The Weight of Feathers (27 page)

The harder he kissed her, the more he picked up the taste of river salt, pink as her tail, glinting on her mouth like glass beads. He could smell the sun-warmed water and wild sky lupines of Honey Lake. He could feel them both getting their clothes soaked in the Estrella River, its water stirred by a hundred little earthquakes they’d never feel unless he held her so close and so still his breath sounded the same as hers.

Lace pulled away and brushed his hair out of his face. “How are you gonna explain this to your brother?”

He spread his hands over the small of her back, feeling for the heat of her birthmarks through her dress. “Let me worry about that.”

Ce que chante la corneille, chante le corneillon.

As the crow sings, so sings the fledging.

Cluck scrubbed the same places over and over. It left his chest reddened, his arms raw. But he still felt the brush of the current, his skin made hot by sun and then cooled by water.

If he didn’t rub it all off, someone would know. This must have been like the guilt that men who cheated felt. How they washed other women’s perfumes from their shoulders. But instead of a mistress, Cluck had Lace and her river. Instead of a wife, he had feathers that told him not to touch a girl with scales. A family that would smell the silt and water vines if he didn’t scour away the scent.

He turned off the water, and dressed, damp feathers scratching the back of his neck.

He owed Clémentine. She’d agreed to be the one to say she wanted Lace to stay on. She hadn’t hidden the smile at the corner of her mouth when Cluck asked her, but she must have known why she had to do it instead of him. Clémentine was one of
les vedettes du spectacle,
as much a lead in the show as Dax was. She had the standing to ask for things. Cluck didn’t.

His grandfather’s coughing carried down the hall. It took on the hard, deep sound of shaking his lungs. It had gone farther into his chest.

Cluck opened the door without knocking.

The orange prescription bottle sat on his grandfather’s dresser, the pills as high as the day it was filled.

Cluck’s lungs felt as full of water as when Lace held him under. He should’ve known his grandfather wouldn’t swallow a single one unless Cluck made such an annoyance of himself about it that
Pépère
considered it less trouble just to take the damn pills.

But Cluck hadn’t done that. He’d forgotten. He’d been too busy kissing Lace, taking her up into the trees, letting her pull him into the river.

Cluck shook his head. “
Pépère
.”

His grandfather finished coughing into a handkerchief, his back turned. “I told you I didn’t like that
gadji
.”

The words flared through Cluck’s face, the same shame as when he was small and his mother caught him petting wild birds. She would yell at him, say he would bring the bird’s sickness home to his brother, and was that what he wanted?

Pépère
’s voice had never made his forehead feel hot. His grandfather did not scold or yell. He gave advice, his words ballasted with a calm that told Cluck if he did not listen, he would find out himself.

Use your left hand when they are not looking, but always the right when they can see.

Since your feathers are too many to pluck, wear your hair long to cover them, or the
gadje
will gossip more than they already do
.

Stay away from water, or the
nivasia
will kill you
.

Cluck shut the door behind him. “You’re not taking your pills.”

“Don’t talk to me about pills.” His grandfather folded the handkerchief. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

The faint outline of his grandfather’s face showed on the window glass. Cluck couldn’t make out his expression, only the white flash of the handkerchief.

“You didn’t know what you were doing when you hired her,”
Pépère
said. “And now we are bringing her with us, and you still don’t know what you’re doing.”

Cluck hunched his shoulders, wishing he’d had the chance to tell his grandfather before word got around the family. Clémentine worked fast.

“You’d like her if you got to know her,” Cluck said.

Pépère
gave a curt laugh, made rough by his torn-up throat. “Why would I want to know a
nivasi
?”

The floorboards wavered, turning to water.

Nivasi
.

His grandfather knew. He knew Cluck had brought a Paloma into their house.

“You think I don’t see what she is?”
Pépère
asked.

The floorboards swelled liked waves, ready to swallow Cluck.

“How long have you known?” he asked.

“Longer than you have.”

The rattled feeling inside Cluck sharpened into anger. “Then you should have told me.”

“And what would that have done?” his grandfather asked. “You found out. It made no difference.”

“If you had a problem with her being here, why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“I had no problem with her being here. I have many problems with her being with you.”

Cluck put a hand on the dresser, steadying himself.

“I taught you better than this,” his grandfather said.

“Whatever happened, she didn’t do it,” Cluck said. “They don’t even want her. They threw her out.”

“She’s the same blood.”
Pépère
almost yelled now. “You know nothing about that family.”

“Then tell me.” Cluck slammed his hand down on the dresser. The pills rattled in the bottle, a reminder like a sharp whisper that they had not been touched. “You tell me the plant did worse things than I know, but you won’t tell me what. You tell me I shouldn’t be with her but you won’t give me any reason better than her last name. What do I do with that?”

“If you find a
nivasi
you leave her where you find her.” His grandfather turned. “End it with her.”

“If you didn’t want me with her, why did you let her stay?”

“Because I wanted her to get you out of here.”

“What are you talking about?” Cluck asked.

“It wouldn’t have been long until someone figured out who she was,”
Pépère
said. “And you’re the one who brought her here. You’re the one who knew what she was. This family would throw you out for that the same as hers threw her out.”

The book-smell Cluck’s grandfather brought with him into every room he stayed in faded. The scent of Lace’s river, all wet reeds and sun on her body, faded. Nothing stayed but the dry earth smell of his own feathers.

“You wanted them to find out?” Cluck asked.

“I wanted them to find out you’d hired a Paloma,”
Pépère
said. “Not that you were going into rivers with her. If they knew that, if they knew what you were really doing, they’d kill you. I’m not going to let that happen. But if they’d thought she was only some girl you were looking after, they’d just throw you away like her family did to her.”

“And that’s what you wanted?” Cluck asked. “You wanted me to end up like her?”

“I didn’t want you to end up like me.” His grandfather threw his hand toward the window, the white square of his
mouchoir
almost brushing the glass. “Stuck here, following everyone else’s rules.”

“You didn’t have to do this,” Cluck said. They’d talked about this so many times. About Cluck going to community college, transferring to a four-year, then graduate school if he could get a scholarship like
Pépère
. That had been their plan since the day
Pépère
explained bird flight to Cluck, and Cluck had listened as closely as his youngest cousins did to fairy tales. “I didn’t plan on staying with the show forever. You knew that. I was always going to leave.”

“You mean the way I’ve left?” his grandfather asked.

His grandfather’s tired smile stung him.

“That’s not fair,” Cluck said, hating how the words sounded as soon as he said them. He’d meant it wasn’t fair to
Pépère
.

“You’re eighteen,” his grandfather said. “You finished the high school curriculum a year ago. When were you planning on leaving?”

“I’m saving for it,” Cluck said. “I need money before I can leave.”

“There’s never enough money.”
Pépère
cleared his throat into the handkerchief and then folded it as neatly as if it were clean. “You’ll be waiting forever.”

That smile on his grandfather’s face, sure and sad and bitter, killed any protest in him.

Cluck had never set a date to leave, never made plans to enroll in the fall.

His grandfather had been right about Lace too. Cluck had wanted to take Lace with him to the next county, keep her like a cat. He’d never thought of leaving with her, finding a place where neither of their names was the same as an oath broken. He’d just wanted to bring her with him to where this family was going next.

Lace’s was not Cluck’s freedom. He was her captivity. People did not leave this family, not for good. Margaux would be back eventually, a boyfriend or new husband with her. Whether Corbeau by blood or marriage or simply by working for the show, they did not leave. They stayed, and they followed the law set by pure black feathers.

“You know the way this family is,”
Pépère
said. “They pull you. They keep you.”

Any anger Cluck had sank beneath this understanding.
Pépère
wanted to take the choice from Cluck. He did not want Cluck to have to turn his back on this family, so instead he wanted them to turn their backs on him.

The fact that
Pépère
once had a house that did not move and a job that followed a steady clock, that he once didn’t have to listen to this family about whether he should see other women after
Mémère
died or whether he should put eggshells around the base of the lemon tree outside his kitchen window, these were all miracles, small but heavy. Miracles revoked when the plant took them from
Pépère,
and he had nowhere else to go.

“I was afraid you were never going to get out unless they made you,”
Pépère
said.

“If you wanted me to get out why do you care if I’m with her?” Cluck said, breathing on this small ember that made him wonder if Lace asked him, would he leave with her.

But
Pépère
just said, “You weren’t supposed to be with her that way. You were so protective of her I thought she was another Eugenie to you. A little cousin or sister.”

“And you just assumed I’d never feel anything for her?” Cluck asked. “You just banked on it?”

“You’ve never shown interest in any girls.”
Pépère
cleared his throat with a hard cough. “You’ve never shown interest in anyone.”

“Why do you think that is?” Cluck asked. “Everyone around here has made it pretty clear I’m supposed to stay away from any girls I’m not related to.”

“Then stay away from her.”

“Tell me why.”

Pépère
coughed into the handkerchief again, trying three times before he got out, “She will ruin you.”

Cluck grabbed the prescription bottle off the dresser and forced it into his grandfather’s hand. “You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.” His grandfather threw the bottle down. “Because one of them ruined me.”

It cracked open. Half the pills scattered across the floor.

Cluck bent and picked out one left in the split bottle.

His fingers froze in the orange plastic, his grandfather’s words echoing, registering.

One of them
.

But it was all of them. They’d all spread the lies about him.

Another coughing fit kept his grandfather from speaking.

He waited it out, and cleared his throat. “It was after your grandmother died.”

“What are you talking about?” Cluck asked.

“I was with one of them,”
Pépère
said, his words sharp as when Cluck couldn’t answer one of his questions about bird flight or earth metals. “I know about them better than you do.”

Cluck crouched over the prescription bottle. “A Paloma?” he asked, the words as weak as when he had to guess an answer to one of those questions
Pépère
thought he should’ve known. “You were with a Paloma?”

“And after, she claimed I forced her,” his grandfather said. “This is how that family is. They can get their own to say anything.”

He said it without hesitation, clean and even. These were facts etched into his life, as much as being let go from the plant.

He started coughing again, each inhale splintering the wood of the floorboards. The sound cracked Cluck open, knowing that he could have stopped this.

Cluck stood, a pill in his palm.

Pépère
held a pointing hand between them, a warning, a sign that he would take nothing from that bottle. “This girl will do the same to you. That family will get her to do the same to you.”

“Who was the woman?” Cluck asked.

His grandfather hacked into the cotton square. “It doesn’t matter.”

“If it doesn’t matter, then tell me.”

His coughing got quieter, but still shook his frame. “End it.”

The words got into Cluck’s body. Their weight came down on him, but he couldn’t get his hands on the meaning, wet and slipping from his grasp.

Pépère
looked at the door. “You.”

Lace froze at the threshold, eyes flitting between Cluck and his grandfather.

“I let you stay,”
Pépère
said. “I knew and I said nothing. And you went after him.”

“
Pépère,
” Cluck said.

His grandfather ignored him. “You will ruin his life,” he said to Lace.

Cluck saw Lace try to speak. Her mouth moved. But the sound sank under
Pépère
’s coughing.

Cluck reached out for his grandfather’s hand, to set the pill in his palm.

But his grandfather’s hand slipped down and out of reach, his body falling with it.

Cluck dropped to his knees, calling him back.
Pépère. Alain
. Any name he might answer to.

The handkerchief fluttered to the floor, the blood spray dense as the spotting on an umber-brown mushroom. The chemicals sharpening the air had needled
Pépère
’s smoke-worn lungs into forgetting they were for breathing.