Winged: A Novella (Of Two Girls) by Joyce Chng Read Free Book Online

voice
shook her from her reverie. “You just worry too much.”
     
    “I just do not want to go back,” Katherine
said quietly, solemnly. “Not now. Never.”
     
    Alethia’s forehead creased in a frown. “Is
Miss Sharpton really that horrible?”
     
    Katherine could hear the cackling and the
cracking of the whip. And the tittering of the girls in the cramped
Dorset school-room.
     
    “Yes,” she found herself hunching down. Her
ankle ached dully. She really needed to put ice and ointment on
it.
     
    “Katherine,” her friend’s voice was gentle.
“It has been two years. Surely she has changed? People do change,
you know.”
     
    A bitter, biting and sarcastic reply almost
came out of Katherine’s mouth. Alethia meant well. She had always
meant well, being so mild and gentle, a salve to her troubled soul.
She stifled it down and swallowed her stew instead.
     
    “Look,” someone shouted and there was a
flurry of excited voices in the Hall. “They just put up the
board.”
     
    Katherine’s heart lurched. It was time.
     
     
    ~*~
     
    Captain Karlida Sagan nursed a cup of Lady
Grey, still faintly steaming and aromatic, reminiscent of home’s
comforts. She stood at the window, watching the students stream
from the Great Manor to the Administrativa. Their thoughts would
be so tumultuous , she sipped her tea, I was.
     
    Frantically scanning for her name on the
board…
     
    With a sigh, she turned around and faced the
gentleman in the room. She smiled at him warmly, tenderly. They had
a heated argument a hour ago, debating on the fate of certain
students. She hated doing this vital part of assessment, even
though she knew it would differentiate the wheat from the
chaff.
     
    “You were exceedingly harsh on Katherine
Riley,” she began and Pilotmaster Lee looked at her with a stern
expression on his face.
     
    “She was exhibiting anxiety,” Lee said
curtly. The memory of their argument was still raw, fresh. “A
careless pilot makes a dead pilot.”
     
    “For Jove’s sake,” Karlida put her cup down
on the side-table next to the window. “It is their first
test-flight. And mind you, Lee, the winds were strong today. She
did exceptionally well, controlling the blimp-fin. Many of our
students had luckier days with calm winds. Imagine them tossed into
a real situation.”
     
    “You do have a point,” Lee replied, his
words still tense, and went back to his reports.
     
    Karlida strode to him and sat down right in
front of him, forcing him to look at her. “Lee, how long have I
known you for?” Something in her tone made him glance at her,
momentarily startled. He gave a small smile and placed his right
hand on her knee, an expression of tenderness, of trust.
     
    “More than a decade,” he said softly.
     
    “How many times was I known to be wrong in
my judgment,” Karlida continued, responding to his smile and his
words with a wry grin.
     
    “You know I have always trusted your
judgment, Karlida.”
     
    “True.” Karlida nodded and stood up once
more. “I am glad we have both reached an agreement.” She walked
back to the window.
     
    Lee rose from his chair and joined her. “I
am just concerned about biased perceptions…”
     
    “… that Katherine is in my House?” She
chuckled. “I have thought about that too.” She said nothing else
and remained silent.
     
     
    ~*~
     
     
     
     
    It was evening when the students finally
made their way back to the Great Manor. After the public
announcement of results, it was back to lectures and classes. The
evening air was tinged with an undercurrent of chill: Autumn was
arriving and the trees in the Academy were already donning their
vivid autumnal colors of orange and red. Even the steepled
Administrativa was covered with crimson leaves, rippling in the
breeze.
     
    Katherine found herself walking alone on the
path leading to the Great Manor. She passed. She was now officially
an Intermediate Pilot-In-Training. She should be feeling happy