Wings
By Scarlet Starr
When the last snow melted and the first rose showed her face, the Meadow, vibrant green, filled with birdsong and new life. Soon the old iron bell called in wordless serenade, summoning the nearby youth to begin yet again the age-old ritual of school.
The new grass was trampled beneath a horde of sneakered feet as the happy chatter of old friends reunited filled the air.
Grade by grade, class by class, room by room, the students filed into the worn-in school building, laughter still bouncing through the ever-familiar hallway as the last door thudded shut, the last vacation-weary highschooler took a desk.
Of all the desks in all the school, only one stood empty. It sat unnoticed by the senior class, disappearing bit by bit as they dumped their backpacks on its invitingly empty surface.
By now the seniors had become a family of sorts. They had all been together from the very start- thrust together as nervous freshmen and given two years to bond. There was definitely no one missing from the pack today.
Mishki’s golden bunny ears twitched ceaselessly, her nose wrinkling with giggles as Sahkyo tickled her with the silky black fur of her minkish tail. A’Kaia swatted at Mishki’s equally twitchy and giggly sister, Ishki, with one carefully manicured, black-nail-polished hand and glared from behind the long, sleek bangs he spent so much time on and was holding protectively in place over his eyes, lest Ishki manage to knock one pure white hair out of place into the black sides of his signature badger-striped A-line. Behind him, Kika was busily ignoring Asha’s vain attempts to impress her by color-coordinating his chameleon eyes, nails, and spiky short hair to her leopard-spotted coat, oblivious to the annoyed spasms of her tail. Kana, the soft-eyed fawn girl, was already fast asleep with her head buried in her arms, ears down and relaxed as Sahi, the black fox, stroked the fur between them, humming an absent-minded lullaby.
The door creaked open an inch. Instantly the room fell silent and all eyes turned expectantly in its direction- including Kana’s, who had been startled into wakefulness.
Slowly the door opened all the way and a figure stepped into the room. Instead of the tardy teacher, whose presence was still awaited, there stood before them a small girl. After the hush, murmurs spread through the classroom like the ripples of shifting waves. By now, each of the teens had begun and was in some stage of developing their animal form.
But this girl was different.
Where ears and tails and distinct markings and fur should have been, she had only a simple human body, and lacked even there:
This girl had no mouth.
….
The door swung open and shut again, startling them once more into silence. A tall, thin woman with snakelike oval eyes slid sinuously into the classroom and stood behind the strange girl. Ms. Ksi spoke with a slight lisp, her forked tongue flitting repeatedly between her fangs.
“Class, this iss Sskyy.” She tapped the girl’s shoulder. “Find your sseat, child.”
Skyy bowed her head shyly and wove her way to the backpack-laden unoccupied desk in the center of the room.
Ms. Ksi started her lesson, but Skyy kept her head down, well aware that the whispers hissing around her were about her, not what Ms. Ksi was saying.
….
When the rusty iron bell tolled again to announce lunchtime, Skyy gathered her books into her bag and left to find a spot in the meadow where she could be alone. It wasn’t as though she had kidded herself into believing that it would be any different here than it had always been elsewhere; she’d known what to expect. But that didn’t stop the rudeness from hurting her.
All her life she’d had to put up with the teasing from her peers about her curse of silence; when they had all come of age and begun to show their Animal and she’d remained the same, she’d suffered all the more.
It wouldn’t end. That she knew. So what did she have left to do but dream?
….
When Skyy dreamed- then and only then- she was free. Free to leave behind the small-minded prejudice of her peers, their insults that sliced her like so many knives. Free to leave behind her inhibitions, the fears and insecurities binding her soul to the earth that she could not speak aloud, and soar on her heart’s wings to places of forbidden joy where no one cared to judge her.
And often her dreamself did fly. Skyy’s dreams were filled with breathtaking views of rainbows and clouds and hidden cities on the backs of Angaels. Where none could walk, she soared. No other creature could understand the painful joy and sadness Skyy felt each night as she left her hated earthbound form to sleep and flew off to dance with the stars and clouds, and no other creature saw how the cracks in her fragile soul spiderwebbed further each time she crashed down to the sadistic screeching of the alarm, tearing at each fiber of her being, signaling the start of another day of stares, snickers, discrimination, and loneliness.
….
As days passed, word of Skyy’s weirdness and lack of Animal spread like poison through the school. Students from all grades stopped to gawk at her as she passed in the hallway, not bothering to give her time to leave before they whispered. She’d given up fighting them years ago. What was the point? They never stopped. They just got louder. So Skyy bowed her head, faking deaf as well as mute.
The one hope that Skyy held on to, however unlikely she knew it to be, was that maybe the Seniors, having lived through the roughest times of school and managed to survive to climb to the top, would accept her as an oddity, for sure, but nevertheless a part of their group. After the first week or two, Skyy realized she hoped in vain. The Seniors were a close-knit group, friends that had been together through the years, fought side by side to get to where they were. They saw Skyy as an outsider- a black ant trying to pass itself off as red, a strange wolf pissing on the territory of their pack. They didn’t welcome her, and aside from a few pointed glances and significant looks now and then rarely acknowledged her presence among them.
Ever silent, Skyy pressed on.
….
Days turned into weeks, weeks turned to months, and soon June announced its arrival in the form of Mr. Ani’s tinny voice over the school’s ancient speaker system:
“Students are to report to the Meadow for the summer Recognition ceremony. Freshman class, proceed now. All others follow by grade.”
The intercom clicked off and students began to file onto the now well-flattened grass of the Meadow.
….
Skyy was in the bathroom when the announcement was made, but when she returned to Ms. Ksi’s room and found it empty she knew where the class had gone. She walked alone down the dirty skylight-lit hallway to the double doors that led to the Meadow.
The teachers had finally managed to dull the roar of laughing voices to near silence, and the slow creak of the old school doors as Skyy pushed them open seemed to echo more loudly than usual. Every head in the Meadow turned in her direction.
Standing on the school steps, head down, books in hand, Skyy felt the hundreds of eyes upon her and heard the familiar hateful, judgmental, joking murmurs as they rippled through the crowd.
She thought of everything she’d put up with in her life, thought of these kids and their stupid laughter, their hurtful stares and barbed comments. She thought, head down, unmoving.
Skyy’s shoulders started to shake and she dropped her books to the cement. Everyone in the Meadow fell silent, as though the voices had been ripped from their throats.
Skyy was Changing before their eyes.
Skyy clenched her fists and shook harder. The years of hate and abuse, of jeers and laughter and pain and helpless tears, tingled up and down her spine, forcing their way feather by feather out her shoulders until Skyy stood, unrecognizable, beautiful black and golden wings outstretched.
….
Slowly she raised her head and looked out over the crowd, looking up and up until her eyes came to rest on the golden shimmer of the sun in the distance. Without a word, without a look, without a nod to anyone, Skyy spread her wings
and flew to meet the sun.
….
No one ever saw the girl that never spoke after that day…
Finally, she was free.