The Weight of Feathers

He slid a hand onto the back of her neck and pulled her into him.

The harder he kissed her, the more he picked up the taste of river salt, pink as her tail, glinting on her mouth like glass beads. He could smell the sun-warmed water and wild sky lupines of Honey Lake. He could feel them both getting their clothes soaked in the Estrella River, its water stirred by a hundred little earthquakes they’d never feel unless he held her so close and so still his breath sounded the same as hers.

Lace pulled away and brushed his hair out of his face. “How are you gonna explain this to your brother?”

He spread his hands over the small of her back, feeling for the heat of her birthmarks through her dress. “Let me worry about that.”



Ce que chante la corneille, chante le corneillon.

As the crow sings, so sings the fledging.

Cluck scrubbed the same places over and over. It left his chest reddened, his arms raw. But he still felt the brush of the current, his skin made hot by sun and then cooled by water.

If he didn’t rub it all off, someone would know. This must have been like the guilt that men who cheated felt. How they washed other women’s perfumes from their shoulders. But instead of a mistress, Cluck had Lace and her river. Instead of a wife, he had feathers that told him not to touch a girl with scales. A family that would smell the silt and water vines if he didn’t scour away the scent.

He turned off the water, and dressed, damp feathers scratching the back of his neck.

He owed Clémentine. She’d agreed to be the one to say she wanted Lace to stay on. She hadn’t hidden the smile at the corner of her mouth when Cluck asked her, but she must have known why she had to do it instead of him. Clémentine was one of les vedettes du spectacle, as much a lead in the show as Dax was. She had the standing to ask for things. Cluck didn’t.

His grandfather’s coughing carried down the hall. It took on the hard, deep sound of shaking his lungs. It had gone farther into his chest.

Cluck opened the door without knocking.

The orange prescription bottle sat on his grandfather’s dresser, the pills as high as the day it was filled.

Cluck’s lungs felt as full of water as when Lace held him under. He should’ve known his grandfather wouldn’t swallow a single one unless Cluck made such an annoyance of himself about it that Pépère considered it less trouble just to take the damn pills.

But Cluck hadn’t done that. He’d forgotten. He’d been too busy kissing Lace, taking her up into the trees, letting her pull him into the river.

Cluck shook his head. “Pépère.”

His grandfather finished coughing into a handkerchief, his back turned. “I told you I didn’t like that gadji.”

The words flared through Cluck’s face, the same shame as when he was small and his mother caught him petting wild birds. She would yell at him, say he would bring the bird’s sickness home to his brother, and was that what he wanted?

Pépère’s voice had never made his forehead feel hot. His grandfather did not scold or yell. He gave advice, his words ballasted with a calm that told Cluck if he did not listen, he would find out himself.

Use your left hand when they are not looking, but always the right when they can see.

Since your feathers are too many to pluck, wear your hair long to cover them, or the gadje will gossip more than they already do.

Stay away from water, or the nivasia will kill you.

Cluck shut the door behind him. “You’re not taking your pills.”

“Don’t talk to me about pills.” His grandfather folded the handkerchief. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

The faint outline of his grandfather’s face showed on the window glass. Cluck couldn’t make out his expression, only the white flash of the handkerchief.