The Weight of Feathers

“Yes, it is the smoking.” Pépère stood and shook the man’s hand. “Thank you for your help, Doctor.” His way of ending an appointment he hadn’t wanted. Feign repentance of his half-century cigarette habit, and be on his way. This was why Cluck’s mother didn’t drag him to doctors anymore.

Cluck hadn’t even told his grandfather the appointment was for him until they’d parked and gone in. He’d said he was going in to see someone about his hands, still spotted the pinks and reds of worn brick. Only Pépère’s pity had kept him from suspecting on the drive over.

Like Cluck cared what his hands looked like, as long as they worked enough to make the wings. His guilt felt like an elbow jabbing his ribs. But if he hadn’t lied, Pépère never would have come.

The doctor scrawled on a prescription pad. Wrinkles softened the skin around his mouth. His hair had more gray than Pépère’s. Pépère must have been hoping for a resident. They were always pleased thinking they’d converted a smoker. Easier to con.

“I’m writing you a script.” The doctor tore off the sheet and held it out to Pépère. “For antibiotics. The way you’ve weakened your lungs, they can’t fight off infection the way we’d like.”

Pépère wouldn’t take the prescription. He pretended not to see the paper flapping in the man’s hand.

Cluck reached over for it. “Thank you.”

The doctor left.

“I’ll meet you in the lobby,” Cluck told his grandfather.

Pépère rolled down his shirtsleeves. “Where are you going?”

“To apologize for you.” Cluck followed the doctor into the hallway. “Do you have a minute?”

The doctor looked up from a chart.

Cluck checked the hallway, in case his words might bring out a risk manager. “What about the accident? Could that have anything to do with it?”

The doctor hesitated, his mouth half-open.

“Please,” Cluck said. “I just want to know.”

The doctor lowered his voice. “With what the smoking’s already done to his lungs, and now with everything that might or might not be floating around in the air…”

“Might or might not?” Cluck asked.

“They won’t tell us anything. We know there was some kind of ECA or MCA, but we don’t know what else. They’re calling it ‘trade secrets.’ That means there’s only so much we can do.”

Cluck’s eyes stuck on the hallway carpet.

“But it means the same thing,” the doctor said. “He’s probably a lot more open to infection than he would be.”

Cluck folded the prescription paper. “So get him to take the pills?” he asked.

The doctor nodded. “Get him to take the pills.”

Bonne chance; il en aurait besoin. Cluck would have to crush them up and ask Clémentine to slip them into his food.



De la vista, nace el amor.

From what you see, you love.

Cluck had told Lace that he and his grandfather wouldn’t be back until late. But now she heard the Morris Cowley’s tires crunching the leaves, an hour earlier than she’d expected.

The truck parked outside. Alain Corbeau would have told Cluck by now. They would come for her.

She got the trailer’s back window open, ready to climb out into the dark, a borrowed kitchen knife in her hand. But Cluck and the old man’s steps led away from the trailers. Away from the yellow Shasta.

If she wasn’t gone by the time they came back, they’d kill her. The Paloma among the Corbeaus. When she was little she had nightmares about them all turning to crows, the spears of their beaks poking a thousand holes in her.

She pressed her suitcase shut.

The door flew open, and Eugenie stumbled in.

Lace’s ribs felt sharp, jabbing at her lungs. She backed toward the trailer wall, gripping the suitcase and the kitchen knife. She could knock Eugenie down with one swing of that suitcase. Anyone else she’d wave the knife at.

Clémentine appeared in the doorway, still in a show dress like Eugenie. Only their wings were off. Wouldn’t they want them on to kill her? Wouldn’t they want the last thing she saw to be the cover of those enormous wings?

“What are you doing?” Clémentine asked.