Sweet Tooth - Stargazerby Jeszika Le Vye“She almost didn’t notice the strange thing

Sweet Tooth - Stargazer

by Jeszika Le Vye

“She almost didn’t notice the strange thing left beside a fallen tree. She crouched down beside it. The thing was square, made of thin little sticks woven together and when she opened it, she found it filled with treasures she almost recognized. Something tickled at the back of her memory; words that no longer meant anything to her tumbled through her mind like bells - forks, picnic, mom, dress, Caroline, home - all of them little jewels that shined when she looked at them but like all trinkets, meaningless.

At the bottom of the box, she found a soft fur. She pulled it from its box and rubbed it against her cheek. Again, a tickle in the back of her mind stirred; this time more insistently. Coral saw a room, with something like this fur stretched out beneath her as she played. There were others there, like her but bigger, grander, without ears or wings or tails. They were with her in that strange place. Then they weren’t. She remembered a hand that didn’t move, an eye that wouldn’t open.

A feeling darker than the night bloomed up inside her, a painful inability to breath as her stomach knotted. The suddenness of isolation struck her with the full force of grief. She dropped the blanket, her just-starting-wings unfurled as though she might suddenly fly away into the night. Cherry cooed to her, through a mouthful of delicate wings and swooped down to wrap herself on Coral’s chest. Then the pain was gone.

A moment ago she had almost been a creature from long ago, but not now. Now she was Coral; now she was a winged thing that played in the night. She heard the tinkling songs of the other bats in the trees as they hunted for sweets themselves. She picked the fur back up and carried it away, the basket forgotten. The moon was rising.”

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