“I stopped by the Eyrie first,” she said, defensively. “You weren’t worried?”
“Coll was to go, not you.” The lines of his face were set hard.
“He was in bed,” Maris said. “He was too slow—I knew he’d miss the best of the storm winds. He would have caught nothing but rain, and it would have taken him forever to get there. If he did. He’s not good in rain yet.”
“Then he must learn to be better. The boy must make his own mistakes now. You were his teacher, but soon the wings will be his. He’s the flyer, not you.”
Maris winced as if struck. This was the man who had taught her to fly, who had been so proud of her and the way she seemed to know instinctively what to do. The wings would be hers, he’d told her more than once, though she was not of his blood. He and his wife had taken her in when it seemed that he would never father a child of his own to inherit the wings. He’d had his accident and lost the sky, and it was important to find a flyer to replace him—if not someone of his blood, then someone he loved. His wife had refused to learn; she had lived thirty-five years as a land-bound, and she did not intend to jump off any cliffs, wings or no. Besides, it was too late; flyers had to be taught young. So it was Maris he had taught, adopted, and come to love—Maris the fisherman’s daughter, who would rather watch from the flyers’ cliff than play with the other children.
And then, against all probability, Coll had been born. His mother had died after the prolonged and difficult labor—Maris, very much a child, remembered a dark night full of people running, and later her stepfather crying alone in a corner—but Coll had lived on. Maris, suddenly a child-mother, came to care for him, love him. At first they didn’t expect him to live. She was happy when he did; and for three years she loved him as both brother and son, while she practiced with the wings under their father’s watchful eyes.
Until the night when the same father told her that Coll, baby Coll, must have her wings.
“I am a far better flyer than he will ever be,” Maris told him now, on the beach, her voice trembling.
“I do not dispute that. It makes no difference. He is my own blood.”
“It’s not fair!” she cried, letting out the protest that had been lodged inside her since the day she had come of age. By then Coll had been strong, healthy; still too small to bear the wings, but they would be his on his coming-of-age day. Maris had no claim, no right at all. That was the law of the flyers, stretching back through generations to the star sailors themselves, the legendary wing-forgers. The first-born child of each of the flying families would inherit the wings of the parent. Skill counted for nothing; this was a law of inheritance, and Maris came from a fishing family who had nothing to leave her but the scattered wreckage of a wooden boat.
“Fair or no, it is the law, Maris. You’ve known it for a long time, even if you chose to ignore it. For years you’ve played at being a flyer, and I’ve let you, because you loved it, and because Coll needed a teacher, a skilled one, and because this island is too big to rely on only two flyers. But you knew all the while this day would come.”
He could be more kind, she thought wildly. He must know what it means, to give up the sky.
“Now come with me,” he said. “You’ll not fly again.”
Her wings were still fully extended; only one strap was undone. “I’ll run away,” she said madly. “You’ll never see me again. I’ll go to some island where they don’t have a flyer of their own. They’ll be glad to have me, no matter how I got my wings.”
“Never,” her father said, sadly. “The other flyers would shun the island, as they did after the mad Landsman of Kennehut executed the Flyer-Who-Brought-Bad-News. You would be stripped of your stolen wings no matter where you went. No Landsman would take the risk.”
“I’ll break them, then!” Maris said, riding the edge of hysteria. “Then he’ll never fly either, any more than… than…”
Glass shattered on rock and the light went out as her father dropped the lantern. Maris felt his grip on her hands. “You couldn’t even if you wanted to. And you wouldn’t do that to Coll. But give me the wings.”
“I wouldn’t…”
“I don’t know what you wouldn’t do. I thought you’d gone out to kill yourself this morning, to die flying in the storm. I know the feelings, Maris. That’s why I was so frightened, and so angry. You mustn’t blame Coll.”
“I don’t. And I would not keep him from flying—but I want to fly so badly myself—Father, please.” Tears ran down her face in the dark, and she moved closer, reaching for comfort.
“Yes, Maris,” he said. He could not put his arm about her; the wings got in the way. “There is nothing I can do. This is the way of things. You must learn to live without wings, as I have. At least you’ve had them for a time—you know what it is like to fly.”
“It’s not enough!” she said, tearful, stubborn. “I used to think it would be, when I was a little girl, not even yours yet, just a stranger, and you were Amberly’s greatest flyer. I watched you and the others from the cliff and I used to think—if I could have wings, even for a moment, that would be life enough. But it isn’t, it isn’t. I can’t give them up.”
The hard lines were all gone now in her father’s face. He touched her face gently, brushing away tears. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said, in a slow heavy voice. “Perhaps it was not a good thing. I thought if I could let you fly for a while, a little bit—that would be better than nothing, it would be a fine bright gift indeed. But it wasn’t, was it? Now you can never be happy. You can never be a land-bound, really, for you’ve flown, and you’ll always know how you are imprisoned.” His words stopped abruptly and Maris realized that he was talking of himself as much as her.
He helped her unstrap and fold the wings and they walked back home together.
Their house was a simple wood frame, surrounded by trees and land. A creek ran through the back. Flyers could live well. Russ said goodnight just inside the door and took the wings upstairs with him. Has he really lost all trust? Maris thought. What have I done? And she felt like crying again.
Instead she wandered into the kitchen, found cheese and cold meat and tea, and took them back into the dining room. A bowl-shaped sand candle sat in the center of the table. She lit it, ate, and watched the flame dance.
Coll entered just as she finished, and stood awkwardly in the doorway. “’Lo, Maris,” he said uncertainly. “I’m glad you’re back. I was waiting.” He was tall for a thirteen-year-old, with a soft, slender body, long red-blond hair, and the wispy beginnings of a mustache.
“’Lo, Coll,” Maris said. “Don’t just stand there. I’m sorry I took the wings.”
He sat down. “I don’t mind, you know that. You fly a lot better than me, and—well—you know. Was Father mad?”
Maris nodded.
Coll looked grim and frightened. “It’s only one week away now, Maris. What are we going to do?” He was looking straight down at the candle, not at her.
Maris sighed, and put a gentle hand on his arm. “We’ll do what we must, Coll. We have no choice.” They had talked before, she and Coll, and she knew his agony as much as her own. She was his sister, almost his mother, and the boy had shared with her his shame and his secret. That was the ultimate irony.
He looked up at her now, looking to her again as the child to the mother; although he knew now that she was as helpless as he, still he hoped. “Why don’t we have a choice? I don’t understand.”
Maris sighed. “It’s law, Coll. We don’t go against tradition here, you know that. We all have duties put upon us. If we had a choice I would keep the wings, I would be a flyer. And you could be a singer. We’d both be proud, and know we were good at what we did. Life will be hard as a land-bound. I want the wings so much. I’ve had them, and it doesn’t seem right that they should be taken from me, but maybe—maybe the tightness in it is something I just don’t see. People wiser than we decided that things should be the way they are, and maybe, maybe I’m just being a child about it, wanting everything my own way.”