Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback (35 page)

threatens to swallow me whole. The city is too many colors, spinning up as I plummet down. Panic snaps my wings wide. Feathers arrest

my fall. Chill as it is, the wind catches me, whips me over the park.

Winter-stripped branches reach for me, and grasp nothing. Far

below, the pond winks with cold light, molten silver, spilled on the ground. The clouds kiss my back, smooth my fear away. People move

below me, small as ants, small as I used to be. I never want to land.

I remember the sky, performing the witch’s trick in reverse. It’s easier than calling weight into my bones, stitching my feet to the ground. I let the aching wind knife open spaces inside me, let desire suck me

upward, and fill those wounds with blue.

I’ll show you what you’ve always been
.

I know what the witch meant by those words. She didn’t mean

this—wings snapped wide, drinking the sky. She meant the selfishness, the desire that keeps me flying, that makes it easier to take to the sky than remember the land.

George’s office has its own balcony, the prick. But it lets me bypass his personal assistant, and gives me the satisfaction of knocking on the glass, and giving him half a heart attack as I change.

He slides open the door, but blocks me, keeping me out of his

office, which smells of expensive leather furniture, and Turkish rugs, hand-picked by an overpaid design consultant.

My brother doesn’t look happy to see me. And why should he? I

• 292 •

• A. C. Wise •

give him a big old grin, just to spite him.

“How ya been, Georgie?”

The frown lines around his mouth deepen. They’re the only lines

on his face. Botox, or good luck? Even with November coming on,

his skin is perfectly tan, too. If his lips weren’t pressed tight over them, his teeth would likely show even and white. George’s hair is

still dark, only the faintest threads of silver here and there, probably carefully worked in by a stylist for effect.

“What do you want?”

“Do you miss it?” The words fly out of my mouth, not at all what I

meant to say. I’ve never been too good at humility. Circe was the only one who could make me beg.

But with my big brother, instead of getting on my knees to grovel,

all that comes out is bile.

“Bran.” He manages to make my name sound like a warning.

I hold up my hands, peace. “It’s Liselle.”

What happens to George’s face when I say our sister’s name is

complicated. Guilt, yes, and some kind of brotherly love. But the

affection is more remembered than felt, and the corners of his lips

turn down in distaste. Liselle is an embarrassment to his current life.

She’s a reminder of feathers, squabbling after garbage, of filth and mites, and being no better than a rat with wings.

I wonder, even once, in all these years, has he checked on her?

Invited her for a family dinner? Stopped by just to see how she’s

doing? Does he even know where she lives? Do any of them? Among

all of my brothers, is anyone looking out for Liselle besides me?

“Make it quick,” George glances at his watch; it’s heavy and

expensive, like everything else in this room. “My driver will be here with the car at precisely six o’clock. I’ve never had to make him wait, and I don’t intend to start today.”

“Liselle is dying. She needs a new liver,” I say.

George’s face goes through its complicated range of emotions

again. Finally, he settles on impatience. “What am I supposed to do

about it?”

• 293 •

• The Hush of Feathers, the Clamor of Wings •

“She needs money for a doctor, you lousy shit. It’s the least you

could do.” I clench my jaw on the rage.

“I think you’ve got a lock on that.” George’s lips twitch, but there’s genuine pain in his eyes. He must remember the raspberries, too.

Satisfied he’s won, no matter how hollow the victory, George

turns on his heel. I follow him into his office, and he retrieves his checkbook from a desk drawer. He comes back with the check in

his hand, but plucks it back before my fingers close, and a cruel little smile turns up the corner of his mouth.

“She’s still going to need a compatible donor, you know.”

Shit. Of course, I didn’t think of that. Smug, George puts the check into my palm, and folds my fingers over it.

“Good luck.”

It isn’t about Liselle for him, it’s about me. What would I give up to save her? George and the rest, they forsook the sky, and now they’re done as far as they’re concerned. They paid their dues. In their minds, they don’t owe Liselle seven years of her life back; it’s enough to know they didn’t steal another seven, or more. They didn’t waste her blood, and stitch closed her mouth with silence for the rest of her life. Only I chose to stay a bird. In the face of a sister’s love, only I chose the sky.

“Asshole.”

The word doesn’t wipe the smirk from George’s face. Still, I leave

it trailing behind me as I slip the check into my pocket, step onto the balcony, and take wing.

“What would you give,” the witch asks, “to have them back again?”

To each of us seven brothers, she asked what we wanted. Of Liselle,

she asks what she can take away. And as she asks it, the witch looks at me.

If I speak now, I can save my sister, but it would mean giving up

the sky. The witch’s penny, her copper secret, lies heavy on my tongue.

I should change, shed feathers, grab my sister’s hand, and take her far away from here. I wouldn’t be able to fly anymore, but we’d both be

able to run.

• 294 •

• A. C. Wise •

This is what the witch meant by freedom. Freedom to choose

cruelty over kindness. Freedom to choose my heart over Liselle’s.

This
is freedom. It knifes me open, and I fill the wound with the taste of wind, and the blue of the sky. I keep my feathers, and hold my tongue.

Liselle’s mouth forms an “O,” her breath steaming in the air. She

trembles, her eyes wide and frightened, her skin winter pale. The

summer girl is there, as she looks at each of us in turn—seven dirty birds ranged around her feet. I watch the ice close in; I watch her

drown.

“Anything,” Liselle says, “I’ll give anything.”

“Hmm.” Circe looks disappointed as she steps back.

Did she hope for Liselle to fight, to refuse, and demand power of

her own? The witch’s lightning-struck eyes seem to say that Liselle

could have been so much more. Of all of us, Liselle might actually

have been worthy of the witch’s gift, and she declined.

“This is what you must do to save them,” the witch says.

She puts her lips against Liselle’s ear. I feel that whispered-hot

breath against my own skin. I cannot weep, only let out a mournful

pigeon’s sob. Liselle’s fingers curl, tightening against her palm, but she nods.

Circe puts her hand against Liselle’s throat. Liselle looks up, her

eyes going wider still. When the witch lowers her hand, Liselle puts her fingers against her lips, not to stop her voice slipping away, but to seal it inside. The witch didn’t take anything from our sister, save a promise. Liselle could speak any time, if she chose.

Choice: That’s the witch’s gift. And her curse. Giving you what you

already have, taking what you willingly give. Showing you what you

are inside your skin.

When Liselle lowers her hands, already her eyes are turning dark,

ice creeping around the edges toward the center of everything. Seven brothers, seven years; no matter what it takes, she will set us free.

And so, after seven years of silence, Liselle comes back to Central

Park with her pricked fingers and nettle shirts, just as the witch asked.

• 295 •

• The Hush of Feathers, the Clamor of Wings •

Seven years of weight drags at her bones and frost-dulls her eyes.

She is pale and ghost-thin. Seven years bound to the earth while her brothers drank the sky.

Even in these feathered bodies, we are still her brothers, and she

knows us still. But I barely recognize her. Where is the little girl who ran with us in the sun, who kissed our wounds, and fed us raspberries from her thorn-pricked hands? It is already too late for her, I tell myself. There is nothing left to save.

Liselle casts the nettle shirts, stitched with her silence and her

pain, into the air. They snag feathers, pulling my brothers to earth one by one. They scream with the change, cry out in agony, and weep.

Liselle weeps, too, tears rolling from eyes like ink and ice. But she makes no sound. She puts a hand over her mouth, and holds all the

sorrow in as her nettles tear my brothers raw, and they change.

Then there is only one shirt left. Liselle turns to me, and through

the sorrow, I see the beginning of a smile. After this, she will be

free. All the pain, all the silence, will be worth it, and she’ll have her brothers back again.

Sunlight comes to break through the clouds. She tosses the last

shirt into the air, and I snap my wings wide and fly as fast as I can.

Instead of catching me, the nettles sail past me, and hit the ground.

Sometimes, in my memory of that day, I collide with Liselle’s voice, winging back to her like a bird. The force of my betrayal shatters it in the air; it breaks, but never her promise. We are each bound to our choice—me, to my freedom; Liselle to her silence.

There’s no sound, of course. No cry of rage from Liselle. As I spiral up, I see the ice finally cover her eyes, sealing away the summer girl.

I beat my wings, lifting farther and farther away from her, fleeing the gift she tried to give me—staying drunk and in love with the sky.

My brothers, crouched bloody on the ground, feathers in their

hair, and nettles buried in their skin, stare at me wide-eyed. I see shock, anger, not for Liselle, but for themselves, because they weren’t clever and cruel enough to hold onto the witch’s gift, the witch’s curse.

• 296 •

• A. C. Wise •

Flying away from George, the sky soothes me, as always. Like a

sister’s touch, a hand on a fevered forehead, an encouraging smile at just the right time. The witch took all that away from me; broke me.

Or, I threw it away. I gave up Liselle and everything—traded laughter and the taste of raspberries for blood-copper sex, for cinnamon and

wine. For the freedom that was always mine.

And Liselle paid the price.

I could keep flying, leave George to his smugness and Liselle to

her dying. She doesn’t want my help anyway. I wouldn’t let her save

me; why should I expect anything different from her?

Below me, the city smears bright, red spattering the pavement

where brakes slam. Horns blare. Impatient men and women shout.

Babies cry. How does Liselle subsist among so much noise?

From the corner of my eye, I catch sight of the witch’s tower.

Fourteen years later, and it’s unchanged—a needle of emerald, daring the sky. It glints in the setting sun.

I could go to Circe. I could beg. I tried it once before, and it

gained me nothing. After I refused my sister’s gift, I fled to the witch, sobbing, and asked her to give Liselle back her voice again.

“Would you give up the sky?” she asked me.

I couldn’t answer her, as though she had stolen my voice, too.

“Then how can you ask her to give up her promise? Her heart?

Her silence?”

And today, my answer would be the same.

Suddenly, the witch’s tower is in front of me, as though my memories have called me back to her. I snap my wings wide to avoid striking the glass. Blood and feathers, a broken body falling from the sky.

What would you give to have her back again?

Summer sunshine. Liselle’s smile. Her fingers pricked by thorns

and smeared red with berries, instead of pricked by nettles and red

with blood.

I chose once, I could choose again. I could break my body against

the glass. I’m not a card-carrying organ donor, but could a doctor

refuse a dying man’s last wish?

• 297 •

• The Hush of Feathers, the Clamor of Wings •

I bank away from the witch’s tower, circling. Do I have the courage

to fly straight, and not break away this time?

Is it too late? Can I pull Liselle from the ice?

My reflection wavers in the witch’s glass, as I turn again, skimming the tower so the window scrapes my feathers. Another thought

occurs. George’s car arrives at his office at six o’clock every evening.

How hard could it be for a dirty, gray pigeon to startle a driver, to cause an accident? Surely George has an organ donor card in that fat wallet of his, along with all his cash.

And if not, I still have six other brothers.

What
would
I give to have Liselle back again? My blood? Theirs?

I can’t give her back her voice. I can’t give her back the seven years and more I stole from her, but I can give her something better—the

choice I had, to take my gift, or refuse. It’s the least I can do.

Liselle’s pain brings me back again, the way it always has. I let it carry me through the sky, wound around my useless heart. I wonder

what Liselle will choose—accept a brother’s gift, or refuse it out of spite. I know what I would do, but I’m not Liselle. I can only hope

that, in this sense at least, it isn’t too late, and her heart is still stronger than mine.

••

A. C. Wise
was born and raised in Montreal and currently lives in the Philadelphia area. Her fiction has appeared in publications such as
Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Apex,
and
The Best Horror of the Year
Volume 4,
among others. In addition to her fiction, Wise co-edits
Unlikely Story
, publishing three themed issues of unlikely fiction per year. You can find her online at www.acwise.net.