Crooks and Straights

by Masha du Toit

  For a while Gia worried that Karel would try to contact Special Branch directly, but Saraswati must have put a stop to that.

  She did not understand what he hoped to achieve. After all, if she did not join Special Branch, that would break the bargain with the Belle Gente. Did he simply refuse to think about that?

  One good thing was that her parents had forgotten that she was supposed to be grounded. She met Fatima and Ben several times, and went to visit Sonella more than once. Gia always found some excuse why they could not meet at her home. The trunk was still in her room. She’d not had a chance to put it back where she’d found it, and she could not think of a way of explaining it to her friends.

  She did not tell Fatima or Ben the whole story. They did not know about her bargain with the Belle Gente. She told them that Saraswati had gone into hiding to escape from the attentions of the Belle Gente, and made some deal with them so that she could return home safely. Fatima seemed perfectly happy to accept this, and if Ben had his doubts, he did not say anything.

  Sonella was less easy to sidestep. Gently but relentlessly, she pulled the full story out of Gia as soon as they were alone together. It was a relief to have somebody to talk to, and Sonella made a good audience. She listened with total attention, and some awe, as Gia told her about meeting Ochre, and her trip to the secret room. The description of the ivory woman interested her in particular.

  “I think I know who she might be,” she said. “My mother’s been researching that stuff. The history of the resistance all over the world. One of the important leaders in China is a woman called The White Crane. You know there have been dreadful crackdowns over there, and many people have disappeared. There have been lots of rumours that she’s here in South Africa. I wonder if it could be her. She’s one of the most powerful magic users in the world now.”

  She was fascinated with every aspect of the story, and even the button interested her.

  “You know,” she said, turning it over in her hand. “You could give this to Ben to hold. Maybe he could use his psychometry to figure out where that meeting place is.”

  But Gia shook her head. “I don’t think I want to know,” she said. “I think it might be dangerous to know that. If they went to so much trouble to keep it secret.” Then she looked at her friend. “Sonella, you know that this is all dreadfully secret, right? If anyone hears that I’m involved with those people, I don’t know what might happen. Special Branch is not a joke, and neither are the old ones.”

  But Sonella was nodding earnestly. “Don’t worry Gia. I won’t tell anyone.” She gave a wry smile. “Not even Miss Huisman.”

  Gia gave an unhappy laugh.

  Miss Huisman had not said anything, but she clearly had strong opinions about Gia joining Special Branch. She was perfectly polite, but her manner toward Gia had definitely cooled.

  It stung. Gia hated disappointing a teacher she respected. But it was too late for regrets now. Miss Huisman was part of the life she was leaving behind.

  Flight

  Now that Saraswati was back, Gia’s days took on a new rhythm.

  She ran every morning, and after school, as soon as she’d finished her homework, she helped Saraswati with the wedding gown.

  It was now less than a week before she’d have to leave home and go and live at Valkenberg, but she tried not to think of that fact.

  The caretaker came every day and spent most of the afternoon with Nico. Between them they worked on the overlocker sculpture. They seemed to spend as much time building it as taking it apart. Gia loved watching them work. When Nico was with the caretaker, he lost many of the nervous twitches that had marked him out as not-quite normal before.

  Karel was as busy as ever. He’d taken on all the other work, in order to free Saraswati and Gia to focus on the wedding gown. He was often out, meeting new clients, or sourcing fabric.

  There was a lot to do on the wedding gown, and they were kept very busy. It was exhausting work, but it also meant that there was not much time to think, and that suited Gia.

  One afternoon the caretaker had left earlier than he usually did, just as Mandy started reorganising the kitchen cupboards. This was something she’d been threatening to do for days.

  “There’s something living in there,” she’d said. “And it’s not mice, for all that I keep finding droppings.”

  Organising cupboards and looking after Nico were two things that did not go well together, so Gia and Saraswati took a break from sewing to keep an eye on him. They were working together so well now that neither wanted to carry on without the other, and as Saraswati said, they both needed a rest.

  Saraswati sat on the couch, eyes closed, face turned into the sun. The only sign that she was not asleep was her hand slowly stroking a purring Minou, who was stretched across her lap.

  Nico worked on his overlocker monster. It was quite a magnificent beast by now. Each limb could bend at the joints, and if Nico turned a little crank near the tail, the head swung from side to side, jaws opening and shutting.

  Gia felt her own eyelids drooping. It was a lovely day, one of those rare, windless, late-summer days that deny the existence of winter. A pigeon cooed outside the window, a warm pulse of sound.

  She came awake to Nico pulling on her hand.

  “Feathers,” he said. “Feathers?”

  She blinked at him. “What?”

  He gestured at the monster.

  Well, at least he’s asking for permission now.

  “Oh, yes.” She yawned, and felt a tremendous reluctance to get up.

  “Well, you know where they are on my shelf. Why don’t you just bring the whole jar.”

  Nico nodded and scampered off.

  For a while she sat, nodding in the warm sunshine.

  “Where’s Nico?”

  Saraswati’s sleepy voice brought her awake, and she realised that Nico had not come back yet. It should not have taken him long to go up to her room and fetch the jar of feathers. Then she relaxed at the sound of footsteps in the passage outside.

  “There he is,” said Saraswati and then— “What have you got there, my boy?”

  Something in her mother’s voice made Gia turn her head to look.

  Nico walked slowly, his arms full of something white. It draped down to the ground and dragged behind him. Gia froze, the shock of it prickling up her spine and stopping her breath.

  Nico’s arms were full of white feathers.

  She’d forgotten all about the trunk, shoved back as it was against the wall. Nico must have seen, and opened it.

  Saraswati eased Minou gently off her lap, and rose to her feet.

  “What have you got there, sweetheart?”

  Gia felt as if a hand was clasped over her mouth, stopping her breath. She wanted to shout, to pull her mother’s attention toward her, away from the thing that Nico held.

  Saraswati brushed her hair out of her face, and smiled down at Nico, her eyes intent, interested, but still calm. She reached down, and took the feathered skin from her son. Eyes closed, she lifted it to her face and breathed in the smell of it. The feathers rustled like silk, and the scent filled the room, a resiny scent that hung in the quiet, sunlit air.

  Saraswati swung the skin over her shoulders so that it hung around her body like a cloak. She stroked her hands down the length of it, luxuriating in its touch, like a young girl in her first party dress.

  Everything slowed, moved with an underwater speed.

  Gia could see every detail with unnatural clarity, but her ears were deafened by a rushing roar.

  Saraswati looked down at Nico and took both his hands in hers. The feathered cloak clung to her body, wrapping down her arms until it almost seemed as if the white feathers were sprouting out of her skin. The little frown, the waking flicker of anxiety in her eyes.

  Then her arms rose, dragged up and back. Her hands slipped from Nico’s grasp. With an effort, Saraswati brought her arms back down, her face white, all calm gone now. She stared down at her w
rists, at the silver bracelets that circled each arm. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream and she pulled at the silver, curling her body around the unbearable pain of it.

  Gia at last found the strength to move and threw herself forward. All she could hear was Saraswati’s heavy breathing, seeming to form one harsh word over and over:

  “Off. Off. Off.”

  She grabbed Saraswati’s arm ignoring the feathers that were pushing out between her fingers, out of her mother’s skin. She hooked her fingers under the silver bracelet and dragged it off, then grabbed for the other arm. There were more feathers now, but she could still see the red marks on Saraswati’s white skin where the silver burnt her like acid.

  “Off. Get it off.”

  For a horrible moment the bracelet stuck. Then it was off, sliding clumsily over her mother’s hand.

  Gia looked into Saraswati’s face, so close to hers and for one last moment saw her there, warm, living, a woman’s eyes. Her mother’s eyes closed, and opened as the eyes of a stranger. The bird-woman opened her arms and brought them down again and again, each rushing beat shaking out more feathers, shaping her arms into wings.

  Gia’s hair blew back at the wind of it, and she grabbed hold of Nico who was standing, blank-faced, staring.

  “Open the door!”

  Somebody pushed past Gia. Mandy was struggling with the door to the balcony.

  “Help me open it, or she’ll go through the glass!” screamed Mandy.

  Gia sprang to help her. The winged creature snaked her impossibly long neck and threw herself at the now open door. For a moment Gia thought she was going to crash down onto the road outside but the great wings stretched and caught the air, and with a rush of feathers and a keening scream, the swan launched herself over the balcony rail and was gone, flying beat after beat up into the blue, late-summer sky.

  -oOo-

  “Better come back inside.”

  Mandy stood in the door, her headscarf askew, breathing heavily. Then she held up her hands.

  “No!”

  Nico, who’d been standing white-faced and staring, was heading for the open balcony door. Mandy caught him clumsily and they both fell onto the floor. Gia tried to help Mandy, but Nico was almost too strong for them, struggling desperately toward the balcony. He screamed as they dragged him back into the room. A thin, inhuman, thread-like scream that went on and on.

  The front door slammed and a moment later Karel was there.

  “Nico!” he roared, and the surprise of it stopped the screaming, and Nico stared up at him, mouth still open. Then he reached for his father, and Mandy and Gia let him go.

  Silent again, he flung himself into Karel’s arms. They sat there on the floor, man and boy. Karel rocked a little, back and forth, his arms wrapped around his son.

  “You okay?” said Mandy, and Gia nodded. Her throat was sore. She must have been screaming. Something crunched under her foot.

  “Careful,” said Mandy. “There’s glass everywhere.”

  One of the panes of the balcony door had shattered.

  Karel looked around the room, taking in the shards of glass, and the white feathers that drifted down through the still air. His gaze fell on the silver bracelets that lay discarded on the floor.

  “Sari?” he said softly.

  He looked up at Gia and Mandy, shaking his head. His lips moved, but he seemed unable to speak. At last his voice came.

  “So she found it. But how—?”

  Then he stood up, awkwardly hoisting Nico onto his hip, the boy’s face still buried in his shoulder. “I’ll take him to bed.”

  Gia stared at her father. “Aren’t you going to go look for her?”

  Karel did not answer, just turned and walked out of the room, carrying Nico.

  -oOo-

  Gia ran out the front door and down the stairs.

  Too late, too late, drummed in her head in rhythm with her steps.

  Out on the street, there was no sign that anything unusual had happened. Cars drove by, and a few pedestrians strolled unhurriedly on their way.

  Hadn’t anyone seen anything?

  A woman stood in her door across the road, smoking. Gia caught her eye, but as she approached the woman turned and shut the door behind her.

  Maybe they did not want to see.

  She craned her neck, looking up at the roofs, or up into the sky, hoping to see some sign of the swan. As she searched she walked, faster and faster until she was running. Her school shoes hurt her feet and sounded loud on the pavement, but she hardly noticed. All she cared about now was driving out the memories.

  Too late, too late.

  The dark, hard, uncaring eyes of the swan in her mother’s face.

  The bruising blows of its wings as she pulled at the bracelets.

  The angry wheals on Saraswati’s white skin where the silver had burnt her.

  The bird, beautiful, powerful and utterly alien, snaking its neck, hurling itself desperately at the door like a trapped thing. As if nothing mattered as much as getting free. As if it were willing to die rather than be trapped any longer.

  The desperate beauty of the scramble and falling flight, picking up, winging up into the sun.

  Gia ran.

  Her breath raced and her heart pounded as she drove herself on and on up toward the mountain. She was no longer looking for the swan.

  The angry blare of a horn shocked her back into herself and she found that she was on the edge of the freeway, a stream of cars roaring by in front of her. There was no way across De Waal Drive at this time of day. She stepped back onto the kerb, disoriented, and stood there gasping, feeling the wind of the passing cars tug at her.

  -oOo-

  When she got back to the house, all was quiet.

  Karel and Mandy sat at the kitchen table, facing one another. Mandy’s headscarf was off, her hair standing on end as though she’d been running her hands through it. Karel stared down at the silver bracelets that lay on the table in front of him.

  It’s as if somebody’s died.

  They looked up as she came in.

  “Oh, good,” said Mandy. She reached out and took Gia’s hand. “Come, sit down. I’ll make you some tea. Would you like some tea?”

  Gia nodded, although she did not really. She sat in the chair that Mandy pulled out for her.

  “Nico?” Gia asked.

  “He’s sleeping,” said Karel, not lifting his gaze from the bracelets.

  For a while they sat there, as Mandy moved about, filling the kettle, opening and closing cupboards.

  “What happened, then?” said Karel at last. “Did you see?”

  “Yes,” said Gia

  Karel looked up at her, his face bleak. “How did it happen?”

  “It was me.”

  He frowned, puzzled, so she continued. “I found the trunk. I found it a few days ago, when— when Mom was still gone.”

  She did not dare look at him now. “I opened it. I did not know what it was. Just a lot of feathers.”

  She glanced up and saw he was watching her. His eyes were grave, but there was no sign of anger.

  “I did not know what it meant.” Then she shook her head. “No, that’s not right. I did not let myself think about what it meant.”

  It was easier to talk now.

  “I was going to put it back, but I never got a chance. And then Nico went up to my room—”

  Karel closed his eyes as if in pain.

  “He brought it to her,” she ended in a whisper. “That thing. That feather cloak.”

  The kettle bubbled to a boil, then turned itself off with a loud plastic click.

  “Do you know where she’s gone, Dad?”

  Karel shook his head. He rubbed his thumb over the whorls in the bracelet.

  “Where has she gone? Who knows? I guess I always knew it would happen one day,” he said, as if to himself. “But I let myself believe that she’d choose to stay.”

  I don’t think it was a choice, thought Gia, but she
kept that to herself. How could she guess what had gone through her mother’s mind when she saw that swan-skin cloak?

  Mandy put the teapot and the cups on the table, and sank back into her chair. “It just needs to steep a bit,” she said. “And you’ll have to have honey. We’re out of sugar.”

  “How did it happen?” asked Gia.

  Karel looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” said Gia, “how did it all begin? With Mom? How did it happen?”

  He shook his head. “Gia, it was so long ago—”

  “No!” The vehemence of that word startled even her, and she took a breath to calm herself. “No,” she said again, but more quietly. “Enough secrets. I deserve to know. We deserve to know.”

  She turned to Mandy. “You didn’t know, did you? This about Mom?”

  Mandy shook her head. “I knew Madam had her secrets,” she said. “But it was not my place to pry them out.”

  Karel did not move. His eyes were back on the bracelets, but he stared at them blindly, as if he did not see what was in front of him.

  “The first time I saw your mother, she was with her sisters. There were seven of them. Seven sisters.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips.

  “They were something else. Like royalty. Everyone would stare at them, but they did not care. Nothing could touch them.

  “I was a student then, in Italy. We used to go to lots of parties. A whole group of us. Jennie and Ben too.”

  Gia started at the mention of her birth parents, but her father did not notice.

  “Jennie was already pregnant with you at that time, but she never let that stop her going out with the rest of us…thank you, Mandy.” He accepted a cup of tea from Mandy, and blew on it.

  “Sari was different from her sisters. The older ones were a wild lot. They’d dance you off your feet, drink you under the table. Sari was always more reserved. Her sisters were very protective of her. She was the youngest, you know. It was a job getting close enough even to speak to her. But I managed it in the end.”