The Weight of Feathers

“Very funny.”


She set her hands and feet where he told her to, pulling herself up. He went with her, following after on some branches, going ahead of her on others to help her up.

Her arms liked the work. They’d missed fighting the river’s current. Now they snapped awake.

The wind raked the branches, and she laughed at the leaves brushing her hair.

“See,” Cluck said. A branch blew between them, and he held it aside. “You’re a natural.”

“I’m up here,” she said. “Now what’s your real name?”

“It’s Luc,” he said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“What’s so embarrassing about that?”

“I never said I had an embarrassing name. I just like people calling me Cluck.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because my brother hates it.”

“That’s mature.”

He picked a leaf out of her hair. “My mother likes him better.”

“You don’t know that.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I do.”

She pulled a scrap of twig off his shirt collar.

“I gotta hand it to my mother though,” he said. “None of that ‘I love my kids the same’ stuff. I appreciate the honesty. It’s refreshing.”

“Nobody loves their children the same.” Abuela had always liked Lace’s mother best. She had the spirit and spine to tell Abuela off, but not the nerve to go against her. Justin, Oscar, and Rey’s mother loved Justin a little more, because he had realized, before he had words for it, that his place as the oldest brother would have to spread and grow to fill the space their father left. If Lace had brothers or sisters, she was sure she’d be her father’s favorite, and sure she wouldn’t be her mother’s.

A black, red-streaked feather settled between Cluck’s neck and shirt collar. He didn’t seem to feel it. Maybe he’d gotten so used to the downy barbs against the back of his neck, he didn’t notice them any more than Lace did her own stray hairs.

She picked the feather out. Her fingers grazed his neck, and he shivered.

“Why do you do that?” he asked.

“What?”

“Save those things.”

“Do you want me not to?” she asked.

“I just want to know why.”

She held it up to the sky. The moon brightened the red. “I like them.”

“You’re alone there.”

She slipped it into the pocket of her jean jacket. She felt it through the fabric, hot against her rib cage. One more feather for the collection in her suitcase.

The wind brushed another one from his hair. It swirled down, settling on a lower bough. She climbed down after it, from one branch onto the one under it.

She let go of the higher branch, and her right foot slipped. Then the dark looked like she’d imagined, the same as the deepest lakes on bright days, the light reaching down and then vanishing.

Cluck’s arm hit the small of her back. His hand gripped her side, and her escamas glowed like a fever. “Put a little of your weight down before you put all of it down.” He held her up, tight enough that the feather in her pocket burned into her. “Shift too fast, and that’s what makes you feel like you’re falling. If you think you’re falling, it’s more likely you will.”

His mouth almost brushed hers. The way he held her made her stand on her toes, sharpening the feeling that the ground underneath them was the same endless depth as those lakes.

He didn’t stop her pressing her fingers into him. She didn’t stop him when he took her top lip between his. Her hand found the feathers under his hair, soft and thick as river grass, and she kissed him back. She opened her mouth to his and pretended the sky was water.



Quien no tiene, perder no puede.