Feather by Feather and Other Stories

by Lynn E. O'Connacht

  “Of course. What’re big sisters for?” Beth paused. “Don’t you want dad to come with you?”

  “No. You can see what I did wrong and explain it to me in a way that makes sense.”

  “Okay. Want to watch a movie? I’ll let you pick.” She felt, rather than saw, Hazel shake her head.

  “I should study more.”

  Beth shifted and made her sister look at her. “You need a break. Study too much and you’ll go nuts. You’ll wear yourself out and go cross-eyed over it, Haze.”

  “But –”

  “Listen to your big sister. We’ll look at your maths again when we see your teacher and for now we’ll just relax and have a girl’s day in, minus ice cream.”

  Hazel looked dubious and twiddled with one of the cushion tassels.

  “It’ll be fun!” Beth coaxed.

  “Can we act out books or do karaoke instead? We can be melodramatic.”

  “Sure. What do you have in mind?”

  Hazel smiled, a sly smile that Beth knew all too well. “You’ll see.”

  “Fine. Be that way.” Beth stuck out her tongue. For a moment Hazel looked stunned, then they both collapsed in a giggle fit.

  The boat Beth was in capsized and she was being tossed this way and that by the waves. The sun sang out her name until it took on the features of Hazel’s peach-shaped face. Drowsy, Beth blinked up at her sister and, realising Hazel was still shaking her shoulder, batted at the younger girl’s arm.

  “Stop it. What d’you want?” Beth drawled as her sister bounded over to the light switch and hit it. Beth groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. In a bit, she stared at her alarm clock and groaned again. “It’s the middle of the night, Haze. Why aren’t you asleep?” More importantly, why was she reminding Beth of a jack about to pop out of its box? In the middle of the night! Beth pushed herself up into at least a lounging position as Hazel bounded back and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “I’ve got it!”

  The quiver even seemed to run in Hazel’s damned voice. Beth, yawning, was very much inclined to use her pillow to whack her sister. “Got what?”

  “I have dyscalculia!”

  “What?” Beth frowned. Had she heard that right? “You don’t have a problem with words, Haze.”

  “Not dyslexia, Beth. Dyscalculia. That’s like dyslexia but with numbers. Sort of. That’s why I can’t do maths. I want to get tested.”

  “What are you even doing up?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I hated that meeting, Beth! I wish he’d never said he didn’t understand how I could fail. He’s supposed to know!”

  “That’s great, Haze.” Beth snuggled back down under the covers properly and pulled them over her head. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

  “But –”

  “Go. To. Bed.”

  “But –”

  Beth swatted her hand in the direction of her sister’s voice. “Have exam, Haze. Need sleep.”

  “Urgh!” The light went out and the door didn’t slam, just. Five seconds later Beth heard it open again. “I am so going to get tested,” Hazel announced. “And then I will figure out how to pass that stupid class!”

  Beth tossed her pillow in the general direction of the door. It thudded against the wood. Grumbling, she retrieved it and went back to sleep. If she failed her test, Hazel was buying the next pot of chocolate mousse.

  Dyscalculia seems to be a lot less obscure than it was when I was in secondary school, for which I’m deeply grateful. Unlike Hazel, I gave up on maths because nothing I did made any kind of difference to my understanding or my grades. It was frustrating and confusing.

  Dyscalculia is actually much broader than dealing with numbers. It also means I can’t read maps, tell the time on an analogue clock, keep to a specific rhythm, and, um, tell left from right. For example. It’s a pretty broad spectrum, but Sharing Chocolate only covers the numbers angle.

  This piece is a bit of wish fulfilment. No one thought to suggest I get tested for dyscalculia when I was in school. No one even told me that there was a learning disability like dyslexia for numbers.

  I doubt that my life would have been vastly different if I’d been given specific tools to help me with maths when I was in primary and secondary school, but I do think it would have done wonders for my self-esteem and confidence.

  “Have wings for me.” His voice is hoarse, ragged with wonder and awe. And, perhaps, a little with desire, though she knows it’s far from his mind that night. Their room is lit with hearth fire and candles; moon and stars kept outside by heavy curtains. They’ve locked the door, of course. Calling her wings is easy, quick and effortless as thought. She smiles; he’d never believe her if she told him she marvels at them as much as he does still. She hears his breath catch, can guess why. Opening her eyes, she sees the hesitation in his and wishes nothing more than to kiss his fears away.

  She doesn’t. She takes his hand and guides it to the feathers folded between them. “Shh,” she shushes when he makes to speak and encloses her fingers around his, teaching him how to stroke and preen without doing damage. As she’d known he would be, he’s a quick student, if hesitant.

  “You won’t hurt me.” Her voice is a whisper, though one born out of gentleness. In truth, if she had even the slightest fear he would do her harm, she never would have shared her wings with him, wouldn’t even have told him they existed. That is safe. That is proper. That is wise. But love is never any of those things and she loves him more even than her delicate, fragile limbs. It is important for oh so many reasons that she trust him so.

  They sit on the rug, half the light blocked off by a sheltering wing. Sometimes he strokes the primaries, sometimes preens the secondaries, most often he merely touches either lightly. She presses the wing closer to his cheek, not to tickle, though that is the effect, but to offer comfort. Earlier that day, he lost his son and she would let him bury that grief in wonder and awe and the soft brush of down all his long life if it’d help him. It surely distracts him.

  Sometimes, one of his hands finds hers and she squeezes lightly or strokes the back with her thumb. Sometimes, though rarely, his face finds her shoulder and her wings find his back as she holds him, lets him share what he most wants and needs to share. They barely talk, have no need for words. Not yet. Not now.

  So they merely sit in the middle of their warm room and he preens her and she combs his hair with her fingers, some way to give back what he’s giving her, though it isn’t, won’t ever be, the same. She does it anyway because it brings them both pleasure, and marvels that it does so. Sometimes, he talks of his son, who might have been hers in time, and she treasures the words and the tales for he guards his memories fiercely. Sometimes, he struggles not to cry and sometimes she distracts him and sometimes she tries to help him face himself. Sometimes, she sings him songs in her soft, crystal voice. Most of the time, she just keeps him company.

  Once, she flinches because even his hands aren’t gentle enough to hold back the memories. Once she snaps her wings back, close — though the force hurts them both with his hand buried in her primaries — at his touch. Once she feels tears pressing on her own eyes, and their roles slip as easily as hot grease in a pan. Once she sobs on his shoulder because she cannot trust and wants to so badly. Once. Twice. Thrice. He would never hurt her, she knows it, and yet. Stubborn, she pushes, tries to, for he catches her hand and kisses her fingers.

  “It’s all right, love,” he murmurs and holds her, strokes her hair for that he knows it won’t make her panic and pull away. He is hurt, she knows, but so is she. She wraps her wings around them as tightly as she dares, feels his fingers find the down nearest her back and stroke it. That is all right. She can feel the fist his free hand makes as he fights his body to relax against hers. It takes her longer because the fear crowds at her thoughts. “What if? What if? What if?” it choruses. “He will. He will. He will.” She doesn’t believe it, but she does. She knows it to be untrue, but she doesn’t.

 
It isn’t as if she’s never shown him her wings before. It isn’t even as if she’s never let him touch them before. It’s just never been there and she’s always seen… It’s just too much. There. And she hates needing to feel safe when he needs her, though that too might help him. He hushes her, sings her songs that might be lullabies from the melody. He rests his chin on her head afterwards, lightly, silent.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t…” He moves then, tilts her chin up and kisses her gently, still taking her breath away and still she doesn’t understand kisses. “Don’t be.” He buries his hands in her feathers again, near their base, where she can feel him touch skin. “It’s all right. Nothing you don’t want.”

  “But I want –”

  “I know, love.” He disentangles one hand to stroke her cheek. “But not tonight?”

  She nods and leans into his palm. He smiles and they lie themselves down on the rug, simply holding each other, one wing splayed over them like a blanket. “I love you,” she murmurs, and wonders how much her breath might be tickling him.

  He trusts her with his memories, with his grief, with something more than his heart, as precious to him as flight to her. She catches some stray tears with her fingertips and tucks one of his curls back into place and they lie together in quiet companionship as the hearth fire crackles and the candle fire dances. He tangles the fingers of one hand with hers and starts to preen the wing that covers them both with the other.

  In time, she starts to doze, snuggled against him. She scarce hears him whisper, knows how difficult he finds words, tries to stay awake for his sake, but soon his preening has stopped and his breath has slowed and she delights at the peace in his sleeping face. Butterfly-light she kisses his forehead and lets herself drift off beside him.

  Feather by Feather is one of my favourite pieces in the collection. It’s soft and sweet, but if you look closely there’s a fair bit of darkness underlying the lives of these two characters. The darkness helps bring out the gentleness, I think. It’s the contrast between them and the way most of the bad things that have happened are only ever implied.

  I’ve tried to write a few more pieces with these characters to explore how intimacy works among bird-winged humanoids, but these two, at least, did not really oblige me with more stories to tease out their history together. It’s a shame. It sounds really interesting.

  For alee_grrl, who suggested the retelling

  She warned of the pain. She did.

  But no warning can prepare you.

  Nothing can.

  She didn’t warn of the hardship,

  Of this confused maze of life.

  How could she?

  How could any of us have known

  What it is like on the dry sand?

  We just watched.

  Life here is so different from

  What we thought we understood.

  It is strange.

  It’s hard, not being able to ask

  Questions, though I have learned some speech

  With my hands. ˆ_ˆ

  He loves to see me dance, he says,

  And I love to see his face when I do.

  It hurts, though.

  He is not at all like I dreamed him,

  But I love him the more for that.

  Does he love me?

  Sometimes… Sometimes I think he does.

  Would he do the same for me as I?

  I hope so.

  I miss my sisters. I love my prince.

  If I could, I’d sing my heart like a whale.

  I miss it.

  I never used to know how to listen.

  I know now. It’s all I do. I listen. ˆ_ˆ

  Dance and listen.

  Listen and dance. Learn. I help when I can.

  I never knew it could bring me such joy.

  Or such sorrow.

  I wonder… will he ever speak of love to me?

  I think I fear the sea now. Just a little.

  I miss home. T-T

  This world has its beauties. The dapple of a forest,

  The birds, warm water that stays in one place.

  I love it.

  I love the gardens. I love the market.

  It hurts so much to be here, but… I

  Am joyful. ˆ_ˆ

  I have made friends here. I have laughed with them,

  Learned with them, played with them.

  I love them.

  She said I would die if he loves someone else.

  Will I die? At the beginning I wanted to. It hurts

  So much. Life isn’t easy, will never be easy, but…

  I don’t want to become sea foam.

  Sometimes I am frightened, but most-times I

  Wish I could sing with life. ˆ_ˆ

  The poem that turned into a verse novel! When I’d finished this version of Sea Foam and Silence, I felt that there was more to tell about the story.

  What’s always struck me about the original version of The Little Mermaid (and especially the Disney adaptation) is how the mermaid is interested in so much more than just the prince she rescues. It’s not just the prince that fascinates her. It’s being human in and of itself.

  Depending on whether you’re reading the original or watching the Disney adaptation, the mermaid either wants a soul of her own or she wants to explore the human world. The prince, much as he takes a central place in her life when she meets him, doesn’t factor into it at first.

  That fascination is what I wanted to explore with this piece. (^_^)

  Once upon a time in a small town in a small country there was a small train station in which there lived a little engine. Its name was Jan. Jan did not have much to do in the small train station. There were bigger trains, shinier trains, newer trains, stronger trains, and faster trains that got all the work. Jan entertained the children that came to the yard as they waited for the other trains to be ready, but it would love little more than to work like the other trains did. Jan wanted to carry people in its carriages to where they wanted to go, over the hills and across the mountains maybe, so it trained diligently to become stronger and able to pull more weight. And one day two of the bigger, shinier, newer, stronger, faster trains broke down and were put in the yard to be repaired, and it snowed and snowed and snowed. Suddenly, the great many people who had come to visit the small town could no longer leave. The mountains were gleaming white and were dangerous to cross by any means other than the trains, and they could not all stay for the little town was filled to overflowing with people visiting. There wasn’t enough space for everyone.

  The station master paced along the platforms, crying ‘What shall I do?’ and pulling at his greying hair as if making his headache worse would help him find a solution. He was not a man used to dealing with great problems for he only lived on a small station in a small town in a small country. “What shall I do?” he cried and cried, and no one had an answer.

  All the trains heard him and gossiped to one another. Could not Big Bertha and Florenzo each take an additional carriage? But the two trains said that they could not. It was too cold and the carriages would be too heavy and the people would be too cramped, and the trains too lamented with the station master. Eventually, gossip got to little Jan where it was huffing and puffing its steamy heart out to become faster. Jan was a little intimidated by the big trains, for, you have to remember, it was only a very little engine compared to them and it looked grubby and dated and cumbersome. But Jan thought as it huffed and as it puffed. It thought about the problems that the station master faced and it thought about its own problems. “If I show them that I can pull all the people over the mountains,” Jan said to itself, “then they will see how good and strong I am, and they will give me work.”

  So Jan set off to find the station master and said, quite timidly, that it could help. Florenzo was nearby, explaining again how it couldn’t possibly cope, and it scoffed at the little engine. “You are so little,” it said. “You aren’t strong enough to handle t
he weight! And who would want to sit in such a dingy old train?”

  Jan puffed out some smoke, feeling very small and very sad and very silly, but it stayed where it was. The station master patted Jan’s side and said, “Thank you, Jan.” He looked at Lorenzo. “You could learn something from little Jan.” Then he looked at the little engine again and smoothed back his hair. “But Florenzo has a point. There are too many people. You cannot pull the weight.”

  “I want to try,” said Jan. “I can do it. I have practised ever so hard, station master, and no one else wants to do it.”

  “All right then. I shall see what we can accomplish with your help, Jan. I shall need to make new calculations, I suppose.” The station master did not want to overtax the little engine and he was certain that it would try to do too much if no one intervened. He asked all the people to wait just a little while longer and when he was done with his calculations he would tell them how they were to get back to the grand capital over the mountains.

  So it was that Jan had to be fitted with four carriages instead of its usual three. “I cannot do it!” Jan cried, for despite its many days practising it had never actually had to connect to a fourth carriage and it was scared. None of the trains had left yet and everyone was looking at Jan. What if it made a mistake? What if people would tell the station master that they would rather sleep out in the cold and wait for the big trains to return than ride with a grubby little steam engine like Jan? Florenzo had said so, after all.

  “You can do it!” the crowd cried out. And Jan’s conductor, who was one of its best and only friends, said, “You have practised this so often, Jan. I have faith in you. You can do it if you believe in yourself too.”

  And so Jan told itself ‘I can do it. I can do it. I can do it’ all the while that it backed against the fourth carriage. People shouted encouragement at it. Jan didn’t get it right the first time, nor the second, nor the third, but no one laughed at it. All the people chanted that it could do it and finally Jan did it. When the crowd erupted into a cheer, Jan’s steamy heart whistled with joy.

  “I can do it!” shouted Jan along with the crowd and the people began to disperse to their designated trains. Jan waited patiently for everyone to board and for its tender to be filled with enough coal and water to last the journey to the grand capital over the mountains. The townspeople also made sure that the passengers had all the food and drink they could need and the children came to say a fond farewell to Jan. They begged it to return soon for how would they know it was morning without Jan’s whistling?