“Keep this pressed to your chin.”

“Okay.” I held the gauze pad to my face.

“I need to get bandages and disinfectant … ” Jen was tapping notes into her flip-phone. Either that, or texting someone. “Do you want me to get you anything?”

I shook my head, and winced.

“Okay.” She nodded. “I’ll be right back.” Then she left, and I was alone on the bench, facing into the empty park. The park where I had just soared.

I hadn’t asked Jen what it had looked like. I hadn’t asked what she’d seen me as, and if I’d actually flown but just convinced myself that I had. I didn’t want to ask. My knees were still shaking, and my heart was still beating fast …

… but not as fast as when I’d thought that I might be a bird.

It took me a moment to realize what that meant.

A couple of robins landed, on the grass just across the woodchip playground lot. They took off when I jumped to my feet, waving my arms around, trying to feel my wings. I couldn’t anymore, and my heart started pounding harder, just like that day on the submarine tour. The day that I became sick with horror because something had just changed about me, and I didn’t know what’d caused it or how to return to normal.

But isn’t this normal? I thought, as I kept waving my arms like an idiot. Trying to feel anything.

I took my coat off, still keeping one hand to my chin, because it was way too warm for me now. Then I checked the sleeves, feeling them up and down for the slits Jen had mentioned might be there … the ones that would’ve had to be there, if I had just flown. But there was nothing, not even a loose feather.

I sat back down slowly, shaking. Knowing my mind was playing tricks on me, but not sure which part was the trick.

Isn’t this what you wanted? The thought came unbidden. You asked for a cure, so she gave you one.

You said you weren’t ready. So here you are.

I buried my face in my arm, my shoulders convulsing, and hoped that I’d stop crying before Jen got back.

I’d almost settled down when I heard her sit down on the other end of the bench. Something clattered next to her, and I heard her talking to someone else — I guess she’d run into one of her friends.

I couldn’t make out the words. I was listening to my phone’s music player, the volume turned up on noise-canceling earbuds. My chin was in my hands, and my eyes were closed as the cold breeze rustled my hair. I didn’t say hi or look up; I couldn’t. I didn’t know when I’d be able to.

I could feel her presence there, though, as the silence grew thick between us. I wondered how long I’d be able to sit there … how long she would let me be. I remembered the soaring, the feeling of flight, and willed myself to accept that as a gift and not worry about whether-

“Hey.” She’d raised her voice.

I pressed pause and looked over at her, then blinked.

That wasn’t Jen. She was wearing a different-colored coat, and her voice sounded younger. Besides that, she had a pair of crutches beside her, although her foot wasn’t in a cast.

She coughed and called me by name, and I stared at her for a moment. “Um, yes … ” I said. Where had I seen her?

“I’m Kae,” she said, hesitantly. “My girlfriend and I were on one of your tours … ?”

“Oh, right … ” I tried to kickstart my tired brain, make it go back to ‘friendly guide’ mode. “Er, how did you like it?”

“It was nice,” she said. “But, um … ” She coughed, and looked up at me. “Are you okay?”

“Huh?” I noticed the gauze was sticking to my chin, and quickly put up a hand to hold it there. “Uh, yeah, I just … ” Scraped myself on the playground equipment? Got hurt while attempting to fly? “ … cut myself shaving,” I finished, lamely. Hoping it didn’t look bad enough that I sounded ridiculous.

She was quiet for a long moment, looking away. Then she said “Do you wear a mask when you’re giving tours?”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” I wasn’t sure that I’d heard her right.

Kae started rambling, still looking away and gesturing with both hands. “Hokay, this is going to sound totally nuts, but if I don’t ask you now I’m going to regret it later. See, my girlfriend and I thought we were seeing things in that sub … ”

“Seeing things?”

“ … like, your face. It was different, okay? We thought you were wearing a mask or something.”

“Like what?” A bird mask.

She fumbled with words for a moment, before saying “A bird mask.”

My heart started pounding again.

“See, that’s why I didn’t recognize you at first. But then I thought ‘Wait, that does look like him when he started the tour,’ and I took a couple minutes to work up the courage to ask, right? Because I wanted to know if you’d really put on a mask and stuff during our tour, or if my girlfriend and I are both going nuts. ‘Cause we’ve started seeing things … ”

“Things like what?” I tried to keep my voice steady, and began sweating hard beneath the coat I’d put back on.

“Well.” She fidgeted. “On the tour, it looked like you had tailfeathers … ”

I felt them bunch up behind me, where I was sitting on the bench.

“And these big, long primary feather things, coming out of your arms.” She made sweeping gestures with her hands, and I could feel them growing right there, coming out of my forearms and brushing my legs. I froze, unable to move or to control my breathing.

“And I mean, I know this sounds crazy.” Kae sounded a bit more high-pitched now, and she was talking faster while still looking out at the park. “But if we seemed distracted on the tour, it’s because we were trying to figure out what was going on. And, I mean, we saw your feathers get oily when you brushed up against the metal … ”

I could see my feathers. I started swearing inside my head, over and over. Until I was just thinking weird nonsense words watching my brown feathers sway in the breeze, through the gashes cut in my coat-

-a puff of down from it blew past my face-

“- and we could hear your claws click on the deck plates and everything. Then you started wearing the mask, or whatever, and I sound like I’m out of my gourd, don’t I? But I’m serious, I don’t take any weird stuff … not usually … and I just wanted to know if we’d gone crazy, or if you were pulling one over on us, or if some expired cheese messed us up or something. Okay?” She turned to look at me.

I had feathers, and a beak. I could feel my handclaws and footclaws, and see my shoes kicked off on the playground, and remember leaving them there as I flew. I remembered tearing the holes in my coat, and my jeans, and struggling to fit my feathers in clothes without breaking them because this can’t be happening and I am supposed to be at work right now.

I remembered breaking down crying, and trying again, and being late for work the second day in a row. And picking the vegetables out of my sandwich at lunch, then setting the bread aside too, then throwing those things away and just standing there at the trash can watching my hand. Watching the light shine off claws, and scales, and feathers. Watching and not letting it be a part of myself, unwilling to let it, scared to death of it, as scared as I was right now. Waiting to forget, to be distracted, as an avian heart pounded inside me like a machine gun.

I remembered the looks on people’s faces as they saw me, and I knew that they knew there was something wrong. But they said nothing, and I said nothing, and it was like we were all just trying to ignore it. Until two girls holding hands came in on a tour group and one of them was a black wolf, standing on her hind legs. And I tried not to notice, I tried not to stare, I tried not to realize what it meant. But I couldn’t, and I got more and more nervous, and I started to feel strange …

… and then the school group came in for their tour …

“Look, I’m sorry,” the wolf said. She held her handpaws up, looking away, as her tail thumped the bench beside her. “Just forget that I ever existed.”

I can’t, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t stop staring at my hands. Couldn’t tell why she couldn’t see what I was now … couldn’t tell if she saw herself. Couldn’t ask her what she saw. Couldn’t ask her if she knew.

All I could do was keep breathing fast, and hearing my heart pound, and sweating, and thinking nonsense mantras in my head as I felt my feathers rustle. Felt my claws touch my scaly palms as I clenched my hands into fists, and began shaking.

I can’t deal with this … My heart drowned out all other sound, and the world became a blur as my eyes began to water. I can’t-

“Hey,” Jen said, putting her hand on my shoulder.

She and Kae gasped as I jumped off the bench, ran into the breeze and flew. Beating my wings hard and taking off of the ground, clearing the trees and the buildings beyond. I heard car horns honking, and pigeons scattering, and saw my shadow on the rooftops, but it didn’t matter because I was so scared and I had to get away.

Even though I knew that I couldn’t.