Five days after my thirteenth birthday party, I got my first period. I was scared to tell my mother. She’d been on edge since my father left, and I worried that any extra stress would crumble her. It didn’t help that I didn’t know why I was bleeding. But, despite having been able to do my own laundry for some time by then, I had never needed to know how to remove a bloodstain. Logic won, and I told my mom everything.
She cried, and I wasn’t surprised - it felt like she cried constantly. This…was different than usual. Usually, her crying was a downward spiral - she’d get started crying about one thing, and it would just get worse and worse. This time, she started crying, but it quickly became what seemed to be a happy cry - something I’d never seen from her before. When she stopped crying, she gave me a long hug, so tight that I could feel her heartbeat beneath her chest.
The next morning, when it was time for school, she told me that she’d unenrolled me and that she would begin homeschooling me for the next couple of weeks. I was confused and upset - all my friends were at school. But my mom told me she had a secret that it was very important I kept, and until she knew I wouldn’t tell, I couldn’t see my friends for a while. To thirteen-year-old me, this was the end of the world. The excitement for the secret counteracted some of the pain of losing my friends, but I still found myself on the verge of tears at the thought of being alone with my mom for weeks.
My mother sat me down and told me a story about my great-grandmother. She’d been in an abusive marriage and wanted more than anything to get out. She prayed and prayed, but never received an answer. So one day, she decided to seek out a witch to help her poison her husband. But the witch asked if she’d like a solution even easier, and more long-term. The witch granted my great-grandmother the gift of flight, and promised that it would pass down for generations to come. My grandmother returned home to her husband, packed a bag, and tried to use her newfound power - and when she did, she discovered she could turn into a bird.
“Like Animorphs?” I interrupted.
“Yes, sweetie. Like Animorphs,” my mother replied.
I looked her up and down - her thin, pointed nose, her lanky frame, her long arms. If anyone could be described as birdlike, it was my mother. But me - I took after my father. I was short and stout, “built sturdy”, as he always said. I almost wanted to ask her if the blessing had been passed down to me at all, but it felt silly. My mom wouldn’t have taken me out of school to brag about her powers if I didn’t have them too.
“What do I need to do, mama?” I asked, for some reason a little afraid of the answer.
“We’ll talk about that as it comes up. Today, I just want you to relax - this is the first day of a great journey!” She exclaimed.
Even as a thirteen-year-old, I was wary. I knew my mother was prone to fits of mania, times when the things she said didn’t make much sense. I was scared especially at the impulsivity of pulling me from school and isolating me from my friends. Still, I was excited about the concept of this transformation - who doesn’t dream of flying?
The next day at breakfast was when I began to become more worried. My mother had chopped up a massive amount of fruit, and was waiting for me at the table. As I began to reach for some, she swatted my hand away.
“Sweetheart,” she said, “this is the first step in the process. I know it might seem yucky, but it’s natural. You’ll see.”
As she said this, she popped a strawberry into her mouth, chewed, and motioned for me to sit down. I shook my head, frowning. If she was doing what I thought she was doing, I wanted absolutely no part in it.
“No, mama. I have all my teeth - I can chew for myself.” I said, standing my ground.
She swallowed the strawberry and looked at me.
“You won’t for long. There needs to be space for your beak to grow in - this is practice for when you don’t have teeth.”
I was obviously horrified. This process seemed so much more involved than I’d thought - it seemed so easy in the books I’d read. But I was never one to disobey an order, and my mother knew it. I sat down, and she popped a blackberry in her mouth, chewed it, and I leaned back and caught it in my mouth from hers. I tried my best not to use my teeth, and we ate all of the breakfast this way, with her sneaking away some fruit for herself. We didn’t learn any more about being birds that day. I think she was trying not to scare me.
The next day, I asked something I’d been thinking about since the moment she told me what was happening to me.
“Why have I never seen you turn into a bird?” I asked.
“I want the first time to be a surprise - I want us to turn into birds together once you’re ready. It’s a whole different world,” my mother explained.
“Well,” I said “that makes sense, I guess. But why do you have teeth if you said mine need to come out?”
“These are dentures, sweetheart.” She said, reaching into her mouth and taking them out, with a squelching “pop” sound. The scent of her breath underneath made me gag - something about it smelled strongly of decay. I made a mental note not to breathe in the next time she fed me.
That day, she taught me how to forage in the garden. We actually had a bit of fun, digging in the cool dirt and finding wriggling earthworms. Each one we found, she tucked into the pocket of her pants, which I found odd but knew better than to question. Halfway through our lesson, our neighbor happened to walk into his backyard. There weren’t fences separating our properties, and he could see us quite clearly. My mom froze, and stood up, deathly still and tall right in front of me. She shooed me away behind a skinny oak tree in our backyard.
“Hey, Sarah. Whatcha up to?” I heard the old man from next door call out.
“Nothing. Just…planting some flowers.” My mother replied icily, her demeanor changing in an instant.
“Doesn’t look like you’ve got any flowers to plant. Are you doing okay? Should I call Harry?” He asked, his voice sounding concerned.
“No! No. Don’t call Harry. I’ll go inside. Mind your fuckin’ business, Kenny.” My mother shouted back, clearly mad at him for even the suggestion of calling my father.
He walked back inside with a shrug, and my mother beckoned to me, pulling us both back into the house. We didn’t talk about what our neighbor had said, but my mother was tense for the rest of the day, pacing back and forth. When my mom thought I wasn’t looking, I saw her drink a bottle of wine that night in front of the TV.
The next day, my mom woke me up with a thick pink smoothie, and I silently thanked god that I wouldn’t have to eat it from her mouth. The first thought that I had upon sipping it was that my mother must’ve used some strawberries that were off. It was viscous, almost slimy. And beneath the strawberry flavor, there was something deeper, something very earthy. It was a bit refreshing, if I’m being honest. My mother had been feeding me nothing but fruit, nuts, and seeds for about three days, so anything that tasted different felt like a treat.
When I’d finished drinking, my mother’s careful gaze watching my every move, she beamed.
“I knew you needed some extra protein sweetheart. Glad we found those yesterday, right?” She said sweetly.
The realization hit my stomach with the weight of a brick. The earthiness, the slimy quality of the drink - I’d been eating the worms we’d dug up in the garden. I plastered a fake smile on my face, knowing my mother would be upset if she realized how disgusted I was. I knew she’d question whether or not I really wanted this life at all.
The next few days passed uneventfully, with her still feeding me and us continuing to forage, though I convinced her to let us go into the woods at the edge of our property and look for berries and seeds rather than worms. It wasn’t until the seventh day of being “homeschooled” that something changed.
That night, I was taking a shower, grateful to get the dirt off of me and to get a moment’s peace from my mother. As I washed my hair, I felt something odd - large clumps of hair coming out in my hand. I let out a small shriek and jumped from the shower. From the other side of the door, I could hear my mother knocking, asking if I was okay, if I’d hurt myself. Near the end, she asked simply “Has it started happening?”
When I finally left the bathroom, tears streaking my face, my mom wrapped her arms tight around me.
“I knew it would start soon. There needs to be space for your feathers to come in. Do you wanna get it over with?”
I looked into her eyes - she still looked manic, and I didn’t know what she meant by getting it over with, but I found myself nodding nonetheless. She smiled, but it was a sad one. As if she knew I wouldn’t like what was coming next. She left the room and went to the bathroom, coming back out with an electric razor. Before I could even begin to understand what she was doing, she plugged in the electric razor and held it to my head, long brown strands flying free in its wake. I cried the whole time. Afterward, my mom showed me that she too, was bald. What I thought had been her hair was a wig.
“We can get you one just like mine, okay? There just needs to be room for when you start changing.” She whispered, putting her hand on my should in a comforting gesture.
I didn’t feel like I was changing. I felt silly, and naked looking without my hair. I felt tired, exhaustion from the lack of protein creeping in. Still, I stayed up that night comforting myself drawing beautiful birds of all shapes and sizes. Dainty canaries, happy bluejays, a mysterious-looking raven. I told myself that the pain would be worth it for the beauty to come.
The next day, my mother looked more apprehensive than I’d ever seen her, pacing the floor back and forth. When she noticed me watching her, she stopped dead in her tracks and looked me right in the eye.
“Today is gonna be the worst day of the process. But it gets easier, I promise. You have to trust me today.”
We both were crying as we walked wordlessly to the bathroom where the freshly sanitized pliers lay on the counter. What was there to say that could dull what was to come? Mama had me lay in the bathtub, so I didn’t get blood everywhere. It took hours to get them all out, and I’m surprised our neighbor didn’t call the police, with all the screaming I was doing. Maybe my mom had planned around him being out of the house, and that was why it had to be that day. Maybe he’d taken her warning to mind his business to heart. All I know is that by nightfall, I was toothless and hoarse from all the screaming, caked with my own dried blood.
Dehydrated from the crying, and weak from lack of food or sleep, I lay unable to move from the pain. I didn’t want to be a bird. Hell, I didn’t want to be alive at this point. My mother sat beside me, stroking a wet washcloth all over my face and weeping with me, humming lullabies from my childhood. She hadn’t wanted to torture me - she wanted to prepare me.
“When your great-grandmother first turned, the beak tried to grow from where her teeth were, and it popped them all out at once. She said she’d never felt anything worse in her whole life.” My mom whispered, still crying.
I didn’t respond. Even if I tried to move my mouth - how could I learn to speak again until we got the dentures? All I could do was hold her silently, feeling all at once very much like an infant.
I lay in bed all day the next day. Mama brought me food and I was grateful for her feeding lessons. She made me another worm smoothie, and I didn’t even flinch as I downed it. I needed protein to heal. If I didn’t heal, I couldn’t become a bird, and it all would’ve been for nothing. I held onto that hope even as I lacked the energy to move, the ability to speak. In such a short time, I’d lost everything - but I knew it could be regained, or even made better by the power I’d be granted.
When my mom came into my room that night she smiled at me, and it was the most genuine smile I’d seen in a long time.
“You’re ready,” she said, beaming with pride. “Tomorrow we’ll learn to fly.”
That was the first time since the whole process began that I felt genuine joy. Even learning the secret, it hadn’t felt tangible - it was like a crazy dream. But tomorrow I’d grow feathers and soar. I could hardly sleep from excitement.
Mama woke me up early the next morning, and I was practically vibrating with excitement. She said nothing to me, knowing I couldn’t respond, but I could tell she was excited too. She prepared a big breakfast with lots of nuts and seeds that she graciously fed to me. After, I changed out of my pajamas and into a flowing linen sundress, one that I thought would catch the air beautifully before I transformed. Mama was practically glowing - she looked happier than I’d seen her in a long time.
On the drive into the big city, we sat in comfortable silence. No music could capture the excitement that radiated from within us. Even toothless and hairless as I was, I found myself catching my reflection in the side mirror and feeling genuinely beautiful in my flowing dress and a wide smile. Mama told me we had to go to the city to fly - the roof simply wasn’t high enough for us to catch decent air. The parking garage she had picked was intimidatingly tall, built for the downtown of the metropolis surrounding us.
As we drove up the hills of the parking garage, circling over and over again, reality set in. For each story we climbed, I realized I would be flying down it. All at once a horrible thought overtook my mind; what if I wasn’t ready? Mama said she was sure I was, but if she was wrong the fall from this height could be deadly. I said nothing, not wanting to spoil the joy of our perfect day, but deep down I was petrified in the face of what would either be the beginning of a great adventure or the end of my life.
At last, we got to the top of the parking garage. Our car was the only one there, which I’m sure my mom had intended. Total privacy. The sky stretched over us in a radiant blue, and I imagined the feeling of jumping into it, like a crisp, cold water. I shivered at the thought. My mother took my hand and walked with me, us both peering over the ledge at the city below. The hundreds of thousands of people who would never know the joy of flight. I almost felt bad for them. My mother looked at me, eyes wide and smile even wider.
“On the count of three. Are you ready?” she whispered, her hand still in mine. I nodded.
“One,”
The people on the city streets below looked like ants from this height. I realized all at once how high we were.
“Two,”
The wind blew, cold and sharp. In a moment I would ride it.
“Three.”
I shut my eyes tight, feeling the anxiety wash over me all at once. I felt my mother’s hand leave mine as she leaped into the sky.
I opened my eyes to see my mother explode in midair. The khakis and blouse she’d been wearing were ripped to shreds, as feathers burst from her skin. She stretched her arms and I heard bones snap as they stretched longer. Taloned feet prone through her sneakers, extending at odd angles. Horribly, her head stayed the same, still bald but now her skin grew scaly and dry.
The horrible six-foot bird with my mother’s head swooped and turned to land back on the perch where I was standing. She had been right about the teeth - coming from her gums, stretching her lips thin into a horrible “o” shape, was a beak made of what looked to be two enormous teeth. The whites of her eyes were no longer visible, and her pupils dilated wider and wider. Her feathers were patchy and oddly placed, showing skin stretched tight and thin underneath. She let out a short yelp that I assumed was supposed to be a caw, but it sounded like my mother’s human voice, quietly shrieking. Looking in the face of my mother, the face of this…thing, I felt no choice. Who was I to disobey an order? I leaped from the balcony.
It’s been a long time since I was thirteen. My mother made me turn into a “bird” more often than I would’ve liked - the process is as painful as it looks. I’m posting because my mother died last week leaving nothing but unanswered questions, and I’m looking for answers. I posted this looking for help in any way I can find it. I don’t want any more surprises. I want any information I can get - have any of you guys ever heard of harpies?