Black Feathers

by Robert J. Wiersema

  “What does that—”

  “It means you’ve never been there.” She gestured at the building at the end of the block, a squat, brown, almost windowless rectangle surrounded by concrete and stairs.

  “What’s that?” Cassie asked as they walked toward it.

  “It’s the courthouse,” Skylark explained, waiting a beat for Cassie’s reaction.

  She had none.

  Skylark sighed. “If you’ve got any sort of record at all, you’re going to want to avoid the cops, right? Yeah, well, take it from me, the last thing you’re going to do is to go where the cops are. So you’re not going to go anywhere near the police station, and you’re sure as hell not going to put your hat down outside the courthouse, right?”

  Cassie smiled.

  “It’s all yours,” Skylark said.

  A warm surge of relief rose through her, buttressing her against the cold.

  “Come on,” Skylark said, taking her arm again. “Let’s find you a place to set up.”

  They walked slowly around the building as Skylark scanned the area. She kept up a steady stream of observations—“There might be all right.” “Too far from the doors.” “Too windy.” “You’ll freeze to death there.”—and it took Cassie a while to realize that Skylark was nervous. The way she was looking at the building and over her shoulder: she didn’t like being there.

  Cassie wondered what sort of police record she had.

  And she stopped in her tracks.

  “What is it?” Skylark asked.

  “I don’t …” She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. “I don’t have a record, I don’t think. But … I’m not …”

  “You ran away.”

  Cassie nodded.

  “And your parents reported you missing.”

  Cassie swallowed. “My mom.”

  Something flashed across Skylark’s face, there and gone. She squeezed Cassie’s arm. “You don’t have to worry about that. If the cops were going to take you in, they’d have done it yesterday. I think you’re fine.”

  The cold wind cut into Cassie’s cheeks like a thousand tiny blades on the back of a slap.

  “Here, this looks good,” Skylark said, pointing to a spot on the sidewalk. “Good traffic from Blanshard, close to the doors, should be out of the wind, but you’re not hidden.”

  Cassie was overwhelmed. There were so many things to consider, so many variables, and Skylark could just rattle them off.

  “What do you think?”

  “Thank you,” Cassie murmured. The words seemed wildly insufficient. “That looks good.”

  “And look, you’ve even got something to read.” She pointed at the crumpled newspaper on top of the garbage can a short distance away. “Everything a girl could want.”

  “It’s a dream come true.”

  Skylark smiled. “I’ll be back later, all right?” She glanced up at the building. “I’ve gotta go.”

  Then the girl was gone, hurrying down the block toward downtown without even a backward glance.

  Cassie spread out the blanket from her bag, then double-folded it to give herself a soft cushion and to protect her from the cold concrete.

  It didn’t make any difference.

  With a heavy sigh, she laid out the second knit hat from her bag on the sidewalk, seeded it with a few coins and waited.

  And waited.

  It was early when she sat down, still well before the morning rush. She figured that once more people were around, on their way to work …

  But she was wrong. The sidewalks filled with people as the time ticked by, but people rushing to work weren’t inclined to stop. Most of them didn’t even seem to notice her.

  Many of those who did looked at her with such scorn that she wanted to slip between the bars behind her and disappear.

  One woman, with tightly styled blond hair and a long red coat, actually stopped and fumbled in her purse, looking at Cassie like something she wanted to scrape off the bottom of her shoe. She dropped a few coins into the hat with an air of imperturbable self-righteousness, and continued along the sidewalk with her nose high in the air.

  Cassie checked the hat. The woman had left forty-one cents.

  It wasn’t all bad, though. One man in a brown suit actually slowed down, bent a bit at the waist to drop a toonie gently into the toque. When Cassie smiled at him, he smiled back, sadly. He shook his head slightly as he turned away.

  By late morning, after the coffee breaks and smoke runs, there wasn’t even ten dollars in her hat. She had spent a little at McDonald’s for a hot chocolate and a breakfast sandwich, and at the drugstore for a new toothbrush and toothpaste, but even with that it wasn’t much of a morning.

  She considered moving, but the more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that Skylark had been right in her choice: there was something wrong with everywhere else Cassie considered. Too close to the garbage cans. Too hidden. Too exposed to the wind.

  And the snow.

  As she sat there, her bum frozen, her legs cramping and falling asleep, wispy flakes began to fall, drifting then dancing then zipping past as they got caught by the wind.

  She could feel the snow in the tightness of her chest.

  She had always loved winter, this time of year. December, with the strings of blinking lights, the nights that seemed to last all day, the first bracing shock of cold as she left the warm house.

  She especially loved the first snow every year. It was so wondrous, the ground disappearing under a skiff of white, the snowflakes in the light from the kitchen window.

  It was a family tradition: the night of the first snow, she’d have just gotten to sleep when her mom or dad would be shaking her awake, bundling her into her outside clothes while she was still groggy.

  Heather would be at the door already, still mostly asleep, and the four of them would wrap up in scarves and mittens before opening the door.

  It was magical, walking sleepily through that strange world, the snow cold and stinging a little on their faces, crunching under their boots.

  Heather would be holding Mommy’s hand, swinging their arms together, singing a song.

  And she and her dad would be following behind.

  Daddy.

  Don’t think about it.

  Scooping up her hat, the dull rattle of loose change, Cassie stood up, closing her eyes and shaking her head. Keeping her hat tight in her fist, she grabbed the newspaper that someone had left on top of the trash can, stretched a little bit, then sat back down.

  Don’t think about it.

  The newspaper snapped her back into the present.

  There was a photograph on the front page, a picture of the breezeway where she had spent the night. It took Cassie a moment to recognize the place; she found the spot near the wall where she and Skylark had slept, and used it to orient herself. Smaller pictures highlighted garbage in the corners and strewn in the square.

  The headline read “Squatter Mess at City Hall.” The story was short, vicious. The reporter had talked to business owners and people at City Hall, who said, “Homelessness is obviously a problem, but this isn’t the solution,” and to people who worked or owned businesses downtown, all of whom were “disgusted by the mess,” worried that “so many bums and criminals might keep people away from downtown during the Christmas shopping season.”

  As Cassie read the article, she thought of the speech Brother Paul had given the night before, about the people who didn’t understand, who would try to destroy their community.

  It seemed he had been right.

  There was a small photograph in the corner of the larger image of the breezeway. It was of a young man, hair blowing back in some long-ago breeze, eyes looking into the distance. The caption read “Corbett in 1979.”

  According to the article, “The squatter camp has been organized by Paul Corbett, who calls himself Brother Paul. Corbett has a long history of civil disobedience and protest, including the creation of a commune on Quadra
Island in the 1970s and involvement with the anti-nuclear movement in the early 1980s. Police have declined to comment on his involvement.”

  All the police said was that they are “keeping an eye on the situation and will deal with any problems as they develop.”

  The only other article on the front page was about the murders.

  There was a photograph of a group of police officers on a rocky shore, a white plastic sheet at their feet, draped over what was, according to the caption, “the body of 19-year-old Susan Strauss, discovered Monday.”

  “Police Puzzled, City Afraid,” read the headline, but the article was mostly “no comments” and guesses from the reporter. A few things were clear though: the murder had been “brutal” and “savage,” the victim had been a prostitute, and police were very carefully not commenting on any possible connection between her death and the murders of “other sex-trade workers this fall.”

  “It’s happening here now.”

  Cassie jumped at the soft voice.

  Standing in front of her, snowflakes whirling around her, was one of the women from the circle the night before. Cassie couldn’t remember her name. Bonnie, maybe?

  “What?” She lowered the newspaper to the ground.

  Without waiting for any sort of invitation, the woman sat down in front of Cassie, making no effort to avoid her hat. “I’m Sarah. Sarah from Edmonton,” she said, tugging at her jacket and scarf so they draped around her, seemed to swallow her up. “I saw you last night.”

  Cassie nodded. “I’m—”

  “Dorothy,” the woman finished, smiling proudly.

  “Dorothy,” Cassie agreed.

  Sarah’s smile broadened. “I’m good with names. Very good. My mom and dad told me that everyone has a gift. I guess that’s mine. Names. I’m good with names. Never forget a name.”

  Cassie felt herself drawing back, and tried not to.

  “It’s cold out here,” Sarah said, crossing her arms to hug herself, to rub her own shoulders. “Cold. Chilly. Chilly beans. Oh, so chilly beans.” She giggled.

  Cassie forced a smile, wondering what she should do. She didn’t want to be rude, but her hat wasn’t going to get any fuller with Sarah sitting between her and any people walking by. Should she hint that the other woman should go? Maybe she should find a different place to sit. “It’s happening here now,” Sarah repeated.

  Cassie shook her head. “What is?”

  Leaning forward, Sarah smoothed out the newspaper and poked her finger onto the front page, pinning it to the concrete. “That,” she said, her voice free of any trace of inflection. “It’s happening here now. Like it did before.” Sarah nodded deeply, her expression grave.

  “What do you mean, ‘like before’?”

  “Just like before,” Sarah repeated, nodding more quickly. “Like the last time.” She shifted a little, bounced in place.

  “What’s happening? What do you mean?”

  “It likes the winter,” Sarah said. “It likes to hunt in the winter.” The head-shaking turned into a faint twitching, and Sarah’s body swayed from side to side.

  It was scary to watch, and Cassie felt the mania, the fear, starting to infect her. Her heartbeats were coming faster, her breaths shorter; she was starting to get caught up in whatever was affecting Sarah.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “The murders? They’ve happened before?”

  Sarah’s face burst open in a wide smile. “Before,” she cried out. “Before. And now here. It’s happening here now. It’s happening here!”

  “What’s happening here? Where did it happen? When?” Desperate for any answer, any little bit.

  But Sarah was backing up on the pavement, staring at Cassie, backing up on her gloves, crab-walking, pushing herself back with her feet, then jumping up, hurrying away, arms wrapped tight around herself again, weaving. She was talking to herself as she scurried down the sidewalk, but Cassie couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  Cassie couldn’t stay there, not after the conversation with Sarah. Even before her heart had slowed, she needed to move, to walk.

  She scooped up the few coins from her hat and stuffed them into her pocket as she stood up. The hat itself went into the very top of her bag, crammed and almost bursting it was so full.

  Too full, really, for how little was in it.

  She needed a new bag. And some new clothes. Especially before she went to the restaurant.

  The thought of spending the last of the money she had brought from home caused a defensive pang, but she didn’t really have a choice: she couldn’t live in one set of clothes for God knows how long.

  It wasn’t a long walk to the Salvation Army thrift shop; Cassie plugged in her earphones and kept her head bowed against the wind coming straight up the street off the water.

  She didn’t want to spend any more time in the store than she absolutely had to. The stuffy air was rank with grime and the faint mildew scent of old clothes; the store made her skin itch and feel prickly in her clothes. She wasn’t sure if it was the smell, the heat or the chaos.

  She went as quickly as she could, moving from rack to rack in a steady, merciless examination, fuelled by the Nine Inch Nails CD playing at high volume in her ears.

  A pair of jeans in her size. A couple of shirts. Two white tank tops, a size small, to take the place of her bra, which was practically falling apart. A couple of pairs of wool socks. A black sweater with a hole under the arm but nothing else wrong with it. She winced as she sorted through a beaten-up laundry basket full of underwear, but she didn’t really have a choice. When she found a package of two white pairs in her size, still wrapped, with the price tag still on, it felt like she had stumbled across a winning lottery ticket.

  Maybe not quite that good.

  She paid for the clothes with her last twenty-dollar bill, carefully tucking the change into the front pocket of her backpack before zipping up her coat and stepping back into the wind.

  It took her longer than she had expected to find the showers that Skylark had described to her the previous day: the door was concealed in a shadowed recess at Ship’s Point on the Inner Harbour, down by the water’s edge, between a restaurant and a gift shop.

  Inside, there was a wide hallway, with a desk on one side and several doors on the other, all marked Shower. Trying not to be conspicuous, she went to the first door, tried the knob.

  The door was locked.

  “I think the next one’s free,” came a voice from behind her.

  The man behind the desk was standing up, looking at her.

  “Oh, I …” She had no idea what to say.

  “You’re looking for a shower, right? I think the next one is available.” He pointed to the next door down the corridor. “How are you for shampoo and such?”

  Reaching under the desk, he pulled out a small bin packed with plastic bottles. “If you need anything.”

  She could feel the heat in her face as she stepped over to the desk.

  She picked out an almost full bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap.

  “You can leave it in there when you’re done,” he said. “We do a quick clean once an hour this time of year.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Do I need a key, or …?”

  He shook his head. “They lock from the inside. And there are towels in there.”

  “Thank you,” she repeated, and the warm understanding of his smile was so tinged with sadness she had to turn away.

  Once she had the door locked behind her and had checked it, pulling hard on the doorknob, Cassie released a heavy breath.

  She set her backpack on the chair next to the sink, across from the shower itself, draping her coat over the back. It didn’t seem so bad: the room was like a cross between a public washroom and a school shower. With a locked door.

  She showered quickly. She would have liked to stand under the water for an hour, letting it run over her, letting the steam fill the roo
m, but she was acutely aware that the only thing separating her from the rest of the world was that door, those locks. Sooner or later, somebody would knock. Somebody would want to get in.

  So she washed her hair as quickly as she could, leaving the shampoo in while she scrubbed with the tiny bar of soap. She imagined that she could see the dirt lifting off her, layer after layer, like sediment, like time. The small room filled with steam and the smell of green apples from the shampoo.

  She dried off as quickly as she could: the towels were small and scratchy, but they did the job. She tore into the package of underwear, then dressed in her new clothes before she even looked at her hair and face. She only gave a passing thought to the clothes that she was putting on. She would have much preferred to have washed them first, but she didn’t have that luxury.

  Wiping the mirror with the side of her hand, she brushed her hair out, then tied it back into a ponytail with an elastic. She brushed her teeth methodically and for a long time, savouring the burn of the mint in her mouth after more than a day without. She checked her teeth, the corners of her eyes, her skin. She thought about the restaurant, about Ali.

  She watched herself blush in the mirror.

  When she turned to pack up, she cursed herself: she had forgotten to even look at knapsacks at the Salvation Army. There was no way that everything was going to fit back in.

  Then she looked at the clothes she had taken off. Was it worth carrying them around? Were they even salvageable?

  She dropped the socks, underwear and shirt in the garbage can.

  Her backpack closed, but barely.

  She took a hard look at herself in the mirror. It would have to do.

  Wait: one last thing.

  It took her a long time to find the small, flat container buried deep in her backpack. Unscrewing the cap, she used her right pinkie to apply a bit of gloss to her upper and lower lips, pressing them together to spread it evenly.

  It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.

  She looked at herself in the mirror for a long time, building up her courage.

  The wind caught the edge of the door and wrenched it out of Cassie’s hand, slamming it against the wall beside the fish tank.