Wings by E. D. Baker Read Free Book Online

reached toward her wing. “Let me just …” Tears came to Tamisin’s eyes when he yanked so hard that it felt as if needles were shooting into the muscles of her back.
    “Ow!” she shouted, jumping to her feet. Whirling around to face her parents, she glared at them and reached behind her to rub the base of her wing. “You don’t have to try to rip it off me!”
    “Is this some kind of joke?” her father asked.
    If Tamisin hadn’t been so upset, she might have laughed at the expressions on her parents’ faces: her mother looked like a guppy with her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open, and her father looked half asleep and completely befuddled.
    “So how did this happen?” Tamisin demanded. “It was radiation, wasn’t it? You went to a protest with Dad at some army-testing site while you were pregnant and you got a good dose of radiation. Then you had me and that’s why I’m so weird! I’m a mutant, aren’t I? Come on, you can tell me the truth. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”
    Tamisin’s mother stared down at her hands. “I suppose we should have told you before. It’s just that the time never seemed quite right.”
    “Tell me what? You mean I really am a mutant?” Tamisin abruptly sat on the blanket chest at the foot of the bed, shaking. She was no longer sure she was ready for the truth.
    Her mother shook her head. “It’s nothing like that.” She glanced up at Tamisin, her eyes pleading with her to understand. “For years I’ve wondered how we were going to say this, and I had all sorts of speeches planned, but I’m just going to come out with it. Tamisin, you’re my darling daughter and I love you. I’ve always loved you and I always will. However, I didn’t give birth to you. Your father and I adopted you when you were just a few days old. After we had Kyle, I had three miscarriages. We wanted a little girl so much …”
    Tamisin felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. She almost forgot how to breathe. It was the worst, most hopeless feeling in the world—everything she knew and trusted and believed in had been a lie.
    “Why didn’t you tell me before this?” she said when she could talk again.
    Her father cleared his throat. “Your mother told you that we were waiting for the right time to—”
    “And when was that going to be—my wedding day or maybe when I graduated from college? ‘Congratulations, dear, we’re very proud of you and just wanted to tell you that you’re adopted’?”
    “Please don’t be angry,” said her mother. “I only wanted you to be happy.”
    “I would have been a lot happier if you hadn’t lied tome!” No longer able to sit still, Tamisin hopped to her feet and began to pace the length of the room, unaware that while she gestured with her hands her wings were waving behind her. “And what about my wings? Are you telling me that my real parents have wings, too? Then maybe they’re some kinds of mutants! Or aliens! Did you ever think of that?”
    “Certainly not mutants, or aliens, for that matter, but there were times we did wonder …,” said her father. “Things happened to you that were a little unusual, sweetheart. Remember the fireflies when we went camping and how you got your spreckles? And the way you dance whenever there’s a full moon?”
    They both looked so worried that Tamisin felt the urge to comfort them—until she remembered that they had lied to her. “To think that my parents … But you’re not, are you? Do you realize that I don’t even know what to call you now? I can’t call you Mom and Dad anymore. I know it always bugs you when kids call their parents by their first names, but I guess I’m going to have to call you Janice and Mike. Or should it be Mr. and Mrs. Warner?”
    Her mother, or the woman she’d thought of as her mother, looked like Tamisin had slapped her. Her father frowned and shook his head. “There’s no need to talk to us that way. We’re still your parents. We raised you and