Birds of a Feather

by Harper Crowley

  I shake my head. It’s just a tiny movement, but he must see it because he swears under his breath. His lips tighten, and I see something in his eyes that I recognize, although I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.

  “Come on, at least sit on the couch with me, away from the devil bird.”

  Over our heads, Marge crunches through the shell of a walnut as if it were a cheese puff, emphasizing his point. I nod, and he leads me numbly into the living room in my aunt’s apartment.

  On the couch, I curl my legs under myself and wrap my arms around my waist. It doesn’t keep the darkness out, and it doesn’t warm the chill freezing me from the inside out, but it’s all I can do to hold myself together. “I thought I was safe here,” I whisper then look up in alarm when I realize I spoke out loud.

  “Who?” he asks, that simple, one-word question holding so much meaning.

  I clamp my mouth shut. I can’t tell him. I can’t tell anyone.

  He waits for what seems like forever, just sitting next to me with his arm casually stretched out on the back of the couch. He sighs. “I wasn’t always an accountant.”

  My gaze flickers up to his, and he gives me a wry grin. “Shocking, I know. But before this gig, I was a cop. A good one too. But like a lot of cops, I made mistakes.”

  My mind reels back to the vision of him holding a gun and shooting someone. It all makes sense now. Except for the fact that your visions don’t show the past. They show the future, you idiot. Nick still isn’t a safe person to be around. He’s going to kill someone.

  But that’s not necessarily true, I argue to myself. Sometimes, destiny changes. Sometimes, people take a different path. Maybe he won’t kill someone.

  But maybe he will.

  “Anyway,” Nick says, oblivious to my inner turmoil, “there was an accident. Someone died. Someone close to me.” He takes a deep breath. “It messed me up big time. And for a long time, I couldn’t function. I just wanted to run away and hide. Now”—he slants a quick glance down at me—“I don’t know what happened to you or who hurt you, but I see that same darkness in your eyes. That same pain. And I know you’re not going to be here for very long, but if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know. The cops here are good guys. They’ll help you too.”

  I cough. It’s not quite a laugh, but it’s close. If he knew what I’ve been through, he’d never tell me to trust the cops.

  “I know, right? But if there’s one thing I learned from what happened, it’s that you can’t run forever. You can try.” He grimaces. “You can bury yourself in the bottle, in sex, in drugs, in a million different things, but you can’t run forever. Eventually, you have to face what happened, face yourself, and move on, or you’ll never find peace.” The gravity in his voice is one of experience, of a road well-travelled.

  I don’t know if peace is even possible for someone like me, if I’ll ever be able to stop running, or if the reporters, the internet watchdogs, or the trolls will ever let me. “Can I borrow your phone?”

  He studies me for a few seconds before nodding. I quickly search for Stan Erickson’s number, mostly because I don’t know if I have enough strength to get up and search for his business card and dial it.

  “Ms. Thompson,” Stan says, sounding surprised. “I didn’t think I’d hear from you so quickly.”

  “I’ll do it,” I say. “I’ll sign the papers you dropped off. When can you pick them up? I want to leave as soon as possible.”

  I ignore Nick’s piercing gaze and the pity I’m sure is reflected there. Self-healing and self-care work for some people, but not me. I’m not the one keeping myself from getting over what happened. The world is, and there’s no amount of platitudes or self-help books that will stop them from hunting me forever.

  Chapter 12

  Unable to sleep, I decide to search my aunt’s bedroom to see if I can find the book that Eddie was looking for. If I can get it to him before I leave, I won’t have to worry about describing it to the lawyer in hopes that he finds it and it gets to the right place.

  I start with the nightstand, but most of those books are tattered historical romances. The bookshelf next to her closet is next, but it’s filled with much of the same. This must have been her personal reading collection.

  After I finish going through her room, I stand in the doorway, assessing the space. If I were my aunt, and I had a book I didn’t want anyone to read, where would I put it? The safe, obviously, but I’ve already searched that, and I would have remembered seeing the book Eddie described in there. I walk around the side of the bookcase and peer behind it.

  Great time to break your phone, idiot. A flashlight would come in handy right about now.

  I tap the side then jiggle it a bit when it doesn’t move. It’s stuck. I bet, even without the books on it, that this one is attached to the wall like the ones in the store. No secret passages here, which wouldn’t surprise me, giving what I’m learning about my aunt. A lot of people claim to love her, but she’s also got the dirt—even documentation—on everyone. The teacher in me admires her dedication. I had to keep records of just about everything. It seems like it ran in the family.

  That long-buried twinge of regret surfaces. I feel like I don’t know who my aunt was, and maybe I never really did. If I’d only given her a chance and allowed her to explain why she did what she did, then maybe we never would have grown so far apart.

  I jiggle the bookcase a couple more times for good measure, but it still doesn’t move. Then I check behind the headboard and under the nightstands, but other than a couple of crumpled receipts and an empty candy-bar wrapper, it’s relatively clean.

  Her bathroom is next, in all its pink-tiled glory. I search the drawers and under the sink, but I don’t find anything except for cleaning supplies and a couple more books tucked away. My aunt was definitely an avid reader—which makes sense, since she owned a bookstore.

  I hit pay dirt in a black-plastic envelope taped to the back of the pink porcelain toilet. I peel the tape off the envelope and inspect it under the light. A thrill of adrenaline rushes under my skin. This is important. It has to be, or my aunt wouldn’t have hidden it back there.

  I carry the package into the kitchen and turn on the overhead lights. I rummage around in the drawers until I find a pair of scissors and carefully cut only through the top portion, where I’m sure there isn’t anything important.

  I slide out the brown-leather tome. Tranquility Falls, Then and Now gleams dully across the cover. I stroke the cover of the book, the soft leather warming beneath my touch. This book could change everything. Eddie wanted it for its history, but my aunt wouldn’t even let him open it. Maybe that’s the reason that I hesitate. I’m more cautious than afraid.

  Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

  After taking a long, measured breath and letting it out, I open the cover. Inside, in uneven blocky print on pages yellowed by age, is a brief history of the town. It details the founding fathers, the first settlements, and the several fires and notorious murders that once shook the sleepy village. I pause at a page about a string of suspicious deaths that the police thought might have been linked to a fur trader who came through the area in the 1800s.

  Huh. It looks like Detective Landry was wrong. It looks like Tranquility Falls has a troubled past, after all.

  I skip the glossary at the end and shut the book. This is disappointing. It’s interesting, but there aren’t any important revelations here. Nothing earth-shattering enough to kill someone over, that’s for sure.

  With a sigh, I scan the pages again. There has to be something here, something worth hiding. This time, I don’t skip the glossary, and right inside the back cover, I find a folded sheet of paper. This paper is just about as yellowed as the book, its creases sharp. I touch the paper with a jolt.

  This. This is what your aunt was hiding.

  With my blood rushing through my ears, I carefully unfold the paper. Across the top, in antique, stylized letters, it says “Certifica
te of Live Birth” and “State of Michigan.”

  That’s weird—my aunt never had kids, and her birth certificate was in the safe. Maybe this is her mother’s or someone else’s. I squint at the faded lettering, smeared in places as if it’d gotten wet at some point. I can’t make out the state number, so I skip to the next line, the child’s name: Baby Girl Williams.

  I have a cousin. Sara and I have a cousin. I sit back as the knowledge sinks in. We might not be as alone as we thought. I can’t wait to tell my sister. I wonder what her life has been like and why we don’t know about her. Does she know her aunt died? What if she was adopted? What if she... No... I immediately cast out the thought that maybe we don’t know about her because she died, because that can’t be true. My parents used to talk about their deceased parents often. By the time I was grown up, I felt as though I knew them, even though they’d passed away before I was born.

  I’ve got to find out more about her. My eyes skate down to the next line, the one for our cousin’s birthdate: October 19, 1987. Wait. That’s impossible. I stare at the numbers, willing them to change, willing them to make sense, to betray their secrets, but they stare at me, mocking and belligerent. That’s my birthday. There’s no way I have a cousin with the same birth date as me. The odds of that are just astronomical. I can’t be Baby Girl Williams. That’s crazy.

  I fold the piece of paper up and cram it back inside the book. I need to think about this, take a breather, relax. There has to be a logical explanation. There has to be a reason why my aunt has a birth certificate with my birthday and my birth stats on it. A reason that doesn’t involve stripping me of my entire identity and throwing me to the wolves. A reason that doesn’t mean what I think it means.

  My mom isn’t really my mom. I gulp at the bitter taste of bile in my throat. Which means my sister isn’t really my sister. We don’t have a hidden cousin. It’s me. I’m the secret.

  I pick up the ancient phone my aunt kept behind the register. I have to talk to Sara. She might be younger than me, but often, she’s more levelheaded than I am. She’ll be able to find a logical explanation.

  Silence reigns on the other end of the line. It’s dead. I rack my brain on the paperwork I found on my aunt’s desk. There were a lot of bills. It probably got disconnected. Crap. Frustration wells within me as I consider what to do next. I could always go next door and ask Nick if I can borrow his phone, but then he’ll probably wonder who I’m calling and why. The type of conversation I need to have is one that should be had with immediate family members, not guys next door that I just met who are helpful and kind of cute.

  I plop down on the floral chair, the same chair that was here when I was a little kid and close my eyes. Think, Willa, think. There has to be some sort of logical explanation. You can’t be your aunt’s daughter. You just can’t.

  Unless I am.

  I close my eyes and immediately I’m thrust into my memories again, sitting in this exact chair with my feet dangling over the edge, kicking my legs back and forth.

  “Now, Shelby,” my aunt says, sitting on the couch across from me, “it’s perfectly normal to see things when you, well, when you touch people.”

  “But why doesn’t anyone else?” a younger me asks. “And it scared Sara when I told her she was gonna break her arm if she kept jumping off the stairs, but she still did it.” My eyes burn. “I tried to help her, but she was so mad at me.”

  My aunt sighs. “Sometimes, people are afraid of things they don’t understand, and your visions are like that.”

  “I thought you said my visions were normal?” Worry clenches my young heart. “If they were, then why are people afraid of them?”

  “Because not everyone has them, my dear. Only very special little girls have gifts like yours.”

  “What about Sara? Will she have visions when she gets older?” I hope so. I don’t want to be the only one.

  But my aunt shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. These gifts are only passed from mother to daughter.”

  I perk up. “Mom can do it too? That’s cool. I—”

  “Um, no,” my aunt says, quickly. “But I think for some reason it skipped a generation. Your mother doesn’t have the gifts, but your grandma did.”

  “And you do?”

  She nods.

  I bite my bottom lip. “And if you have a daughter, will she have the gift too?”

  A strangled chuckle leaves my aunt’s lips. “Yes. Yes, she would.”

  I shake myself out of the long-buried memory. Son of a gun. This is what my aunt was talking about. The visions are hereditary, and they don’t skip a generation. My mom didn’t have them, but neither does my sister. I do. My aunt did. My grandma apparently did too.

  How have I not seen it by now? If my aunt is my mother, then my father is... I don’t know who my father would be. This can’t be happening. It’s not possible.

  Mind racing, I pull out the birth certificate again and unfold it. Next to my aunt’s name is the space for the father’s, but that line is blank. She didn’t list my father. I stare at the paper for several seconds before dropping it on the table.

  I have to get out of here and clear my head. So much has happened, and I can’t even begin to process it all. I grab my keys, lock up the shop, and climb into my car. I don’t have a destination. I just want to drive. Just driving around has always helped me clear my head, and this time is no exception.

  It’s nearly two a.m. when I get back to the store. I yawn, my mind blessedly blank. Driving for hours and staring at the road, just focusing on staying between the lines, helped me decompress. It’d taken nearly an hour just to get to a town with a convenience store large enough to carry burner phones, the cheapest of which now resides in its impossible-to-open plastic packaging on the back seat of my car. I’ll deal with it later. There’s no one I want to call, anyway.

  The back door to the bookstore gapes open, and fear spikes through me. I need to call the cops. I pat my pocket automatically for my phone, but it’s not there. For a few seconds, I briefly debate getting back in my car, but the shadows stretch between it and me, and suddenly a shaft of moonlight hits a lump next to the door. A lump that wasn’t there before. A lump with feathers.

  Marge lifts her head and squawks weakly. I rush forward, scoop this bird who tried to kill me up in my arms, and clutch her to my chest. This can’t be happening. I race to Nick’s office and bang on the door until he opens it. My heart beats relentlessly in my chest, and I keep glancing down at Marge, just to make sure she’s still breathing.

  “Willa?” Nick’s wearing only boxers and a thin T-shirt, and there’s a crease on his cheek from the pillow. Even as my mind recognizes all of this, I can’t think about anything other than the shaking creature in my arms.

  “Help, please. Marge’s hurt.”

  Chapter 13

  I pace the waiting room at the vet clinic, hands shoved in the pocket of my gray hoodie. In the middle of the night, it’s unstaffed except for the on-call vet who answered Nick’s phone call. Most of the lights are off, and I can hear a dog barking from somewhere and a cat yowling plaintively. I’m alone in the waiting room, having driven myself while Nick waited for the cops, and right now I feel every ounce of that isolation weighing down on me.

  She’s got to be okay. She has to be. I twist my fingers together in front of me and notice a soft, downy feather stuck to my sleeve. I stare at it, unable to move for a few seconds. Oh God. She has to be okay. I don’t know what’s happening at the bookstore, and I don’t care. All that matters is my occasionally evil bird.

  Leaving the feather be, I pace the waiting room until the door opens behind me. Holding a carrier with the veterinary office’s name written on the side, the young vet joins me at a set of chairs lining the far wall.

  She sets the carrier between us, and from the inside, Marge looks up at me, mewling unhappily. The vet pats the carrier, her thumb wrapped in thick, white gauze.

  “She’s lucky,” the vet says, eyeing
the bird. “Her wing was dislocated, but it wasn’t broken. I’ve bandaged it and wrapped it to her body. She needs to keep that bandage on for several days, if possible.”

  I bark out a harsh, stressed-out laugh, watching the bird in the carrier. “I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any promises.” I’m certainly not going to be able to re-wrap it if she gets it off. As soon as Marge feels better and remembers how much she hates me, I’ll be back to tossing French fries and chunks of muffin at her in order to reach the cash register.

  “Do you want a cone? They make them for birds, you know. I’m hesitant because she also has some arthritis in her spine, and I don’t want to cause her any undue pain, but if you want one so she leaves her wing alone, then I can get one for you.”

  “No, I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Having her wing bandaged to her side will probably throw her off-kilter, and if I stick something around her neck to further immobilize her, she might fall and hurt herself. Besides, Marge would totally blame me for the cone, and then there would be no chance she’d ever forgive me.

  “Do you know what happened to her?” the vet asks.

  I hesitate. “I don’t really know. I got to the bookstore and she was on the ground.” I’d made Nick find and call the nearest vet’s office while we waited for the cops to show up. If this happened to Marge, I don’t even want to think about what happened to the shop. None of it matters, though, as long as Marge is okay. I might not like the bird much, and the feeling’s mutual, but she’s my last tie to my au—well, my birth mother, I guess. Besides, the living trump the dead any day. I’m not ready to say someone broke into the store, not until I talk to Nick and find out what’s going on. Maybe not even then. This is so beyond my wheelhouse, I don’t know how much more I can handle, which is probably why I’d left Nick to deal with whatever was going on at the bookstore and headed straight for here.