Lace pulled away and brushed his hair out of his face. “How are you gonna explain this to your brother?”
He spread his hands over the small of her back, feeling for the heat of her birthmarks through her dress. “Let me worry about that.”
Ce que chante la corneille, chante le corneillon.
As the crow sings, so sings the fledging.
Cluck scrubbed the same places over and over. It left his chest reddened, his arms raw. But he still felt the brush of the current, his skin made hot by sun and then cooled by water.
If he didn’t rub it all off, someone would know. This must have been like the guilt that men who cheated felt. How they washed other women’s perfumes from their shoulders. But instead of a mistress, Cluck had Lace and her river. Instead of a wife, he had feathers that told him not to touch a girl with scales. A family that would smell the silt and water vines if he didn’t scour away the scent.
He turned off the water, and dressed, damp feathers scratching the back of his neck.
He owed Clémentine. She’d agreed to be the one to say she wanted Lace to stay on. She hadn’t hidden the smile at the corner of her mouth when Cluck asked her, but she must have known why she had to do it instead of him. Clémentine was one of les vedettes du spectacle, as much a lead in the show as Dax was. She had the standing to ask for things. Cluck didn’t.
His grandfather’s coughing carried down the hall. It took on the hard, deep sound of shaking his lungs. It had gone farther into his chest.
Cluck opened the door without knocking.
The orange prescription bottle sat on his grandfather’s dresser, the pills as high as the day it was filled.
Cluck’s lungs felt as full of water as when Lace held him under. He should’ve known his grandfather wouldn’t swallow a single one unless Cluck made such an annoyance of himself about it that Pépère considered it less trouble just to take the damn pills.
But Cluck hadn’t done that. He’d forgotten. He’d been too busy kissing Lace, taking her up into the trees, letting her pull him into the river.
Cluck shook his head. “Pépère.”
His grandfather finished coughing into a handkerchief, his back turned. “I told you I didn’t like that gadji.”
The words flared through Cluck’s face, the same shame as when he was small and his mother caught him petting wild birds. She would yell at him, say he would bring the bird’s sickness home to his brother, and was that what he wanted?
Pépère’s voice had never made his forehead feel hot. His grandfather did not scold or yell. He gave advice, his words ballasted with a calm that told Cluck if he did not listen, he would find out himself.
Use your left hand when they are not looking, but always the right when they can see.
Since your feathers are too many to pluck, wear your hair long to cover them, or the gadje will gossip more than they already do.
Stay away from water, or the nivasia will kill you.
Cluck shut the door behind him. “You’re not taking your pills.”
“Don’t talk to me about pills.” His grandfather folded the handkerchief. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
The faint outline of his grandfather’s face showed on the window glass. Cluck couldn’t make out his expression, only the white flash of the handkerchief.
“You didn’t know what you were doing when you hired her,” Pépère said. “And now we are bringing her with us, and you still don’t know what you’re doing.”
Cluck hunched his shoulders, wishing he’d had the chance to tell his grandfather before word got around the family. Clémentine worked fast.
“You’d like her if you got to know her,” Cluck said.
Pépère gave a curt laugh, made rough by his torn-up throat. “Why would I want to know a nivasi?”
The floorboards wavered, turning to water.
Nivasi.
His grandfather knew. He knew Cluck had brought a Paloma into their house.
“You think I don’t see what she is?” Pépère asked.
The floorboards swelled liked waves, ready to swallow Cluck.
“How long have you known?” he asked.
“Longer than you have.”
The rattled feeling inside Cluck sharpened into anger. “Then you should have told me.”
“And what would that have done?” his grandfather asked. “You found out. It made no difference.”
“If you had a problem with her being here, why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“I had no problem with her being here. I have many problems with her being with you.”
Cluck put a hand on the dresser, steadying himself.
“I taught you better than this,” his grandfather said.
“Whatever happened, she didn’t do it,” Cluck said. “They don’t even want her. They threw her out.”
“She’s the same blood.” Pépère almost yelled now. “You know nothing about that family.”
“Then tell me.” Cluck slammed his hand down on the dresser. The pills rattled in the bottle, a reminder like a sharp whisper that they had not been touched. “You tell me the plant did worse things than I know, but you won’t tell me what. You tell me I shouldn’t be with her but you won’t give me any reason better than her last name. What do I do with that?”
“If you find a nivasi you leave her where you find her.” His grandfather turned. “End it with her.”
“If you didn’t want me with her, why did you let her stay?”
“Because I wanted her to get you out of here.”
“What are you talking about?” Cluck asked.
“It wouldn’t have been long until someone figured out who she was,” Pépère said. “And you’re the one who brought her here. You’re the one who knew what she was. This family would throw you out for that the same as hers threw her out.”
The book-smell Cluck’s grandfather brought with him into every room he stayed in faded. The scent of Lace’s river, all wet reeds and sun on her body, faded. Nothing stayed but the dry earth smell of his own feathers.
“You wanted them to find out?” Cluck asked.
“I wanted them to find out you’d hired a Paloma,” Pépère said. “Not that you were going into rivers with her. If they knew that, if they knew what you were really doing, they’d kill you. I’m not going to let that happen. But if they’d thought she was only some girl you were looking after, they’d just throw you away like her family did to her.”
“And that’s what you wanted?” Cluck asked. “You wanted me to end up like her?”
“I didn’t want you to end up like me.” His grandfather threw his hand toward the window, the white square of his mouchoir almost brushing the glass. “Stuck here, following everyone else’s rules.”
“You didn’t have to do this,” Cluck said. They’d talked about this so many times. About Cluck going to community college, transferring to a four-year, then graduate school if he could get a scholarship like Pépère. That had been their plan since the day Pépère explained bird flight to Cluck, and Cluck had listened as closely as his youngest cousins did to fairy tales. “I didn’t plan on staying with the show forever. You knew that. I was always going to leave.”