"Wings" by Christina Stark, summary Automatic translate

"Wings" is the debut novel by contemporary writer Kristina Stark, published in 2015 by AST. It tells the story of seventeen-year-old Lika Werner from Simferopol, who discovers an uncontrollable ability to "throw herself" from her own body into another’s — under the influence of pain, fear, or extreme shock. Written in the first person, the novel covers one year of the heroine’s life, from the summer of 2011 to the following summer.

Attack in a flower shop

Lika works as a saleswoman in Olga’s flower shop — a modest, self-conscious woman with chestnut hair and gray eyes, which she compares to the color of wet asphalt. During the hot Simferopol summer of 2011, skinheads burst into the shop: they smash the display case with a bat, kick Lika in the side (breaking two ribs), douse the shop with kerosene, and set it on fire. Berkut officers discover Lika, stricken with shrapnel wounds, and Olga, unconscious.

In the hospital, Lika is haunted by a recurring nightmare: she’s lying in a red dress, being lifted from the floor, and next to her is Felix, wearing a maroon beret with an eagle patch and two wings on his back. When her stepmother, Anna, mentions that one of the detainees smashed his head on the metal partition in the police car, Lika suddenly realizes: it wasn’t a dream. In a moment of shock, her consciousness leapt into the body of the very same guy in black boots who hit her, and it was she — with her own hands — who punished him.

The family is in ruins

Soon after his recovery, Lika’s father, a geneticist, received an invitation to the Center for Molecular Biology at Heidelberg University and left for Germany. According to a family agreement, her stepmother, Anna, remained in Simferopol for another year — until Lika graduated from high school and Felix, her half-brother, graduated from college.

Felix — five years older than Lika, dark-haired, tall, and, by all accounts, quite attractive — is a man Lika never respected. After his father left, he completely lost it: alcohol, drugs, the company of bald-headed friends, coming home in a state of delirium. One evening, when Anna left for Yalta, he brings six muscle-bound friends home. Lika retreats to her room, locks herself in, and remains silent — a silence she later regrets for a long time.

Felix is expelled from college. Then he simply disappears: his phone is disconnected, he’s not in the dorm. Anna calls the police, and a fruitless search begins. Her father comes to support his wife several times, but she refuses to let him return permanently. Depression literally destroys Anna — Lika cooks her dinner, reads to her, and puts her to bed like she’s a small child.

Ability and its price

Her final school year has begun. The "jumps" continue: Lika jumps into the body of her teacher during chemistry class, into the body of her classmate Vitka Chizhov during physical education, and into the body of her classmate Vitka Chizhov during biology and physics. Her body loses consciousness and collapses on her desk, leaving her classmates to assume she’s pregnant or ill. Lika concocts a story about a cerebrovascular accident and begins keeping a notebook, methodically recording each "jump," its circumstances, and its trigger. The conclusion is both simple and terrifying: you can’t be nervous, you can’t feel pain. And the life of a seventeen-year-old girl, whose brother has disappeared, whose stepmother is gravely ill, and whose father is absent, is almost one continuous pain.

Then someone starts calling her phone, calling her "Likusik" and insisting on meeting — clearly someone from Felix’s circle. Lika hangs up every time.

Stephen

Looking for a German tutor, Lika finds a name in the newspaper — Helga Adolfovna — and attends. Instead of the elderly teacher, she’s met by red-haired Stefan, Helga’s grandson, who went to a sanatorium. Tall, resembling Prince Harry, with mocking eyes, he tutors Lika all day, and as he walks her to the taxi, he takes her hand and asks what she’s doing tomorrow.

The first kiss takes place under the porch of the building. In the midst of it, Lika is thrown into Stefan’s body: she stands there, clutching her own lifeless body in his arms. A few agonizing minutes in someone else’s body — and then she returns. Stefan remembers nothing, but finds himself involuntarily squeezing her throat. Shocked beyond words, Lika runs away without explaining anything. She remains ill for two weeks. When he calls, she refuses to meet.

Kyiv

Her friends, Alka and Ida, take Lika to Kyiv: she needs a change of scenery. They warm up with tea after a pouring rain at Alka’s aunt Tanya, a drug addiction specialist, and learn that she has received a mysterious job offer at a Swiss clinic. They then head out for a night of clubbing. On an unfamiliar side street, Lika suddenly experiences a strong premonition in front of a bookstore window with a Jojo Moyes poster. She’s overcome by the feeling that someone important is just around the corner. Ignoring her friends, she runs through the Kyiv night — and is hit by a car.

She’s thrown into the body of a random street kid somewhere nearby. Lika rushes through unfamiliar courtyards, trying to find the scene of the accident, and finally stumbles upon Felix.

The Return of Felix

Felix is alive. He’s changed. He found Lika thanks to a tracking device he secretly placed on her beforehand. The person Lika inhabited during the accident was his man — and he died protecting her. Felix takes Lika home, and along the way, she tries to understand what happened to him this past year. He’s evasive, but he admits one thing: he’s "not quite the same" as her.

At home, Anna ends up in the hospital – suffering from a heart attack. Olga, who had become friends with her stepmother during these difficult months, is busy in the garden. Felix stays until nightfall, making tea and watching over Lika. In the dim light of her room, they sit on the windowsill, and he tells her a terrible story: that night with drugs and friends – the Felix stood at her door and thought about breaking in. Now these strange memories live in his head, and he can’t bear them. Lika asks how this new Felix feels when he looks at her. He hugs her, and they stand forehead to forehead, almost at the line. Then he retreats: "I feel like I’ve never been so close to repeating my mistake." And he says he has to leave.

Lika cries, begs him to stay. He replies that he’d like to come back, but he doesn’t know if he can. He leaves. Outside, it’s a summer night, and the bird of hope that Lika has been feeding all this time simply flaps its wings and vanishes into thin air.