Island of Icarus by Christine Danse

thumbs hooked into the harness. The braces that fit around his calves made him waddle. The whole process seemed painfully clumsy and awkward to me.
    After several circles, he stopped and waved to me, the wing on that side flapping and wiggling with the movement. Then, he looked down, fingered a toggle, and lurched forward into a halting jog. I could just make out a fast blur of movement near the tail of the wings. He spread his arms and splayed his fingers. The pinions unfurled. They caught the light of the sun and glittered impressively.
    For a long moment, it seemed like nothing would happen. The wings bounced comically, and the air resistance they caused seemed to hold him back. Yet, abruptly, only his toes were touching the ground as he jogged, and he was bent headlong as if he was ready to tumble head over heels. With a flex of the pinions, he swept into the air. Up he soared, as if pulled by some invisible force. He crowed wordlessly in exultation.
    My heart lurched into my throat and my head spun. Up, he went almost straight up! Ten, twenty, thirty, forty feet, and spiraling now like a buzzard in the air—great big, lazy circles that brought him higher still. His shadow slid over me like some great bird’s, and then he leveled off at what must have been sixty feet above.
    Silhouetted against the sky, the wings looked genuine. He had done an artful job with the overlapping lengths of thin steel, for they seemed like real feathers.
    After the initial jolt of mouth-drying fear, it was rather surreal. I gawked upward at Marcus, terrified but also amazed—relieved, as well, that he had leveled off and did not seem to be climbing any higher. Though his movement on the ground had been clumsy, his flight was smooth and altogether graceful. The furcula we had carved must have done its job, for the wings stayed steadily open. My fear gave way to admiration and a rising envy, though the thought of taking off and up into that blue tropical sky made my heart race
    Marcus turned broadly out of his circle and headed in the direction of the ocean. I jogged after him, apprehensive as he soared out over the water. Either he did not see my waving arms or he chose to ignore my warning gesture, for soon he was a distance away, his shadow skimming over the waves. I stopped at the surf to watch him. Oh, I did not fancy swimming to his rescue again.
    He turned back before he had reached a distance I could not swim. Considerate of him, I thought wryly. He seemed like a boy to me at times, ready to test boundaries and push limits. Though I cursed his penchant for risks at times like these, I generally found it rather endearing. After all, it was he who had taken the risk to kiss me first. It had gotten him into the air. It had allowed him to survive on this island with nothing save his strong muscles and clever mind. He was a dreamer and a go-getter, my Marcus. And now he could fly.
    He streaked right over me and executed a rather wobbly, sharp turn that threatened to send him into a spin. I ran after him, but the flight stabilized and he returned to his circling. However, something was different this time. The wings began to shake. I realized that he was waving one hand at me, frantically.
    A thousand possibilities flashed through my mind: that he could not get down, or that something had broken, or that he had lost control, or that his collarbone had fractured again under the stress. He was shouting at me, but I could not make out his words, only the distant sound of his raised voice.
    And then he was veering uncontrollably inland. It wasn’t a fall, exactly, but a sharply angled descent that carried him away from the water and straight for—
    “The trees!”

Chapter Twenty
    It all happened very fast. Marcus’s descent took him right into the embrace of the treetops, which bowed severely under his weight and momentum. I half expected that the backlash would fling him back into the air, but there was only a crashing sound as the entire