Her knuckles hit the wood of the door, softly knocking.
“Come in,” came a muffled voice from inside. Lily slowly opened the door.
The room was a wreck; everything, from pillows, to books, was strewn across the room, a pile of broken glass lay inayofuata to the wall, which Lily skirted around. She throws things too when she’s angry, Lily thought. Just like Mom. But she knew better than to mention that. Annabelle lay on the bed, her face buried in a pillow. She didn’t look up as Lily walked over, sitting down on the kitanda inayofuata to her.
“Annabelle,” Lily alisema softly. The girl still didn’t look up. “Look. I came to talk to you.”
“I’m not going out there,” Annabelle replied, her voice strained. “I’m not facing them.”
“Annabelle, they’re gone. They all left two hours ago. It’s just us.”
“Still. I can’t face them.”
“Annabelle, look at me.” Slowly, she raised her head. Her face was red, puffy, swollen from the tears, her eyes bloodshot.
“Annabelle, if it’s about your...reaction, that’s completely normal. It’s okay to be upset.”
“It’s not about that!” she shrieked, slamming her face back into the sodden pillow.
Lily sighed. “Well, I came to tell wewe to pack up. Nix and Nathan are coming in an hour. We’re going to live with them.” She placed the object that was behind her back on the bed. A stack of flattened cardboard boxes.
Annabelle groaned.
Lily pressed on. “You upendo Nix and Nathan! And wewe get to see the cousins more! And, if it’s any consolation, they don’t just live in any old house. We’re gonna be living in the Wayne Manor.”
Annabelle lifted her head, smiling. “We are?”
“That’s right. Nix’s secret identity is Kyra Grayson, the adopted daughter of the one-and-only Bruce Wayne. So why don’t wewe get packing.”
Annabelle nodded, and Lily left the room. Annabelle stood, looking around at the mess that surrounded her. She sighed, unfolded the first box, and began picking things off her floor, and putting them inside.
Twenty dakika later, she unfolded the sekunde box. She had removed everything from her floor, bed, and dresser drawers. Now she was at the closet. She opened it, and began sorting through her possessions, tossing some in the box and others in the trash can. Her gymnastics trophies: keep. Sketchbooks: keep. Shoes: probably should keep. The hideous, frilly dress that her parents made her wear to the wedding of some Leaguers she didn’t know: definitely not keep. She was moving along smoothly until she got to the inayofuata shelf. There it sat, faded and torn at the edges. She picked it up, and collapsed on her kitanda as the memories flooded her.
The sky was a uniform gray, the monochrome broken kwa two dark shapes circling the empty park. Well, almost empty. The small girl, she looked to be about five, watched from the ground, the dog at her side, alternating her gaze between the flyers in the sky and the path to her left, as if she was looking for someone. The shapes grew larger as they spiraled towards the ground, landing inayofuata to the little girl: a girl and a boy, a few years older than their silent spectator. The dog barked at their arrival. “Hey, Helena,” the older girl said, rubbing the dog’s head as she licked the girl’s face.
The five-year-old smiled. “Lily, have wewe seen Mommy?”
Lily shook her head. “Sorry Annabelle. C’mon, Chandler, let’s go!”
The boy, Chandler, nodded, and the two of them took off into the sky, Helena chasing them from the ground, barking. Annabelle sat and watched, her blonde hair blowing in the wind. She whistled for Helena to come, but the white German shepherd had found another dog, a small, stately dark-furred poodle, and the two were eagerly sniffing each other. Annabelle sighed, her turquoise eyes watering slightly as she watched her siblings turn somersaults in the air, soaring on the mwepesi, teleka currents. Before Annabelle knew it, tears were falling. Why couldn’t she have powers too?
The girl felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around. Aisling, her mother, was there, bending down, her eyes--identical to her daughter’s--filled with worry. A picnic basket was tucked under her arm, and dark strands of hair had come loose from her ponytail in the cold wind. Annabelle looked away, and Aisling sat down inayofuata to her. Neither of them spoke, but they both stared up at Lily and Chandler, laughing as they flitted through the air. Aisling broke the silence.
“It’s about them, isn’t it. wewe wish wewe could fly with them.”
Annabelle nodded, a tear slipping down her cheek.
“Why do I have to be the one without powers? It’s not fair. I’m just a failure.”
Aisling sighed, running her fingers through her dark hair. “Annabelle, wewe are many things, but failure is absolutely not one of them.”
Annabelle wiped her eyes. “You sure?”
Aisling smiled. “Positive. I’ve seen wewe on that trampoline, Annabelle. Doing those cart-flips and back-wheels, all those doo-hickeys.”
The five-year old giggled. “You mean cartwheels and backflips?”
“Yeah. Those.”
“But I still feel like a failure,” Annabelle remarked sadly. Aisling took a deep breath.
“Annabelle, honey, there’s something I want to tell you. wewe see, when I was a young hero, like wewe but a little older, I felt like a failure too. I honestly couldn’t do sh---”
Quickly she stopped herself, remembering who she was talking to.
“I mean, I couldn’t do anything. Me and your aunty Nix would joke about it all the time. But I didn’t let that get me down. I still kept working at it, trying to get better, and eventually, I did get some useful powers. And there’s something else I wanted to tell you. Something I wanted to give you, actually.”
She pulled an object out of the bottom of the basket and handed it to Annabelle. Annabelle stared at it, her tiny hands running up and down the worn fabric, fingers feeling the rips and tears and frayed edges. It was part of a cape, one side purple, the other black, and it was crudely cut into two rounded triangles, almost like wings. Aisling gave a faint smile as her daughter inspected the wings, and then she took a corner in her fingers again, inaonyesha it to the girl. It was a label, as faded and worn as the rest of the cape, and Annabelle carefully sounded out the words. “W-wings..of....Ka-Kaos?”
Aisling nodded. Annabelle looked baffled.
“But what do these bad-guy wings have to do with it?”
Aisling took the wings back, and smiled. “I’ll tell you. I’ve told wewe about Kaos, right?”
Annabelle nodded her head.
“And how I escaped?”
Another nod.
“Well, even though I got away, they still wanted me back. In fact, when I was on the team, when I was probably fourteen au fifteen years old, they found me again. They gave me superpowers, like flight, and super-strength, but they did more. I didn’t know this, but they had also made me into their spy. They gave me these wings, and sent me back to the team. Their plan was, whenever I heard information that I had to give to them, the wings would come out and I would end up with Kaos before I knew what hit me. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.
“See, when the wings came out, they didn’t take me back right away. They gave me time to notice. I was scared. I knew the team would find me, and they would know that I was a spy. I was scared they would hate me, and kick me out. But when they actually found me, they didn’t. See, your aunty Nix helped with that. I was so upset--I hadn’t known I was a spy either--but Nix and the others helped me make a plan that in the end, brought them all down. I decided to keep these wings, because to me they meant that no matter what happened, my Marafiki would be there for me. And that is why I’m giving them to you, Annabelle. Because no matter what happens, I will always be there for you.”
“Annabelle?”
Annabelle opened her eyes, brushing her hair out of her face and adjusting her glasses. Lily was looking at her, worried. Annabelle realized she had been crying again, and the wings were in her hands.
Lily looked first to Annabelle, then to the wings, and a look of understanding came over her face. She sat down inayofuata to her sister, who had her head in her hands now, sobbing.
“Annabelle...” Lily alisema softly.
Annabelle looked up, struggling to meet Lily’s eyes. She was shaking with sobs. “Sh-she promised,” she wailed. “She pr-promised she would be there, no m-matter what. But she’s n-not. She’s gone!”
Lily sighed. “Annabelle, look. Your brother and I are upset too. But we realized something. Remember earlier, right before they left?”
Annabelle nodded slowly. It felt so long ago, even though it had only been a day. Sadly, she traced with her finger a tear in the fabric of the wings. It ran deep across the middle; it would have mgawanyiko, baidisha the feathers, if there had been feathers, of the wings.
“They promised we would be Heroes too someday, maybe even fight with them. Well, we can’t exactly fight with them anymore, but Chandler and I have decided, and hopefully you’ll agree, that we will still be heroes. We won’t let them die in vain. How does that sound?”
Annabelle smiled, wiping her face. “I can live with that.”
“Good.”
At that moment, the doorbell rang, Helena embarking on another round of barking. Annabelle placed the wings, the broken wings, at the juu of the last box, and closed it up. Lily helped her drag the boxes out into the hallway, inayofuata to hers and Chandler’s, and ran to answer the door, while Chandler shoved Helena into a dog crate. Nix and Nathan greeted them, taking the boxes while Chandler carried Helena’s crate, and together, the children left their nyumbani and into the car. They didn’t look back.