Icarus, dressed only in a pair of faded jeans, stood on a tree stump, facing into the wind, large gray wings spread out behind him. It was going to be different this time. It had to be.
Her heard Mr. Bright's voice in his head. Give 'er a try, boy! Spin the wheel, draw a card, toss a ring ... what have you got to lose?
He strained to spread his wings even wider, then tensed his legs and jumped. For an instant--a brief, glorious second or two--he hovered in the air. And then he was falling. Instinctively, he folded his wings against his back, put out his hands to catch himself, and angled his right shoulder so it would take the blow instead of wrists or elbows. He hit hard. He lay on his side, sucking breath between his teeth, shoulder throbbing. It wasn't fair, it just wasn't fair!
"You okay?"
Icarus looked up. A barefoot blonde girl in a light blue dress came hurrying toward him, a worried look on her face.
"I guess," he said softly. "I don't think I broke anything."
Bethany reached down to help him up, but he ignored her outstretched hand and got to his feet on his own. He brushed off his jeans, resisting the urge to reach up and massage his bare shoulder. He didn't want her to know how much it hurt.
"I know I shouldn't have followed you," she said, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. "But when I saw you leave camp, I figured you could use some company." She nodded toward a grove of trees a dozen yards away. "I hid and watched you from over there."
"Did it ever occur to you that maybe I didn't want any company?" he snapped.
She smiled. "No."
He sighed. Bethany was the niece--and assistant--of Madame Mahalia, the resident fortune teller of Bright's Traveling Phantasmagoria. And Bethany, like her aunt, placed great stock in intuition and hunches.
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