Flight of a Starling Read online

  “None,” I hurry out. “Not in the same way.”

  “Is this what you’ve been getting up to? When you go looking around the towns?” Dad asks. Ma puts her hand on his arm.

  “Dean is a flattie, Lo,” she says. “Being with him is just not possible.” She sits down slowly, as though this will help peel Dad’s angry words from the ceiling. “And what about Spider? It’s always been you and him. He’d look after you.”

  “You can’t choose who you fall for.” I glare at her, willing her to hear what I’m really saying.

  “Dean won’t be good for you,” she says calmly. “It’s all wrong.”

  “What do you know about right and wrong?” I say. I feel the words about her and Rob rolling in on a wave and I’m not sure I can stop them.

  “Lo,” Ma starts, but suddenly she’s still. Her face is unmoving, yet behind her eyes the pieces of her secret are coming together too sharp and painful. She knows that I’ve somehow stumbled on the truth.

  “What?” I challenge her. “And why were you even walking around in the dark?”

  But she doesn’t speak. And all she can do is look at me, panic beginning to lace tight in her eyes.

  “Lo,” Dad says. “I won’t have you talking to your mom like that.” I stare at him but keep my lips clamped tight, because I don’t trust them not to say something that will break his heart. “I’m going to make this very clear to you.” His voice comes toward me. “You are not to see Dean again. Is that understood?”

  Silence is my answer as I storm away from them. The slam of their front door behind me isn’t loud enough, but it makes me feel better.

  I stumble up the steps of Terini and barge into the bedroom.

  “Lo?” Rita says, her voice confused by sleep.

  “They want me to stop seeing Dean.”

  “Of course they do.”

  “I can’t.”

  “They only want what’s best for you.”

  “Don’t you wade in.” I slump on my bed, facing the wall to block the coming day.

  “It’s going to hurt you.”

  “And stopping seeing him won’t?”

  “Of course it will. But it’s the better of the two options.”

  “He’s not just an option, Rita.”

  “You hardly know him.”

  “I know enough,” I snap at her. “I thought you’d be on my side.”

  “I’m always on your side.”

  “Then you need to tell them that I should keep seeing him. You’re my big sister, they’ll listen to you.”

  “Dean’s a flattie, Lo. He can’t keep traveling miles to see you.”

  “He can.”

  “OK, and then what? If you want to stay together, do you just leave us all?”

  “Maybe,” I say, but I’m not sure I mean it.

  “And go and live in that town?”

  “It’s nicer than you think.”

  “We don’t fit there, Lo. In their eyes, we’d forever be travelers, not good enough for them.”

  “I’m good enough for Dean.”

  “Of course you are. But it can’t work. You won’t be happy, not in the end.”

  “And you will?” Her feelings for Rob hang in my words, but she pretends she can’t see them.

  “Settling with one of ours is the right thing,” she says.

  “Rob isn’t one of ours,” I remind her. But Rita ignores me.

  “It’s worked for everyone else.”

  “Has it? What about Ma and Dad?”

  “What about them?”

  “Are they really happy?” I ask.

  “What are you talking about, Lo?”

  I could tell her now and stop the wheels of her life as she knows it. Change the course of where we’re all going.

  “Nothing,” is all I say, leaving the truth to burn its way through me.

  I hear Rita turn over and pull her duvet tight to her.

  “I’m not performing today,” I say, although I know I will.

  “Don’t be daft.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You can’t not perform just because you feel lovesick.”

  “I can.”

  “Well you’d be letting everyone else down, and that’s not fair. You’re not that special, Lo.” Her words feel like she’s hit me. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she says quickly. “But we’ve all been upset, and we all get over it. You’re no different.”

  For the first time in my life, I feel completely alone. I get up and walk away from her.

  “Lo?”

  But I ignore her and go into the bathroom. It’s warm in here and too small, but I want it smaller, so I can smash through the walls all at once with my hands and feet. Make big, dirty holes to crawl through and run away.

  Spider and I sit together in the make-up van. He leans closer to the small mirror balanced on the table, rimming his eyes with deep brown.

  “I miss you, Lo,” he says.

  “I’m right here,” I tell him. I look like I’m wearing half a mask, with foundation smeared thick on only one cheek.

  “You’re not really,” he says. “It feels like you’ve got secrets that are taking you away from me.” His sadness sits heavy on me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Is it Dean?” he asks quietly.

  “A bit,” I say.

  “Do you love him?” he asks, as he sweeps the soft pencil thick over his eyebrows.

  “Maybe.”

  He’s quiet as he puts his make-up in neat lines on the table. I squeeze more foundation from the tube, curling it onto my fingertip, rubbing it thick onto my clear cheek.

  When Spider turns to look at me, I realize how much I’ve missed him too.

  “What’s it like?” he asks. “To be in love?”

  “It feels like I’m flying through the air, but the trapeze is out of reach, so I just keep flying.”

  Spider smiles. “Typical Lo.”

  “You’ll find it one day too, Spides,” I say steadily. He looks down, brushes something from his leg that’s not there. “But it won’t be real if you’re not honest with yourself.”

  “It’s easy for you to say.” His voice is so quiet I barely hear it.

  “None of it’s easy. Me being with Dean isn’t easy. But it’s about knowing what you want and being brave.”

  “Maybe I’m not brave.”

  “You are.” I reach out and hold his hand tight. “You walk over burning coals and lie on beds of knives.”

  “That’s different.”

  “No it’s not. Every day you step from a ledge and walk across a wire. If you’re brave enough to do that, you’re brave enough to speak the truth. Everyone would still love you, Spider.”

  “How can you be sure they would?”

  “Because you’re Spider. And you’re brilliant.”

  He looks up at me, the greasepaint making his eyes sparkle.

  “Promise me,” I say. “That one day, you will.”

  His smile hesitates, but it’s real. “Just for you, Lo. I promise.”

  ★ ★ ★

  White mist takes me, the changeling, into the center of the ring. I’m alone, but I know I’m being watched. The corde lisse hangs down, the thick rope being my chance to escape. I hold it and pull myself upward, twisting it with me as I go.

  Music washes gentle over us all as my hands grasp me higher. My back bends until I face the floor far below, the smoke still drifting toward me. There’s the familiar pull in my muscles as I stretch my legs out, my arms and stomach burning strong to keep me safe.

  There’s nowhere like this. Where I feel free, yet am trapped by hundreds of eyes and caught breaths.

  I climb so high that I mustn’t fall, closer to my home, curling my body, twisting it out, my hands gripped tight. And as I hang, split steady in the air, I wonder if Dean is watching, if he’s here.

  Beneath me, figures appear. Ernest, Spider, Ash, their faces painted with hollow eyes and bleeding lips. In this scene, they a
re changelings who’ve stayed on earth, grown bitter and worn and waiting to drag me with them.

  The music changes, suddenly pounding into the air. To escape, I must go up. The rope curls around my body. Higher, away from them, taking the cloud-swing from their reach.

  But the changeling loses her grip and tumbles. I close my eyes but count and feel as the world unravels, until I let go.

  They catch me, as I knew they would, and place me carefully in the disappearing mist, before I run to the ring door curtain, hooked open by Gramps, which swallows me whole.

  Chapter Eight

  Lo

  I wake up as a ringing sinks sharp into me. Under my pillow, I hurry to press down the button on the alarm.

  “Rita?” I whisper.

  “What was that?” So it woke her. She’s moving in the bunk above me, and I imagine her sitting up, her eyes still shut foggy with confusion.

  “It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.”

  “But what was it?”

  “I’m just going to meet Dean.” I’m hesitant to tell her. She hated feeling Dad’s anger rolling around us yesterday, spreading even into the performance where his face seemed chipped from stone.

  She stays silent as I step from my duvet into the cold and reach for the pile of clothes I folded neat under my bed last night. It’s easy to get dressed in the dark, to find my pillow and slip my night T-shirt underneath.

  “I don’t think you should go,” Rita finally says.

  “I thought you’d gone back to sleep.”

  “I’m serious, Lo. You’ll get hurt.”

  “Dean won’t hurt me.”

  “The situation will.”

  “That’s a big word for you.” She can’t see me smile as my hands pad the air to find her. On tiptoes, I lean over and kiss her head. “I won’t be long,” I say as I put on my coat. “I’ll be back for breakfast.” At the door I look to where I think she must be.

  “Don’t tell anyone.”

  The air is like a web on my face as I close our front door slowly behind me.

  “Laura?” It’s Dean. He’s here waiting, as he said he would be. For a few seconds, I forget everything but him. The way he stands, his hands in his pockets, his coat zipped up against the early cold.

  In this moment, I’m happy.

  I jump from the steps so no one hears them make a noise.

  “Hey,” I whisper as I go to him and feel his hand in mine.

  “Ready?”

  “Yes,” I say, even though my mind is still muddled in dreams. We walk across the grass, Dean and I, quickly crossing the street from the circus site and its sleeping windows.

  “This is it.” The car doors click too loudly as Dean opens them. “Sorry about the mess,” he says as we get inside. It makes me hold my breath a bit, the biscuit wrappers and paper scattered on the floor. I stop myself from running my finger through the dust on the dashboard. My mom would have a fit if she saw it.

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going yet?” I ask, as Dean starts the car and we join the empty road.

  “No,” he replies. “Sorry it’s a bit cold. The heater will work better in a minute.”

  “That’s OK.”

  It feels strange to be in here, alone with Dean, going further away from what I know. In the wing mirror I see our white vans beginning to take shape in the lightening dark. I feel suddenly sad as they get smaller, before we turn right and they disappear.

  A car drives past. The woman doesn’t even seem to see us as she curves away along the road.

  “Where do you think she’s going?” I ask.

  Dean shrugs. “Anywhere.”

  Anywhere. She can just get in her car and drive away.

  “I’d like to do that,” I say.

  “You drive around all the time. Going to new places,” Dean says.

  “It’s different, though. I may as well be on a track with my eyes closed.”

  “Maybe you should open your eyes then.”

  “That’s easy to say when flatties are free to do whatever they want.”

  “You really think that?” Anger creeps slightly into Dean’s voice. “My mom is chained to her jobs. If she stops, there’s no money.”

  “She’s still free to live where she wants.”

  “No, Laura. She’s completely trapped in her life.”

  Guilt ticks quick into me. I’m so wrapped up in my mom and Rob and Rita’s foolish dream that I’d forgotten Dean’s world.

  “Is she already at work?” I ask, trying to make it right again.

  “She left hours ago.” For all these years, his mom has been working while we’re all asleep. When it’s neither night, nor morning. When time somehow falls into the crack in between.

  “She’ll come back tired and then still have to go out to clean someone else’s house. It’s why I have to stick at this college course. I’ve got to get a good enough job to help change her life.”

  “You should be studying art, though.” It’s been on my mind, how this boy with freedom at his fingertips isn’t going where he’d choose.

  “There’s no money in that.”

  “Money isn’t everything.”

  “It is when you haven’t got it.” He stares straight ahead, not even glancing at me. “You know, it’s not all roses outside of your circus.”

  “What do you mean?” There’s something unsettled between us, and I don’t know how to sort it.

  “Normal life is tougher than you think. Some people would give anything to have what you’ve got.” His voice isn’t harsh. But it’s got truth weaving in and out of the words and it makes me feel more lost than ever.

  We don’t talk any more, but slowly the silence loses its edge. I like the quiet, it helps settle the confused noise messy in my head.

  We drive until the buildings become further apart and the fields and trees take over. Until the sky is no longer completely dark, as morning pushes against it.

  Eventually we turn down a rickety track where hedges stack up either side.

  “Nearly there,” Dean says.

  “Nearly where?”

  “I want to show you the starlings.”

  “The what?”

  “The birds. Starlings.”

  “Starlings? You better not have dragged me out of bed for nothing.”

  “I haven’t.” But already it’s been enough. Just being next to Dean, my mind peaceful. “It’s amazing. Honestly.”

  He stops the car in a space at the side of the track, and when he turns the engine off real silence appears. For a moment, we don’t move, but then Dean is unclicking his seat belt, opening his door.

  “Come on. We don’t want to miss it.”

  We get out of the car and Dean holds my hand as we cross over to the other side.

  “Careful here,” he says, holding back a bramble, and I follow him to where there’s a thin break in the sharp bushes. At the end there’s a fence and Dean kneels down, lifting the wire high enough for me to crawl through.

  “Sorry. It’s not exactly elegant,” he says. If Ma could see me now, scraping my knees, my clean palms pressed flat to the earth.

  Dean clambers through after me, all legs and arms pushing through the wire as I hold it open for him.

  “Quick,” he says. He takes my hand again and we run over the bumpy ground, across a wide-open field.

  “What if a farmer shoots us?” I’ve read it in books, I’ve heard it in the songs Dad sang to us as children.

  “There aren’t any farmers,” Dean laughs. “It’s just a nature reserve.”

  “A what?”

  “For people to walk around, look at the animals and plants and everything. It’s too early so it’s closed now, which means everyone misses the best part.”

  He keeps hold of my hand as we wade through the long grass, with stalks almost white where they brush against us. The sky is rushing to get light. Here, the new day feels like a whole new world, the trees behind us pushed strong through the ground in the night,
the sky painted on for the first time. I could live here. Stay here. Grow my own home up from the earth and have its bricks hold it steady.

  “Look.” Dean sounds like an excited child as he pulls me down to crouch next to him. “There.” He’s pointing to the land moving in front of us.

  “What is it?” I whisper.

  “Starlings.” He looks at me, his eyes bright. And I see now, the tiny feathered bodies swaying together.

  “But there are hundreds of them.”

  “Thousands. Watch. It won’t be long.”

  “What won’t?” But as I say it, a few of the starlings lift gentle from the ground. Within a second, they all follow, a rush of thousands and thousands of wings swooping them up. I can hear their feathers, a heavy rumble as they rise higher. Suddenly, they all turn together, as if they all just know.

  “How did they do that?”

  “They’re amazing, aren’t they?” Dean only glances at me before he’s back watching them. They peak at the top, then shoot down so low. A smudge of paint thrown dripping into the sky.

  “I love it,” I whisper, although I hadn’t meant to speak.

  “I knew you would,” Dean says.

  The racing black cloud suddenly bends and twists, changing color from black to gray. They’re like nothing I’ve ever seen, nothing I knew existed, these tiny black stars meeting to make a whole. I feel so small, but as big as the world all at once.

  “They remind me of you,” Dean says.

  “Of me?” I don’t take my eyes from the starlings. I don’t want to miss any of it. Any of the shapes of their dance.

  “The way they move like it’s impossible,” Dean says. “The way you fly, in your circus.”

  So this is what the audience sees. Now it’s my breath held as I watch them leap and twist symmetrical in the air. Our eyes watch them, so they won’t fall.

  I hold Dean’s hand and I know.

  “My own circus,” I say.

  “All for you.”

  Thousands of feathers fold and beat against the bodies above us, knowing exactly what to do. Our circus birds, bending in the white.

  “Look,” Dean says. He’s pointing to the edge of the group, to a bigger shape tracking them closer. “A hawk.”

  “Is it trying to get them?” But I know it is. It’s waiting for its time, for a mistake, for a starling to forget its way and lose the others.