Page 15 of Born for Silk

“Bird,” I whispered, the feathers tickling my young palm. I remember that it felt so small. Even to me. So wildly insignificant—even to me.

I didn’t know this at the time, but that young bird had hit the glass boundary of the aviary and broken its little neck.

I was too small to understand empathy, but I had a feeling inside my chest that pulled and pulled and pulled. I felt like the bird, all upside-down and tense.

Alone.

It was my earliest memory, but it would become a tradition that lasted for many ages. I would soon spend many days collecting broken-necked birds for my friend.

For my friend to eat.

I reach the bank and wait.

A big raptor-bird appears from the bushes. Its wing is perpetually broken, and its beak is already covered in blood from a first-light of cannibalistic hunting.

It’s not pretty like the other birds, possessing the beastly mutations so many animals have since the Gene Age. Like birds don’t usually have teeth, but this one does. Rows and rows. Thin ones to filter. I sometimes imagine that he is a dinosaur, not just a flightless mutant.

“It’s a big day,” I say to him, because it is nice to speak aloud and be heard. I sometimes forget I have a voice if not. If not for this bird.

I cross my arms over my chest, and he approaches slowly. “You come when they are distracted. Only then. You’re afraid of them but not me. I take offence. I’m terrifying.”

I sit down, and he pokes around at my hand. “I have no birds for you today, but I met the king. He spoke to me.” I look down at my tattoo. “He touched me.”

As though to remind me it’s muck-up day, an evil laugh echoes within the aviary; its shrilling chords cause birds to take to the air.

I stand and watch, wait, scoring overhead for that one little bird too frightened to stop in time before meeting the sheer glass walls that keep us safe from the Redwind.

“They are all celebrating,” I whisper to the air. My black hair and white dress flat down my body as though weighed, reminding me of the lifeless atmosphere. “Do you birds get stronger in here? Or weaker? Because you don’t have any wind to help you glide. You must do all the work yourselves.”

I hear Raptor squark and croon in anticipation of his meal. If the birds drop dead into the water, they will float. I learnt that fat floats and so do birds because they are full of air. And my friend doesn’t know how to fly or swim, so without me, he’ll miss out on lunch. If it’s close enough, I will dive in and retrieve the bird for him. I’m not sure why I started doing this… Maybe because the little bird from my memories reminded me of myself, and food, horrific as the premise is, is still a purpose. I wanted the little bird to have Meaningful Purpose. “They don’t have the vast to discover either,” I muse. “To stretch, to fight for survival. They stay small. I’m a different kind of caged bird, aren’t I?”

“There she is!”

Hiding Raptor, I whirl around to find Iris and Ivy appearing through the foliage, powdered entirely in purple sandules. I don’t hear my friend disappear into the reeds, though I know he does.

“You don’t want to celebrate with us, Fur Girl?” Iris circles me slowly, her fingers curled, cradling something within them. Sandules, probably.

I step away from the pond, drawing their eyes with me. “Muck-up doesn’t appeal to me.”

“You don’t ever want to play with us,” Iris mock-moans, flicking her red hair over her shoulder. It’s wild, like flames, and her skin is pale, like snow.

The two together are a rare beauty.

Or so I am told—often.

“What do you do out here all alone?” Ivy asks, blocking the passage through the trees to the Silk House. She is tall, which is desirable in The Cradle, and she knows it. “Talking to the trees again? Trying to connect with your Fur people?”

“You’re not pure. You’re Common, too,” I spit out, and she throws a handful of purple dust at me. The pretty colour powders my dress. As though that is supposed to upset me. It’s his colour. It’s a symbol.

“Not purple,” Iris hisses. “Not for her.” She squats behind me, but I refuse to give her more than my side profile as I listen to her movements. “She needs something browner. Darker. Like her dirty Fur blood.”

My senses prickle when her fingers dig into The Cradle’s rich crust. I play the scene in my head for a second; she throws the soil at me, they laugh, and then leave.

I don’t care. “It’s muck-up. Do your worst.”

As another girl, Lavender, pushes through the pendulous limbs ahead, stepping around Ivy, a small ball of dirt bursts at my spine.

As I presumed; now leave.