“I just come up when I’m done being underwater. I don’t go under a lot, anyway. Just to get my hair wet, so I don’t know.”

David grinned and pointed to his watch. “Shall we find out?”

Laurel eyed him for a few seconds, then pushed her soda away and leaned forward, poking David in the chest with a grin. “I’m tired of being experimented on. Let’s see how long you can hold your breath.”

“Fair enough, but you go next.”

“Deal.”

David took several deep breaths and when Laurel said go, he sucked in a lungful of air and leaned back in his chair. He lasted fifty-two red-faced seconds before the air whooshed out of him and it was Laurel’s turn.

“No laughing,” she warned. “You’re probably going to blow me away.”

“I highly doubt it.” He smirked with the same confidence he always had when he was sure he was right.

Laurel took a deep breath and leaned back on David’s pillows. He started the timer with a soft beep.

It unnerved her to look at his self-assured smile as the seconds ticked by, so she turned to the window instead. She watched a bird fly against the pale blue sky till it soared out of sight over a hill.

With nothing else interesting to look at, she began paying attention to her chest. It was starting to get uncomfortable. She waited a little while longer, decided she didn’t like the sensation, and let her air out. “There. What’s the verdict?”

David looked at his watch. “Did you hold your breath as long as you could?”

“As long as I wanted to.”

“That’s not the same thing. Could you have gone longer?”

“Probably, but it was getting uncomfortable.”

“How much longer?”

“I don’t know,” she said, flustered now. “How long did I last?”

“Three minutes and twenty-eight seconds.”

It took a moment for the numbers to sink in. She sat up. “Did you let me win?”

“Nope. You just proved my theory.”

Laurel looked at her arm. “A leaf? Really?”

David took her arm and put his up beside it. “Check it out — if you look closely, our arms don’t look quite the same. See?” he said, pointing to veins that spidered along his arms. “Granted, veins usually stick out more on guys anyway, but with your light skin, you should at least be able to see pale streaks of blue. You don’t have any.”

Laurel studied her arm, then asked, “When did you notice that?”

He shrugged guiltily. “When I checked for your pulse, but you were so freaked out that I decided it could wait a while. Besides, I wanted to do some research first.”

“Thanks…I think.” She was quiet for a long time as thoughts rushed through her head. But she came back to the same conclusion again and again. “I really am a plant, aren’t I?”

David looked up at her, then nodded solemnly. “I think so.”

Laurel wasn’t sure why the tears came. It wasn’t exactly a surprise. But she’d never truly accepted it before. Now that she had, she felt an overwhelming combination of fear, relief, amazement, and a strange sadness.

David climbed up on the bed beside her. Without a word, he leaned back on his headboard and pulled her against his chest. She joined him easily, enjoying the safety she felt in his arms. His hands occasionally moved up and down her arms and back, carefully avoiding her petals.

She could hear his heart beating a regular rhythm that reminded her some things were still normal. Dependable.

The warmth from his body spread into her, warming her in a way that was strikingly similar to how the sun did. She smiled and snuggled a little closer.

“What are you doing next Saturday?” David asked, and his voice reverberated in his chest where her ear was pressed.

“I don’t know. What’re you doing?”

“That depends on you. I was thinking about what Tamani told you.”

She raised her head from his chest. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Why not? He was right about you being a plant. Maybe he was right about…about you being a faerie.”

“How can you even say that where your microscope can hear you, David?” Laurel asked with a laugh, trying to keep the subject light. “It might stop working if it realizes its owner is so unscientific.”

“It’s pretty unscientific to have a friend who’s a plant,” David said, refusing to adopt her humorous tone.

Laurel sighed but let her head sink back down onto his chest. “Every little girl wishes she was actually a princess or a faerie or a mermaid or something. Especially girls who don’t know who their real mothers are. But you lose that dream when you’re, like, six. No one still thinks that when they’re fifteen.” She set her jaw stubbornly. “There’s no such thing as faeries.”

“Maybe not, but you don’t necessarily have to be one for real.”

“What do you mean?”

David was staring at her blossom. “There’s a costume dance at school next Saturday. I thought maybe you could go as a faerie and try out the role. You know, get used to the idea as a costume before you try to tackle the idea that it’s real. Get comfortable with it.”

“What? Strap wings on and wear some funky dress?”

“Seems to me you already have wings,” David said, his voice serious.

His meaning slowly dawned on Laurel and she looked at him in disbelief. “You want me to go like this? With my blossom out for everyone to see? You must be crazy! No!”

“Just listen,” David said, sitting up. “I’ve thought about this. You know that tinsel garland stuff? If we wrapped that around the base of the flower and then looped it over your shoulders no one would know it wasn’t fake. They’d just think it was an awesome costume.”

“I couldn’t pass this off as a costume, David. It’s too good.”

David shrugged. “People generally believe what you tell them.” He grinned. “And do you really think someone’s going to look at you and say, ‘Hmm, I think that girl’s a plant’?”

It really did sound absurd. Laurel’s mind drifted to the shimmery sky-blue formal she’d worn to her mother’s cousin’s wedding last summer. “I’ll think about it,” she promised.

After school on Wednesday David had to work, so Laurel decided to go to the public library. She stepped up to the reference desk where the librarian was trying to explain the Dewey decimal system to a kid who clearly neither understood nor wanted to. After a couple of minutes, he shrugged and walked away.

With a frustrated sigh, the librarian turned to Laurel. “Yes?”

“Can I use the internet?” Laurel asked.

The librarian smiled, probably glad for a rational question. “That computer over there,” she said, pointing. “Log in with your library card number and you’ll have one hour.”

“Just one?”

The librarian leaned forward conspiratorially. “It’s a rule we had to make a couple of months back. Had a retired lady who would come in and play Internet Hearts all day.” She shrugged as she straightened again. “You know how it is; a couple of crazies ruin it for the rest of us. It’s high-speed though,” she added as she turned back to a stack of books she was scanning in.

Laurel headed over to the carrel that held the only internet-enabled computer. Unlike the sprawling library Laurel and her dad had often visited in Eureka, the Crescent City library was hardly bigger than a regular house. It had one shelf of picture books and one shelf of adult fiction, and other than that, it was all old reference books. And not even very many of those.

She sat at the computer and logged in. After a quick glance at her watch, she started Googling.

Forty-five minutes later, she had found pictures of faeries living in flowers, wearing clothes made of flowers, and sipping tea out of tiny flower cups. But no mention of faeries actually being flowers. Or plants. Or whatever. Lame, she thought peevishly.

She started reading through a long Wikipedia article, but every two or three sentences, she had to look up a reference she didn’t understand. So far she was only a few paragraphs into the article.

With a deep breath, she squinted and started reading the article again.

“I love faeries!”

Laurel almost fell out of her chair as Chelsea’s voice sounded right in her ear.

Chelsea dropped into a seat next to Laurel. “I went through this phase about a year ago where everything I did had something to do with faeries. I have like, ten books all about faeries and pictures on my ceiling. I even found a pamphlet on some guy’s conspiracy theory about how Ireland is controlled by the Seelie Court. And even though his ideas were a little farfetched, he did make some valid points.”

Laurel closed her browser as quickly as she could, although the phrase too little, too late came to mind.

“Back in the Dark Ages, people used to think anything bad that happened was caused by faeries,” Chelsea continued, not seeming to notice that Laurel still hadn’t said a word. “Of course, they also blamed anything good that happened on faeries too, so I guess it evens out. Still.” She grinned. “So why were you looking up faeries?”

Laurel’s mouth went dry. She tried to think up some kind of excuse, but after trying to wrap her mind around dozens of conflicting faerie legends, she had nothing. “Um, I just wanted to find out for—” She barely managed to remember that Chelsea was in her English class before using it as an excuse.

Then she remembered David’s proposition.

“I’m going to the dance as a faerie this Saturday,” she blurted. “I thought I’d try to learn a little more about them.”

Chelsea’s face lit up. “That is so cool. I totally want to be a faerie. We should try to match.”

Oh, great. “Actually, David’s making me some kind of wings. He says it’s a surprise.”

“Oh.” Chelsea hesitated for just a second. “That’s okay. I should probably collaborate with Ryan anyway.” Her cheeks colored a little. “He asked me on Friday.”

“That’s great.”

“Yeah. He’s cute. Isn’t he cute?”

“Sure.”

“Good.” She looked lost in thought for a moment. “So you’re going with David?”

Laurel nodded.

Chelsea smiled, though it looked a little pained. “Well, you’ll be a gorgeous faerie. You practically look like a faerie anyway, so it’ll be perfect.”

“Do I?”

Chelsea shrugged. “I think so. Especially with your hair and skin being so light. People used to think angels were faeries, so faeries must be very light and fragile-looking.”

Fragile? Laurel thought, a little taken aback.

“You’ll look perfect,” Chelsea said. “I’ll wait for you by the door. I want to see your costume first thing.”

“Deal,” Laurel said with a forced smile. She didn’t like how she’d suddenly gotten herself locked into David’s idea. But it was better than telling Chelsea the truth.

“Why are you surfing here, anyway?” Chelsea asked. “Don’t you have internet at home?”

“Dial-up,” Laurel said, rolling her eyes.

“Really? Do they still have that? My dad’s a computer tech and he set up this whole wireless network in our house. We have high-speed internet on six computers. He’d just die if I told him you were still using dial-up. You should come to my house next time. Lots of bandwidth and I’ll lend you some books, okay?”

Laurel said okay instinctually, but there was no way she could go to Chelsea’s to research. Chelsea was too smart — she’d put the pieces together.

Assuming there were any pieces to be had. Laurel hadn’t found a single source that talked about faeries being anything like she was. The closest she’d found were dryads — wood spirits — and they were just the spirits of trees.

She was pretty sure she wasn’t a spirit.

“Well, I gotta go,” Chelsea said. “I have to do some real research.” She held up her history book. “I’m supposed to find at least three sources not including the net. I swear, Mrs. Mitchell is so behind the times. Anyway, see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Laurel said, waving. “Tomorrow.” She turned back to the computer to run one more search. But when she opened her Web browser, her time had expired.

Laurel sighed and collected her sparse notes. If she wanted more, she’d have to come back another day. She glanced over toward the bookshelves where she could just see Chelsea’s bouncing curls.

Chelsea’s house would be more convenient.

Too bad convenience was way down on her list of priorities these days.