Winged (Aetharian Narratives) (10 page)

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It can be overwhelming. When I was about six years old I made it my life’s mission to try everything on the menu and in this store.”

He laughed. “A true calling in life.”

I smiled. “Well, you know, small town, small dreams.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Viper. “There are bigger plans for you.”

I frowned. “That’s really sweet to say, but I’m really nothing very special.”

Viper stared at me like I was crazy. “What do you mean you’re nothing special?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but couldn’t think of a thing to say. I was quite relieved when Mrs. Baline arrived before I absolutely had to.

“Here you go,” she said over a tray of decorative mugs. She put them in front of us and dropped a big marshmallow in each one.

“Thank you,” Viper and I said again.

She smiled and walked away to attend to the other customers.

“Of course you’re special,” Viper said in a low voice.

I started to turn red. Poor Viper didn’t know anything about me; I had absolutely no ambition. My goal in life was to somehow make enough money to support myself and spend my days painting. I was completely content with the thought that I would be one of those painters that just scraped by for a living and wasn’t appreciated in their time.

I picked up my spoon and scooped out my marshmallow.

“Yeah, okay,” I said, putting it in my mouth.

Viper kept staring at me without saying a word.

Finally I looked at him. “What?”

“I can’t believe how clueless you are,” he said, picking his own spoon up and stirring his marshmallow into his hot chocolate.

“What do you mean
how clueless
I am?”

“You shouldn’t make decisions like that until you know what life has planned for you.”

He took a sip from his mug.

“Exactly what decisions am I making?”

Viper put his mug down. “That you’re worthless. You don’t know what the future holds for you; you shouldn’t put yourself down like that.”

“Well, how do you know that I’m not worthless?”

“Because there is at least a small plan for everyone,” he said. His eyes swept over my left shoulder. “And I happen to know that yours is one for the centuries.”

I picked up my hot chocolate and took a sip; it had cooled down to the perfect temperature.

“How are you figuring that?” I said. “What do you know that I don’t?”

He smiled. “I know a lot that you don’t know, Emma.”

“How? Why don’t I know anything?”

Without knowing exactly what it was, we seemed to be talking about the same thing.

Viper had a thoughtful look on his face. “Maybe
someone
hasn’t been compelled to tell you anything yet.”

He emphasized the word “someone.” I picked at a loose string on the crocheted tablecloth. Right, someone. And I knew perfectly well who.

* * *

We walked out of the warm movie theater and back into the cold December air. The theater hadn’t been as full as it usually was. But while on the way to it I’d seen an astonishing number of girls in the dress shops. Everyone was obviously getting ready for the dance on Saturday.

I was happy that we had been able to find neutral topics of conversation for the remainder of the time before the movie. We were also able to chat without any problem afterward. I did what I could to steer the conversation away from what we had talked about in the café.

We made our way around the lake. The stars and moon reflected perfectly on the lake’s surface as we started walking across the bridge. All I could hear was the flow of the water. Even the cold wind seemed to stop howling around us.

Viper seemed to notice the silence, too; he looked around with a questioning look when we reached the middle of the bridge.

“This is weird—” I started but then stopped.

My legs stopped working and I was planted where I stood.

I suddenly noticed a low ringing in my ears. Gradually it grew louder. In no time it was a loud, high-pitched screaming. I flung my hands over my ears and dropped to my knees. I tried screaming, too, but I couldn’t hear a sound come out of my throat. I could feel a heavy vibration on my chest. If I hadn’t known better I would have thought someone had hit me with a stun gun. Fire appeared before me. The screaming grew from sounding like it was one person to a multitude of people all around me. It sounded like they were all right next to me, but I couldn’t see who it was coming from. The screaming continued to grow in volume.

“Come,” I heard the familiar voice. “You must come to us soon. Please come.”

I stood up and tried to run to the voice and tell them that I was there, but I didn’t go anywhere. The fire grew brighter. I could feel the heat of it engulf my body. I felt like I had fallen into the depths of a volcano. The lumps on my back pounded painfully.

I fell back to the ground. A pair of big blue eyes looked into mine. I stared as they twinkled at me like stars.

“Emmeline, come home,” a man’s voice said softly. “We need you, my daughter.”

The eyes and fire disappeared. The screaming stopped. I let out a breath and my body went limp. Everything around me went black.

* * *

I felt warmth. The warmth was soothing until it started to get too hot. My legs twitched in discomfort. My mind was overcome by the fire again. I felt like I was being consumed by it this time; the burning sensation was so painful. The top of my body sat straight up when the heat became unbearable and I was woken from the dream. Every bone and muscle in my back felt like it would explode with every little movement I made.

I patted my skin through my night clothes. Instead of the burns I was expecting to feel, I was completely drenched in sweat. It took a moment to register how cold the air was outside of my blankets. I felt lightheaded and sick. I looked around; everything swam in and out of focus. I was in my room. The clock next to my bed read 3:30 p.m.

I tried to lift myself out of bed. My arms buckled under my weight when I tried to push myself up and I fell back on the mattress. The fall made the bed shake and it hit the nightstand next to it. A glass of water fell off and smashed on the floor. Moments later my bedroom door flew open and Mom ran into the room.

“Thank goodness,” she said, pulling me up and binding me in her arms.

She looked at me like I had come back from the dead.

“Emma, sweetie, I’m so glad you’re awake.” She released me and held me at arm’s distance. She put her hand to my forehead. “Lie back down, honey. You’re temperature has gone down, but you’re still very warm.”

Mr. and Mrs. Amest came into the room. Mom bent down and splashed around in something below the bed.

“Emma, are you okay?” Mrs. Amest came to the side of my bed and hugged me.

“How are you feeling?” Mr. Amest said from where he was standing.

They both had concerned looks on their faces.

“I’m fine,” I said in a raspy voice.

Mom straightened and put a towel on my forehead. It was cold but felt good on my skin.

“Arian, we need more ice,” Mom said to Mr. Amest.

“Of course, Cordelia,” he said.

He bent down and picked up a basin from the floor.

“Did I miss school?” I said to Mom.

She and Mrs. Amest looked at each other and laughed. I could tell it wasn’t so much from something humorous as it was from relief. I had only been around them for a few moments, but I could practically see the burden of concern lift off of them.

“Honey, you missed quite a bit of school.”

“What?”

Mrs. Amest smiled at me. “It’s 3:30 Thursday afternoon, Emma.”

I’m sure they could tell how shocked I was by the look on my face. “Thursday? Have I been asleep this whole time?”

“Yes, dear,” Mom said. “You gave us quite a scare Monday night.”

Everything about that night cascaded back into my memory, the fire, the screaming, the eyes … the voice.

“Wh—what happened?” I said.

I had no idea what transpired from the time everything lit on fire to waking up just a few moments ago.

“Well, we were going to ask you that,” Mom said.

“How did I get here? The last thing I remember is being on the bridge.”

“Viper brought you home. You guys went out and so I invited Corinne and Arian to have dinner while you two were gone.”

“It was about 10:30 when Viper burst through the front door with you,” said Mrs. Amest.

Her husband came back with the basin full of fresh ice water.

“Viper carried me all the way here from the bridge?”

“He did,” Mr. Amest said. “But he kept going on about how you blacked out on the bridge.”

If it was possible, I felt sicker. “Did he say what happened to me?”

Mom shook her head. “He said you two were walking across the bridge when you stopped with a dazed look on your face. Then you put your hands over your ears and started screaming.”

I remembered the high-pitched screams in my head and not being able to hear my own voice. I guessed Viper could heard me perfectly well.

“Then he said you got up and tried to jump into the water,” said Mrs. Amest.

I put my hand to my throat. I felt my necklace under my fingers; it was warm. I remembered the way it had vibrated. I looked down. It was its normal shade of blue.

“He grabbed you and pulled you away from the railing before you got over it,” Mom’s voice brought me back to the conversation. “And then you fainted.” Everyone looked worried.

“And I’ve been out of it ever since?”

Mom nodded. “He carried you in and Arian carried you up here.”

“You were burning up,” said Mr. Amest.

“I called the doctor while your mom got the ice water and towels,” said Mrs. Amest.

A tear rolled down Mom’s cheek. “The doctor came over and immediately took your temperature. It was 107 degrees. You were feverish, but from what he could tell, you seemed to be perfectly fine. He didn’t want to take you to the hospital and expose you to the snow that had really started falling. He called the hospital and told a nurse everything he needed for you and they brought it here.

“They did everything they could to get the temperature to come down right here in your room. I was so scared,” she bent over and wrapped her arms around me again. “He said it was amazing how quickly you recovered from the temperature you had. And once you did they still couldn’t find a thing wrong with you. You seemed to have fainted from the shock of whatever happened out there.”

“Once he got it down to 100 degrees he deemed that there was nothing else to treat,” said Mr. Amest.

“We should be very thankful to Corinne and Arian, Emma,” Mom smiled at them. “They have been here just about the whole time doing anything they could.”

“We’re happy to help,” said Mrs. Amest. She ran her hand over the top of my head. “Viper really didn’t want to leave you, either.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry I’ve been so much trouble to everyone.”

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Amest squeezed my hand. “We’re glad to see that you finally came through all right.”

At that moment my stomach growled so loudly that it was pretty much impossible for anyone closer than two houses away to ignore. They all looked at me and I turned red. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.

“Oh, Emma,” Mom said with a laugh. “I’m sorry—you must be starving. I’ll go get you something to eat.”

“I’ll go with you, Cordelia,” Mrs. Amest said. She walked toward the door with her.

“Okay, we’ll be right back, honey. Stay in bed and, please, try to relax.”

“All right, Mom,” I said.

I could feel how tense my body was. Relaxing was a taller order than it should have been.

“Well, I’ll be downstairs waiting for Viper, Emma,” Mr. Amest said, walking toward the door, too. “Do you need anything? Would you like for me to get something for you?”

“No, thank you, Mr. Amest,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“All right, just call if you do.”

I lay in bed and rubbed my forehead. I had no idea what happened to me out there. My head was swimming. It was not long after Mr. Amest left that Viper got back from school. I was thinking about the big pair of blue eyes I’d seen that night when I heard the front door slam and the sound of someone running up the stairs.

Viper shoved the door out of his way and ran into my room.

The moment he saw me smile at him I could see relief flood into his eyes.

“You’re awake.”

“Yeah, I am,” I said.

His face was so red it looked like he’d run all the way from school.

“I hear you were the hero Monday night.”

Viper swept the comment aside saying, “That doesn’t matter—how are you feeling? Has your temperature gone down?”

He took the last two strides separating us and put his hand to my forehead. I tried not to wince at how cold it was and wondered how he would be able to get an accurate reading from it.

“It’s still a little above normal but it’s gone down substantially,” he said. He sat on the side of my bed and looked into my face. “Are you feeling okay?”

I blushed. “I’m fine.” My voice squeaked.

“Are you sure?” he said. His eyes didn’t leave mine. “You’ve had us all scared for the past couple of days.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand what happened to me.”

“Neither do I.” Viper took off his backpack and pushed it against the wall. “One minute we’re talking and the next you’re on the ground screaming. Did you hear or see something?”

I stared at a spot on my ceiling. “I don’t know how to explain what happened, and it went by so quickly. It was … strange.”

“Quickly?”

I looked at him.

“It had to have been around ten minutes from the time you started to scream to the time you passed out. I tried talking to you, but I couldn’t get your attention. It was like you were … I don’t know … somewhere else.”

“Ten minutes?” I said. “It felt like everything took place within seconds.”

“Well, don’t worry about it,” Viper said, taking another towel from the basin. He squeezed out the excess water and replaced the one on my forehead. “Just relax, we’ll figure it out later.”

I frowned. There was that seemingly impossible request again. The front door slammed again and Mom and Mrs. Amest came into my room moments later.