Feathertide Read online

That night, sleep brought fear. I was plagued by terrifying dreams, of sea creatures and darkness and drowning. I woke cold and damp and restless. I needed to empty the nightmares from my head, so I climbed the stone steps to the roof terrace. The night was fresh and sweet like taking the first bite of a succulent fruit. It was such a relief to escape from the tangle of sweaty sheets. When I first arrived, Sybel had taken me up here to show me the city. Not many places in the City of Murmurs had a garden, but all of them had a roof and many of these had terraces, where pots of plants and trays of flowers grew happily, being that little bit closer to the sun and the rain. Sybel spent hours up here, tending to her herbs, which perfumed the air, and blew all the way out to sea. I rubbed the leaves of rosemary and lavender between my fingers in a crackling whisper, and lifted them to my nose, inhaling their calming fragrance. At once it was a reminder of home, and of the warm lavender milk Lemàn used to make for me at bedtime. Loss made my heart ache more than ever and I was beginning to understand the powerful curse of memory.

  The murmurs of the city crept in everywhere, but up here at this time it was cloister-quiet; no boats, no engines, no people, no birds – nothing moved, not even the flutter of a bat to disturb the silence. I was too far to hear the constant murmurs of the water, even the sea had paused. Distant lights flickered behind unknown windows across the city, but other than that everything was dark and deep and snug. This was what it felt like to peep inside the night. In a city such as this, the moon always shone low and clear and luminous. If I reached far enough, I felt certain my fingertips would slide against its cool marble exterior. Polished and precise like a majestic relic from a long-lost palace. The fleet of stars keeping watch over their black sea. I wondered then who there was in my new world to look after me or if I even needed looking after any more. I was glad to have met Sybel; she made me feel protected and I didn’t regret telling her my secret, not for a single moment.

  Most of the time, she preferred to sleep in the courtyard with her beloved dogs, but sometimes, on warmer nights, when the stars were visible and bright, she would climb all the way up to the roof to seek silence and solitude. I found the pile of blankets and cushions she kept tucked in a corner under a waterproof canopy and I dragged them out, arranging them into a cosy nest. I had never slept outside, but strangely I felt safer than I had ever felt before. In a few hours I was going to meet someone who knew my father; I could hardly believe I was one step closer. Until that moment, lying under the stars, I don’t think I realised how much finding him had meant to me. Now, it was clear and bright and tangible. The ache I’d felt earlier hadn’t left me, but was the ache for something lost or something found? It was impossible to tell.

  Stroking my feathers, I finally found comfort in sleep. A little while later in the depths of my dreams, I felt a little bird softly land on my shoulder; it watched me as I slept. When I opened my eyes, I found a long feather nestled between two of the cushions. I didn’t know how long it had been there or where it had come from, but it definitely wasn’t one of mine.

  CHAPTER 18

  The city, which only a few hours ago had been deep in silent sleep, now pounded and pulsed with energy and heat. From the street below, two men were arguing about the price of fish and, beyond that, boats had begun to putter their way along the waterways, crates clattering between them. Hours ago, the world had seemed an endless reach away, so quiet and distant like there was nothing there at all, but now it felt as though I was sitting right on top of it. I had meant to escape to the roof for only a few moments to rinse my mind of lurid dreams, but instead I had fallen asleep there and for the first time awoken to the sun warming my face. I tidied away the blankets and went inside, where I found Sybel clattering pans around in a cupboard.

  ‘How were the stars last night?’ she asked, as I sat down still drowsy from sleep.

  ‘Closer than I imagined.’

  She laughed and handed me a slab of toast and I watched a fizz of butter quickly melt into its warmth.

  ‘The boat’s ready when you are. Eat up – you need this to warm you; it will be cold out there on the open water.’

  The bread looked too thick to swallow and I pushed it away. ‘I’m afraid,’ I confessed.

  Sybel ruffled my hair gently with her giant hand. ‘It’s to be expected, but do not fear what you do not know.’

  ‘But I think I’m afraid of finding him.’ I whispered. ‘What if he doesn’t want to meet me? He doesn’t even know I exist. I think it’s all a mistake.’ I babbled the words out in a tumble of emotion.

  She sighed and looked deep into my eyes. ‘Turn your fear to courage and be brave. That’s what I had to do when I left my city behind and you were brave enough to do the same. You are much stronger than you think. Discoveries, no matter what they are, can bring uncertainty because they can change everything. That’s perhaps what you fear the most.’ She pushed the toast back towards me and I lifted it from the plate and ate; each mouthful got easier to swallow.

  Sybel’s boat was tucked into an alcove a short walk from the house. I got in and sat down as she quickly released the rope. Picking up the oars from the bottom of the boat, she rested them on either side and then dipped the paddles into the water. ‘Once we get out of the lagoon and into the sea, it shouldn’t take too long.’

  Pushing us away from the damp, stone steps we rocked out between the high narrow walls and joined what seemed to be the early morning rush hour. The sun had barely lifted itself from under its blue blanket, but the canals were already dappled with watery light and sprinkled with morning mist. The only other boats on the water were transporting goods to sell to restaurants, whose kitchen windows were open wide above the water, ready for the busy day ahead. Sales took place, while chefs washed and chopped vegetables. Negotiations were quick and brutal, as windows often slammed shut and the sellers waved their carrots and cabbages with fury in the air at any rejection. Vegetable leaves and rotting cores like clenched fists bobbed in furious abandonment, a welcome feast for the city’s rats or Sybel’s dogs, if she was quick enough. It was all such a theatrical performance. In their haste, the sellers didn’t try to steer out of our way and we were knocked into walls and left rocking up and down in the wake of their annoyance. Sybel would calmly lift the oars out of the water, and, with a sigh, rest them across her lap until the mayhem passed; there was nothing else you could do, and then we’d be off again. This continued until we finally glided past the last golden building towards the lagoon. I realised I was sailing past the canal that led to the former site of the Uccello Hotel. Turning my head before it slipped out of sight, I caught a quick glimpse of a closed shutter.

  Once in open water, Sybel rowed in fast, easy stokes. Her strength propelled us with startling speed, and the boat flew along, leaving other passing cargo behind. I gripped the sides so tightly my knuckles clenched and whitened. The air was heavy with salt.

  ‘There it is!’ she shouted, at last.

  Squinting my eyes, I could see a distant shape growing larger and larger with each stroke of the oars. Sybel expertly guided us towards a wooden jetty and secured the boat to a post. She climbed up the steps and gave me her hand to follow. All the curls had been blown out of my hair and my lungs felt raw and weak as I crawled along the boat and onto the narrow ledge. I felt a rising nausea, unsure whether it was from nerves or the choppy water I was glad to leave behind. The university was the only building on the island; some of it had been rebuilt or modernised, but mostly it remained rundown and neglected like an old museum. It was set in large gardens with clusters of trees for shade. Walking up a long path, well-tended and clear of weeds, we found the main entrance and went inside. There was a large airy hallway with a desk where a woman was having an animated conversation with someone behind her. She nodded at us, by way of acknowledgement, but seemed in no hurry to greet us with any words. I stared around me at the dark polished floors and the vertiginous arched ceiling; I felt like I was inside the belly of a whale and wondered whether
my father had stood in this very same spot. My stomach began to swirl with anticipation and I quickly searched for somewhere to sit down.

  Across the room, I noticed Sybel had approached a young man, who was carrying several documents rolled under his arm, and was now deep in conversation with him. The man was shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders and when she finally returned, her face was filled with disappointment.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t Professor Bottelli available? Should we have made an appointment?’

  ‘No, it’s not that,’ she said.

  ‘Then what?’

  She hesitated. ‘I’m afraid Professor Bottelli died last December.’

  ‘Died … but—’ I understood the words, and yet at the same time I didn’t. I had come here to find some answers, but now I could barely breathe through my disappointment.

  ‘All is not lost,’ she exclaimed. ‘I am told that Professor Bottelli had an assistant, and his name is Leo Hawkins. Come on; his study is at the end of the corridor.’

  Despite knocking loudly on the door we presumed belonged to Leo Hawkins, no one answered. After a respectable amount of waiting, Sybel turned the handle and the door clicked open. Finding the room unoccupied, our eyes met in sparkling mischief.

  Once inside, it felt as if we had stepped into another time and place. My eyes flited around, not resting on any one object; there was just too much to take in. The room reminded me of the cabin of a boat, with its dark wooden panels, but thankfully there was no trace of the fetid stench I had left behind. Instead the smell of beeswax and pollen imbued the air, inviting us further. Instead of sitting quietly, I felt compelled to search the room, desperate for something of my father and I wasn’t leaving without it. Maps and carvings and strange masks hung from the walls and there were glass cases full of stuffed birds, skulls and bones and jars of gigantic speckled eggs. Feathers sprang from vases where flowers should have been, and sketches lay scattered across the desk illuminated by a small table lamp. A library of books filled two floor-to-ceiling alcoves, and a glass door on the far wall opened out into one of the gardens; its light didn’t quite reach all the corners of the room. Boxes were filled with brown paper files, each labelled with obscure scientific names that I couldn’t even pronounce. Riffling through the third box, my eye was drawn to a name – The Ornis Tribe – and underneath it written in smaller letters was another name and this one made my heart stop: The Sky-Worshippers. Filled with anticipation, I grabbed the file, and emptied it onto and desk, watching as a handful of small photographs fluttered out like leaves.

  I spread the photographs before me like a fortune teller, revealing the future. Each one showed a man, who I understood to be Professor Bottelli, standing with different members of the tribe. There were close-up shots of faces, legs, arms and feet; feathers taken from different angles and in different lights; one picture zoomed in on an eye, but unlike mine, this one was round, with a large black centre like a drop of ink soaked onto a piece of bright-blue paper. And then I saw the one from the newspaper, only this one was much clearer and larger. I could see the expression on the man’s face; kind yet bewildered, patient yet awkward. Our similarity was unmistakable. His hair, like mine, was a lava flow, a marigold field, a blazing bonfire. His eyes – the blue sky above.

  ‘It’s him!’ I cried. ‘It’s my father.’

  Sybel crossed the room and took the photo from my hand. ‘It looks like it was taken outside in the garden.’ She flipped it over looking for a date, but the back was untouched.

  ‘What do you think these are?’ I asked perplexed, handing her loose pages scrawled with strange loops and symbols.

  ‘It looks like it might be some sort of language spoken by the tribe,’ she replied, after a moment of musing. ‘Yes, look here it is.’ She pointed at the word ‘Orniglossa’. ‘I think Professor Bottelli had been working on a code to translate it and these are his transcripts.’

  ‘They have their own language?’ The thought had never occurred to me, but of course it would explain why there had been no words exchanged between Lemàn and my father on that long-ago night.

  ‘Well, Leo Hawkins clearly isn’t here and I have querents arriving soon. We will come back tomorrow,’ said Sybel.

  Quickly and without permission, I furtively slipped the photo of my father into my pocket and made a pretence of slotting the bundle of papers back into the file. When I was sure she wasn’t looking, I fumbled a few pages of the transcript under the shadows of my coat, with every intention of returning them.

  ‘Let’s go out the back door,’ she said, eyeing me suspiciously. ‘It will be quicker.’

  The journey back across the water was cold. There was little warmth left in the day and I kept my chin tucked into the collar of my coat. My thoughts returned to Professor Elms and his pocket watch, and my brief hope suddenly turned to bitter loss. I hoped that this photograph wouldn’t be the only thing to tell me of my father.

  ‘It is a promising start,’ said Sybel, heaving us across the wide stretch of water.

  ‘Is it?’ I grumbled. I had expected Professor Bottelli to be there to greet us with his stories.

  ‘Yes. Besides at least now you have something to read.’ She raised her eyebrows in a knowing way, inclined her head and laughed into the wind.

  Turning my face, I blushed at her discovery, foolish to think I could have kept it from her. Unfulfilled, I stared into the water-filled distance and then to the sky above. My father was out there somewhere, I just had to find him.

  We rowed back into the city from the lagoon, and as we drifted into the canal near the Street of Hooting Owls, I glimpsed one of the brightly painted doors. This one was the fiery red of a rising phoenix.

  ‘Is that a wishing door?’ I asked, pointing towards it as we glided past.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, without looking up.

  ‘Is it true that there are different colours for different wishes?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Not everyone believes in God, but they like an alternative.’

  Once we had arrived back near the Street of Lost and Found, and the boat was safely stowed in its watery alcove, I told Sybel that I wanted to walk for a while. She didn’t question it, but surprisingly popped a kiss on the side of my head, as only a mother would do. I felt a little burst of gratitude then; I may not have found all the answers I wanted, but I had found her and she had given me a place in this magical city. I returned her kiss with one of my own and she smiled, telling me not to be long. She sensed an unforgiving storm was on its way, and I too felt a change in the air, but it was still too distant to matter.

  It was wonderful to be walking through the city without six boisterous dogs to think about. I could walk at my own pace and pause wherever I chose for whatever reason; to look in a shop window, or to eavesdrop on a conversation as I was so used to doing. The rain had arrived and begun to fall and bounce from the flagstones, but I didn’t mind, I wanted to see how many wishing doors I could find. I had no idea how many there actually were, but an hour later, which is about how long it takes to cross the city from the ancient walls of the ghetto to the last boat stop beyond the park, I had counted seven. Like the bridges and the streets, each door had a little plaque and a different handle to identify the wish within: indigo-blue for peace and forgiveness; pear-green for health and healing; dandelion-yellow for happiness; pink for love; silver for wealth and success; turquoise for freedom; and back to the fiery red door I had seen from the boat for those wishing for change. Each handle was shaped differently too, carved out of wood into a long olive branch, or a round apple, a smiling sun, a dainty rosebud, a glittering star, an open wing, and an acorn.

  Standing there, drenched and shivering, I wondered with much indecision whether or not to reach for the handle and open the door. I wanted desperately to peek inside, and so, tentatively, letting my fingers grasp the wooden acorn, I slowly turned it anti-clockwise. It was dim and damp inside, but as my eyes adjusted to the gloom
, I could see it was a tiny chamber, more the size of a confession box than a room. Attached to string from the ceiling were lots of tiny acorns, and there were dishes and bowls on shelves filled with even more of them. I could hear the rush of the canal and saw it through a hole in the floor. A sudden grunt alarmed me and it was then that I noticed a hunched-up man, slumped on a ledge, snoring, unaware that he was being watched. Quietly, I shut the door on his dreaming. It seemed they also granted shelter from the rain for those who were too far from home. Running through the incessant downpour, I had an uneasy feeling that someone was following in my footsteps. By the time I reached home, I thought I must have imagined it. I may have found the wishing doors, but I still missed sleeping in my own bed made of wishes.

  CHAPTER 19

  The next day I woke hoping to visit the university again, but it was impossible. As predicted, last night’s rain had become a storm, tearing through the city like a rampaging bull seeking vengeance. I wondered what had happened to shake the sky into such fury. There was no way to cross the lagoon in the storm, and my next visit would have to wait until the storm had retreated. I thought about taking Sybel’s boat, but it was no match for the wild water, which rose like a serpent, lashing the harbour walls and drenching those foolish enough to be passing by. Even the lagoon boats, which usually chugged about resiliently in all sorts of turmoil remained trembling by their posts, battered by the water. Others were taken in and harnessed, until every alcove of the city was full of boats on top of boats. People dragged them from the water and pulled them to the safety of old potato factories for fear of the water crushing them to the depths of the canals.

  We stayed hidden behind shutters and the dogs had to be brought whimpering inside. The already small house now sheltered us all and we spent most of our time in the kitchen, the dogs shaking like winter shrubs at our feet. They squealed with terror every time the wind slammed and rattled the shutters against the glass. Sharing a room with a pack of snoring beasts wasn’t easy and sleep was intermittent at best. Every few hours Sybel would bravely climb the steps to the roof to scan the sky for any sign of relief. Finding none, she would quickly return, shaking her head to let me know the storm still hadn’t passed. Surprisingly, querents still ventured through the storm seeking solace. ‘Storm or no storm, people will come for a reading,’ she said, every time there was a knock at the door.