They were running again. It wasn't about secrecy or silence anymore. They were being closely tailed, and now the priority switched to speed. Their pursuers were coming armed with all the hate and fear passed down from generations. All the missinterpretations and bad memories swirled about their minds like a swarm of angry bees. All of them had been raised to despise her kind regardless of what kind of person she truly was. They wanted Maggie dead. They wanted her family dead, because any relatives must have been somehow corrupted with her unsavory genetics.
Maggie did all she could to protect her father, but here they were again. Running. Escaping from a nation who blamed them for crimes they didn't commit. Branches sliced through her bone dry skin as Maggie struggled to weave through the dark forest. Only faint starlight touched the landscape, and she was barely able to make out the silhouette of her father in front of her. Her father. She had brought this upon him once again. She couldn't do this any longer. But she would think about that later. For now, they needed to get away.
They hurtled through the night too often stumbling over logs and dense underbrush. The only solace Maggie found in this was the fact that their pursuers would have just as hard a time following them. She heard the shouts in the distance, and when she looked over her shoulder, she could see the light from the torches close behind. She scanned the scene around her and could make out a fat, gnarled tree off to their left. They couldn't outrun the group behind them, so she quietly called to her father and motioned to the tree. He switched course and followed her up into its branches. Maggie carefully but quickly found the larger branches so that she could hoist herself up as high as possible. The torches and scuffling footsteps grew closer. Soon the group was just yards from their hiding place.
They had slowed realizing that they had lost sight of their victims. Maggie turned her head slowly toward her father, fearing the movement would cause a branch to rustle and then it would all be over. He was slightly lower in the tree, and she hoped he was still high enough that he couldn't be spotted from below.
She realized she was taking, quick, shallow breaths, and she forced herself to exhale slowly. The only noise came from the group below her. They had stopped and were chattering, confused. One man that must have been in the lead shouted orders Maggie couldn't hear. A few torchbearers broke from the group and headed in different directions. One was headed straight for their tree.
She forced herself to breath normally knowing that holding her breath would only cause a loud exhale later on. She kept glancing toward her father and praying that he was high enough in the tree. The torchlight approached, and Maggie could see the man searching for them. He was looking all around, but his head kept turning upward. He knew they were in the trees somewhere, and Maggie felt sick. Looking below, she was sure there weren't enough branches to give them both cover. The man below raised his head, and time seemed to stop as Maggie made a decision out of desperation. She focused on the man's temporarily shocked eyes as he spotted her and she took two deep breaths. She felt her powers reaching toward him, grabbing his thoughts and melting them into a mellowing feeling of disorientation. She saw his hair rustle back from her gentle wind gust as his features gradually drooped into a look of confusion. Maggie watched him slowly shuffle back the direction he'd come from and shake himself back into wakefulness. Her muscles finally released their tension. The searcher's memory of the last few moments had been replaced by a fabricated story.
All the searchers returned to the group and everyone continued running in the same direction. Soon their footsteps were replaced by sounds of the night. The croaking of a cricket and whistling wind had never been more welcome.
"They found you too quickly this time. How did they find you?" Maggie's father asked her with wide, frightened eyes. She loved her father, and she knew he loved her, but he was never ready to have a child of the wind. Her powers were feared by everyone, and most parents with one of her kind would give their child away the minute they found out what it was. She was born with a cruel destiny, and it was a miracle her father still sheltered her. He let her know it, too.
"I don't know, father. I'm sorry," Maggie replied.
"This means we'll have to leave. I mean leave Nortol completely. We'll have to part with everything we know, do you understand that Maggie? You have got to be more careful."
"Yes, father. I'm sorry." Maggie had hidden in the attic of their previous home just as her father had instructed. She never left except to go to the bathroom for nearly three weeks. It couldn't have been her fault, but she didn't speak up. She knew what she had to do now. It would be better for them both. Her father wouldn't have to give up his life to be on the run, and she wouldn't have to hide anymore. She was so sick of hiding.
They had stopped in a dense thicket of underbrush in the forest. She looked towards where she knew the sea would be washing up on the coast just beyond their hiding place. Without taking her eyes off of the direction she said, "They won't find us here, father. You're going to be safe now."
The man gave nothing but a huff in reply and rolled to face the other way. Suddenly she was choaked with emotion upon realizing what she was about to do. She may never see her father again. Her father, whom she had been with through every trial in her fifteen years. He could be weak, but she loved him. But then she thought of all the pain she had caused him. All the unnecessary grief, and her mother. Her mother who had died protecting her from a heartless mob. She wasn't going to sit around when she knew she could deliver him from this torture. So she whispered what could have been the last words he would ever hear Maggie speak, "I love you, father."
He could have been stunned or annoyed or too tired to reply, but for whatever reason, he was silent for a long time. Then he replied, "Go to sleep. We'll more than likely be running again tomorrow."
Maggie bowed her head as a few tears wet the dirt beneath her. With those words, she now felt more alone than ever. Even though he had no idea his daughter would be gone in the morning, it felt as if Maggie's father had sealed some sort of hanging question. Those parting words now came from a man who didn't even have the strength to tell his own daughter he loved her, and the hollow parting anguished Maggie in every way. She waited still as stone until she heard deep, slumbering breaths, then she stood and turned to look at her father's sleeping silhouette. "I'm sorry for everything. And I do love you," she whispered. The words would never reached her father. They were fated to be snatched away by the chilled night wind.
