"Spreading My Wings" by Bethany Rush

Hi there, I'm Beth and I'll be your pilot on this journey through my past. I'm afraid it's one at a time, my wings aren't that strong, but it means we can make this encounter a bit more up close and personal, if that's alright with you?

I realise this is quite a one sided conversation, but I'll take that as a yes anyway. Let's begin.

I grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona, near the Grand Canyon, but my story starts a few years before I started growing up; a few years before I was even born. It's a nice place though, very touristy, but very nice. West Oak Avenue was the street we lived on, I've carved that onto the headboard of my bed at The Academy. I know most birds are supposed to be free, "free as a bird" and all that, but I can't help but feel like a homing pigeon sometimes.

But before all that we need to begin with the fact that I shouldn't be here. My parents tried for years to have kids, payed thousands of dollars for IVF, but nothing ever worked. They were so desperate to have a kid of their own, like most couples, only wanting to turn to adoption if it was a last resort.

They finally thought they'd gotten lucky when they got a visit from one of their friends, Chuck. He was a guy my parents knew from college, in fact he was the one that introduced them to each other. I only met him a few times, but Chuck was a nice guy, and I'm not just saying that because I owe my existence to him.

Chuck was one of those people that had travelled, and he had the beard and tattoos to prove it, along with more string bracelets than he had arm space. He owed it all to his degree - the most obscure one that the college offered - Native American Studies. Although I should point out (as he does every time), that technically they prefer the term "First Nations People". The college kept him on once he'd graduated as a researcher, and that's why he turned up at my parents' door.

He was in Arizona to study the Havasupai people that lived not too far from Flagstaff and it was a long hike to their village of Supai, since it was inaccessible by car. Because of that he needed a halfway house, just a stopping point where he knew he could come back to for supplies of he needed them. My parents happily let him, as they have every time he's needed to go back. Every time he taught me a bit of their language, but all I can remember now is how to count to five (asitam, xuwaga, humuga, hop'a, thetrapa). It's a good thing that all of the Havasupai speak English as well as their own language.

After he spent a couple of days preparing, Chuck set off for Supai. Things must have been going great for him because he didn't come back for about a month and a half. He had plenty of stories about what he'd seen, but only one of them interested my parents.

Apparently there was a shaman there who helped a couple in the village to have a child even though they'd been trying for years without success. There was a ritual he performed, but Chuck wasn't allowed to watch. It worked though, the other villagers told him it always worked.

My parents were so excited - this could be just what they needed. They'd been hiking before together so they had all of the equipment, they just needed to stock up on food and within a few days of Chuck leaving they'd got a taxi to the trail to Supai. It was only eight miles long, but they had plenty of hiking gear and food just in case they stayed a while.

They always told me it was a lovely place, nice and quaint. It's the only place in the country where the mail's delivered by mule. That wasn't the most memorable feature though - that belonged to the gorgeous lake that was there, the most vibrant shade of turquoise, halfway between sapphire and emerald, with a waterfall crashing into it from the cliff above.

The scenery wasn't the reason for their visit though, I was, in a manner of speaking. That meant they didn't spend much time sight-seeing, looking for the shaman took priority, and she was the one with red paint on her face and feathers tied into her hair, so she wasn't that hard to find.

When my parents first saw her they were actually too nervous to ask for her help, they thought they should stay for a while until they felt more welcomed. Chuck had told them about an old man named Tochopa and his niece Tiponi that let outsiders stay with them, so after some asking around they'd got themselves a place to stay.

After a couple of days they worked up the courage to go and ask the shaman. She introduced herself as Angwusnasomtaqa Chochmingwu, but my parents have always called her Ang, and that's exactly what I'll do too.

Ang explained that she became the shaman of the tribe after the last shaman left Supai to spread his healing powers around the same time that Chuck left and his obvious replacement - his sister - was elected as the tribe's new leader. Ang was the old shaman's apprentice, so she knew all about the rituals already.

Technically, Ang's rituals were all healing rituals, but my parents argued that the reason they couldn't have kids was because my mom's womb was unwell, and they'd heard of First Nations fertility rituals for crops so that transition couldn't be impossible. Ang went away for a few days to dwell on it, leaving my parents pretty uncertain for a while.

Eventually Ang visited my parents to give them some good news. She'd looked through the old shamans books and found the ritual Chuck had mentioned, and she was willing to give it a go. According to my dad, the two of them have only been happier on three occasions: they're wedding day, the day they found out my mom was pregnant, and the day I was born.

From what I know the ceremony was a bit weird, well, more than just a bit weird. There was some sort of hallucinogenic drink, but my parents can't remember if it was at the start or the end. The start makes more sense, since the next bits are pretty weird. There was a lot of mud or clay or paint being wiped on my mom's face and stomach, and apparently quite a lot of chanting. Then someone had to throw some things in the turquoise lake under the waterfall. The only items that my parents could remember were an ear of corn, the feather of a dove, and the talon of a vulture. I'd never really believed it that much, at least not until I met Jordyn.

Ang didn't do the ritual out of human generosity though, there's always some sort of catch with these things. The deal was that if my mom got pregnant then my parents would donate to the Havasupai as soon as they found out so the tribe could get more crops or cattle. It wasn't a payment, it was just a donation, Ang didn't want it to feel like the tribe were becoming any less independent.

I guess my parents were excited when they found out about me, I can't think of any other reason for forgetting to give their donation. They always seemed so thankful for what Ang and the rest of the tribe had done for them, my middle name's Tiponi for crying out loud and you don't do that kind of thing if you don't care about what these people did.

Anyway, through malice or forgetfulness, whatever. All that matters is that there was some sort of failsafe in the ritual. Whatever forces had been working to get my mom pregnant, they knew that my parents hadn't paid their dues. And those forces had a weird way of getting revenge.

During my mom's scans nothing particularly strange was visible, just a pregnancy like any other. The birth went pretty much according to plan, but it was a water birth which I still think is weird. I'm not a fish, so why should I be born in a pool of water? Well, I guess I'm not completely human either, but nobody knew that when my mom chose to have a water birth.

So when my dad held me in his arms for the first time he was so happy, but he noticed something a little bit out of the ordinary. There was something tickling his arm, so when he moved me to find out the nurse pointed out the cause of it - I had wings. Little tiny wings in the middle of my back, completely useless at that point, but still wings.

As you can probably guess, may folks were a little bit freaked out. My dad went back to Ang while my mom looked after me, but all she had to say was that it was nature's way of letting them know they should have given their tribute to the tribe. There was nothing that could be done, my parents just had to accept it.

They did, honestly they were great about it. They'd waited so long that it didn't really bother them, and they didn't try to hide it either, there wasn't much point. As I grew so did my wings and by the time I was wearing bras we had to cut holes in the backs of all of my shirts. After they were big enough for that they grew even more, and then I thought it was time I learnt how to use them.

Jumping off the roof wasn't a good idea. The first time I ended up in the hospital with a broken arm, and you should have seen the looks on everyone's faces when a teenage girl with wings turned up with a broken arm. Apparently my bones were slightly more fragile than the average person so I had to take care in future, but that didn't stop me.

It took a while, plenty of practice, but I did manage to get off the ground. Jumping off the roof was just gliding, but I wanted to fly. So I spent a lot of my time just standing in the middle of our lawn and stretching out my wings, trying to take off. Like I said, it took some time but in the end I made it off the ground, and before long I was taking aerial tours of Flagstaff.

I ended up in the newspapers after a while. The nurses had kept quiet, what with their hypocratic oaths and all that, but birdwatchers were less discrete. For some weird reason I felt more comfortable flying with a flock of birds, feeling my long, raven-black hair ruffling in the wind as I flew, and for an even weirder reason they would let me. Anyway, I think I was out with some Lazuli Buntings over by Mount Elden when I got snapped. Just to clarify that reference I decided that I should probably get a bit of a knowledge about birds. I've got wings, it comes with the territory.

So basically a picture of me in flight ended up in the Arizona Daily Sun, and then it seemed like every photographer in the country migrated to Flagstaff. I couldn't leave the house for a fortnight until the heat died down. It's crazy to think I was so scared about people finding out back then, but the ACES changed my perception of these things.

Once the paparazzi had left Flagstaff I decided to try a longer haul flight, somewhere out of the way. I've been to the Grand Canyon before, we live pretty close so it's a good visit on a lazy day. But how many people get to fly through it? I can tell you one person that I know of, and she's telling you all about it now.

Honestly, it was awesome. I've flown with flocks of birds following behind in my slipstream, I've skimmed over the sea on the way to The Academy, I've done so much that the normal person couldn't do because of my wings but I've never done anything quite like that. I felt so at home with nature, witnessing one of Mother Nature's greatest pieces of art. I'm not going to be so arrogant to compare myself with that geological marvel, but I felt a connection with it. At the base level it's a scar on the planet, but on the base level my wings are some sort of abnormal disfigurement as well, but the Grand Canyon lends so much beauty and wonder to the world, which is exactly what my wings do for me.

It just felt so good, being so close to nature, gliding up against the canyon walls. I could tell there were people up above me taking pictures, but after the flock of paparazzi that came to Flagstaff I didn't really care. They didn't know me so they couldn't track me down. I ended up becoming some sort of urban legend in Arizona, and I was so thankful that nobody at school gave me away. They were awfully understanding of the whole thing.

After I flew through the Grand Canyon I decided that I wanted to know more about my wings. It was amazing to be close to nature, but I needed to get closer to my past. I needed to go and see Ang.

My parents knew I was going, and they always knew that I would end up going. I have my wings because of Ang, it makes sense that I would want to go see her.

I think it must have been easier to fly there than walk there, but I've only tried it by air so I can't really make a comparison. What I can say is that the waterfall looked so much more beautiful from the air than it did in my parents' photos, and they didn't get to share the view with a flock of Mourning Doves mid-flight.

Ang, on the other hand, didn't look like my parents had said. Since they had seen her she had aged, and time had not been friendly to her. When I first saw her she was a wizened old lady, at least a foot shorter than me with feathers dangling from her grey hair. My parents always said that she looked majestic in her ceremonial robes, standing in front of the waterfall with her arms spread wide, calling out to nature. That wasn't the Ang I saw.

That was, however, the Ang that I needed. She was the Ang that was responsible for my wings. I never asked her about then though, I just wanted to talk to her. She didn't look like she had much time left so she seemed to like having the opportunity to talk to an outsider so she could learn about life outside Supai, but I think she also felt a connection with me. I definitely felt one with her.

I lived with Tiponi for about a fortnight and spent nights talking to her about her uncle, who was no longer around, and my parents, who were apparently very nice to her. She must have been twice my age, at least thirty, but she was a good friend for the time I was there. She was as surprised as I was on the day I was due to leave, when I went to say goodbye to Ang.

I went to her home and she wasn't there, so Tiponi was happy to help me look for her. We scoured the village but there was no sign of her. The only other place we could think of was the waterfall, and that's exactly where we found her.

She was kneeling in front of the lake looking up at the waterfall. As we moved closer we saw she was in her ceremonial robes, but there was a red stain on the middle of her back. The closer we got the faster we walked, and by the time that we saw the red was spreading we were running full pelt.

By the time we got there it was too late. The red stain was blood, coming from a large gash in the square of her back. There were long grey feathers scattered around her, not like the ones she had in her hair, and more blood. I was in tears when I reached her, and so was Tiponi.

Ang knew it was her time, but she wasn't going to leave just yet. She managed to whisper the words "Beware Vulture" to me, and then she was gone. She started to fall, and I tried to grab her but I wasn't fast enough. Ang fell from the cliff, finding death in the place she had given me life, and landed in the turquoise water below.

My last memory of Ang was pulling her out of the crimson lake. I cried so much that my eyes went through the same change that the lake did, from the same turquoise as the lake to bloodshot and rubious. I never stayed for a funeral, without Ang there I didn't feel like I belonged any more, and even though Tiponi certainly seemed like she wanted me to stay she never tried to stop me.

On the flight home I couldn't stop thinking about Ang's last words. There was no way a vulture gave her the wound I found her with, but she was surrounded with grey feathers that could have been from a vulture. Maybe whoever did it was called Vulture, maybe it was a First Nations name like Big Chief Sitting Bull, and the feathers were some sort of serial-killer calling card type thing. I still think about it sometimes, but I'm not getting any closer.

When I got home there was a letter waiting for me from The Academy, although I had no idea what that was at the time. All I knew was what it said in the letter - it was somewhere full of people like me where I could learn to use my powers, but also actually use my powers without having to worry about photographers.

All I had to do was get to Virginia and catch a boat, but the date that the boat left was so close that there was no way I could get there in time. My parents had already read the letter and wanted to let me know, but Supai was so isolated that was no way for them to do so, but by the time I came back they'd packed another suitcase for me and were ready to send me on my way. That's how much they believed in me, how much potential they saw in me.

I didn't have much time for a goodbye, but I promised to write to them whenever I could, and then I had to set off. Flying from Arizona to Virginia was going to be my longest flight, but by the time I got there the ship had already set off, but I could see the frigate that had been described in the letter out at sea. I had to follow it.

It was a really long flight, long haul doesn't come close to doing the same distance off your own back. I only caught up with the ship just in time to not have to fly through a snow storm. Even if a sudden blizzard that would have caused me to plummet didn't appear I wouldn't have made it. I ran out of energy and my wings just gave up, so I spiralled down onto the deck. My landing was neither graceful not painless, but everyone was below deck anyways on the captain's orders.

Everyone rushed back up once they heard a thud above them, and then they had to bring me back down before the blizzard hit. It felt like a surprise, but somehow the captain knew, like it was a routine occurrence.

My arm was broken, the same one as when I 'glided' from the roof, but it wasn't just me on board, and I can tell you that it wasn't the first time that Holly's had to fix me up, and I'm very grateful to her for that. Not many people can say that the first time they met one of their best friend was when the friend fixed their broken arm after they fell from the sky. I'm just glad I didn't break a wing, I don't think there would have been much she could have done then.

Our PE teacher, Mr Helstrom, was there, although I didn't know that at the time. He was the only adult there though, so I tried to explain everything but it was pretty clear that if missed the boat and almost flew from Arizona to Scandinavia, but it was all pretty clear anyway. Since then he's always called me the Albatross, but that doesn't mean I don't try to avoid long distance flights whenever possible.

So that's our destination reached. The journey was a bit longer for me than you, but I had to take the long way round, and honestly I would never change that. My past is what made me what I am today, what gave me all of the friends I now have.

So thanks for joining me, I hope you enjoyed it. It'd be good if you enjoyed it more than any of the others that you've read, but that's just me being competitive. I always have to do better than the other students, rise higher and all that.

Anyway, I don't really know how to end this so I'll cut it off now. Umm… bye.