Freefly (4 page)

Her eyelids sank almost to closing.  “I think I did.”

I dropped to my knees again.  The puddle of blood had become so large that I was kneeling in it, and the edges of my vision darkened again when I felt the knee of my jeans become warm and sticky.  Biting my lip, I pulled one of the packets of rubbing alcohol from the box and tore it open, drawing out the white cloth.  Without stopping to dwell on what I was about to do, I plunged the cloth into the wound. 

“Yowwwww!” bellowed the girl.  This time she
flew
out of the chair
—
literally
—
and hovered about a foot above it.  “What the heck?” 

“It’s disinfectant,” I muttered, rather preoccupied with the foot of space between her and the chair. 

“Not cool!”

“I have to.  Do you want to get an infection?”

She blew out breath.  Slowly, her body dropped back into the chair. 

I dabbed at the wound.  She hissed but remained still.  The bleeding was slowing, the blood beginning to thicken around the gaping hole in her leg.  I unwound a strip of bandage and wrapped it around her calf. 

“Aaah,” said the girl.  “That feels cool.” 

I ripped a piece of tape from the dispenser and pressed it to the bandage, ensuring that the wrappings were tight.  Then I tugged at her shoelaces. 

“What are you doing?”  The girl yanked both her legs onto the chair, hugging them to her chest.  Her hand probed the bandage gingerly. 

“Your sock is soaked in blood.” 

Her eyes moved to her shoe, which was streaked red. 

She jumped to her feet.  “I should go.”  Even as she said it, she swayed, clutching the table to steady herself. 

“You look like you should lie down.”

She backed away from me, knocking the chair away.  “Stay away from me.” 

I took a step back, putting up my hands.  “I’m just pointing out that you look like you’re going to collapse.” 

She stopped moving, studying me.  Her eyes were very blue, set against pale skin, and something about the delicate structure of her face made me think of fairies, nymphs, and angels.  Basically, she looked like the sort of girl who wouldn’t give me the time of day.

I looked at my feet.

“Okay,” she said, and my head jolted upward.  “I’ll stay.  But please don’t turn evil on me.” 

“Deal.” 

I led her up the stairs to my room, glancing back at her every few seconds.  She wore a plain white T-shirt and baggy jeans, and had decided not to climb the stairs, but simply to hover over them, her toes about an inch off the ground.  Her eyes followed the framed photos on the wall, which were, unfortunately, a collection of my school portraits.  As we passed the humongous portrait that marked the year of the mushroom cut, I cringed.  But the girl’s face didn’t show anything but curiosity. 

I veered right, toward my room, and the girl followed me.  As she floated through the door, her eyes took in my neatly made bed, the clear surface of my desk, the spotless carpet, and the bare walls.

“I love it.  It’s so normal,” she said.

My face became hot, all of a sudden.  “Thanks.”

In perhaps the most awkward hand gesture of my life, I motioned that the bed would probably be a good place for lying down.  Meanwhile, I pressed myself against the wall
—
as far away as possible
—
to indicate that I wasn’t some kind of creep.  She laughed and floated onto the end of the bed.  Reaching for her sneakers, she fell forward onto her knees.

I rushed toward her, but stopped myself from helping her up
—
she didn’t seem to like being touched.  “Are you okay?”

She breathed heavily, head bent forward, palms flat on the floor.  “Dizzy.”

“You were right about the arrow.  It had something in it.” 

“Definitely wasn’t vegetable juice.”

I reached for her arm.  “I’m going to help you up.” 

She didn’t say anything. 

I grasped her arm and, gently as possible, pulled her up off the floor.  She put her arm around my neck for support, keeping her eyes down.  Her body trembled.  I wondered if it was from the injury, or if I was truly that terrifying. 

I helped her back onto the bed, and this time she lay back, folding her arms onto her chest.  She shivered.  I ran out to the linen closet, grabbed the blanket with puppies on it (my mother’s), and draped it over her.  After giving me one last look
—
with something like suspicion in her eyes
—
she succumbed to whatever poison was in her system and drifted off to sleep. 

I exhaled.  The girl’s sneakers stuck out from the bottom of the blanket, but I decided not to try to remove them.  I glanced at the digital clock.  4 p.m.  Mom and Dad would be home soon. 

After quietly clicking shut the bedroom door, I barreled down the stairs.  Blood drizzled down the entire hallway leading to the kitchen.  I wondered, again, if the flying girl was going to die.  I hoped not.  I liked her.  Already.

A towel hung from the handle of the oven door, and I snatched it and ran it under the tap.  Then I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed up all the blood in the hallway, darting back to the sink every so often to squeeze the towel clean beneath the running water.  When I got to the large red pool in the kitchen, I grabbed a roll of paper towels and ripped off about half a tree’s worth, then scrubbed up the blood for a good ten minutes.  Finally, I stood in the center of the kitchen, eyeing every surface, ensuring that no trace of blood remained. 

Then I remembered that the outside of my house looked like a crime scene. 

I got the hose and washed down the sidewalks and the porch.  Then I realized that blood reddened the knee of my jeans, and crept back into my room to pull another pair from my drawers.  The girl was sleeping, her head cast sideways, her legs curled into her chest.  I went into the bathroom and got changed.  I went back downstairs and grabbed my first aid supplies, replacing them in the bathroom cabinet.  Finally, I stood in the kitchen once more, satisfied that I had fulfilled my promise to the girl to tell no one about what I had seen. 

Throughout dinner, I said nothing, thinking about the sleeping person upstairs.  Who was she?  Who had shot her?  How could she
fly? 
My parents chatted about
American Icon
, arguing over who they thought would get voted out in that night’s episode.  When I was distant and unresponsive, it was nothing unusual. 

I returned to my room to find the girl still sleeping.  I had half expected her to have vanished, the whole thing a dream.  I checked the bandage on her leg, lifting the blanket carefully, so as not to wake her.  The blood was not seeping through.  I had done a good job. 

I sat down at my desk and dug into my homework.  The downside of spending the afternoon tending to the arrow-wound of a mysterious flying girl was that I was severely behind.  I clicked on my reading lamp and flipped open my biology textbook. 

When she still hadn’t awakened by 12:30 am, when I finished, I pulled my Phillies blanket out of the linen closet and spread it out on the floor.  I lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 

The next morning, the buzzing of my alarm clock jolted me awake, and I was quickly confused at being on the floor.  Then I remembered the girl, and the arrow wound, and the girl being in my bed.  I had a small heart attack and leaped to my feet.  The bed was empty, the puppy blanket in a ball in the corner.  I whirled around.  The window was open, and the screen had been pulled out and set on the floor. 

She’d left.

Filled, for some reason, with soul-devouring dread, I let out a long breath.  Then I headed for the shower. 

The whole day, I trudged to my classes in a stupor, half the time wondering if the girl had been a figment of my imagination and the other half wondering why she’d left without saying goodbye, or thank you, or my name is Claire.  Thinking of her soaring into the sky above MacRearigan Road, it was extraordinarily difficult to concentrate on copying problems out of my calculus textbook.  When Joe Butt tripped me in the hallway, I thought about how awesome it would be if, instead of slamming into a set of lockers, I had rocketed into the air and sent him screaming toward the parking lot.

By the time I got home, I was so depressed at the thought of never seeing the girl again that the sight of her sitting at my desk almost made me choke. 

“You!” I cried. 

She spun around and grinned.  She wore a black leather jacket and jeans, and seemed to have been flipping through the book of colorful star maps I’d left on my desk. 

“Are all high-schoolers interested in constellations?” she said, her fingers on a glossy page of my book.  She was much more beautiful than I remembered. 

I struggled to rediscover my vocal chords.  “Where
—
where did you go?”

She crossed her arms and leaned away from me.  “None of your business.”

My eyes widened.  “I’m really confused.”

“Is it the flying?”

“Yeah.  That.”

“You get used to it.  But I want to know about you.  Are you personally interested in constellations, or is it, like, some kind of fad right now?  Do all teenagers have astronomy as a hobby?”

I stared at her.  She could
fly
, and she wanted to know about my dorky astronomy book? “Uh, well, I don’t know.  It’s not really a fad, I guess.”

“So it’s just you?  Are you a nerd?  A dork?  Do you have friends?”

“No.  Yes.  Wait, we need to talk about some things here.  Who are you?”

She stood from the desk and walked toward the window, sighing.  A pair of sunglasses dangled from her belt loop, and a knapsack hung from one of her shoulders.  Her walk consisted of long, loping steps, the sort of walk you would expect from a girl several inches taller. 

“If you’re going to keep asking questions, I’m going to have to leave,” she said. 

I took a step toward her.  “Wait!”

She whirled to face me, fists raised.  “Woah, back off, buddy!”

I froze, putting up my hands.  “I’m not trying to be offensive.”

“Then stop asking questions!”

“I’m sorry.”  I scratched my head.  “It’s just you, and the flying, and the arrow.”

She edged closer to the window.

“Wait!  Okay, if you can’t tell me anything about those things, can you at least tell me your name?”

She stopped moving and studied me.  With the light from the window forming a halo around her, she could easily have passed for some sort of heaven-dweller.  But her face was suspicious.  A suspicious angel?  It didn’t make sense.  I noticed that she stood with most of her weight tilted onto her right leg.  The left leg, with the arrow wound, must have been hurting her.

“Let me look at the bandages,” I said. 

She jolted from her thoughts.  “What?”

“The bandages on your leg.  I’ll change them.” 

The girl studied me some more.  Without saying anything, she walked to the bed and sat down.