Anna-Marie McLemore - The Weight of Feathers

“You come through every summer,” she said. “People talk.”

“It’s mostly family, but not everybody. There’s Théo. He fixes the trailers. And Yvette. She homeschools the kids.” Cluck looked over his shoulder. “And Alexander’s around here somewhere.” He looked back at Lace. “So what do you say?”

This was what he wanted? Her apology wasn’t enough, so he wanted her hands for Corbeau work?

“We’re not as unforgiving as I seem right now,” he said. “This is probably the tenth time my cousin’s bailed in two seasons.”

If she did this for him, he’d have to take the mark off her. If she stayed long enough, maybe she could make this boy owe her a little more than she owed him, make the Corbeaus owe the Palomas. Maybe it would be enough to demand they stay out of her family’s way. Abuela would have to let her back then. Lace could come back clean, safe to touch.

All she had to do was keep brushes and sponge pads between her fingers and the Corbeaus. If her skin did not touch theirs, she would survive this.

“Okay,” Lace said.

“Great.” He shoved makeup brushes into her hands. “You start now.”

“Then sit down,” she said.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

“You’re here. I might as well start with you.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you need your base put on?” she asked. He wasn’t even in costume yet.

“Why would I?”

The men must have worn makeup too. Not all the color that went on the women, but foundation, pressed powder.

“Aren’t you in the show?” she asked.

“Do I look like I’m in the show?” He showed her his hand, those last three fingers curled under. “ M’sieurs-dames, ” he called out, and the others watched him. “This is the new Margaux. She’ll be doing your makeup.” Then he left her holding the brushes, half the show standing around her.

The lights, the colors, and the wings swirled like a soap bubble’s surface. Her cheek stung like it was still bleeding. If she was going to make up a whole show’s worth of performers, she’d need a few more ibuprofen from her suitcase.

“I’ll be right back.” She set the brushes down and slipped into the woods.

Clémentine glided out from behind a tree, first the tip of a wing, then the rest of her. “Looking for this?” She held up Lace’s suitcase.

Lace’s back tensed. If this woman had touched the new tail Tía Lora made her, Lace would rip the feathers from her wings. She may not have had a bra of fake pearls to hit her with, but she had her hands, her fingernails, her teeth. She’d shred that flower crown to potpourri.

“I took nothing,” the woman said. “I did not even open it. Je promets .”

Lace held out her hand.

Clémentine moved the suitcase out of reach. “If you tell me where you are sleeping tonight, you can have it.”

Lace’s spine relaxed. This woman thought she was a runaway.

Her father had given her some money “to get to Terra Bella,” though he didn’t believe it any more than she did. At best, he thought she was going to stay with Licha.

But neither of them said so. Lace had just taken the folded bills, thanked him, and hidden the money in the lining of her suitcase.

“Ever heard of a motel?” Lace said.

“It’s the weekend,” Clémentine said. “They are already booked for this berry festival.”

Lace hadn’t thought of that.

Clémentine set the suitcase down between them. “If you work here, you stay here.”

Lace left the suitcase where it was. She was no runaway, and the woman couldn’t have been more than thirty. She wasn’t old enough to play mother.

“No, thank you,” Lace said.

“Dax won’t like it. He likes to keep track of everyone.” Clémentine looked over her shoulder, through the dip between her wings. “Is it the house you are afraid of?”

“A little,” Lace said. The deep, weathered wood and age-darkened windows made it look like a place Cluck could seal her inside of, making her a thing that belonged to the Corbeaus.

“You can sleep where I sleep.” Clémentine pointed to a yellow trailer. “Inside the house to wash, to cook. Ça y est. ”

Sleeping in one of the Corbeaus’ trailers, a few feet from a Corbeau woman.

If all this would lift the feather off her forearm, Lace would do it.

She picked up her suitcase.

“ Bien, ” the woman said.

A donde fueres, haz lo que vieres.

Wherever you go, do what you see.

The Corbeau show was nothing like Justin said.

They didn’t just put on costumes and stand in the trees. They climbed the boughs like cats, moving as though the high branches were wide and solid. The hung lights showed the contours of the men’s bodies, and made the women’s dresses look like mint and peach milk. Their skirts trailed and billowed, the edges fluttering. Sometimes their curls came unpinned and spun loose against their shoulders.

The performers climbed with their wings folded down, leads tethered to their wrists so that when they reached the top, they could pull the wings open to their full span. Those cords gave them a way to bring the weight of their wings forward. But if they didn’t hold themselves upright, a sudden gust could still make them fall. If one of the women stepped wrong, she could catch her dress, tearing the fabric and slipping on the organza.

The men moved with as much calm as if it was their own muscle and not the trees holding them up. They pulled themselves onto higher branches as though the wings helped them instead of getting in the way, but Lace could guess how heavy they were.

The women’s flower crowns never came undone, the larkspur and paintbrush clinging to their heads like a swarm of butterflies. They danced like the branches were broad as a field. They arched their arms so softly they looked as though the wind moved them. One in a champagne-colored dress stood so far up on her toes and lifted a leg so high and close to her body she looked like a clock striking noon. A tall one wearing mauve did an arabesque and tilted her body so her pointed foot showed between her wings. Another in dusk blue spun along a bough in a row of turns, spotting with nothing but stars.

Now she knew why Justin said so little about the show. He didn’t want to admit how beautiful their enemies looked as they danced. When one of the men lifted one of the women, the wind turned her skirt to water. When he set her down, she landed so softly the branches didn’t bend.

The women leaped like they knew the branches would hold them, like the boughs whispered their reassurances as they flew. The men’s jumps from higher branches to lower ones made the audience gasp, and then applaud. The wind streamed through those feathers, and they looked like they were flying.

Even with the weight of those wings, Lace never caught them stumbling or flailing their hands to keep from falling. Each of them had balance as constant and rooted as these trees. If they extended their arms, it was part of the dance.

These winged creatures, las hadas, kept rhythm with each other, with no music but the sound of chimes hung in the trees. No metal or wood, just pieces of polished glass, the same pastels as their dresses. If the wind died down, the performers touched them, and the glass gave off shimmers of sound. They made one chime answer another, then a few more answer that one, like the staggered song of nightbirds.

When one hada stepped into the light, another faded into a bough’s shadow. It looked random, an unplanned dance, charged with a romance that made the audience forget these people were relatives.

Lace could sense the choreography under their movements. The show had the same patterned feel as the mermaids’ dance. The trick was making it look like no two nights were ever the same, so each performance brimmed with fleeting magic.