The Girl With Borrowed Wings by Rinsai Rossetti Page B

you’d call it—sort of a gap beneath the trees—was where I lived. You can’t imagine what sorts of creatures are hiding in the branches, or wander in and then can’t get out again. For instance, the forest seems empty right now, but I can assure you that at least ten things are eavesdropping on us. I say
things
because they might not be people—but don’t worry,” he added. “They probably aren’t dangerous. Or if they are, they aren’t looking for a fight—because they’re hiding, see? And anyway, I—you might be surprised to hear this, but I actually am kind of deadly,” he said modestly, “and I’m on your side, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
    “I wasn’t worried,” I said. The situation was too unreal for me to worry about it. My head was still floating in the sky, and I, in my starched school shirt and proper shoes that remained warm from the heat of the oasis, touched a few scaly branches just to see if they were solid.
    Right beside the place we’d landed, a couple of trees arched together in the crowded gloom, moss streaming down like gray mermaid-hair, to conceal the gap between their trunks. Sangris ducked beneath. I followed, pushing the moss apart and squeezing through, and was blinded momentarily by the sun at high noon.
    I’d unfolded into another country. The forest had ended—abruptly, as if it had been slashed away with a knife.
    A line ran through this world. On one side, the confused forest; on the other, this endless grassland. It must have just rained, because the sky was a living, breathing gray, and the ground shone intense green. Not khaki, but
real
green. Hills rolled over the distance. Light and shadows rippled down their sides, according to the clouds. Where sunshine billowed through, a few shallow puddles flashed like isolated spots of light.
    This was a country of space and cool air and emptiness, different from the forest, though so close, and unimaginably different from the desert. The sky was open wide. Above me, a bird wheeled round and round with a high, piercing cry. Every time it came directly overhead, the light of the low sun hit the underside of its wings, and for a split second it seemed to be struck motionless, in full display, the bones glowing gold through its feathers. Then it would swing away again.
    I felt some part of me lift right out of my body. A breeze blew in my face.
    “Moorland. This is the other side of Ae,” Sangris was saying, “but nobody lives here. They’re all packed into the forest because they’re afraid to be seen. Only the birds—”
    “Let’s run,” I said breathlessly.
    “What?”
    I ran.
    For someone who had not done more than walk (and walk slowly, at that) for five years, I was fast. In the back of my mind was a flicker of surprise. The ground swept past, thrumming lightly like the taut string of a guitar, beneath my feet. I suppose that, in the oasis, in my caverns of stone walls, I had forgotten how young I was. But my body hadn’t forgotten. Somehow, in hibernation, it had managed to grow fluid and long and light. Ye gods, I thought, running faster and finding with joy that I could do so, I’m
young
. Who would have guessed? It was almost like discovering I could fly.
    And I was
out of the oasis
. Past the desert—hah! I laughed without slowing down.
    A jaguar loped beside me. I jumped before spotting the deep yellow eyes and realizing that it was Sangris. I expected him to look as surprised as I felt, but he seemed to think my mad dash was perfectly natural.
    “I’m young!” I shouted at him in exhilaration.
    “What?”
    “I’m young!”
    His gaze flickered over me. From my free-flying hair—I became very aware of it as soon as he looked at it; I felt it lifting off the base of my neck where the spine is tender, and streaming out behind me in tendrils—to the tightness of my stomach—I realized for the first time that I had a narrow waist and hips rather than the straight lines of my childhood; when