Wings. Aprilynne Pike

African violets her mother painstakingly grew in their kitchen. There must have been twenty of the soft, petal-like strips. Maybe more.

      Laurel turned her front to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.

      A loud rap on the door snapped Laurel out of her trance. “Done yet?” her mother asked sleepily. Laurel’s fingernails bit into her palm as she stared in horror at the huge white things. They were pretty, sure, but who in the world grew an enormous flower out of their back? This was ten - no - a hundred times worse than the bump. How was she going to hide it?

      Maybe the petals would just pluck off. She grabbed one of the oblong strips and yanked on it. Pain radiated down her spine and she had to bite her cheek hard to stifle a scream. But she couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped from between her teeth.

      Her mother knocked again. “Laurel, are you OK?”

      Laurel took several deep breaths as the pain faded to a dull throb and she regained her power of speech. “I’m fine,” she said, her voice shaking a little. “Just a minute.” Her eyes swept the room looking for something useful. The thin, strappy nightgown she was wearing would be no help at all. She grabbed her oversized towel and threw it over her shoulders, pulling it close around her. After a quick check in the mirror to make sure there were no gigantic petals in sight, Laurel opened the door and forced a smile at her mother. “Sorry I took so long.”

      Her mother blinked. “Did you take a shower? I didn’t hear the water running.”

      “It was short.” Laurel hesitated. “And I didn’t get my hair wet,” she added.

      But her mother wasn’t paying much attention. “Come on down when you’re dressed and I’ll make you some breakfast,” she said with a yawn. “It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”

      Laurel skirted past her mother into the safety of her own room. She didn’t have a lock on her door, but she wedged a chair under the doorknob like she’d seen people do in movies. She looked at the set-up dubiously. It didn’t look like it would keep much out, but it was the best she could do.

      She let the towel fall from her shoulders and examined the crushed petals. They were a tad rumpled, but they didn’t hurt. She pulled one long piece over her shoulder and examined it. The huge bump was one thing, but what was she going to do about this?

      She sniffed at the white thing, paused, and sniffed again. It smelled like a fruit blossom but stronger. A lot stronger. The intoxicating scent was starting to fill the room. At least the huge thing didn’t stink. She’d have to tell her mom she got a new perfume or something. Laurel inhaled again and wished she could find something that smelled this good at the perfume counter.

      As the enormity of the situation crashed over Laurel, the room seemed to spin beneath her. Her chest felt tight as she tried to consider what to do.

      The most important thing first; she had to hide it.

      Laurel opened her closet and stood in front of it, looking for something to help her hide an enormous flower growing out of her back, but that hadn’t exactly been her first priority when she’d gone clothes shopping in August. Laurel groaned at the closet full of light, thin blouses and sundresses. Hardly made for hiding anything.

      She sifted through her clothes and grabbed a few tops. After checking to make sure the coast was clear, Laurel ran to the bathroom, swearing she would get to a store today and buy a mirror for her room. The door closed a little harder than she intended but, though she stood next to it with her ear pressed against the cool wood for several seconds, she didn’t hear any response from her mother.

      The first top wouldn’t even fit over the enormous flower thing. She stared at it in the mirror. There had to be another way.

      She grabbed as many of the long, white petals as she could and tried wrapping them around her shoulders. That didn’t work very well. Besides, she didn’t really want to wear sleeves for the rest of her life - however long that might be.

      She pulled them around under her arms and wrapped them around her waist instead. That worked better. Much better. She grabbed a long pink silk scarf off one of the hangers and wrapped it around her waist, securing the petals to her skin. Then she buttoned her shorts up over part of the scarf. It still didn’t hurt, but she felt confined and smothered.

      Still, it was better than nothing. She picked a lightweight, peasant-style blouse and threw it over the whole thing. Then, with trepidation, she turned to look in the mirror.

      Pretty impressive, if she did say so herself. The fabric of the blouse was bunchy anyway, so you couldn’t tell anything was underneath. Even from the side the bulge down her back was only barely noticeable and, if she brushed her hair down over it, no one would be able to tell. One small problem solved.

      A hundred big ones left.

      This was way more than some strange manifestation of puberty. Mood swings, disfiguring acne, even periods that went on for months were at least semi-normal. But growing oversized flower petals out of your back from a zit the size of a softball? This was something else entirely.

      But what? This was the kind of stuff you saw in cheap horror movies. Even if she did decide to tell someone, who would believe her? Never, even in her worst nightmares, had she imagined something like this could happen to her.

      This was going to ruin everything. Her life, her future. It was like everything was washed away in an instant.

      The bathroom suddenly felt too warm. Too small, too dark, too…too everything. Desperate to get away from the house, Laurel scooted through the kitchen, grabbed a can of soda and opened the back door.

      “Going for a walk?”

      “Yeah, Mom,” she said without turning round. “Have fun.”

      Laurel made a noncommittal sound under her breath.

      She stomped down the path towards the woods, paying no attention to the dew-speckled greenery around her. There was still a touch of fog on the western horizon where it rolled off the ocean, but the peak of the sky was blue and clear and the sun was making its way steadily to the top of the sky. It would indeed be a beautiful day. Figures. She felt like Mother Nature was mocking her. Her life was unravelling, yet everything around her was beautiful, as if to spite her.

      She ducked behind a large cluster of trees, out of sight of both the road and her house; it wasn’t enough, though. She kept going.

      After a few more minutes, she stopped and listened for the sound of anyone - or anything - around her. Once she felt safe, she pushed the back of her shirt up and untied the confining scarf. A sigh escaped her lips as the petals whipped back into their original position on her back. It felt like being released from a tiny, cramped box.

      A beam of sunlight shone down from a break in the trees above, making her silhouette stretch out on the grass in front of her. The outline of her shadow looked like an enormous butterfly with gauzy wings. And, in the same strange way balloons cast shadows, the blackness had just a tinge of blue in it. She tried to make the wing-things move, but although she could feel them — feel every inch of them now, soaking in the rays of sunlight — she had no control over them. Something so life-shattering shouldn’t be this beautiful.

      She stared at the image on the ground for a long time, wondering what to do. Should she tell her parents? She had promised herself she’d tell them Monday if the bump wasn’t gone.

      Well, it was gone.

      Pulling one of the long strips over her shoulder, Laurel ran her fingers down it. It was so soft. And it didn’t hurt. Maybe it will just go away, she thought optimistically. That was what her mom always said. Eventually most things go away on their own. Maybe…maybe it would be OK.

      OK? The words seemed to fill her head, reverberating in her skull. I have a humongous flower growing out of my spine. How is this supposed to be OK!

      As