John Ogden Wing Walker

Wing Walker

chapter 1

From under the jubbtree shadows at the edge of the fallowgrass field, Morug watches the children flying their kite. It is the largest one she has seen, bigger than the boy struggling with its strings. He is the tallest of the group—but he still looks a little younger than her—maybe twelve. His clothes, though finely made, look slightly too big for him. He slips and twists to keep his footing as his four friends jostle and stare up with cries of excitement. Like most other kites flown in the fields outside the city walls, it is of the wide-winged, crescent shape of the Great Midd herself.

The Great Midd upon whose back they all stand, who carries their city and fields through the skies forever.

The kite dips and twists, arcing its two trailing strips of fluttering black ribbon.

Morug is thankful that the real Great Midd flies forever level and steady. The giant cloud-eater must, or all of the people and buildings on her back would slide into the bottomless clouds below. Nobody knows what’s down there in the skies, only that there is no return.

No return for her mother.

Morug pushes a strand of her grubby red hair back under her thick hood.

She is sure her mother once said—though Morug cannot remember the sound of her voice anymore—that the wings stretched forever.

Forever.

If only that were the case. Then nobody could ever fall from their edges. Even those who are cursed to be called to the clouds one day.

The boy brings the kite round in an arc, tilting it so Morug can see its back. At its centre is a small, upright fin of taught canvas, daubed with a red triangle of paint. She has heard that it is a symbol that means two things at once. It is the Great Midd’s eternal heart and also their lone city, Middwold, standing above it.

Morug peeks around the tree’s wide trunk to look at the city’s crumbling walls. They blaze white in the sun, holding back the untidy jumble of rooftops and chimneys clustered beyond. It has been a long time since she had been through its gates, slipping through the crowds, hiding her face in her hood from the Middwolders.

The boy grunts and shrugs off a girl who tries to grab the strings from him—after all, it looks to be a kite worth fighting over. Beautiful as it is, it cannot beat its wings like the real giant cloud-eater. That would be a wonder. But perhaps no Middwolder would even think to make a kite like that. Those living on the Great Midd’s inner lands never seem to even notice the distant rising and falling of her own giant wings. It means nothing to them.

With dirt-blackened fingers, Morug feels for her steady-rope wound about her waist and instinctively checks the sharpness of its end hooks.

These kite fliers will never know what it is like to be out on the wings. To secure themselves to the wing hide with a single steady-rope. Waiting crouched, as a wingbeat rolls, vast and unstoppable, across the plains towards them. They’ll never have to endure the crushing, suffocating rush of air as the vast expanse tilts into the sky.

When she was younger, Morug would try in vain to scream louder than the roar of the wind as she clung on to the rope, eyes streaming with the cold. She learned quickly that it was foolish to empty her lungs so soon.

But then.

To be up there, to watch the sister wing mirroring its ascent, so far, far away beyond the haze… That view can still take what is left of her breath. To hold above the distant city of Middwold, where it stands safe on the stable lands at the Great Midd’s centre and see the countless threads of chimney smoke swept behind her into the endless skies.

The kite’s black ribbons remind her of those smoke trails. A faint smile flickers to her lips.

A breeze rustles the leaves above. It swirls gently through the golden carpet of fallowgrass around the legs of the children.

Morug closes her eyes and breathes in the warm afternoon air. She knows she has lingered too long, marvelling at the kite. She sighs and takes a step back towards the path.

A harsh flutter pulls her attention back to the sky. The kite dives and twists in her direction. It crashes and clatters between low branches just above her head. She crouches in shock. Leaves flutter. The boy shouts angrily at his laughing friends before scowling at Morug.

‘Hey! Hey! You!’ he shouts across the field.

Morug straightens.

‘Can you reach the kite? It’s just above you!’ He is already wading through the fallowgrass towards her, friends in tow.

He jabs his finger up at the kite.

‘There! Can you get it?’

Morug looks up at it. If she’s quick, she can pull it out before they get much closer, before they can see what she is.

She stretches up and untangles string from the branches which spring back and thud on the canvas like a drum. It is almost clear.

The whooshing of legs through the fallowgrass gets closer.

She must hurry. Hurry and get away.

She tugs the kite free and places it gently on the ground.

‘You lot, be quiet,’ the boy grumbles back to his four giggling followers. ‘Thanks.’ He says hastily to Morug, his eyes fixed on the kite. He rolls up his finely stitched jacket sleeves and bends to pick it up.

‘She has a back basket!’ A dark-haired boy behind him says.

Morug stiffens. There was no time to think of taking it off to hide behind the tree.

‘So what?’ the boy says, raising up, holding the kite by its wing tip.

‘She’s a wing walker, Nirren, you dolt.’

He looks at Morug.

‘She’s all dirty,’ says a girl in an embroidered, green dress.

‘Are you a wing walker?’ he asks. ‘I didn’t think there were any left— thought they’d all been flicked off the wings ages ago.’ His eyes dart from her oval back basket, which is almost as big as herself, to her ragged clothes and her arms bandaged up to her palms.

Morug doesn’t want to answer—best not to say—and backs away. Her heel catches on a tree root. She flails her arms for balance and falls back onto the basket. It creaks before a loud snap echoes out across the field.

It rolls Morug onto her side and the long grass smothers her face. The group’s laughter rings out.

Morug shuffles slowly up on to her hands and knees, her basket rocking on her back. The children line up and stare down at her.

‘My Pap says wing walkers live off dirt,’ says a girl with light braided hair. ‘Because there’s nothing else to eat out there on the wing.’

‘Well, I heard they eat those big crawly tick things that live on the far wings.’ A blonde boy grimaces, pulling up the collar of his untucked shirt over his nose. ‘But only when they’re big and juicy, full of the Great Midd’s blood.’

The group makes the noises of disgust which Morug has heard so often.

‘Do you?’ The boy asks, pulling the kite closer.

Morug looks down at the grass. She should have run when they called to her.

‘She’s a tick picker, isn’t she?’ The dark-haired boy gasps.

Morug scowls up at him.

‘My brother calls them that sometimes.’ He says. ‘That’s what her basket’s for, isn’t it? She catches them then stuffs them in it till it’s full.’

Most of the group recoil, apart from the tallest boy.

Morug feels back for the break in her basket. There is a sharp sliver of damage to one of the wood-stem bars.

Of course she doesn’t eat dirt or ticks.

She glowers up at all the wide eyes trained on her.

But they were right about collecting them.

‘Oh no!’ Morug cries as dramatically as she can, making them all flinch. ‘My basket’s broken. One of the giant ticks has got out! Run!’

The children start and scream as one. Even the biggest boy throws the kite to the ground and stumbles back.

They flee into the fallowgrass.

‘RUN! IT’S BEHIND YOU!’ Morug yells after them. ‘IT NEEDS TO FEED!’

Morug knows the basket is empty, of course. It will be full later, Midd willing. After the hunt.

She gets slowly to her feet and brushes herself down. Dust plumes from her ragged tunic. Some of the children are already at the far edge of the field, wildly looking back over their shoulders into the crops.

Morug’s small smile fades. She twists round, hooking her fingers around a cage bar of her back basket and pulls it to one side so she can see the damage. A rod is half snapped, but not fully broken. It had better hold or she’ll get bitten and drained.

Then it would be over for her.

Her eyes fall upon the kite, nestled in the grass. She frowns. There is a rip in the wing.

Morug turns to the path behind her, but pauses.

She has her bone needle and thread, doesn’t she?

Morug crouches next to the kite and traces along the rip with her finger. It is a fine tear; long but repairable. She scratches her cheek with blunt nails.

It needs to fly again. It belongs in the sky like the Great Midd.

She looks across the field and nibbles her lip, listening to the fading screams from beyond the border hedges. The children shouldn’t be back for a little while—and she does work the wings, doesn’t she?

Morug rummages in her tunic pocket and pulls out a filthy rag, rolled tight and secured with hair-twine. She unwinds it and takes out her needle and a clump of thread.

It is quick to stitch the rip closed. She bites the end of the thread and ties its remaining strands.

Morug props the kite against the wide, gnarled jubbtree trunk and lets her hand linger on the canvas. Maybe she could try to fly it herself before the group return?

She looks up into the bright sky through the canopy of the tree, but there is movement at the other side of the field. The girl in the green dress has emerged from a hedge and is watching her.

Morug stands.

Time to go.

Her guardian, Ma Grismal, will expect her back at her farm after a full day’s hunting. By morning, Morug should have her scuttling crop emptied from the basket and ready in the tick pen for her inspection. If the ticks are smaller than her head, Ma Grismal will complain about their size. Even if not, she’ll find something to gripe about.

Morug doesn’t want to think about her anymore. She takes one last look at the kite.

‘Fly well’ she says under her breath and makes her way out onto the path.

The suns are already too high in the sky and she will now have to hurry out onto the far wing plains. It’s never good to be hunting on them at night. That’s when the really big ticks crawl out of their feeding crevices. They are slower than the small ones, and with bigger bellies to drag, but if they get her scent, they can surround her—back her into a dark hole and…

Morug shakes the thought from her mind and shrugs her basket about until it is more comfortable against her back. She squints at the desolate wing plains, vast and grey beyond the furthest fields.

Middwolders wouldn’t last a day out there.

But it is as good as home to a wing walker.

Shelbi Pate

Born in Bristol, Shelbi loves nothing more than a good book, a good view and a deliciously good slab of chocolate.

She is a huge advocate of literature for young people and believes there is a book out there for every child to fall in love with.

In September 2020, Shelbi left primary teaching to complete the Bath Spa MA Writing for Young People. Now, she continues to work on her first novel while selling books in an independent bookshop in the beautiful city of Bath, all while making sure she eats – at least – one piece of chocolate every single day.

Shelbi.pate@me.com / @Shelbi_Pate

About The Missing Believers

For twelve year old Teddy, finding the answers to some of the universe’s most pressing questions is a daily task. His parents are famous scientists and he’s following in their footsteps, asking questions and coming up with theories about how the world works. He’s about to face his biggest question yet when his parents mysteriously disappear. It seems they’ve been keeping things from him, and it’s up to Teddy to find out what.

Isobel is twelve years old too. The difference is she’s been twelve years old for almost one hundred years. Ever since she woke up at Small Steps Home for ghosts, she’s been working on perfecting her abilities. Ghosts come and go at Small Steps and Isobel is desperate to stop being the one left behind.

Fate brings these two characters together. One hoping to find those he’s lost. The other hoping to finally keep a hold on those she loves.