Wings (7 page)

Jak refused to tell Tamisin where they were going, so she was surprised when they walked down the street to the school and circled the building. Although she knew there were woods behind the parking lot, she’d never gone in them before, so she didn’t expect to find that they were actually pretty and not just scrubby old trees. There was a little stream there as well, and she enjoyed walking beside it. Even the cats seemed to be enjoying the walk, batting at butterflies and stalking birds.

Tamisin kept expecting to stop each time they came upon another inviting spot beside the stream, but she was glad they hadn’t when Jak finally led her to a miniature waterfall only a few feet high. “This is great,” she said, dropping to her knees at the water’s edge. “I didn’t know there was anything like this around here.”

Jak set the basket on the ground beside her. “I thought you’d like it. Are you hungry yet? We could eat now if you are.”

Tamisin smiled up at him. “I’m famished. I didn’t eat breakfast this morning. I was working in the garden, trying to get it ready for winter.”

“You like to garden?” said Jak. He took an old shower curtain out of the basket and spread it on the ground. It looked odd with its neon pictures of tropical fish.

“I’ve always loved working with plants,” she said as she set the picnic basket on the shower curtain and lifted
the lid. “Oh!” she said, surprised by his choice of food. She lifted out a plate of pizza slices arranged in layers. Crinkling her nose at the smell of anchovies, she gave him a quizzical look.

“Don’t you like pizza?” he asked.

“Sure!” she said, glancing down at the plate. “I’ve just never had it on a picnic before.” Tamisin was relieved when he pointed out that there were eggs in the basket as well. “Oh, good!” she said, reaching for a covered bowl. “I love hard-boiled eggs.”

Jak looked puzzled. “I never would have thought of boiling them. I always eat them raw.”

When he showed her how to eat a raw egg, Tamisin grimaced and had to look away. Jak must have thought her expression was funny, because he began to laugh. It was the first time she had ever heard him laugh, and he did it with such enthusiasm that she had to laugh, too. Tamisin was still laughing when Jak stopped abruptly and handed her the basket. She was about to ask if something was wrong when he suggested that she try the cookies he’d brought. He had to take care of something and would be right back.

Tamisin didn’t think much of it when Jak went off into the woods. She ate some of the cookies and enjoyed watching the waterfall. When he didn’t come back right away, however, she got up to see what he was doing. She hadn’t been watching when he disappeared, so she didn’t know which way he’d gone. Deciding that she could see more of the woods from the top of the waterfall, she followed a path that led up the little hill and stopped to
look back the way she’d come. An animal howled somewhere in the woods, and a moment later the sound of breaking twigs made visions of bears and mountain lions pop into her head, as preposterous as that would be in a small town. “Jak, are you all right?” she called.

“Just fine,” he replied, sounding awfully far away.

She was sure there was nothing dangerous out there, but when birds squawked in the distance and something rustled the trees in front of her, she turned and headed back down the slope toward the shower curtain. Partway down she stopped to look around once more, and this time she spotted a brilliant red flower that stood out even amongst the yellows, oranges, and browns of the fallen leaves. “That’s strange,” she muttered. “That wasn’t there before.”

The flower was growing next to the very path that she had taken to get to the waterfall. Unable to imagine how she had missed it, Tamisin climbed down to get a better look. A bird chirruped just ahead, and Tamisin glanced up. Three flowers grew in a cluster, and beyond them a dozen more nodded on their long, straight stems.

Tamisin knew better than to pick rare flowers, but when she smelled their perfume and followed it through the forest to an open meadow filled with the blossoms, she couldn’t help but pluck one. And then there was another, too tempting to resist, and before she knew it her arms were weighted down with the heady blooms and Jak was calling to ask where she was.

“I’m over here!” she shouted back. A minute later she heard the snap of twigs as he came running through the forest. “Can you believe all these flowers?” she asked as
he reached the meadow. “I didn’t mean to wander off, but after I saw the first one …”

Jak glanced around the meadow, then back at her. “I’d better get you home so you can put them in water. They won’t last long if you don’t.”

Jak was right, of course. If she didn’t take care of the flowers soon, they would all wilt and then she would have picked them for nothing. But Tamisin hadn’t learned a thing about Jak, and now she had made them cut short their picnic. She glanced down at the blossoms in her arms. They were gorgeous and would have kept on growing if only she’d left them alone. It would be such a waste … “You’re right,” she said. “I didn’t think of that. I’m so sorry that we never got to look around together.”

“It’s all right,” said Jak. “We can do that another time.”

Tamisin beamed at him. “I’d like that very much.”

Jak hurried her through the forest, taking a different route to the street so they didn’t pass near the school. Once they were out from among the trees, he walked so fast that she practically had to run to keep up, which made it nearly impossible to ask him anything. Tamisin thought it was odd that he took her home by going up one street and down another, but when she pointed out a more direct route, he took her to the library instead. They had barely stepped inside the front door before he was hustling her through the building and out the back. Tamisin would have asked what he was doing, but when she turned to face him, he was scowling and looking everywhere except at her.

It wasn’t until they were standing on her front porch that Jak seemed to relax. “I’m having a party at my house on Halloween. I’d like it if you could come.”

Tamisin looked dubious. “That’s a school night, isn’t it?”

“I guess so,” he said. “Is that a problem?”

Tamisin peeked through the glass panel in the front door to see if Kyle or anyone else was inside listening. “My parents won’t like it, but I’ll come. Do you mind if I bring my friend Heather?”

“Not at all,” said Jak. He handed her a piece of paper. “Here’s my phone number and address. It starts at seven thirty.”

“I’ll be there,” Tamisin said, but Jak already looked as if he were thinking of something else.

Tamisin hadn’t spoken much to her parents after the night she learned that she was adopted, partly because she was still angry with them for not having told her the truth earlier, and partly because she felt odd talking to them, knowing that their relationship wasn’t what she’d always believed it to be. Every time she’d start to call them Mom or Dad, she’d stop and think, then lose her train of thought. Even so, she wasn’t so upset that she couldn’t be reasonable; she told them about the party at dinner on Halloween.

“It’s tonight,” she said. “He lives on Jefferson Street. It starts at seven thirty.”

Kyle looked up from his plate. “I’ve heard about that party. I was thinking I might stop by.”

“Will Jak’s parents be there?” asked their father.

Tamisin shrugged. “I guess.”

Their mother looked up from pouring another glass of milk for Petey. “Who else is going?”

“Heather … And probably Jeremy Johnson. He hangs out with Jak a lot.”

“Good kid, Jeremy,” said Kyle. “Knows how to handle a football.”

“So do I!” said Petey. “Want to see?” The little boy began to push back his chair, but his brother stopped him.

“Later, sport,” Kyle said, ruffling Petey’s hair.

Their mother frowned and set down her napkin. “Your father and I have never met Jak or his parents. We need to know more about them and if they’re going to be home.”

“I have their phone number,” said Tamisin. Taking the scrap of paper out of her pocket, she glanced at it again. Jak’s handwriting was angled oddly, and his letters were scrunched together, making them hard to read.

“I’ll be right back,” her mother said, taking the note. She left the dining room shaking her head. Tamisin could hear her go into the kitchen.

“Hello, is this Mrs. Catta?” came Tamisin’s mother’s voice from the kitchen.

“Why didn’t you go to school the other day?” Kyle asked. “You seemed fine when I got home.”

“She was sick, right, Tamisin?” said Petey.

“That’s right, Petey. I was sick,” Tamisin said, looking directly at Kyle as if daring him to question her.

“Huh,” was all he said before picking up his fork again.

Her mother was talking in the kitchen. “Perhaps I don’t have the right number. Do you have a boy named
Jak? Your grandson? I see. Yes, I’m sure he’s a good boy. Uh-huh. Thank you very much.”

When Tamisin’s mother returned to the dining room, she looked a bit bewildered. “Apparently Jak lives with his grandmother and his uncle, who I think is named Bert. His grandmother has a strange accent; it was hard to make out exactly what she said.”

“Will his grandmother be there during the party?” asked Tamisin’s father.

“I believe so. She said that she intends to trim her nails tonight, which struck me as an odd thing to tell someone.”

Tamisin hopped to her feet and picked up her plate to carry it out to the kitchen. “So now you know that a responsible adult will be there. I’d better go get ready. Can someone give me a ride?”

“I will,” said Kyle. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll check out the party for you.”

Tamisin was setting her plate in the dishwasher when she heard her mother say, “I never said she could go. I’m going to call her back in here and tell her so.”

“Oh, let the girl go to the party,” her father said. “It will be good for her to do something fun to take her mind off … you know.”

“What?” asked Kyle. “What does she need to take her mind off?”

“Nothing you need to worry about, son,” said his father. “Just take her to the party and make sure she’s all right.”

“Sure,” said Kyle. “But I don’t know how long I’m going to stay.”

Tamisin went to the party dressed as a black cat—a simple enough costume that she was able to put together with clothes she dug out of her closet. She took her purse with her, stuffing in a few extra things she thought she might need. Heather wore her grandmother’s old hippie dress and a wreath of dried flowers. She made Tamisin wait while she took her allergy medicine, declaring that there were sure to be cats at Jak’s house.

When Tamisin and Heather arrived, Jak met them at the door dressed the way he usually was—all in black. Tamisin was thinking about how good the color looked on him when an old woman with gray and white hair and slanted yellow eyes came to get him. “Sorry,” he told the girls. “I’ve got to see about this. I’ll be right back.” And then he disappeared down the basement stairs and Tamisin and Heather were left to look around while Kyle greeted other senior jocks.

Although Jak’s house was in a neighborhood of fairly modern homes, it was old and creaky with floorboards that didn’t quite meet and ceilings so high that Tamisin could have practiced her dance-flying, as she had come to call it, without ever bumping her head. The first floor of the house was already crowded. Some boys were playing drums and guitars in the parlor while costumed guests danced to their music. The girls wandered from room to room, looking at the costumes and decorations and talking to the people they knew. When they came across Jeremy in the room where the band was playing, Heather dragged Tamisin through the crowd to his side.

“Hi!” Heather said, giving him her warmest smile.

“Hi yourself,” Jeremy replied, his eyes brightening when he saw her.

Knowing that Heather would be occupied for a while, Tamisin peeked into the next room where Shareena was talking to the rest of the girls from the dance group. When they saw her, they crowded around Tamisin, drawing her into the room. She talked to them for a minute, then Heather and Jeremy were there. Heather was beaming when she said, “Jeremy asked me out! We’re going to the movies on Saturday. Come on, let’s go see the rest of the house. Jeremy said I wouldn’t believe the decorations in the kitchen. He says it’s at the end of the hall.”

There was a pitcher of milk and a bucket of water with a dipper on a table in the hallway, but no cups or glasses. A keg of something dark and musky sat on the floor beside it. No one touched it after some boys tried the drink and announced that it was foul.

The walls of the dark-paneled kitchen had been draped with tiny skulls strung together like popcorn. When Tamisin touched one and said that it felt real, Heather grew pale and refused to go near them. An assortment of food sat on the table, surrounding a pumpkin carved with an ugly, leering face. There were hunks of cheese, but nothing to use to cut them, plates of boiled vegetables coated with salt, and a tureen of some kind of raw meat cut into small pieces. A cup of anchovies sat beside a bucket of fried pumpkin innards. A sticker on one bowl of eggs declared that they were RAW and the other was labeled HARD BOILED. No one seemed to be eating
anything except for a boy in a lumberjack costume who had taken an entire hunk of cheese.

Then some new guests arrived and everything changed. Jeremy and the girls were still in the kitchen when the back door opened.

“What great costumes!” Tamisin heard people say, but she knew they weren’t wearing costumes. She had seen these people before, maybe not the very same ones, but so similar that she went cold inside. Tall and short, thin and fat, every one was a cross between a person and an animal. They had ears like dogs and horses, lions and bats. She saw fangs and flippers, beaks and talons, fur and feathers and scales, and all of them, from a boy’s orange bird beak to a girl’s fuzzy rabbit ears and twitchy little nose, were real. The last time she had seen creatures like these, she had been the only one who could. Now everyone could see them, which she thought must mean only one thing—the half-animal creatures must want to be seen. And if Jak had invited them …