Stranger Than Normal

Chapter Forty-Three

The next morning I woke up with a cold feeling. A feeling I had whenever the Upside Down was near. I decided to just shrug it off for now until I could talk to Will about it later that afternoon, after welcoming Dustin back home.

I grabbed some clean workout clothes and went and changed in the bathroom before heading into the kitchen. Since it was still super early in the morning the only other one up was Joyce. I smiled at her in greeting as I walked in and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge.

"Morning, Sweetie. Be careful." Joyce spoke to me as I walked over and said good morning to her, giving her a side hug before walking out the back door towards the woods. "Always am," I replied as the door swung shut behind me.

I walked out to the clearing in the woods that I found when I first started training myself back in January. I walked over to the tree that Will told me was struck by lightning a few years ago and stuck my water bottle in the small crevice between two pieces of bark.

I took off my shirt, so that I could stop cutting holes in them, and extended my wings to their full size. Their full size that now spanned about six feet. I stretched them out, twisting them a bit before walking across the clearing, to the biggest tree in the clearing and started climbing.

I stood on the highest branch and breathed in deeply, savoring the feeling of the warm sun on my face. And jumped.

I unfolded my wings about four feet from the ground and soared back up to the sky. I tried not to go too low, to where people on the ground could see me but not too high as to where I can't breathe.

I did go through the clouds though. It was super early in the morning so the clouds were a bit lower than they would be later in the day. The mist on my now sweaty body felt amazing in the early summer morning heat.

I then folded my wings in and dropped about 40 feet into the tops of the trees and started wearing my wave through the leaves and branches like my own little obstacle course.

I flew through the holes in the trees, dodging the occasional outlying leaf or twig. I did a couple of laps around the course before going back to the clearing in the woods. I saw Will sitting in the middle of the clearing, probably waiting for me so we could go to Dustin's house to surprise him.

I flew around behind Will so he couldn't see me and I could scare him. Is that mean? Yes. But he always scares me back and it's not like I'm pretending I'm trying to kill him. Just a small jump scare.

I landed heavily on my feet about three feet behind where he was sitting. He immediately stood up and spun around, looking terrified. As soon as he saw that it was just me he relaxed and rolled his eyes. "Seriously?"

I laughed so hard I was doubled over, clutching my stomach. I wiped fake tears from my eyes as I stood up and walked over to where I left my water and my shirt. "You should have seen your face."

I folded my wings back against my back and slipped my shirt on before downing half my water. I walked back over to Will, who now had a growing smile on his face that he was trying to hide, and slipped my hand into his as I started walking us back to the house. "Let's hurry up and get going before we're late and Dustin gets there before us."

************

We all stood against a wall, with me and El using our powers to animate the toys that Dustin was now following out into the hallway. "It's just a dream You're dreaming." We hear Dustin say to himself. Mike turned to El and me, "Now!" he whispered.

We both stopped moving the toys and then the whole group of us walked around the wall with a banner and noisemakers and stood behind Dustin who was knelt down holding a toy robot. Max started counting down on her fingers as she mouthed down from three.