Misfires
“wings pt. II”Â
Part 1, here
It’s not until their fifth visit to the clinic that Maura gets up the nerve to ask more about Della’s wings.
She’s able to diagnose the little girl quickly, pediatric gastroenteritis, and after explaining all the treatments she was going to recommend, she’d taken a deep breath and asked them to come back.
“Can you bring her back in a week?”
Jane had tilted her head to the side, thinking. “Why? Will she need more?”
Maura took her time answering this question, trying to find a middle ground between a lie and the truth. “I’d like to give her another check up,” she’d said. “Just to make sure her fever stays down, and that there are no other signs of infection.”
A long, long silence followed this. So long, that Della had reached up to tug at the hem of her mother’s shirt.
“Ahm? Voymey mutatit?”
“No,” Jane had taken the little hand in hers, squeezing it. “No,” she’d repeated, and then with a great sigh, “Doctor.”
“I’ll bring her back. One week.”
Maura could feel the air rushing back into the room at her words. “Thank you!” too enthusiastic, she knew it, but she’d been unable to help herself. “Thank you.”
“Same rules,” Jane growled, and Maura had recited them, eager to pacify.
“Just me. No plucking. And when the check up is over, you can take her home.” She’d held up her hands. “I promise.”
And Jane turned away, reaching out to lift Della into her arms. “One week,” she’d said.
She hadn’t allowed herself to hope for their return until they were stepping into her exam room, a curious looking technician closing the door behind them.
She hadn’t dared to expect that Jane would come a third time, but she had.
Della smiled at her like she was a friend, or at least someone familiar. She’d pulled off her overcoat to reveal her downy, honey wings much more quickly.
Like Maura was someone safe.
“Hi Della,” Maura said, glancing at Jane to make sure this was allowed.
“Doctor!” Della sang.
And though the word came out more like “dogtear,” Maura’s insides had jangled for several seconds afterwards, like the wind chime echo of that little flygirl’s voice.
“It’s so good to see you,” she said to Jane.
She received the swift duck of a head in return. A murmur of hello, and the sweetest praise she could ever have asked for.
“You have kept the rules. Thank you.”
Now, on their fifth visit to the clinic, Maura pulls her stethoscope away from Della’s chest, delighting in the way her wings flutter as she giggles. There is really no reason for Della to visit any longer, and she suspects that Jane knows this. But if she’s not going to call her on it, Maura definitely is not going to speak up.
“Cosquilmey Ahmi!” Della says in her music box voice.
Jane smiles. “Calmlil.”
Maura hands the stethoscope around her neck. “What did she say?” she asks. Mother and daughter have traded several sentences in their native language, and try as she might, Maura still cannot place it.
“She says you tickle her,” Jane answers, and for the first time, she directs that same, slow smile at Maura.
It hits her like the beam from a sun lamp. Â
“Does she...speak English?” Maura asks carefully. “I mean, will she learn it? How did you?”
Jane blinks, digesting. It seems that most of what Maura says to her needs to be mentally translated, and then the answer formulated and re-translated before Jane can respond.
“She will learn when she turns six,” Jane says. “For now, she’s just a child.”
“And…” Maura swallows. Just do it. “Her wings?”
A furrow appears between Jane’s eyebrows. “What about them?”
“Where did - I mean - how did she, ah…” Maura gestures, and Jane watches her hands closely, like they might offer more insight than the doctor’s words.
“Where did they come from?” Maura asks finally.
Jane looks back into her face, expression blank. “Where did what come from?” she asks blandly, and for a moment, Maura thinks she’s joking. She gives a little chuckle that turns to confusion when Jane does not reciprocate.
“Her wings!” she says, voice rising. “Where did her wings come from?”
Here, it seems, is a word that Della understands.
“Wings!” she cries. “Della tel Ajnuhan! Wings!” she unfurls her wings to their full length. It’s only the second time she’s done this in front of Maura and it still takes her breath away. Della seems to like being admired. She grins up at the doctor, all milk chocolate eyes and dimples.
Jane, however, is still studying the doctor with a perplexed expression. “I’m Della’s mother,” she says, though her tone is more like a reminder than a threat.
“I know,” Maura says. “That’s clear, she looks just like you. But,” she looks pointedly at Jane’s shoulders. “You don’t have wings.”
Jane tilts her head to the side again, one eyebrow quirking. “Yes,” she says slowly. “I do.”
And without being asked, she shrugs out of her jacket so that she is left standing in just her tank top. “Look,” she says. And she turns around. Â
The entirety of the other woman’s back is tattooed. From the base of her hairline to where the skin disappears inside the neck of her top, out across her shoulders and down her back. Deep blue and impossible in its intricacy. Maura has to clasp her hands together to keep from touching.
“This is…” she searches her vocabulary for a word that will adequately describe the level of awe she feels in the moment, but she comes up empty. “Jane. This is…”
“Not like Della’s,” Jane says, and it sounds as though she is smiling. “I know. Not yet. Back up.”
Maura does not immediately understand the request, and then, when it is repeated, she thinks that the brunette is asking that her personal space be respected.
“Oh,” she says, blushing, backing away. “I’m sorry. I just...I’ve never seen anything quite like-”
“Further,” Jane says gently, and Maura obeys, though it feels a bit like a slap in the face.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she says, hearing herself, realizing she sounds almost petulant. “I was just-”
But then Jane makes a noise, deep, and rich, and Maura realizes that she is laughing.
“What-” she begins, but she doesn’t get any further, because the woman in front of her is changing, and if she thought it was magnificent when Della’s wings were revealed, it is nothing - nothing - compared to this.
No. That’s not right. They melt. They...molt.
Each inked line springing to vibrant life before her eyes. Each midnight brushstroke against Jane’s back bursting upwards, outwards, to become feathers, real, true feathers, the arch of scapula bone molding into a broad, muscled shoulder.
Hers are darker brown than Della’s, longer and sleeker.
Beautiful enough to make Maura’s chest ache.
Beautiful and big. So damn big.
Jane keeps her new wings furled around her shoulders, but they still curve up almost to the top of her head. They still drop low enough to touch the floor. They fully obscure their owner, still turned with her back to the doctor, showing off these magnificent, beautiful, enormous….
“Wings,” Maura breathes.
Jane turns slowly to face her, and in her new body, in the body she has had all along and kept hidden, she looks tall and radiant and more powerful than any other being Maura has ever encountered.
“Yes,” Jane says. And there is that slow smile, that flash of teeth and the hint of devilry, just below the surface.
“Yes, doctor. Wings”Â
