Eighteen years, one day, and three hours ago
Maggie comes to on the forest floor. She spits twigs from her mouth and groans, pain spiking through every inch of her body.
“Hush,” a voice says.
It is one of the Sisters, kneeling beside her. When she gets to her feet, Maggie staggers under the unfamiliar weight of something on her back. White flashes in the corner of her vision; she looks and there are her wings, arcing above her shoulders. She reaches an arm back and strokes them. They are so soft. She looks down. She is naked, filthy.
Then it all comes back to her, what happened, and she cries out and clutches at herself, looking around for the men, for the weapons, for the big white tent. But they are gone, trampled dirt and trash the only signs that anything happened here at all.
“What did they do?” she asks. “What did they do?”
“Hush,” the Sister says. “They brought you back. They had their fun and then they brought you back.”
Eighteen years, one day, and nine hours ago
Maggie is sprinting through the woods. Earlier, other girls were running too, their LED bracelets flashing through the surrounding trees. But their lights have gone out one by one, and now she is the only one left. The Brothers’ flashlights bob behind her, drawing nearer by the second. Her lungs and legs are on the point of collapse, but still she staggers onward. Through the trees, she can just make out the lights of the university buildings. She is less than a mile away from campus. If she can make it there, she will be safe.
An arrow whistles through the air, close to her head, and thuds into a tree. She tries again to claw off her glowing wristband, but she can’t get it off—Trace fastened it too tightly.
The Brothers’ thudding footsteps, their primal whoops, are louder now. They are laughing as they gain on her, sensing that they are close. That is perhaps the worst part of all, she thinks—their laughter. Her legs collapse beneath her and she falls to the forest floor, scrambling over tree roots, and they are almost upon her and still she thinks this must be a joke, some kind of sick joke, they don’t mean it, they won’t actually do it.
But it isn’t. They do.
Eighteen years, one day, nine hours, and twenty minutes ago
There is a truck and inside of it are several foot lockers and from these foot lockers the Brothers are unloading weapons. The weapons are like something out of a history book: crossbows, double-headed axes, swords, things that are spiked and chained and so heavy that the Brothers groan as they lift them out. The girls gather round, slow and stupid from the food, the champagne. They are trusting. They are lambs.
“What are we doing?” they ask. “Are we playing a game?”
“Of a sort,” the Brothers say, hefting their weapons.
Eighteen years, one day, and thirteen hours ago
Maggie approaches the big white tent on the arm of Trace, handsome Trace. She is wearing a white dress, the length and cut of which would make her mother faint if she were here to see it. The tent is in the middle of the forest, which borders the campus and belongs to their university.
“Isn’t the forest protected?” Maggie asks. “I thought you weren’t allowed to camp in here.”
Trace gazes at her intently, and she flushes and raises a hand to make sure her hair hasn’t fallen out of place. He has a habit of maintaining eye contact for a couple seconds before responding to anything she says. It makes her suspect she either repels or attracts him; both possibilities terrify her.
“They bend the rules for us once a year. After all—Terry’s a Brother.”
It takes Maggie a moment to realize he is talking about the university’s president. By then, they have made their way to the entrance of the tent. Inside are two long rows of trestle tables, laden with gleaming dishes and artful arrangements of flowers and candles. White-coated waiters move between the seats, pouring water, laying out bread rolls with silver-handled tongs.
“Oh,” Maggie says. “It’s so pretty.”
Trace smiles down at her. His eyes are very blue. “Isn’t it?”
They sit down. He asks about her small-town Indiana life, her hobbies. “I want to know you,” he says, his hand brushing hers as he shows her how to crack open lobster with a little silver tool. He pours champagne, and more champagne, and with each glass she feels herself expanding: she is a better, wittier version of herself, her jokes funnier, her opinions sharper. Perhaps this is a preview of life as a winged woman—feeling adored, the only of her kind in the world, as men nod and laugh and stare at her with their blue, blue eyes.
Near the end of dinner, the Brothers pass a box of LED bracelets around the table. Trace takes one and starts to put it on her wrist but Maggie pulls back, her stomach fluttering. The air is heavy with a sense of expectation. Brothers shuffle in their seats, wink at each other over their dates’ heads. Her head feels fuzzy; she wishes she had not drunk so much champagne.
“What’s it for?” she says.
“So we can find each other.”
Beyond the well-lit tent, the forest is a wall of darkness. But in the distance Maggie can make out the lights of the university, barely two miles from here, and she is comforted by their obscure glow. She holds out her wrist and Trace clamps the bracelet over it. The clasp nips her skin and she winces.
“Sorry,” he says.
He passes
