Witch Lightning 1

He flew as fast as he could, wondering what the hell he had been thinking. He beat the air with his wings, feeling the strain in his shoulders, the air whipping in and out of his lungs, his eyes not seeing, only knowing he was in a race he had to win. After a while he looked over his shoulder, and figured he had got away free. He eased off and let his lungs fill with air as he looked around. He had climbed further in the sky than ever before. The peaks and lakes and forests lay behind him, and ahead of him lay a ridge like a serrated knife, high among the peaks, curving away from him, the rim of a great crater he guessed, where an ancient fire had blown a hole in the earth’s crust. But the fire had long burnt out leaving only lifeless darkness. That darkness filled him with dread, and being close to it set a pit growing in his stomach. He pulled in a wing to turn back.

As he turned, he felt the eagle rush past, brushing him with its feathers. He saw it fly past and then soar above the ridge. He finished his turn and fled back toward the forests he knew, but it was no good. When the eagle gained enough height it would dive again. I have to kill it, he thought, kill it or die. He turned back toward eagle. It dove, but he dodged, and climbed, straining every muscle, bending his bones to gain height. The eagle climbed too, flapping its large wings and tipping to catch breaths of air as they rose. They climbed together, eyes skyward not seeing the wind push them beyond the ridge and over the black pit. The air felt heavy and pulled him down, but he didn’t give in, he fought. And he won; the eagle stopped climbing and glided back toward the ridge. Seeing his advantage, he dove and plunged his beak into the eagle’s back.

It shook and tipped its wings and glided away. He tasted the eagle’s blood. But he felt sorry as he watched the larger bird, injured, limp across the sky. He followed it. It dropped to a crag on the ridge and he tried to land there too, but the wind’s eddies and tides made it too hard to land. He struggled to escape the black. Finally, he managed to land a hundred yards down the ridge. Clouds rolled and boiled to the west, but to the east… a hungry darkness. He looked back to the crag and saw her, a woman or at least the shape of a woman, standing like a scarecrow driven into the stones, buffeted by the wind, her arms spinning. “What have I done?” he asked himself. He jumped into the air and fought the wind to get to her.

He dropped to the crag, where the stone flattened, and changed into his human form again. The air around the summit crackled, pricked at his skin, burned his eyes, and the smell of ozone felt sharp against the back of his nose and his throat. He pulled his t–shirt over his nose. Her arms ceased beating the air and as they slowed down her body moved with them the way a human’s should, but she looked so thin sticks might be holding up her rags, her tea colored skin wrinkled and slack. Recognizing him, she smiled.

She glanced to the darkness below and shuddered. “You would bring me here,” she said, peering up at him. “Look at you – flying! And standing tall and strong in front of me. What a gentleman!” She looked away then sheepishly looked up. “He was a Deceiver I tell you, all the words he used on me… You of all people should know I love sweet words, and I saw him watching my hands as if they were pretty birds. Is that the ruination of me, to kiss him without marrying him first? I showed me bum for him, yes, and let him make a fetish of me.” She slumped and stepped toward the black. In the west, behind her, the sun shone under the clouds, slashing them with red. She looked up at him, eyes bright. “But you came back to me. Are you jealous? You don’t need to be jealous of him, never of him. The seven big poppies you brought me, do you remember? You brought me seven because that’s my birthday, November 7. And coming home with oranges and lemonade, do you remember? It was such a cold winter the lake was frozen and we were wet from the snow.” She looked to bloody horizon and purple clouds. “You’re so pig headed sometimes when you get a thing in your head, but you didn’t have to leave. She stepped toward him. “O, my heart, kiss me straight on the lips!”

She walked toward him, her body driven mechanically, crossing the stone in jerking steps. He watched her, and glanced over his shoulder to look for a way to lead her down. She threw her arms around him. Her rags were damp and fetid and under them he felt unnatural heat, as if her bones were white hot, heating her flesh from inside. She lifted her mouth to his. The stench from that black, toothless hole reared up and slapped him in the face like rotting grease. He gagged and threw his arm over his face, the smell clinging to his nostrils even as he doubled over. He heaved and stumbled away, covering his face with an arm and waving the other in front of him. He turned to her, gasping for breath.

“Get back!”

Her eyes opened wide for a moment, a network of cracks spread across her forehead, and she frowned, more cracks curling around her mouth and down her cheeks. She coughed and spat. “I made you, kid!”

She advanced and as he lifted his hands to shove her away she sprang, rags flapping. She wrapped her legs around his torso and, hanging off him, beat his head and shoulders with her bony fists. Her arms were so slight he felt he she was beating him with bamboo and batted her arms away. The stench…

“Give it up you old bitch!” he shouted.

As he pulled back his fist to give her a good punch, one of her stinking rags blew across his face. He gave up punching her to pull the rag away. It remained stubbornly plastered over his nose and mouth, and worked its way between his teeth. Another slapped over his eyes.

His lungs screamed. He clawed at the rags as they piled on, smothering him. He threw his arms around the witch, squeezed her bones, sucked in a breath, wheeled and ran. In three steps he went over the edge. The rags flew away and he saw her face, bulging and stretching, eyes darting in her skull from terror to rage to confusion. She looked as helpless as him. He let go. Then he saw the black void in the crater was only a shadow created by the ridge, and the stones looked real enough at the crater’s bottom.

He closed his eyes and found himself at the hot stove in her cabin, turning over kidneys in a frying pan, the smell of liquid butter filling his nose. Toast browned on the wire frame on the back burner and a big pot of tea steeped on the washstand. Sunlight streamed onto the pot through the window, and he longed to get back out there into that mountain sky – after breakfast.

She turned under the covers and the cot springs rattled. “Uhhn.”

He picked up her cup from the sink, sniffed the bitter aroma and checked out the black grains in the bottom. He wrinkled his nose and frowned. Why does she still take it, he wondered, it’s done its work. Perhaps it got her high? Remembering his hallucination he shuddered and then rinsed the cup in the thin stream from the tap and poured in milk from a carton on the window sill. He took her tea, the floor creaking under his bare feet. Be winter soon, but he still didn’t like having his feet covered.

She took the cup, held it like a bowl and sipped. She had the covers tucked tightly around her curves. “Mmm, sugar.”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling.

He walked back to the stove, picked up the fry pan, rolled the butter around the kidney slices and then leaned over the pan and inhaled the frying organs – he didn’t love them so much before.

“Where have you been?” she asked. “Out in the dawn? Cruising the dump for shiny things?”

He snorted. “Not at all,” he said. “I love flying. It’s like coming home to me. Won’t you have breakfast?”

He opened his eyes.

“Clala – occk.”

He gently pushed out his wings, felt the lift under them, and tipped into a turn. She plummeted down, struggling, a shrinking knot of rags.

“Croo loook lock!” Fly, witch!

When she hit the stones, she exploded in an orange ball that lit up the basalt cliffs and threw enough heat to lift him. He tipped out of his turn and changed direction, cocking his head left and right to look. From the spot where she hit a bolt of lightning ripped into the sky with another burst of flame and smoke. Thunder boomed.

He circled in the draft, barely moving his wings, and time seemed to stop. Then he reached the top of the crag, empty now, he landed on it. He stood for a while, until the clouds opened a window for the sun. Her lake lay still in the distance, and her cabin, and clouds beyond it were breaking up and dragging rain over the lightning strikes. In the valleys, columns of smoke rose like stakes driven into the ground. The wind, heavy with damp, freshened, rippling his feathers. He jumped into it and glided from his perch. The smell of burning wood hung in the air and mixed with the smell of new waterfalls cascading over the stone. He let himself drift through the air, and as he glided along in silence, he felt the air slipping softly against his skin.