Enjoy!
Chapter 4
She dreamed of the night he brought
her home. Josias carried her in his
arms, his jacket protecting her from the chill of the night, through the forest
until the glowing porch light of Josias’s house shone through the
darkness. He opened the back door,
careful not to disturb her, and flicked on the kitchen light.
Once inside, Josias regarded her
dirty face with a pensive stare. “Come
on,” he said softly, “let’s give you a bath.”
The Seraphim ducked her face towards
Josias’ chest. He was kind, so much
kinder than the other men, though she didn’t understand him any better than
them. But she felt safe with him, and
she hoped maybe, just maybe, her nightmare would end.
Without letting go of her, Josias
maneuvered through the kitchen, grabbing a washcloth and a bar of soap. He took her to the bathroom and stood her in
the pale green porcelain tub. He pulled
the jacket off of her, and she awkwardly covered her body with her wings. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
The Seraphim stared at Josias as he
turned on the tub faucet and let the water run over his hand. Then he wet the washcloth. Gently, he washed the dirt off her face and
the long feathers on her head.
Gradually, slowly, the Seraphim relaxed, giving Josias and arm to wash,
helping him take care of her wings and tail.
With all her feathers, it took a while for Josias to clean her, but by
the time they’d finished she trusted him to take care of her.
Josias dried her with the fluffiest
towel he owned. “See, isn’t that better?”
he asked, rubbing all the feathers on her head.
She gave him a faint smile.
“Now to find something for you to
wear.” Grunting slightly, Josias pushed
himself to his feet and made his way to his bedroom.
Shyly, still covering her body with
her wings, the Seraphim tiptoed after him.
She peeked at pictures hanging on the walls as she passed—three little
boys playing in the sprinklers in the backyard, the oldest’s prom date, the
youngest tearing apart a computer, giving a goofy grin with wires sticking out
of his mouth. They all surrounded one
picture with the entire family sitting in a flowery field—Josias, his three
sons, and his wife. She stared at them—their
smiles, their wingless bodies—and stroked the feathers on one of her wings.
“Here you go,” Josias said,
startling her.
She jumped and fluttered her wings,
scooting a little ways down the hallway.
One of her wings brushed the frame of the family picture, and it started
sliding down the wall.
Josias caught the picture and
replaced it on its nail. “Whoops,” he
said. “Almost had an accident there.” He turned to find the Seraphim huddled in the
corner, her hands clenched over her head.
With a sigh, Josias knelt next to
the child and gently pulled her hands down.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to
scare you.” He fiddled with a brown
cloth in his hands and brought held it up.
“I don’t exactly have anything in your size, seeing as you have wings
and all, but I think this might work.”
It was a button-down shirt. Carefully, Josias pulled the child’s arms
through the shirt and put it on her backwards so the buttons were in back. He did up the top and two bottom buttons of
the shirt, letting her wings hang out unhindered. “There,” he said, gently turning her
around. He smiled. “Now you don’t have to feel so afraid.”
The Seraphim picked at the too-long
sleeves and brought them to her nose.
She sniffed them. Though she didn’t
know it then, she soon learned they smelled of fabric softener and Old
Spice. She peeked up at Josias and
smiled back.
“I bet you’re hungry,” said
Josias. He took her hand, ignoring the
long nails that pricked at his skin. “I
went shopping today, though I only bought enough for one for the week. That’s okay though. I’ll go shopping again tomorrow.”
They went back into the kitchen, and
Josias pulled out fruits and vegetables out of the fridge and laid them on the
counter. “I’m not sure exactly what you’d
like to eat, but we can start with these.”
As an afterthought, he pulled out a pack of lunchmeat. “I’m feeling a little peckish myself, so I
think I’ll join you.”
The Seraphim stood on her toes and
peeked over the counter. Her hand inched
towards a cluster of grapes.
“Go ahead,” Josias said. He plucked a grape and ate it, then plucked
off a second one and pushed it towards her.
The child picked up the grape and
rolled it in her hands. Tentatively, she
put it in her mouth and bit down. The
skin was bitter, but sweet juice exploded in her mouth. She swallowed, then quickly picked another grape
and stuffed it in her mouth. Pretty
soon, she was shoveling grapes into her mouth by the handful. Once they were gone, she moved on to carrots,
which she gnawed through, then a tomato, which she ate like an apple, and on to
Josias’s lunchmeat.
Josias tried to stop her when she
reached the meat, but when the child downed it just as quickly as the produce
he just chuckled and sat back. “So you’re
an omnivore—or at least, I hope so. That’s
good to know. And you certainly were
hungry.”
Finally, with a whistling sigh, the
child stopped eating. She curled up on
the ground and wrapped her tail around her legs. Tilting her head back, she looked up at Josias. His pepper-gray hair didn’t look like
anything special, he stood with slightly-hunched shoulders, and his wingless
and tailless body baffled her, but he had treated her kindly when no one else
had. With another whistling sigh, she
crawled to Josias and wrapped her arms around his leg.
Josias gathered her in his
arms. “What am I going to do with you?”
he whispered. “What’s your name?” He pointed towards himself. “Josias.”
He pointed towards the
Seraphim. She just stared at him.
Sighing, Josias patted the child on
her head. “If you won’t tell me your
name, I’m going to have to give you one.
I can’t just call you ‘you’ for the rest of your life. You know, I still don’t know if you’re male
or female. Maybe you don’t have a
gender. But I’d rather name you right
the first time. How about we try to
figure it out?”
Josias carried the Seraphim to his
den and sat down at the computer. She
watched, interested, as he brought up picture after picture of different animals
and birds. “I’m not sure how best to do
this, since I don’t know if you were born from an egg or born live. Heck, maybe you grew in a cocoon. But let’s try this.”
He pointed at himself. “Boy.”
He pointed at a picture of his wife.
“Girl.” Then he pointed at the
Seraphim. She was silent. “Okay, next try.” He brought up picture after picture: a maned
lion, “Boy.” A lioness, “girl.” Several
other mammals, a dog with a litter of puppies, a farmer collecting eggs from a
hen, a peacock and peahen, different tropical birds, all while pointing to a
male and saying, “boy,” and a female and saying, “girl.” All without getting a response.
“Ah well,” Josias said. He gently set the child on the ground and
stood, stretching. “We can try again
tomorrow.”
Then he noticed the child was still
staring at the pictures, her lips curled down in a frown. She glanced at the picture of his wife, then
at another family photo on the desk. She
picked it up and stared at the man in the picture. It was Josias, though his hair was a light
brown instead of gray.
“Do you like pictures?” Josias
asked. “I can show you more, though I’m
tired of looking at the computer. Here,
let’s look through some old photo albums.”
He pulled the albums off of a
bookshelf and sat down on a worn leather couch.
The child crawled into his lap and nestled in the crook of his arm. Smiling sadly, Josias opened to the first
page. “That’s me and my wife, the day we
married. I thought she could never be
more beautiful than on that day, though I was wrong.”
They moved slowly through the album,
with Josias explaining what was happening in each picture, though the child
couldn’t understand him. There were
pictures of dates that Josias and Larue went on together, the day Matthew was
born, their first hovercar, their trip to Alaska. Then the child gasped. Josias watched her as, with lips parted, the
child leaned close to one particular photo.
It was of Larue and Michael soon after Michael was born. Josias had caught her nursing Michael. Larue always felt shy while nursing, and she’d
been angry when Josias had shot the photo.
But, the Seraphim learned later, Josias said that was when he thought
she was the most beautiful, the most at peace.
And so he’d placed it in the album.
The child stared at the photo, then
flipped back a page to where Larue was still pregnant with Michael. She slipped off Josias’s lap and walked to
the computer, where the picture of a bird and her eggs was still up, as well as
a photo of the newly-hatched baby birds a few days later. The child pointed at the bird. “Girrll?” she asked.
Josias nodded. “Yes, girl.”
The child rushed back to the couch
and pointed at Larue. “Girl?”
“Yes, girl.”
The child placed the palms of both
hands against Josias’s chest. “Boy.”
“Yes.”
Then she placed the palms of both
hands against her own chest. “Girl.”
“Girl?”
The child smiled. “Yes.”
Josias gathered the girl into his
arms. “Well then. Hello, little girl. What are we going to call you?”
They went back to the computer and
Josias looked up names. He said the ones
he found interesting to the girl and tried to gauge her reactions. Finally, he said, “Netanya.”
The winged girl smiled.
“You like it? Netanya?”
She giggled and held the too-long
sleeves to her face.
“Well then.” Josias stroked her chin. “Hello, Netanya.”
