Page 66 of Valour

A strangled shriek left her lips.

Wings.

Her heart beat a staccato rhythm against her ribs. The wings were just as she’d seen earlier in the evening. Hester grunted at the shriek and mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like ‘Septimus’, but did not wake.

The huge, feathery, golden-brown wings draped off the edge of the cot.

Charlotte rubbed her eyes, but they were still there when she looked again. She inched forwards, reaching out a hand, and poked at the nearest feather.

Her fingertip met the golden feathers, solid and very, very real.

Charlotte swallowed hard and withdrew her trembling hand, lest she wake the captain.

What to do? Wake Hester and confront her? Ignore it?

She picked Myths and Legends of Shape-Shifting Animals up off the bedside table and flicked to the page that read ‘Aquiline’. The man with wings stared out of the page at her. Even the colour of the wings matched. That lustrous golden-brown. Hester must be one of these mythical people. How was that even possible? Did anyone else know?

A slight crease at the page corner stood out, as if the page had once been folded down, marked. She tapped at the corner, biting her lower lip. Had Ernie done that? Perhaps he suspected something about Hester. A vision of Septimus accusing Hester of being a witch surfaced in her mind’s eye. The rest of the crew had told him he was being ridiculous, but were they trying to shield Hester from him? Or did they truly not know? And being a witch was wholly different to whatever the creatures in the book were. She began to piece together other things. Hester had said she’d kept something from Fliss, and the two didn’t appear to be talking much since that accusation.

Perhaps the others didn’t know, then.

She dithered, not knowing what to do. And then flicked to the page showing the picture of the red-headed siren, the giant squid next to her. This had to be Odette.

Terrifying.

Hester was not terrifying. Was not seducing and murdering people. She flicked back to the aquiline page. Hester was good, maybe even one of the best people she had ever met.

That helped make up her mind. She reached over and shook Hester’s shoulder. “Hester? Wake up.”

Hester jolted awake, eyes flying open. The wings vanished. “Is all well? No more holes in the ice. Tell me there are no more.” She scrambled onto the bed next to Charlotte and peered out of the porthole.

“No, nothing like that.” Charlotte hardly knew what to say. “Um. I just saw your…ah. I don’t know how to say this.” She twisted her hands together. She just had to spit it out. “You have wings.”

Hester looked behind her and frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you had huge wings. Just now. While you were sleeping. They disappeared when you woke up.”

Hester’s eyes widened and she sat back on her heels. Silence stretched out.

“I think that is new,” Hester whispered. “That is to say, new as of today.” She looked over at her cot. A couple of feathers lay there. Hester’s throat worked, and she leant over to take one between her fingers, stroking it over and over. She glanced at the book page, open on the winged man. “I suppose there is no use telling you you’re seeing things?” She raised her green eyes to Charlotte’s.

Charlotte shook her head. “I thought that I was earlier, but not now. You’re…not human?”

Hester hummed. “I always knew I was different. I didn’t realise I was…this. I’d never seen a book like this. Never even knew there were others like me.” She poked at the aquiline on the page. “I suppose I might as well tell you all of it, and then you can decide if you tell the others, if you want to…I don’t know. Lynch me. You probably don’t want to waste the fuel in burning me.”

Charlotte gripped Hester’s arm. “Don’t say such things. But Septimus knew? He called you a witch.”

Hester sat against the wall of the cabin, tucking her knees up to her chin, plucking all the barbs from the feather. “He knows about my magic. I never meant for him to know, but he guessed and then Fliss was the only one who actually believed him. I can control the weather, but it attracts the orca. No one else has seen the wings. Only you. Like I said, it’s a new thing. After my visit to the Underworld earlier today.”

“The Underworld?!” Wings. Weather magic. The Underworld.

“The orca is the Lord of the Underworld. I know it sounds preposterous, but it’s true. He’s looking for me. Can sense my magic. I saw all these people there.” She flicked through to the lupine and cervine people in the book. “I thought it was a bad dream but…I think that’s why I have the wings now. Going there triggered something.”

Charlotte pressed her fingers into her temples. “It’s a lot to make sense of.”

“I know.” Hester took a deep breath. “Are you going to tell the others?”

Charlotte reached out a hand and squeezed Hester’s shoulder. “Not if you don’t want me to.”