THE OMEN GIRL | Wattys 2020 Winner

𝟏𝟓

The day of the second race. It's a day that chills, a day full of wind.

I'll be watching by the edge of the plaza, Esp said.

My people will be waiting, she said.

She does not say it, but I know they will be waiting with edges in their hands, with triggers and pins that are ready to be pulled. The white of the plaza stones plus a crowd of people like paints – easy, so easy to splatter open.

A wide stage has been erected in the center of the plaza. The starsongs have already begun.

Lumi's friend is whistling tekiah'taqa – trumpet blast. And she strings yafa all around that blast, so that the trumpet blows mould into beautiful things, moving things, things that uplift.

The whistler she is flying against is a boy with a mole on his cheek, and he whistles maakeem'ainfija, and from his wide lines, polished sweets burst forth into existence and fall, and the crowds laugh and stretch out their palms to catch and to eat.

The winner is decided by the volume of the cheering they receive.

The boy wins.

I'm up next.

I don't know the name of the girl I am flying against, and I have no space to care, to think. Naqi is up after me. He's flying against someone whose name I also do not know, and he's sneaking glances at me from his distance, again and again. That feeling he had from the night before lingers even now.

I mount the stage.

The other whistler goes first. She is whistling mha and agnia, and I'm looking out over the crowd. Esp is there somewhere, stood in some shadow, waiting, watching, watching to see if I will let her down again.

The girl's song ends. I hear applause and cheering – all distant burbled things – and someone is announcing my turn, so I step onto my anchor. I lace up to the cord, and ichor floods.

I fly.

I circle the stage in a lazy loop. I ponder the world from my height. I circle higher, higher, whistle soft and shy, and then I begin.

A corkscrew. A zigzag. Another corkscrew.

Arah – expose.

It's easier flying this line this second time around.

Far below me, I see movement. People are parting through the crowds, I think. I see out the corner of my eye people shifting by the stage. Most of the whistlers recognize my line. They understand its meaning, and the meaning that had followed.

Avah. Sin. The sin of the Omens.

I twist into a curt corkscrew – ah. I dip into a harsh 'v.' I spin out into another corkscrew and people are shouting. There's commotion on the stage. A Sun is pushing people out of the way, I think. Some of the whistlers are getting onto their anchors, to dip away and flee maybe, or to whistle up to stop me.

I jerk hard to the left, and then drop, and jerk hard again to the left. Kuh.

Avah has been turned into avak. Wound. Sickness.

And then I fly the line for healing, the same line I've seen Naqi fly time and time again over Roaz, the same line that was flown over me for my bruises and cuts.

Rapha – a zigzag, a corkscrew and a pop, drop, pop, closed off with a corkscrew.

Expose their wounds and heal them. Expose their sicknesses and cure them.

I dip down and away from my line, and hover, and watch.

The light of my ichor line scatters into dust and light. They fall slow like snow over the crowd, over the gathered thousands. The dust melts into their skins, and then something like a sigh passes over them all.