The Weight of Feathers

She almost felt bad for the guy. He’d either been too scared to fight her cousins or thought it was no use. He wasn’t built like Justin, but he was just as tall, and he had enough muscle on him that he could’ve tried if he’d wanted to.

Maybe Justin didn’t like his hair, how it was almost long enough to touch his shoulders. According to Lace’s uncles, no man worth anything wore his hair past his ears. She didn’t know if it was that wavy and messy on its own or if that was from her cousins kicking him around. And she couldn’t quite tell what he was, his features strong but not sharp.

Lace’s cousins didn’t like not knowing what someone was, not knowing what to do with them. Poor guy didn’t stand a chance.

“Sorry, Lace,” Justin said, as quickly as if he’d stepped on the fin of her tail.

“Don’t tell me. Tell the local guy. Tell your mother.”

“I thought you didn’t want my mother to know.”

“Then don’t do it again.” She pulled the door shut behind her.

Her feet brushed the hallway carpet, picking up static. Her fingers sparked on the knob of her room. Today had been the first day dry enough for it. The rain was coming again, her father said. They were waiting on a wet summer, one that would dull tourists’ taste for outdoor shows. The Palomas would fight the Corbeaus for an even smaller audience.

Martha had fallen asleep before Lace went out. So bony her upper arms were as thin as her forearms, Martha couldn’t keep weight on, even with her mother always pushing stone pine nuts at her, swearing they would help her grow hips.

Poor, good-hearted Martha. She’d once made the mistake of saying they shouldn’t call the Corbeaus gypsies. She’d read somewhere that the right word was Romani. The glare Abuela and Lace’s mother gave her could have singed the green off an ancho chile.

Their tails hung over the shower bar, the pink and orange fins dripping into the bathtub. Martha’s arm stuck out of the comforter, long fingers grasping the TV remote. Lace clicked off the set.

Makeup covered the pressboard dresser. Base and mascara. Cream eye shadows in a dozen shades. Red lipsticks. All waterproof. Sea-colored rhinestones to stick at the outer corner of each eye and on their false eyelashes. It was Lace’s job to put color on each of her cousins, the same as it had been before she joined the show.

If her cousins showed for call late from flirting with local men, Lace barely had time to do her own makeup. Not that it mattered. Abuela kept her in the background, a mermaid who flicked her tail and then disappeared into the shadows of sunken trees.

Lace took off her dress and twisted to look at her escamas, jeweling her lower back like coins of water. Each one was round, the size of a dime, raised a little like a mole. They shone like the cup of an abalone shell. A sprinkling of scales off a pale fish, a gift from the river goddess Apanchanej.

Las sirenas all had them. Alexia’s spotted the back of her neck. Sisters Reyna and Leti wore theirs on opposite shoulder blades.

Martha was lucky. Hers encircled her lower calf like an anklet, hidden by the costume tail. Any paillettes she wore were for decoration.

Lace sank down on her side of the bed. Her skirt fluffed, and a wisp of black wafted out. She pinched the air and caught it between her fingers. A feather, dark as obsidian, streaked with the red of wine and pomegranate seeds. She’d never seen one like it, with all that red.

The color turned her throat sour. It made her lower back prickle. If it brushed her birthmarks, it might make each one peel away like a scab.

She took the feather out to the parking lot, struck a match from one of the motel books, and lit it. The fire ate through the plume. She let it fall to the ground and then stamped it out until it crumbled to ash.



Entre l’arbre et l’écorce il ne faut pas mettre le doigt.

Don’t put your finger between the tree and the bark.

Cluck watched his grandfather lean an elbow out of the Morris Cowley’s driver’s side window. The wind from the highway made the end of his cigarette glow.