Wings

“Sir, have you heard the latest on the Deadman child?”

“Palmer Deadman, right? The kid who goes by Azure? I tell you what, if my name were Deadman, I’d go by Azure too.”

“As you say, sir. We’ve found out that since his parents died, he has been living in the forest.”

“The hell you say! I thought his aunt had custody. There was that whole thing about it. Didn’t she threaten…?”

“Yes, sir, you are remembering correctly.”

“With the marmoset, right?”

“As you say, sir. May we continue on with the topic at hand…?”

“Oh, yes. So what happened there?”

“Palmer allegedly told her that he was going to go live with someone on his father’s side of the family, the father’s cousin, if memory serves. That was Cyrus Calebson.”

“The miller. All right, go on.”

“When we investigated, it turned out that not only did Cyrus have no knowledge of this, he had not even seen Palmer since before the funeral.”

“Hm. All right. Any tips on why he gave his aunt the slip?”

“No leads, sir. There does not seem to be a history of abuse, nor did she seem to be providing inadequate care. In fact, according to witnesses, she was heartbroken when Palmer decided to leave.”

“How long’s he been gone?”

“This is the third week, sir.”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Bring him in! We’ll get this sorted out one way or another!”

“There is a slight problem with that, sir. Palmer has managed to evade all of the men we have sent so far. The child is quite adept at hiding. It is almost as if he can make himself invisible.”

“Don’t be absurd. Come on. We’ll get him.”

—

He didn’t want to go back. Azure sat, cross-legged, in the boughs of a tree, deep within the forest surrounding Eldarin. Granted, there wasn’t much in terms of plant life in the forest; Eldarin sat atop a mountain and so the trees were somewhat of an anomaly. However, what they lacked in numbers, the trees made up for in sheer stubbornness; they refused to die to anything and had foliage thick enough that the canopy could have held another small town.

Azure watched as the watchmen tromped through the forest below, then eventually turned around and left. They didn’t notice him. They never noticed him. And he never had to do anything about it at all. He would go back when he was good and ready, which, according to his current mental state, was on the far side of never.

It wasn’t that Aunt Tamar was mean to him, or bad, or anything like that. Azure just wanted to be left alone. Why couldn’t anyone understand that?

There was the sound of footsteps again. Lighter, this time. Azure peered down at the ground through the slits in his mask. Ah. Celeste. That wasn’t so bad.

“I can see you up there, you know,” she called from the ground. She planted her hands on her hips and fixed Azure with her best ‘you’re in trouble’ stare, which had less than stellar results coming from a 13-year-old face. “You’re not exactly camouflaged.”

Azure had to cede the point there. A blue overcoat and a gleaming iron mask should have, by all rights, attracted attention. He jumped to the ground, making a nimble three-point landing. “Celeste,” he said simply, his voice deep beyond his years.

“The word’s spreading all around town,” Celeste said, huffing. “What are you doing out here?”

Azure considered his words carefully. “I prefer being out here.”

“And?”

“That’s it.” He inclined his head just a touch. “I prefer being out here. I don’t prefer being back in town. I will stay out here. It’s simple.”

“No it’s not! Everyone’s worrying about you!”

“Do you see them?”

This threw Celeste for a loop. “Huh? See what?”

Azure paused, glancing back over his shoulder. “Never mind. You can go tell everyone I won’t be coming back.”

“What? No! I’m not going back without bringing you back with me!”

“Yes, you are.”

Celeste frowned and grunted. “Well… fine! If that’s the way you’re going to be!” She turned on her heels and started marching back to town. “See if I help you again!” When she looked back, however, Azure had completely disappeared.

Azure stood under the tree. Celeste had turned around to look at him. She seemed to be looking right through him, but yet, she didn’t see him… Whatever. She wasn’t going to bring him back. He glanced back over his shoulder again. Not more than a few inches past his shoulder blades, hovering in the air were a pair of wings. They looked like they might have been feathered at one point, but most of the feathers had apparently long since shed, leaving only a teeming mass of raw muscle and a collection of bone, streaked with red and gray. They looked disjointed, with different parts of the wings seemingly not even connected to each other, but it scarcely seemed to matter; they never fell, never moved – they never left his back, not for as long as he could remember. Celeste couldn’t see them. Azure supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d never seen them before, after all. Nobody had ever seen them. Nobody but him.

Azure’s most vivid memory of his mother was a story she told him one night before he fell asleep. She spun a tale of angels and monsters, how the angels were defenders of everyone who was good, keeping them safe from everything bad. She paid special attention to describing their wings – wide, pure white, with feathers as soft and as light as a cloud.

He was afraid to ask what wings like his meant.