Rosalie, my sister, was dead.

It had taken her two weeks to do it, but I’d known it would happen from the first “I have no idea” shrug the doctor gave me. But she’d given me this notebook. She told me I had to read it. I didn’t want to but I’d promised her. You don’t break deathbed promises.

I sat down on my sofa and opened the notebook.

Rosie’s writing was as small and tight as ever, the way it had been since she was thirteen and finally got cursive figured out. It was neat and pretty and clear, with made of fluid, looping lines. There was an air of easy speed to it that I’d always admired and could never replicate. This is what she wrote.

I first met him at that pizza joint across the street, when I was still working there. It was a miserable day, all rainy and dark, one of those days where it never really seems like daytime.

I was near the end of my shift when he came in and sat down in a booth. I felt pity rise in my stomach. The man was a hunchback. It looked like his shoulder blades had grown in upside down.

He also looked like a bum, but because it’s my job, I went up to him and asked what I could get him. He got a slice of pizza with a lot of meat on it and a coke. So, of course, I went and got it for him. When I came back with it and asked if there was anything else I could get for him, he shifted around in the booth a little but didn’t answer.

“Is there anything else I can get for you, sir?” I asked again.

He stared at me, and shifted a little more.

I started to edge out of reach, wondering what he was going to do.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “Nothing else for now, thanks.” He smiled a little. He looked charming in a tired sort of way. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out an old paperback book. I saw that it was a copy of White Nights and other Dostoyevsky short stories.

“You like Dostoyevsky?” I said.

“Mhm,” he said, smiling again. He had big eyes, very dark blue. His gentility was entirely belied by his appearance.

We talked for a quite a while. Long story short, I ended up inviting him back to my house for dinner.

Here there was a drawing, taking up most of the next age. It was of a man who could have been anywhere was eighteen to forty. He had straggly hair pulled back into a rough ponytail, and his coat was dirty and bunched up around his shoulders. They had a strange line, as if his shoulder blades had grown upside down. His mouth looked wide and his eyes looked a little too large. I had no idea what made him seem at all attractive to her.

Rosalie was a good artist.

When we came back to my apartment, I made him pasta and took out a bottle of wine that I kept around in case of impromptu visits. I don’t remember what we talked about but the bottle of wine, which had been mostly full when I took it out, was an inch from empty by the time we got around to anything important.

His words came after a long silence.

“But you see, Rosalie, I’m not like other men,” he’d said. “I have, I suppose you might call it a condition.”

“Really?” I said. I guess you can tell how plastered I was, because I hate to hear people talk about their “conditions.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Everyone I get close to – They die. I don’t know what it is, but it’s bad.”

“I bet,” I said. I didn’t quite make the connection.

“It’s not like I want to,” he said. “But I... I can’t help it.”

“Yeah,” I said, wondering what his shoulders really looked like. I think I might even have asked him, but I can’t remember.

Anyway, if I didn’t ask he must have read my mind or something. He pulled off his coat and a crumpled jacket, showing his nominally-white shirt. The line of his shirt over his shoulders...

“You’re an angel,” I remember saying.

He was emaciated, ribs and a little muscle showing through his skin like an anatomical drawing waiting to happen. But rising, unbound, from the lower points of his shoulder blades were the most beautiful wings I’ve ever seen. They were soft and luminescent gray. Something – a draft, I guess – made the tips tremble.

“And they – they work?” I asked.

He nodded. I know we must have said something, because of what we did next, but in my memory the scene is silent as a movie. But the next thing I remember, we’re flying, high up over the city, passing the steelworks, the river, hovering over the historic district, floating above the Greek Church. I was wrapped in his arms, freezing but not cold, silent and joyful.

The next thing – I have no memory of how we returned home, or what we did when we got there, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to – I was waking up on the floor of my room, leaning against the bed. There was no remnant of his stay except a long, gray feather.

I was in the shower, still thinking about the night before, when I started to cough blood. It hurt.

“Everyone I get close to – they die.”

I drove myself to the hospital after that, and you know the rest.

I shut the notebook and closed my eyes.

A few days later, we held her funeral. Our father came out from his nursing home, with his attendant and his wheelchair and his Alzheimer’s, and a few of Rosalie’s friends came. They stood around in a little black cluster, uncomfortable because they didn’t know me or anybody else there. An aunt that I’d forgotten I had came out of the woodwork, and a couple of sullen cousins.

I left the wake as soon as it started, leaving it in the hopefully capable hands of the forgotten aunt. I wanted to forget everything. I was tired. But, much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to get drunk.

I was sitting there, smoking, nursing the drink, when he came in. I must have been there for hours, but I don’t know exactly how long it was.

But I saw him walk in, recognized his coat and his hair and his eyes and his shoulders. He had been the subject of Rosalie’s drawing in the notebook.

I had to play it cool. I bought him a drink, then another and another. He had been a little smashed when he came in, but I needed to help him along.

I remember, slowly, bringing the conversation around to Rosalie.

“I met a girl named Rosalie a couple of weeks ago,” said the man. He smiled in what he obviously thought was a roguish fashion. “I’m quite the lady-killer, you know,” he said. “Literally. You see, I have this condition...”

“Would you like to take a walk?” I said.

“Sure,” said the man. “Sure, sounds good.”

I hated him – suddenly, intensely – for speaking about my sister that way. It wasn’t even anything he’d said. But the things he implied or that I thought he implied drove me wild.

We stepped out into the cold night air. We walked along the sidewalk for a few minutes. I was basically supporting him, and I could feel the structure of his wings under his jacket. The very thought of them ˆ those wings, the tools of his seduction, angered me.

As soon as we came to an alley, I led him down it.

“What are we doing here?” he asked, looking around.

I grabbed his shoulders and slammed him back into the brick wall behind him. I heard his head hit it.

“You’re the man,” I said. “You’re the man who killed my sister.

He stared at me for a moment, then smiled drunkenly.

“Yeah, that’s me, Andy.”

“You’re going to die,” I said. I grabbed his head and smashed it into the brick, again and again. He giggled like a junkie, and I hit him harder into the wall, until he slid from my grasp and crumpled to the pavement, leaving a muddy layer of blood on the bricks. He was laughing weakly now, and he smiled up at me from the pavement.

“Knew you’d do it,” he said, his voice wet. “Knew you would.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, kicking his chest. He seemed to be winded for a moment, but I couldn’t tell. He made no attempt to fight back at all, just took it. I kicked him two or three more times for good measure, but he didn’t do anything to stop me. When I was done, he grabbed my jacket and pulled me down to eye level with him.

“You set me free,” he said. He started chuckling manically again. “You did it, and now you’ll be just like me.” He smiled broadly.

“What are you...” I trailed off. I could feel something tingling in my shoulder blades.

“You’ll be just like me,” he said, alcohol heavy on his breath. “Deformed, destined to kill the ones you love. There’ll be no love for you, Andrew Allen, no love and no redemption.” He laughed again, and it devolved into a harsh cough. He regained control of himself, pulled me closer and whispered, “Thanks, man.” His breath was rasping in his throat. He laughed again, harder.

I stood up, and immediately arched backwards in agony, hearing his wet and painful laugh. Something large and heavy was growing from my back. I felt it burst through my shirt, then my jacket. I couldn’t tell what it was. I felt my back, spinning around, unable to tell what was going on.

“I watched her for ages, Andrew,” said the man on the ground, his voice wet and gasping. “I watched her. I knew you’d do this for me.” He smiled.

It took every fiber of my being not to cry out in pain as I arched backwards again. I stumbled back into the wall opposite the laughing man, but something stopped my back from connecting with it, something large and heavy. I felt frantically, trying to figure out what was happening to me. Then my hands found feathers, and I saw the tips of something coming down behind my back. Something was moving my shoulder blades in ways they’d never moved before.

“You!” I gasped, pushing off from the wall. “You!” I kicked him in the face, feeling his nose crush under my foot.

His laugh was a manic, marshy gurgle.

“See you around,” he murmured through his ghastly laugh.

“Go to hell,” I said, and kicked him again.

He gave one more weak laugh, then fell silent.

I stared at him for a moment. His chest no longer rose and fell. Then, bent forwards from the weight of the wings that would be my curse, I walked out of the alley.

“Whatever you do, I know you’ll do the right thing.” I could have cried.