The Weight of Feathers

by Anna-Marie McLemore

  “My sister? She has her boyfriends, she forgets we have our shows.” The woman hair-sprayed a loose curl. “She will marry one of them soon and have five hundred babies. The beauties always do.”

  She said “beauties” like she wasn’t one.

  “If you don’t,” the woman said, “I’ll have to go on tonight looking washed-out, and it’ll be your fault.”

  “My fault?” Lace splashed alcohol on another tissue, and wiped the color stains from her fingers. “Your sister’s the one who didn’t show up.”

  “But who knows where she is?” The woman opened her eyes. “And you’re here.”

  Lace folded her arms, hiding the feather burn. She couldn’t keep saying no without the woman wondering why.

  It couldn’t be harder than putting waterproof color on the other sirenas. She just couldn’t use her fingers.

  “What do you need?” Lace asked.

  “Base, blush, lip color.” The woman gestured at her temples, holding her pinched thumbs and forefingers at the corners of her eyes, opening them as she moved her hands out. “The eyes are more difficult. Liner, highlighter, shadow.”

  Lace remembered the wings of color on Eugenie. The lilac pink had fanned across the bridge of her nose, all the way to her hairline, the color dotted with press-on jewels. “I think I know what you mean.”

  She sponged foundation on the woman’s face, then powder, then concealer, then more powder. She brushed color onto her cheeks, and picked a green cream eye shadow that matched the woman’s dress.

  A man stopped at the vanity as Lace was gluing on rhinestones. One of the winged men, his hair neat and gelled, good-looking enough to be a festival queen’s older boyfriend.

  If not for his size, Lace might have laughed at his bare chest and his costume. That the Corbeaus put their men into their shows made her family trust them even less. Men shouldn’t display themselves like quetzals.

  Justin and Oscar never got tired of the jokes. Male fairies. Maricas. Reinonas.

  But Lace couldn’t laugh. His wings made his muscled frame even bigger. He was the kind of man Lace had feared meeting in the woods the night she first saw Eugenie.

  “What is this?” he asked, his voice a little like Cluck’s, but edged with irritation.

  Her spine felt tight and hard as the barrel of her father’s Winchester. Her pulse beat against the raw skin on her back, like a moth in a jar.

  The woman opened her eyes. “The locals are friendly here, non?”

  “She’d better be the only local you’re getting friendly with.” He left, the shadow of his wings following.

  The moth under Lace’s skin shook itself off, and slept.

  “Dax.” The woman stuck out her chin and laughed. “He sees to it we children follow all the rules.” She shut her eyes again.

  Lace finished the color and added mascara.

  A thread of black showed at the back of the woman’s neck. At first it looked like a few strands of black hair mixed in with the blond. The woman moved, and a few more threads flashed dark, like the veins on a leaf.

  Lace dabbed a sponge over the woman’s eyelids, pretending she was still working so she could look. She made out the vane of a feather, the thick central shaft. The barbs looked like enormous eyelashes, spiny with too much mascara, then dusted with the palest face powder.

  She blew gently on the woman’s eyelid, to seem like she was helping her mascara dry. But she moved so her breath skimmed past the woman’s temple, and down toward the hair against her neck.

  A mist of white powder broke loose. It smelled like raw bread dough.

  Flour. The open bag of cake flour was for covering their feathers.

  Lace reached out a brush to the plume, letting a little flour frost the bristles. She held the brush so lightly the woman wouldn’t feel it. The feather gave, and the hair around it parted, showing the root.

  The feather’s dark shaft vanished into the woman’s head like a vein. It was growing out of her skin.

  Lace looked around at the wings on the Corbeaus’ backs, searching for black feathers. She couldn’t find any. Not where one wing met the other. Not at the edges. Not flashing dark between the eyespots.

  Those wings, all peacock feathers, no black, left her lost in dark water, trying to make out the trail of her own air bubbles to show her the way to the surface.

  The black feathers the wind brought the Palomas didn’t come from their wings. They came from the Corbeaus’ bodies. The stories her family told their children were as much truth as warning.

  Lace’s heart felt dry as a pomegranate shell, all the fruit picked away. Her fingers worried at her sleeve, wanting to scratch the feather burn off even if it left her bleeding.

  The only thing that stopped her was the truth, sliding its fingers onto her throat.

  Unless the Corbeau boy declared her forgiven, she could dig her nails into her arm all she wanted. The wound would heal, and the mark would show up again, like a feather growing back among his hair.

  Faute de grives, on mange des merles.

  In want of thrushes, one eats blackbirds.

  Eugenie followed Cluck, wiping blush and eye shadow off her hands. “You don’t think I can help?”

  “You’ve never done it before,” Cluck said.

  “Fine. You can do it.”

  Cluck couldn’t have made up one of the performers to save his life, and Eugenie knew it. The only time he’d ever handled makeup was to cover a bruise Dax gave him, and even that he’d done badly.

  “Et alors?” Eugenie stood in front of him. “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “What happened to Margaux?”

  “She just left a message. She said she’s going to see some friends in Hanford.”

  “Great,” Cluck said.

  “So what now?” Eugenie said.

  Cluck dug his fingers into his hairline. “Just let me think, okay?”

  Eugenie glanced past him, toward the girl he’d left holding the makeup brushes. “You’re distracted.” Her words ended in a laugh, teasing, not reprimanding.

  He didn’t look where Eugenie was looking, not wanting to prove his cousin’s point. And if he looked at Lace again, her face thin and tired, he’d think too much about her and too little about the performers with their unpainted faces. He’d want to turn her over to his youngest aunt, who was always trying to feed people, or let her sleep in the blue and white trailer until the pale, dull film of IV medications fell away.

  But there was a kind of intensity in her eyes, a look like she’d pinched herself until she came out from under the morphine. It gave him hope that her coming here was about more than an apology held in that paper bag and watermelon rind. This hope, that she was here not to explain herself but for him, slid into his hand like a found penny.

  The place where his feathers touched the back of his neck felt hot. “I am not distracted,” he said. He’d turned his back to that girl so he wouldn’t look at her, so the way her dress brushed the back of her knees wouldn’t make him forget how little time he had until the show started. “I’m thinking.”

  “I doubt it.” Eugenie’s smile was pinched and smug. “Not with your petite copine here.”

  “I do not have une petite copine, here or anywhere else. I’m trying to figure out how we’re gonna get through tonight.”

  Eugenie nodded once, looking past him again. “How about her?”

  “Clémentine?” he asked. His cousin was good with color. Meticulous. But that made her slow. If he let her do the makeup, they’d have to start the show at midnight. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.” Eugenie pushed on his shoulder until he faced where she looked. “Regarde.”

  The girl stood where he’d left her, hands still full of brushes. But instead of just holding them, she leaned over his cousin, sweeping eye shadow onto her brow bone.

  She’d called him gitano like it was a curse, like she would never go near him or his family for their Romani
blood. But now she’d planted herself among all the noise and the lights, and with every move of her hands she looked more like she belonged here.

  Dios los cría y ellos se juntan.

  Birds of a feather, fly together.

  “Have you made me beautiful?” the woman asked.

  Lace added a last dusting of loose powder. “You’re done.”

  The woman turned to the mirror. Lace had evened out her skin tone, flushed her cheeks, painted her eyes mint green to match her dress.

  “Magnifique.” The woman tried to put her cheek to Lace’s. Lace’s pulling away didn’t discourage her. The woman kept little more than an inch of space between their faces, and kissed the air.

  Lace flinched away. She shook off the scent of the flower crown, the clean smell of wet marjoram.

  Cluck stood in front of them both, arms crossed. “Clémentine.” He looked at the pale-haired woman.

  “She’s very good, non?” the woman said.

  He looked at Lace.

  Clémentine got up and crossed the yard, her feet imprinting the damp earth. She was almost as tall as Cluck. When she was sitting, Lace couldn’t tell. Now that she was walking, Lace saw her wide, rounded shoulders supporting those wings. She looked made of white sand clay, the statue of some lost goddess.

  The hollow space in Lace’s stomach grew hot and tight. She didn’t like how many forms this family took. The boy her cousins called chucho. One woman, red-haired and small, and another, solid and pretty as a vinyl-bodied doll. All growing those black feathers.

  Her mother had warned her about that. “You can never tell,” she said. “None of them look the same because they mate with anything.”

  “Do you want a job?” Cluck asked.

  That snapped her away from watching Clémentine. “What?” she asked.

  “Do you already have a job?” he asked. “Or school? Some of the schools here run year-round, right?”

  “No. I mean, no, I’m not in school, but…”

  “Then do you want a job?”

  “Doing what?”

  “What you just did,” he said. “Six nights and weekend afternoons. Eight shows a week. Replace my flake cousin.”

  “I’m not part of your family,” Lace said.

  “And?” He dropped his hands, slid them into his pockets.

  She studied the shape of his fingers in the pocket lining. In this light, standing like he was, he looked like an old sepia photograph, with his brown hair and eyes, his white shirt and brown pants. It made him seem printed instead of real, like Lace could reach out and crumple him, let the wind take him. But then she’d wear his mark forever.

  “I thought you only hired family,” she said.

  “Who told you that?”

  She stopped herself. The Palomas knew more about the Corbeaus than anyone except the Corbeaus themselves. If Lace wanted to pass herself off as a local, she’d have to forget anything she knew that an Almendro girl wouldn’t.

  “You come through every summer,” she said. “People talk.”

  “It’s mostly family, but not everybody. There’s Théo. He fixes the trailers. And Yvette. She homeschools the kids.” Cluck looked over his shoulder. “And Alexander’s around here somewhere.” He looked back at Lace. “So what do you say?”

  This was what he wanted? Her apology wasn’t enough, so he wanted her hands for Corbeau work?

  “We’re not as unforgiving as I seem right now,” he said. “This is probably the tenth time my cousin’s bailed in two seasons.”

  If she did this for him, he’d have to take the mark off her. If she stayed long enough, maybe she could make this boy owe her a little more than she owed him, make the Corbeaus owe the Palomas. Maybe it would be enough to demand they stay out of her family’s way. Abuela would have to let her back then. Lace could come back clean, safe to touch.

  All she had to do was keep brushes and sponge pads between her fingers and the Corbeaus. If her skin did not touch theirs, she would survive this.

  “Okay,” Lace said.

  “Great.” He shoved makeup brushes into her hands. “You start now.”

  “Then sit down,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” he asked.

  “You’re here. I might as well start with you.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t you need your base put on?” she asked. He wasn’t even in costume yet.

  “Why would I?”

  The men must have worn makeup too. Not all the color that went on the women, but foundation, pressed powder.

  “Aren’t you in the show?” she asked.

  “Do I look like I’m in the show?” He showed her his hand, those last three fingers curled under. “M’sieurs-dames,” he called out, and the others watched him. “This is the new Margaux. She’ll be doing your makeup.” Then he left her holding the brushes, half the show standing around her.

  The lights, the colors, and the wings swirled like a soap bubble’s surface. Her cheek stung like it was still bleeding. If she was going to make up a whole show’s worth of performers, she’d need a few more ibuprofen from her suitcase.

  “I’ll be right back.” She set the brushes down and slipped into the woods.

  Clémentine glided out from behind a tree, first the tip of a wing, then the rest of her. “Looking for this?” She held up Lace’s suitcase.

  Lace’s back tensed. If this woman had touched the new tail Tía Lora made her, Lace would rip the feathers from her wings. She may not have had a bra of fake pearls to hit her with, but she had her hands, her fingernails, her teeth. She’d shred that flower crown to potpourri.

  “I took nothing,” the woman said. “I did not even open it. Je promets.”

  Lace held out her hand.

  Clémentine moved the suitcase out of reach. “If you tell me where you are sleeping tonight, you can have it.”

  Lace’s spine relaxed. This woman thought she was a runaway.

  Her father had given her some money “to get to Terra Bella,” though he didn’t believe it any more than she did. At best, he thought she was going to stay with Licha.

  But neither of them said so. Lace had just taken the folded bills, thanked him, and hidden the money in the lining of her suitcase.

  “Ever heard of a motel?” Lace said.

  “It’s the weekend,” Clémentine said. “They are already booked for this berry festival.”

  Lace hadn’t thought of that.

  Clémentine set the suitcase down between them. “If you work here, you stay here.”

  Lace left the suitcase where it was. She was no runaway, and the woman couldn’t have been more than thirty. She wasn’t old enough to play mother.

  “No, thank you,” Lace said.

  “Dax won’t like it. He likes to keep track of everyone.” Clémentine looked over her shoulder, through the dip between her wings. “Is it the house you are afraid of?”

  “A little,” Lace said. The deep, weathered wood and age-darkened windows made it look like a place Cluck could seal her inside of, making her a thing that belonged to the Corbeaus.

  “You can sleep where I sleep.” Clémentine pointed to a yellow trailer. “Inside the house to wash, to cook. Ça y est.”

  Sleeping in one of the Corbeaus’ trailers, a few feet from a Corbeau woman.

  If all this would lift the feather off her forearm, Lace would do it.

  She picked up her suitcase.

  “Bien,” the woman said.

  A donde fueres, haz lo que vieres.

  Wherever you go, do what you see.

  The Corbeau show was nothing like Justin said.

  They didn’t just put on costumes and stand in the trees. They climbed the boughs like cats, moving as though the high branches were wide and solid. The hung lights showed the contours of the men’s bodies, and made the women’s dresses look like mint and peach milk. Their skirts trailed and billowed, the edges fluttering. Sometimes their curls came unpinned and spun loose against their shoulders.

/>   The performers climbed with their wings folded down, leads tethered to their wrists so that when they reached the top, they could pull the wings open to their full span. Those cords gave them a way to bring the weight of their wings forward. But if they didn’t hold themselves upright, a sudden gust could still make them fall. If one of the women stepped wrong, she could catch her dress, tearing the fabric and slipping on the organza.

  The men moved with as much calm as if it was their own muscle and not the trees holding them up. They pulled themselves onto higher branches as though the wings helped them instead of getting in the way, but Lace could guess how heavy they were.

  The women’s flower crowns never came undone, the larkspur and paintbrush clinging to their heads like a swarm of butterflies. They danced like the branches were broad as a field. They arched their arms so softly they looked as though the wind moved them. One in a champagne-colored dress stood so far up on her toes and lifted a leg so high and close to her body she looked like a clock striking noon. A tall one wearing mauve did an arabesque and tilted her body so her pointed foot showed between her wings. Another in dusk blue spun along a bough in a row of turns, spotting with nothing but stars.

  Now she knew why Justin said so little about the show. He didn’t want to admit how beautiful their enemies looked as they danced. When one of the men lifted one of the women, the wind turned her skirt to water. When he set her down, she landed so softly the branches didn’t bend.

  The women leaped like they knew the branches would hold them, like the boughs whispered their reassurances as they flew. The men’s jumps from higher branches to lower ones made the audience gasp, and then applaud. The wind streamed through those feathers, and they looked like they were flying.

  Even with the weight of those wings, Lace never caught them stumbling or flailing their hands to keep from falling. Each of them had balance as constant and rooted as these trees. If they extended their arms, it was part of the dance.

  These winged creatures, las hadas, kept rhythm with each other, with no music but the sound of chimes hung in the trees. No metal or wood, just pieces of polished glass, the same pastels as their dresses. If the wind died down, the performers touched them, and the glass gave off shimmers of sound. They made one chime answer another, then a few more answer that one, like the staggered song of nightbirds.