Flight of a Starling. Lisa Heathfield

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      ‘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 СКАЧАТЬ