WHEN I wake up, I’m in my bed, and after a few minutes stretching against my sheets, I realize what’s weird about that: I have no memory at all of how I got here. I remember the woods, the blue brightness reflecting off the tree trunks and the undersides of leaves; I remember that laughing tangle of faces and wings, I remember panicking. Then nothing.
As I think it over, I realize that’s a good thing. If I’d been awake while all that was happening, I’d definitely have some memory of scrambling up the hill and into the unlit maze of our hotel. So the whole episode must have been a very vivid dream. The blue didn’t come for me last night, or try to take me somewhere, or mouth silent words that could only be meant as a warning. I’ve just been wondering about it so much that it sank deep in my mind and gave me a nightmare. That’s the only logical explanation.
As soon as I have that all figured out, our alarm clock goes off. Ophelia flutters sleepily and sends a glass of water on her nightstand plummeting to the floor. It bounces on the carpet instead of breaking, but her shoes and the book she left spread on top of them get soaked.
“Darn.” She’s up on one elbow, smiling at the mess. “When I was little, I knocked stuff over all the time. I’d start flapping without meaning to and break everything. And then I got the idea that that was why my parents didn’t want me and I started tying my wings down with old tights. I thought somehow my parents would know how hard I was trying to be what they wanted, and they’d show up at the gate and take me home with them.” She started the story bubbling with happiness, but now each word comes slower than the one before until they’re grinding like teeth. “Ms. Stuart made me stop tying them, and I was so angry I wouldn’t leave my room for a week. I thought she didn’t want anyone to love me, ever. See? I didn’t understand anything.”
Ophelia has never asked me a single thing about my parents or my life before I came here, and I know why: she’s too afraid of how it would make her feel. I slide out of bed and start digging around for clothes and a not-horribly-musty towel.
“What if they wanted to keep you and it was just that they were too scared of being attacked? You’ve seen how psycho people can get, like the mob that night. Imagine if we were living in a regular house and we didn’t have a gate protecting us. Your parents could have been, not even afraid for themselves, but afraid of what would happen to you.”
I was trying to comfort her, but her mouth twists bitterly. “You’re always talking about how scared normal people are. I think you don’t want to admit that they’re actually just mean. How would you even know?”
“Because I grew up with them. My mom was terrified. Not of real chimeras, because there weren’t any around, not as far as she knew. But just of the whole idea. Like, that people might not be exactly human someday.”
“Gabriel says we’ll never be able to completely trust you as long as you keep making excuses for them. And calling them scared is totally an excuse.”
My heart jars hearing his name. It’s like part of me believes my dream last night was real and now I have to be very alert whenever anyone mentions him.
“Maybe he’s just saying that to make himself feel better. About acting so stupid that he almost got me killed.”
She’s up now in front of the window. Morning sun streaked with the shadows of roses dapples her back and falls on her translucent wings so sharply I can count the petals.
“I don’t want to believe him, Ada. When you look at me, I feel like you see me as—new and exciting, like we could all be miracles just the way we are. Like you really believe we’re the start of something amazing. But when you talk, it’s something else.” She isn’t looking at me. “I’m not the only one who worries about it. Even people who like you a lot wonder how much you’re on our side.”
When I went to bed last night Rowan and Ophelia were still on the beach, and maybe after I left they were talking about me. Is that who she means?
“I think I see both sides. My mom was pregnant when I left. So, Ophelia, if the baby dies because I infected my mom, how could I feel okay about that? I would be a murderer. That’s all I’m saying. I understand why they’re scared, because I am too.”
I don’t say, You’ve been in here all your life, so you’ve never had to worry about anything like that happening.
“Well, what if the baby is like me? Or what if she can fly for real? Would you still feel bad, if you wind up with a little sister who’s an actual faerie? Normal people don’t even use the sky, anyway, except for airplanes, so I don’t see why it shouldn’t belong to us.”
It’s one of those funny moments when you can see into someone else’s mind. I feel like I’m watching every daydream Ophelia ever had, all filled with the flash and spin of dragonfly people: a whole kingdom of them, somersaulting over the treetops. She’s waiting for that day so passionately that it sends a twitch through her wings, even if she won’t be alive to see it. And I know what I should say: Are you kidding? It would be awesome if I had a sister like you!
But I can’t do it. “I’d still feel bad, because it would be hard for her. Just like it’s hard for us.”
She starts to turn and stops abruptly with her wings quivering, watching me from the edge of one faceted eye. And I know it was the wrong thing to say, and she’ll think it means I’m not trustworthy. Though not trustworthy for what?
I think of what the blue said in my dream. They want power. That might be true for Gabriel, but I’m sure that’s not what Ophelia’s wishing for. I’ve seen her dreams like they were shining straight into me.
She wants the sky.
“Ada?” Ophelia has turned around now as she shimmies one of her chopped-up shirts past her hips and shoves both hands into the sleeves. Of course she can never pull on anything over her head. “What happened to your legs?”
I guess there is a stinging sensation in my calves. I’ve been doing my best to ignore it.
When I look down, both shins are scored all over with deep scratches and smudges of dried blood. Just as if I’d run in a frenzy through blackberry bushes, with no awareness at all of where I was going. I stare at my legs and then back at her, and I just can’t make myself answer.