Of a Feather Read online

  “Oh!” Again, the screech sends the whole forest squeaking and rustling. “What news! That’s the best thing that could have happened!” The hawk is flapping around her nest, shrieking with joy. “The human probably brought her someplace like here. Sometimes my partner takes a bird that has been hit by those growling, shiny monstrosities and helps it get better. When it’s healed, she lets it go back into the sky.”

  I run my beak over my hurt wing. It feels better—no stinging, no burning. It’s even less stiff. The furless creatures made me better. Could it be that somewhere, a furless creature is helping Mother get better too?

  “Do you really think so?” I can barely let myself dream that it’s true.

  “I do,” the hawk says, stamping her talons. “And when you’re better, they’ll send you out to find her. Hopefully after they teach you to hunt. You can call me Red, by the bye.”

  At first, hearing those chirps, I’m ready to fly off this very heartbeat. But then somewhere out in the night, the yip of a fox echoes. And I’m reminded of all the terrible things outside these walls that are waiting for a meal to fly into their snouts. A helpless, hopeless owl of a meal. An owl who’s only ever caught one vole in his whole stupid short life.

  “Don’t get fluffed, Owl,” Red twitters. “I’ll help you learn how to hunt. My partner will help too, I’m sure of it. We won’t send you out to starve and be eaten by a bumble-footed goshawk.”

  Relief like smooth fur down my gullet calms my feathers. “You really don’t like goshawks.”

  Red clacks her beak. “No one likes goshawks. Great big feathers-for-brains bullies.” She grumbles softly to herself for a few more heartbeats, and then I hear her snuffling in her sleep.

  The furless creatures are here to help birds. They help birds get better and then let them fly free. And Red’s going to teach me to hunt. I’ll catch a vole—no, two voles—no, THREE voles and a mouse and scarf them all down! And then, I’ll be set free to find Mother and First and Father. They’ll be waiting for me in the branches, wings wide. We’ll fly together through the velvet night and hoot as loudly as we want!

  HOOT-HOO-HOO-HOOT!

  “Gizzards and crops!” Red squawks, sounding completely fluffed. “Please, Owl, do keep it down for us day birds.”

  “Sorry, Red.”

  “Blasted owls,” she grumbles. “Hooting all night. Waking me from the nicest dream. Here, squirrelly . . . I see your fluffy tail wiggling . . .”

  I twitter softly to myself, just imagining her crouched on her perch, ready to pounce on her dream squirrel.

  That’s going to be me, I hoot to myself. I’m going to learn how to hunt. I’m going to fly free.

  I find a comfortable perch in this warm and safe nest and listen to the world of the night—my world, the world of the owl—chitter and snuffle and scrape and chirp all around me.

  13

  Reenie

  “Now a little farther from the perch,” Beatrice commands. We’re back inside the bird room, and Rufus is hopping from the perch to my fist.

  Most of the time.

  This time, I’m apparently too far for him to bother with flying for the tidbit. He clasps and unclasps his talons, shifting around on the perch. He swivels his head to check out the rest of the room.

  “I could move closer,” I say. Maybe I’m pushing him too fast. It’s Saturday, and we’ve been working on this every minute I haven’t been in school, but still . . .

  Beatrice sighs. “No, he’s done,” she says. “But you got a few good hops in there. I think we can try him on the creance soon.” The creance is a long string you tie to your bird’s jesses so that he can fly to you from farther away without you having to worry that he’s going to fly off entirely.

  It’s also something you only use outside.

  “We’re going to fly him outside?” The thought of flying Rufus through the sunset sky, of us soaring through the trees, curls my lips into a smile. But the buzz whispers, Alone.

  Falconers lose hawks outside. Even on the creance, Rufus could snag the string on a sharp edge and escape, or I could drop the creance and he’d be lost.

  “We’ll start by just walking him around outside.” Beatrice takes off her work gloves. “Then we’ll see if he wants to fly.”

  Panic skitters like spiders underneath my skin. “But he could hurt his wing.”

  Beatrice looks at him. “He’s not even favoring it anymore. I think he’s ready.”

  But what if she’s wrong? What if his wing can’t take the strain? What if he crashes and it gets worse? What if I ruin him? the buzz whispers.

  “But it’s only been a few days,” I say.

  “He’s a young bird and he’s healing well,” Beatrice says, standing. “He’s got to get back in the air.” She folds her arms across her chest. “He has to stay wild, remember. He’s not a pet.”

  “But what about manning him?” I’m ready to scoop Rufus up and hide him in my sweatshirt—I do not want to think about letting him go, not for months, not until the spring. Not ever.

  Beatrice smiles. “I’m not worried about manning this bird.”

  I turn around and see that Rufus has hopped off his perch and is pecking at the zipper on my hoodie, which dangles from my waist. I roll onto my butt to get a better look, dragging the zipper across the floor, and Rufus hops after it, grabbing with his talons.

  A laugh burbles out from between my lips, the panic scatters, the buzz quiets. “Is he playing?”

  “What do you think he’s doing?” Beatrice asks.

  I untie the sleeves of my hoodie so I can drag it farther and get Rufus to stretch his legs. My wood carving from recess on Friday flops out of my pocket.

  “What’s this?” Beatrice asks, picking it up.

  The buzz whispers, Dangerous. Do I tell her? Is it safe to share? I decide to just go for it.

  “It’s going to be an owl,” I say, keeping my eyes on Rufus’s silly dance. “My friend—I mean, this kid at school, Jaxon? He whittles. But he can’t bring a knife to school, so we’re whittling with pens. That’s why there’s blue smudges.”

  I glance up, and Beatrice has this queer smile on her lips as she turns the wood over in her hands.

  “Huh.” She hands it back to me. “I like it.”

  There’s a little release inside, like air from a bag of chips.

  “Me too,” I say, looking at my owl. The other owl, the real one, has captured my zipper and is ripping his beak through the fabric around it.

  “Rufus, no!” I yelp, and go to pull the sweatshirt back.

  “Stop!” Beatrice snaps. I freeze. There’s that shiver of fear, the crackle of buzz—I’ve ruined it, she’s had enough of me—but it fizzles away just as quickly. I get that the yelling is about Rufus; I understand that she’s protecting us both.

  “Never take prey from your bird,” Beatrice—no, Aunt Bea—instructs. She kneels down beside me. “You’re building trust here. He’s not a dog; he’s a predator and you’re his partner. He’s caught some interesting prey. Now you have to make a switch.”

  She hands me what looks like an old dog toy with the wings of a dead bird stuck into it.

  “That’s gross,” I say.

  “That’s a lure,” she says. “See if he’ll take it instead.”

  I bend forward, sliding the lure across the floor. I push it right up to Rufus’s talons. He’s too busy shredding the hem of my sweatshirt. Aunt Bea jerks her hand, and the lure jumps—it’s attached to a string.

  That got Rufus’s attention: the tufts are up.

  She jerks it again.

  Rufus’s ear tufts lie back. His eyes are glued on the lure. His wings droop down, a sign he’s ready to fly.

  She jerks the lure again.

  Rufus is up and pounces on the lure. He screeches and flaps and tears with his talons and then with his beak.

  “Get that sweatshirt out of here,” Aunt Bea whispers.

  I sneak my shirt away and toss it out the door into the kitche
n.

  Aunt Bea is still jerking and flapping the lure around and Rufus is screeching and lumbering after it, wings wide in an attempt to look big and intimidating. I can tell Aunt Bea is trying not to laugh at him. We have the same smile burning across our faces. Rufus, though, is oblivious, as he’s completely focused on attacking the skittering lure.

  “Owls hunt with their ears,” Aunt Bea says. “We have to figure out how to make a lure that focuses his hearing.”

  “The dog toy!” I whisper. I creep around to where I found the basket of old dog toys. There are a bunch of thin plastic squeaky things, but I need something that can stand up to a talon. I find a thin rope toy with a tough-looking rubber ball attached to its middle. The ball has a bell buried inside it. Perfect. I crawl back, waving it.

  Aunt Bea stares at the toy for a second—did she not know they were there?—then shrugs. “Tie a string to it.”

  I find some twine in the kitchen. I use one of my loop-knots I practiced for the bal-chatri trap—it’s perfect. Aunt Bea has Rufus on the opposite side of the perch. I swing the rope toy slightly, giving off a faint jingle.

  Rufus’s head instantly swivels. I’ve got two yellow eyes on me. No, not on me—on the toy.

  He screeches and flaps right over the perch, attacking the toy.

  “Yes,” hisses Aunt Bea. “That’s it.”

  “Did you see that?” I whisper. Rufus is attacking the toy, pulling tufts of string from it.

  “We should stop him before he gets to the bell.”

  “Oh,” I say. “How?”

  She looks at me, eyebrows raised. She thinks I know the answer? Wait, do I know the answer?

  A tidbit. What’s better than pretend food? Real food. And maybe after all this shredding, Rufus is hungry again.

  I pull a scrap of mouse from the pouch I have hooked on my jeans.

  Aunt Bea smiles. “You’ve got it. Now flick it to the side.”

  I flip it off my finger like a freshly picked booger and Rufus instantly whips his head to follow its flight, his reflexes so fast it’s like he knew I would flick it. He flaps and pounces on the meat. Aunt Bea sneaks a hand lightning-fast across the floor and grabs the toy, hiding it in a pocket of her cardigan.

  Rufus gulps the tidbit down, turns his big eyes to me.

  “Now get him on the fist,” Aunt Bea says.

  I nod, stick a tidbit on my glove, whistle, shake my fist.

  He squawks. And then hops up onto my fist. He gulps the tidbit down, then stands there, chirping and peeping and twisting his head in circles.

  Aunt Bea tips her head to us. “That bird is manned.”

  I manage to do all my reading for English class with Rufus sitting on my fist. Aunt Bea calls me for dinner, and I hook Rufus back onto the leash and let him hop off my fist onto the perch. He squawks, then rouses and begins to preen. He knows he’s safe. He knows he’s home.

  I hunch over my bowl and eat my soup. This isn’t Rufus’s home, though. At some point, after he’s come to love this house, after he feels safe, he’s going to get thrown back into the wild to fend for himself.

  I can’t let him get soft. He can’t forget where he came from.

  After dinner, instead of working with Rufus on my fist like I’d planned, I put him back in the aviary. I sit at the kitchen table alone and finish my math homework while Aunt Bea reads in the living room.

  I haven’t written to Mom since Monday. I’ve gotten two letters from her. She’s on a new dose of her medication. She thinks it’s helping already.

  I want to believe her. I want to trust that it’s for good this time. But I want to do that every time.

  This golden light floods through the windows and turns the whole house into a honey-scape. The numbers float on the page. I close my math book. Aunt Bea is flipping through her book, which I see now is actually a photo album.

  “Are those pictures of your daughter?” I ask, walking over to the couch.

  Aunt Bea smiles tightly. “No,” she says, moving over to let me sit beside her. “These are pictures of my dog, Buckles.” She turns the page and there’s this scrawny wirehaired little dog. “He died a year ago. Used to help me and Red hunt.”

  Gulp. “Are those his toys Rufus is destroying?” Now I feel bad.

  She snuffles a little laugh. “Yes,” she says. “But better he eat them than they be left collecting dust in the corner.” She runs her thumb along the edge of a picture of Buckles in the grass, paws down, butt up, ready to chase something. “Buckles would have wanted a raptor to have his toys.”

  She flips slowly through the pages. There’s one old picture with a girl who looks my age. She has stick-straight white-blond hair and holds Buckles like a baby in her arms—the daughter.

  “That’s Ava,” Aunt Bea says, turning the page toward me. “We adopted Buckles together when her father and I first . . . when we divorced. He and his new wife decided to move to St. Louis a year later for some job. Ava went with them.”

  “She wanted to go?” I ask, because I can’t imagine wanting to leave here.

  “The judge—” She stops. “Sometimes you don’t get to choose.”

  I didn’t choose to come here. It won’t be my choice to leave, either. Why would I ever want to leave this place? But then I feel Mom like some ghost limb, a part of me that’s been taken. I don’t even have a picture of her—no one prints photos anymore. All I have of us is the marabou, and it’s lost most of its fluff.

  Aunt Bea flips to the next page—Buckles again, this time with Red blurry in the sky behind him. “Ava visited during the holidays and a few weeks in the summer. And we talked on the phone. But she’s older now. She’s in college, studying to be a nurse. Last time she emailed me, she mentioned a boyfriend she was thinking of moving in with, after graduation.” She stares at the picture like she’s looking for Ava hovering in the shadows.

  Aunt Bea looks so sad. The buzz crackles: Dangerous. What if Aunt Bea’s like Mom—what if the sadness takes her, too? I can’t believe I got her talking about this—typical me. I have to fix this.

  “You should invite her back,” I say. “I could sleep in the bird room.” I have to force the words out. I don’t want to give up my room.

  Aunt Bea smiles, closes the book. “Even if Ava did come back,” she says, “you’d sleep in your room.”

  Why does hearing her call it that make me want to cry? Because it’s not my room. Not my house, not my homework, not my anything.

  And now I am crying.

  Aunt Bea seems flustered. “Oh, Maureen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just . . . I’m not very good at people.” She finds a box of tissues and hands it to me.

  My insides roll and twist and the buzz screams, DANGEROUS, and I have to get away.

  “I should check on Rufus,” I say, wiping my face clean on my sleeve.

  “Wait,” Aunt Bea says, placing her hand on my arm.

  I sink into her touch, back down onto the couch.

  “I meant that about the room,” she says. “When they called me about taking you in, they said I had to be prepared for it being for good. I had to agree to that. And I want you to know that. Because I meant it when I said it to the judge, and I mean it now.”

  The buzz shivers along my skin: Dangerous. But it feels wrong. Aunt Bea is not Mom.

  “No matter what happens, you always have a place here, okay, Maureen?” She looks at me straight on, in this way most grownups don’t even use with each other.

  That look melts the buzz away. I decide to try something different, to try trust. “Okay,” I say.

  Her lips curl into a small smile, and I know she knows that my whole soul has up and wrapped itself around her.

  “Reenie,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Call me Reenie.”

  She looks confused.

  “It’s my nickname,” I explain. “You can call me it,” I add. “I mean, if you want to.”

  She snorts a little laugh. “Reenie.” Sh
e chews the name over. “It suits you.”

  That night, as I sleep, I listen to Rufus hooting like a one-owl rock band out in the night. I know what he’s feeling: he’s found a home.

  14

  Reenie

  “I hunted!” I hoot to Red, who’s pretending to be asleep in her nest. “I heard the root tweeting and I hunted it dead!”

  “Gah! Owls! Don’t you ever sleep?” Red squawks, snapping her wings and stomping her talons. “That’s not hunting, Owl. That’s practice.”

  “What are you talking about?” I chirp. “I heard the root and I pounced. It was in shreds when I finished.”

  “It was a root, though?” asks Red.

  “Yes,” I say, restating the obvious. Honestly, this bird listens to less than half of my hoots.

  “I doubt it was an actual root,” she says, chattering on. “But regardless, if it wasn’t prey, it wasn’t hunting. It was practice to help you get into your instincts.”

  Get into my instincts? “No way,” I squawk, flapping over to the rock perch to mute. “The root tweeted, and I killed it dead.”

  “Fine. Seeing as you’re the expert hunter of the pair of us,” she grumbles, “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “Now, that’s just rude.”

  “Owl, I sleep at night. Please shut your beak.”

  She rouses her feathers, tromps around her perch, and is silent.

  Could she be right? Could my amazing feats of murder and destruction really only be practice?

  Of course it’s just practice. Obviously only the Worst Owl—no, Worst Bird of Prey—in the Whole Forest thinks hunting a squeaking root is the same as hunting a mouse. Mice are cunning. Mice have legs. Mice are sneaky on their tiny sneaky feet.

  I have to practice on living things. But where am I going to find a living thing?

  Something small smacks into the wall of my nest. A buzzing thing. A bug!

  Yes, perfect. I will hunt bugs.

  Now, where is that bug?

  I lift my feathers, twist and turn them, sculpting the sounds the way my wings work the wind. The night around me takes shape. Far away, I hear the leaves of the forest trees rustling. Closer, the blades of grass slipping along the stalks of their neighbors. Heartbeats—hundreds of them, some close, some far—pound out pulses, making the once silent darkness a thrum of noise.