One night, after a family tea where tension seemed to dance, unspoken, around the table again, the girl sat in her room, wringing her hands. She was fed up and she decided to try to glue feathers to her arms and legs, so she really could be like a bird. After taking a long time to carry out her task, she opened her bedroom window. But the ground looked too far down and she was afraid to jump.
In the morning, she peeled off the feathers and this made her skin red and sore. To explain it, she told her parents that she’d got sunburned while playing outside. But they were too busy looking after her little sister to be interested.
On the next night, the girl took the feathers and did the same thing. But, again, she couldn’t bring herself to leap out of the window.
And the pattern continued, night after night.
The girl would spend time with her family. She’d feel something wasn’t right and then she’d apply her feathers.
One evening, as the girl clenched her fists, unable to bring herself to jump again, a blackbird stood on the window ledge. He tapped his yellow beak against the window, inviting the girl to open it.
The girl did so and crawled out to join him. The blackbird cocked his head and waited beside her for a long time, until she finally found the courage to step off.
On this first night, the girl tumbled to the ground and into a bush, where the branches and twigs scratched her face. The blackbird flew down and watched as she climbed out.
On the second night, the girl landed with such force that her knees buckled. But the blackbird stayed by her side until she could walk back to the house.
On the third night, the girl flew out over the garden gate, high into the sky, where she almost touched the stars. Then she landed at the edge of a beautiful lake.
Everything was quiet, still and beautiful, and the blackbird settled on her shoulder. But although she had flown, the girl felt sad. “I don’t know what to do, little bird,” she said. “For a long time, I’ve felt like flying away, but now I’m not so sure. Do you think I should stay at home, even though I feel like I don’t belong there?”
The blackbird flew away and reappeared with a broken piece of mirror which he held up. The girl looked at her reflection and saw that the feathers she applied each night had grown into her skin. While she was waiting for things to change at home, she had changed, too. She had grown more determined and independent and, looking at the little blackbird, she made up her mind.
Even though she didn’t know if the world was ready for a bird girl, she stood on her tiptoes and flapped her arms. Then she and the blackbird flew away, never to return.
4
Library
Sandshift was once a thriving town, where the majority of folk relied on the fishing trade to make a living. But now it derived most of its revenue from day trippers who descended at the weekend, to look for fossils in the shale on the beach, or as a good spot for dog walking.
Before Martha headed to the library, she took her usual brisk twelve-minute walk down to the seafront. Her morning routine involved stretching her legs, getting some fresh air and contemplating all the things she wanted to accomplish that day. Then she could put a dash next to them in her notepad, her code for to be completed today.
Last night, after her call to Lilian, she was too tired to do any more sewing. She certainly didn’t have the time or energy to look through the mysterious book again or read any of its stories. Before going to bed, she placed it in her handbag, ready to show it to Suki at work.
As she walked along the beach, Martha felt like she was wading through treacle. Her steps were trudging and her body was squeezed of life. As she pressed her hands against her tightening chest, a ball of anger flared inside at her own silly fatigue.
You need to be more efficient, or else you’ll never get your jobs done.
She decided that working her arms like pistons would get her blood flowing. She pumped them as she marched across the sand and past a large cave with a dark teardrop-shaped opening. Pausing for a moment to admire the white lighthouse that stood like a lone birthday candle on the rocks jutting out to sea, she watched as an orange swimming capped–head bobbed in the gunmetal waves.
I hope that person has got a towel, she thought, looking around for it on the sand. I hope they know about the riptide in the bay.
A swift walk along the water’s edge, sea foam fizzing around her shoes, brought her to a bronze mermaid statue, the town’s main landmark.
The mermaid’s tail was a crescent moon curl and her long hair straggled over her shoulders. She sat on a rock looking out to sea, forever waiting for fishermen to return in their boat, the Pegasus. The engraving on her plaque said,
DEDICATED TO THE SANDSHIFT SEVEN,
CLAIMED BY THE SEA IN 1965.
A violent storm had sucked the Pegasus under. It created widows and orphans and it was as if a thick gray smog hung over the town ever since. There had only been one survivor that fateful night, a young man called Siegfried Frost, the eighth person on board the boat.
Even though the accident happened before she was born, the roots of Martha’s hair still stood to attention when she read the names of the seven crew members. She knew them by heart, but still looked at them each day.
Using a tissue, she plucked a piece of chewing gum off the mermaid’s tail, threw it in a bin and set off back up the hill, still punching her arms.
When Martha stepped inside the library, she closed her eyes and inhaled the earthy, almond scent of the books. If she could bottle the aroma, she’d wear it as a perfume, L’eau de la Bibliothèque.
She took the small battered book from her bag and gave that a sniff, too. It smelled musty and sweet with a hint of something else that she couldn’t place, maybe amber or cinnamon.
The library was part run by the community since the local council made some drastic budget cuts. It was overseen by Clive Folds from his modern office in Maltsborough, where he was supposed to plan and ensure that two assistant librarians were always on duty. But since their colleague Judy went on long-term sick leave with a bad back, more responsibility had fallen on Suki’s and Martha’s shoulders.
Fortunately, Thomas and Betty had left Martha and Lilian a fair-sized chunk of money in their will. Martha had almost used up her amount and, more than anything, she wanted a permanent position at the library.
She’d helped out there for over four years, had a diploma in English literature, adored the books and wanted to help people. However, Clive had personally turned down three of her job applications. He displayed a penchant for younger, fresh-faced workers.
Martha now had a job application form in her desk drawer for her fourth attempt.
She had scanned through it many times already. With almost three weeks until the deadline, she hadn’t yet made a start on it. Each time she looked at the headings for qualifications, experience and previous employment, her heart stung from Clive’s rejections.
Working at the library made her feel more alive. She could picture crawling on all fours across the floor, with Zelda. They used to walk their fingers across the rainbow of book spines and stroke the covers. They whispered and shared stories.
When Zelda died, Martha found solace in the gray stone building with its flat roof and tall skinny windows that looked out over Sandshift Bay. She spent hours with her cheeks pressed to the cool glass, furiously wiping away her tears as she stared down at the golden curve of the beach.
She wedged herself in the corner of the fiction section, knees tucked up to her chin, reading books after school or at the weekend. And as the pages grew bumpy with her tears, they helped her to cope with her grief. She shuddered at James Herbert and Stephen King, read about misfit schoolgirls and ravenous rats, got lost in the lush worlds of Evelyn Waugh, and learned some of the mysteries of men from the steamier moments in Mills & Boon. The library had been her Narnia, and it still was.