The Bird's Child

by Sandra Leigh Price

  ‘So what did you dream? Did the spirits come and whisper to you in your sleep? Did you see anyone you knew?’

  I went over to the mirror to try to fix my mussed hair, but my fingers were clumsy. How could I answer that? Did spirits come as birds, did they speak in images and symbols and whistles? If that was the case, perhaps they had.

  ‘I had strange dreams, if that is what you are asking,’ I whispered, not wanting to share my dreams and break their fragile web.

  Billy stood behind me, his eyes in the mirror dancing with excitement.

  ‘What? What did you dream, what did you hear?’ he demanded. He could hardly contain himself so I told him, I had no resistance. All I wanted was to be blanketed again in my dream, which clung to me and would not let me go.

  I stepped away and crossed the room to make my bed, but Billy was in my way, ushering me into a chair, urging me to rest. Rest for what? I had just been asleep for who knew how long, what need had I for more rest? He shook the sheets and I felt my limbs grow heavy in the chair; my eyes began to close, but he snapped the sheets with a whip crack.

  ‘Are you ready to try? I have spoken to Miss du Maurier, she is happy to assist in our experiment, to be the first receiver of your information from the other side.’

  It was all rushing too fast, like the landscape of my dream, carrying me along with it. How could he be so confident? I had no proof, but what did he see that I couldn’t? Together we were on the edge of something vast, and I didn’t dare look down.

  He slid his hand into the small of my spine and I found myself being led to the threshold of the door and down the stairs.

  The velvet sitting room curtains were drawn, but as I looked at their hem I realised no light shone behind them. A line of candles stood lit on the mantelpiece, their doubles dancing in the mirror. A vase of roses exhaled their last scent, stray petals floating in the fetid water. Billy had a firm grasp of my elbow, steering me toward Miss du Maurier. She was already seated with her hands folded in her lap and her face turned expectantly in my direction. What had he told her? The candle flames bowed as I passed, two little rows of fire soldiers in their bright salute. I wanted to blow them out, to defy them, but they were too far away, tethered as I was to Billy, his hand now encircling my waist.

  Billy settled me in a chair opposite Miss du Maurier. With the padded arms around me, the antimacassar cushioning my head, I felt sleep tap me on the shoulder and wind me in.

  ‘Because of the nature of our experiment, I shall stand behind you, Miss du Maurier, for I am the conduit and the conductor,’ Billy commanded and my eyelids lowered until the room became a mere slit between my eyelashes.

  ‘Is she all right?’ Miss du Maurier sat forward in the chair as my eyes completely closed. I could only hear their disembodied voices.

  ‘She is entering her trance state to ready herself for your questions.’

  The clock bell struck the hour. My eyelids flicked open and I found myself fixed by Billy’s eyes, the brightest blue in his otherwise fathomless face. We had begun.

  FORTY

  Billy

  She looked up to me like a flower to the sun: I knew she could not look away. Miss du Maurier’s fingers shook, tense with waiting. She would wait until I was ready. Lily could no more speak to the spirits than I could, but I knew I could influence her. I had tuned her like a harp; the notes of her psyche were ready to be plucked at my direction.

  All the time Lily had slept I had chanted to her, my words flowing through the perfect cockle of her ears, deep into her body, every cell filled with them till she was soaked through. When I had heard her breathing begin to echo the rhythms of my voice, I had known she was following as I willed it.

  I had just been closing Lily’s door and heading to my own room to prepare when Miss du Maurier had plodded up the stairs. If her suspicious eyebrows had been raised any higher, she would have lost them to the forest of her hair. If the old tart wanted to question why I was leaving Lily’s room at an odd hour, I would let her serve my will at the same time.

  ‘Just the person I was looking for,’ I said, blitzing her with a smile so broad my face ached. I could not risk her bursting through Lily’s door and disturbing the work of my words cycling through her dreams. ‘Since the magic show is done with, Lily and I are working on a spiritualist demonstration.’

  Miss du Maurier reached for the banister, steadying herself; it was her turn now to smile until it hurt. She was the perfect specimen. Desperate and unreconciled to her loss, her smile said as much. If she wanted to talk to the dead, all I would need to do was to read out what was written all over face and feed the prompts to Lily.

  ‘I didn’t know she had the gift,’ Miss du Maurier said breathlessly, as if she had suddenly discovered she had a princess from an exiled kingdom living under her roof.

  ‘Well, though it is early days, from what I have seen of her abilities, she is truly exceptional, but we need someone else to prove her on. Would you be interested in contacting a departed loved one through us?’

  Her face took on an almost beatific glow at this news. I told her the hour Lily would be ready and she avidly agreed and hurried off down the stairs. I took a peek at Lily to ensure she was still sound asleep and then proceeded to my own room to prepare for her arrival. I stripped my sheets, for my bride must have clean ones. The blackened walls called out for words in praise of her, and the chalk in my hand sung an epistle of my devotion.

  I took my box of treasures, removing them from the detritus of paper from reclaimed from Merle, and dusted each one, laying them out as an offering for her. The cut glass of the grenade shaped perfume bottle from France caught the light and sent diamonds dancing across the dark walls. My mother-of-pearl opera glasses glinted like the sea. I polished each of the knife blades until they were like fractured slivers of mirror, helping to throw the light around the room. In the centre I placed the golden comb, still untarnished after all this time, just like the purity of my Lily of the Valley. Soon I would weave it through her hair and lay her down next to me, skin upon skin, upon the downy soft nest of her swan-feather cape.

  I hunted through the papers in the box for the photo of my mother that I had lifted from my father’s watch, but it was nowhere to be found. What I did find was an envelope I had never noticed, my name in my father’s hand, Billy, as if it was his voice in my ear. All I could think of was the wickedness of Merle’s tale and the trampled innocence of my own poor mother. Lily whimpered, the sound faint through the wall that soon would no longer separate us. I would do everything in my power to show her my honour. With my body I will worship and with all my worldly goods I will endow. Lily sobbed loudly. There would be time to look at whatever my father had sealed up later when I had made Lily completely my own. I rushed to her, my arms soon to be her comfort.

  Carefully I latched my door before I ducked back into Lily’s room, where she was feverish and not far from waking. I pulled the blankets she had tossed off up around her again, drinking in the sight of her pure naked limbs, before sealing her up in a cocoon of fabric. The time was not yet quite ripe.

  I ran down the first few stairs. Miss du Maurier had lit a trail of candles and had drawn the velvet curtain against the world. A curl of incense found its way up to my nostrils. God bless her, she was the perfect unwitting accomplice. She was sitting, fit to burst, on the sofa, her hand brushing the weave of the fabric back and forth restlessly.

  I went back to Lily then and sat in the chair by her bed, resting my own eyes while keeping my ears pricked. My time was coming and I did not want to miss a moment when it came. Even with my eyes shut, I could sense her movements in the dark room. She was swimming up to the surface of her self through the last remnants of the opium. I opened my eyes as I heard her feet pause upon the floor as if to test their seaworthiness, but shut them again as she walked, unsteady on her feet, to retrieve her clothes. Her fingers must be finding the fixings tricksy.

  ‘Lily,’ I called to her and she bli
nked repeatedly, her eyes hazy, before she tilted. My arms were around her then and she took her support from me.

  ‘What did you dream?’ I breathed into her ear. She moved her lips but made no sound. I held the cup up for her to moisten her mouth, the tincture lending the water sweetness.

  ‘An egg,’ she stuttered. ‘A blackbird laid an egg in my hand.’

  An egg! Of all prophetic symbols – the most whole, most complete of things. What other proof did I need that she was the pure vessel of my desires, the pinnacle of feminine perfection?

  ‘Anything else?’

  Her voice was so quiet I had to lean my ear to her lip. ‘I heard my father’s whistling, but I could not see him, no matter how I looked around, until I realised it was coming from the throat of the little blackbird, whistling with all it had.’ I caught a tear with my finger and helped her stand.

  We walked down the stairs and she clung close to me, her white sail to my strong mast. I would keep her feet steady; every step was under my governance.

  She was one step away from the belief that would tumble her forever into my safekeeping; she would be the prize, better than anything I had ever collected. With my arms around her, I arranged her in her seat, her pale palms resting upwards on her knee.

  ‘Let us begin,’ I said and Lily closed her eyes. There was nothing that she would say that I couldn’t make fit the moment, for Miss du Maurier was no different to anyone else. Was the departed one safe, did they think of them, were the living forgiven? All the rest were just thrilling variations of the same theme. It didn’t matter if they were a little bit off, as long as universal answers were given to obvious questions. With a beautiful pure flame like Lily, everyone would hold their breath to see which way she flickered.

  ‘Open your eyes, Lily, for I am your conductor. I am the road to Lethe upon which the spirits will walk to talk to one as pure as you.’

  Miss du Maurier had clapped her hands then; she was the cat lapping up the cream. Lily’s had eyes flicked open, their shifting motion wild at first until she had met my reassuring gaze and was still.

  ‘Lily is ready,’ I said now. ‘You may begin, flower amongst women. What do you hear? Who comes through?’

  Miss du Maurier sat close to the edge of her seat, her hands clasped together, a desperate clutching of her fingers as if in prayer.

  ‘Do you know anyone with the first name that begins with the letter W?’ Lily said, her voice hardly more than a breath. ‘A woman’s name?’ Lily’s eyes wavered from mine, but a clearing of my throat brought them snapping back.

  A little sound popped out of Miss du Maurier as she gulped. ‘My name starts with W, my mother loved the colour of the flowers.’ She tried to stop herself from giving it all away in a gush, but I already knew what it was. Lily made the connection as I cleaved my mind to hers, our gaze the channel.

  ‘Wisteria?’ Lily said. The vines grew up the side of the house and were half a season away from opening.

  Miss du Maurier jumped to her feet but quickly sat down again, as her rational mind tried to keep order. ‘Yes, that is it! That was the one compromise between my parents before I was born. My mother wanted to name me after a flower and my father wanted to name me after a man of science – so since Wisteria is named after Caspar Wistar, I am named after him.’

  ‘And a last name that begins with L or a …’ Miss du Maurier was motionless as Lily corrected herself, I threw my eyes open to her like a flare to steady her. ‘An M? A last name that begins with M?’

  ‘That has to be my last name, Morris. I changed it to du Maurier for the stage. My mother adored the novel Trilby by George du Maurier. I remembered it from her shelf, it sounded so French. I thought it would give me a foreign advantage. The thing is the name stuck, even to my father. Rabbi Pearl called him Mr du Maurier, but my father never had the heart to correct him. No matter now.’

  Lily blinked as she listened to Hysteria Wisteria Morris du Maurier pump our ears with the paltry details of her little life. Lily looked lucid for a moment, and I feared the breaking of her concentration in the reminder of he who should be forgotten forever. I sent the letter F between my mind and hers, my mouth making the echo of its shape. Lily plucked the letter out of the air, needing no other direction than the one that came from me.

  ‘The letter F? No, the letter E – does that mean anything to you?’ She rang almost true, her concentration slowly returning. She was a natural apprentice, she was learning quickly: let the subject fill in their gaps, let them be the authors of everything they want to hear. It was a kind of service, to help the answers find their questions.

  Miss du Maurier could hold back no longer. ‘The last word he ever said was Elysium.’ The tears were a-trickle, silent tracks down her face. I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and she accepted it, but did nothing to stem the flow of her tears. ‘Oh my dear,’ Miss du Maurier said between choked gulps, ‘you have the gift.’ Only then did she wipe her eyes and nose, clutching the damp keepsake in her hand. No matter, I had no need of having it; it was nothing compared to the treasure I was about to claim.

  Lily sat in the chair opposite, her eyes falling from mine as the opium dragged at her eyelids.

  ‘I have worn her out, the poor thing.’ Miss du Maurier got up and approached Lily, but I was already by her side, my arm wrapped around her waist, leading her up the stairs to share with her what I had so carefully prepared. To share with her my humble self.

  We took each step slowly, her hair spread across my arm, her head on my chest. She had done all I asked of her, so far. She was worn out, she deserved her rest, for she had been a pretty polly in parroting all that I bid her say. Ah, the credulous of the world! The letters of the alphabet that started her association could have held meaning for anyone who heard them, the gullible masses filling the hard theatre seats, buttocks clenched in excitement at the unfolding truths, without a brain between them to set them free, as Houdini had told me as child. Everyone found their little personal truths in the general signs and symbols. They could even have had meaning for me. W could be for William. L could be for Little. M could be for Me or Mine. E could be for? I had no idea.

  I pushed open the door to my room. The gust of air that came with me up the stairs taunted the papers I had rammed under the bed. They fluttered as if I kept a dovecote there. I practically carried her over the threshold and slammed the door with the backward kick of my foot. The papers all took their roost and were still again.

  She was wafer light as I laid her down upon my bed, her skin hot as I ran my fingers down her face. I had waited so long. Could I wait any longer? I took Golden Fortune’s comb and twined it in Lily’s hair, the gold of the metal and the silver of her hair a celestial pairing. My dove, my undefiled.

  With reverence and a little awe, I placed all that I had around her, my own personal offering.

  FORTY-ONE

  Ari

  The scrap of my uncle’s prayer shawl was not the only strange thing arranged on the mound around the two curved walls of sticks. Several parrot feathers were fanned out there too, iridescent blue on one side, black on the other. It reminded me of our beautiful green parrot, left blinking in the shed. There were glossy purple berries plundered from a bush, snail shells, silver foil, a long piece of blue ribbon that might once have graced an expensive present or a girl’s hair, a sweet wrapper and an enamel bluebird earring. It was such an odd arrangement that at first I thought my uncle had constructed it in his madness, a tabernacle for the birds. There was a curiously beautiful method to the arrangement of it all.

  ‘Not bad, not bad at all,’ the Birdman said as he circled the raised mound. ‘See the paint? He has mixed it with his own saliva and some natural pigment on the side of the bower. All these things the satin bowerbird has spied and collected and rearranged, all to lure his lady. Makes a bunch of flowers look like chicken feed, don’t you think?’

  All I could think was that my uncle had to be somewhere near if his prayer shawl had bee
n torn by a branch and collected for its blue. The sooner we found him, the quicker I could take my own meagre offering, all I had, myself, back to Lily to see if I could mend all that I had broken.

  Something dashed through the undergrowth, making a startling buzz, like an angry wasp caught between the sashes of a window. Out burst the bowerbird, its feathers crow-black except for the lustrous jewel of its violet eye. Beauty had disappeared into the upper reaches of the trees. The bowerbird ran forward, its wings tilting like an aeroplane. It cried out – a parrot’s screech, a raven’s mournful cry, a currawong’s rain-song, a lyrebird’s theft and blend of notes – another mimic in the bush. All these sounds that had seemed so strange to my ears when I first arrived were now the songs of my homeland. Spotting us, the startled bird made his mad bolt back to the safety of the undergrowth.

  ‘Not the visitor he was expecting. Well, we won’t take it personally,’ the Birdman said as he carefully stepped closer to the mound and fingered the fraying threads of my uncle’s prayer shawl. Did the fringes blow the way we should follow? Were the cries of the birds some kind of direction? What augury could be read from cloth, what proof was there here of my uncle’s life?

  Through the dense scrub rushed the sound of wings. The Birdman and I stood still, thinking it was the bowerbird again, come to greet his bride, but it was Beauty, a black arrow bursting out above our heads, circling low, arc-o, back and forth again and again, bidding us follow.

  What had Beauty found? I wanted to run. Could my uncle still be alive? The Birdman and I gathered pace, but Beauty was faster. When we lagged, she waited up ahead, beating her wings against the fathomless blue of the sky. The Birdman navigated the incline as we followed higher – the jagged edges of rocks, the perils of rabbit holes – through scrub where the branches were knitted together, thatched and impenetrable. Time ticked between the dip and rise of a raven’s wings, until we found ourselves hugging the outline of a cliff, the very edge of the ranges, each step peeling back the vista for us, showing the wild plummet onto the giant grey-green thicket below.