Page 12 of Scars Like Wings
As the gunshot echoed, as loud as the knock and the laugh that brought me here, I screamed.
Out of the Woods
It all happened at once.
First, everything came back in loud, screaming color. The image of my mother and the hunters disappeared like a mirage. Aunt Max, Uncle Everett, and Talli stood in front of me. Worried looks were on all their faces. Distantly, I heard them calling out to me, begging for me to come back to them.
Next came the pain. So much pain. It was so intense, sharp, and stabbing. It was much worse than the scratches I felt in the cave. This pain was centered in my back and shoulders. Four long, large cuts opened close to my spine and shoulder blades. It was all worsened by the feeling ofsomethingtrying to surface from the wounds. It made me scream with my whole body, but my scream was silent. If I was an outsider looking in, I probably would think I looked haunting, like a banshee foreshadowing a death. I couldn’t think through it. I couldn’t move except to bend over in pain.
When I was ready to meet my mom in the next world from the agony, the world exploded, and it all became too much for me to bear.
Everything shook. The glass from the living room windows and the French doors erupted from the frames, shards flying allaround the house. Even my glasses flew from my face to shatter. Stones from the fireplace cracked away. Crystals and jewelry from the mantle, the table, my bedroom—everywhere—flew up to surround me. They encircled me in widely spaced layers, but they were growing closer together. I knew it all would soon encase me in crystal.
Watching them swirl around me, I realized then that I was levitating and rising higher toward the ceiling. A strange, foreign wind ballooned my clothes out. My long black braids snapped and whipped my face. I felt the same power from the caverns come from me, but I wasn’t consciously controlling anything. I felt like I was the source of the mayhem. Worse, my back and shoulders strained, against something wanting to burst out and be free. It was beyond painful. I had a feeling I should do something to help stop it. But there was a not-so-small part of me that wanted to give in. I think it was that same voice from the caves. It was growing stronger.
“Byrd! Byrdie, what’s going on?”
“Treesong! Are you okay? Talk to us!”
I couldn’t speak. I wanted to scream my lungs out, but it hurt to even breathe. Like thousands of needles pressing into me, with every point stabbing harder and deeper if I threatened to move at all. It all hurt too much. All I could do was cry and wrap my arms around myself to try to hold myself together.
The walls of the house cracked. The stones and glass flew so quickly around the house, crashing into everything and breaking on contact. The counters, floors, the stairs, the furniture, nothing was safe. Talli had cast a coral bubble around her, Aunt Max, and Uncle Everett to fight the onslaught. But as more things broke, more projectiles were made to be flung and batter the shield.
Suddenly, the front door flew open. I heard it more than I saw it. My focus was pulled once I heard the voice.
“Byrdie! What’s going on here?” Pops. His Southern baritone voice reverberated through the house to cut through the chaos and destruction happening.
“I have a theory,” Talli yelled. “But we will have to get her calmed down.”
“What happened? Why is she up there in the first place?”
“Not sure!” Aunt Max answered this time. “I was just making her favorite drink when she started calling for her momma and talking as if she was there. Then all of this happened.”
“Oh, shit. Oh, shit, shit, shit,fuck,” Pops cursed. Popsnevercursed. Not with me around. “She was calling for her mom because shewashere.”
“What?!” Auntie Max and Uncle Ever exclaimed at once.
“Byrd was reliving Doe’s memory. It’s a dragonborn thing, our last bit of magic dispersing into our offspring.”
“Then we need to get her down.Now,” Talli ordered.
“I’m on it.”
Immediately, the earthquake stopped. The stones halted in mid-flight. The glass and the crystals still swirled around me, forming a tighter enclosure. The sharp things continued to press through the cuts on my back, feeling like they were reaching a breaking point. But there was a shift in the air now.
Then wings flapped until my father hovered before me. His shirt was off, with his enormous aquamarine, topaz, and emerald wings keeping him suspended in air. Where Mom’s wings were more like traditional dragon wings, Pops’ wings were feathered. His long tail, with matching feathers at its end, swished behind him, steadying him. His soft dirt brown eyes—the same color as my own—met mine with resolve atop unbearable sadness.
“Hi there, baby Byrd. How you doing?”
I almost wanted to laugh. I would have if the situation was any different. Pops always knew how to diffuse any crisis, how tothin the tension. It’s why he was such a good detective. He never let things escalate.
“My back hurts, Dad,” I choked out, finally finding my voice through the pain and my sobs. It was the second time I had ever called him that. “It hurts sobad.”
“I know, Byrdie. I know. It’s going to be okay. I’m here now. I’m going to make it okay. You’re going to be okay.”
“Nothing will ever be okay. Never again.”
Pops shook his head. “It will be. You have to trust me.”