Crying out, she jumped back, but the thing was already out in the landing, flying hectic circles around the light fitting and crashing repeatedly into walls. It was a bird of some sort. Heather bit down on the shriek that was building in her chest and thumped a fist angrily into the bannister.
“Fucking bastard thing!”
Her heart still racing, Heather went to the airing cupboard and extracted one of her mother’s old brooms. With some difficulty she attempted to push the bird toward one of the bedrooms, or back into the bathroom, but it just flew more frantically, making sharp, panicked calls as it hit the ceiling, the lampshade, the walls. Heather swore at it repeatedly, feeling her own fright simmer and ignite into a quickly growing rage. The thing was moving too fast to see it properly, but it was brown, with speckled wings and a slightly oily cast to its feathers.
A starling, she thought bitterly. Of course it’s a fucking starling.
Eventually, seized with frustration and impatience, she smacked the bird squarely with the thick end of the broom, and it dropped to the carpet with a thump.
“Oh. Oh shit.”
Dropping the broom, Heather went over to the bird and looked down at it, grimacing. The tiny chest was rising and falling still, and its beak was open enough that she could see its sharp black tongue. It was stunned. Quickly she went back to the airing cupboard and grabbed a towel, which she wrapped around the bird. It was light, barely any weight to it at all, and as she brought it up to her chest, a flood of memories threatened to overwhelm her; a bird wrapped in one of her old t-shirts, its heart beating against her heart; her dad’s face, pink and hectic and somehow afraid. And then later, her mother’s hands so white against a black dress, curling into fists.
She shook her head and ran down the stairs to the front door. Outside, the cold air felt shocking against her flushed face and all at once she felt dangerously close to crying.
“Bloody bird,” she muttered, walking over the grass to the trees. Instantly her socks were soaking wet and freezing. “Stupid bloody creature.”
Crouching by the bushes, she unfolded the towel. The bird was still stunned, but its legs were moving a little, and Heather thought it was going to come to its senses soon. Best put it down right now, she thought. Put it under the bush and maybe a cat won’t get it.
Instead she crouched and stared at it, remembering. She had been taking the long walk home from school, dawdling in the park with the usual suspects. Going home hadn’t been particularly appealing at the time, because every conversation with her mum seemed to derail into an argument—arguments about her clothes, about what she was studying, or whether she was really “doing her best” or just coasting along. Nikki and the others, Kirsty and Aaron and Purdeep—she smiled slightly, remembering their names—had been talking about some boy band or other that she wasn’t interested in, so she had wandered off, over into the tree line. It had been quiet there, and she had felt at home; certainly more at home than in the house, with her mother prowling restlessly from room to room.
That was where she had found it, the bird. A broken thing in the grass. And she had taken a t-shirt from her bag and carefully picked it up, feeling the flutter of life under her fingertips as she did so.
Shame and guilt, as painful and as unexpected as a punch to the gut, washed over her. Dwelling on old memories suddenly seemed very stupid. Heather stood up, filled with the need to wash her hands, and saw a dark figure standing over her. For the second time that evening she yelled and jumped backwards, slipping on the wet grass, but when she looked again the figure was gone—if it had ever been there in the first place. Angry and tired, she left the bird under the bush, still on its towel, and went back inside the house.
CHAPTER12
BEFORE
ONE NIGHT, MICHAEL woke up in a darkness so complete it hummed. The safe, warm electric light that burned from the shaded bulb in the ceiling had vanished, casting him into the black; sending him back, in an instant, to the cupboard. Suddenly it was impossible to know where he was, who he was, which way was up. He gasped in great whooping breaths of hot, fetid air, air that tasted of musty clothes, of old food and fresh shit, of the red coat, the red coat, the red coat …
He flung his arms out, and when his fingernails skittered against old splintered panels he began to shriek over and over again. Soon his mother would come storming up the stairs to see what the noise was about, her doughy arms trembling with rage, or his father, already whipping the belt from his trouser loops, or worse, perhaps she would come, smiling and kind, her sharp hands seeking his skin … but the noises from his own throat wouldn’t stop—he was a wounded animal caught in a trap, tearing itself to pieces. Abruptly he felt a hot muzzle press itself into his hand, a wet blast of breath through his fingers, and the sensation surprised him so much he clamped his mouth shut, his teeth nipping the end of his tongue.
A second later and the man was in the doorway, the beam from an old electric torch chasing away the confines of the cupboard to reveal the room, exactly as it had been.
