Feathertide Read online

  The members of the tribe had soft down growing from their skin and what Professor Bottelli described as thick plumage across their backs and down their arms. The males grew a ring of dark-purple feathers around their necks upon maturity whereas it was the presence of a dark-red tail feather that signified female adolescence. I remembered mine well.

  Waking one morning I found myself surrounded by a pile of moulted feathers. I thought I was being punished for the time I tried to cut them all off in the kitchen. When Lemàn had lifted my nightdress for closer inspection she laughed, realising that it was just my old feathers making way for the new ones. She fetched a mirror and held it up for me to see. At the bottom of my back, where my feathers grew the shortest, I saw the beginning of a tail feather, the vivid colour of vermillion. It looked like a fresh bruise or a trickle of blood against my skin, a wound that wouldn’t heal. But now I understood its true meaning.

  ‘The man you are interested in was one of the leaders of the Ornis Tribe. His name is Eddero.’

  It was the first time I had heard his name, and I rolled it over and over in my mind like a lucky penny. It was as though I had been given a key to open a door I had yet to find.

  ‘It says here that he loved the rain and would spend hours sitting under trees, letting it bounce off his head.’

  I smiled at how similar we sounded.

  ‘And look, I found these.’ Leo placed a couple of sketches in front of me, so precise they looked real. The first was of a foot, large and splayed like a giant sea-bird. The second was of a face, but more specifically a nose, drawn from several different angles. Straight on, it was definitely a nose like any other, but from the side it curved as though it had once decided it might have preferred to be a beak. The last picture was an old withered hand; its fingers long and twisted with thick nails like talons. Writing, which I believed to have been Bottelli’s, accompanied each drawing, detailing the size and colour and texture. The last sketch was a feather, intricately drawn and I ran my fingertips along it as though I could somehow bring it to life.

  A question bubbled. I didn’t want to ask it, but I needed to know. ‘Does it say anywhere in the files that – he had any children?’

  Leo looked up and his eyes softened. He recognised at once my apprehension.

  ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘There is no mention of children.’

  I wasn’t sure if that brought relief or torment.

  ‘All we can do is wait for the mist.’

  ‘The mist?’ I had heard people mention the mist so many times, but never once had I imagined it was connected to my father.

  Leo lowered his eyes and began to read from Professor Bottelli’s papers: ‘“The swirling mist is seen as a remedy to cure many ailments, and most notably, heartache. From the bell tower rejected lovers watch for the mist to arrive and when it does, they race to their boats and sail out to collect it in their jars. However, this is not advised. It is better to wait until it is brought ashore by the members of the Ornis Tribe themselves. They bring it from the heart of the island, where the mist is pure and unfiltered and so much stronger. That is how you will know the Ornis Tribe, conjured out of mist and air, is on its way; always the silver mist precedes it.”’

  The silver mist. Something clicked into place, and then the wheel turned on a memory. I remembered the unopened jar hidden in Lemàn’s room, and the man I had seen on the night of my arrival, clutching the jar of swirling mist to his chest as though his life depended on it.

  ‘I’ve seen it!’ I crossed the room and perched on the end of the desk. ‘On the night that I arrived, I saw a man with a jar of mist like you just described. He held it as tight as treasure.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  I nodded excitedly. ‘Yes.’ There was no doubt in my mind.

  ‘If this is true then the island won’t be far behind.’

  I felt my heart lighten.

  ‘I’m still trying to work on this transcript,’ he said, pointing at another document. ‘I can’t quite make sense of it, but there is something that keeps the tribe coming back to this city.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked, desperate to know what it was.

  Leo seemed as keen as me to discover more and solve the mystery. ‘Perhaps we can work on it together since you have the other sections?’

  He was staring right into my eyes and I felt myself smile and blush again as his hand fell lightly against mine. At that moment my feathers fluffed themselves out in response to his gaze. No one had ever looked at me like that before, but now his expression had changed, and his eyes widened in surprise. To my horror I realised my feathers had swollen so much they’d forced their way from beneath my bandages. I had felt them stir a little, but had no idea they had sprung to life with such ferocious determination. Gasping, I dropped the bundle of transcripts and they fluttered to the floor. Quickly, I flicked up the collar on my coat to try and hide them, but it was too late and instinctively I ran into the shadows like an injured bird.

  ‘It’s okay.’ His voice carried across the room, but still I couldn’t move. ‘I will be right here whenever you are ready to come out.’

  I couldn’t tell what he was thinking and so I waited, trying to work out my own thoughts. Shame nailed my feet to the floor. I could hear the loud ticking of a pendulum clock, which I hadn’t heard until that moment, but of course it had always been there. Torn between the idea of moving back into the room and the humiliation which kept me crouching in the dark, I did nothing. The ticking seemed to grow ever louder and more insistent. I counted the movement of time, much slower than the beat of my own heart, its one beat to every two of mine. Moments passed and so too did my fear. Silently, I got to my feet.

  ‘Did you see them?’ I finally whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. After a pause he spoke again, ‘But why do you hide them?’

  I gave no answer, but in my head I knew why. For some reason it mattered what Leo thought, and I didn’t want to give him a reason to find me ugly. I could hear him busy at his desk, the rummage of papers, the scratch of a pencil, the slide of a chair. I couldn’t stay hidden in the corner forever, so I quietly stepped into the light. He looked up briefly and smiled before lowering his gaze to protect my modesty. I noticed the dropped transcripts had been tidied into a neat pile on the desk.

  ‘Be careful, you can get lost in the dust and gloom of this room. A few footsteps into the corner and you’ll disappear into another century.’

  I had no choice then, but to trust him. ‘They are my secret,’ I confessed.

  ‘What a beautiful secret to have,’ he replied calmly, looking me directly in the eye. ‘My secret is that my best friend is a hen.’

  I laughed, and then we were laughing together. I was grateful he didn’t look down at my feathers, although I was sure they were now safely tucked away out of sight. Something passed between us then; an unspoken moment that meant we were no longer strangers. We had connected. ‘I have one question though, and I think I already know the answer.’

  I frowned, still not ready to reveal myself. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Why is it so important that you find the man in the photograph?’

  I was relieved he wasn’t asking about my feathers, but then I felt my pulse quicken and I wrapped my arms around myself in a protective hug.

  ‘If I know why, it might help.’ His words were warm and filled with sincerity. ‘But I understand if that’s another secret you want to keep to yourself.’

  His words made me remember those spoken by the Keeper of the Hours: that the only person I was hiding from here was me. Leo was the one person who understood birds, and perhaps he would understand me if given the chance. Suddenly, I wanted to share what mattered most and for it to matter to him too.

  ‘Because he is my father,’ I replied. ‘Finding him will help me to find myself.’

  Leo nodded slowly; his eyes so full of thought. ‘Then I will try my best to work all this out for you.’

  ‘Is that what you th
ought I’d say?’ I was curious to know how much he understood without being told.

  Leo raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s exactly what I thought you’d say.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Because you look just like him. It’s remarkable – unmistakable, in fact.’

  Smiling, I crossed the room, still hesitant, but less nervous than before and peered once again at the strange letters. I let my finger trace the haphazard swirls and shapes on the page, whose meanings would soon be revealed, bringing me one step closer to finding him.

  ‘What can we do now?’ I asked, like a child impatient for more.

  ‘I think all we can do now is wait for the silver mist to arrive.’

  As we said goodbye, we agreed to meet again to share our findings and the idea pleased me. The light in his eyes made me feel something strange, something I couldn’t describe. Fear – perhaps nerves or excitement? A feather-ruffled in reply, but I ignored it, unable to understand its meaning.

  CHAPTER 24

  Back in the city I tried to loosen all the thoughts in my mind, but they jangled loudly like a chain of keys waiting to turn a lock; there were too many doors and I wasn’t sure which one to open. Knowing my father’s name brought him that little bit closer to me, and I repeated it over and over again until I reached the Bridge of Longing. At first, I didn’t notice that some of the jars were no longer empty, but by the time I had crossed to the other side, I saw that over half of them had been filled with mist. I reached down and lifted one gently from its hook to peer at the swirling contents. The island is on its way, I thought, anticipating what would happen when it finally arrived.

  Finally standing back on the Street of Lost and Found, I could see that the shutter was down on the kitchen window, which meant that Sybel was still with a querent. Not in the mood to sit alone, I walked past the courtyard. Even though my head was filled with my father and with what Leo had told me, memories of the masquerade ball still hung heavy and bright like a net of oranges. I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t shake the girl with the sunflower hair from my mind and the thought of not seeing her again made my feet fall flat against the paving stones. Maybe just one glimpse would be enough to satisfy me; besides she had mentioned the language of the Sky-Worshippers and perhaps she could help me to understand it. I tried to convince myself that this was my only reason for seeing her again, but I had a niggling feeling of doubt.

  I found Sybel’s boat where she had stowed it in the alcove, unhooked the rope, and climbed inside. Nervously, I lowered the oar into the water and began to row just as I had seen her do many times before. The boat would bring me right beneath her window. The City of Murmurs by water seemed like a different place, slower, calmer, more hushed, and I found I preferred it. I tried to remember the way Sybel had steered us through the city towards the lagoon, where I would find her building.

  Some of the waterways were dark and gloomy, the walls of the buildings towering above and too narrow for my boat to pass between, and then I would have to steer quickly in a different direction. Whenever I travelled underneath a bridge, I caught a fleeting and tantalising look at the other half of the City of Murmurs with its markets and churches and knots of people, only untied in the larger squares. The canal wasn’t empty, but it was much less tangled than the streets around it. Occasionally, crescent-shaped boats would pass by, and I could hear the excited whispers of their wide-eyed occupants – some with their arms wrapped lovingly round each other, heads nestled against shoulders, smiling happily at the romance of it all. How many people came here to start their lives together? How many came here to fix them? The boatmen rowed methodically, unresponsive, just nodding occasionally whenever they passed one another. Worn down by repetition. Weighted by water.

  Some windows were level with my eyes and I could hear the clatter of pots and pans from the restaurant kitchens within. Through another, I could see a pair of lovers stretched out naked on a bed, sleeping away the afternoon. A woman hanging out her washing between windows, carelessly dropped a sock into the water and shouted angrily at the canal, shaking her head in exasperation as she watched it float away.

  Soft light drifted through the clouds like the splayed claws of a sleepy cat, and it was late afternoon when I reached her building. I recognised the bridge first and then her window with its blue shutters. I raised the oar and let the boat steady itself in the water. At this time of day, the sun fell against her wall, bathing it in warm translucent glow. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping to achieve just by sitting there, perhaps nothing, but the knowledge that I was close. I didn’t even know if she was inside or even if she was still in the city. Then it occurred to me that she might not live there at all. My heart sank with disappointment at the thought, but with nothing else to do, and nowhere else to go, I sat and watched and waited.

  All we have is time.

  If she was inside, what would she be doing, I wondered? I imagined her bathing in scented oils, her hair flooding around her like golden dancing anemones. Afterwards, she would slip into a silk robe, and sit at her table drinking tea and pomegranates, always pomegranates. I prayed for her to come to the window, but nothing stirred. Suddenly overcome with a feeling of loneliness I drifted away from the darkness of this waterway and re-joined the sunlit world.

  There were still several hours of the day left and I decided to spend them learning my father’s language. After dropping the boat back in the safety of its alcove I trundled to a little park I knew well from my walks with the dogs. Really it was more a patch of embroidered green, than a park, but the grass almost reached the water, giving long-stretching views across the lagoon. I hoped the great expanse of air would help to free my mind.

  Settling onto the bank with my toes dipped into the cool, dappled water, I shook the satchel free of papers and began to spread them out in front of me. Scanning my eyes from one to the next, I realised I didn’t know where to begin and I felt disappointment weigh heavily upon me. To me the pages were filled with a jumble of meaningless squiggles and lines and circles and numbers, and I had no understanding of what each one meant. Diagrams with stacks of horizontal lines confused me even more, and the spectrum of colours made my head hurt. Professor Bottelli had added phonetic descriptions under each one, but the notable excitement in the wild flourish of his handwriting made them almost impossible to decipher. I flopped back onto the grass in a little sulk of temporary defeat.

  ‘It is the language of emotion,’ said a voice I recognised instantly. I sat up quickly and saw that the girl from the masked ball was standing next to me, tilting her head to read the transcripts. ‘Did you know there are six voices of the birds?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Song, companionship, aggression, begging, fear and loss.’ She reeled them off without hesitation. Then she looked right at me and smiled.

  I couldn’t keep my eyes from her; it was almost unbearable having her so close again and I felt awash with nerves. Inadvertently, I pushed my hair behind my ear then hugged my knees. Her dress was floaty, its fabric as thin as vapour, and the colour of the sea. Little straps slipped from her shoulders onto the tops of her arms where she left them to tickle her skin. She was barefoot, as I knew she would be. Her hair was wet – dripping wet – and soaked into the back of her dress, but she didn’t seem to mind or even to notice. If she told me she had just been for a swim in the lagoon, I would have believed her.

  ‘You and that coat,’ she tutted playfully, kneeling down beside me on the grass. ‘Aren’t you hot?’

  I shrugged; rather that than being revealed.

  ‘I wanted to ask you to help me the night of the ball.’ I said, unclasping my knees and shuffling through the papers. ‘None of it makes much sense to me, and you seemed to … well, you seemed to understand—’

  I’m not sure she heard me or if she was even listening, but she lifted a loose sheet from the pile. Her little nose was scrunched in deep concentration as she carefully scanned the paper, her eyes absorbing e
very word and shape. Still I couldn’t avert my gaze. I was waiting for her to turn her head and look at me. Even though I had wanted to see her again, everything about her being here right next to me, put me on edge.

  ‘This one is a song with its long syllables,’ she announced, interrupting my thoughts so suddenly, it made me jump. She passed the paper to me as though it should all make perfect sense.

  I frowned as she selected another page.

  ‘Ah, this is something quite different. Look at the short bursts repeated over and over again.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ I asked, leaning close enough to catch the scent of the sea in her hair. I felt like I was riding on a beautiful carousel; brightly lit and brilliantly painted. Going around and around and around with such giddy momentum that I feared the moment it would stop, not sure that I would ever find my feet again.

  ‘It is a warning,’ she said, biting her fleshy lip. ‘And look at the brightness of the colour and the width of the lines.’ She held it up for me to see, and I nodded. ‘It was spoken in swift, loud utterances.’

  For the rest of the afternoon, in the lengthening of our shadows, she helped me to unravel the mystery of Orniglossa with its fluctuations of joyful warbles interspersed with rattles of anger. She taught me the difference between the crush of syllables within a song and the two-note phrases used to deliver a multitude of messages. She read each one with such fluency that the sounds bounced off her tongue and sailed into the sky. Each one was answered by the flute-like notes of the tree-top birds.

  ‘Now you try,’ she encouraged.

  At first, I was afraid to imitate the sounds she seemed to be able to recreate so easily, but she nodded at me in anticipation. I pursed my lips to form the first syllable and stuttered through each sound, clumsy and pause-filled, wincing with each attempt. My face felt as tight as a fist.

  ‘Let your jaw loose,’ she said, cupping my chin in her hand and shaking it gently, until I let it slacken.