Leo’s face suddenly filled with concern. ‘Your collar isn’t up; I hadn’t noticed.’ He reached out to adjust it himself, and I brushed his hand away.
‘It’s fine as it is.’ I gave a small smile of satisfaction.
He paused in disbelief, wondering for a moment if he had misheard me.
‘I’ve decided to wear it like this from now on.’
‘Really?’ A look of pleasant surprise slowly spread across his face. ‘I hadn’t expected you to ever—’
‘Yes, I know, but it’s time, little by little.’ I smiled. ‘It’s who I am.’
‘Yes – it is.’ agreed Leo.
‘My father asked me to go with him when he returns to the island,’ I confessed.
Leo’s face twisted in anguish. A question formed on his lips, but stayed there, like a fledging afraid of the fall. We just continued to walk in thought-filled silence. Every so often, he looked like he was going to say something, but then, at the very last moment had changed his mind. It wasn’t until we almost reached my father, that his question finally tumbled out.
‘What have you decided to do?’
There was a pause of contemplation.
‘I really don’t know,’ I admitted, and as I said it, I could feel my heart begin to tear in half.
We met him at the stall and continued down towards the public gardens, away from the suffocating streets and back alleys that led you around in circles. His hands twitched more than usual and he kept glancing frequently up towards the white furrows of the ploughed sky. In the distance, the sun had cracked itself open on the edge of a watery blue bowl and its light poured out, streaming in a thousand different directions.
‘How is the risk-taker this morning?’ Leo asked.
‘Much better. We will help him when the time comes.’
‘And your feet?’ I asked, staring down at the bandages still wrapped around them. I thought about my own bandage then, wound back in the drawer, no longer needed.
‘Getting better.’ He smiled then, and I heard the tired, gentle clack of his restless wings, so ready for flight.
The sun had burned away the clouds, and now there were just tiny wisps trailing like unreachable kite strings. Leo took us into a building at the edge of the park, where we found ourselves in a jungle of exotic plants enclosed behind iron and latticed glass windows. It was like stepping into a giant warm green bath with the smell of an over-ripe larder. My father immediately disappeared behind a giant bush and I caught a glimpse of him as he swooped between the huge palms and then another glimpse of him as he fluttered between the endless vines. High above us, the leaves hung like enormous shiny umbrellas against the rain that would never fall.
‘What is this place?’ I asked in wonder. I no longer felt that I was in the City of Murmurs. It reminded me of Professor Elms and his tales of places on the edge of the world, where a bird the size of a bee hummed and cats bigger than people roamed wild and free. I half expected one to leap through the thick foliage and eat us for breakfast.
‘It’s a tepidarium,’ said Leo. ‘Flowers are nurtured here, until they are taken and planted in the public gardens dotted around the city. Sometimes they are delivered in golden carriages to the doors of palaces. They adorn the rooms of visiting dignitaries, or flourish in ballrooms.’ Leo waltzed between the flowers and held out his arm for me to join him, but I just shook my head and laughed at his silly pretence. He shrugged and smiled. ‘Just before the art exhibition, boats arrive and begin unloading their exotic specimens, which are cared for here until it is time for them to decorate the pavilion.’
I thought about all the fanciful things brought across the water on boats, and wondered if perhaps feathers were amongst them. I would need a plentiful supply if I was ever going to open a shop of my own. The birds here were brown and grey and sometimes splashed with white, but none of them had the flamboyant colours I had seen caught between the pages of the books I had read. The black blue hue of a raven, or the bird whose name I had forgotten, but whose feathers were the colour of spun gold. I loved the kingfisher most of all, and the way it wore its iridescent turquoise cloak pulled high over the sunburst of its belly. Water to quench the flames. How beautiful feathers could be!
‘But they don’t really belong here, do they?’ I said, suddenly realising how beauty can have a price. I looked around sadly at all the plants.
‘No, I don’t suppose they do. Some are kept here for months, only grown to brighten a single night, others thrive until the first frost. Look at this one!’ Leo rushed forward and lifted up the giant waxy leaf of a sprawling plant. Beneath its leaves, its bright red bulbs were ready to burst open like a sunset.
‘It’s amazing,’ I said, searching for more blooms beneath the canopy.
‘Yes,’ agreed Leo, but when I looked up, he wasn’t looking at the flowers any more; he was looking directly at me.
Quickly, I dropped the heavy leaves. ‘We need to find my father,’ I said, and set off with some urgency in the direction of the bamboo garden.
For a moment, I thought the whistling figure I could see at the end of the path was him, but it was just the gardener, methodically polishing the leaves until they shone like enormous emeralds. My arrival disturbed a sparrow, which fluttered from the foliage and out through the open door. By now, I had circled the building and was beginning to wonder if he had left, when I heard his familiar flute-like notes floating through the vivid green and the place seemed to come alive. After all, what is a garden without the song of a bird?
When I parted the leaves, I found Leo was already there, waiting at the foot of a tree. At the very top, on a long branch, perched my father.
‘We need to get him out of here,’ I hissed, glancing over my shoulder to make sure the gardener couldn’t see us, but the leaves had sprung back into place and we could have been in the middle of a rainforest, so far from any city.
‘Let’s go back outside,’ suggested Leo.
He had seemed lost, breathing it all in, until he heard Leo speak. Then he opened his eyes with a startled expression, as though he had quite forgotten where he was.
‘Come on,’ I encouraged, waving him down. I was sure the trees here were not for climbing or sitting in, and I listened nervously for the heavy plodding return of the gardener’s boots along the path.
Back outside, we walked across the gardens, where the sunlight fell in diagonal slants through the trees. Still too warm, I suggested that we sought shade for a moment in the pillared building at the end of the path. Stepping inside, we quickly left the light and the heat behind. It was a welcome relief for me, but my father and Leo found the air shudder-inducing and insisted we return to the outside world.
‘Just give me a minute,’ I said, as Leo hovered in the entrance. ‘I’ll come out and find you.’
Leo nodded and hurried back into the sunshine. Although I now wore my coat with its collar downturned and its buttons unfastened, my refusal to remove it completely had left me feeling sweaty and uncomfortable. I was not quite as brave as my father thought, but I was getting braver.
Like warm sugar, morning stirred into afternoon and afternoon slowly dissolved into evening. We circled the outskirts of the city, avoiding all the enclosed spaces so my father could see the sky. I would have continued to walk in endless circles, if it meant he would stay one more hour. But every time I heard the loud chime of the clock, I was jolted back to reality, each one bringing me a little bit closer to his departure. The City of Murmurs didn’t let you forget time.
Nobody paid him much attention and any glances which swept his way were ones of mild curiosity rather than sneers of disgust. It seemed that Sybel was right; the City of Murmurs had seen it all before. I learned quickly that this city had little interest in its inhabitants. It noticed only itself, and spent all day admiring its reflection in the mirrored water. At night it was the moon that worshipped its tiled roofs, and the birds which adorned its crooked arches in numerous feathery bouquets.
; He stopped and rubbed at his bandaged feet, and although he didn’t complain, I could see the pain in his eyes. We stopped to buy fish and a bottle of wine and water from a street vendor. Sitting on a wall, we ate in silence, muted by the impossibility of my decision. I gulped down the wine until my head began to spin and the world around me became hazy and blurred. I saw my reflection in the water – pale and ghost-like. My lips were stained the colour of the wine, and I rubbed at them with my sleeve. The whites of my eyes were pink and my pupils large as a hunting owl. Leo was checking the bandages on my father’s feet as he scattered crumbs for the birds watching us from a nearby tree.
My father pushed his water towards me. ‘Drink,’ he said, softly.
‘Thank you.’ I lifted the bowl to my lips and drank it right down to the bottom in thirsty gulps. I wished I could drink away all the water in the world, so he couldn’t sail away on his boat and Elver would no longer hear the haunting murmurs of the waves. Then I felt a hand rest on top of mine. It belonged to my father.
‘Have you thought about what I said?’
His eyes were full of hope and longing, and I didn’t know what to say. It was all I had thought about, and wherever my thoughts wandered, they always returned to this moment. I looked away to see the birds flutter up from the branches of the tree and disappear into the milky indigo sky. If I left, I would miss too much: the city, Sybel, Leo, Elver, the dogs, the comfort of knowing that there was always a docked boat to return me on a whim, back to Lemàn and Professor Elms. Although I had feathers, I didn’t have wings. Even if they grew in the swirls of mist would it be enough or would I feel like the plants in the tepidarium, lost in a place I didn’t really belong? I might survive, but was that enough?
I felt him squeeze my hand and then it fell from mine as gently as a feather drifting onto a lawn. ‘There wasn’t enough time,’ I whispered.
‘There never is,’ he replied wearily, understanding then that I had given him my answer.
I felt as though I should offer him an explanation, but I didn’t have one to give. I couldn’t really explain it to myself.
‘Will you come back soon?’ My eyes watched his face trying to seek out the answer before it came and I saw the brief hesitation, just for a moment, but it was unmistakably there.
‘I hope so.’
He seemed so much smaller and hollower than when he had arrived a few days ago. I noticed his feathers had dulled and thinned in places; some were so sparse I could see his protruding bones beneath. I understood all I needed to then.
He babbled something in his own language, something he did whenever the answers got too difficult.
‘He’s just not sure if he can make the journey. It’s a long way and his bones feel heavier than before, but he will try,’ said Leo.
‘I thought you didn’t understand!’ I said to Leo.
He smiled. ‘I understand enough.’
‘Yes, try,’ I said, turning back towards my father. For a brief moment I almost changed my mind, but instead I said nothing and we continued along the edge of the canal.
On the eastern edges of the city we came to the garden of remembrance. He had managed well on his bandages, but I could tell he was growing tired of his feet and he would stop to rest more frequently. Sometimes he’d sit on a bench, other times he would learn against the wall of a building or simply just stand still and wait for the pain to pass. We would wait too, until he was ready to carry on again. Although his wings were weary, they were restless and ready for one more flight.
He was a skilful navigator, always guided by instinct and the birds that circled above, towing him through the world by an invisible thread. The park trees loomed high above a large expanse of grass and the darkening water. No light reflected there. In the distance I could hear the sound of the great bell ringing out its mournful cry, the only thing left in the air, but there was no reply. Somehow I thought that if I walked the length and width of the city, in a tangle of footsteps, I could tie a knot in time, but there was no escape, and in that stillness there was nothing to do but wait. We found a bench and sat down.
‘I once heard that a bird’s heart beats much faster than a human one. Is it true?’
He nodded and lifted my hand to his chest so I could feel the swift pulse of his heart against my palm; it vibrated through my veins like music. I wanted to close my hand around it and keep it safe in the dark like a hidden creature, but he brought my hand back down again to rest in his.
‘But doesn’t it mean I will live my life twice as fast? That my life will be shorter?’
He smiled so wide that his eyes closed. ‘It doesn’t mean that at all,’ he replied. ‘Look at me; I have lived a long life, too long perhaps.’
I flung my arms around him and prayed for time to stop. After a while, Leo stood up and walked to the edge of the lagoon wall, where he picked up a pebble and skimmed it across the black water, watching it until it disappeared. He had to do something and that was all there was.
A thousand thoughts deep.
I began to tremble, not from the cold – it was a surprisingly warm evening – but from letting go of something I wanted so desperately to hold onto. I felt my father’s dry feathery hand close back around my own and I grasped it like a handkerchief trying to quell the threat of tears. It wasn’t possible and I fell against his chest and cried against the rapid little pulse of his heart, and now as I listened more carefully, it was more of a flutter than a beat.
‘A heart that beats so fast, loves so much,’ he said, and I wondered if that was an even bigger fear to carry.
Stroking my hair, he smoothed his twisted fingers down the length of my feathers, nuzzling his face against them as though I was the baby that he never got to hold. We stayed like that until the shape of a boat emerged out of the water. Finally, he released me and mumbled something in my ear, but I couldn’t make sense of anything any more.
‘What is it?’ I asked, wiping away my tears. ‘What did you say?’
‘He said it’s time,’ replied Leo.
‘But it can’t be … it’s too soon!’ I protested, fresh tears pouring down my face. Now that I wanted time to stop, it seemed to spin ever faster, like a poisonous spider. I wanted the precious hours I had spent with my father to begin all over again. There hadn’t been enough time to love him.
Slowly, he ruffled to his feet and still holding my hand, he led me over to the steps where the boat waited. It reminded me of the ancient myth of the Underworld. The boatman arriving to carry the souls across the water to an afterlife of eternal bliss or eternal torment, but what of those left behind? Then he seemed to float through my fingertips and onto the boat where his three friends already stood, silently waiting for him. My hopelessness suddenly turned to delight, as he reached out his hand. I was just about to step closer to grab hold of it and pull him back to land, when I realised my mistake. He hadn’t changed his mind as I had thought; he was simply reaching back to push the boat away from the wall into the water. Already he seemed so far away, and my throat tightened with the realisation that this was the last time I would ever see him. Our hello came too late; our goodbye came too soon. Looking up, I noticed a crack in the sky, a stark white light in the inky darkness telling us morning wasn’t far away. I felt bone sad and I wished the sadness would pass right through me, but instead it burrowed deep.
I remained motionless, hoping he might come back. I stayed until there was nothing left, only the distant outline of the boat and then flying out of it and into the sky, four shapes emerged, soaring, wild and free. Three held onto one and I knew it wasn’t the risk-taker being helped home; it was my father. The shapes split to become four distinct birds, each one a small silhouette against the sky, and the world seemed to withdraw and shrink beneath them. All possibility lost. All hope fading with the light.
In the water I noticed a single floating feather. A thousand sunsets deep, and, unmistakeably, his. Bending down, I cupped it in my hand and lifted it out; it felt as soft as a fin
gertip. As I held it, my hand looked as though it had caught fire. I slipped the feather inside my coat and the dripping flames burned a hole in my pocket. A memory smouldered. Then I shook with the loss of him.
Leo pulled me close and I let him comfort me there on the lagoon wall. I leaned onto his chest and this time listened to the sound his heart made; its beat, heavy and strong against my own, so still and silent from loss.
‘Don’t cry,’ he murmured against my ear and then unexpectedly his mouth was lost in my hair as he kissed me on the top of my head. Leaning my face back I looked up at him, my sight blurred by tears and wine and he kissed me again, this time right where I wanted him to, on my lips. I hesitated, but only for a moment, before kissing him back. Uncertain and gentle at first, but then fierce and wanting more. I’m not sure whether it was the wine or the loss of my father or the need to just hold onto someone who wanted to hold me back, but the kisses grew deeper until I became lost in them, forgetting everything else, even the need to hide my feathers. Then came the rain, almost as unexpected as the kisses, warm, sudden and intense. Half-stumbling, half-crying, we ran, holding hands into the park to find shelter under the trees. The heavy rain pounded the canopy of leaves above us, an auditorium of applause. Leo brushed the droplets from his hair with the flat palm of his hand, and then without warning, he pulled me towards him. Our faces flushed from running.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, taking a step back.
He frowned. ‘For what?’
‘For this.’
‘Don’t you want to?’ He still held my arms, his voice thick with longing.
‘Yes … no … yes … I’m confused.’
I looked at his face, still dripping with rain. His kind eyes waiting patiently for my answer, his face flushed now with desire.
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