Blessed Powers. The girl is still wet behind the ears. And completely untrained!
I looked down at my body and it was like seeing myself through the eyes of a stranger. Eyes that viewed me as a child, unfinished and weak, almost as useless as The Nothing.
She hasn’t even grown breasts yet!
I wouldn’t have thought it possible to blush and get embarrassed while I was in mortal danger, but I did. I instinctively raised my arms and folded them across my chest.
Stand up, girl! The new, bossy voice in my head ordered me. Up-up-up!
Suddenly I was back on my feet. Chimera, who had been bending over the seal in the wheel’s water zone, straightened up immediately. She half-turned and stretched one wing in my direction, probably to knock me to the ground again.
Revulsion surged in me like a black wave.
Blood thief, the voice inside me hissed. Life stealer!
“Let go of that which is not yours!” The voice that came out of my mouth was deeper than my own, hard and alien. And then it happened… I don’t know how… it’s so difficult to…
I can’t explain it. Something came out of me. Something sharp and shiny, like a knife or a sword. Yes, like a sword. There was even a singing, metallic sound in the air.
And Chimera screamed.
One of her wings lay on the ground. It kept its shape for a brief moment, then it began to dissolve in front of my very eyes. It disintegrated feather by feather, and each feather shimmered and became a bird. A thrush, a sparrow, a buzzard, a heron. A giant white-tailed sea eagle, a tiny wren.
There were hundreds of them. Not living birds, even I could see that, completely untrained and still wet behind the ears though I was. There was something pale and transparent about them, and the wing of the eagle went right through the thrush, without either of them noticing it. Ghost birds. Or more accurately perhaps, bird spirits. They were all that remained of the living animals whose life and… and birdness Chimera had claimed – a life for every single feather. That was the price of Chimera’s wings.
“And the other one,” I whispered to the new voice inside me.
Chimera was reeling; she was being dragged down by the weight of her remaining wing now that the severed one was no longer there to counterbalance it.
I don’t think I’d even needed to ask. The sword-like feeling welled up in me before the words had even left my lips. It hurt this time, more than the first. As if the sword had to cut its way out of me before we could liberate the stolen lives trapped in Chimera’s other wing. But the second wing fell too. And the cave was filled with the rush and call of birds, with hoarse caws and honks and tweets, with the squawking of gulls and the cries of buzzards, bewildered but free. In a roar of invisible wings, they rose and soared and finally disappeared as if the walls of the cave had ceased to exist.
Chimera’s eyes had taken on a maddened gleam. Now it was her turn to curl up in the sand of the cave, without a feather on her body. Even her talons had shrunk to very long nails.
“Mum!” The Nothing squawked, huddling against her legs. “What’s happening?”
Chimera kicked her so violently that the little bundle of feathers hurtled through the air and crashed into the wall of the cave with an ugly, wet smack.
“No!” I screamed, somehow more outraged at this one, hopeless life than the hundreds of others that hadn’t sneezed and pooed on me, or asked me what the word “friend” meant. “Don’t you dare! GO AWAY! Go! Vanish. Get out of my life and STAY OUT. I want you GONE for GOOD!”
The words came from deep, deep inside me. They were as sharp as the invisible sword had been. They burst out of me, sticky with blood and scorching heat, and hit Chimera like a hammer blow.
If she had screamed when the voice helped me take her first wing, it was nothing compared to what she did now. Her scream seemed to absorb all the air in the cave, so that for a very long moment I couldn’t even breathe. It went on and on. There was as much bird in that cry as there was a human voice, there was mortal fear and pain, but also hatred, rage and a thirst for revenge.
Youuuuu…
Willlllllllllll…
Payyyyyyyyyyyyyy…
Forrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
Thissssssssssssss….
I covered my ears with my hands, but it wasn’t enough. I had to close my eyes too.
Not until it had been quiet for a while did I open my eyes again. She was gone. She had vanished completely, as I’d ordered her to. Not so much as a feather or a strand of hair was left behind.
Blessed Powers, the voice inside me murmured. The girl is a proper witch after all…
The four animals inside the wheel were still there. The seal, the wild goose and the fire lizard all peered up at me uncertainly, as if they couldn’t quite believe that it was over. The mole looked at nothing, saw nothing. A final tremor went through its dark little body, then it was gone.
“Go,” I said to the others. “You’re free. Go now…”
The word “free” made me think of The Nothing, and I turned away from the circle without worrying about what happened to the three living animals.
She was lying on the floor under the outcrop she had smashed into, a forlorn little figure never much suited to life. Even so, I found it hard to bear that she had died without ever knowing what words such as freedom, friendship and happiness really meant. I knelt down beside her and gently touched her damp, filthy feathers. She was still warm; the heat of life doesn’t leave a body as quickly as that. But… surely that was… Yes. It was there, a faint breath, a fragile and stumbling heartbeat. She was still alive.
“Save her,” I pleaded, because I didn’t know how to do it myself, and I had a feeling that this new but ancient voice inside me was wiser than me in this respect, too.
Are you sure that’s what she wants?
I had to think about this before I replied. Life was hard for The Nothing. The way she was created, the way Chimera had created her, there wasn’t a lot she could do for herself.
“Can’t we help?” I said softly. “Give her… some decent legs, perhaps. Or a pair of wings she can actually use for flying.”
Whose life will you take to give them to her? the voice asked with glacial chill. And have you even asked her if that is what she wants?
It felt as if I’d been slapped across my face, only on the inside. Very uncomfortable. But then it dawned on me that if I started changing The Nothing without her consent, I was no better than Chimera.
“Chimera didn’t care whether The Nothing lived or died,” I said in my own defence. “I do.”
And what does the poor creature herself want?
“She said that it was hard not to go on living once you had started,” I said. “And perhaps… perhaps there might be time for her to learn the meaning of freedom. And friendship.”
My hands started moving without my direction. They placed themselves gently on The Nothing’s damp, feathered chest, one on top of the other. And suddenly I began singing. A wordless hum, simultaneously high and low, as if I was singing two notes at the same time. My head was buzzing and spinning, and I paused for a moment when I realized that what was coming out of me was wildsong, wildsong like Aunt Isa’s.
Stop resisting, child! the voice said irritably. We’re both exhausted, and it’s hard enough as it is.
There were so many questions I wanted answered. What was happening to me? Whose was that old, bossy voice, and what was she doing in my head? Could I get rid of her again? And if I could – would I want to?
But those questions would have to wait if I were to save The Nothing. If we were to save The Nothing. Because I couldn’t do it alone.
I closed my eyes and let the wildsong come as it might.