Captive Wings (youngsters:science fiction, 5832 words)
Author: Loren	Added: Jan 24 2008	Views/Reads: 12263/3156	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Veronica knows she isn't supposed to go near her father's portfolio. But she has to know who she is...

Captive Wings 

Loren John Presley 

The warm fire was burning out. 

In front of the hearth's diminishing warm glow, the silhouetted figure
of a woman...with wings protruding from her shoulders...sat hunched 
over a desk with papers in her hands. As the thick darkness in the room 
slowly engulfed her form, she pressed the papers closer to her face. 
She was trying to make sense of them, all while the shadows stretched 
creepily across the room. She wondered if... 

“Veronica!” Lennard's voice yelled from the basement. “Are you in bed?!”


*** 

The pink morning horizon glowed mellowly, resting comfortably under the
sky and the clouds. An autumn breeze brushed the dark green plants of 
the wide plains. Whitney paced acros the side of the ramshackle house 
in her bare feet, letting the breeze run through her long hair as she 
calmly faced the sunrise. 

The ruined door to the house opened, and Whitney turned to see her twin
sister emerge, recently awoken. 

“Good morning, Veronica,” Whitney greeted. 

Veronica's eyes winced as she turned toward the east to meet eyes with
her sister. She ran across the deck, leaped over the rail and her wings 
sailed her gently to the ground next to her sister. The twins looked 
down at the grass together. 

Whitney looked into her sister's face, somehow different today. Veronica
kept staring at the grass, watching as the wind brushed it all around. 

Whitney felt something ominous. She was suddenly uncertain of whether
she should talk to her sister or not. Shortly, however, Veronica faced 
her. 

“Whitney?” she said softly, then held her tongue, thinking twice. 

“What is it?” her sister asked. 

“Can we get farther away from the house, just a little?” 

Both jumped and sailed twenty feet before their feet met the ground
again. They stood in the face of the sun, poor and meek, dressed in 
withered ragged gowns. 

A flock of white birds migrated overhead, catching the twins' attention.
The two young ladies looked at them in some gentle, humble envy, 
something they had done at the sight of birds since they were very 
young. 

“Whitney...” Veronica began, gazing up and taking a few steps, suddenly
seeming like herself again, “wouldn't in be fun if we could stay in the 
air as long as we wanted to, like the birds? Wouldn't it be fun to 
fly?” 

“But we can't fly, Veronica,” Whitney objected. “Our wings are clipped.
Remember?” 

“But don't you ever wonder what that means?” Veronica said, and faced
the sun again. 

Whitney bowed her head for a moment, then knelt down in the grass,
Veronica kneeling down afterward. The sun's radiant, golden glow 
lustered them as they sat dreamily. They watched the birds flap away in 
the distance. 

It was forbidden, Veronica knew, to look at her father's portfolio. But
the years had gone by and she had seen it sitting on her father's desk 
ominously time after time, calling her to go and open; to see what was 


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