The Whisper Of Wings Read Free

confide in her all her torment?
    She hesitated there on the middle step of the porch, torn between fear and need. The older woman slowly lifted a hand, palm up, her fingers motioning her to come closer. She stared at that hand for what seemed like an eternity of uncertainty. She turned her head and met the eyes of the young man who stood motionless beside the older woman. He seemed to be silently willing her to obey. She put a foot on the next step but didn't quite take it, still unsure of herself, of their motives. It had been so long since anyone was kind to her.
    "It's all right," the woman whispered.
    She was on the verge of begging for their mercy, had almost decided that these people really did want to help her, when a third figure appeared in the doorway, this one a much more imposing man.
    "Were you expecting someone, Geral—" He broke off to stare at her, obviously shocked by what he saw.
    She instantly squelched the desire to confide in the woman and took several more steps backwards, almost falling off the porch in her haste to get away. She was so embarrassed, mortified actually. What must they think? How had she come to be here? Why did the house look so familiar when it held no familiar faces? Where were all those people she had known so well?
    She felt disoriented, unsure of where she was, or even who she was. Perhaps she had finally slipped into madness. Perhaps she'd never known anyone here at all. Perhaps it had all been concocted by a mind that had suddenly snapped and gone insane. Did they think she was insane? Did she look insane to them?
    It was all so confusing and so frightening.
    The newcomer stepped past the housekeeper and reached out a hand as if to steady her, keep her from falling. It was a gesture made with a confident, almost commanding air, as if there was no doubt in his mind that she would comply. She stared at his hand for a moment, on the verge of taking it, her eyes riveted to his. They were so blue, so intensely blue. They cradled her gaze in a blanket of concern and empathy, and for a long moment, she couldn't look away.
    "Father, I think she's starving," she heard the younger man say.
    The sound of his voice shattered any illusions she might have of trusting them, trusting herself, and she heard a sob tear from her own throat before she spun on her heel and fled back up the driveway. She didn't know why she was running. It was really quite useless considering there was nowhere left to go, no safe haven left to her. She might as well just go somewhere to die alone. Surely, death couldn't be far off, anyway. It seemed her only alternative now. Why not embrace it.
    At the enormous iron gate, she paused. They were closed, locked against the curiosity of the tourists that flocked to New Orleans with their prying eyes and rude intrusions. For a moment, she forgot how she had gotten in to begin with. She panicked, hurling herself at the gate and wrapping both hands around the iron bars, rattling them with what little strength remained in her body, trying to force her way out.
    Where to go? Where could she go? Nothing seemed familiar to her anymore. Nothing seemed real.
    When she realized her efforts were useless, she turned back, her eyes frantically sweeping the yard for another way out. The big house loomed toward her, reeling and slanting, reaching out. She felt suffocated, trapped, and she could hear the ragged wheeze of her own breathing as her lungs forced air in and out of her body. Too fast. It was all too fast.
    Her eyes latched onto the three people standing on the steps that led up to the porch. The woman with one hand clasped to her bosom. The younger man still staring at her in bewilderment, his eyes filled with sympathy. And the one who stood head and shoulders above them, a deep frown on his face. Everything was slowly but surely fading into gray, everything except for them. For some reason, they seemed almost glaringly vivid, clearer than anything else. But only for a moment.