I strip down to my boxers, fold the clothes, and hold them under my arm, the feather safely tucked inside. I leave my shoes on the bank. The night air should be cool, but there’s heat radiating from across the river. The water is cold, freezing really, still carrying a melted winter down from the mountain. My nipples pebble and my teeth chatter. The water is up to my knees. I pause as a thick tree branch floats by. Heat pulses against my face. The rocks are slippery against my feet. Another step. The water rises to my groin, and the cold against my testicles is mind-numbing, wiping out all thought in a wave of ice and pain. I gasp…
but take another step. And then another. And then another. The water is up to my chest. Another piece of tree floats by, a long thin branch reaching out and scratching my right cheek before I can turn away. It stings.
Another step. Mid-chest, halfway, and through the cold, through the thought of pushing toward a light that fell from the sky, and although I have so many memories to choose from in my twenty-one years of life, only one thought occurs here, midway through the river.
I’m standing where my father died.
Pain threatens to rise, and I’m so cold that I almost let it. There’s still heat against my face, but it’s nothing compared to the cold of the river. I think… I think about dropping my clothes and letting them drift away. I think about lowering my arms. I think about submerging myself in the water, the river closing up and over my head. I think about opening my eyes under the water, opening my mouth and lungs underwater. I think about lifting my feet and letting the current sweep me away. I am here now. I am here, having chosen to walk into this river, and I could drown. I could so easily drown. It would be simple, really. It would just take a moment. And then it would be over.
Another step. I take another step and then another and another until I’m pushing through the river as fast as I can, the water spraying up all around me. The current is swift against my legs, trying to pull me back, telling me to stop running, to just stop, but then it lowers from my chest, to my stomach. From my crotch to my ankles. And then I’m on the other side, shivering, the warmth of the fallen light like a blanket. I take a shuddering breath. The knot in my chest releases.
I dress quickly and shove the feather into the waist of my jeans. There can’t be much time left.
Whatever it is, it has to be big. As I jog up the hill to look down into the clearing, I can see the trees that have been uprooted from the impact, having collapsed in an outward circular pattern as if blown out. My breath quickens. My heart races. I reach the crest of the hill. I close my eyes. The air smells of dusty earth. It’s overwhelming and it invades my senses, but all I want to do is inhale the scent until I’m intoxicated from it, till I’m high off of it. Another shudder rips through me. My head is pounding. I feel inside out. Sweat drips down my face. I open my eyes and look down.
The earth is scorched and smoldering, smoke rising out of a small crater in the center of the clearing. Black char radiates outward through the clearing, long streaks of black against the green and brown of the forest floor. Flecks of orange and red flash but don’t ignite. Toward the center of the crater, the scorch marks change, become less random, more defined. The lines across the crater are angled. Each line looks to serve a purpose, like it has meaning, a distinct reason for being. I view each line, moving my eyes faster, only to realize I’m looking at it too small. I’m focusing too closely. My gaze widens. And now I see the full picture.
Stretched out from the center of the crater, charred into the earth, are the imprints of wings, great wings that appear to be fifteen feet in length each. The tips are jagged and sharp, the width greatest at the end, spilling out from the crater, black lines slashed into green. I look down the length of them, toward the center of the crater.
And there lies a man.
Not. Fucking. Possible.
I almost fall down the hill, I’m leaning so far over. I catch myself before I roll head over heels to the bottom of the steep incline. I can’t process what I’m seeing as it’s so far fucking beyond the realm of possibility, so far fucking past the idea of probability, that my mind can’t fathom it. Without thinking about why, I reach back and pull the blue feather from my jeans and clutch it in my hand. It feels hot. It feels like it’s shaking, but that might just be me.
Do you believe in the impossible? my father’s voice whispers in my head again.
I don’t. I don’t believe in the impossible. It’s not real. A man did not just fall from the fucking sky and land in the middle of the forest in Roseland, Oregon. I did not just see this. This did not happen. And even if it did happen, there is a fucking logical explanation for this. The FBI agent. The government. Of course! They’re testing some weapon. Some kind of flying weapon thing and it just crashed and that is all. The pilot is probably hurt and needs my help.
That’s it, I tell myself. Also, ignore the feather in your hand that came from a dream. Plausible deniability.
I stumble down the hill, half running, half sliding on the grass. I reach the bottom and stutter to a stop, unsure what to do. That wild, earthy smell assaults me and I’m horrified as it makes me hard, going straight to my dick. And it is an assault, because I can’t stop it, and I don’t want it. So much is crashing through my head that I can’t focus, I can’t make sense of anything, and that smell is making it worse. I stop myself from opening my mouth and sucking in as much air as possible.
I walk to the edge of the crater. Even this close, I can still make out the shapes burned into the ground, and it shorts my mind again. But this close I’m able to see the man. My gaze falls upon him and I am lost.
Fiery red hair, cut close to the scalp, almost buzzed short. Eyes closed, dark lashes against pale skin. His nose is flat and angled, like it was broken at some point and not set correctly. There is a smattering of faint freckles across the bridge, dotting to the cheeks. Lips slightly parted. Dark stubble covering his cheeks and chin, above his mouth, like rust. Neck exposed, pale skin that is almost like milk.
Clothes? There’s… something. A vest? A cape? Sleeveless, strong arms spread on the ground. A bronze band strapped around the left arm near the shoulder. Clear definitions of ropey muscle under deep red hair that grows thicker toward his forearms and then thins on the back of his hands. Hands that are twice the size of my own. His legs are exposed mid-thigh down, covered with red hair that looks like fire covering muscle. Feet as large as his hands.
Who is this? What is this?
A groan comes from the red mouth, low and rough.
I scramble back as quickly as I can, suddenly sure that I don’t want him to see me, sure if he does, I’m dead. My mind is screaming at me to run, to run so very fast. Why the hell did I think it was a good idea to follow something that had fallen out of the sky? I turn and plan to do just that, to run until I’m back up that hill and down the other side, until I’m at the river that I’ll cross so fast it’ll seem like I’m walking on water. I’ll get in my truck and get the fuck out of here and go back to Little House and pretend none of this has happened, that this is all some fever dream that I’ll eventually forget as I get back to my perfectly quiet and mundane existence. It doesn’t matter that I’m clutching a feather in my hand that came from a nightmare, squeezing it so that the bristles poke against my flesh. It doesn’t matter that I’m haunted by something I don’t believe in. It doesn’t matter that I’m drowning in this river. None of this can be real.
Another groan comes from the man (Man? I think desperately. Man?). Even though I’ve convinced myself to run as fast as I can, I hesitate at the low moan, my feet seeming to stick to the ground. Run! I shriek at myself. Run, you son of a bitch! But I don’t. I slow as I approach a tree that has been partially uprooted on the edge of the clearing. It’s tilted at a precarious angle, its thick trunk looking as if it would only take a gentle push to send it the rest of the way down. It’s this tree I stand behind, pressing my back up against the rough bark, hearing the high-pitched whistling sound coming from my mouth. My skin, still damp from the river crossing, feels like it’s crawling with electricity. This can’t be happening, I tell myself. This isn’t happening. I’m dreaming. I’ve fallen asleep at the store and I just need to wake up. I hit the back of my head against the tree. A dull pain. It’s not enough. Wake up. I hit my head again, harder. Wake up. Again, the pain bright. Wake up!
I’m still in the clearing.
Then there’s movement, from behind me.
I follow the angle of the tree toward the ground until I come to the partially exposed roots. I crouch down and peer through the maze of dirt and roots, seeking protection. The shallow crater is visible, and as I watch, the man sits up. Incredibly, the black lines that had been burnt into the ground around him also rise from the ground, as if they’re attached to him. Flecks of scorched earth fall to the ground, like it’s snowing ashes. They look like burnt bones, remains of something that should be glorious instead of ominous. A feeling of dread rolls through me and my teeth begin to chatter. Sure he can hear them even from the distance that separates us, I grab my jaw to hold my mouth still, ignoring the way my hand shakes. My grip bites into my skin and I know I’ll be bruised there tomorrow, but the pain pushes through the fog that had descended ever since I decided to come to mile marker seventy-seven. It’s like a light has pierced through the shadows and covered me completely, to the point that it’s like I’m blazing.
He grunts as he pushes himself up from the ground, looking massive and terrifying. The burnt black rises with him, cascading down his shoulders, fluttering and twitching. He’s big, far bigger than I first thought. He has at least six inches on me and outweighs me by a good hundred pounds. The vest that had been covering his torso falls to the side, exposing half of his chest. Deep auburn hair covers the skin on his pectorals, and I have a brief moment to wonder what it would feel like to touch him before my heart starts jack-rabbiting as he opens his eyes and looks straight at where I’m hidden.
Sure he’s seen me, I freeze, still clamping my hand over my mouth. A tiny whimper escapes me and he narrows his eyes. But then he looks away, over his shoulder, at the black suspended behind him. He reaches up with one gigantic hand and touches the left one (wing, wing, wing) and cocks his head. Then, an oddity: he rolls his shoulders as if working out a kink and proceeds to shake his whole upper body like a dog shaking off water. Another sound escapes me, a short bark of hysterical laughter that is immediately silenced when the burnt black behind him breaks off and swirls up behind him like it’s caught in a tornado. It spins briefly before exploding outward, then raining down and landing on the forest floor.
He looks toward me again. And begins to walk up the side of the crater.