Believing in Blue Read online

  Now came the hardest part, the part Wren wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to share. But when Sia slipped her arm through the small space between Wren’s wings and her back, and laid her warm hand on Wren’s shoulder, the rest of the truth came pouring out. “And from the way he treated me.”

  “Oh, Wren.” It was then that Wren noticed that Sia was crying, one tear sliding down each of her moonlit cheeks. “It’s all okay now. It’s all going to be okay. You’ll be safe from that bastard forever now, I promise.” She pulled Wren to her chest, squeezing her tight, and then Wren allowed herself to break down and cry. But this time her tears weren’t from Tim’s cruelty or her mom’s clearly immense pain. These tears were tears of relief, of the freedom from the weight she’d been carrying by herself all these years.

  It was then that Wren knew she also wanted to fly for her own reasons, too. To fly away from this world and her house. To fly away, far away, from Tim, forevermore.

  Finally, the tears stopped. Sia pulled back from the hug. The look of concern on her face was so intense Wren almost felt like she was going to cry again, from the sheer gratitude she felt to have someone listen to her story and still want to be around her.

  “How about I show you something, something from your world, so you can stop thinking about that horrible bastard? How’d you like to see some magic?”

  There was no other way to answer, at least for Wren. “Yes, I’d love that.”

  “Follow me, then.” Sia got off the rock, and Wren followed her down, finding that her feet still worked but were a bit confused about how this whole “walking” thing worked. Between the three hours of failed flying attempts and sharing those painful truths for the first time, she almost regretted her decision to follow Sia into the woods, but her friend’s swishing hips and occasional smiling glances over her shoulder quickly changed Wren’s mind.

  Her mind was changed even further when Sia led her into the small, rustic cabin she told Wren she was currently calling home. “It’s not much, but I don’t need much,” she said as Wren took in the simply furnished room. Only a short table, a wooden chair, and a small, quilt-covered bed were in the room.

  Then Wren noticed a piece of furniture that, strangely, her once-over had missed: a large, ovoid mirror was balanced between the wall and the small table. And this was no ordinary mirror, Wren could tell, because within the blue haze flowing around beyond its glass, an image was slowly coming to life.

  Soon, a woman appeared in the mirror. She didn’t look familiar, as Wren would have remembered a woman that striking. She looked to be about forty, with chin-length, jet-black hair and a perfectly shaped, rosy mouth, topped by a delicate nose and two almond-colored eyes, their irises ringed with gold. “Hello there. You must be Wren,” the woman said, with a voice that sounded like it could command an army or tame a tiger. Wren wished that she could sound that confident. It seemed unlikely she ever would, at least right then.

  “He-hello.” Wren turned to Sia then, hoping her face said what she was thinking: Who on Earth is that? And is she even on Earth?

  It seemed like Wren’s look was clear enough. “That’s Rysha. She’s one of the two heads of the Winged Blue, along with Torien.”

  “And I’m his partner, as well.” The woman’s intense features turned gentle as she said these words.

  As corny as it sounded, Wren could see the love, plain as anything, on her face. Love that made Wren think of Denise and everything Torien had put her through.

  That jerk had just moved on? Without a word to either Wren or her mom? She tried to relax her features, because she couldn’t allow the anger in the pit of her stomach to reach her face. She couldn’t show this woman the instant and fast-growing dislike that had sprung to life by meeting her.

  “It’s wonderful to finally meet you, Wren,” Rysha said. “I look forward to meeting you again when I can actually shake your hand.”

  Her smile, perfect or not, was not going to win Wren over, and neither were her kind words. But Wren put on her most cheerful face, grinning at Rysha and hoping the annoyingly attractive partner-stealer in the mirror wouldn’t know her smile was fake. “It’s nice to meet you too, Rysha. Where’s my dad, though? When can I see him?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t know you’d be in the cabin, or I would have brought him to Piru’s,” the woman in the mirror told her. “He’s at his house, actually, but I can tell you quite honestly that he couldn’t be more excited about seeing you again.”

  “That’s good to hear. I…I hope I haven’t disappointed him by not learning how to fly yet.”

  “Hey, Rysha,” Sia said, glancing at Wren before she continued. “Maybe you could come through the portal and use your power. I mean, it’s worth a shot, right?”

  “What power?” Wren asked Sia, but Rysha answered her question.

  “As I’m sure Sia has told you by now, all us Winged Blue, and the Winged Red too, I’m afraid, have a power along with our birdform and our ability to fly. Mine happens to be the ability to control the Winged’s wings, but it only works sometimes, as I’m not exactly the most powerful of the Blue. Not like your father. But for all of us, with our powers, well, they aren’t always able to come out. Especially when we need them most.” Rysha chuckled.

  “Well, that doesn’t sound good,” Wren said. Sia made a gurgled, choking sound at her words, and she looked like she might have been fighting to keep a grin off her face. She turned back to Rysha and the mirror. “Why can’t you use yours to help me, then? Is it just because you’re weak?”

  “Well, no. I just think it’s best that you learn to control your wings yourself, and your father agrees.”

  The fact that this father-stealing jerk had talked about Wren behind her back made Wren like her even less, but she still managed to keep the artificial smile plastered on her face. She realized then that she didn’t ever want to see Rysha again. But that would be impossible, seeing as how she was co-leader of the Winged Blue. So maybe, if Wren was lucky, Rysha wouldn’t be around much…or if she was, maybe she wouldn’t try to interfere with Wren’s life anymore.

  “I should add that your father would love to see you, but it would just be too painful for him to just see you through the mirror. We can pass things back and forth between your world and ours, but nothing living, and we can only use the portal to get you to our home world Shyon, as it just isn’t safe for us to use it anymore. We’re worried the Winged Red will be able to locate it if we do, and the last thing we need is for them to be able to travel away from our world.”

  “But what if they already can?” Wren blurted out. She’d been thinking of the fortuneteller when she said this, and she saw Sia and Rysha share a worried glance.

  “What do you mean, Wren? Has something happened to you? Something to do with the Winged Red?” Sia’s words had rushed out of her mouth in their quick-moving train of queries.

  “May…maybe. I was in town yesterday morning, and this woman, this supposed ‘fortuneteller,’ she talked me into entering her home and having my tea leaves read. But when I went inside, things got really creepy, and she said all of this stuff about seeing red, and falling feathers, and me. I’m sorry, but I don’t really remember all of it. She really scared me. I took off pretty soon after she started saying all these things, and…and I wish I remembered more, but I don’t.”

  “That’s fine, Wren. I will ask Piru about this, as it could imply that this woman was one of our enemies, although I have no idea how she possibly could be in your world if she was. I am almost entirely certain she was human, and maybe it was just a strange coincidence or something of the sort. Piru will know, I think.” Rysha looked down for a moment, as if deep in thought, then brought her eyes back to Wren’s face. “Wren, it’s so late at night here that I should be getting home and let Piru, and you two, get some sleep. I just wanted to discuss something with Sia first, in private, so Wren, if you could please step outside for a moment?”

  Wren had no idea what Rysha would want to ke
ep from her, nor did she understand how she could possibly be so rude. But did she really have a choice? “Sure, Rysha,” she muttered, and she left the cabin. Shutting its door behind her, she sat down on the cabin’s low porch to wait for Rysha’s secret conversation to be over and done with. She could hear the muted voices of the two women traveling through the window to her right. So she got up, walking over to it as quietly as she could, and placed her ear against its surface.

  Their voices were still challenging to hear, but Wren managed to make out a few words here and there. First, she heard Rysha saying something like, “…why she can’t fly?…need to…or we will fail.”

  “I know!” These words she heard perfectly clearly, Sia sounding angry for the first time since Wren had met her. Sia’s voice was still raised enough for Wren to hear her easily when she said, “She’ll either learn or she won’t. But I believe in her, and I’m trying my best. I have an idea, one which may work, so if you can just be patient, please!”

  “I’m sorry, Sia.” Then Rysha’s voice lowered again, and Wren couldn’t decipher anything else until she noticed the cabin’s door swinging open.

  She jumped back from the window, hoping Sia wouldn’t see her, but the first thing that Sia said was, “How much did you hear?”

  “Just you defending me.” Wren was grateful for the low light in the forest, because she could feel herself blushing a bit from being caught.

  Sia tilted her head slightly, then sighed. “Don’t worry about the eavesdropping. I don’t blame you. I just can’t believe Rysha has the nerve to doubt you, even despite what all the prophecy said. Well, I don’t doubt you, not one bit. Tomorrow will be the night. In fact, I’m going to try something with you that I think just might work. Do you have a portable radio?”

  “A radio?” How on Earth could a radio help me learn to fly? But Wren was willing to try almost anything at this point. In answer she told Sia, “Yeah, I think there’s a wind-up emergency one in the back of my bedroom closet. It was my dad’s, and I just couldn’t get rid of it, even if I didn’t foresee any need for it in our current ritzy neighborhood.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t call this an emergency, but it will be required the next time we meet up. I’ll see you at midnight, same time, same place, of course. And sorry, but I can’t meet you tomorrow afternoon. I’m going to be visiting Shyon, and I won’t be back for a while. I need to talk to my grandfather, Piru, about some stuff.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” Wren said softly.

  Instead of calling her on her obvious rudeness, Sia just laughed. “Yeah, after that talk you heard part of, you better believe I want to talk to Rysha, too, tell her off again for you.”

  “Once was plenty. And thank you. For everything.” Especially for believing in me.

  “You’re very welcome. Oh, one last thing,” Sia said as she went to her cabin’s open door. She turned to Wren, a happy look on her face. “A very important one.” Wren got ready for whatever she had to say. “Have you ever had a chocolate-chip cookie? They’re the best! If you know how to make them, maybe you could teach me back in Azyr.”

  “I promise to.”

  “Great. See you soon!”

  Once Wren was back at home and in bed, her exhausted body told her she’d spent far too much of the night outside of its soft, welcoming sheets. But despite this, she still had some trouble falling asleep. She couldn’t stop thinking of the unforgettable fact that it was tomorrow night or never: she had only one night left to learn. And if she didn’t, if she failed, she would never be able to save her father, and Sia, and even Rysha, and all the other Winged Blue.

  It also was likely, and she was almost certain of this, that she would never see Sia again if she failed. After all she’d shared with her, all those deep, painful secrets she’d laid bare, the thought was far too painful to think about anymore.

  For once, Wren was in luck. Her mind soon caught up with her fatigued body, and she fell asleep just as the sun was beginning to rise.

  Chapter Twelve

  As much as Sia wanted to believe in the abilities of her new friend and student, she just couldn’t trust Wren as completely as she would have liked. So after a night of poor sleep and a quick shower, she did what she knew she wasn’t supposed to do except under dire circumstances: she opened the portal to her world.

  Even though she’d only been up on the portal’s platform one time, it still felt far more familiar than any part of Wren’s world. That “Earth” place is nice and all, but it isn’t home, she thought once she’d returned. Landing softly on the large metal disc that lay beneath the glowing opening to Earth, she gazed down at her city with a fair amount of pride. Azyr was beautiful, beautiful in a way that nothing on Earth really was.

  Except for Wren.

  Sia pushed that silly thought out of her head and dove, headfirst, off the platform’s edge, enjoying the rush from her free-fall down toward Azyr. The city grew larger and larger the farther she fell, and after she’d had enough fun, she pulled up with a few strong beats of her wings.

  She first touched down only a few feet from her own front door. As much as she had missed her family, she was hoping they wouldn’t be home. She didn’t really want to see them again when she’d just be going back to Earth in a few short hours, because this was the longest she’d ever been separated from them. Maybe someday she would move to another part of the city, but for now, her home’s familiar blue door and the scent of baking bread in the front hallway told her she was in the right place for the first time in many days.

  Earth was the right place too, though, and she reminded herself of this as she made her way to her bedroom. The baking bread’s rich, comforting scent beckoned to her, but she still had to pick up what she’d come here for and then make her way out of the house and down to Piru’s. And she had to do so before anyone noticed she’d come home. She didn’t want her family judging her, either for failing to teach Wren to fly or for using the portal when it was likely quite dangerous to do so. She knew she’d made the right decision, though, or at least she thought she had.

  “Who’s there?” came an intimidating-sounding voice from the kitchen. But Sia wasn’t frightened, because nothing about her brother Kriss was intimidating in the slightest, least of all to his younger sister. She heard a chair being pushed back from the table in the kitchen, and then Kriss tilted his head out of its doorway, with a charming dash of breadcrumbs located on the left side of his mouth. “Sister? What are you doing back, Sia? Did you already teach her to fly? But…I thought you weren’t supposed to come back here till the Earth’s eighteenth, and I know that isn’t for another two days. Is everything okay, sis?”

  “Take a breath, and don’t choke on your bread, dear brother.” He had spoken the entire barrage of words around what must have been a rather large mouthful of bread. “And what kind of bread is that? It smells terrific, whatever it is.”

  “It’s a recipe from Earth, from some woman named Jool-ya Child. I believe it’s called ‘French bread.’ Would you like some?” As he headed down the hall toward Sia, he held a huge slice of hard-crusted bread with an equally huge bite out of it.

  Sia had taken for granted what her brother looked like her whole life, so seeing him approaching her, his bulky form covered by an equally large, flour-bedecked robe, she felt struck by his size for the first time. “It’s really good to see you, Kriss.”

  He ruffled her hair and then pulled her in for a hug, practically enveloping her whole body in his muscular, long arms. He smelled just like the bread he’d been baking, but her brother had always smelled somewhat like baked goods…in the best way possible. It felt wonderful to be hugged by a brother she hadn’t seen in so long, and so she just enjoyed his comforting scent and the hug for as long as it lasted.

  Then Kriss pulled back and took another bite of the bread. “Srry,” he mumbled, “’s juz sho gud!” He chewed a few more times and then swallowed. “You miss me? You miss my cooking? You miss Azyr?”

  “Yes,
very much, and too much to measure.”

  “Nice to see where I stand, then. Slightly beneath my cooking or way beneath it?”

  Instead of answering him, Sia reached up and dusted some flour off the ends of his chin-length brown curls. “Looks like you need a shower, brother.”

  “So, what are you doing home, then, sis?”

  “It’s that…it’s just…I haven’t been able to teach her, Kriss. So I needed to talk to Grandfather Piru, to make sure it’ll happen in time. To make sure I can do it. I do have an idea to try tomorrow night, which I think maybe might work.”

  “What is it?”

  This time it was Sia who mumbled. “Dancing with her.”

  “Did you just say, ‘dancing with her’? Ooh, little sister’s got a crush on the Savior! You do, don’t you?” Kriss gave her a light knuckling on her head, which she remembered the Earthlings called a “noogie.” They weren’t well liked on Wren’s planet, either, from what she’d read in her imported Earth novels when she was younger.

  But she put up with this particular knuckling better than usual; she was so glad to see her brother that it barely bothered her that he was giving his nineteen-year-old sister the same unpleasant greeting he’d given her since she was six. At least this time, the knuckling came after the hug.

  “Listen, I’ve got to head straight to Piru’s, and then I’m back to Earth. Don’t tell anyone else I’m here, okay? Please? It’ll look really bad to anyone other than you and Piru that I used the portal.”

  “You’re darned right it will, but he and I, we know how smart you are and that you wouldn’t take a risk like that if it wasn’t necessary. ’Sides,” Kriss said after taking another bite of bread, this one thankfully less of a mouthful, “I know he’ll need to make physical contact with you in order to work his magic. So I don’t blame you, especially since you haven’t been able to teach Wren how to fly yet. I know you’ll get it down…or up, that is…in time, though, even if you do only have one more night. But you haven’t taken any other risks, have you? Like trying to teach her during the day?”