Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology(94)

She turns away and leaves. But it’s another hour before I can move.


The Observant Lifestyle tells me to go back to King’s Cross and get a train to Brighton. I’m grouchy but I don’t feel like being stuck again so I do it. It’s a really slow train; it seems to crawl from one stop to the next. I page through the ebook repeatedly but there’s only the same blah text about making lists and ordering them by family or something.

It’s very late in the afternoon when the train gets to Brighton. I’ve never waited in this train station before, but I can’t imagine it’ll be much different.

I look out the window and see Madame waiting for me on the platform. There’s no way this can be good.

The first thing she does is take the iPad and give me a new one. It’s bigger and apparently fancier on the inside. But instead of letting me try it out, she tells me to put it away and walks me toward the beach.

In the beginning, I was surprised they used iPads and smartphones and the like. I mean, they aren’t bound by the strictures of the natural world so I thought maybe they’d have magic mirrors or something. But that’s what an iPad is, except it operates within the law on the macro level. On the micro level—that’s extreme micro—everything’s loose and runny enough to allow things to pass between the Continuous Realm of All Things and the natural world. That may be true—I have no basis to doubt it—but personally, I think all it means is, everyone, regardless of race, creed, or cosmic origin, is wackadoo for gadgets.

Except for those who’d rather fly. Which might be a lot. I mean, I can see the appeal. Who couldn’t? Well, besides Madame and everyone else in the Continuous Realm.

And who would that be, now that I’m thinking of it? Unbidden, the image of tiny footprints on a translucent floor blooms before my inner ear and I realise that’s the state of my existence. In the natural world, in the Continuous Blah Blah of Blah Blah, and all points between and beyond, it’s all just footprints, always out of reach.

I could have a breakdown but I know how that’ll go.

We reach the Brighton Pier and stop. It’s very late in the day now, almost dusk. I think I’m losing my sense of time, or maybe it’s vice versa.

I’m waiting for Madame to tell me she’s going to throw me into the water or something, but she doesn’t say a thing. Finally, I can’t stand it. “What now?” I blurt.

The way she looks at me, it’s like she forgot I was there. “What else? You continue to do your job.”

I’m not about to tell her that’s not what I was asking. Things are freaky enough.

“There’s no reason not to, just because a few birds have decided to muscle in,” she says. “So they make a few deals with humans. They won’t get all of them.”

“Then why did I go to the roof garden? What was the point?”

Her expression says I’m the stupidest person in the world. “Information gathering. Now we know.”

“But I only talked to one bird. No, two—”

“You weren’t the only one.” She sighs heavily. “Did you really think you were?”

“I have no idea,” I say. “Nobody tells me anything and I’m out here all by myself.”

“Fair enough.” She sighs again. “My choice would be to do away with solitary. But it’s not up to me.”

I mean to ask who in the Continuous Realm of All Things is in charge of that area. But what I hear myself say is, “What’s the Concomitant Rendition of All Tessitura?”

Several fleeting expressions pass over her face—shock, confusion, disbelief, horror, anger. I don’t know whether she’s going to hit me or hit me real hard. Then she laughs. “That’s where you came in. That’s you, as in the human race.”

“Oh, right. I’m a human. Sometimes I forget.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I want to bite my tongue off. I can’t believe my nerve. If she doesn’t call down a lightning bolt or something, I’ll probably be stuck for a month.

But she’s not mad, at least not yet. Madame’s not mad and it’s almost night now. I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole for sure. Suddenly she grabs my face and makes me look toward the light dying over the water.

Countless small, dark bodies swarm upwards and come together in a way I’d have thought was impossible in the natural world, performing an aerial dance. I watch as they make forms that flow into shapes, that become symbols flowing into creatures flowing into forces flowing into renditions—renditions of—

And then it’s another day. I’m standing by the Brighton Pier with Madame, under a heavily overcast sky.

“I wanted you to see that,” she says.

I look the question at her.

“For many reasons, all of them difficult to articulate at this angle. To show you that a few parrots don’t know everything. Do you think humans could ever be capable of what you just saw—and still be human?”

“I bet a lot of them would like to try,” I say.

Madame laughs again. “I bet they would. We’ll just see. There are an infinite number of renditions, and not all of them desirable, no matter how attractive they might be.” She pauses, gazing at me thoughtfully. “I really don’t like solitary,” she says. “But I have to admit that sometimes, it’s the best bad choice there is.”