Free Fall

“How long are we going to just lay here?” Michael asks.

“Just give me a few more seconds,” I say. He really irritates me sometimes.

Michael sighs dramatically, but he doesn’t say anything else.

The grass underneath my bare arms itches my skin. The tickling sensation flickers at my elbows and wrists like a snake’s tongue but I don’t allow myself the pleasure of scratching. Goose bumps crawl over the millions of freckles that stain my entire body, but I like the way it feels. It’s not enough, though. I stare up at the turquoise sky and try to see how long I can go without blinking.

“One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, four-one-thousand,” I count silently. 

After fourteen and a half seconds, my screaming eyeballs start to quiver, and my lids close without my permission. I groan and bang my fists into the ground. Something. There’s got to be something I can do to do this on my own.

My entire life I’ve felt different. Strange. Unfocused. But most teenage girls say that, don’t they?  The thing is, most girls aren’t distracted by the ever-present yearning to let their wings unfold.

I pull pieces of grass out of the ground and tear them into tiny pieces. I can see Michael watching me in my periphery, but I don’t say anything to him yet.

Just five more seconds. I can do this.

 I’m not supposed to shift. My parents say it’s too dangerous a thing until I learn how to control my heart rate and stay shifted, but how am I supposed to learn if they won’t teach me? Michael clears his throat.

Crap. My five seconds are up.

“Are you ready?” Michael asks, as he pushes himself onto his elbows beside me.

I nod and close my eyes.

I feel his fear before I feel his skin touch mine, but I know it’s not a fear of kissing me. It’s a fear of what I’m about to do. He doesn’t want me to shift either, but he supports me anyway. He is my best friend, after all.

His lips hover over mine for a second, like two opposing magnets. He huffs out a breath. “Dammit, Ivy. Are you sure you wanna do this?”

I open my eyes. The feeling of my pupils shrinking to accommodate the bright sun makes my bones curl, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough. The worried wrinkles in Michael’s forehead match the curve of his knitted eyebrows.

“Yes,” I whisper. I reach up and smooth the lines from his brow, then tug sharply on a lock of his hair. He narrows his eyes at me. “Just do it already. I have to know what it feels like, okay? You don’t understand what it’s like to hold yourself together all the time.”

“Okay,” he sighs. But I can tell that he’s hoping my theory is wrong.

Every time I come close to shifting, something has happened to heighten my senses. The sensations that almost drive you up the wall, the ones that are so annoying that they almost feel good—like itching, tickling, shaking, heck, even sneezing—almost make me shift, but not quite.

Michael leans over me again, but this time he doesn’t hesitate. His lips fall against mine in the lightest of touches. Nothing happens; but of course a kiss like that won’t work, and he knows it. He takes a quick, shuddering breath, then tries again.

This time, he presses his lips into mine like he means it. He takes my bottom lip into his mouth as he tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. I knew kissing Michael would be… well, awesome, but I had no idea it would make me feel like this. I can’t breathe. I can’t blink. It’s like all the blood in my body has congealed. Tiny pins are pricking the inside of my skin, and for a split second—for once in my life—I don’t want know what it feels like to shift. I want to stay right here in the grass with Michael, under the sky instead of flying into it. I don’t want to be anything other than what I’ve already learned to be.

But it turns out my theory was right.

It’s like a ripcord has been pulled from my stomach. I’m turned inside out, blooming into something that isn’t me, yet is me at the same time. My skin turns to feathers. My arms turn to wings. The ground is no longer my prison, and I’m hurtling effortlessly towards the sun.

The wind pulls me higher into the sky, and I want to laugh, but this body doesn’t have the ability. This body can’t be caged. This body is free.

I’ve never felt as amazing as I do now. I flap my wings a couple of times to keep up my momentum, but a stream of wind is carrying me along like I weigh nothing. My tiny heart is thrumming wildly in my chest from the exhilaration of the change.

But as I dip in and out of the blue sky, reveling in the feeling of flight, my heart rate starts to slow. The familiar creeping ache of the need to change into something else spreads through me. Panic seeps into my bones and I start to lose control.

The ripcord is pulled again, and I am falling.

The sound of air roaring in my ears deafens me, but I try to focus enough to replicate the feelings I had when Michael kissed me. It doesn’t work—it never works. My human body hits the ground hard.

Michael calls my name frantically as he runs towards me, and I know he’s afraid that I’ve shattered every bone in my body, but I don’t care if I have. I am broken either way.

A tear runs down my cheek and dangles from my earlobe. I finally know what it feels like to shift, but no matter what body I’m trapped in, my bones will always be yearning to be something else.

I will never know what it feels like to be comfortable in my own skin. I will never know what it feels like to be me.

Behind The Glass

I slip the key into the lock and twist. Penn and I discussed his escape last night when I’d snuck in after Lester, the guard, had fallen asleep at the door—as he does every night at eleven. It must be done today because today is the Festival, and most of the castle will be dancing in the streets, drunk and stuffed with oversized turkey legs and freshly baked rolls and chocolate mousse. Including my stepmother.

I push the door open and slip into the dark room, leaving the door cracked a bit so we can make an easy escape. I just have to get Penn.

“Hello, beautiful,” Penn says behind me. My stomach dances at the sound of his voice, and it’s a million times better than the feeling of parading around at some dumb festival. I turn to face him and he flashes me a smile made of teeth whiter than powdered sugar.

“Are you ready?” I ask nervously. I’m afraid that Lester will be back soon. My stepmother made it explicitly clear that he is not to leave his post for any reason, so when he disobeys her, he does it quickly.

Penn’s brow wrinkles, though his smile stays in tact. The two things don’t match each other and I want smooth the wrinkles from his forehead. He’s much too handsome to be making a scary expression like that. 

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No. You just have no idea how much I’ve dreamed about leaving this place.”

I take a long look at him. Black wavy hair, sparkling green eyes, and a jaw line that could cut through glass—he’s every girl’s dream. And he’s chosen me. There’s just one problem though. He’s trapped in a mirror, forced to tell my stepmother that she’s beautiful every day. But I’m going to take care of that.

I run across the room and wrap my fingers around the intricately carved frame of the mirror and hoist it into the air. It’s not as heavy as I expected. I hold the mirror against my chest and tiptoe out of the room. I look to my left, then to my right, down the long, winding hallway. Lester hasn’t made it back yet, but I know it won’t be long. I walk as fast as I can to the back stairway, clutching the mirror to my body.

“I take back what I said about wanting to escape,” says Penn, his voice muffled against my dress.

“Oh, shut up,” I hiss, realizing the compromising position I’ve put him in. I ease the mirror away from me a bit and continue my trek down the slippery stone steps.

I take the mirror to my favorite garden, where the roses have taken over the stone walls that enclose them. I set Penn down in a tangle of vines, leaning him against one of the walls.

“Happy birthday,” I say as I run my fingers over the smooth glass. I wish I could feel his face against my palm.

“Five thousand long years I’ve been stuck in this mirror,” says Penn. “And this is the first time anyone has ever brought me out of the castle.”

“You're welcome,” I say. “I just wish I could actually celebrate your birthday, you know, with you. 

Wouldn’t it be amazing if I could come inside your mirror for the day?”

I shake my head at the thought. If only something like that were possible. Penn presses his hand against the glass to match mine. He looks at me longingly, and I know he wants to feel my touch as much as I want his.

The glass underneath my fingers suddenly begins to warm and soften, and for a moment, I believe it’s my imagination. But it’s not. The glass is no longer glass—it’s liquid.

“I can’t believe it’s actually working!” says Penn, rubbing his free hand over his mouth in shock.

“What’s happening?” I push my finger into the glass. It squishes like gel and my finger disappears into the mirror, appearing on the other side as a reflection.

“The spell on the mirror only works inside the castle. It’s magic is hindered outside of the castle walls. If someone wants to come inside, all they have to do is say the words.”

I extend my arm into the mirror, marveling at the image of my body being half flesh and half glass. Penn grabs my hand, and I freeze. The feeling of his skin against mine is something I thought I’d never feel. He grasps onto my fingers like I’m sinking underwater, like he’s trying to pull me to the surface. And he does. 

In an instant, I’m suddenly not in my world anymore. I’m in his.

But I’m alone.

The air around me is dark and cold, like the cellar in the castle. I turn around and see the other side of the mirror. The roses, shivering in the afternoon wind. The stone wall, cold and grey against the turquoise sky.

And Penn. Not inside the mirror with me.

“Why are you out there?” I say. My voice trembles. I don’t like being in here alone.

“I’m so sorry,” Penn says. The wind blows his hair into his eyes, but he doesn’t push it away. “I wish there was another way for me to be free, but this was the only option.”

I press my hands against the glass, hoping to find the liquid state it was in just moments ago. But it’s hard, cold glass again. Penn touches his fingers to his lips then drops them to the mirror, leaving the imprint of his fingerprints. He stands up and turns to leave.

“No!” I cry. I bang my fists on the glass, trying to break through. “You can’t just leave me here!”

I ram my shoulder into the barrier, but it doesn’t budge.

Penn looks over his shoulder and smiles sadly. “I will be forever grateful for what you’ve done for me. But the mirror must have a prisoner and I have served my time. It’s your turn now.”

“No,” I say again, though this time my voice cracks.

As he leaves me alone in the garden, I slump down against the hard black wall that is my prison. How could he betray me? Is freedom really worth hurting the one you love? As I stare out at the brilliant pink and red roses dancing along with the wind, I realize that it is. And I can’t hate him because I would have done the same thing.