Of a Feather Read online

  The bird looks right at me. The feathers on the back of its head lift into a crown. It opens its wings like a cartoon villain with a cape and flaps slowly, showing off.

  It looks toward Beatrice and gives a little squeak of a call. Beatrice whips her arm and the bird flies away into a tree, and it’s like I’ve been given a gift, seeing this magic flight, a slow swoop and glide over the grass and then flap up to a branch.

  “She’s a red-tailed hawk,” my aunt says, stepping toward me.

  “Is she your pet?”

  Beatrice snorts as if the word offends. “A hawk is nobody’s pet.”

  She whistles, raises her left arm, and shakes the glove, in which I see there’s a dead mouse. The hawk comes soaring out of the shadows. The only warning of her approach is the tinkling of the tiny bells attached to her legs. She swoops up and lands neatly on the glove, light as a bubble, and skewers the mouse with her beak. She swallows the whole thing down, then turns her attention to the stranger in her yard.

  Red looks at me, through me, inside me, like she knows everything about me. Like there’s no such thing as a secret.

  She doesn’t look away.

  “Do you like birds?” Beatrice asks.

  The word bird seems too plain for Red. Imagine if, when Snow White or Cinderella whistled and sang, instead of twittering little nothing birds who folded ribbon and sewed skirts, she got this dragon of a bird, big enough to rip an evil queen’s heart out.

  “I like her,” I say, reaching a hand out to touch the feathers, like scales . . .

  Beatrice grabs my fingers in midair, wrenches my hand down. “Never touch a hawk’s face.”

  Anger flashes up like fire. I jerk my hand back. “Fine,” I snap.

  Like I need this bird. Like I need anything. Alone, alone . . .

  I turn to go inside. The buzz is a strangling roar in my throat.

  “Wait,” Beatrice yelps. “Maureen,” she says, voice calmer. “Let me show you. Please.”

  I peek back over my shoulder.

  “Like this,” she says, and rubs one finger on Red’s chest. “You try.”

  The buzz whispers, Don’t. Dangerous. But Red—her feathers glow in the sunlight. I can’t resist.

  I creep back, stretch my finger, and touch the soft feathers. It’s like she’s made of cloud.

  “It’s almost passage bird season,” Beatrice says. “I’m planning on catching a passage red-tail. I’m going to need help feeding the birds and cleaning the mews.”

  “The what?”

  “These aviaries.” She points to the sheds. “They’re called mews. I hope to catch a hawk and I could use your help taking care of it. If you wanted to help.”

  I look at this beautiful bird. “She’s trapped here?”

  Beatrice shakes her head, relaxes her shoulders. “Red’s an imprinted bird. I bought her as a chick from a breeder for the falconry school. She’s never lived in the wild—never could, either.” She swings her arm and Red soars away into the top of a tall pine. “I do plan to catch a wild bird using a trap, but even that I don’t think of as trapping. The world is a tough place for a hawk. Humans have encroached on their forests with power lines and rat poison. And Nature herself was never easy on birds of prey. Most first-year birds won’t make it through the winter. So by catching a passage hawk and training it, and also keeping it fed and warm in these mews, I am taking something wild for myself, yes, but I’m also helping it survive a world that’s hard on the young and vulnerable.”

  She whistles and Red swoops down from the branches, bells tinkling in her wake. It’s all a blur, as my eyes have teared over. It’s not like I don’t know about the world being hard.

  Beatrice goes on. “I’ve trapped passage hawks for a number of years now. Seen every one through to the spring, watched them fly off into the rest of their lives. I like to think that at least for some of those birds, I made that possible for them.”

  She slings her fist and Red flies off again, flapping deeper into the surrounding trees. “Falconry is not about trapping. Once a bird’s trained, they fly free on the hunt. If the bird wants, it can take off for the hills.”

  “Why doesn’t she?” I ask, eyes searching the shadows for Red.

  Beatrice glances at me. “Because falconry is about trust.” She whistles and Red emerges from the branches, wings wide, circling and then diving back to Beatrice’s glove. “Red knows I’m here to keep her safe and healthy. She trusts that I won’t put her in danger on a hunt and will rustle up enough prey to keep her happy.

  “Like I said, a hawk’s not a pet. She’s a partner.”

  A partner . . . And suddenly I’m soaring above the clouds on the wings of a dragon bird, my dragon bird . . .

  Red squawks, and Beatrice feeds her another chunk of meat. “I could teach you.”

  “Falconry?” I ask, sounding way more hopeful and excited than I would normally allow, seeing as she sprang it on me.

  She nods, smiling like she knows she got me. “As a master falconer, I can train an apprentice.”

  My eyes are practically popping out of my head.

  “I can’t officially register you,” she goes on, establishing the limits of the fantasy. “You’re too young for the license. But we can do something unofficial.”

  I nod, afraid to say anything because I’m not even thinking in words, but in exclamation points.

  “You can touch her again,” she says, “if you want.” A smile flickers at the corners of her mouth. She turns Red’s rust-striped chest toward me.

  This could all be a trick, some help-the-foster-kid plot, but then I lock eyes with Red and I decide it doesn’t matter. My fingertip touches the smooth outer feathers, the fluff of down beneath, then hits the breastbone.

  Red squeaks and promptly poops on my sneaker.

  Beatrice smirks. “We’re going to have to get you some boots.”

  I don’t even care. My fingers are already reaching again, running along the ridges of Red’s feathers, imagining how it’s possible to soar on such wisps.

  4

  Rufus

  Day passes, night too, but I stay huddled inside my feathers against the rough bark of the evergreen tree. The thick thatch of its branches is like a nest, almost feels like home. But then I remember that Mother is gone—I see her shadow in the growling monster’s lights—and I feel like there will never be a home for me again.

  A little after dawn, something snuffles in the leaves around my tree’s roots. It doesn’t matter. Let whatever it is pass.

  But it doesn’t pass.

  The tree shivers as claws scrape the trunk.

  I crack open my eyes, bend my head around. I can’t see the climber, but something breathing in raspy breaths is definitely hitching its way up my tree trunk.

  I shuffle away from the trunk but get tangled in the web of branches. I slash at them with my talons, break a twig.

  There’s a high-pitched yip followed by a growling grumble, and snot sprays my wing that’s closest to the trunk. I dare to turn my head.

  Great Beak! It’s a giant rodent covered in sharp spines. The spines bristle and flex—this animal has the most dangerous fur ever imagined: owl-piercing fur! This is the nightmare beast First used to hoot about, the Revenge of the Rodents! And I’d thought she was just making things up to scare me out of my skin. Alas, no!

  The gargantuan rodent opens its mouth, bears its beaklike orange teeth. I don’t wait for it to strike. I burst through the thicket of branches and escape into the misty morning air. I fly, but my wings feel wet and heavy. A dizziness clouds my eyes.

  How long since I last ate?

  I sink on a cool draft of air and find the nearest branch.

  I’m tired, so tired.

  I sleep.

  * * *

  A loud noise growls to life somewhere nearby.

  My eyes crack open to a gray dawn—a half day, as Mother used to call them. There’s a monster in the field that stretches out in front of my tree. Its light
s cut through the mist. It’s bigger than the one that took Mother. It has a mouth of claws that spin and slash, cutting the tall, sweet grass that grew happily in that field.

  The monster’s growling drowns out all other noise, but in the dim light, I see movement between the stalks. The ground undulates, like the dirt itself is fleeing the monster. As it gets closer, I see that it’s not dirt, but mice and voles and rats and . . . FOOD!

  I swoop down, talons extended and ready to grab whatever they can. As I get closer, I can hear the heartbeats: a roar of life nearly as loud as the thrashing monster. My foot feathers sense a vole beneath me. My claws snap.

  I caught it!

  I don’t bother to try to carry it someplace more private. I tear with my beak and gobble a bite.

  A rat squeaks as it crashes into me.

  And then a mouse clambers over me like I’m just a lump of feathers.

  I should fly away to escape being trampled by the crowd of angry vermin, but my gizzard is growling and they’re everywhere, the little meals-on-feet. I can’t decide between snatching another mouthful from my vole or stretching my talons to catch a second breakfast. It’s too much! I try to do both at once, bending in half to grab a bite while reaching my other claw at a passing mouse, extending my wings to balance.

  A screech from above cuts through the noise. A talon pierces my shoulder.

  “Poor little owl,” the goshawk says, beak right against my ear.

  Cold terror silences all other sound. I swivel my beak around and slash at the goshawk’s face. She screeches, digs her talons in deeper. I drop my vole, fold in my wings, and roll onto my side, slashing at her with my talons. But her grip is too strong. She flaps and screeches, lifting me up with her. I scream and slash with my feet, flap my wings, anything to get her off me.

  I land a talon in her leg and she shrieks. It’s enough to get her to loosen her grip, and I jerk hard away from her. It’s like I’m tearing my own wing off, but suddenly I’m free and I flap as hard and as fast as I can for the cover of trees and darkness.

  Once on a branch, I nibble my wing with my beak, feeling over the feathers. The pain is blinding. I stretch my wing out—more pain. I nip at the hurt, but that makes it worse. I shuffle along the bark until I’m against the trunk, then huddle into myself, fluffing my feathers, and hope that my wing stops hurting.

  A squirrel chitters angrily from above.

  I roll my head and look at her. “Go away.”

  She shrieks, flicking her tail and bristling her fur. Her squirrel nest is in the upper branches.

  “I’m just resting,” I hoot. I have no interest—or at least no energy—to bother her nest.

  She has the nerve to throw a nutshell at me.

  I pull in my feathers, lift my wings, and prepare to show her who says where a great horned owl can roost, when my wing sends lightning bolts of pain through my body. I wince.

  The squirrel senses an opening. She launches another nutshell and hits me right in the beak.

  “I’m going!” I stretch my wings as far as I can and glide away from the branch, landing on a stump in an open space between the trees.

  Never roost in the open, Mother’s voice chides.

  But my wing won’t let me fly.

  A crow flaps down from the canopy. “Owl!” he caws. “Owl! Owl!”

  Soon other crows call back, “Where? Where?”

  “Owl!” this crow barks, hopping around the base of my stump.

  “Leave me alone,” I hoot, fluffing myself up and raising my ear tufts.

  “Here! Here!” the crow shouts, and now more crows answer, “Owl! Owl!”

  I have to keep this crow quiet or I’m going to have a swarm on me. I spread my wings, stuff the pain into my gizzard, and pounce on the crow.

  “Help! Help!” the crow shrieks.

  He flaps and hops and shrieks some more, and I try to get a good grip on him, but my talons keep slipping off his oily black feathers. I’m so tired, I barely have the energy to stand.

  He pecks me hard in the shoulder and the pain causes me to topple against the stump.

  I drop onto the leaves and walk—actually walk—my talons across the ground toward the nearest tree. It, too, is just a stump.

  “Owl!” the crow caws loudly, hopping along beside me.

  I shuffle my feet faster through the leaves, creating a thunderous noise nearly as loud as this crow and his screaming. I snap my beak at him and he flaps off, up into the trees. Above, the crows are swarming, getting into a frenzy of cawing as the crow I just let escape tells them how I attacked him.

  “Mean! Mean!” he caws. “Bites! Bites!”

  I reach the dead tree. I dig my talons into the stump and hop and drag myself, beak over claw, up the rotting bark.

  “Owl! Owl!” the crows shriek, filling the sky with their noisy cawing, their black wings like a storm swirling around me.

  I haul myself to the top of the ragged stump, turn my body, and get a glide going. I manage to get one flap, two, and I lift slightly higher. I spot a tree with a good-size hole in it. It’s too close to the field, too open, but I can’t fly any farther.

  Please let it be empty.

  I land my talons on the edge of the bark. The hole is empty and cold but dry and small and snug. I drag myself into it, filling the space with my feathers, and hunker down into myself.

  My wing throbs. Almost as painful is knowing that I have just been driven off two perches, first by an angry squirrel and then by a murder of filthy, foul-beaked crows.

  There has never been a worse great horned owl in the history of owldom. I am he: The Absolute Worst Great Horned Owl Ever.

  5

  Reenie

  I wake up Monday morning with The Falconer’s Apprentice under my head on the pillow. It’s all about hawks and falcons and how to care for them and train them for use in falconry. Normally, these kinds of books bore me to death, but I need to know this stuff for the passage hawk I’m going to catch. To be honest, I couldn’t put this book full of statistics and facts and words like “flying weight” and “tidbits” and “creance” down—which is why I have a crease in my cheek from my pillow buddy. I slam off the alarm clock and drag myself out of bed.

  Monday is orientation at my new school. Beatrice and I listen to classical music as we drive past thick forest broken by fields of weeds, some with a home plopped in them, and within ten minutes we turn onto the state highway, entering the crowded store-and-apartment-block part of the town. We’re not talking city; it’s two blocks of three-story hundred-year-old buildings and an inn that was last popular when my great-grandmother was born. Branford is the refuge for hipsters who work in Rutland. That’s how kids at my old school talked about it.

  We park in front of this giant brick building into which crowds of little kids clutching parents’ hands are pouring.

  “Are we in the right place?” I ask, hugging my backpack to my chest. In it, I had put the falconry book. It’s my good-luck charm.

  “This school is grades K through six,” Beatrice says. “Orientation is for kindergartners and new students.”

  She leads me into the cavernous lobby, where a woman with a nametag and a plastered-on smile points us down one of the long hallways.

  “Welcome to Otter Creek Elementary,” she says, all singsong and happy. It’s making me suspicious, how happy she’s pretending to be.

  We find the sixth grade orientation classroom, and Beatrice stops at the door.

  “You coming?” I ask.

  “You’re on your own from here.”

  I freeze, look around. There are only a few other kids. Beatrice is still waiting in the doorway.

  “It’s a half day,” she says. “I’ll be back at noon.”

  I nod. I walk to the closest desk. I sit.

  We play a name game, some get-to-know-you activity. You’re supposed to give your name, where you came from and why you moved, and your favorite thing about your old town. Most of the others have normal stori
es: divorce, Mom’s new job, to be closer to grandpa. Easy stories. My story has never been easy.

  This is the first time the state has officially gotten involved, like with courts and lawyers and stuff, but it’s not the first time Mom and I have had to live apart. The first time she went away to get help, it was like I’d been torn in two. I stayed in the junk room at Gram’s house all winter. By spring, Mom was back, and we found our own place to live. The second time she had to leave, we had lost that apartment and were already living at Gram’s house, so it felt more like Mom went on a long vacation without me. By the third time, I’d learned how to get by without a parent. Even when she’s home, the sadness can take her from me. It’s just easier to not expect anything from anyone, to take care of myself.

  When the teacher gets to me, I don’t feel like explaining, so I make something up.

  “I’m Maureen L’Esperance. I’m from Burlington. I like boating on the lake.” I took a school trip to Burlington once. All I wanted that day was to be one of those people out boating on the lake.

  The teacher checks her sheet. “Oh, uh . . . lovely,” she splutters. “Thank you, Maureen.”

  We then have to talk about where we live here in Branford and something we’re excited about in our new home.

  This is easy. When she comes to me, I describe the old farmhouse in the woods on the other side of Route 7. “My aunt is a falconer, and she has a real red-tailed hawk.”

  The other kids stare at me.

  “How interesting!” the teacher exclaims.

  The class moves on to talking about schedules, where stuff is in the school building, rotating “days” and moving from class to class. Then we’re given a tour, which ends outside at the school’s ginormous playground. We’re told to “go play.” The place is so big, the five of us new kids just kind of hang by this wooden pavilion, taking it all in.

  “Isn’t falconry, like, from olden days?” one girl says.

  “People still do it,” I say.

  “But it’s hunting, right?”