Winter Sparrow (12 page)

Mary stepped out and slammed the car door. She stared one last time at the house. What was it about the place that seemed to unhinge her? Her gaze drifted toward the balcony first, where she noticed a pair of eyes—belonging to the stranger with whom she had shared a bed—studying her.

No words were exchanged between them. The wind whipped her hair in every direction, an unkind and inhuman movement. Mary began to run as fast as her legs could carry her, repeating one word over and over. It was the only thing that stuck out to her clearly. A name. Joshua.

JOSHUA CUT HIMSELF TRYING TO
hang one of Mary’s paintings on the bedroom wall above the fireplace. He knew this was the most appropriate place to hang it, and the beautiful piece made the bedroom more inviting, if only for this moment. That was how he learned to view things now—in moments.

The blood trickling down his wrist reminded him he was still alive.

He’d lost track of the days. The nights. The painful afternoons sitting by himself. He remembered her name in prayers, but her face began to fade, and that reality was haunting.

The phone hadn’t rung in weeks. Longer. He just assumed there was no connection at all anymore. Perhaps these woods, with wills of their own, had suffocated the union, like an infant in the womb strangled before taking its first breath. Most men, he knew, would soak their veins in liquor in order to subdue the terrible thoughts and the loneliness. But he wasn’t most men. Some would undoubtedly run out and force their love to return, pressure her until she came to her senses.

But no.

The heat from the fireplace seemed incapable of making him warm regardless of how long he sat in front of it. One night, in the quiet, he had reached out his palms over the fire to let the feathered flame lick his skin. He only flinched, but he left his hands there until they scarred. A disfigured hand didn’t seem to matter when compared to his loss.

Joshua slept on the floor often. It felt wrong sleeping in the bed without her. The leather couch in what should’ve been one of the living rooms had already begun to rip in certain places. Such weak fabric it was.

But he could never escape the regret that crawled through his blood. Maybe if he’d just begged her to stay, said the right thing, convinced her—forced her inside—she might not have rushed off. Maybe if he’d kissed her more passionately…

He missed her eyes too. And the precious smell of her body. But most of all, Joshua missed the way she sometimes pulled away when he leaned in close. Strange that he would long for such a silly thing.

As he stared into her painting, Joshua buried his face in his hands and began to cry. He had believed he was capable of lying here tonight in his bedroom.
Their
bedroom. But he was wrong. He clenched his bubbled hands into fists, almost pleased that the pain nearly gave him something else to feel. He imagined her walking toward him. He imagined his mouth pressed against hers.

But she was still gone.

BLISTERS POLLUTED HER FEET.
Mary had been sprinting for what felt like forever. New snow blanketed the earth as chilled breath was exhumed from her throat. Slivers of her hair dabbed the sweat on her forehead. At last she could stop running, but her spinal column had already begun to buckle, sharp spikes of pain wracking her ribs.

She’d found her way back.

Still puzzling to her was the fact that she remembered the way at all. How had she managed to cut through the woods and paths of this hilly country without being hurt? Without the moonlight or the stars to guide her? Why had her chest not caved in? She had never been a skilled athlete, so to assume it was normal for her body to endure several miles of sprinting made little sense. But she had made it.

All the things she had forgotten, but this place was not among them.

Anxiety gripped her without warning. The darkness breathed around her. A few blinks and she came to the understanding that this darkness was inside of everything. It
was
the world around her. The darkness was life.

As she walked closer toward the mansion, Mary wondered where Joshua was. Would she find safety inside his great entry doors or hatred? What if he had forgotten her?

She uttered his name with a full breath: “Joshua.” The short hairs on Mary’s thin arms rose. A draft of wind moved across her skin, stroking her lips, scratching her teeth. It felt invasive but peaceful.
How can it be both?
She whispered Joshua’s name a second time, and the pain that had wrapped around her spine moments earlier dissolved. Before she could say his name a third time, the sound of footsteps rang in her ear. She knew they were his. She didn’t understand how she knew, but she did.

The patter had begun upstairs, in one of the far corners of the mansion, probably the bedroom. The floorboards creaked. She awaited his approach, listening eagerly as Joshua’s heels struck the final step. He’d reached the foyer. He was so close now. She held her breath and touched the tree that sat at the center of the front yard. She felt the inner grooves, the section with a word carved into it. The tips of her fingers slid inside each letter, and at last she spoke the word aloud: “Once.”

“Oh no,” she said, a flood of knowledge—things she had done, said, felt—storming her all at once. “I’m not welcome here. He’ll never love me. He’ll never forgive me. He’ll never…look at me the same.”

She pinched her eyelids shut, knowing the action wouldn’t stop the footsteps from drawing closer. “Joshua,” she cried. But no relief came. The pain in her body returned, along with an even greater doubt.

In this grave hour, she had become a painting of the darkest shades.

She glanced down at her clothing, such tattered and unclean rags. Mud had splattered the once brilliant white. Her hands were heavy weights at her sides. Fear captivated every pulse.
He’s going to hate me. I know he’s going to hate me.
She never should have left the other garden. Why had she wandered here? This was the past. And the man in her bed—
what is his name?
—was her present.

The footsteps boomed louder. They could not be stopped. They sounded like they belonged to the body of a hulk. A hulk that was coming for her.

Her shoulder blades scraped along the willow tree, where her hands had first trembled. That word. That godforsaken word. She knew in the depths of her being what it meant, but could it be undone?

Closer. Closer still those terrible footsteps.

“I have to fly from here.”

She collapsed, and as she did, something like a splinter began to shred her back apart. It tore out of the left side of her, beneath the shoulder blade. There had to be blood, but she didn’t have the guts to dab her fingers into the new wound. The pain enveloped her shaking body. Joshua finally uttered her name.

She lay perfectly still, terrified of what he might do to her if he found her. The pain moved, and through the darkness she could see a shadow looming over one half of her. It dangled slightly above her face, but it came from behind. Her back. That sharp, twisting sensation had produced a disfigured wing. With shock-lit eyes, she watched a feather come loose and drift away. The wind had stolen it, carrying it all the way back to the porch, where Joshua stood like a weathered, beaten gravestone. The flickering light behind him created his shadow, something harsh reaching out to blend with the darkness. 

A tear slipped down her cheek. She trembled.
Did I actually grow a wing?
It looked thin, showing more bone than feathers. It hung there limp, waiting to be used. But where was the other wing? If she were to accept that a wing had just ruptured out of her back, why was there only one?

Mary strained, crawling across the finished driveway, hoping she’d make it to the surrounding bushes before Joshua noticed her. It was odd. She wanted to see him. To be held. She wanted him to make sense of everything, and she wanted to ask him how she’d ever slipped away from his mansion. Their mansion, once. She’d lost her step, but she also found her way back. Didn’t that count for something?

But that cursed, terrible word was too real for her to put it out of her mind. It wouldn’t let her go. She was the word at the heart of the willow tree. Such a miserable, ugly thing.

Mary had enough strength to force the wing back inside her body. She reached her right arm around to where the opening was. Still-wet blood slipped out of a narrow incision. Remarkable and scary. 

She shivered. Snow sank into her neck and chest, eventually melting. Joshua walked down the porch steps, noticing the footprints her feet had made. But he stopped still, standing in the middle of the lawn. Waiting. Silent.

Mary was desperate for understanding and true knowledge. Just what had happened to her? And why couldn’t she fully remember? How long had she been gone from here? How long exactly?

Mary eyed him, breathless. She read the heartache in his stare, sensed the stuttering beat in his chest. And though she feared his wrath and bitterness, neither was on display. He searched the darkness, looking for
her
, she was certain. But she was hidden well. Mary wasn’t ready. She couldn’t face him so unclean and ruined and with a deformed wing. She couldn’t even wrap her mind around that last part. No matter how many times she pinched herself, Mary knew there was no waking up from this.

Joshua moved again. He walked to the tree, pressed his hands against the word carved there. Mary felt the pressure of his fingers drift along her bones then.

How is this happening? How is any of this happening?
Joshua was a normal man, wasn’t he? He didn’t possess any power or supernatural ability. But when he kissed the tree and said her name—whispered that he loved her—she was no longer certain of anything.

He dried his tears with his sleeve and toyed with the metal on his ring finger. He didn’t seem to care that his teeth chattered or that his ears had turned red. White breath circled his face like smoke. Still he stayed.

But she didn’t move. Her pulse shivered in her neck as he said her name again. Joshua’s voice left her nearly paralyzed. More tears were spilled. His tears did not belong here. Neither did she.

The wing still felt peculiar sliding around in her back. Like it was getting comfortable there. The other wing didn’t come. She wasn’t sure if it ever would, but right now, she knew she had to get away from here. She wasn’t ready for the answers. She wasn’t ready for any of this.

When Joshua turned around to walk toward the mansion, Mary sprang to her feet and started running. Some blisters on her heel popped. She winced but didn’t slow. The pain spreading in her toes was nothing. The icy snow igniting her skin was nothing. Their love was…

Don’t
, she begged her conscience.
Don’t say it.

“Nothing.”