By Katelyn Alcott

I met Her the summer I turned ten. I was staying at my Aunt Tara’s apartment complex, an island of concrete in the woods of Western Massachusetts.  My parents had ditched me for the month of July. They were taking the month to reconnect. They’d promised that Tara’s complex had a swimming pool, but they had dropped me off even after we saw that the pool was drained “Due to Drought”. So the pool was just a concrete ditch in the ground next to tennis courts that bubbled in the heat. 

Aunt Tara wasn’t even around that hot and windless month. Tara worked full time as a receptionist. Each day I’d get three dollars and instructions not to leave the complex. All morning I’d sit next to the old air conditioner, watching the satellite TV. When the 12 o’clock news came on, I’d walk across the dead grass lawns to the general store in the management building. I’d buy an orange creamsicle from the case. Then I’d melt on the tennis courts, sweat pooling through my camisole, waiting for a breeze that never came.  

It was during one of those endless and still days that I first saw Her. She was older than I was, and had a red bike and a leather bracelet. She had a gap between Her teeth, and was always sticking Her tongue through it. She’d ride by with a group of four boys who followed Her around like ducklings. She’d look around, never seeing me, with Her black-brown eyes. I’d watch Her, my creamsicle dripping onto my legs, as She pulled open the window of the ice cream case.The air would ripple off the tennis courts, hot and stagnant, and I’d watch Her sit down, hanging Her feet over the edge of the pool, while the boys whistled at passing cars. 

I never talked to Her. Weeks passed in this fashion. Watching the boys follow Her, watching the ice cream melt down Her hands, feeling my creamsicle sticky in my lap. The wind did not come, but every day I would wait for Her. And everyday, She came.

Aunt Tara said I was getting too much sun. My face was burnt. I should stick to the treeline when I was outside. But I couldn’t watch Her from the trees. I would have felt wrong to watch Her in any light other than the shimmering heat of the tennis court. 

The afternoon when the heat finally broke, I was waiting for Her as I always did, on the scalding tennis courts. I stood there as the temperature dropped, the rain soaking through my clothes. I waited. I watched. She didn’t come.  

I walked back to my aunt’s building, rain on my back, my creamsicle tossed. Then a flash of red, a splash of mud. I saw Her. The Girl and Her four boys, racing their bikes through the quickly forming puddles, mud splattering up the backs of their legs.

I ran,  chasing the wild sight of Her. The rising wind split me open. The heat of the summer broke around me in warm pools. I followed Her down the road, out of the apartment complex, into the woods beyond. 

I watched as the five of them thrust their bikes to the side of the path. I watched as She disappeared into the underbrush. I crawled after Her. Through the bushes, I saw a pond trembling beneath the raindrops. I watched as the boys scattered their clothes on the ground in front of me. I turned away as they dove naked into the pond. Where was She? I looked around. Breaking the surface of the water, four geese rose from the depths where the boys had vanished. One let out a great honk. 

I heard a laugh, and looked up. She stood in front of me, wearing only Her oversized t-shirt. Her chin slightly upturned in that confident way She had. She looked down at me and grinned, Her tongue poking through Her white teeth. She held out Her hand, soft as the summer rain, and pulled me to my feet. Then She flung off the black t-shirt and dove, headlong, into the pond. 

Something within me shifted then, as the black t-shirt piled in front of me and the soft curve of Her hips slipped below the surface of the water. I felt the whole of my life stretch out before me.I stepped into the pond. Walked forward, until I could feel the water rippling over my knees. The little hairs that I hadn’t yet learned to shave drifted up from my legs. The rain beaded on my face, and I wiped my eyes, clearing them, looking for Her in the water. Long moments passed. Still She didn’t come back to the surface. The four geese floated on the water where the boys had been. 

Then I felt Her beside me. I rose from the water.  Her deep brown eyes watched me from the slender face of a Goose. Her long dark hair exchanged for feathers. Transformed, She– the Goose– swam towards me. I almost pulled away. Or perhaps I did. 

She stopped; dipped Her neck; watched me. Watched as if She truly knew me. Or so it felt then. Like I was seen for the first time, through the dark pearls of Her eyes. 

And then Her wings shot out from either side, nearly as big as I was tall then. She lifted Her white belly over the surface of the water. With two great strokes of Her wings, She rose into the air above me. I could have reached out, and touched the soft plumes of Her chest as She flew from the pond. The other four followed. With a great rush of wings and water, they were off, forming a V behind Her. I swear, for a moment, I felt the absence of raindrops where they flew, Her great wings sheltering me. 

Then She was gone. 

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Katelyn Alcott (she/her) is a fantasy and science fiction writer from Massachusetts. Katelyn is an ex-English Teacher and is currently studying for her MFA in Creative Writing at the Writer’s Foundry St. Joseph’s University in Brooklyn, where she lives with her wife and her cat.