Aliferous

Flying. Soaring.  Wings spread out as their feathers catch the air and lift them through the sky.  Gravity is rendered useless when they cut through the great blue horizon.  They're birds, after all.   They're bones are lighter than whispers.    Astrid couldn't help but obsess over them. How could she not? They were perfect in every way. They can go anywhere they want anytime they want.   It was probably her grandmother's fault that she loved them. She always kept bird feeders in every window.    Astrid never really knew WHY, she just knew her grandmother loved them.    She watched them every morning, milky eyes seeming to be lost when they launch themselves up. She studied their structure and inner workings. She sketched them and painted them. She grabbed every book on birds from the library every Saturday morning.    Since Astrid had no other form of role model, she began joining her grandmother at an early age.    They fed birds in the park every Sunday.    They donated money to bird rescue.    They drew together and studied them together.     It was wonderful.   Yet, there was always a downside.   First of all, she had no idea who her parents were.   There were no pictures.    No videos.   No stories.     She had tried asking about them when she was little, of course. All she ever got was a distant look in her grandmothers eyes before she went and locked herself in her room for the rest of the day.      Astrid figured that something traumatic had happened. Maybe a fire. Or maybe they ran away. Maybe they were spies! But Astrid would never know. Every time she rooted through their attic, there was absolutely NOTHING.   But Astrid never really needed them anyway.    If they didn't want her, then she didn't want them.   The second downfall was moving every year.     Oregon.    Wyoming.    North Dakota.    Illinois.    Indiana.   They always stayed in a small town and never talked to any of the locals. Astrid thought it was because her grandmother wasn't a people person. Maybe because people never really could understand her. They always seemed to have trouble understanding her scars.    They had been there as long as Astrid could remember.   A theory she had about them when she was younger was that she had been struck by lightning. The scars branched out over her arms and sides just like the electricity of thunderstorms.    Her grandmother debunked that conspiracy by telling her it had been a car crash in her youth.     Another downside was no technology.    That included Tv and phones. Any friends that Astrid managed to make always asked why. But even Astrid didn't know. They weren't amish or anything. It just seemed to be her grandmothers preference.    The last down side was her grandmothers disappearance.    The summer of her senior year in high school rolled around.    She woke up, the day before her eighteenth birthday, and no one was in the house.    All the birdhouses were gone.     Every sketchbook her grandmother filled out was taken with her.     No birdseed or any pictures of the two of them together.    Just a box on the kitchen table.   Astrid approached it softly, using her keys to rip through the tape.     Inside was a book, about as thick as the length of her fingertips. Gold covered the corners. Designs were etched into the leather cover.    Brunnhilde was written in bold letters.    That was her grandmothers full name... but she usually told everyone to call her Bryn.     What was inside changed Astrid's whole story.    Especially what was written on the first page:  Rule one-    Don't let them know you can see them.