Free Wings of Boden by Erik S Lehman Page A

call me a princess. Now I
know why. I don’t want to be that little girl anymore.”
    “But you’ll always be my Ellie. Nothing can
change that.”
    “Just please call me Elle from now on. Tell
everyone else too, please. For me.”
    Mom sighed. “Okay.” Then reached out to me to
do her ritual hair tuck thing, but drew her hand back when she
caught my squinty-eyed look of warning. After rotating back into
her lounge chair, she reached down for the lotion, squirted a bit
into her hand and began to rub it into her legs. “Getting a nice
tan here, wouldn’t you say?”
    With a glance at her long bronzing legs, I
replied, “Uh-huh,” then lounged back. “Mom, there’s something else
that’s bothering me.”
    “Yes, what’s that?” She rubbed her
calves.
    “If the drekavacs are what Dad said, why
doesn’t anyone else know? I mean. Why don’t they teach that in
history class?”
    “No, it wouldn’t be taught, dear.”
    “Why?”
    “Think about it. If we let that news out it
would cause mass panic. No angel would ever go outside again. And
that’s not what we want. That’s no life. I’d tell you not to let
anyone else know, but by the end the summer it won’t matter
anyway.”
    She had a point. I wouldn’t have gone outside
either. I’d have missed everything, would have become a recluse
behind walls, and so would’ve everyone else.
    “Hmm,” I agreed, and settled back with that
concept.
    The sound of Angie caught my attention while
she fluttered her wings under the fountain, giggling like a little
girl. So I tilted my chin down to watch her glimmer with youthful
excitement. Her wet hair looked different, a little darker, with
highlights. Maybe it was the water? No, she must’ve had the salon
put highlights in while on her shopping trip.
    “Should I dye my hair, Mom?”
    “What, Ellie, don’t you even think about
that. Don’t even tease.”
    A grin, as I let my lids slide shut under my
glasses and angled my face to the sun. Even as I began to drift
off, Mom said, “Put some lotion on, Ellie.” I pretended I didn’t
hear her. A minute later, her hands were rubbing lotion into my
legs. A little coddling’s okay, I guess …
     
    ****
     
    Dakarai showed up in the dimness of dream,
towering before me while I picked white daisies from a field. His
drekavac form threw a long shadow over my eight-year-old body. My
innocent eyes went up to him with a smile.
    Hey, Dakarai , I said in my dream, and
held up a bundle of daisies in my little hands. Do you like
these?
    Dakarai smirked, showing the tips of his
pointed teeth as he scratched out, Those are nice, little one.
Let me smell. He bent so far down from his height, slow, like
his drekavac head descended from the clouds. Bulging black eyes
locked on me as he sniffed the flowers. A hand came up and wrapped
around my wrist. The nightmare began as the little girl yelled, Let go, you’re hurting me, let go of me!
    Lava red filled Dakarai’s eyes. On the end of
a long neck, his wrinkled-skin head grew a hooked beak. A talon
clamped my wrist.
    I screamed with all the air in my little
lungs.
    He gurgled his last words as a drek; Sorry, little one, you’re just too delicious to let go.
    With one powerful thrust of his black vulture
wings, we lifted off the ground and the flowers fell to the earth.
Light dissolved. My mind wilted. Darkness devoured my sanity. I
slipped into oblivion.
     
     

CHAPTER 9
     
     
    With my hands clamping the rails of the
poolside lounge chair, I began to realize; the dream didn’t end on
a snap of terror. Like a painting left out in the rain, dark hues
melted away to reveal the light, and I awoke slowly to the
sprinkled sounds of laughter and the pool fountain.
    Yet, something akin to volcanic magma boiled
at the core of my being. Dakarai, my friend, had tried to take away
my innocent life. I bit down hard on the word NO … He would pay.
With that thought, I sat up straight.
    The lounge chairs were empty, Mom and Angie
in the