Spinning around in search of Daniel, I found him sitting by a stone fountain on the other side of the road. Though he had twisted his ankle badly, he was grinning like a fool.
“That was insane,” I said, brushing dirt and blood from my skinned knee.
Daniel spat in his hand and rubbed my wound. Wincing along with me in my pain, he said, “Does it hurt much?”
“No, not so badly.”
“You’re more hardy than you let on.” He smiled, then he did something strange: He held my shoulders and kissed me on the cheek as though he had just received me as a present, almost as if I were his wee brother.
I could not speak after that.
Daniel and I limped on to the stalls of the bird market. The birdseller, in a plumed green cap and festive waistcoat of rose-colored velvet, was standing by his wagon, outraged, surrounded by a growing crowd. His wife stood by in tears as he lifted one cage after another, offering proof of our robbery.
“What else can I believe?” asked his wife in a trembling voice to one of the women in the crowd. “All our beauties have been turned to wood.”
“Woman, you’re pissing mad,” snapped her husband, banging a cage down. “They’re carved and painted. Anyone with bloody eyes can see that!”
“This very jay,” she replied, holding up the carving she gripped in her gnarled hand, “this jay turned to wood as I reached in for him. You explain that if you can!”
Daniel gave me a gleeful look; proof of supernatural intervention was far better than we could have hoped for.
“It is a miracle given to us by St. John himself,” called out a slender lass in the crowd. “A miracle!”
Daniel stared at her in astonishment and took a step toward her, as though tugged by an invisible lead. But she crossed her arms over her chest defensively and raised her eyebrows, as though daring him to disagree with her, and he immediately retreated.
A tall man with a mangled ear then lifted up a cage with a wooden goldfinch perched inside, held it high over his head, and addressed the crowd. “The lass speaks the truth! St. John has changed feather to wood.”
It was shameful to let this talk continue, but I didn’t have the courage to confess our hoax.
The birdseller spit. “It’s your head that’s been changed to wood, my friend. Someone has hoodwinked me” — he raised both his hands like angry claws — “but I shall find out who and then I will strangle him. Those beauties were my silver and gold. I’ve lost everything!”
His wife licked her lips and spoke in a vengeful whisper. “You choose your words more carefully, you silly man! It’s witchcraft.” She turned in a slow circle, as though to catch sight of the perpetrator. “We must have a very powerful enemy somewhere, and you” — she turned back to her husband — “ought not to provoke her with your threats.”
“Be still, woman! It is you who is doing the provoking.” He raised his great callused hand as though to clout her. “Someone will pay for this, and if you wish it to be you, continue to defy me!”
Daniel ran forward. In my innocence, I believed he was about to confess after all. Instead, he shouted in his most proper voice, “Please, sir, show us the miracle — show us all the birds!”
“You … you only wish to see how I have been made the fool,” said the birdseller, his dark eyes glinting with fury. “All of you are against me!”
“Show us what St. John has accomplished,” Daniel begged. “Please, sir, don’t let your pride deny us a look at a miracle.”
Others in the crowd seconded this noble request until the birdseller, indignant, found himself trumped by Daniel’s acting. Making the best of the situation, the poor man unloaded the rest of the cages containing our carvings from his wagon, slamming down each one of them onto the cobbles. A dwarf woman draped in a black shawl shouted to him, “You have been chosen by St. John himself.”
The birdseller could contain his rage no longer and kicked one of the wire-mesh cages at her. It hit the ankle of a stout merchant in a high-collared blue dress coat, who threatened to clock the careless wretch with his cane for such an affront.
By now, a hundred onlookers were pointing, gawking, and even praying on their knees, moved by this union of heaven and earth, the possibility of witchcraft abandoned in favor of saintly intervention.
“John, come with me,” Daniel said, tugging me away.
We crouched down behind a gig thirty paces from the chattering crowd. “Wait underneath,” Daniel said.
“What for?”
“So you’re hidden.”
“But why do I want to be hidden?”
“There’s no time, John,” he snorted. “Just do as I say.”
God forgive me, I squatted down under the gig. He raced away, only to return, moments later, out of breath.
“Do a
“What?”
“You heard me, keep hidden and imitate a thrush. The birdseller’s wife just picked one up. Do it loud, but only once.”
Half-wit that I was, I cleared my throat, curled my lips, and warbled.
“Louder!” Daniel urged.
Under his watchful eye, I succeeded better the second time.
I now spied the same skinny lass who’d first called our hoax a miracle. She squatted nearby and was staring at me intently.
“Again,” Daniel said. “But do it louder this time.”
The lass had such large and pretty eyes that they seemed to stop time. Looking at her, I recalled one of the wee wrens we’d freed. So terrified it had been of me that it flapped wildly around its cage. After I’d cloistered it in my hand, however, it calmed, seeming to understand my motives. For a long moment, we’d been alone in the world.
The girl grinned now, but she was not judging me badly. I smiled my thanks to her and executed my imitation once again.
“Now come out,” Daniel said.
He reached down for me and we raced back to the crowd, where we found the birdseller’s wife sprawled on the ground, a hand over her brow, having fainted. But her husband was having none of it. He stood over her, shaking his head with exasperation, while two women dressed in widow’s black attended to her.
“What happened?” Daniel asked a soldier.
“The wooden bird sang,” he replied reverently.
The lad laughed from his belly while I prayed for a second and very personal miracle: to be swallowed by the earth and tugged all the way to Spain.
Daniel led me away. When I hesitated to get under the gig again, he pushed me down and told me to pretend to be a lark; the tall man with the mangled ear was holding one in his hand.
The lass was still watching, and her jade-colored eyes seemed to be looking deep into my doubts. “We’re being watched,” I whispered to Daniel, pointing at her.
He waved her over. She came to us without hesitation, her hands behind her back.
“What’s your name?” he said, glowering.
“Violeta.” She breathed deeply and pulled her waist-length auburn hair around to cover her front. Licking her lips, she added, “I might ask your name, young man, but your rudeness makes you unworthy of my question.”
“Violeta, go away!” he shouted, plainly of the belief that he could banish her with an order.
The lass gave him a challenging look. “I saw what you were doing.” She crossed her hands over her chest and stood her ground.
Sensing that only I could make peace between them, I stepped forward. “What we did was wrong. I shall do no more imitations.”
At that very moment, I found myself rising skyward, impelled by a force tightening around my neck.
