Aidan decided to change the subject. "Would you like me to help you learn to fly?"

"Yeah!" Damien looked a little bit excited, but also a little nervous. There was no trace of his earlier sullenness.

"We could start right now. I see there's a stump over there that you could probably jump off of." Aidan gestured towards the back of the yard, where there were several tree stumps, including one that was perhaps waist high on the boy. Damien looked at it. He hesitated, then nodded.

"Okay."

They both got up and walked over to the stump. Damien looked at it. It wasn't that tall, it should be easy, right? He scrambled up onto it. He looked down and gulped. From up here it looked a lot further down.

"Spread out your wings," said Aidan. Damien nodded and extended them. It felt a little weird, he almost always kept them folded. "Excellent," said Aidan. "All you have to do is keep them spread like that. The wind is going to try and push them back when you jump, so remember to hold them in place, don't let them fold back. Okay?"

Damien looked down again.

"It's scary, I know. It scared me just as much. But you can do it. Even if you don't fly, you'll be okay, it's not as high as it looks. Your feet are a lot lower than your eyes, right?"

Damien laughed a little at that. "Right." He took a deep breath, reminded himself to keep his wings straight, and jumped.

It was more like a fall than a flight, but it was a gentler fall, and he actually glided forward just a little. His feet hit the ground with a thud, but not nearly so hard as he had been expecting. He looked over at Aidan, who was grinning back. "You did it!"

"Yeah! I did!"

"Do you want to try that again, or do you want to try something higher?"

"I think I could try something higher," he said.

Aidan looked around. A stone wall ran along one side of the yard, separating it from the neighbor's property. It hadn't been well kept up, and one end was starting to fall down, but most of it was sound. "How about that?" he said, pointing.

Damien looked nervous again, the wall was chest height on Aidan, and was nearly as tall as he was. But he remembered the feel of that short glide. He could do this. Aidan cupped his hands together and boosted Damien up onto the wall. He scrambled up and got to his feet, balancing carefully on the foot-wide top. He looked down and swallowed. He was so high! He suddenly wanted something to cling to.

"It's okay," said Aidan softly. "I'll stand right here. If you fly successfully you'll just glide on past, and if you fall, I'll be right here and I'll catch you."

"Okay." Damien swallowed again, and opened his wings. He didn't take any more time, he got the feeling that if he thought about it too long he'd just scare himself out of it. He jumped. For an instant he dipped, he'd forgotten about the push of the wind, but he straightened his wings almost as soon as they pushed back, and he glided down to the ground. His landing this time was even softer than the one before.

"Wow. That was really like flying!"

Aidan grinned. "Yes it was. You're doing better than I did! I think I spent about an hour sitting on top of a wall, trying to talk myself into jumping."