The talons that clutched my knives cramped so badly I feared I would not be able to land. The wings that bore me into the tempest burned with a fiery ache. The winds that should have carried me home sought to turn me away, swat me down, and keep me among the Flightless. The river that lent direction to my flight looped lazily beneath me, with no care for my increasing urgency.
I flapped harder against the wind, ignoring the splattering drops. The farther I could get from the village before the storm grounded me, the better.
'Sorcha, it's not safe to fly in storms: when the winds bring the rains, all Flits take shelter.' I shook my head in a futile attempt to rid myself of my mother's voice. Would she never truly leave me?
Like a cat toying with a sparrow, the storm batted me backward, to the left, to the right, ruffling my dark plumage. Thunder rumbled threateningly, and the lightning was getting closer. But the small feathers down my spine weren't standing on end, so it wasn't going to strike here… Yet.
The storm caught me in earnest before I was past the farms, with a sudden onslaught of rain coming down in sheets and wind screaming in rage. Soaked and near-blinded, I barely landed without gutting myself on my knives. I dropped them, hoping I wouldn't lose them in the muck, and shifted to snatch them back. My leather over-clothes were soaked instantly, as were the worn denims underneath. Shaking water from my eyes, I peered ahead. But any water I cleared from my eyes was immediately replaced. 'At this rate, I'll be in the river and not notice the difference.'
With little to lose, I started running forward. This stretch of river was fairly shallow, as I recalled. But with a little luck, I could find a particular tree — a giant outrider of the forest. 'Surely, it has a nook or hollow that could shelter me.'
Like a nightmare, lightning flashes illuminated my run, and I didn't seem to be getting anywhere. All at once, sheet lightning lit the sky like day, showing me the river dead ahead. I adjusted my course as best I could while the burning shifted from my arms to my legs. My breath hissed through my teeth as I challenged the storm. This was one thing that could not make me back down. 'On the bright side, my feet aren't cramping so much.'
As I ran, a surrealistic haze enveloped me. Reality seemed mutable—ready, even eager for change. Was I a girl who could become a butterfly, or a butterfly who could become a girl? Or an owl that could become either at will? Was I running toward the past or away from the future? Was my life as an Out Poster a fever dream while I lay in bed, missing a picnic? My mother was waiting, and my father had never been. Nothing was real, and everything was real at the same time.
Then I ran into a wall.
Dazed, I fell backward, stumbling on the slope I'd just navigated without issue. A low, animalistic moan came from the wall, followed by another. The hair rose on the back of my neck and my hands tightened around the knife hilts. Inspection showed that the structure was tucked in a hollow, kept clear of the river only by the hills. 'Though how that keeps the place from flooding, I don't know.' Squishing through the mud, I trudged to the wall's corner and peeked around; a wave of warm air met my face. A flash of lightning illuminated the inside of the three-sided hut, revealing large brown eyes set into bovine faces. The cows jostled each other, tucked out of the storm by the shelter and raised above the mud by a slatted floor, while rain sheeted off my body.
'Cows mean Flightless.' I swiped a grimy hand across my face, grimacing at the mucky sensation left behind. Another lightning bolt showed steam rising off the dark, boney backs. 'But they're warm and drier than me.'
With a final glance toward the river and its potential tree, I huddled in the cow byre; the beasts' damp bodies pressing closing to my flightless form. I'd almost convinced myself to press on — that the storm was preferable to the cow's company and stench — when the hail arrived. Then we all fought to be farther away from the open wall, though a quick look assured me that none were shoved out into the weather. Exhaustion dragged at my bones, but I feared I'd be trampled if I fell asleep.
'Is it too much to ask for a tree? Or rafters? Any place an owl could rest?' My stomach growled in counterpoint to my mental grumbling; as ill-advised as my last shift was, staying shifted longer, without food, wasn't an option. I rubbed my gut and studied the downpour instead of considering the upcoming unpleasantness of returning an owl pellet in Flightless form. 'No help for it. And hunting again — in this? Yeah, only the desperate are out in that.'
Dismissing my body's unmeetable needs, I focused on what I could fix. My overshirt provided plenty of hide to create two makeshift sheaths, and lace to tie them to my forearm and waist. More lace became a webwork-necklace to keep the black, glyph-studded stone close.
'And it doesn't matter that it leaves my denims exposed. I'll not see any Flightless before I reach my Out Post, and I won't be back next year, so I don't need the awful things.' The smack of hail died, leaving the steady whoosh of rain. I leaned against a warm flank and patted the beast it belonged to. 'This isn't so bad.' Yawning, I rolled my neck and let my eyes slip closed. By morning, this should ease off enough for me to head out.'
"Maamaa!"
Thunder rattled the byre, and I smiled. Cows are such strange beasts. I scratched the flank again, and the cow shifted, lowing.
"Maamaa!"
In the next flash of lightning, I searched for the calf that sounded so much like a child. A frisson of unease traced down my spine. All the cows were about the same size, raw-boned and gangly legged, and they lowed occasionally with the melancholic moans I'd heard when I ran into the wall.
'There are no calves in here.'
"Maamaa! Daadaa!"
My throat clenched and I stared into the night. 'That's coming from the river.' Snatching the remnants of my overshirt and draping them over my shoulders, I ran from the byre and staggered up the far side of the hollow. The river lay beyond, wide and normally placid. Lightning revealed an angry roil that carved into the bank. I searched for the sound I'd heard; it had devolved into broken sobs while I approached. They flitted through the night, seeming to come from all directions.
I ground my teeth and focused on my other senses. Scent was out, drowned by the pungent aroma left by the cows and the cleansing rain. The storm also drowned any hope of touch, but provided the one saving grace in the darkness. A bolt of lightning struck the massive tree across the river — the one I'd hoped to shelter in — and illuminated the night.
'There!' Wedged into a snag, a blond head bobbed above the water. The child clutched at a rope sling attached to a barrel that kept him — barely — afloat. As the fire spread, his grip slipped, and the water closed over his head, silencing his cries. He popped back up, mouth open, and pulled himself closer to the barrel.
My feet plunged down the bank and launched me into the river while my brain struggled to come up with a plan. Normally, the water along this stretch was about knee deep, except for the washouts. 'Washouts marked by snags.' If it was flooding, it might be waist-deep. 'I've not been here when it was flooding.'
The water swallowed my objections; the river ran warmer than the rain, but not by much, and I shuddered. Three plunging steps, lit by the growing fire, carried me halfway to the child. The river tugged at my clunky deerskin boots, trying to pull them off my feet or lead them astray. The next step sent my foot sliding down the edge of the expected washout and dunked me as thoroughly as my creek ever had. Thrashing awkwardly, I got my head above water and the current threw me into the snag, smashing me into the child's barrel and threatening to pull us both under again. The barrel, freed of the snag, whisked off downstream in a blink.
Scrabbling at the snag, I fought for a secure grip and searched for the child. His mouth still gaped, but his head was above water; that was all I needed for the moment. I hooked an arm around his torso and kicked us both free, rolling to my back with the child on my stomach. He lay limp, stunned or exhausted, and let me float us downriver to the sandbar. I dragged us clear of the water, shaking and limp, and panted.
In the light of the burning tree, the child stared at me, wide-eyed, and burst into fresh tears.
'Great. I broke it.' Swearing under my breath, I stripped the tattered bits of my overshirt off and wrapped it around him. 'Bones and feathers, what do I tell him?'
A flurry of reassuring lies — that it would be okay, that nothing bad would happen, that he'd be safe — clogged my throat. 'I can't tell him that. It's not okay, bad things are happening, and he's not safe.'
Still, something of comfort must have registered, as the wails died off to hiccuping sobs. The reprieve allowed me to search for a secure passage from the sandbar to the riverbank. The night-dark and storm-riled water offered no hints of what lay beneath; if we stepped into another washout, I couldn't say how far we'd be washed before I could regain my footing. And the hollow ache inside me whispered that there wasn't any guarantee I'd have the strength to keep us afloat that long.
'No choice, though. I don't know if I'd survive the night unprotected.' A shudder racked my body, and the chatter of tiny teeth accented the child's sobs. I shoved to my feet and bent to grab the child when I heard a rumble. Freezing, I searched the night but saw only fire, water, and floating debris waiting for a snag.
'Large debris.' I watched a tree trunk float past, chisel-pointed end first. Another followed it, hanging up briefly on the sandbar before another struck it and they spun free to continue downriver. 'The dam.'
Beavers, blocking a tiny branch that wandered a bit before rejoining the river, had started the dam. A farmer killed the beavers and expanded it, blocking the whole river to create a spillway for his mill. Old Man Johnson spoke cautiously in favor of the man; the mill provided competition for the one in town and kept prices fair. But the spillway had been dry when I'd flown overhead earlier, and the overflow channels were full to the brim.
More and more pieces of the dam clogged the river, and I knew I'd never be able to cross without getting bludgeoned and knocked under.
"Bones!" I grabbed the child, clutching him to my chest, and plunged into my crystal. 'I need a shield big enough to protect us.' A nauseating yank at my guts made me gasp; there was nothing left to draw from my crystal. My reserves were beyond empty; I had nothing to put between us and the coming destruction.
"No!" I snarled, and the child whimpered. I relaxed my grip but didn't release him. "We're not done here!"
Ruthlessly, I plunged deeper, plundering the quartz's depth. 'There has to be something left. There's always something left.' The crystal offered a pattern: dark feathers edged with gold, a golden body, and a hooked beak. It was massive, dwarfing my horned owl. I snatched it, twisting through the pattern, and dove further into the quartz, until I hit a smoky-grey wall. I beat against it, hammering with my fists.
The rumble grew louder; the water level rose in a sharp wave, studded with mud and logs far larger than the trunks that had floated past already.
'There's no time!' Unconsciously, I squeezed the child tight again, pressing his face to my chest so he couldn't see what was coming. Then the quartz wall shattered, and I burst forth, not into the crystal as I'd expected, but beyond somehow.
My muscles wrenched like they never had before, twisting and tearing as if to break my bones. But it was working; I was shifting.
A high, whistling shriek escaped my beak as the child dropped to the sandbar. With a quick hop, I wrapped my massive talons around his thin biceps, hoping the deerskin would protect his tender skin, and beat my wings. The weight — far more than my owl could hope to shift — dragged me down. I powered through, with wings that were each as long as my full owl-wingspan lofting us both to safety.
Lightning flashed, providing light my new eyes desperately needed. 'Whatever this form is, it isn't a night-hunter.' The thunder that followed rattled my bones and reminded me that safe was a relative term.
'The child obviously got swept downriver. The best chance of finding where he belongs is upstream.' I angled into the night, focusing on the details provided by each crack and flash. 'Not safe,' I wanted to tell the child. 'But you will be.'