Landed Wings

chapter 9: BETRAYAL



ASHLYNN

School the next day seemed trite and meaningless. There is something going on, a dark and twisted something I wasn’t aware of before. I wonder what atrocities Mocha had been talking about. I look around me and just see kids. Maybe the kids here are snootier then most, but I can’t see any of them hurting people. And their parents…well they’re just grown up kids. I don’t know anyone capable of evil, well, except for my mother. And even she wouldn’t do anything that would result in any backlash. She’s careful that way. Ivory keeps asking me what happened, but what do I tell her? How can I tell anyone?

“Ash, you have been gone all day. I haven’t heard you say five words today, and you have this dreamy expression on your face. What’s up with that?”

“What?”

“See what I mean?”

Today, Obsidian and I are walking in the hallway alone.

“What happened down there that has you so spaced out?”

“Hunh,” is all I can say.

I admit I’m barely paying attention to what Ob is saying.

“Oh nothing, nothing.”

“It’s obviously something. Is it that guy?”

I feel defensive all of a sudden.

“What about him?”

“Hey, I was just asking a question. No need to get defensive.”

He’s frowning now.

“Sorry, Ob. You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

Why can’t they just leave me alone! Ob leans close and puts his head next to mine.

“That LandBound won’t ever know you like I do. I get you, I get why he’s so attractive to you – he’s different and weird and you like that. You think it’s some kind of adventure and imagine you’ve met him for a reason. Everything – everyone one here is too familiar – maybe even boring. I’ll tell you what, I’m tired of being bored too. I say you and me take off – go explore the rest of SkyBound. If you’re looking for adventure, you don’t have to go LandBound to get it. It’s right in front of you-think about it.”

Obsidian walks away, leaving me staring at his retreating back in shock. What the…? Since when-I don’t-what?! Is he trying to say he likes me? And what a cocky way to tell me! Who does he think I am? Doesn’t he know he’s practically my brother? Does everyone know? Does Raven know? What a mess. I – uhhh!!!! I want to run after him and set things straight, but he’s gone. And I have a singing gig today. I’ll have to deal with it tomorrow.

My singing gig is at an alternative restaurant/café named

Aviana Gardens. It’s a beautiful, earthy little place where the music ranges from lounge, to jazz, to blues. I am going to be singing jazz, and I choose a soulful song about lost innocence as my first song. It’s quiet and mellow and suits the ambiance of this place well. My voice is light, airy – it’s not deep like LandBound singers. It bothers me sometimes, because I feel like deeper voices produce more emotion. But people say they like my voice because it is soothing, and not forceful. I don’t know how to feel about that – good I guess, even though I’ve noticed that most of the people considered great don’t have airy voices. I’m not saying I’m breathy, just that my voice doesn’t have much substance. I only have substance when the song means something to me. I usually leave right after my set but a LandBound slam poet is coming on after me. I’ve never seen a LandBound perform slam poetry so I stay to watch the set. She starts to speak and I can feel the power of her words reverberating in a way I can never reproduce in song.

She speaks in a strong, powerful voice…

Walking a Fine Line

There is such a fine fine line

Razor thin and straight beneath my wingless feet

It trembles and quakes

Along with the daily battles in my mind

It shifts left, right, with

My thoughts

The inferiority I feel, because I am wingless



The pride/superiority I feel BECAUSE I am Wingless

The disgust and anger I feel toward my scarred wingless skin

The disdain and amused arrogance I feel towards the winged

Wanting desperately to be winged because I was told it was right

Knowing I was right too, and didn’t have to rely on wings

Seeing people like me, hiding their shame

Seeing people like me, proudly flaunting a wingless back

Seeing faces like my own, broken, denigrated,

humiliated

Knowing that the brokenness and humiliation was wrong

But accepting it – always accepting it

Seesawing back and forth the pain cuts deep

The thin, fine line turns red

With no wings to raise me, it cuts my feet, wearing me down

Never balanced, always shifting

Night day, night day

My thin fine line turns a darker red



I got back home today wanting to talk to my mother. I wanted to tell her that even though she had done those things…well I didn’t forgive her, but my mother could be good to talk to…sometimes. For some reason though, I decide to open the door quietly. I get feelings sometimes, feelings that that are hard ignore. As I open the door, I hear my dad playing the saxophone somewhere in the house and my mother on the phone. I close the door quietly behind me and walk forward on my toes, to hear what she was saying. My mind goes blank for a second. It feels like somewhere, a coffin is closed and placed in cold wet ground. This coffin has my life in it. I run out, shrieking like the half-bird I am in anger and hurt, fiercely flying away. How could she? My own mother? I knew she was abusive, terrible, a horrible parent. But…I choke down a sob. I didn’t expect her to be a monster. I can’t go back there. I should go talk to Obsidian. To my father. To Ivory. But none of them seem right. I can’t go back home again. Where will I live? Where will I go? I can’t think, I just follow my wings. I know where they will take me. Despite barely knowing them, I feel my anxiety melt away at the thought of a pair of cappuccino eyes. It stops me again. I’ve never trusted in someone so quickly. A tiny voice in the back of my head is fearful and questioning my decisions, but a bigger one is urging me on. I know it’s silly, but I listen to the bigger voice. Besides it was my own. If I can’t trust my own voice, I can’t trust anything.

I notice the tingle is gone. I take it as a good sign. I fly down, in broad daylight, hardly caring who sees me, crying the whole time, the damsel in distress I’ve never wanted to be. I get down to the alley and look around. Will he be here? Oh course he will, he always is. I fold my wings into my shirt because I don’t feel any danger now. And I don’t care, really didn’t care this time. When I had told Mocha I didn’t before, I didn’t mean it. When your own home is a dangerous place to be, then who cares about the rest? If there is no safe base when you are playing tag, then you just fly and pray you’re not caught.

“We have to stop meeting like this Princess.”

It brings a smile to my lips, but I’m still crying and they

tremble.

“What’s wrong?”

He sounds…afraid?

“I – my mother -”

I can’t continue. My sobs get louder. I finally open my eyes, and Mocha looks at me in puzzlement.

“Come.”

He takes my arm and leads me away from the alley. We end up in some park, a park not unlike the one in the sky, maybe a little more rundown. We sit on a bench too, which I find ironic.

“Tell me.”

And so I do. Why not him - this boy I barely know but who makes me feel…something. I realize how naïve I’m being, but like I said, I need to tell someone. And I can’t tell anyone in the sky. They won’t understand. Once the words start to flow, they won’t stop. I tell him about my mother’s abuse, my father’s neglect, the kids at Volar High. I tell him about Raven, Persimmon, Cyanne, Pepper, Ivory, Bramble, Sangria, and finally Obsidian. I tell him about Ob’s approaching me at school. I tell him about my singing. And then…I get to my mother’s phone call. I don’t know who she was talking to but…

“What?”

I had stopped talking. Thinking about it made my mind turn into a whirlpool where the only place to go was down.

“What is it Ash? What did your mother say?”

“She said…she told them about me coming down here. She told them about me remembering her tortures. She accused them of not being careful enough with my memory pills. That she had only followed orders and that now her relationship was ruined with her daughter.”

That’s a hard one to swallow. Even if I hadn’t remembered, we still would have had a strained relationship. What mother would torture her own child because she was ordered to? And why me?

“She said that her cover was blown and that I was a liability. Then she asked if they wanted her to “eradicate the problem”.”

I couldn’t help it. I broke down again. I thought that I was

finally getting to a good place. A singing gig, happy enough to amend things, at least partially, with my mother, and a world that has more to it then I had first thought. I look up at Mocha to see a weird expression on his face. It is hard and unsympathetic while the look in his eyes seems like they are saying sorry for whatever he is about to say or do.

“Ash…you’re not going to like what I’m about to say.”

“Just tell me. It can’t be worse than not having a home.”

His expression hardened even more when my voice cracked on home.

“I haven’t had a home for fifteen years. So suck it up

Princess, because there can be worse.”

Well that stopped me crying.

“Listen Ash, I know who your mother is. I know what she’s part of. I know what she did to you. She is part of the group I told you about – the ones who hurt LandBound. She is why I am down here. I’m with the resistance, and she’s part of the organization I’m trying to stop. I couldn’t tell you this before, because I didn’t think I could trust you and…”

He stops for just a second.

“I know this sounds cruel, and I won’t blame you if you hate me. I won’t stop you from running. I was the one on the other end of the phone today. I was the one who made sure to call when you were going to be home so that you would hear her. But I want you to why all this is happening. It’s because there’s something in you…something that can help us.”

I let go of his hand.

“You destroyed my family.”

“I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Your mother

destroyed your family long before you met me.”

“If you need me so much, why do you keep walking away from me, telling me to leave? And why-”

Mocha cuts me off.

“Because I knew you would come back. I don’t know you all that well, but I did know you’d come back.”

“Why can’t you tell me about why you need me? If I don’t know what it is, how can I help? Why should I help?”

“I can’t tell you about your part in this, Ash, that’s for

someone else to do.”

“Then tell me about what they do. The people with my mother. Tell me all about them.”