Flight of a Starling

by Lisa Heathfield

  “Can I take your number then?” he asks.

  “My number?”

  “Of your phone.”

  “I don’t have one,” I say.

  “You don’t have a phone?”

  “What’d be the point? I live with everyone I’d want to phone.”

  “Except for me.” He smiles at me again, and I feel myself turn my back on Dad’s wishes.

  “Except for you.” I look at him. “I’ll come and find you again.” I know we have to go, but I wait for a second and breathe in the space of the birds, of their feathers, their wings. Their freedom trickles down inside me and settles on the walls of my lungs. Then I walk to the edge of the hole in the roof, balance on one leg, pressing my foot hard down.

  “What are you doing?” Dean asks.

  “I’m leaving my footprint,” I say. “Rita and I always do, wherever we go, so we know we’ve been there. And the place remembers that we were there too.”

  Dean watches me, smiling, before I step over the ledge and slide easily down the ladder.

  Chapter Four

  Lo

  I stand on the wooden platform, my feet waiting at the edge. I know if I look down I’ll see the faces bent up toward us, that same expression swept across them all as our music makes their hearts beat faster.

  Rita swings, her smile fixed. The timing has to be right, but we have it ticking in our blood, and we never make mistakes on this. She spins and hooks her knees over her trapeze, arms stretched down to the floor far below.

  I jump. She grabs my wrists and I hold her tight. We keep our line straight, and I know that the air has changed as the people watching will have stopped their breaths.

  The wind is sharp past my skin as I twist my body bent and Rita holds my ankles, so my arms are free to catch the trapeze that Ash pushes toward me. I reach and my powdered hands hold the sturdy bar. The muscles in my arms tense, as I spin myself through and up so that I’m sitting, swinging high, pulling on the ropes.

  We’re meant to somersault in time together, but suddenly I’m standing on my trapeze. I look at Rita, silently telling her to trust me, that I won’t fall. I move so that I’m on tiptoes on the bar, lifting one leg to stretch out behind. I’m an angel, flying, and it’s dangerous, so Rob should be proud. And if I fall, it’ll all be his fault.

  For a brief second, I let go. I feel gravity and luck hold me in their palm, hold the changeling by the tips of her wings, between her two worlds. Everything stops. It’s just me and my heartbeat, before noise crashes back in and I grab the ropes again.

  If Tricks has seen, he’ll be furious. Never go off script. Never, ever on the trapeze. But I feel bulletproof.

  I crook my knees over the bar and swing down again. I move faster until I can let go and somersault, knowing Rita will catch me. Soon, Tricks says, I’ll be ready for the blackout. In a few months’ time, they’ll put a hood over me and I’ll flip blind from the trapeze, with Rita to grab me safe.

  I swing back onto the ledge. Opposite each other, Rita and I wave to the crowd below. Sometimes, when I walk down the ladder, I let the cheering seep right into me. Today, I keep it at the edge of my skin.

  ★ ★ ★

  It always feels cramped in the costume tent. Ma is sitting facing the mirror, twisting her curls high onto her head. She’s supposed to be a grieving mother, searching for her lost child, but she’s putting more make-up on her already thickly made-up face.

  “It’s busy tonight,” she says.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” I reply, taking the feathers from my hair.

  “I thought it might not be, because you said it was a strange town.” She pauses, looking confused.

  “I never said that.”

  I take the gold feather headdress from the shelf and start to fix it roughly across my forehead, clipping it tight behind my ears.

  “Has Spider upset you?” she asks.

  “No.” I don’t want to be in here, with the lies between us choking up my throat.

  “Well, whatever it is, it’s never as bad as it seems,” she says, standing up. She leans down to kiss my cheek as she passes.

  When she’s gone, I wipe away where her lips were.

  “What’s wrong, Lo?” Rita asks. She stands next to me, but I won’t look her in the eye.

  “I just don’t feel like performing tonight,” I say.

  “You have to do the rest of the show,” she says.

  “I know.”

  I’ll find my smile. I’ll push Rob’s van away. I’ll try to piece my mom’s skin back together again.

  “Where did you go earlier?” Rita asks.

  “I was looking around,” I say.

  “You never look around on your own.” I can tell she’s put out. “Especially in such a gray town.”

  “I met that boy. Dean.” I’ll risk this secret with her, to keep the other one safe.

  “Where?”

  “I was walking and he saw me.”

  “Lo.” She looks serious. “You can’t go falling in love with a flattie.”

  “I don’t love him. I only spoke to him.”

  “I can tell by your eyes what you’re thinking.”

  “Then will you help me see him again?” I ask her.

  “Lo.”

  “We won’t get caught.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “It’ll only be for a bit. I just want to talk to him, and then when we move on I probably won’t see him again.”

  I see the thoughts jarring fast in her.

  “OK,” she finally says.

  “You will?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re brilliant, Rita.” And I hug her tight and mean every inch of it. Because I know that she’s helping me cross a line that to her is more dangerous than flying between burning wires.

  ★ ★ ★

  “I’m not really encouraging this,” Rita says. But she’s with me all the same, walking quietly across the park, grass under our feet and star-shine above our heads. “I’m only doing it to cheer you up.”

  “I’m not sad,” I tell her.

  “Something’s wrong.” She doesn’t ask any more. She knows I tell her everything when I find the words. But this time, she can’t see the crack in the earth between us. She doesn’t know that I have to step away from her, before I tumble in.

  We cross at the traffic lights, her arm in mine.

  “It doesn’t get any prettier,” she says, as we walk between the lines of shops.

  The fountain is empty of people.

  “He’s not here,” Rita says, and I can sense relief folding into her words.

  “He didn’t say he would be.”

  The water splashes down, but this time I don’t touch it.

  “It’d be dangerous, Lo, to like him.”

  We sit on the fountain’s stone ledge, our backs to the money spun down under the wet.

  “You’d get hurt,” she says. “They’re not like us.”

  “But maybe I don’t want to be with one of ours.” I expect that she’ll be shocked, but she only looks at me calmly.

  “That’ll change. You’ll change.”

  “So you’re happy with Ash again now?”

  Rita shrugs, but I can see confusion still sitting awkward in her eyes. “Spider will grow up, and you’ll fall for him when you’re least expecting it,” is all she says.

  I look at her with her curls half clipped up, her eyes rimmed in black, and I wonder if she really can’t see what I do, how Spider will never love me, not in that way.

  “Will it really all be enough for you?” I ask.

  “All of what?”

  “The life we’ve got.”

  She looks confused, as though she’s never really thought that there could be something else, that an alternative does exist.

  “We’ve got a good life, Lo.”

  “I know.” Because we do. We did. The stone seat beneath us is cold.

  “Dean’s not coming, is he?” I ask.

 
“I don’t think so.”

  Maybe he’s sitting on the roof, watching the lights of the town.

  “Let’s go.” I stand up and put my hand out for my sister. She takes it and we walk back together, toward our home that our mom has set adrift.

  We stop by Mada to say goodnight, as we always do, but Dad sits alone on the sofa. He only has the lamp on, and it shines too small a light on his book.

  “You’ll damage your eyes,” Rita scolds him, flicking on the main light. He smiles at us, though it seems to take a few seconds for him to realize that we’re really here.

  Gramps sits silently in the corner. He doesn’t even rock his chair.

  “Where’s Ma?” I ask, before I’ve time to wish I hadn’t.

  “In bed,” Dad says and relief grabs me quick.

  Maybe their meeting of skins was just that. Maybe it’s never happened before and it never will again.

  But it hurts me now to see my dad, his hair that never combs straight, the crease of his collar almost flat to his neck. My dad, whose eyes are open, but he just can’t see.

  “Night, Gramps,” Rita says, curling in to hug him.

  “Night, love.”

  And as I hug him too, he squeezes my shoulder gently and I know that’s enough.

  I kiss my dad and try to smell my mom on him. But there’s just him—the rumble of his skin, the smoke from his yellow-tipped fingers. I can’t find her anywhere.

  Rita

  “I’m not ready for bed yet,” Lo says, as we leave Dad reading in his silent room. I can tell she’s restless, energy still buzzing in her blood. “Let’s go to Spider’s.” She points to where the light is on in his van, but the curtains are closed.

  “He might be sleeping,” I say.

  “He won’t be,” Lo says. We walk up the steps and she pushes open his door that he always leaves unlocked. Ash, Spider and Rob sit huddled at the table, the bed hooked back neatly on the wall. Lo hesitates and doesn’t go in.

  “You can come and bring some sense to this,” Ash tells us. He’s already moving up to make room, but Lo still doesn’t move.

  “It’s OK,” Spider tells her and she steps inside. It smells so strong of boys in here, their skin and their sprays. It’s a different world from Terini.

  The bench is too small for all of us, so Lo sits on Spider’s lap. There’s something about her that needs him there tonight. I sit down next to Rob. I feel his arm against mine.

  “How’s your injury?” Rob asks as he touches my shoulder.

  “Much better.” I can’t help breathing in as I say the words.

  “Rob is still dreaming up new ways to kill us,” Ash says. He doesn’t notice this new feeling around me when I’m with Rob. Maybe I’m imagining it all.

  “No one is going to die,” Rob says, rubbing the top of his arm with his palm. “But if they want danger, then we have to give them danger.”

  “Even after what happened to Rita?” Ash asks.

  “I won’t let Rita get hurt again.” Rob looks at me. I don’t look away, even when he turns back to the others.

  “Are you going to tell them what you’re planning, then?” Spider asks.

  “Is this your ma’s shortbread?” Lo interrupts, picking up a crumbling slab from the plate and putting the whole thing in her mouth.

  “None other,” Spider says. Ash passes me one, and I don’t know why I hesitate before I take it.

  “Escapology,” Rob says. He bites into his shortbread and licks a crumb from his thumb.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “When someone is strapped in somewhere, like in a burning suit, and they have to escape in a certain amount of time. The audience’ll love it.”

  “But none of us can do it,” Spider tells him.

  “You’ll learn,” Rob says. “You lot can do anything you put your mind to.”

  Lo does a strange laugh and looks only at the wall.

  “Your parents will definitely be interested,” I tell Spider.

  “I think it’s a good idea.”

  “So I’ve got at least one on my side,” Rob smiles at me.

  “I’m not convinced.” Ash turns his mouth up like a stubborn child. “I’ve got to think about Sarah too. What if you decide to lock her in some box and we can’t get her out?”

  “You’re being a bit dramatic.” Rob’s authority turns Ash’s words small.

  “Maybe Ash just cares about what happens to us,” Lo says sharply.

  “I care as much as anyone,” Rob says. “I might have started off as a flattie, but I’m part of you all now.”

  “I can’t listen to any more of this.” The anger of Lo’s voice shocks us all. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Yeah,” Ash says. “I’m tired. I think that’s me done too.” He stands up and our unit breaks. “Shall I walk you back to Terini, Rita?” He holds out his hand to me, but I don’t take it.

  “I’m going to stay here for a bit,” I say. The disappointment in his face is habit to him now, part of the game we play.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Maybe.”

  I think he might bend down and kiss me, but he doesn’t.

  “You tease him too much, Rita,” Rob laughs. “One day he might just give up trying.”

  “Do you know, I think I need my van back now. I need to go to bed too,” Spider says. His yawn is exaggerated, his tiredness out of nowhere. Rob looks put out. He has ideas that will save us and no one wants to listen.

  “I can come to yours, Rob,” I say. “If you want to talk about your ideas more.”

  “No,” Lo interrupts. “Dad will kill you if you’re too tired for the performance tomorrow.”

  “It’s not that late.” She’s annoyed me now, speaking as though she’s the eldest.

  “It’s OK. Lo’s right,” Rob says. “Another time, Rita?”

  “That’d be good,” I say.

  And I get up to follow Lo out of the door, but she’s already gone.

  Lo

  “What’s wrong, Lo?” Rita asks, as she hangs her jeans neat in our cupboard. I can’t find the words to answer her, so I just lie in bed, staring at the slats of her top bunk. “Is it because Dean wasn’t at the fountain?” She puts her feet on the ladder, just the one step she touches before she pulls herself up. Witches wait on the other rungs, so she won’t let her feet near them. She turns off the light, and everything goes black. “Or don’t you like Rob’s new ideas?”

  She’s brought him in here, when I want to forget.

  “It’s not that.”

  “He won’t do anything that would hurt us.” I hear her turn over and know she pulls her duvet soft around her shoulder.

  “I’m scared about Gramps dying,” I say, to push Rob away from the room.

  “Gramps isn’t going anywhere,” she says.

  “He will, though. Someday, he won’t be here.”

  “Not for ages, Lo.”

  “How do you know that? He’s getting older every day.”

  “So are we all.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Don’t, Lo.”

  “I’m scared that Gramps’s words are running out,” I whisper. “That he’s used most of them up.”

  There’s a silence, but I know she thinks and breathes.

  “I wonder where our last ones go?” I say.

  “Our words?”

  “Yes. Our very last ones. I wonder if they collect somewhere.”

  “Imagine if every word we ever said was stored someplace,” Rita says. “It’d be very loud.”

  “It’d be like white noise. Just a blur, where you can’t work them out.”

  “Maybe,” Rita says.

  “If you put all our words we’ve ever spoken and laid them end to end on the ground, how many times around the world would they go?”

  “Night, Lo,” Rita says.

  “Don’t you want to work it out?”

  She laughs lightly, and I know sleep is already reaching out for her.

&
nbsp; “I’m going to work it all out from the beginning,” I say. “From the very first word.”

  “You remember them all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Liar.” And she laughs again as I close my eyes.

  But today’s words won’t lie flat. They lift like steam, impossible to hold. Maybe they’re better that way. If I can change my mom and Rob being together into only words and let them drift up through my fingers, maybe I can let them go. Imagine they were never here.

  But anger is twisting me in waves. I stare into the blackness, reaching up to touch the slats of Rita’s bed to try to still me. I feel so small, too small to cope with all of this.

  I can’t tell her Ma’s secret that has turned me inside out and will do the same to my dad. Because if Rita knew the truth, her skin would disappear.

  The air in here is too small and I think I’ll be sick, so I push back my duvet and stumble from our room into the dark bathroom. I clutch the edge of the toilet until I’m sure it’ll break. Hold it so tight, because Rob has taken our gravity and I’m afraid we’ll all fall.

  Him naked with my mom.

  The stars collide and crack as I lie on the floor, and I have to twist close to the sink so that I can feel its cold. I wait for the anger to roll away. Imagine it as a ball of red in an empty field. It’s bigger than me, but I’m strong enough, and I push it until it moves. And I push it again and watch as it starts to go faster from me, getting smaller and smaller until I think it’ll disappear.

  I stand up and unlock the door.

  “Lo?” Rita is standing here, her forehead knotted with confusion. “What’s wrong?”

  But I don’t want the anger to come crashing back. “Nothing,” I say, the word weighted with lies. And I don’t give her a chance to say more as I walk quickly past her and slide deep into my bed.

  ★ ★ ★

  At breakfast, I watch my mom for clues, but she doesn’t give any away. She’s quiet as we eat our bacon in bread. There’s something, though. She’s got smiles inside her that she’s not letting out.

  “Shall we go to the town later?” I ask Rita. I try to sound casual, as though there’s not someone I want to see.

  “I thought it was too quiet,” my dad says. “That there wasn’t much there.” He’s grisly this morning, as though ulcers are gnawing at his gums again.