Though I don’t really want to admit to making such a stupid mistake, I end up telling them about what I was looking for the night I met them by the duck pond near Arthur’s Seat. Calum’s mouth falls open.
‘What were they saying about them?’ he asks, ignoring Perry’s nudges to throw the stick again. ‘Were they trying to sell them? Did the message come from a company, or just some random person, or—’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, holding my hands up. ‘My dad thought it was a hoax. He’s totally deluded when it comes to this stuff though.’
‘What? Your dad’s a Wingding?’ Allie says. ‘You never told us that!’
Her eyes narrow; I find myself mirroring her expression.
‘The first time I saw you guys, you were protesting outside a Wingding restaurant. If I’d told you, you might have thought I was the same. And I’m really not – I hate all that stuff, I don’t want anything to do with it. I mean, I hid Teacake from him, didn’t I?’
Allie crosses her arms. ‘But is that why you came down here?’ she asks, her expression stormy. ‘For him to go Being-hunting?’
I nod. ‘He created some algorithm that told him that another one was going to fall in Edinburgh this summer.’ My cheeks burn. It’s embarrassing talking about this, especially to Allie. ‘He figured he might be able to catch it – and here we are.’
‘So, he was right?’ Calum’s eyebrows rise. ‘Only you found Teacake before he could? That’s kind of insane.’
I hadn’t thought about it like that. ‘I guess,’ I say. ‘It must have been a lucky coincidence though. The Falls are so random that there’s no way he could have actually worked it out.’
‘Maybe not,’ Calum says. ‘But, if somebody’s found the feathers, it won’t be long until they come after Teacake.’
Allie shrugs. ‘Look, even if someone did pick them up, so what? They’ve got no other leads. As long as no one saw you, they won’t be able to find her. Don’t blame yourself,’ she adds. ‘I mean, you witnessed a Being fall out of the sky – it’s amazing you were thinking clearly enough to hide her, let alone her feathers.’ She smiles, my Wingding connection seemingly forgiven, if not forgotten. ‘Let’s try the pond,’ she says. ‘We might find some duck feathers or something.’
We move around the garden, searching between azaleas and under bushes and along the edge of the water. Soon we have about fifty feathers, all different shapes and sizes. It’s not enough to fix Teacake’s wings, not by a long shot, but it’s a start.
At half eleven, Allie declares a snack break and sends Calum – who rolls his eyes but complies – to the cafe to get us ice creams. She and I head to the Chinese Hillside, taking a seat in the Pavilion overlooking the pond. A starling is balancing on the edge of the wooden barrier; it leaps off as we come closer, sending Perry chasing after it. Allie watches her white tail go bouncing across the grass and grins.
‘Wish we had a dog. My mum would never let us. She’s worse than Calum, paranoid about germs and—’
She breaks off, coughing. It sounds worse than yesterday, almost as if her lungs are being used as punchbags. I make a move to tap her on the back, more as a token gesture than anything, but she shakes her head. Eventually it eases off, leaving her red-faced and wheezing a little.
‘That sounded bad,’ I say. ‘Have you seen a doctor about it?’
‘Aye, I have. Don’t worry; it’s not as bad as it sounds.’ She wipes her mouth on a tissue then pulls two fruit-and-nut bars from her tote bag. ‘Want one of these? They’re not as rank as they look.’
She’s changing the subject – I can tell; I’ve done it enough to Rani recently – but I take the energy bar.
‘So, your dad,’ she says. ‘What was he planning on doing with the Being when he found it?’
‘I have no idea. Sell it, maybe.’ I sigh. ‘Before the Falls started, he was always working late or on business trips. I don’t know if he thinks this is an easier way to make money, or if he’s just swapping one obsession for another. Maybe both.’
Allie screws her nose up sympathetically. ‘Our parents are a bit like that,’ she says. ‘Well, they’re not Wingdings or anything. But they’re always so distracted – work, our exams, exactly where I am and what I’m doing . . . Sometimes I just want to plonk them down with a bottle of vodka and tell them to chill the hell out.’
‘I don’t think that’d help my dad,’ I say, laughing. ‘If the Wingding stuff is anything to go by, he’s got a bit of an addictive personality.’
She smiles. It’s the sort of smile that takes over her whole face: dimpling at her cheeks, crinkling at her eyes. I get that lurching feeling in the pit of my stomach – like someone’s grabbed me by the ankles and flipped me upside down. I haven’t felt like this for ages. Not since Leah and I got together.
Almost immediately, that upside-down sensation turns to guilt. Though I haven’t seen her since April, Leah and I never broke up. Then again, we were never officially going out. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t count.
‘Well, even if you came here for your dad to go Beingchasing, I’m glad you did.’ Allie glances down at the wrapper in her hands and folds it into quarters. ‘For Teacake, I mean.’
The tips of her ears have turned pink. Before I can reply, Calum appears, three 99s balanced between his hands. As I take the fast-melting ice cream from him, I picture myself snuffing out that flicker of guilt between my fingers. Leah’s moved on with her life. Here, hundreds of miles from everything that’s happened over the past eight months, maybe I can start to do the same.
FOURTEEN
Over the next few days, our feather hunt shows me more of Edinburgh than I’ve ever seen before. We take the bus down to Portobello Beach and collect plumes from a seabird lying on the sand. We search the trees in the Meadows, ignoring the curious looks from Frisbee players and families having barbecues as we pick sparrow and chaffinch feathers from the long grass. Each time, I wish we could have brought Teacake with us. It feels wrong for us to be enjoying the air and the wide, open sky, when all she gets are small, square glimpses of blue from the window of the flat.
But the Fringe Festival is just a few days away, and the city’s so busy it’s far too dangerous for Teacake to go out even for a minute. The rumours about the pink feathers have spread too. When we go back to Arthur’s Seat, we find Wingdings all over the hill, whispering to each other and scanning the grass. We probably look just like them, picking through the bracken and briar along the paths, but I still can’t help but worry that one of them is watching us.
On Tuesday, we find a huge haul under a bridge near the Parliament – the result of some poor seagull colliding with a windscreen – and Allie finally decides that we have enough feathers to repair the wing. We arrange to meet at the flat the next day, as we have every day of the past week. We’ve spent so much time there that I’ve now started thinking of it as Teacake’s place rather than Shona’s.
When I go downstairs the next morning, I find Teacake asleep on the table, her good wing curled around her body like a blanket. She’s turned the radio to a folk music station, all guttural vocals and nimble fiddles. Outside, the buskers and bagpipes have been joined by clunking, drilling noises as stages are set up on the Royal Mile. Between the Wingdings and the festival-goers, the next few weeks are going to be utter chaos.
Somehow Teacake sleeps through it all, her eyebrows knitted in a tight frown. Now and then, her hands twitch, and sometimes she mumbles words in her low voice that sounds tense and panicked. Whatever she’s dreaming of, it’s not all white clouds and golden gates.