Flight of a Starling

‘You don’t,’ I say and I smile back at him, even though our angels are meant to keep a face blank of everything.

‘What’s this then?’ Will points his thumb to the closed van behind us.

‘It’s your destiny,’ I say and they both laugh.

‘A fortune teller?’ Will asks.

‘More than that.’ I look steady into Dean’s eyes.

‘What do we have to do then?’ he asks.

‘You’re not going in?’ Will pokes his arm.

‘Why not?’ Dean says. ‘It’s always good to know what the future has in store.’

‘It’ll be a load of nonsense.’

Dean ignores him. ‘How much is it?’

‘Three of your finest gold coins.’

‘Three pounds!’ Will says.

‘I’ll meet you here,’ Dean tells him.

Within my angel costume, I can watch as he puts his hands into his jeans and pulls out some money.

‘Suit yourself,’ Will says. ‘I’ll just be a no-mates, while you waste your money.’

I lead Dean up the steps, open the door and we go inside.

Lil sits motionless.

‘Is there anyone there?’ she asks. Dean looks at me, a half smile on his lips. I have to look away.

‘She’s blind,’ I tell him, but for the first time ever I don’t like the lie. ‘She feels the future with her soul.’ I’ve said the words a hundred times before.

‘Right,’ Dean says.

‘A boy,’ Lil says, her voice lower than before, a whisper in her lamplight.

She holds out her hands, palms up. Dean only looks at me.

‘I can’t touch your money,’ I tell him. ‘You need to give it to her.’ He steps forwards hesitantly and I hear the sound of his coins settling on to her skin and dropping into a pocket lost in her skirt.

He’s awkward as she holds his hand. In her other, she takes mine. I look away from Dean again. He’s made everything feel different and now we’re linked, almost touching.

‘Your angel will choose a number,’ Lil says.

‘Six,’ I reply.

Lil stares deep at him with her cave-like eyes and counts out the cards on to the table. As always, it’s the picture of an angel’s wing. Dean studies it so earnestly that I want to tell him that none of this is true.

‘There are obstacles in your path, but you have hidden wings that will help you,’ she says, as Dean nods solemnly. ‘But worry is weighing you down.’ Lil looks at nothing. ‘Am I right?’

‘Um. Kind of,’ Dean says.

‘I feel there is light, though,’ Lil says, her voice hazy. ‘Yes, there is light.’

Dean looks at me. ‘Three pounds,’ he mouths, but he doesn’t seem angry.

I take his hand before Lil can stop me. She’s meant to be blind, so she can’t pretend she can suddenly see. There is a painted door at the back of her van and I lead him through. Inside, it’s no bigger than a cupboard and it’s completely dark. Any outside sounds are muffled into almost silence.

‘What are we doing here?’ Dean asks. He has the remnants of a laugh in his voice, but it’s unsteady.

‘Are you scared?’ I ask, the angel dropping from me.

‘No.’ His voice is so close to me, sitting just on my skin as he speaks.

‘I want to know what frightens you.’

The air has never felt like this. If I move, I think it might burn me.

‘What frightens me?’

‘Yes,’ I whisper.

‘Is this in the old woman’s script?’

I wonder if he hears my heart beating.

‘Name three things.’

‘OK,’ he says. ‘Cotton wool.’

‘Cotton wool?’

‘I don’t like the way it sounds when I touch it.’ I can tell he’s smiling, his words tipping up.

‘Lo?’ It’s Lil’s voice, drifting urgent through the door.

‘A bigger fear than that,’ I tell him.

There’s a pause, where the darkness swells tight between us.

‘I’m frightened that something will happen to my mum.’

I struggle to find an answer.

‘Nothing will happen to her,’ I say, as if I know, as if I really can read Lil’s cards.

‘How are you so sure?’ he asks.

‘I just am. She won’t die before her time.’

I move slightly and I think the feathers of my wings brush against him.

‘Lo.’ Lil sounds angry now. ‘His time is up.’

‘The third thing you’re scared of ?’ I ask quickly.

I can feel him pause.

‘You,’ he says.

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

The door opens and dim light scuttles in, bringing Lil with it.

‘Enough,’ she says, her eyes clearly seeing into the room.

Dean looks awkward, unsure what to do. I know he watches me as I walk past him and he follows me to the van’s front door. Outside, Will is leaning against the steps.

‘Did you get your money’s worth?’ he asks, smiling wide at Dean.

‘Of course,’ I say, before Dean can reply and I leave them and go back in.

Lil is sitting in her chair in the silence, laying her cards of angel wings face down on the table. When she looks up, her eyes cloud with the future.

‘Be careful, Lo,’ she says.

The audience don’t know that Rita and I are here, crouched like lions way above their heads. The curtained ledge we’re hiding on barely fits us both, tucked high into the roof of our big top.

‘I think you should just marry Ash,’ I whisper, even though the music filling the tent will easily cover my words. ‘Say you will, or I’ll dive from here.’ I pull back the curtain until a small slice of light streaks steady across Rita’s face. ‘Say you will.’ I shuffle closer to the edge, her red fairy wings brushing like water against my arm.

‘Don’t be daft, Lo.’ There’s no fear in her eyes. She knows I’ll never jump.

‘Ma was eighteen when she married Da. You’ve only a few months left to match that.’

‘I don’t want to match it.’

‘You do,’ I insist. She looks older here, dressed as the fairy queen, her make-up thick and deep on her skin, purple feathers weaved tight into her hair. ‘Don’t you love him?’

‘Of course I love him. But maybe like a brother.’ She looks at me so seriously, leading our words to a different place. ‘And I don’t know if that’s enough.’

‘What do you mean?’ I ask, as the music runs circles round the bright lights just beyond us.

‘Maybe he’s too young.’

‘He’s the same age as you.’

‘Sometimes I think I’d like someone a bit older.’

‘Who?’ I ask.

But the crack of false thunder spears the inside of the big top and spins everything into darkness. Instantly there’s the feeling I have at the beginning of every performance, as adrenaline makes my blood beat. My heart ticks quietly under the sequins clinging close to my skin.

‘Good luck, sister,’ Rita whispers. I reply by kissing my finger and touching her nose, managing it first time. With me, she misses and her nail skims close to my eye. I’m laughing when I shouldn’t be and I hear her trying to hush me.

Through the gap in the curtain flashes of lightning show an empty hoop high above the audience’s heads. I wonder if Dean is among them, looking up, waiting.

‘Go,’ Rita says and I move to the edge, careful not to knock against her healing arm. I push back the heavy material and, as the fairy child, I jump.

In the air, I reach out and grab on to the hanging hoop. It jolts my arms, but I don’t let them know. Darkness again and I swing up my body, curl balanced in the floating circle. With each crash of white, I change position. One second they see me with my wings spread wide, the next my body bent almost in two.

A drumbeat of music shows Rita jumping high through the air, a wash of dark feathers. I cower, trapped, as she twists up next to me.

‘Fancy meeting you here,’ I whisper, my lips unmoving. She widens her eyes to tell me to be quiet, before she lets her body fall back, contorting herself over the circle like melted wax. And then my gentle older sister pulls herself up and pushes me from the hoop.

Even with the music, I hear the audience’s gasp snatch sharp around us. They didn’t see me hook the rope so that I spin safely down, the fairy child forced to earth.

I let go and step lightly on to the floor, where Sarah sits in front of me. She looks much younger than her eleven years, her golden-red hair tied back, her clothes matching the rag doll on her lap. She doesn’t look up as the music builds, doesn’t notice the angels creeping around her, Ernest and Helen with their faces covered in silver gauze, arms stuck tight with feathers. They’re fairies waiting to steal the human child, juggling rings of fire in the air as they move. Sarah doesn’t see the net they throw over her until it’s too late.

Her screams fill the big top, as Da lowers Rita’s hoop quick to the floor and the fairy queen steals the human child, taking her spinning to the roof. The rag doll falls by my feet. Faceless angels step towards me, ready to cut me from myself.

Does Dean watch as they rip my wings, strip feathers violent from my arms? Is he here? Slowly, I disappear, forced to become a changeling.

With no music, no audience left, we can hear the rain fall heavy on the roof of the costume tent.

‘Would you listen to that?’ Stan says, wiping cotton wool rough across his cheeks. When he stretches the greasepaint from his eyes he looks as old as my da again, the age-lines not hidden any more.

‘Shame for the people walking home through it.’ Helen unhooks the sleeves from her costume, the sequinned skin shredded into her palm.

‘I like the sound of it, though,’ I say, as Ma squeezes in beside me, making too many of us in the small space.

‘Don’t go thinking you can go out in it,’ she laughs.

‘I won’t be long,’ I say, turning from her and running back down the tunnel.

‘Lo,’ she says, but she doesn’t try to stop me. Through the gap to the outside, the sky is clogged heavy with clouds. The rain batters the ground and even though I’m still dressed as a changeling, I run into it. Already the grass has caught puddles.

‘Rita!’ I call out, although I know she’s not close by. But I wish she were here with me, holding hands as children again, when there was nothing more important than the rain hitting our arms and our eyelashes and spreading under our feet.

I glance around, wanting to see Dean, this boy I barely know, a stranger whose life stays still. I want him to look at me in that way again. Even though I shouldn’t, as we’ve always been told that flatties only bring trouble.

‘Lo! Get inside!’ The voice is muffled through the stamping water, but I know it’s Tricks.

I spin one more time, close my eyes to the dripped-down sky, before I run into the dry. ‘What the hell are you doing? There could be punters still around.’ His clown face has gone and a scowl is in its place.

‘I was dancing in the rain.’ My fringe clings to my forehead as I smile at him, but I know charm won’t work when he’s this angry.

‘Your clothes are soaked through.’

‘But they’ll dry.’

Ma appears at the end of the tunnel and she runs to us.

‘You’ll catch your death,’ she says, holding out a towel, which she curls round my shoulders.

‘I’d best get warm then,’ I laugh.

‘Sorry, Tricks,’ I hear her say as I dart back towards the costume tent.

Carla has Baby Stan balanced on her lap as she scrubs her face clean.

‘What are we going to do with you, Lo?’ she says, watching me through her little mirror.

‘We should’ve done the whole performance out in the rain,’ I say, as I peel back my changeling feathers, careful not to snap them. The white ponytail unclips easy from the back of my head, leaving me shorter-haired again.

‘Don’t hang your stuff there,’ Carla says. ‘You’ll have to dry it in Terini.’

Baby Stan holds out the hairbrush for me, with his smile that could stop a river.

‘Look,’ I say, as I gently knock the brush against a bottle on the table. ‘Fairy music.’

‘Don’t be filling his head with your nonsense,’ she smiles.

‘You hear it, don’t you?’ I whisper close to him and his laugh floats in wings from him.

RITA

Lo sweeps quickly between the seats, collecting piles of dropped popcorn and ripped tickets. I follow behind her, tipping it all into rubbish bags to tie and throw away. I wonder how many sticky fingers leave their prints on it all. How their skin dust leaves them and becomes a part of us.

‘Do you think he watched it?’ Lo asks quietly.

‘Dean?’ I shouldn’t even say his name with Ma so close by.

‘Who else?’ she smiles.

‘I’m sure he did.’

‘Maybe he didn’t like it’ Lo says. ‘He didn’t stick around.’ She stops and looks at me. ‘We could go and find him,’ she whispers. ‘It’s stopped raining. We can go after this clear-up.’

‘Just us?’

‘Yes,’ she says quietly. ‘We’re old enough. Just us.’

I feel torn, because I know we shouldn’t, but part of me wants to see her heart shine bright. ‘OK,’ I say, before I think any more.

‘You will? Even after Newport?’ She smiles slightly.

‘You won’t do that again.’ In just one night Lo kissed two flattie boys whose names she barely knew. She was sick from the drink when she got home and woke up with her head filled with lightning and regret. Then one came knocking on Terini’s door and she hid in the bathroom while I said I didn’t know her.

The fountain boy seems different, though. And something about Lo is different too. Something on the edge of her skin lights up when she talks about him.

We’ve barely finished cleaning up when we walk off, the candy stripe of our big top growing smaller behind us. Lo’s bottle-white hair shines messy in the night’s darkness. She’ll be cold without a coat, but there’s no point me saying. I’ve told her that Lil knows more rain is coming, but she might as well not have heard.

‘Will Spides and Ash mind that they’re not with us?’ she asks, linking her arm through mine.

‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But I think they’ll mind even more that we’re looking for a flattie, so I’m not going to tell them.’

There are three figures ahead of us, on the edge of our site, lit by one of the street lights.

‘He’s there,’ Lo says, without looking at me.

‘Are you sure?’

They’re standing, all with their hands in their pockets. Two have got their hoods up, almost covering their faces, but the other one turns to us, as though he senses that we’re near. It’s Lo’s boy from the fountain.

‘Do we just walk by them?’ I ask.

‘No. We stop and talk,’ Lo says.

‘What if they’re waiting for someone else?’

She looks at me. ‘He’s waiting for me,’ she says. It’s there, in her eyes, and it makes me feel I’ve made a mistake. We shouldn’t have come.

The fountain boy raises his hand and waves at us, at Lo.

‘I think maybe Ash and Spider should be here,’ I say, slowing down so much that I’m barely moving. Lo doesn’t stop; she unhooks her arm from mine and just looks back at me and smiles.

‘They’re fine, Rita,’ she says. ‘They’re good ones.’

‘How do you know?’ I’m walking to catch up with her, because she can’t go on her own.

‘I just do.’

‘Hey,’ Dean says as we get close.

‘Hey back,’ Lo smiles. A strange silence sits in the middle of us all. The boys in hoods look at us as though we’re from a different land. Maybe we are. Maybe they are.

‘We watched your show,’ Dean tells Lo.

‘What did you think?’ She’s all jutting elbows, hands resting on hips.

‘It was good.’

‘Just good?’ she smiles.

‘Better than good.’

One of the boys pulls back his hood, even though Lil’s rain is starting to spit. He’s the one with his skin scalded from too many spots and he looks straight at me.

‘Don’t you get jealous that your sister is the star of the show?’

‘I’m not.’ Lo has anger in her voice. ‘We’re all equal.’

The boy puts his palms up, as though stopping her.

‘No offence meant.’ And I think he means it. ‘Anyway, I thought the motorbike bit was the best,’ he says.

‘Typical flattie,’ Lo mumbles.

‘What’s a flattie?’ the boy asks.

‘One of you. Not one of us. Do you know that Rita nearly died when we practised that?’ Lo exaggerates.

‘I’m not surprised,’ he says casually, but he looks impressed. Strange that the closer we come to death, the more they like it.

‘What happened?’ Dean asks.

‘I misjudged my jump,’ Lo says.

‘It could easily have been my mistake,’ I say. I don’t like the guilt that still sits in her.

‘Does it really come down to that?’ Dean asks. ‘Just a split-second mistake between you and death?’

‘It’s the same for us all,’ Lo says. ‘Every day you walk the line between dying and surviving too. It’s not just us.’

The boy with the hood still covering his face nods, his hands still in his pockets, staring hard at the ground.

‘You’re pretty bendy,’ the boy with the crumpled skin says.

‘Will.’ Dean sounds annoyed.

‘What? They are.’

‘Do you get scared?’ Dean looks at both of us, but I know he’s asking Lo. ‘When you’re up high? That you’re going to fall?’

‘No. Never,’ Lo says. And I know it’s the truth, because it’s the same as I feel. ‘But I have nerves. That’s different.’

‘How?’ Dean asks.

‘Being nervous keeps you aware,’ Lo says. ‘It brightens everything around you, so that you notice it all. Being scared just burns everything, so nothing is clear.’

‘Burns everything?’ Will asks.

‘Fries the edges of everything,’ Lo says. ‘So you can’t see clearly any more.’

‘Sounds a bit nuts to me,’ the boy in the hood says.

‘No,’ Dean interrupts him. ‘I get it.’

‘You would.’ The boy in the hood half laughs. I recognise him now – he was at the fountain too.

The rain is getting heavier, enough to wet our faces and make our hair cold.

‘I like the sound of it,’ Will says. ‘Frying edges.’ And he walks to the middle of the road and sits down.

‘What are you doing?’ Dean asks, looking around.

‘Getting scared,’ Will shouts, lying his whole body flat on the ground.

‘You’re being an idiot,’ Dean says.

‘I want to see things burning.’ Will stares up at the black sky, blinking hard into the raindrops.

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Lo says. She’s confused and it makes her shoot anger at the boy.

‘He knows that,’ I tell her. He’s just acting up because he’s a flattie who can.

‘A car’s coming,’ the boy in the hood says. He’s taken his hands from his pockets as he stares deep down the road.

We can all hear it now, the drumming of wheels on tarmac, getting bigger and wider. It sounds more than a car.

‘Get up,’ Dean says, but Will just lies there.

‘I’m getting hotter,’ he laughs.

‘You’re not,’ I tell him. He’s a fool, tapping into the wrong side of danger.

It’s a van, on the opposite side of the road to us, but with no space to go past Will.

‘Get up,’ Dean says loudly.

The van must see the figure lying down, but it doesn’t slow. Instead its horn is pressed and blares towards us. It seems to speed up as it comes and Will lies flat. None of us move. We watch the van swerve, missing Will by just inches. It crashes its wheels up across the pavement, fumes filling the air. The driver screams at us from behind the glass, before the van thuds back on to the road, all noise and lights and anger until it disappears and leaves us all staring at this boy in the road.

He jumps up in one movement and hollers like some sort of wolf.

‘Burn baby burn,’ he shouts, walking back towards us.

‘You’re an idiot,’ Dean says, turning away from him and looking straight at Lo. ‘Sorry about him.’

‘We’re going,’ I say, pulling on Lo’s arm. But even now she’s hesitating and I know she wants to split herself in two so she can come with me away from Will, but also stay talking to her fountain boy in the rain.

‘Can I see you again?’ Dean asks and Will smirks and thumps him light on his arm.

Lo looks up at Dean, shielding her eyes from the streaks falling from the wet sky.

‘You will,’ she says. And I know I have to get her away from here, before her heart gets too entangled with his.

‘We’re going,’ I say and I pull her with me, giving her no choice. I make her run from him, heading towards our circle of vans sitting tight against the rain.

The light in Mada is on, so we go up the steps, push open the door and stamp our wet feet on the mat.

‘You’re not coming in like that,’ Ma says, getting up.

Ernest and Spider are sitting with Da at the table, each holding a fan of cards.

‘We’re fine, Ma,’ Lo says, but we wait as she gets a towel and makes us rub through our hair and wipe dry our hands.

‘Where did you go?’ Spider asks, as Lo and I take off our shoes and put them neatly in the small shoe rack. ‘Ash and I were looking for you.’

‘We just went for a walk,’ I say, saving Lo from a lie she won’t want to tell.

‘Where’s Grands?’ Lo asks, squeezing in beside Spider.

‘In bed already trying to sleep, so no party noise from you,’ Da tells her. He puts his arm round Ma as she sits back next to him.

‘I’m tired in any case,’ Lo says.

‘Not tired enough to disrupt a card game I see,’ Ma smiles at her.

‘Did you meet anyone?’ Ernest asks.

‘No one interesting,’ I say. I glance quickly at Lo so she doesn’t say more. ‘Why’s Rob not playing?’

‘He chose an early night,’ Da says, his fingers flicking quick through his cards. ‘It’s your turn.’ He nods at Ernest.

‘I’d get rid of that ace of clubs when it’s your go, Spider,’ Lo says laughing. Spider opens his mouth like a goldfish and holds his cards away from her.

‘Don’t spoil it, Lo,’ Ma tells her.

‘I’m here to help,’ she says.

‘You’re here to be a pest,’ Da says, but his frown is lined with a smile.

‘Do you want one of these?’ Ma asks, passing the plate of bread twists to me. The stringy dough we plaited together this afternoon is solid and cracked brown where we painted it with egg yolk.

‘Needs cheese, I’m thinking,’ Spider says, grabbing another when he’s barely finished chewing his own.

‘You can keep your thinkings,’ Lo says, even though she didn’t help us make them.

‘I’m out,’ Da says, laying his fan of cards flat on the table. ‘Three sixes and a run of hearts.’ He’s so proud, just for winning, his Da smile wide.

‘That’s not fair,’ Ernest says. ‘I was so close.’

‘It’s all fair,’ Da chuckles. Fair is a word that was invented for him. The cards look small in his hands as he sweeps them all up, packs them neat and shuffles them. ‘Who’s in?’

‘I’m going to bed,’ Lo says, yawning and putting her arms up high as though she needs to prove it to us.

‘I could do with an early night too,’ I say.

‘Bed already?’ Ma asks.

‘I reckon so,’ Lo says and we get up together, like twins from the womb. I lean over to kiss Da. My ma sweeps her fingers over her forehead before touching my own, passing her good dreams to me.

‘Sweet dreams,’ she says as she does the same to Lo.

My shoes feel cold as I put them on, Lo holding my arm to stop herself from toppling.

‘Night all,’ she says, before we close the door on them.

I’d forgotten about the rain. It’s not too strong, but it’s reminding us it’s there. Lo runs to Terini, jumps up the steps and unlocks our door. She holds it open to me, with one arm behind her.

‘I won’t be long,’ I say. I know she’s confused. ‘I just need to see someone.’ I’m walking away, so that she can’t ask too many questions and I won’t have to lie.

‘Ash?’ she asks.

I wave my hand at her. ‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘I’ll be back soon.’ And I run quickly round the edge of the big top so that she can no longer see me.

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