The Weight of Feathers

His eyes went over the ground, like he was looking for those bright threads among the leaves.

“But don’t take my word for it,” she said. “We’re all liars anyway, right?”

The corners of his eyes tensed, the anger coming back.

When he left she didn’t follow him. The feather burn vibrated on her forearm, searing into her, claiming its place on her skin.



Qui se fait brebis le loup le mange.

He who makes himself a ewe, the wolf eats.

He got out all the white peacock feathers. The ones he’d hidden in trunks, under the mattress, under the false bottom of a wooden drawer. He’d burn them all. They’d be nothing but ash. The next time he went to Elida Park, he’d leave the leucistic peacock’s eyespots where they fell.

Nothing settled. Nothing stayed still.

He’d brought a Paloma into his family. He’d let her sleep in the same trailer with Clémentine. He’d held her body against his, her mouth on his.

And he couldn’t count on Dax doing what their mother said. Sure, Dax never listened to Cluck, not nine years ago, and not now, but he listened to their mother.

Just not this time. The Palomas coating the branches with Vaseline, Camille’s fall. These were reasons Dax must have felt justified giving some younger cousins the go-ahead to set another one of those nets. They wouldn’t have gone after the Palomas without Dax’s blessing. Dax would have told them something about how he couldn’t give permission for that, not anymore, and it was too bad he couldn’t. They would’ve known what that meant. Do it. Do it and don’t get caught, because if you get caught, I’ll deny you ever brought this to me.

How stupid did Lace have to be? Hadn’t she seen what his cousins wanted to do with the mermaid tail? If she was smart, she’d run. Not just back to her side of Almendro. Farther. He didn’t want his cousins finding out and getting at her. If they hurt her, it would just make things worse with the Palomas. The fighting would take anyone who got in the way. If Clémentine or Eugenie or her younger brothers got hurt, the guilt would dig through him, wear a hole in him.

He didn’t want Lace Paloma dead.

He just wanted her gone.

The scent of her clung to him. The smell of citrus peel. The perfume of roses growing fast as weeds, their brambles twisting around new tree roots. That perfume had seeped into him, and he felt the thorns snagging.

Dax threw the trailer door open. It banged against the siding.

“I can’t believe you did this.” Dax slammed the door shut. “Paul or Bertrand, sure. But you? I taught you better than this.”

Cluck put a few feathers down. “What?”

“You and that girl.” He shoved Cluck against the counter.

The edge hit Cluck’s lower back.

“Everyone in the house heard you arguing,” Dax said.

The pain echoed up Cluck’s spine. He should’ve been careful. If he’d wanted to have it out with Lace Paloma, he should’ve gone deeper into the woods. Now they all knew. Dax knew. Cluck had hired a Paloma. And if they let him live, it’d be no less of a miracle than if Sara-la-Kali had appeared to him. His Romani blood meant she should protect him, but he was the last Corbeau a saint would ever show herself to.

Maybe they’d throw him to the water spirits who combed their fingers through the river’s depths. Maybe they’d decide that if Sara-la-Kali didn’t save him, he deserved to die.

Dax’s face reddened even through his stage makeup. “We have what, five women here who aren’t related to you? You managed to keep your hands off four of them, so what happened with her?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Cluck said.

“What, you’re gonna lie to me now? Tell me you’re just friends?” Dax grabbed his shirt collar. “Friends don’t fight like that.”

The weeds growing in Cluck’s rib cage let him take a breath. Maybe Yvette had seen them yelling, but she might not have caught what they were saying.

This was about him and Lace arguing the way a boyfriend and a girlfriend did.

“I thought you cared about this family,” Dax said.