Young Writers Society

Dawn was one of Igy’s favorite times of day. Her other favorite time was dusk, because the one thing they both had in common was a fiery sun peeking over the horizon and painting the sky a violent orangey-pink. It just so happens that dawn is when Igy’s story begins, in a city named Caer Chan Adar, or, roughly translated, City of the Birds.

Adar, as was the more common name, was exotic, to say the least. It was carved into a mountain of silver-veined granite and progressed up and back with the natural lay of the mountain like grand steps up to heaven. Before it spread the forest Naemus until it met the distant horizon. This was the only defense the city needed, because Naemus was no ordinary forest. There was scarcely any underbrush so prey had no hiding place from predators, and the ancient trees were all nearly identical making it impossible to mark a path. No one venturing into Naemus was likely to return. No one except for the people of Adar.

The residents of the great city were not only used to the lay of the forest, but they didn’t even to pass through it. Flying was their main method of travel. Yes, the people of Adar were half bird. Completely human at first glance, but harboring the ability to transform into a bird at will. Every Adarian transformed into a different kind of bird, depending on their inward personality and outward appearance.

The bird people shifted (as the process was called) in their years of puberty. Adolescent boys and girls would wake up one day with a brand new sense of power and longing of flight, and the next thing they knew, they were flying out of their bedroom window.

Fourteen-year-old Igy was still waiting for that day.

As was becoming more and more common, this was the topic of conversation at breakfast that day.

“Igy, I knew a girl when I was your age that didn’t shift until she was 16!” Igy’s mom said.

“Wasn’t she the one who transformed into a crow with a crooked wing?” Igy retorted. Her mom was constantly trying to comfort her, but her parents couldn’t hide their worriedly whispered conversations when they thought she wasn’t listening.

Her mother, a jittery little meadowlark, was dissuaded by this remark but continued her pointless comforting. “Look, just don’t worry about this, Ignea. Everything’s going to be fine! There hasn’t been one Adarian who hasn’t shifted. I can’t imagine why you’d be the exception.”

“I’m starting to think I’m not even Adarian.”

“Igy…” her father called as she pushed away from the table and headed to the door. But despite her father’s marvelous attempt to reassure her, she was already out the door.

The city was much quieter than usual. It had been this way for the past month. A sickness was spreading through it at an alarming rate, and it had already claimed three lives. The healers were working night and day to find a cure, but no one had ever seen the disease before. The official story of how it originated was that it was brought by a strange merchant traveler from another country, but he left before he could be questioned. The king reassured the people that he had been told of a cure in a distant country, but the men sent to retrieve it had not returned yet. Fear and tension grew daily as the sickness slowly deteriorated nearly one tenth of the Adarians. This and her late shifting were the only things on her mind as she wandered over to her best friend Audra’s house.

Audra was also fourteen. She had short black hair and gray eyes that reminded you of a gathering storm. She too had not shifted and never would because she was adopted from some “far away country” her parents never spoke openly about. Igy’s case was much better than Audra’s. With Igy, there was a good chance of shifting even if it was frighteningly late. But Audra was a totally human girl in a city of half-bird people. She claimed that it was inhumane of her parents to do such a thing. It was like holding a bone in front of a dog, but only just out of reach.

Audra was in the garden when Igy approached. She attacked the weeds as if every individual one had a personal quarrel they needed to settle.

“I think pulling them up from the roots is much more effective than strangling them, Aud,” Igy said. Audra abandoned her gardening to join Igy on one of their strolls to the cliffs on the edge of the city.

“You wouldn’t believe how much of a moron Geren is! I just want to strangle the little parrot!” Audra growled. Thunder emphasized her anger in the distance.

“What did he do this time?”

“I was just watering the stupid flowers when he swoops down and starts screeching into my ear and pecking me in the arm about 20 times. Now I’m probably infested with some sort of freakish bird disease.”

“Wouldn’t it be awful if I was a parrot just like Geren?”

“Yes. We’d have to quarantine you. But you’d never become a parrot. You’re way too fun and smart-alecky for that.”

“I don’t know, I’ve got the bright red hair for it,” Igy looked down and added, “If I ever do shift.”

“Igy, stop moaning about that, okay? You’re just a little late. It’s not like you were adopted, like me,” Audra pointed out mournfully. She watched the people of Adar swoop in for a landing and warp into a human the moment before they touched the ground. Every bird was different, every one as graceful as the next.

They turned right and left the streets by a stone arch that led to the perilous cliffs on the edge of the city. Not many people knew about the cliffs, and those who did were too cautious to venture there. But Igy and Audra found peace in the green ocean below and the gentle winds that caressed the mountainside.

Igy was trapeze-walking along the outermost edge of the cliffs. She craved the rush of adrenaline the heights brought. Audra took no notice, as usual, and continued her ranting about her foster parents.

“I mean, if they’re going to steal me right from my own people to live with a completely different culture, they could at least tell me where I’m from. I’m really starting to think they kidnapped me. I think I can use my gray eyes as a hint since no one here has gray eyes…” Audra continued to no end as Igy half-listened, half-tracked the speed of the wind. It seemed to be growing stronger.

Then, just as Audra’s accusations grew to a higher pitch, a huge gust of wind sprouted from nowhere and knocked Igy’s balance completely off. She teetered on the edge for a few terrorizing seconds and fell head-first into the shadowy trees hundreds of feet below.

She just heard Audra’s inhuman scream ring through the storm-wrapped skies. It mixed in morbid harmony with her own as she thought of nothing but the impact her body would make with the ground. But in a hundredth of a second, a new feeling washed over her conscious and subconscious mind until it filled every part of her. Almost involuntarily, she lifted her arms and flapped. Immediately she turned from falling to flying parallel to the forest. Turning her head she saw beautiful, aerodynamic wings stretching to either side of her body. They were red, orange, and yellow all at the same time; they were fiery. She was flying! She’d shifted under extreme stress. She’d heard of that happening before. But now the question was, what was she? Her wings had to be at least three feet long. Definitely no little sparrow or meadowlark, like her mother. And she was a violent red. Then she remembered identification by bird calls. Ignea opened her straight, pointed beak and sang. She heard the noise come from her own mouth, and she felt her vocal cords vibrating, but surely that beautiful siren song wasn’t coming from her. Little Igy, the late blooming redhead, sang the most beautiful, melancholy song that could ever be beheld by the ears of mortals. The song of a phoenix.

Igy herself felt tears in her eyes, but still she refused to believe it. Me, a phoenix? Yeah right, she thought.

She could have flown for hours nonstop. The speed, the grace, and the exhilaration of it all were new to her entirely. But then she remembered Audra back on the cliff. She turned and began to gain altitude without even having to think about it. Soon she was alighting on the precipice next to a gaping Audra. She transformed for a second time. She felt herself growing taller and her wings shortening into arms until she was all human once again.

“Ignea… what… you… you look like a phoenix,” Audra managed to gasp.

“It’s good to know you’re glad I’m not dead.”

“No, no. I’m glad. Really glad. But… but you’re a phoenix. Even a human girl could figure that out with nine years of bird identification classes. But there hasn’t been a phoenix for, what? A hundred years?”

“And now we reach our problem. There’s no way I can be a phoenix. There has to be some explanation for this.”

“Well, but think about it Igy. Think about what we learned in class. You’re a really late shifter, you have wild red hair, you look exactly like a phoenix, and when you sang that song I just wanted to crawl up and start bawling. And it’s not impossible,”

“Just a one in a million chance,” Igy pointed out.

“Well someone has to be that one in a million.” This closed all argument on Igy’s part. Audra was perfectly right. “Come on,” she continued, “We have to tell your parents.”

“Okay, just don’t tell them I had to fall off a cliff to figure it out.”