Featherlight by Laura Fields Read Free Book Online Page B

she had been sitting. Her black hair was pulled
back into a ponytail that matched her serious and curious gaze.
    We finally broke eye contact, and I could feel her eyes on my wings as
I walked over and sat down on the amazingly plush couch.
    Samantha gracefully followed suit, and I cut right to the chase. “I’d like to go home.”
    She
smiled, full of pity. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
    “And
why not?”
    “Because
we left earth 4 days ago.”
    Marie
walked in with two glasses of water and an assortment of snacks, breaking my
stunned silence. I was starving.
    “What?
That’s not possible.” I began devouring the snacks. Had I really been out for 4
days? Wow. The news did nothing to ruin my appetite. These snacks were
delicious. Or maybe it was my extremely sensitive taste palate? Each bite
tasted like heaven as I discovered a million new tastes in simple food.
    Attempting
to focus, I asked, “Where are we going?” It was time for the truth, no more
questions. I needed answers.
    “We are flying to Auro. It is a planet similar to Earth in regards to
the plants and the landscape, but I’m afraid the day-and-night cycles are quite
a bit different. Earth orbits around the sun while spinning on its axis and-”
She paused and smiled. “Oh dear, I’m sorry. Let’s just say that on earth, day
and night are equal, for the most part. Auro is smaller than Earth. Our planet
has two suns, so our capital is never in darkness.” She leaned forward, “Auro
orbits the sun like your moon. From earth, you only see the same part of the
moon. Over time, Earth’s gravitational pull on the moon locked it to one side.
Our main sun did the same thing to Auro. Auro is locked in orbit with our sun.
The capital, where we’re going, is much like what humans call the Land of the
Midnight Sun.”
    She smiled and I nodded to show that I was keeping up with her story.
I guess that made sense, even if it didn’t sound possible.
    “That also means that half of Auro is forever bathed in darkness, but
we don’t visit there much.” Her gaze clouded over and then cleared. “Anyways,
the part of Auro that is the closest to the sun in hot, with little vegetation.
Therefore, our capital is in the Royal Mountains, 200 miles from the edge of
the forever dark side. Most cities live near the border, because the climate is
perfect.”
    I stared at Samantha. This was a lot to digest. “Poor child, you don’t
believe me, do you? Come, take a look out the window.”
    Grabbing a cheesed cracker, I followed her to the glass and she drew
back the curtain.
    I gasped. We were up high. Not high as in, Wow! The cars look like
ants! But high as in I could see the curve of a planet to the far left. It
looked similar to space photos of Earth, but less clouds and oceans. Auro was
like an inverted Earth, with more vegetation than oceans or lakes. My greatly
improved vision caught every detail. It was beautiful.
    “It is our pride and joy,” Samantha whispered, “We moved here after
much unrest with humans. We fought them, long ago, but there were very few of
us.” A sigh slipped through her mouth.
    “In the beginning, there were the folium , the white-winged. After
the war with humans, our species changed planets. Although it was 5000 BC, we
were far more advanced with technology. It took the first group 5 years to find
a suitable planet, and another 25 years to fly there. Unfortunately, they had
just developed light-travel, so the journey was long.”
    “Are we traveling that fast now?”
     “No, you were changing during the light-travel. Consider yourself
lucky, because it’s actually quite sickening.” She shuddered and continued, “Eventually,
the original foliumsplit off into two groups, one migrating to the dark
side of the planet and one keeping to the light.”
    “Why did they split up?” I was imaging all of the fallen angels
heading to the darker side of the planet, much like falling from grace.
    She must have seen where my