The Weight of Feathers

The coat of iodine let her feel the warmth of the ground and the bark but not the texture. When she lost her balance, the ball of her foot slid as Cluck caught her. She braced for the friction, but it didn’t hurt.

Cluck picked a branch he liked, and they stayed. He tied a ribbon to each of her hands, slack loops around her wrists. He held her hands, guiding them away from her body, until the bent wires unfolded, and the wings opened. They cast a translucent shadow on the ground below, like a glass-winged butterfly.

He slid one hand between her back and the wings. “Wings aren’t so different from arms.” He touched her shoulder blades. “This is where the scapula connects to the rest of the body.”

He pressed on her back just enough to ease her forward. She took a step, farther out on the bough. Cluck followed her, staying close enough to fill the space behind her.

The sheer silhouette of her wings crossed the lower branches. Cluck guided her so slowly she could not startle and run back toward the trunk. His touch helped her keep her balance, but he was not keeping her up. He just moved her, one slow step at a time, toward leaves and open sky.

He ran his hand down her upper arm. “This is where the secondary feathers attach.” Then her forearm. “And the primaries.” He put his fingers over hers. “And your thumb’s a lot like the alula. It helps direct flight the same way your thumb helps you do things with your hands.”

She turned her palms, interlocking her fingers with his. She wanted to tell him how much she liked the red in his feathers. But if she brought it up, it’d just make him quiet. He was quick to talk, and even quicker to stop, this boy who did not like water.

She pressed his left hand into her body, keeping her palm tight over the back of it so he couldn’t pull it away. Her thumb found the hollow between his palm and his three curved-under fingers. If they would not open, she could find her way in.

With her next step forward, the branch felt narrower under her feet than she’d expected, and she faltered. Her hands flew out, reaching for leaves or clouds.

Cluck gripped her waist. “I’ve got you.” He held her until she was still, and then lightened his touch enough to give her back the feeling of holding herself up. But his hands still stayed.

She turned enough to kiss him, fast enough that she felt a hitch in his throat when her mouth got to his. The sense of falling did not touch her, not as long as her body was between the hands of this boy who felt steadier in the air than on the ground.

But he must not have felt in his palms how anchored and still he made her. He left the smallest space between their lips and whispered again, “I’ve got you,” like he thought she might not know.



Entre dos muelas cordales nunca pongas tus pulgares.

Don’t put your thumbs between two wisdom teeth.

“It’s your turn to go buy fruit.” Clémentine shoved money into Lace’s hand. “Get the same kind of peaches. And another purple watermelon.”

Lace tried to hand it back. “I don’t want anyone seeing me. Even with makeup they all stare.”

That wasn’t the whole truth though. If her mother or aunts had stopped by for strawberries or Meyer lemons, they’d have more questions than Lace had lies. The day she left, she could’ve pretended she was on her way out of town, to stay with her cousin or Martha’s friends. But if they saw her today, they’d wonder what she was still doing in Almendro, and if word got back to Abuela, she’d know, the same way she’d known about Cluck bringing Lace to the hospital.

Clémentine rummaged in an old trunk until she found a wide-brimmed hat, its ribbon the color of lipstick. She set it on Lace’s head. “Now no one will see your face.”

Lace caught her reflection in a window. The hat must have made Clémentine and her cousins look like actresses sunning themselves, but it made Lace look like she’d gotten into the attic and was playing dress-up.

Clémentine adjusted the brim. “I’d go if the flower crowns made themselves, but they never do. Don’t forget a nectarine.”

“Just one?” Lace asked.