Filaria - Brent Hayward [40]
Much bigger.
She stopped walking.
“Mom?” Her voice came out thin and reedy. Her cup fell to the grass and cold water soaked her foot. “Mom!”
“What is it, Sweet Pea?” Her mother looked but turned quickly, toward the sky, alarmed by the expression she’d seen on her youngest daughter’s face. Staring, mouth open, she said nothing. The glade had gone preternaturally still.
Even from this distance, Deidre distinguished two trailing legs, very much like her own, and faces, on these aviators. No, certainly not machines. Not redbirds or blue. These were men, flying men, and they were as strange and unsettling to her mother as they were to Deidre.
“Uh, girls,” their mother finally said, clapping the lid down on a mayonnaise jar. “You see what wonders one can witness in the, in the world at large?”
“What are they?” Deidre asked quietly.
“Lady?” Mother addressed the servant. “Have you seen these, er, specimens previously?”
“No, ma’am,” Lady answered, still chewing, her face also turned skyward. “I reckon they might be angels.”
“Angels?” Voluminia laughed. “There’s no such thing.”
“Angels,” Lady repeated, nodding. “Angels are a sign of luck, they say. A blessing. They’re ’posed to appear. When we pure enough to ascend.”
“Ascend? What are you talking about?”
“Some of us believe that. Ma’am.”
“Some of who?”
“Us.” Lady shrugged. “Or they might be rocs. Or even harpies.”
Mother laughed nervously. “Tell the girls you’re kidding, Lady.”
Lady looked blankly at the girls.
“Tell the girls there are no such things as rocs. Or nonsense about ascension.”
Lady shrugged and turned her attention back to her lunch. She popped a small potato in her mouth.
“Maybe they’re something new,” Estelle said. “Some tortured freaks escaped from a lab, just like the one dad worked at.”
“Yeah. Before he exiled us,” Voluminia added.
“Your father fed and clothed us!” Mother was angry now. “He gave you girls a beautiful home. I will not have him talked about like that.”
The teenagers were not intimidated. They exchanged exaggerated looks. Voluminia fingered her grubby garments and feigned being impressed by the quality.
Their mother tossed leftovers back into the basket. The picnic wrapped up hastily. Under the presence of the winged men, circling high overhead, the girls bundled back into the cart. Lady started the engine.
Every so often, as they drove, Deidre glimpsed the angels, or whatever they were, out the back, still very high up. They seemed to be following the cart. She never did get a truly clear look at the features on those distant faces but she was sure that their wingspan must reach three metres across, at least.
There were six of them, maybe more.
When dusk fell, and the suns had faded to red-glowing elements, Lady pulled off the road to fill the petrol tank. Despite the fact that the oppressive heat had lifted, the girls had grown cranky again and were asking regularly how long it would be before they arrived at the cabin. Soon, their mother said, soon.
Yet, shortly after setting out again — as the cart rumbled up a hill into the darkening landscape — Deidre heard Lady grunt with alarm. Half-standing in the flatbed, rocking, trying to keep her footing, she saw, over the servant’s broad shoulder, what looked like the entire valley before them consumed with leaping flames, tearing the oncoming night to shreds.
MEREZIAH, L17-18
Creeping motion, inexorable. Almost easy to forget there was movement whatsoever. In fact, at times, despite Mereziah’s general state of mounting excitement, it was possible to forget what he had done in the first place, the decision he’d made to leave his station behind and rise upwards, alone, in the world.
Lucid peaks — when he was able to reflect, feeling instances of freshness and clarity such as he had not experienced in many decades — he knew for certain that he had done the right thing. Only one direction was an option: up. The simple word lolled on his tongue when he whispered it and circulated giddily inside his brain like a drug. He would never go back down again, not