“This is your island,” Harrison replied. “You tell me.”
This was my island, all right.
Where nothing ever happened.
Where people loved a good drama.
“Give me that feather,” I said.
I took the feather up to the widow’s walk, where I knew I’d be alone, where I knew no other guest would find me.I carried an umbrella and a large jar candle up to the roof and was surprised to find my sister already there, almost like she was waiting for me. She wore a long white dress that blew wildly in the breeze.
“The island’s flooding,” Mary said, not turning around. “Have you noticed?”
She was right. Bottle Hill rose gently above the shallow pond that surrounded it. An island on a bigger island. The rain fell in a loud roar. It sounded like static turned up high on a broken television set.
My sister had feathers in her hair.
Every so often one would dislodge and float away on the manic breeze, sailing rockily on the wind until it succumbed to the rain and drowned.
“Mary, where the fuck are these coming from?” I asked, my voice frantic. I picked one off her shoulder.
“Hmm? Oh. I’m not sure,” she said. She plucked the feather from my fingers and considered it. She smelled it, exactly like my mother had. That must be some instinct lost to me, the non-magical Fernweh. I had no desire to smell the feathers falling from my sister’s hair. I already knew they’d smell like the whole island. The salt. The magic. And now: the rain.
“Harrison found this in your room,” I said, and held out the single feather that was unmistakable in its origin.
“What was he doing in there?” she said sharply.
It was hard to describe how my sister looked. Smaller.Scared. But more than that—like something was missing. Like something had been taken from her. But I had no idea what that could be. Comfort? Safety? All of the above?
“I was going to burn it.” I showed her the candle, to demonstrate. “Mary, where did itcomefrom? If somebody else had found this...”
“They already think I did it. It’s not like having proof would change anything.”
“So this is proof?”
“I didn’t do it,” she snapped, and for a moment, there she was: my sister, the bitch in all her glory, long hair whipping about her face, her feet leaving the floor of the widow’s walk to hover an inch above it. I could have hugged her. And I would have, if at that moment a strong gust of wind hadn’t ripped the feather from my fingers, sending it floating in a vicious cyclone down to the backyard...
In front of the waiting eyes of two of the birdheads—Hep and Lucille—who were sharing the same umbrella as they took a stroll around the yard.
“Mary, getdown!” I yelled, and yanked her to her feet so hard that she fell to her knees.
So when Hep and Lucille turned as one to look up at the house to see where the feather—Annabella’s feather—had come from—
All they saw was me.
At that point, it seemed like there was only one thing to do.
I was used to cleaning up my sister’s messes. I was used to taking the blame.
So I raised my hand—
and waved.
Blame shifted from my sister to me as easily as a feather caught on a strong breeze.
It didn’t bother me at all.
I considered a lifetime of living with Mary, of cleaning up after all of her messes, big and small, to be practice for this. I held my head high and looked every birdhead I passed in the eye. I walked with my shoulders back and a jaunt in my step that I hope conveyed the message:Don’t bother fucking with me. You won’t get very far.
