Of a Feather Page 2

  Finally, the grumble of a snore rattles across the hall and it’s go time. Creeping downstairs, careful not to squeak any floorboards, I first head for the “bird room.” I’m hoping for a menagerie, but no; it’s just a mostly empty room with shutters over the windows. What do these birds do in here? Boring.

  I sneak into the living room. There are bookshelves and then more books stacked like end tables next to the couch and the overstuffed chair which huddle around the wood stove. I flip through a few—mostly mysteries with gray-haired ladies surrounded by doilies on the covers. Headlights from a passing car scan over the room, catching me like a thief in the act. I freeze; they pass; I search on.

  In a second bookcase near the front window, I hit the jackpot: a photo album. There’s a wedding photo—the alleged aunt was married. The guy looks nice enough. Here’s them hiking, here they are in a canoe. Here’s them with a baby. A little girl. A postcard from the girl: Dear Mom, Dad’s new house is nice. Mindy is nice, too. I miss you. Love, Ava. It was mailed from St. Louis. Ten years ago.

  So I’m in Ava’s—the kid’s—room. The aunt’s divorced. The kid lives with her dad. Did she have a choice? Is this a clue or just what happened?

  A stair creaks.

  I shove the postcard into the album and the album back into the bookcase and scramble toward the kitchen.

  “Maureen?” Beatrice asks, flipping on the hall light.

  “I just wanted a glass of water,” I say, grabbing a glass out of the cabinet.

  She steps into the kitchen, turns on the overhead light. “It’s your house now too.”

  I fill the glass. Take a sip.

  “Maureen,” she begins, “I’m not your mom, but I—”

  “No,” I say, interrupting, “you’re not.” And I’m not her replacement kid. I put the empty glass in the sink and walk past her.

  “Good night,” she says as I tromp upstairs.

  I shut myself in my room. She stays in the kitchen washing that glass for a good ten minutes after.

  2

  Rufus

  I suck the cool air in through my beak. Smoothing my chest feathers, I align my facial disk, twitching each tiny feather, coaxing the night sounds toward my ears. Silence blooms into patterns of noise: the wind in the branches; the sharp scratch of a late summer leaf against its neighbor; the prickling of tall, dry grass in a nearby field. Bugs thump and chitter inside the dead bark of a neighboring trunk. Heartbeats dance in the darkness.

  I’m going for it.

  I lift my wings, spread them wide, and drop silently off the branch. I think there’s a vole . . . just there . . . maybe? Yes, a vole. Or a vole-ish creature somewhere in that pile of grass.

  I glide toward it. Bob my head, try to lock on to the heartbeat. Where was it? Which tussock?

  Now I’m too low.

  I flap.

  Something skitters near the tree. Mine! I swerve, stretch my talons, crash down into the grass like a stone, and—

  Nothing. I’ve got a footful of straw.

  “Forget it,” I say, and flap back up to the branch. We’ve been at this all night, have flown far from the nest to a strange part of the woods, and every single hunting strategy I’ve come up with has failed. I hunch my head down between my wings and fluff my feathers, laying my ear tufts flat back.

  “Second,” Mother peeps softly. “Quitting is not an option.”

  I burrow my head deeper between my shoulders. I know she’s right. But it’s not my fault. I’m doing everything she says. “My ears are broken,” I squeak.

  She hoots softly, “Second.” Even my name is an insult: second egg to hatch, forever destined to be behind. Mother nips my feathers and steps closer on the branch. “It takes time to learn how to hear the world.”

  “First got it on her first night.”

  “First was a week older.”

  “First fledged three weeks ago.” Tonight, Father flapped away to hunt on his own. Mother stayed. But for how long?

  She clacks her beak at me. “Enough of this feeling fluffed. You’re a great horned owl, master of the night forest. You own the darkness. And you will catch that mouse, so help me.” She tromps down the branch, opens her wings, and disappears into the shadows.

  It was a mouse? And I was so sure it was a vole! An entire moon’s worth of studying and I still can’t tell a mouse from a vole . . .

  I clack my beak back at her. It’s not as if I want to be a bum owl. The only owl in the history of owldom who can’t find food in the dark.

  Far off, a saw-whet tooh-toohs. Even that tiny bug of an owl is having better luck hunting.

  I have to stop feeling sorry for myself. I am a great horned owl. Master of the night forest. Master.

  I bob my head up and down, turn it, bob again, do a full circle, am beginning to feel dizzy, but I still can’t pinpoint where in the grass around the bottom of the tree the mouse is rustling.

  I go for it anyway.

  I swoop, glide on a warm current of air, then drop, talons out, wings folded.

  Gah! Leaves! Nothing but dead leaves . . .

  “They’re too fast,” I screech, flapping up from the dust. “I need some slower food to hunt.” But then a better plan hatches in my mind: we could hunt as a team! Why does hunting have to be a solo effort? Who says owls have to live alone?

  “Mother, I have a new plan! Let’s hunt as a team, in a pack, like the coyotes. Maybe you catch something and then leave it for me to finish off? You know, maybe only half kill it, or stun it a little. What about that plan?”

  I land on a branch. “Mother?” I twist my head around first one way, then the other. Her silhouette must be hidden in shadow.

  Or she left me.

  She wouldn’t have left me.

  Would she?

  “Mother?” Fear grips my beak and my hoot comes out as a warbling squeak.

  Something coos from a nearby tree. Not something—Mother.

  Mother is perched a swoop or two away near a space in the woods. I can almost feel her frustration from here. She’s cooing softly because she doesn’t trust me to hear her heartbeat on my own.

  My feathers begin to fluff. I didn’t hear her. I couldn’t. Because I am broken! My ears are full of down and I’m never going to catch a meal ever and—

  “Calm, Second,” Mother coos. But she doesn’t fly to me. She doesn’t hoot anything more.

  She thinks I can do this.

  No.

  I can do this.

  I breathe in the cool air again. Let it calm the frustration and anger building in my gizzard. My feathers smooth. Realign. The noise map of the darkness flickers back to life. Mother has stopped cooing.

  She believes I can find her.

  She believes I can survive.

  I stretch my wings down and back, prepare for flight.

  But there’s a new noise. A rumbling, coming closer, fast.

  Mother hears it, she has to, but instead of waiting to see what it is, she dives from her branch into the clearing in the trees.

  “Second!” she screeches. “I caught two mice! They were just out in the open, eating an apple core!”

  Two mice! We haven’t eaten yet today—Mother’s been trying to use my hunger as motivation and won’t let herself eat until I catch a meal. But two mice out in the open? That is too good to pass up, no matter if it ruins a night’s worth of educational starvation.

  I open my wings to swoop down to her, but blinding light blazes over the crest of the small hill. The low rumble I heard is now a deafening roar. I screech, “Mother!”

  I see her lit in the brilliant light: wings out, ready to fly away.

  But the rumbling monster is faster than even her. There’s a thump and a snap of bones breaking.

  Mother screeches.

  “What’s happening?” I squeak.

  The rumbling monster squeals, stops. Its side flaps open like a stumpy wing and a smaller creature—long-armed and -legged, and thin like a young tree—comes tumbling from i
ts belly. The lanky creature clicks on a small light, yelps, and tries to pick up Mother.

  Mother flaps, but one wing lies still. She stumbles, escapes the lanky creature’s grasp. “Second!” she cries.

  “Mother!” I shriek. My talons seize the bark.

  “Fly away!” she screeches. “Save yourself!”

  “No!”

  The lanky creature throws a thick skin over Mother, muffling her cries. The creature picks her up inside the skin, carries her to the back of the huge hollow monster, lifts its tail, and places Mother in its belly. The lanky creature then scrambles to the open wing, climbs into the belly of the beast, closes the wing, and rumbles on, faster now than before.

  “Mother!” I shriek, regaining my voice. I fly after her, blindly flapping through leaves and sticks. “Mother!”

  The beast is too fast for me. It kicks up dust, blinding me, filling my lungs. I cough and sputter.

  It races away toward distant bright lights. Mother told me to never go near those lights.

  I collapse onto a branch. I clack my beak and pant, flap my wings to free myself of the monster’s dirt.

  Mother’s been eaten.

  My heart pounds, drowning out all other noise in the night.

  She’s gone.

  The wind rushes through my feathers, reaching my skin. I shiver. I’m alone outside the nest. For the first time.

  Alone in a strange forest.

  I creep along the branch until I hit the tree’s trunk. I huddle down inside my feathers, which are all out of place after crashing through the brush. What does it matter? Father warned of predators—other owls, eagles, hawks, coyotes, even skunks—but he never described anything like that monster. And now I’m left alone in its forest?

  Alone, alone, alone. Alooooooone, a coyote cries.

  The cold moon glares down. Shadows crawl. The darkness crackles with things on the hunt.

  With monsters. Hungry monsters.

  “Oh, Mother,” I chirp.

  But Mother is gone.

  I close my eyes tight. Shut my ears to the noises. Maybe if I keep perfectly still, maybe if I turn into nothing more than another patch of darkness, into nothing at all, all the evils of the night will slither by me. Maybe then, I’ll be safe.

  3

  Reenie

  “Maureen!”

  The aunt is up awfully early for a Sunday.

  I meander downstairs to the kitchen. Beatrice is standing with her mason jar of water and car keys.

  “Where are you going?” I ask, picking up a piece of toast from the plate on the counter.

  “I have to take you to Rutland.”

  And then I remember. I have “visitation” with my mom on Sundays from nine in the morning until noon and after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

  “I need to get dressed,” I tell her, dropping the toast.

  When I come downstairs, Beatrice is already in her pickup truck, which is parked in the dirt driveway that runs alongside the house. I slide into the passenger seat.

  “You ready?” she asks.

  “Fine,” I say.

  At first, “visitation” meant driving to the hospital. Then, after Mom was moved to a treatment house, she’d come over to Gram’s. Today, we pull up in front of a coffee place in Rutland.

  “Want me to come in?” Beatrice asks.

  “No.” I slam the door before she can object.

  My mom’s alone at a table. As I walk inside, I make a quick assessment of the situation: Hair is brushed—good sign. Clothes look clean—excellent news. Bags under eyes—warning.

  She sees me and waves, her foot jiggling. She stands and gives me a weak hug. It feels so good, tears sneak out the corners of my eyes. I pretend to wipe my nose on my sleeve and scrape them away.

  “Beatrice’s house is nice,” Mom says. “I saw it once.”

  “It’s nice.” It’s not home, the buzz whispers. I smile hard until it stops.

  She releases me, sits. “You’re okay?”

  “Yeah.” I sit in the other chair.

  “I can’t believe Phil—” Mom stops. Her foot jiggles harder. “I’m so sorry about all this, Reens.” Her voice cracks—alarm bells.

  “Don’t be sorry,” I say. I can’t let things fall apart in the first five minutes. She wipes her eyes—oh man, I can’t let her cry. “It was my fault,” I tell her. “I knew Phil and Gram were in the middle of something, but I had to go to the bathroom. It was just bad luck that Phil threw the plate at that exact second.”

  Mom’s face has gone white. Her cheeks melt down, her mouth opens. “He hit you with a plate?”

  Now I’ve done it. “No, really, Mom, it’s fine. The plate hit the wall. I was barely scratched.” I lift a hunk of hair behind my ear to show her where the shard of plate cut me. “See? It’s totally nothing.”

  Her eyes stare past me out the window.

  “Seriously, everything’s great.” I grab her hand.

  Her eyes come back to me.

  “They have cards here,” I say, pulling a deck from a shelf and splitting it to shuffle. “Want to play hearts?” It’s our game—we even have a special deck of cards . . . somewhere.

  She lifts the corners of her mouth. “I left the magical sparkle cards back at the residence.”

  She remembers—good sign, great sign. Our cards have glittery unicorns on them. “Bring them next time?”

  Mom nods, and then her face sinks. “Next time,” she says, like it’s so far in the future, it may as well be never.

  My cheeks start to vibrate; they’re working so hard to hold my smile. We play hearts for the rest of the time. I lose, and then she loses; we both take turns letting the other one win.

  Beatrice is waiting for me out in the truck at noon. I open the door and climb in.

  “How’d it go?” she asks.

  “Fine.” I curl into the seat, pull my knees up against the seat belt.

  She nods. As we pull onto the state highway, she asks, “You want to go see the school or wait until tomorrow?”

  “I’ve been to Rutland Intermediate before.”

  “Did the social worker not tell you? Well.” She wrings the steering wheel with her hands. “I guess it was late.”

  I let go of my knees and my feet slide to the floor. “Tell me what?”

  “I can’t drive you to Rutland every day. I’ve got work, and it’s just too far.” She says it like we’ve already had this fight, like she’s explained it to me a hundred times.

  “I’m not going to my old school?” The buzz cranks up, creeps out.

  She glances over at me, looking a lot less sure of herself than she sounded. “I’m sorry, Maureen. I wish I could—”

  “It’s fine,” I snap, because the buzz has filled my whole body like a blizzard. I grip my jeans and dig my fingers down. This is not a big deal, I tell the buzz. It’s not like I had friends. It’s not like any of those kids mattered. It’s fine. It’s fine.

  We drive back to Branford. The rumble of the road and the smooth voice of the lady on the radio quiets the noise inside. I let my eyes glaze over watching the green streak by the car window and try not to think about having to march into some strange country school tomorrow.

  When we park at the house, the aunt pulls a couple of shopping bags out of the truck bed. “I stopped at Goodwill while you were at visitation.” She holds out the bags. “Thought you might need—”

  “I don’t need anything,” I say, teeth gritted. “I have clothes at Gram’s, somewhere. I’ll get them when I go back there.” I’m sure my fall stuff didn’t get lost when I moved. At least I think I’m sure.

  The aunt hugs the bags. “Your gram, she—well, the social worker—”

  “Gram can’t find my clothes?” Typical Gram.

  “It’s more complicated than that.” The aunt has gone pale and fidgety. “If they don’t fit, I can get another size.” She holds the bags out.

  I cannot handle any more of this conversation. I grab the bags, go inside
, head right up to my room, throw the bags into the closet, and flop on the bed. At least before, when I was at Gram’s, I could stay at the same school. I had my same clothes. Now, I’m in the middle of nowhere with a stranger and about to be tossed into sixth grade with a bunch more strangers while forced to wear strange clothes that are probably ten sizes too small. I can’t even cry because what’s crying going to do? I’m trapped in this house, in this life, in this everything.

  I try to game out how I can possibly fill the hours until I get to sleep. What I wouldn’t give for a television . . .

  I try to read, but my mind keeps sliding off the page. I stumble over the same paragraph three times, then give up and stare at the pictures.

  I hear a whistle. It’s coming from the back of the house. Is the aunt whistling for me now? And then I hear a scratchy screech and see something flash past the window in Beatrice’s room.

  I sneak across the landing, into her room, to the window. A big old oak blocks half my view. The aunt is standing by some shed wearing what looks like a fancy baseball mitt with tassels. Then I hear that screech again, loud, from somewhere in the oak. I have to get a better view.

  I tiptoe downstairs and into the kitchen. The aunt whistles. I press my face to the glass slider that leads to the backyard. The yard’s scraggly grass is punctuated with wooden posts of various shapes and sizes. Around the back edge of the wide yard, near where the trees start and spread, are wooden sheds with what look like jail cells made out of narrow pipe stuck on the front. Where’s the screecher?

  Beatrice whistles again and taps her glove. A shadow shifts on a tree branch and then lifts out into the light, soars, and crashes onto Beatrice’s baseball mitt.

  When she said she kept birds, I did not imagine this crazy huge bird—bigger than a football—with wild amber eyes and a hooked beak. Red-brown feathers lie smooth on its head, but the longer, fluffier feathers on its chest are white patterned in slashes of red-brown. The bird’s long legs—half the bird’s body is made up of its legs—end in curved black talons that dig into the leather. Now I understand the glove.

  I slide open the door without really thinking, drift across the lawn. “What is that?”

  Beatrice startles. “I thought you were upstairs.” She straightens her shoulders, clears her throat. “This,” Beatrice says, “is Red.”