The caged butterfly ch. 1
by
Mastermindhunter
I was honestly terrified out of my mind. What was happening to me? It all started out that morning. I was watching the sheep, and was staring off into the fields. My newsboy cap was hot, as the summer heat was being trapped inside. I walked off to grab some water by a nearby stream. My older stepbrother had ran off to Dublin that morning to drop off our wool harvest. I wanted to go to Dublin for quite some time, but my stepfather said that a girl my age wouldn't be too safe in Dublin. I sighed, and leaned on the tree I was under, with a bit of aggravation. That was the beginning of the nightmare. Pain shot out of my shoulder blades. I thought that a bee had stung them. Was there a bee hive overhead? Nothing. I looked at the trunk. There was nothing but a few damselflies. For some reason, they were my personal favorite insect. I liked them since they were fairly small. Like baby dragonflies. I would have taken time to appreciate them, but my back hurt at the moment. I thought a quick drink of water would make me feel a trifle bit better. I herded the sheep toward the brook, and knelt down, laying my hat next to me. I swept some water up in my cupped hands. I slurped the water up, and took another handfull to cool my face, and head off. It didn't make my back feel any better, but some irish spring water was good for anyone, in my mind. Perhaps the pain would go away later tonight
It had been sunset. My stepbrother had came back from Dublin, and the pain hadn't left my back. In fact it was getting worse. I thought it was getting a bit serious. The pain was excrutiating. Every sweep of my shirt was daggers in the back. The pain was almost enough to make me throw up. Was it a pinched nerve in the exact spot of my shoulder blades on both sides? Probably not. I ran to my room. The mirror was in the closet, with a few old garments from my youth. I grabbed it, and sat it against the wall. When I stared, it looked like my back was hunching or at least growing. Plus there were blood marks, as if there really were daggers in my shoulder blades. I took my shirt off, and was frightened at what I saw.
On my back were two small five inch wings. They didn't have feathers, but looked like wings from a bug. It was transparent, and filmy like. The first thing I thought of was that they were like damselfly wings. They were long yet slenderous, like a damselfly. They were very thick, like it was impossible to puncture. Blood was seeping out from where they were growing from, which was near my shoulder blades. I gasped, and held my shirt over my eyes. I could barely take a second glance. When I lowered my blood spotted shirt, I almost passed out, from the sight. I tried to sit down on the bed. The only thing that I thought was that it felt so much better, now that my wings weren't crushed under my shirt, but what was going on with me? How had I gotten wings anyway. This was so not right. I could feel myself hyperventalating. My red hair was hanging infront of my face long like a curtain hiding my confusion.
"Lucy?" I heard my name being hollared from behind the door. It made me jump. My stepmother had a knack for walking as close as possible, then speaking. It gave me awful shocks out in the fields, when I watched the sheep. "I hear alot of noise coming from your room. Are you alright? You're not hurt are you?" I hid my shirt under the bed, and grabbed a mossy green spaghetti strap shirt, and pulled it on.
"No." I lied. It was actually excrutiating pain. The shirt hurt alot. "I'm just . . . uh I saw a spider." I grabbed my long beige trench coat, and ran downstairs. I grabbed my hat, and ran out the door. My mother had tried to stop me.
"Lucy! Where are you running off to? Your brother was making us some ulster fry for dinner. I know it's your favorite food" Food was the last thing on my mind, even though the smell was enticing. I couldn't eat during this sort of crisis, and the last thing I wanted to do was to tell my adopted family. They would think I was a monster. The heat was sweltering in my trenchcoat. I hopped in one of their cars, and drove to the only place that could possibly explain any answers as to what was going on. I drove to Dublin. I took my trenchcoat off, and pulled the back of my shirt up, so that these new . . . I couldn't even think the word. It was too awful to think of. Well I pulled my shirt back up, so they weren't hurting so bad. I thought long and hard at what this could be. Okay so I had . . . wings. What else had insect like wings. It hit me like a snowball.
Fairies have insect wings.
But I wasn't even a fairy. I was a normal human girl. The lights of Dublin were far off in the north east. I drove to the town, not wasting any time. I stared out at the lit road, in the dark shadow of my step mothers car. The library was somewhere around here. I pulled the trenchcoat back up with the crush of confines, and parked on the curb. I ran to the closest stranger I could find. I probably looked like some crazy country girl. A portly police officer was close by. Perfect. He would know where the library was. I stopped him, and asked him. "Please sir. Could you tell me where the library is?" He pointed towards the largest area of the city. I ran that direction, but the police officer grabbed me by the forearm, causing me to stumble a bit.
"I noticed that you are acting a bit flustered lassie, is everything alright little miss?" I nodded my head yes, trying to seem calm. He shrugged and let go. I got back in the car, and drove straight ahead, to notice the biggest library I had ever seen. The city lights illuminated the inside of the car. It said Dublin library on the front. I jogged on in, and saw books everywhere. I ran up to the woman near the counter. She looked like the average kind woman. Her dark grey hair was in a neat bun, and looked pretty thin, and tall. It was alot better than my messy long hair. I was sweating from the running, and the rubbing on my back. Well, it was sort of my fault for not getting a looser shirt. That would have been less painful.
"Hello little miss. What can I help you with?" Her eyes were warm, and caring. She seemed like the kind of woman who would make friends with you, if you came to the library every week.
"Hello, there. Do you know if you have any books on fairytales or mythology on fairies?" I was shaking with the pain searing through my shoulder blades. I could hardly breath evenly. I probably looked like I was in excrutiating pain, or probably had parkinsins. She didn't stare at me the way I had expected her to. She looked through her little tablet flies, rather slowly. It was hard for me to wait. She adjusted the rim of her glasses. Her smile was one of beauty. I would have thought that she was rather pretty as a child. It made me relax, and feel less secretive. I took off my trenchcoat, but didn't turn my back on her. I didn't want to give this woman a heart attack. Finally she brought up a list of fairy books. She led me to the second floor, and held her arm outstretched to the books infront of her. Many were just old timey fairytale stories. I didn't want to read these exactly. "I don't mean to be a nusance, but do you have any that are about just fairies. I mean about like myth stories, or what some lorists say about them. You know what I mean?"
She rubbed her chin, but held a finger up. She changed an isle, and picked up a rather dusty, and frayed edge book. I was a little nervous of picking it up, thinking it would fall apart. "Here we are miss. It's a bit old. It's been here longer than I have." She looked around, and held up her hand to whisper something in my ear. "If I remember correctly, there have been stories that south of here there were fairies that lived in the forest, and sometimes left fairy babies on farm property, just to be raised as humans." I can't remember exactly, but my stepmother said I was found on the porch when they took me in. I rubbed it off, and thanked the woman who gave me the book.
I ran to a table, and flipped through the fluttering pages. It was hard staying focused with the pain of my back. I ran my fingers over my back, and it hurt worse. I felt a sharp jab of pain as they twitched. This was like some horror movie I couldn't turn off. If I felt them correctly, it felt like they were getting to be a full foot already. I ran to table of contents. There was a whole chapter about my own side of Ireland, in the little town of Limerick. I tried to read that part. I could barely focuse on the words
This is the best area in Ireland for fairy hunting, and is the most famous for being thought to contain the delightful fairies, considering it's lush green feilds, and tall trees, and thick forests of flowers and oak trees. Their residence is in the center of woods, so that few humans ever disturb their grounds. The fairies here are of human size, just a bit shorter than the average human. Their hair is a rather rich red, and their eyes as luscious as grass is green. Skin is very easy to burn, and does not do well in prolonged sunlight. These fairies are very special in aging. They age different from traditional fairies. When they are of right age in their internal biological clock, their teenage hormones cause them to grow their wings as they mature. It is quite different from them baring their wings at birth. It is said that they are forced to go through this phase quite painfully. Once the phase is fully finished, the wings are said to grow as long as over eight feet. The longer they grow, the slower and more agonizing the stretching process becomes.
I thought the words "quite painfully" was an understatement. These bad boys were like broken bones. I knew how broken bones felt, because as a child, I used to hop over creeks, to head to the forests. One time I broken my forearm, and it hurt bad. This was worse than that, but pretty close. But, that meant that I was a living fairy. This was the scariest thing ever. I wasn't supposed to be some crazy mutated abomination. I put the book back, and did the first thing that came to mind. I ran home. I put the book back on the shelf, and thanked the old woman in helping me find the book.
"Keep it." She smiled. I attempted to smile back.
"Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me." I put it in the large pocket of my trenchcoat, and was about to throw the trenchcoat over my shoulders. The rain was pouring outside, with a loud clash of thunder warning it's arrival. I heard a loud scream eminating from behind me. It didn't take long to notice that my foot length wings had poked out from my shirt growing out from the sides of the spagetti straps. I looked at her, a brief moment of silence fell onto the walls of the empty library. Finally she pulled her eyes off of me, and grabbed the phone near her counter. I flagged the trenchcoat over my shoulders, and tossed it over my body. I wanted to just go home, and . . . well I didn't really know what to do once I got home, but that's where I was headed. I heard the not so sweet now woman behind me.
"Hello? Get me the U.S. government . . . Hello? Who is this? A Mr. W. R. Monger? I am looking at a monster. A real live monster." I didn't bother listening to her reports. I just wanted to get the heck out of there. I ran into my mothers car, and drove southwest toward my family. I didn't need to be going to America. I knew one thing about Americans, and that was that they experiment. I didn't need to be poked with needles, or have my insides being removed before my eyes, like some sick autopsey project. I wasn't going to let someone split me open like that, so I ran home. Who would follow some girl to the country side? I didn't even do anything to deserve such mutilation. I drove all the way home, getting paranoid everytime a car got remotely close. The rain splattered violently, as lightning zigzagged the skies. My back hurt, so I raised the back of my shirt letting them poke out. I saw pin prick spots of blood on the trench coat, which signaled that it was getting really bad. I wasn't even willing to look at how long they were at the moment.
When I got close to the house, I saw the house lights were on. Every light in the house was glowing. That was a bit weird, that my light was on, but whatever. I lauched the door open, not bothering to look at them, but to stare out at the darkness, that could hold American government people. "Guys. You have to hide me. I think the government is tracking me down. I don't think I have much time. They-"
When I turned around, they were all being inerogated by a man in a suit, and he turned towards me. His eyes grew wide, when my wings gave a painful twitch. I knew that there was only one place that I was left to run to.
The forest.
I ran towards the creek, grabbing my polevault stick, I used to play with. When I reached the edge of the creek I stuck it in the creek, and leaped over the wide deep water. A herd of red deer scurried away, as I ran into thick trees. I manueverd past some rocks, and old stumps. I could hear sirens go off, and people screaming that she, which must have been me, went the way I was currently at. I staterd running further. Maybe it was not the wisest to run outside during a storm, since the footprints were filling with water. I ran further away from my now swarmed with soldiiers home. I finally came to a clearing, with men blocking my every escape. They were frightening, and tall I was in the middle of a tight circle, I looked around staring at the people who were all looking at me.. I felt a sharp pinch on my left shouler. I yanked out whatever was shot at me. It looked like a tiny dart. I felt my gaze rise to the sky overhead. I landed on my back, which hurt beyond anything earlier. I collapsed barely conscious enough to hear the Americans speak.
"Hold your fire men. We got her."
"Ooh Mr. Monger, she doesn't look so good, should we get her airlifted to the facility?"
"I don't know let's take a look at the wings." I felt warm hands on my shoulder, pushing me over to my side. My eyes were in the mudd. Good thing they were closed. I felt my trenchcoat being inched a little lower, then fully off exposing my back. There were a bunch of "whoah"s and "Jeez"s. "Wow! Yikes. Yeah, that's gunna hurt further along." I felt my book weighing the pocket of my trenchcoat.
"Hey, what's that sir?" I felt the book being pulled out of the pocket.
"Hmm well the librarian did say something about her needing vital information on fairies, so maybe she grew into a monster. Yeah let's get her put in a copter, and not airlift her. We're keeping her out of the cold. With wounds like these she could get infected." I felt my body being pulled out of the mudd, and my face wiped. After that was just blackness, and silence.