Read On Shadowed Wings (An Ash Grove Short Story) for Free Online

anyhow. Yet Jim had thought she looked
good.
    How nice it would be, came the unwanted
thought, to have a boyfriend she could relax with—a guy who wasn’t
always pointing out ways she could dress better or style her hair
differently or lose a few pounds. Someone she wasn’t always trying
to impress.
    But her more immediate concern was that now
she was stuck, immobilized. Holding a shoe in each hand, she
couldn’t draw her skirt away from the underbrush, and with her hair
trapped under the jacket she couldn’t turn her head at all to see.
She reached up to pull her hair back and almost stabbed herself in
the eye with a spiked heel. Crap. She could drop the shoes
and… “Uh, I could use some help here,” she said.
    “So I see,” said Jim, and he took her shoes
from her and crammed each one toe first into a side pocket of his
jacket, so that the sharp heels stuck out at either side. Then he
held the jacket for her so that she could put her arms through the
sleeves and gather her hair up and out of the way, wishing she had
an elastic to secure it with.
    “The invasion of Normandy was simple compared
to this,” she muttered in embarrassment, and saw him smile.
    “It’s not that complicated. But if Darryl
decides to cuddle up to you, he’ll get gouged by one of your
shoes.”
    She snorted. “He should be so lucky.”
    Maybe it was a trick of the moonlight, but
she thought she saw a grin pass over his face. But that was
foolish. He wouldn’t care one way or another if she and Darryl got
cuddly, would he?
    Almost without intention, her mind summoned
up a surprising—and surprisingly delicious—scenario. Jim holding
her close, so close that she could feel his heart beating even
through the stiff taffeta bodice of her dress. Those strong capable
hands smoothing her hair back from her face as he…
    Keep your mind on the mission, you
dope. What kind of a friend to the Sumners was she? All she
should be thinking about was Joy and making sure she was safe. Not
making out with college guys, no matter how geeky-hot.
    As soon as they had climbed to a relatively
clear space near the top of the ridge, they stopped to get their
bearings. As she had hoped, from that elevation they had a good
view of much of the campus. The light-spangled windows of the gym,
the dark shapes that were the other buildings. The dusky expanse of
field stretching out like a starless sky.
    “What’s that? ” exclaimed Jim beside
her.
    Tucked away well behind a building that Gail
knew to be the dining hall, a faint circle of light glowed. It
looked like hundreds of tiny stars clustered in a ring. Gail felt
the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She thought of the Celtic
legends of faery, of moonlit dances by the fair folk that left
circles in the dew the next day.
    “Is that a construction site, down where all
those fireflies are?” asked Jim, bringing her back to earth. “I
think I see a bulldozer.”
    “That must be the old amphitheater that Dr.
Sumner said they were tearing down.” Her heart thudded under her
ribs. If they’d already started digging up the old stone structure,
there might be pits where a child could fall and hurt herself.
Could even be smothered by a cave-in.
    And what Jim had called fireflies didn’t look
right. If they were lightning bugs, she’d never seen them act that
way. They weren’t that organized. A shiver crept up her
spine and made her shoulders tense.
    Jim had gotten his cell phone out. “Dr.
Sumner?” he said. “It looks like something’s going on in the
amphitheater. Gail and I can meet—Gail, wait up!”
    She was already running down the hill toward
the lights. She didn’t know what was going on, but she knew that if
something happened to Joy and she could have prevented it, she’d
never forgive herself. Rocks and twigs jabbed painfully at the
soles of her feet, and her tulle skirt caught on branches and
ripped, but she kept running. She pictured Joy’s sweet, serious
little face, saying, Gail