Of a Feather Read online

  I nod, my voice stolen by this magnificent creature perched on my arm. She flew to me. My heart pounds. My right hand tightens into a fist, nails digging into my palm, to help keep my left arm still as a branch for Red.

  “You can walk,” Beatrice says, smirking like I’m being a freak.

  But it’s a nice smile, so I don’t say anything snarky. Plus, I am holding a hawk and that is so freaking cool that every rotten thought just poofs right out of my brain. I dare to step forward. Red glances past my head but stays standing. I attempt to walk.

  “Come on,” Beatrice says, and strolls down the path into the woods.

  I follow, rolling my feet over the rocks and roots to keep from jostling Red as we make our way slowly through the sun-dappled shade. When we reach a clearing, Beatrice stops.

  “Now cast her off your glove.” She holds her left arm straight out and whips it forward. “Hold onto the jesses until the very last moment.”

  “Cast her?” I say. “You mean throw her?”

  “Birds of prey only fly to eat. They spend most of their waking hours sitting around, watching for prey. So as a falconer, you have to cheat a little.” She swings her arm again. “Just throw her into the sky.”

  I whip my arm just as I’ve seen Beatrice do it, releasing the jesses just as I would a baseball. Red flies off. The jingling song of her bells tells of her travel into the tangle of branches.

  Imagine when it’s not Beatrice’s bird but my passage hawk flying toward me. Imagine pulling this wild beauty from the air and making it mine. Then it won’t matter that I’m living in a temporary home with a temporary family, going to a temporary school, meeting temporary friends. I’ll have one real thing for myself, a dragon bird to soar with, something so majestic and powerful, even I can’t weigh it down. Which is why it’s impossible to be patient about this whole process.

  “It’s getting dark,” I say. “Shouldn’t we get back?”

  Beatrice gives me a once-over. “We’ll have the trap ready in time,” she says. Does this lady read minds?

  “Oh yeah,” I say. “Sure. I’m not worried. I just . . . don’t want to be out late. For Red.”

  Beatrice snorts air through her nostrils. “For Red.” She whistles, and Red flies back to her fist.

  * * *

  At recess Thursday, Jaxon holds out a pen to me. It’s a regular pen, but the nib and conical cover over it are metal. A pin pricks inside my gut and this warm, fuzzy feeling burbles up. He thought of me . . . He thought to bring me a pen.

  “Thanks,” I whisper, taking it gingerly between my fingers.

  He nods. “Gives a cleaner scrape.”

  “Yeah?” I put down my falconry book and pick up a hunk of wood.

  “Yup.” He runs his pen—same kind—over the wood in his hand and peels off a curling chip.

  “Huh.”

  A pair of sneakers kick through the leaves near our bush. “Maureen?”

  Oh, great.

  “Maureen? It’s Jamie. From lunch the other day.” She shoves her way through the branches that protected us. “Oh, hi—Jaxon, right?”

  Jaxon flips his face up. “Want to sit?” He scrapes a long line across his wood with the pen.

  “Okay.” Jamie smiles like she just won the lottery and squeezes down between the roots. There really isn’t room for three back here.

  She kind of stares at us while Jaxon and I scrape.

  Jamie wiggles her sneakers. “My two closest friends moved away over the summer.” She picks at the bark of the bush. “How weird is that? Both your friends, moving in the same summer.”

  “All my friends are back in St. Johnsbury,” Jaxon says.

  I don’t say anything. I don’t really do “friends.”

  “I love crafts,” Jamie says. “You guys sculpting?”

  “Whittling,” I correct.

  “Same thing,” Jaxon says. He digs under the bush and finds another piece of wood. “Want to try?”

  And he pulls another pen from his pocket. The same kind he gave me.

  “Wow—thanks,” says Jamie.

  “Sure,” says Jaxon.

  And they smile at each other.

  So I guess it wasn’t so special for him to bring me the pen. I guess this is just what he does. I want to throw the pen back at him. But I don’t.

  I jam the pen into my wood. Cut out a hunk. I’m going to make another hawk. A lone flier.

  * * *

  After school, I have visitation, and the whole way there, I have trouble working up the energy to act happy for Mom. But then I see her through the window and she flashes me a smile—a real smile. Mom’s smile is the kind that catches on: my lips can’t help but curl up at the edges.

  “I ordered us hot chocolate,” she says as I sit down.

  “Extra whipped cream?” I ask, the warmth already spreading inside me.

  “Is there any other way to drink it?”

  As we sip our hot chocolates, she tells me about this lady at the treatment center who steals potatoes from the kitchen and hides them all over. It’s a real Mom story, complete with silly words she made up and impressions. No one tells a better story than Mom.

  “The surprise was dumping a whole bag’s worth of tater tots out of my sneaker!” she says.

  We both laugh and it’s like the sadness is nothing but a bad dream we got stuck in. But it’s always like this, isn’t it? All my best times are with Mom, until the sadness takes her away.

  “Are we going to move back in with Gram?” I dare to ask.

  Mom’s smile flickers. “You know Gram,” she says, and then imitates Gram’s scratchy voice: “Phil doesn’t mean any of it—what’s the big deal?” She slurps her cocoa. “So no, we’re not going back there.”

  “Oh,” I say. Phil has always been a bum, but that never kept us from crashing there before. “He didn’t mean to hit me with the plate,” I remind her, because if we can’t live with Gram, where are we going to live?

  “It doesn’t matter if he meant it, Reens.” Her smile is gone. “Randi’s said we can’t go back.” So this is what Beatrice was dancing around last Sunday, her explanation for the gift of clothes.

  Mom finishes her drink. “Want to play hearts?” She pulls out a new deck of cards, not the sparkle deck, not our cards.

  “You forgot again?” The words slip out, the sneaks.

  “The sparkle deck is missing a ten and two jacks,” she says. “So I tossed it. I’m sorry.”

  “Whatever,” I say, my own smile going back into hiding. I pick up the hand she’s dealt me and leave the rest of my cocoa in the cup.

  * * *

  Friday, at lunch, I see Jamie and Jaxon already sitting together.

  I could go over, sit, act all interested in whatever it is Jamie’s gushing about. I could be a gusher. But the buzz taps against my gut: Dangerous.

  I sit somewhere else.

  Friday afternoon, Beatrice and I test the trap. Red watches us with a concerned eye from her perch. The mouse scrambles around in the cage but can’t escape. And because we added a double mesh, the mouse can’t gnaw on the plastic strings.

  It’s perfect.

  I scarf my dinner as if that will make the hours pass faster.

  “We’re probably not going to catch anything,” Beatrice warns, waving a hand in front of my eyes, which stare out into the dark.

  “I know,” I say, though of course this possibility seems so infinitesimally small as to be meaningless. Our trap is amazing. It will definitely catch a passage hawk tomorrow morning.

  * * *

  I am up with the sun. Beatrice comes downstairs to find me having already made her coffee.

  “When did you get up?” she asks.

  “Early,” I say, practically vibrating with excitement. “Can we go now?”

  Red squawks from her aviary.

  “Why don’t you go feed Red and I’ll feed myself.”

  I take a defrosted mouse from the fridge, drop it into a bath of hot water, and wait for
it to warm up, then drop it, wet and steamy, onto Red’s dish and carry it outside. It rained last night, and the grass sends up sprays of rainbows in the early sunlight with my every step. It’s an omen.

  I am going to catch a passage hawk.

  6

  Rufus

  Cold. So cold.

  And wet. So wet.

  I discovered why this hole was empty. It’s built wrong. It’s tipped toward the sky a little, and it lets all the rain in.

  All the smart owls figured out this fact.

  Only the worst owl in the history of owldom would miss such a crucial fact. Would discover this only because the skies opened and poured waterfalls from the clouds. And they poured right in on my head.

  My wings are bedraggled. My horn feathers are slick against my skull. My chest feathers are matted.

  Everything is terrible.

  All night, I waited for the rain to stop so my feathers would dry. The rain did not stop. So now I’m half sleeping on the edge of this soggy tree hole with my wings stretched a little, letting the sun dry me out. Hoping no one notices me. Especially something humiliating like a thrush. How awful would it be to get attacked by a tiny nothing bird like a thrush?

  A rumbling comes from somewhere nearby and then dies. The same kind of rumbling that the monsters make.

  I crack open my eyes and peer around my hole.

  Nothing. I’m safe. For now.

  There’s rustling in the grass. Some cries of birds and grunts of deer and buzzings of bugs. Nothing too close. I doze in and out of the world, checking it every so often for danger.

  When the warmth reaches all the way in to my gizzard, I test my wing. It feels not great but not terrible. It might fly.

  I stretch it out, give it a full flap. The pain is sharp, but I can fly with it. I have to be able to fly with it.

  I open my eyes and the light is blinding. How do animals live in such brilliance? The world is white and sparkly and sharp.

  Then I hear it.

  Squeaking. Not far from here.

  Serious squeaking.

  I swivel my head and see the mouse. It’s just sitting in the grass. Running in circles. Squeaking.

  Is this mouse crazy? Why squeak to the whole forest while spinning around in one place? There might be a hungry owl nearby.

  There is a hungry owl nearby. A starving owl.

  I’m off the tree before I think to check my feathers. They’re still full of water and I kind of half glide, half plummet to the grass near the mouse. It seems to be trapped inside a spider’s web. I hop onto the web, but it’s stiff like a twig. I can’t get my claws on the little fur ball.

  I grab again.

  The mouse shrieks and skitters around inside the web.

  “Oh, be quiet,” I hoot, grabbing and poking with my talons. What is this web made of that I can’t get this delicious, tasty, trapped-just-beneath-my-feet mouse?!

  And then I feel something slip through the feathers along one of my toes. A slick filament slides up my skin and then grabs.

  This is a very strange web. Perhaps this mouse is more trouble than it’s worth. I go to lift my leg, but it’s caught.

  My heart pounds.

  I jerk my foot again. Still caught.

  “AGH!” I squawk. “The web has me! The web has me!”

  The mouse squeals angrily. Like maybe it has a clutch of family that’s on its way . . .

  I flap and lift off the ground with this shrieking mouse and its web of terror strings, but it’s too heavy and my wing screams with pain and I flop down into the grass.

  Could the mouse have built this web to trap owls? Could the prey have found a way to fight back? Great Beak, what is going on in this forest of rumbling monsters and vengeful mice?!

  “Help!” I cry. “The prey are on the attack! HELP!”

  Hearing my own squawks, I wonder what owl would even bother to help. How big a failure of a raptor do you have to be to get caught by a mouse in a spider web?

  Imagine if First saw me like this. Or Father. Even Mother.

  I will not go down without a fight. Even the worst great horned owl is still a great horned owl, as Father reminded me once.

  “I will do you proud!” I squawk.

  I give my leg one last jerk, confirm I’ve been captured, and flop still, awaiting the throng of angry vermin that must be on its way, my talons sharp and ready . . .

  7

  Reenie

  “It’s not a hawk!” Beatrice yells as we run from where we’d hidden in the tall grass.

  “It looks like a hawk!”

  “It’s definitely not a hawk.”

  Our trap has worked but also failed. The state only lets a falconer trap a passage red-tailed hawk or goshawk. If it’s anything else, we have to let it go and then reset the whole trap.

  So I’m kind of angry at whatever this thing is that’s broken my bal-chatri trap I worked all week to get perfect for my passage hawk. That is, until I see that it’s the most fantastically, amazingly beautiful bird I’ve ever seen in my life.

  It’s the size of a giant watermelon but brown, with its huge wings open and stretched out along the ground like it’s trying to fly. As we approach, its head rotates almost all the way around and I see two enormous yellow eyes rimmed in black, surrounded by disks of coppery feathers. The eyes are on fire, daring me to come any closer, and the deep V of black-brown feathers that stretches from its forehead toward its hooked beak forms a scowl. It screeches, and two feathery horns flip up off its head, adding wings to the V, as if saying, Are you looking at me?

  It’s the ultimate dragon bird, the king of all birds.

  “It’s a great horned owl,” Beatrice says, stopping near where it lies in the grass.

  It flaps its splayed wings, then arranges them in this weird upside-down way, fanning out the feathers around its head and body into a wide ruff. It looks like a miniature turkey, all puffed up and angry. The owl stumbles away from us, dragging the trap with it. It gets about five inches before it flops still again.

  It’s awful to see this bird king dragged through the dirt by my trap. I kneel beside him and he turns his spectacular face to me. Glowing eyes lock on to my heart.

  “We have to free him,” I say, knowing it to be true: that no matter how much I want to keep him, this bird is meant to be wild.

  “Him?” Beatrice kneels beside me, examining the owl.

  “Yes, him,” I say. He snaps his beak, making this clacking sound, and flops around, trying to get to his feet.

  Beatrice gently places a blanket over him, folding his wings against his back and holds him steady as she works his talons free from the trap.

  “Look,” she says, holding his legs in her thick leather glove. I peer at his glorious little face, which looks like the most malevolent stuffie’s, curled in the blanket. “He’s not even scratching at me,” she says.

  A ribbon of cold runs through me. Dragon birds fight to survive. Why isn’t he fighting? “What does that mean?”

  “He might be sick or hurt,” she says.

  “Was it the trap?” My voice gets stuck in my throat. I did this, I hurt him . . .

  Beatrice examines him a bit closer. “No,” she says. “Look at his wing. This bird can’t go free today.”

  His left wing sags away from his body and I can see some feathers that are matted with blood. “He’s hurt?” I ask. The ribbon of cold turns into a knot around my gut.

  “He’s also dehydrated,” Beatrice says. “And probably starving.”

  The knot tightens with each pronouncement. “Can you help him?” I ask. Please don’t say he’s going to die.

  Beatrice sighs. “We can try. But that’s the end of our passage hawk quest for the weekend.”

  “That’s okay,” I say. “He needs our help.” He starts panting and hissing and snapping his little beak. Still fighting, my dragon bird.

  Beatrice smiles down at him. “Yes, he does.”

  I carry the trap and she carries the
owl back to the truck. I put the trap in the bed and hop into my seat. I am completely shocked when I see Beatrice hold out the owl in his blanket to me.

  “I can hold him?” I ask, afraid to put my hopes into words.

  “How else am I going to drive to the hospital?”

  “Shouldn’t we tape him or something?” We have painter’s tape and a length of pantyhose I call “the sleeve,” which we were going to secure our passage hawk in when—if—we caught one.

  “I’m not sure he’d last through a taping.” She places the precious package into my arms, then flips over the extra material to cover his head. “This will help keep him calm.”

  “What about the hood?” Falconers put these cute little leather hats called “hoods” on falcons’ heads to keep them calm when traveling. We have a couple of different-size hoods that we were going to use on the passage hawk.

  “I don’t have a hood big enough for that melon,” Beatrice says, shaking her head as she starts the engine. She calls someone on her phone. “Hi, Lil? I have a sick owl with an injured wing.” Pause—I guess that “Lil” is Lillian Cho, the vet Beatrice works for. “Great—thank you.” She hits the gas and gravel goes flying as we head for the animal hospital.

  The blanket is thick: fleece-lined on one side and tough canvas on the other—meant to withstand the slash of a talon. The owl is quiet, probably terrified out of his little mind. The truck bucks over ruts and rocks in the dirt road, and I use my legs to brace my body against the seat cushion to keep the worst of it from disturbing him. With each bounce, I scowl at the dashboard, willing the truck to keep still. I’m afraid to breathe too deeply for fear of startling him. He seems like a ghost inside the blanket, he’s so light. It’s the most shocking thing about these dragon birds—they’re all feathers. How can something so fierce also be so fragile?

  We arrive at the animal hospital where Beatrice works. She takes the owl from me and carries him in the back entrance. I follow her into one of the rooms, where Dr. Cho waits in her white coat.