Birds of a Feather

by Harper Crowley

  “Then I’ll just leave these with you,” he says, nodding at the stack of papers. “Just give me a call when you’re ready, and we’ll get the ball rolling.”

  “Perfect. Thanks again.” Marge and I watch the lawyer leave. Finally, something good has happened in this place, something that doesn’t feel like it’s going to make me stay forever.

  “Asshole,” Marge squawks as the door shuts behind Mr. Erickson.

  “Shut your beak,” I mutter. “He’s going to help me more than you ever have.”

  Marge ruffles her feathers, eyes the pieces of paper, and begins climbing down her tree stand toward them.

  “Oh no you don’t,” I say. “Don’t even think about it.” I tuck the papers under my arm and head back to the office. Marge gives an offended squawk and starts preening the feathers under her wing.

  With the towering bookshelves clear, I start on my aunt’s desk. Most of it is mundane—a couple of planners from years past as well as pens, paper clips, and other miscellanea. I empty all of it out on top of the desk and go through it, looking for anything that might be important or that my sister or I might want. I don’t have much of a tie to this place anymore, but I feel like I should take something to remember my aunt by. Something good.

  I sigh and lean back in the old office chair behind the desk. My eyes land on a steel-colored metal seat with a faded-green cushion. Beneath the layers of dust, tiny gray flowers peek through. I know that chair. Of all the things...

  “What’s wrong, my dear?” Aunt Wanda folds her wrinkled hands in her lap, her pale-blue eyes assessing me.

  At eight years old, I fidget in my chair, my legs swinging back and forth. “I want to go home.”

  My aunt purses her lips. “You can’t run away from what you see, child. It’s a gift. You have to use it.”

  Sudden tears burn my eyes. “No, I won’t. This is stupid. It’s not a gift. It’s bad, really really bad. I hate it.” My fingers dig into the chair’s seat until my knuckles turn white.

  Aunt Wanda shakes her head. “Oh, my dear. It’ll be all right, I promise. I went through the same thing when I was your age.”

  I jump off of the chair. “No, it won’t. I hate this place. I want to call my mom, now.”

  “You can’t,” Wanda says. Tears well up in her eyes.

  “Yes, I can.” I fumble for the phone on Wanda’s wall, but the she gets up and puts her hand on mine to stop me.

  “I’m sorry, Shelby, but you can’t call your mom. Sit down, please. There’s something I need to tell you.”

  I shake my head, unnerved by her tears and the worried tone of her voice. “What’s going on?”

  “Just sit down, honey.” She winces. “We need to talk.”

  “No!” I can’t tell what’s going on, just that something is very, very wrong, and my aunt knows about it. “I want my mom.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Shelby. You can’t call her. There’s been an accident.”

  “What?” I waver on my feet, torn between fleeing and frozen. “No. That’s impossible.”

  “It happened, baby. I’m so very sorry.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re wrong.”

  “Oh, baby.” She reaches for me, but I duck under her arm and fly out of her office faster than I’ve ever moved before, out the door and down the street, until I can’t see her, the store, or that evil bird she keeps by the front desk ever again.

  My phone rings, and I jump, startling myself out of the memory. It’s a good thing. Some memories are better left in the past. Especially that one.

  Sara’s name flashes on the screen, and I answer the phone. It’s a welcome respite from the dark place my mind had been wandering in. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “You’ve got to come home. This was a terrible idea.”

  I fiddle with a key ring holding a couple of brass keys that I’d found in a drawer. “Probably, but you know I can’t do that.” I don’t really have a home, and there hasn’t been enough time since what happened for me to go back to our hometown. Besides, I don’t think I want to. People in small towns don’t forget anything. Ever. Fifty years down the line, someone’s going to remember their grandpa telling them about the former teacher who used to live there but went crazy and got arrested. It’ll still be hanging over my head after I’m long gone.

  I tell her about Mr. Erickson dropping off the paperwork but choose not to mention his offer to help. If I do, she’ll latch on to that and demand that I leave.

  “So, you don’t think it’ll be much longer?” she asks. I picture her fiddling with her keys, much like I am with our aunt’s. It’s a nervous tic we both share.

  “Probably not,” I lie. “As soon as the cops finish their investigation and I get the place cleaned up, I’m out of here.” Yeah, as if it’ll be that easy.

  “What about Marge?” she asks.

  I glance toward the bookstore reflexively, as if just the mention of the bird’s name will make her appear like a demon set to kill me. I guess she’s not that bad if I throw enough food at her. “No luck yet, but I’ll find someplace for her.” I add look up bird rescues to my mental to-do list.

  “Just don’t bring her back home with you,” Sara says. “I’ll have nightmares just thinking about it.”

  I chuckle. “She’s not that bad.” If you don’t mind screaming and food-flinging and almost-human intelligence, she’s pretty much perfect.

  “Uh-huh. Are you feeling all right? We hated that bird, remember? She hated us.”

  I bite my lip, fighting a grin. “Yeah, she might have tried to kill me when I first got here.”

  Sara laughs. “I wish I could have seen that. But seriously, though, are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” I brush off her concern. “This will be good for me.” Or it would be if I didn’t have to worry about dead bodies, secret passageways, and making sure I don’t tick Marge off.

  “Liar,” she says. “Are you still getting phone calls? Please tell me those, at least, have stopped.”

  I stand up and leave the office, just in time to hear the tinkling of the bell up front, accompanied by Marge’s own version of a greeting.

  “Yeah, I think changing my number did the trick.” I’m sure changing my name helped, too, though I had to publish that in the newspaper before it was finalized, so if someone were to look hard enough, they’d find out who I really am.

  “Good,” Sara says. “I’m worried about you. You’re alone up there. What if the crazies come back? Or what if you—”

  “Stop,” I snap, interrupting her before she can panic too much. “I’m fine, the bookstore is fine, and I even have a neighbor who’s really nice and helps me out.” Okay, that’s a stretch, but it’ll make my sister feel better.

  A pair of middle-aged women make their way through the stacks of books and tables. “Look, I’ve got customers. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  “You opened the store?” she screeches. “Are you crazy? Someone’s going to recognize you. I thought you wanted to lay low.”

  She’s right. Crap, I didn’t think of that. “Sorry. I’ll call you tonight.” I hang up and stuff the phone into my pocket before she can say anything else that will convince me to leave. She’s good at that. Maybe she should have been a lawyer too.

  “Hi.” I paste a smile on my face, shoving all of my memories and regrets to the back of my mind. “My name is Willa. How can I help you?”

  The first of the two, a short, mousy woman with short, mousy-brown hair squints her eyes at me as she studies me. “Who’re you?”

  Oh yeah, this is going well. “I’m Willa. I’m helping Shelby and Sara with the bookstore until they can list it for sale.”

  The second woman, taller than the first with fire-engine-red hair, clucks her tongue. “Wanda would have hated that, that’s for sure. She loved the bookstore.”

  “Yeah, well”—some of my irritation at everything that’s been happening rises to the surface—“I don’t know
if you’ve heard, but she passed away.” Sorry, Aunt Wanda.

  The first woman draws in a sharp breath and covers her mouth with her hands. “I simply can’t believe her lovely nieces would let something like this happen.”

  Believe it, lady. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “No, thank you. We’ll just look around for a bit, if that’s all right.” She says the last bit with such a snap that I almost give it right back to her.

  “No, take your time,” I say sweetly. “Take all the time you need.”

  Just as the women turn away, Marge reaches into her food bowl and pulls out a walnut, still in its shell. With her crest at full mast, she flings the walnut as hard as she can at the two women. It hits the mousy one on the shoulder, and she spins around.

  “I am so sorry,” I say, chuckling inside. “Marge does make a mess with her food sometimes.” I hurry around the counter and scoop up the offending nut.

  With a huff, they make a beeline for the romance section, and I plop the nut back into Marge’s bowl. “Good bird,” I murmur once I’m sure the women are out of earshot. “Remind me to get you a muffin at the café later.”

  Marge gives me a smug look before tucking her head under her wing for an afternoon nap. Maybe being stuck here with Marge for a few more days won’t be the end of the world. It certainly seems like we’ve got the same sense of humor.

  After the two women leave, I go back to my aunt’s office and make short work of the rest of her desk. There really isn’t anything interesting in there except a receipt book and a few of the most recent bills I decide to hold on to just in case I need to catch anything up before closing out her estate.

  After I finish sorting through the office, I eye the three garbage bags of trash I have stacked next to the back door. I open the door to dump them outside, but then I stop. There’s a dark stain on the ground between the store and the dumpster. Oh God, that’s where the body was. Stupid. How could you forget about that?

  I stare at the bloodstain for several seconds before slamming the door shut again, my heart pounding. I can’t go out there. Not right now. Maybe not for a long time. Perhaps it’s something I can have that lawyer do for me. Yeah, maybe. I’ll check that out. But right now, it’s just papers, so it can wait.

  Marge squawks from the bookstore, and I hurry toward her, steeling myself to deal with more nosy townspeople, but it’s not. Nick meanders through the aisles, picking up a book here and there, reading the spines before setting them back down.

  “Um, hi,” I say as he gets close—too close. Marge lunges for him, her beak open. He leaps backward, his arms flying up to protect his face. The bird misses him by an inch, wings flailing, and nearly falls off of her tree stand. Once she straightens herself, she squawks indignantly and glares at Nick.

  “You coulda warned me your chicken was out for blood,” he says, eyeing the cockatoo warily. “Damn thing’s a terror.”

  Marge hisses at him, and I feel my own hackles raise.

  “She’s not that bad.” Yeah, right. “Wanda loved her.”

  He raises one eyebrow. “Uh-huh. There’s someone for everyone, I suppose.”

  “Sorry. I actually forgot about her being up here. She’s been so quiet all day.”

  He chuckles. “Marge? I can hear her through the walls, you know. Probably outside, too, but I haven’t checked.”

  He’s probably right. “So, uh, is there something I can help you with?” I don’t want to get rid of him, but the tension in the air is thick, and I don’t want to test Marge’s aim much more than I already have. Can birds have rabies? I file that away in the probably-stupid-questions-to-Google-later folder.

  Nick shoves his hands in his pockets. “No, I just... well, I came to see how you were doing.”

  That catches me off guard. “I’m fine. Um, do you want to see what I’ve been working on?” Stop dragging this out. I can’t fight the glimmer of relief I feel that I’m not alone right now. Especially not after everything that’s happened.

  “Sure.” He follows me past the front desk and into the back.

  “Have you ever had a tour of back here?” I throw the question over my shoulder.

  He shakes his head. “No. Yesterday was the first time I was ever back here. Sure, I visited Wanda a couple times when I first moved in, but I’ve never been in the back.”

  That makes sense. There’s no reason he should have gone in the back unless my aunt invited him, and even though he’s got that ruggedly handsome look, that’s not enough to get my aunt to unlock the door to her private sanctum.

  We brush past the bedroom and stop at the office. I grimace at the piles haphazardly strewn on the floor. “I’ve been trying to sort through some things, but I don’t think it’s helping. In fact”—I gesture at the mess—“I think it’s worse now than it was when I started.”

  He chuckles. “I doubt that.” Nick scans the room then strides over to the boxes stacked in front of the door to the tunnel. “You didn’t have to block it off, you know. I wouldn’t use it to come through.” He says it softly, but I detect a hint of hurt in his voice.

  “It’s not that. It’s just that anyone could break in after you’re gone, you know?” I’m not sure why I feel the need to defend my actions. To be honest, I don’t actually know the guy at all, and even though he saved me when we were at the bar, that doesn’t mean he’s not a creep otherwise. Come on now, you’d have noticed if he was a creep. You have a pretty good jerk meter. It’s about the only thing that’s working right about now.

  “I guess you’re wise to do it, then,” he says, oblivious to my inner monologue. “You don’t really know me, so it’s safer to block it off.” He drops his fingers to his sides. “Have you heard from the police?”

  I shake my head. “No. Nothing. It’s only been a day, but I worry about the killer coming back.”

  Nick frowns. “Yeah, I get it. Hopefully, all this activity has scared him off. Odds are, whoever did this was looking for something open or something to score. However, it might not have had anything to do with the bookstore. I haven’t been back in Tranquility Falls for very long, but I have heard there’s a stronger drug presence here than there was before.”

  “Where did you live before you moved here?” The question leaves my lips before I can convince myself not to say it. There are a million more important questions for you to ask, yet this is the one you come up with. Great job, Willa.

  “Boston.” I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t, and the silence that follows tells me more than his words probably would. Nick checks out the rest of the room before moving on to the two bedrooms.

  “I don’t think you have to worry about any more tunnels,” he says. “I don’t see any more bookshelves like that one, except for the ones out in the bookstore itself, and I find it hard to believe that Wanda would turn one of those into a secret passage. It would be too easy for customers to accidentally open one of those. No, if there are secret passages, then they’re in the back.”

  That doesn’t exactly make me feel better. “But you think we’re in the clear?”

  “Probably.” He lifts one shoulder then drops it. “I mean, the cops would know better than I would. Did you end up telling them about the tunnel?”

  I flush, because even though he said it probably wasn’t related, I didn’t believe him and told Detective Landry. “Yeah. I just wanted them to know, just in case. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah.” He glances at his watch. “Well, I just stopped by to see how you’re doing.” There’s a hesitancy in his voice that wasn’t there before. Strange. It almost sounds like he’s nervous for some reason.

  “Okay, I’ll... Um, I guess I’ll see you later.”

  He gives me a half-wave before leaving. Talk about awkward. I don’t have much time to dwell on it before Marge bangs her food dish against the tree and I’m thrust back into the feather-filled real world.

  I make a mental list. First: feed the bird so she doesn’t
revolt. Second: finish the office.

  Chapter 6

  “I hate you.” A younger version of me collapses on the couch, tears coursing down my face.

  “I know, and I’m sorry,” my aunt says. “But it was better this way.” She hesitates. “You and your sister are better off—”

  “Just don’t,” I snap, scrubbing my eyes with the backs of my hands. “Don’t tell me we’re better off, or you’re glad we’re here, or anything like that. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Shelby.” My aunt reaches for me, agony twisting her features.

  Sara tiptoes past the door, looks in, then darts away. She hasn’t talked in days. I miss her.

  “Don’t touch me!” I shrink away. “Leave me alone.”

  “I love you. I—”

  Squawk!

  I jolt awake, my heart beating out of my chest. Sweat slicks my hair to my forehead, and when Marge calls out again, I thrash against the blankets strangling my legs until I untangle myself and kick them to the ground.

  Squawk!

  I jump out of bed. There’s something wrong. There has to be. I’ve only lived with Marge for a couple of days, but I already know she wouldn’t be up and screaming in the middle of the night if there wasn’t a problem.

  Silence.

  My blood whooshes through my veins, and my breath comes out in short, panicked gasps. I creep toward the door that separates the two buildings and stop. I should have grabbed a weapon of some kind, something to defend myself with.

  I quickly scan the hallway, but there’s nothing there. I’m going in empty-handed. Perfect.

  Something scratches against the bottom of the door. “Hello?” Marge whispers. “Is there anyone home?”

  I scream and leap away. “Holy crap.” I gasp, pressing my hands to my chest as if that’ll stop my heart from bursting out from my rib cage. Whatever it is knocks on the other side of the door. It’s got to be Marge. This bird is going to be the death of me.

  “Hello?” she whispers again.

  “Stop doing that,” I mutter. “You almost scared me half to death.” Turning the knob slowly, I open the door a couple of inches, ready to run if there’s anything dangerous on the other side. Anything more dangerous than Marge, that is.