He’d barely glimpsed Miss Flora when last he visited Rochester. Yet this glimpse, combined with his study of the portrait he’d found in Tolhurst’s rooms, might allow him to recognize her again. Most of the young mortals he could disregard at once, their hair not holding a sunshine hue. One had strawberry-blonde tresses framing her heart-shaped face, but straight rather than curled, and eyes of warm tawny brown instead of blue.
Then, just when Shrike supposed Miss Flora hadn’t joined the garden flock after all, he espied slender fingers tucking a lock of kingcup-gold back beneath the brim of a bonnet trimmed in blue ribbon. When the face turned toward him, the blue eyes widened. Whilst the colours proved true, the portrait in Tolhurst’s rooms was not an otherwise faithful representation—the artist’s skill had not lived up to the true face, which looked far more handsome than otherwise.
And yet.
The figure Wren called Miss Flora didn’t carry themselves quite like the other young ladies. In some aspects they reminded him of Nell—or so he thought at first glance, though the longer he watched them the more he realized his error. While they had the same keen gaze and held their chin just as high, the figure some called Miss Flora lacked Nell’s slinking swagger. Their expression, too, had none of Nell’s impish delight. The flat severity of their mouth and the furrow of their brow seemed greatly at odds with the fanciful giggling of their companions; nothing like the smirk perpetually playing about Nell’s lips when she found herself surrounded by nymphs and huldra. And the figure’s alert posture, as Shrike observed them, appeared less like Nell’s huntress stance and more like the wary anxiety of the hunted—a cornered beast whose fear had reached the brink of wrath.
In other aspects the figure who wore Miss Flora’s face reminded him of something hiding in another shape. A bell-wether amidst a flock of ewes. Or a gelding in a herd of mares.
Or, perhaps, a murderer amongst innocents.
The pupils had scattered across the lawn and put their sketch-books and pencils to work, each choosing a subject to draw from their surroundings. Most picked flowers. One took great interest in the ivy creeping up the corner of the academy itself. Another set her sights on the ruin of Rochester Castle rising on the hill above the town to the south-west.
The figure who wore Miss Flora’s face, however, turned and fixed their keen blue eyes on Shrike.
Shrike remained perched on his twig, still and silent.
The figure who wore Miss Flora’s face continued staring as they raised their sketch-book and hunched their shoulders over their drawing. Their gaze flicked furtively between Shrike and the page as they dashed rapid pencil-strokes across it in hasty, jagged lines which dug deep into the paper.
As if, Shrike realized, they expected him to fly off at any moment, and wished to capture his image before he vanished. Most birds would.
Shrike, however, would not.
Shrike assumed the same stillness he took on whenever Wren drew him in his other form. For, as long as the figure who wore Miss Flora’s face watched him, he might watch them, in turn.
Gradually, as moments passed into minutes and Shrike remained still and silent, the figure who wore Miss Flora’s face relaxed their hunched posture and their grip on pencil and sketch-book alike. At length they dared—ever so slowly—to turn the page and begin their drawing anew. The second sketch began with lighter strokes, drawing forth delicate shapes which gradually resolved into a form Shrike recognized as his own, as if he had emerged from the thick fog hanging over London to appear in the garden of Rochester. The drawing did not look quite so well as Wren’s handiwork, to Shrike’s eye at least, though he supposed he had a certain partiality in that regard. It looked better by far than the portrait of Miss Flora in Tolhurst’s rooms.
Then the figure who wore Miss Flora’s face turned the page again. But before they brought pencil-point to paper, they walked with slow measured steps—rather like how Nell stalked her prey in the hunt—toward a bench nestled in the hedge. They sat upon it and withdrew from a pocket in their skirts a folded handkerchief. This they laid out on the bench beside them. Unfolded, the handkerchief held the crumbled remains of some sort of tea-cake, its pinkish hue suggestive of rose-water or strawberry.
Or, perhaps, blood.
Having done with the handkerchief, the figure who wore Miss Flora’s face returned their attention to their sketch-book. But though they held their pencil poised over the page, it did not move. Nor did their eye fix on anything to draw. Though Shrike did catch their deep blue gaze flicking towards him once or twice.
Shrike cocked his head to examine the trap laid out before him. From what he’d observed, he didn’t think the figure who wore Miss Flora’s face could snatch him out of the air bare-handed. Still, he remained wary as he hopped down from the twig in the hedge and settled on the handkerchief.
The blue eyes flew wide. As if their bearer couldn’t quite believe the trap had worked.
Shrike waited for the figure who wore Miss Flora’s face to strike.
No blow fell. Instead the blue eyes flicked from Shrike to the page and back again as the pencil began its delicate work anew, sketching yet another portrait of a black-masked bird.
Many minutes passed. Shrike pecked at the crumbs more out of curiosity than interest. They tasted of strawberry. More cloyingly sweet than Shrike would’ve preferred. He gave up crumb-pecking in favour of preening, then settled into a pose he could comfortably hold whilst the figure who wore Miss Flora’s face practiced their art.
“Ladies!”
The shrill cry startled Shrike into flight. Abandoning the bench, he took to the hedge again. From a hidden perch within its tangled branches he peered out to see what beast had raised such a tumult.
The figure who wore Miss Flora’s face remained seated on the bench, though they looked no less annoyed than Shrike felt at the interruption. Their gaze and that of all the other pupils besides had snapped toward the woman in the centre of the garden who yet clapped and called for their attention.
“Come along, ladies!” she trilled like an angry sparrow. “Inside for your dancing lesson! Your music master awaits!”
At this, the figure who wore Miss Flora’s face glanced up. Shrike followed their gaze to a third-storey window of the academy. Through clouded glass he could just make out the looming form of Tolhurst.
Shrike wondered how long Tolhurst had watched over the garden. He felt he ought to have noticed him earlier. Still, with the figure who wore Miss Flora’s face before him, it had never occurred to him to look skyward.
The young pupils gathered their drawing tools and trickled toward the academy door. The figure who wore Miss Flora’s face trailed behind despite the woman’s continued trilling. They glanced all around before shoving their handkerchief back into their pocket. Shrike realized, belatedly, they might well be looking for him.
Shrike kept hidden until all the pupils, including the figure who wore Miss Flora’s face, had vanished within the academy. Only then did he fly up to that third-storey window where he’d glimpsed Tolhurst.
