Flight of a Starling

by Lisa Heathfield

  “How is he?” he asks.

  “Still asleep,” I say, as the sheet rises and falls, with Gramps’s heart beating underneath. “None of us were there for him.”

  “I know.”

  Outside, you can just see the sea. I imagine Gramps swimming in it, washing away the bruises and the crumpled wrinkles on his skin. A magic water to make him young again.

  “He’ll be all right though, Lo. He’ll be mended before we know it.”

  I look carefully at him, and I know he’s telling the truth. My dad, who holds trust in his palms.

  “What happens, Dad, if someone cuts the threads of our family?” I ask quietly.

  He looks at me questioningly. “I’d never let them,” he tells me.

  And I try so hard to believe him.

  Rita

  “Rob made it for me.”

  “What is it?” Lo asks.

  “It catches bad dreams in its thread before they reach you.”

  “Why did he make it for you?” She’s annoyed as I hang the dream-catcher from the wooden side of our bunk.

  “It’s not so strange, Lo.” I hadn’t thought there’d be this burst of anger. “He’ll make one for you.”

  “I don’t want one.”

  “You can share mine.”

  “I don’t want it hanging there where I can see it,” she says, and she pulls it down, snapping the string it hung from.

  “Lo.”

  “It’s rubbish in any case,” she says, throwing it onto my bed. “You can’t make good dreams. Even in real life, when you’re awake.”

  “Don’t be like this.” I want to hug her, but she has a strange feeling snapping around her.

  “Don’t be like what?” she challenges.

  “Angry with everything.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I’ll hang it here then,” I say, climbing up to my bunk. The spider’s web of colored string hangs too short from the other side and sits crooked on my pillow. It has to be able to spin to work. The bad dreams might be caught wrong and sneak back toward me.

  There’s a knock at the door and Ash’s head appears.

  “You’re running late and Tricks is about to explode,” he says.

  “Let him,” Lo says.

  When I stand here, in the very middle of our big top, I feel like a pin on which the world spins. It’s completely quiet, but it’s a different silence when it’s filled with stilled people watching. Maybe their hearts actually stop as they wait. Maybe mine does too.

  Alone, I place my fairy queen fingers on the waist-high pole in front of me, as music starts to drift like water around me. The top of the pole twists very slightly under my weight, but I steady it and flip my body up until my hands support all of me. Sometimes, I think even this would be enough for them. But now I slowly bend my body until my feet find my shoulders, my face peeking out from my feathered back. I’m a strange creature, a fairy crab ready to grow more limbs and scuttle away.

  I stretch my legs up again, split them into a line in the air, all the time my arms keeping me strong. When I bend my legs again, my feet go past my head, find the other pole and plant themselves there, until I flip quickly from them both, a spiral of feathers landing safely on the floor.

  They clap, but they expect more. I fold down my feathers, strap them tight, before I pick up the bow and place it firm between my toes. I hold the arrow as again I handstand onto the pole, sliding the arrow between the toes on my other foot.

  My legs bend with the bow over my head, and I have to tip my face up high to see. The target is there, the circle with the smaller circle I must hit. There’s no music now, only the steady beat of a drum, slowly at first, building until I pull one leg back, stretch the string taut. When my toes let the arrow go, it flies so fast and straight that I hardly see it. But I know it hits dead center as the fireworks streak through the air.

  Music reappears and weaves with the audience’s cheering. And I hold my bow and wave to them, the fire from them bright in my veins.

  Chapter Ten

  Lo

  Outside, it’s not fully light, but I creep out of Terini, closing the door so softly that no one will hear. Dean is already waiting and I run to him. I need him to steady the earth, but I know that it’s impossible.

  Around us, the curtains of the other vans are closed, so I take his hand and we go around the side of the tent, where it’s shut with ropes and a padlock. I spin the numbers, until the metal clunks soft out of its lock. I loosen a few of the ropes, just enough for us to crawl under.

  Inside, the light is smothered, and the silence is different. The heavy canvas walls hold everything else away. I lead Dean down between the seats.

  “It’s weird with no one else in here,” he says quietly.

  We stop at the edge of the circle, the far side dipped in darkness. I want him to say that it’s beautiful, but he doesn’t.

  I step over the small painted wall and Dean follows me. It’s strange to have a flattie stepping on our ground.

  “Follow me,” I say. Dean hesitates. “I’ll look after you.”

  It’s cold in here, and I wish I’d brought my coat. I’m used to the lights and the adrenaline to keep me warm.

  I undo the rope that holds the ladder in place.

  “We’re going up there?” Dean points to where it disappears onto the platform high above us. I smile at him and start to climb.

  Dean follows me, the rope shaking slightly with his clumsy movements. I see him below, concentrating hard, placing one hand and then the other. At the top, it’s easy for me to step onto the platform, but I reach out to help him.

  “It’s almost as high as the factory roof,” he says. It feels muggy up here, without the crowds to crack open the air.

  “Don’t go too close to the edge,” I tell him, but he sits and dangles his legs over the side.

  “So this is what you see,” he says.

  “It’s different during a show. There’re lights. And a lot of noise.”

  “Have you ever fallen?” Dean asks.

  “Only with the safety net. My grandma died, though. She fell badly during a show when I was little.”

  “So it’s dangerous?”

  “It was a freak accident. They can happen anywhere.”

  “Aren’t you scared?”

  “No. Performing is as normal as breathing for us. I don’t even think about it. And anyway, that’s what people like. The more dangerous it is, the more they’ll pay.” I smile at him. “Do you want a go? On the trapeze?” Tricks would kill me if he knew.

  “Really? You’ll teach me?”

  “If you’d like.” I pull the rope and the trapeze comes toward us. I have to unlink it to hold the bar.

  “What happens if I fall?” he asks.

  I look calmly at him. “You won’t.” And I pass it to him. “Put your hands here.” He places his hands beside mine. “Just pull yourself onto it. Remember, it’s only a swing. It doesn’t matter how high it is.”

  He’s shaking slightly as he pulls his legs up until he’s crouching on the bar. It’s difficult to keep it steady with his weight.

  “Sit down and hold on,” I say. “Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  So I let go and he swings away from me. I hear him make a noise, of shock maybe, but quiet enough so that we’re not found. I watch him as the bar holds him through the air. He pulls on the ropes as a child would, his legs stretching straight out in front of him. When he comes back to me once more, I jump. My hands grab the bar where Dean sits and he gasps. When he looks down at me, I can tell that he’s frightened.

  “What are you doing?” he asks angrily.

  “It’s OK.”

  I put my feet on the bar and pull myself up, crouching down opposite him. The familiar swoop of the swing sinks into me as I smile at him.

  “You might fall,” he says.

  “So might you.”

  And I kiss him. We hold tight to the ropes, our bodies barely touching. The space b
etween us seems to flame, burning away the morning. The hurting disappears among the color of happiness so strong on my skin. We kiss until the air slows down and I remember the trapeze.

  “How do we get down?” Dean’s smile crowds out everything and I kiss him again. “Seriously, Laura.”

  “We fly.” I stand up, my feet either side of him. “Like this.” And I flip backward. Held by circus spirits, I spin and fall and land soft into the net.

  Dean looks down. “Serious?” he asks, his voice barely reaching me.

  I nod. “I’ll catch you,” I laugh, standing unsteady with my arms out wide. Dean waves at me to get out of the way.

  “I’ll crush you,” he says.

  So I step off the net, swing gently to the floor and watch him high above me.

  “Go!” I say.

  He hesitates only slightly before he lets go, his body falling, arms flailing, until the net grabs him, lets him go, grabs him again, until he’s still.

  “That was awesome,” he says.

  “You’re a natural.” It’s Rob’s voice. He’s walking over the top of the seats toward us.

  “You were watching us,” I spit out angrily.

  “You’re lucky it was me and not Tricks,” he says. “Your head would’ve been on the block, Lo.”

  He doesn’t realize that I know. I know it all, and it’s his neck that Dad will want to slice clean from his neck.

  “We haven’t met,” he says to Dean. “I’m Rob,” and he puts out his hand. Dean hesitates, before he shakes it.

  “We’re not interested,” I say.

  The shock on Rob’s face is genuine. He recoils from my words, before they start to make sense in his mind. I see the clever workings of his face crumble. The pretense of who he is slips slowly from him.

  And it hurts me, when I don’t want it to. For so long he’s been Rob, our family, and now I don’t know.

  He flounders for something to say, as I take Dean’s hand. We half run down the aisle between the chairs, crawl through the widened gap in the tent and into the clearer air.

  “Are you OK?” Dean asks.

  “No,” I mutter.

  But how do I explain that the anger and sadness and confusion is pinching me so hard all over and hurts so much that I don’t know how to be.

  I’ve lost who I thought my mom was, I’ve lost who I thought Rob was, and their secret sits sharp between my sister and me.

  “I want to get away,” I say. And so I let Dean lead me from it all—from the tent and our van and the beach across the grass, to his car, which he opens and we get inside.

  The old factory seems even quieter than before. It’s sucked the silence out of the night and is holding it tight in its walls for the day.

  We walk up stairs I haven’t been on before, where dust is caught solid in the corners and stubs of cigarettes sit like burnt-out stars.

  We don’t go all the way to the top, instead pushing through a door that leads to another. There’s a padlock on it that Dean opens and we go inside. The windows of this room are half covered in gray card, which cuts out some of the sunlight, but the graffiti across the back wall is still bright.

  “Did you do this?” I ask, walking toward it.

  “It’s my mom and me.” The sprayed picture has them sitting high up on a cliff, their legs hanging down over the edge. Below them, the rocks turn into spirals of color. Above their heads, a cloud of birds is gathered.

  “It’s incredible,” I say. “Who taught you how to do it?”

  “I taught myself.”

  “I didn’t know you were this good,” I say and he looks embarrassed. “Seriously, Dean. It’s amazing.”

  A row of spray cans stands in front of the painting. Tiny drips of color have dropped in dots on the floor.

  “Do you want a go?” Dean asks, as he bends down to pick up two cans of paint.

  “I’ll ruin it,” I say.

  “You can have this wall.” Next to us, the rusty white color stretches from floor to ceiling. Dean passes the cans to me. “Or you can choose any colors,” he says.

  “I can’t even draw on paper,” I say.

  “You can. Everyone can. There’s no right or wrong, everyone just draws differently.”

  “Do I just spray it?” As I speak, I press the nozzle and a puff of color appears on the wall.

  “Yup,” Dean laughs.

  “What shall I paint?”

  “Anything that’s in your head. It’s a good way to get it out.”

  I press the nozzle again and a clearer circle of dripping blue appears.

  “Move it more quickly, so it doesn’t bleed so much,” Dean says.

  I twist my wrist up, with the can held straight, and walk along the length of the wall. I paint a straight line from one end to the other. When I stop, I look up at Dean. We smile at each other.

  “It’s a start,” he says. “Is it the sea?”

  “No. It’s a tightrope.”

  I go to the row of cans and find the pink. I want it to be Rita’s skin color, but it’s bubble-gum bright. I paint her balancing on the thin wire and try to make her face right, but it comes out too big. With the red I do a tipped-up smile.

  Next to her, I paint my dad. One leg goes too long, but it doesn’t make him fall. He has his arm around Rita, folding a bit into her shoulder. I make my dad smile too. He looks proud, his eyes looking up. I make Gramps sleep on the tightrope, but as soon as he’s there with his closed eyes, I want him sitting up. I do a big green arrow from the lying figure and paint my Gramps new, sitting with his legs hanging over the wire, his eyes wide awake, not a bruise on his skin.

  I know that Dean is watching. From the edge of me, I see him waiting for where I will take the paint.

  It’s Ma I squeeze from the can. Sprayed drops of color make her fall from the wire. She’s reaching out her hands, but I can’t tell whether she manages to grab tight to the rope at the last minute.

  I put the can at my feet and look up at my graffiti family.

  “Is it your mom?” Dean points to the flailing woman.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve drawn her head, but not her face.”

  “She’s looking the other way,” I say and he nods slightly.

  “Where are you in the picture?”

  “I’m not in it.”

  “Don’t you want to be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The disloyalty burns me. They’re my family and I haven’t painted myself with them. I think I’m going to cry and I don’t want to—not here.

  He steps toward me, his safe arms holding me tight. And I kiss him, to make all of the rest disappear. I kiss him among cans that have fed out my family’s bones, given them colored sticks for arms and smudged red mouths. We kiss in the place where his mom once was, when her dreams were formed of solid lines that led only to good.

  “I wish we could go away. Really away.” It’s Dean who stops us.

  “Where would we go?” I ask, when I just want to kiss him again.

  “Away from it all,” he says. “But we can’t.”

  “We can pretend to.”

  “That’s a stupid thing to say.” His sharpness shocks me. “But it is,” he insists. “We can’t just pretend to be together. I can’t just imagine that you’re here when you’re not.”

  “You said that nothing is impossible.”

  “Well maybe this is.”

  My thoughts stumble. This? Us?

  “Maybe you could join us? Join our circus?”

  “And just leave my mom?”

  I look up at him, at this boy who comes from a world where people don’t move on, with homes stuck deep in the ground.

  “Maybe you could come away with us. Your brother could come back to live with your mom.”

  Anger is quick on his face.

  “Are you serious? You think I could just up and leave?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” But already I know it’s ridiculous, know that they’re words I should ne
ver have said.

  “Have you listened to anything about my life?” he asks. I don’t know where this has come from. This row that’s bubbled up and is boiling between us. “And you’re not exactly living the life you want to. If it’s so easy, why don’t you just leave your circus?”

  I thought he would steady me, but his words have pushed me from my tightrope, and I start to feel myself topple and fall.

  “Dad will flip when he knows I’ve been with you,” I say flatly.

  “So that’s it, the end of the conversation?”

  “Yes,” is all I say, a cold disc of worry covering up my other words.

  “We just give up? As simple as that?” he says, but I don’t answer. “So if I turn up tomorrow, will you even be there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “This is pointless. Let’s go.” But I’d wanted him to kiss me again, to say that he wanted us to stay.

  I don’t look again at my painting as we walk out of the room. Dean clunks the small padlock back in place and he doesn’t take my hand as we go through the next door, down the echoing stairs and back through the empty window with powdered glass at its feet.

  Rita

  “Rita?” I can hear Rob’s voice faintly through Terini’s window. I pull the curtain back slightly and he’s standing there. “Can I come in?” he mouths, pointing to the door. I nod and drop the curtain back in its place.

  I jump down past the ladder witch, and she sees me in my pajamas, watches as I take them off quickly, swap them for the T-shirt Lo left on her pillow. My bare legs stick out of the bottom. I haven’t time to do my hair, but I run my fingers through it as I go to the door, taming it where the night has tumbled it wild.

  “Morning,” I smile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this early in the day.

  “Can I come in?” he asks.

  Lo said she wouldn’t be long, but I step back and let him in and close the door behind him.

  He’s never been in here alone with me. There’s only been times with us all playing cards, squashed clumsily on the floor. I can’t see him wanting to sit on the top bunk, so I sit on Lo’s bed, our feet side by side on the floor.

  “It’s about Lo,” he says and my heart flickers hard with disappointment.