A Mosaic of Wings

by Kimberly Duffy

  She wondered if she could find one in the garden. Every year their lovely webs filled the cherry tree beside the gate. She’d caught a chill the day before, after falling in the water, but a glance out the window told her the sun shone over Mother’s sprouting garden.

  Nora’s fingers itched for her pencils. She gathered her supplies and headed outside. Her mother was often bedridden, too weak and ill to do much, but she always had time for her flowers. Even if it meant hiring a boy to weed and plant, Mother made sure her garden was tidy and charming. In the summer, Nora loved to walk down the pebbled paths, running her fingers over the heliotrope and begonias. A rose-covered pergola offered escape from the sun and was the perfect place to watch butterflies and honeybees enjoy the lavender. It was too early in the season for most flowers, but the cherry tree had begun to send out shoots, and she might be able to find a spider in its unfurling buds. But she’d check the spring bulbs first.

  When she got outside, Nora crouched just below the parlor window, where the golden heads of the daffodils bobbed to the tricolored cottage maid tulips. She set her sketchbook and pencils in the grass and poked her nose beneath a cluster of flowers. Spreading her hands between the stems, she peered into the shadowed space under the leaves, hoping for a glimpse of the black-and-yellow spiders.

  With a sigh she sat back on her heels. No luck.

  She set her pad in her lap. At least she could sketch the flowers before moving on to the cherry tree. It might take her mind off what Lucius planned to do to the journal.

  For a few moments it worked. She lost herself in the form of a particularly jolly daffodil, the frilled rim framing its cup making it look like an old woman in a bonnet. Caught up in shadowing its petals, she startled when she heard her name.

  “I don’t want to lose her too, Lucius. Please.” Fear strangled Mother’s words.

  “You wouldn’t be losing her, my dear. But I believe Nora would do well with a change of scenery. Staying with my sister on Long Island may be just the thing for her.”

  Nora gripped her pencil. He wanted to send her away?

  Lucius continued, “Martha could use the company. I’m sure she’s been lonely since her husband took ill. She can hardly leave the house, and now that Nora is nearly done with school, it would give her something to do. Martha would be such a good example for Nora. She’s well-respected in society and an excellent wife. Also, Mr. Primrose has family in the area, and he’s planning to take a trip home in the next few weeks. Imagine if they made a match, darling. I’m sure Nora would warm to him if she gave him half a chance.”

  Nora stifled a groan. Again with Mr. Primrose. She had no desire to meet him and even less to “make a match” with someone of her stepfather’s choosing.

  “Lucius,” Mother said, “I’m not well, and she’s such a joy to me. What would I do without her?”

  Nora leaned forward, tilting her ear closer to the window. As much as Lucius despised her, he’d only ever treated her mother with love and concern.

  There was a squeaking, as though someone had shifted on the settee. “It would only be for a year or so. I don’t think my sister’s husband will survive much longer.”

  Long enough to let you destroy the journal.

  Though, in his defense, he more than likely didn’t see it that way. Nora didn’t think he purposely wanted to ruin the journal. But that would be the end result anyway, and she couldn’t let that happen. She wouldn’t let that happen.

  And she wouldn’t let him send her to his sister—whom Nora had only met twice before—on Long Island. Not when there was a possibility of winning a scholarship and continuing her education. She needed to do a research project over the summer. Possibly in India.

  She stood, hugging her sketchbook and pencils to her chest. When her head crested the window, her mother gasped.

  “Nora! Whatever are you doing out there?”

  “I was drawing the flowers, Mother, and I heard your conversation. My intention wasn’t to eavesdrop.”

  Lucius looked up from his seat beside Mother on the rosewood sofa, and Nora could see his doubt. “Why don’t you come in here, and we can discuss this?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s necessary. I’m not going to Long Island.”

  His nostrils flared, and her mother seemed to deflate. Nora didn’t want to argue with him and upset her mother, but she also wasn’t going to allow him to dictate her future and ruin her plans.

  “My sister needs help,” Lucius said.

  “I think you should visit her. Take Mother. The change in scenery would be good for both of you.”

  His jaw clenched when she parroted his own words back to him.

  She stepped closer to the window, careful not to crush the flowers, and gripped the sash with her free hand. “I have plans here, Lucius.”

  “What plans would those be?”

  Nora took a deep breath. “I intend to return to Cornell to obtain my master’s.”

  “How will you do that?” Lucius asked. “You have no money left.”

  Mother touched his hand, and Nora didn’t miss how it settled him down. She wondered if her mother knew how much she affected him. Nora couldn’t understand how none of her own reasoning ever made a dent in her stepfather’s twisted logic, but her mother’s soft touch instantly calmed him.

  “Lucius,” Mother said, “I’d be more than willing to pay for Nora’s schooling. Alex would have approved.”

  His head whipped around. “You will not use your inheritance to pay for that. Not at Cornell, especially. I won’t have you waste your money.”

  “It’s hardly a waste.” Mother offered Nora a wavering smile. “Nora is brilliant, and I want to see her succeed.”

  Warmth filled Nora’s belly. Sometimes she wondered if her mother’s love for her had diminished when she married Lucius. She appreciated her mother’s willingness to support her, though she’d never ask her to pay for school. It was obvious Lucius didn’t agree with his wife from the way he licked his lips and tapped his foot in a nervous staccato. In fact, he almost looked afraid.

  “I won’t need your money, Mother,” Nora said, keeping her eyes on Lucius. “I plan to obtain a scholarship. As valedictorian, and with the possibility of an exciting research opportunity, there’s a good chance I’ll be considered.”

  Lucius stood and crossed the room. He wasn’t a tall man, but his broad shoulders were imposing, and even Nora could admit he had presence. She forced herself not to shrink from him but instead kept her gaze steady.

  “Let’s make a deal,” he said in a low voice. Too low for her mother to hear. “I won’t say another word about you going to my sister’s if you are awarded the scholarship. You can continue living here and attend school.”

  Nora narrowed her eyes. “But if I don’t get it, you want me to go to Long Island, is that it?”

  “Without complaint.”

  She looked at her mother, who watched them with fearful eyes, then back at her stepfather. His eyes glittered, and she knew he thought she would lose this bet.

  But Nora never lost anything. Except her father. She wouldn’t allow herself to lose again. And if she raised the stakes . . . “Okay. On one condition: when I graduate with my master’s, you turn the journal over to me.”

  He gave a brittle laugh. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because I love it, and you don’t.”

  Lucius studied her, his dark eyes partially hidden beneath heavy lids. Nora clutched her hands into fists around her sketchbook. “I’ll think about it. But either way, I want you to consider Mr. Primrose’s attention. For your mother’s sake.”

  She swallowed but didn’t argue. She wouldn’t risk him changing his mind. “I want your answer before graduation.” She stepped away from the window. “No more talk about me going to Long Island, and the journal will be mine once I receive my master’s.”

  “If you get the scholarship, Nora. If you graduate with a master’s.” The look in his eyes told her he
didn’t think she would. “And if I agree to your terms.”

  Nora picked her way through the waist-high grasses and overgrown brush. She could already hear the water of Cascadilla Creek crashing over the falls. The sound drew her forward and drowned out the conversation she’d had with Lucius earlier that day, which had bounced around her head like a grasshopper and left her with a dull ache at the base of her neck.

  When she reached the creek, she dropped her rucksack and settled onto a sandstone outcropping, her legs dangling over the silty water.

  She’d grown up coming to Cascadilla Falls. Had taken some of her first steps at the edge of the water, her father holding her fingers and tugging her back when she became too curious. Even after twenty-one years of visiting, she never grew tired of its beauty. Hemmed in by high shale walls, with the sound of the water cascading down the stepped rocks, the falls could have been miles from civilization. In actuality, it took ten minutes to walk there from Cornell University, and they offered Nora a place to disappear for a while.

  Recent heavy rains had swollen the water tripping down the gorge. Very much like the afternoon six years ago when she and her father had explored the area above where she sat now, looking for insects. The day he died, the falls had crashed over the rocks and made the stream that flowed past her as wide as a river.

  Nora shook her head, releasing the morose thoughts. She dug through her bag and found a pillbox, then stood. She arched her back in a stretch as she crossed the uneven ground toward a thicket of densely packed shrubs.

  She always found peace in the study of insects. Peace, joy, and hope. All those good things derived from creatures most people considered pests.

  After a five-minute search, she found something worth watching. A black speckled Calligrapha beetle eating a chickweed leaf. She scooped it into the pillbox, snapped a leaf from its stem, and returned to sit beside her bag near the water. Crossing her legs, she spread her skirts over her knees, making a shelf.

  “Here you go, little one.” She spilled the beetle onto the leaf she’d placed on her lap. It scuttled around while Nora sat still so she didn’t startle it into flight. Finding the leaf, it settled on top of it.

  Satisfied it wouldn’t fly away, she held her magnifying glass over it. It wasn’t the most fascinating or exotic thing to watch, but something about its lumbering movements and waving antennae soothed her. Centered her.

  “You have no thought beyond your next bite, friend.” She smiled at her silliness, but it felt good to talk to someone, if only an insect. “You don’t worry about your education, your family, your future . . .” She sobered. “Your past.”

  She rubbed at the sudden ache crawling up the back of her neck. At least she could massage away that pain.

  “My father died here,” she whispered, though there was no one around. No one but the beetles and trees and rocks to witness her confession. The rocks had already seen her father’s death, though. Had been complicit in it.

  She laid the magnifier over her captive, trapping it between her skirt and the glass, and then gazed at the falls. She could point out, even now, exactly where it happened. Where his body released its spirit.

  The trees and grass rustled behind her, alerting her to someone’s approach.

  Looking over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of a straw boater hat, and her stomach shot to her throat. She did not want to talk to him right now. Owen appeared anyway, heedless of her desires, carrying a thick book and a ratty blanket.

  He stopped when he noticed her. “Oh.”

  “I can leave,” she said and grabbed her rucksack.

  He stepped forward. “No. Don’t do that. There’s enough room for both of us.” He tucked his book under his arm and snapped the blanket open. It settled to the ground in a dingy, holey heap. He cast Nora a sheepish smile. “That didn’t work out as I planned.”

  “Most things don’t.”

  “Do you want to share my blanket?” he asked.

  She raised a brow. “I’m not sure it’s much cleaner than the ground.”

  “You’re probably right. I’ve been using it since I started at the university—at least once or twice a week—when I visit different falls and gorges. I don’t know that I’ve ever had it washed.”

  Nora eyed a crusty brown stain marring the edge of the blanket. She shuddered, then refocused on Owen. He chewed on his lip, and she saw the invitation for what it was—a peace offering. Setting aside her reservations over the stain’s origins, she shifted onto the blanket.

  “What do you do when you visit?” she asked.

  He held up his book—Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea—and said, “I read, mostly. Sometimes I think. But mostly I read because too much thinking is dull.”

  “I didn’t take you for much of a reader.”

  “I love fiction. Adventure books of all sorts. The Three Musketeers, Moby Dick, The Last of the Mohicans. My father thinks they’re a waste of time, much like entomology, but if I’m destined to live life safely behind the confines of a desk, I’d at least like to experience adventure vicariously.”

  Nora scooped the beetle onto her fingertip and poked at the sky. It lifted from her finger and sought its freedom in clumsy flight. “Is that what you want? Adventure?”

  “I want to travel and discover new things. I want to experience everything this world has to offer.”

  “That sounds exhausting.”

  He laughed, and she was surprised to discover she enjoyed the sound of it. “I went to Europe before college, and it was . . . uninspired.”

  “Europe is uninspired? You sound jaded. And spoiled.”

  He nodded. “Oh, the museums and sights are all right. The food is wonderful. But everything was so orderly and . . . it’s hard to explain.” He held up his hands, palms facing each other. “It’s like I was in this box, and everything was the way it was supposed to be. But I know outside that box”—he clenched his fists and quickly opened them, puffing air from between his lips—“the world is wild and unexpected. And I want to see it all.”

  The way he explained it, Nora could almost see herself traveling the world, living outside society’s box.

  But wasn’t she already? A woman in a man’s field. Maybe Ithaca wasn’t the jungles of South America or the Arabian Desert, but it was uncharted territory. She could still be a pioneer.

  “Your version of the future sounds risky,” she said.

  He leaned toward her, and she scooted back, his presence a bit too big, crowded on the blanket with her. Everything about Owen—his height, mannerisms, and dreams—was too big for her comfort.

  The scent of licorice drifted toward her as he spoke. “What do you want?”

  He looked so earnest—like a little boy—that Nora bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. When the urge passed, she answered. “I want to get my master’s, maybe become a professor, take control of my father’s scientific journal.”

  “Your father’s journal?”

  “My stepfather, his partner, now runs it. But he’s changing it.”

  “You don’t like change?”

  “Not this type. He’s turning The Journal of Eastern Flora and Fauna into a commission publisher.” She shuddered and wondered if she would ever get used to saying that. She hoped she didn’t have to.

  Owen stilled. “Your father was Alexander Shipley.”

  She blinked. “I thought that would have been obvious.”

  “I just never connected you with him. I met him when I accompanied my father on a visit to the university about seven years ago. But I didn’t meet you until I started attending, so I didn’t think . . .” His eyes widened, and he looked at the falls, though Nora could tell he tried not to.

  “Yes, this is where he died.” She picked up the novel from beside him and flipped through the pages. The words bled together. Owen touched her wrist, and she dropped the book, her eyes darting to his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She could tell he was. He
didn’t look embarrassed or uneasy. He didn’t say the expected yet unhelpful platitudes most people relied on when they found out her father had died. He’s in a better place. Yes, but he was there without her. You won’t feel this way forever. Six years later, and it felt like forever. At least your mother was able to remarry and give you another father. Lucius would never be her father.

  Owen didn’t say any of those things, and she was grateful. He remained silent, letting her guide the conversation. She guided it in a different direction.

  “So I guess your father doesn’t support your dream of traveling the world and experiencing real life.”

  “Not at all. Not that I’ve told him about it. He wouldn’t understand.”

  “Can you do it without your father’s approval?”

  “I couldn’t finance it. Not until I work for a few years, and then I’ll be too far in to leave. Stuck in a fourth-floor office, reviewing contracts and meeting with lawyers and printers.”

  “You want to stay out of publishing, and I want to get in.”

  “You wouldn’t want to if you had to shelve all of your dreams to follow those of someone else. Publishing isn’t my dream. Law isn’t my dream. My father thinks it doesn’t matter, but I’m almost sure I’ll shrivel into a husk if I have to do what he does every day for forty years.” Owen glanced at her. “You think I’m exaggerating.”

  She shook her head, but she did think he was exaggerating. The life he faced didn’t seem so bad.

  “You don’t know my father,” he continued. “He’s not supportive of anyone’s desires but his own. When he wants something, he goes after it, even if what he wants ends up hurting someone else. And he works constantly. All day long. Every day. I hardly saw him growing up. I’m not made like that. God doesn’t mean for me to do what my father does. I know it. I just don’t know how I’m going to do what I am made for.”

  Nora couldn’t hold back a sigh. “Owen, not many people have the opportunity to pursue their dreams. Life doesn’t work that way. And to be honest, your life isn’t that awful. Even if you have to sit behind a desk and do something you don’t passionately love, at least you have the comfort of a career.”