Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology(41)

He waded into the shallows, clamping his arms tightly around the boy, sinking into the mud. The chill was familiar, but he had no wetsuit to capture his own warmth and insulate his skin. He took another step, sinking more deeply until the water was above his knees. Another, and he started to shiver. He pushed forward anyway, until he was floating, the boy frozen in his arms.

The chick’s eyes were closed. His eyelids were almost transparent and Arnold could see the veins within them. It was fascinating. He thought for a moment of painting him, then pushed the idea aside, remembering the policeman’s look. He reminded himself that he never had been that stupid.

Arnold swam towards the place where the trees reached down into the water. Then he drew in a deep breath and ducked under, shocked by the cold. The boy accepted it. He struggled briefly and then he stopped. Arnold hooked his toe under a loop of branch he knew was there and used it to pull them both down.

The overhang was waiting, its dark hole a mouth waiting to be filled. He pushed the boy inside. The cold was everywhere, enveloping him, and he shivered as he quickly shoved in a heavy branch after him and turned, pushing himself away, thrusting himself back towards the surface.

He hurried back to the car, heavy and earthbound once more. He was shuddering. His clothes stuck to his skin as he pulled them on, fighting him. He was still shaking as he drove away, turning on the heat as high as it would go.


Back in the cabin, all was quiet. Arnold placed the brass compass on his desk and stared at it for a long time. It was only lines, he thought, not the world, nothing real, and he did not know why, and he did not like the silence in the house and did not know why that was either; only that it was a lifeless, dry, dead sound. It wasn’t like the silence in the lake.

He showered, turning up the water as hot as he could bear. Then he dried himself and put on fresh clothes. He went downstairs and looked at his desk. His brushes were ready, beside the compass, but he knew he would not be able to settle to his work.

He sighed and put on his coat. He had to do something. If he had done with the bitterns, he could research the next painting; he would stand among the birds and build a new image in his mind.

It felt better, being outside, though he still wasn’t warm and it wasn’t a warm day. The sky was as white as dead eyes, but that was all right too. It wasn’t long until he approached the lake, the grass whisking past his legs in loud whispers. The water was grey, just like always, and he stared at it. Something had changed, but he did not know what it was. It was something he could feel but not see until he turned and looked at the trees.

There, just above the waterline, stood a small boy with hair that had once been orange and was now plastered to his skull. He stared straight at Arnold. His eyes were small but brilliant, like drops of water; like a bird’s.

Arnold looked at the boy and the boy looked back. He could no longer read the words that were written on his T-shirt. Everything was dark and clinging and covered in filth and dripping with water, and it was only when the boy tried to climb up through the branches that Arnold realised he was not a ghost.

His heart beat painfully. He did not know what he was supposed to do. He started to walk towards the boy, who didn’t scream and didn’t run away. He only stood there and opened his mouth. Arnold half expected to hear the cry of a bird but there was no sound at all.

He went to the trees and reached down through the branches, his face pressed into the slimy moss. Cold fingers clasped his own.

He pulled the boy up through the rustle and snap of twigs and deposited him on the banking. The boy sank to the ground and looked at Arnold from the dark hollows of his eyes.

“You took me under there.”

Arnold nodded.

“Why?”

“I had to.”

When the boy spoke again he whispered, and Arnold strained to hear the words. “Am I going back in the water?”

Arnold did not answer. He did not know what the answer was. Then he said, “You can’t. It wouldn’t keep you.”

The boy began to sniffle, all air and water. Arnold didn’t say anything else and he didn’t try to comfort him. All he could think was, The good chicks float. He did not know how the boy had done it. He must have woken beneath the water, but how had he held his breath when Arnold had taken him down? Now the water had given him back.

The good chicks floated and hatched beneath the mother’s wings. Then she led the chick, with great rejoicing, back to its father.

He looked across the lake again, making sure they were alone. But they were never alone, were they? Pond skaters made minuscule ripples across the surface. Leaves stirred as an unseen bird darted away. Somewhere, a bittern was raising its chicks.

He looked at the boy, whose face was blurry with tears. “You need to go home,” he said.


They walked side by side, the boy occasionally stumbling. Arnold put out a hand to steady him, feeling the small, round bone in his shoulder. As he went, something lifted inside him. He was doing the right thing. The good chick floated; it would be raised in the light. He would never shout at other boys and he wouldn’t bully them and his hands would be gentle. When Arnold thought of the child being that way, in the world, where he was supposed to be, he felt something he hadn’t experienced in a long time; it was more than contentment, lighter than peace.

At the cabin, he brought the boy a towel and rubbed it vigorously against his scalp. The feathers were clumped and he could see white skin between them, naked and vulnerable. He brought him food and watched him gulp it down, his throat bobbing.