I.
You are still little, and your neighbour has a cat called Moonface.
An impossibly beautiful creature, all languor and white fluff and huge beryl eyes, and yet, as should be expected of her kind, a sadist and a killer.
Moonface is in the habit of decorating the edge of the decking with small dead bodies, half-chewed pieces of voles and frogs and dormice, now she has left a grey-and-red feather ball that had once been a baby robin. You pick it up and hold it, the softest, most delicate thing you’ve ever touched. You take a breath, eyes closed, little face scrunched up, and imagine that you can feel the tiniest heartbeat, faint and rapid, then a flutter between your palms. When you open your eyes, so does the robin. You look at each other for a long moment until the baby bird gives the gentlest chirp. You carry him into your bedroom and feed him blueberries and rum-soaked raisins; you will him to be alive and well with the full force of your five-year-old being until his wounds have healed and he is strong enough to re-join his family.
II.
You are a scrawny teenager at Ruby’s birthday sleepover, jumping on mattresses in neon print pyjamas, telling ghost stories, and eating ‘midnight soup’ at ten o’clock, feeling incredibly grown-up. You wake up in the middle of the night, needing to pee, and traipse around the landing on tiptoes until you find the door to the unfamiliar bathroom.
Once inside, you feel around for a light switch, but, incapable of finding one, you settle for the moonlight flooding in through the skylight. You are just washing your hands when you hear a sharp click from the direction of the door – the key being turned in the lock. You had completely forgotten about locking up – none of the rooms in your own house have locks, not even the bathrooms. You turn your head and see the dark outline of a tall boy standing next to the door. Ruby’s brother, Patrick.
“Sorry, I forgot to lock,” you whisper. “I’ll be right out of your hair.”
And you try to squeeze past him and unlock the door again. He grabs your wrists.
“Not so fast, pretty bird.”
“Please, Patrick…”
“Tell you what, I’ll let you out if you give me a little kiss.”
You try to wriggle free, but it is an unfair fight, and he just tightens his grip and laughs.
“Don’t be such a killjoy, all I’m asking for is one little…”
He is interrupted by a loud thump, a high-pitched screech, and a sudden flurry of wing flaps. A large barn owl has somehow managed to fly in through the half-open skylight, and it lands on your shoulder and perches there, hooting. You feel its weight, the claws burrowing into your shoulder through the thin fabric of your pyjamas, and you relax into the owl’s oddly painless grip, knowing you have somehow, inexplicably, won the fight. You free your wrists and, with Patrick just standing there gaping, you unlock the door and walk out past him and back into Ruby’s bedroom filled with snoring girls, your cheek pressed into the soft feathers of the saviour on your shoulder. The owl stays until you fall asleep, nodding, eyes glowing amber. By the morning, it has disappeared, and Patrick gives you a glance over the breakfast table, but never says anything.
III.
You’re living in the city, quite cut off from the gardens and nature and birdsong you grew up with, and begin to experiment with scavenger crows. You do it unintentionally, more as a mind-calming exercise than anything, the way other girls clutch their keys and pepper sprays in their handbags or pretend to be on the phone when walking alone in a scary neighbourhood.
You walk weaponless, humming to yourself, and whenever you hear footsteps coming up behind you, you imagine a murder of crows standing guard and watching on the rooftops above.
Depending on how anxious you are, you start with as little as three and let them grow exponentially in your mind, you look up, and there they are, unfailingly, cawing to each other across power lines, as if sharing a joke.
Their presence gives you the confidence to wear what you please, to walk any route at your own pace at any time of night, head held high, breathing freely.
It does not, however, make you entirely immune to catcalls or other unwanted attention. You do not usually let the birds intervene until things are getting desperate. But that time you see a guy pull a knife out of his pocket, blade sprung open in his hand, it doesn’t take more than two seconds till one of the crows has snatched it out of his grasp and flown away with it, cackling, while another three fly at him full force with claws outstretched.
IV.
Some mornings, you get up at the crack of dawn just to stand on the rooftop and colour the early sky with swirling clouds of parrots and flamingos and birds of paradise. Eagles and vultures, even albatrosses.
They all come, like clockwork.
V.
The fact that you constantly surround yourself with birds doesn’t draw as much attention as one might think. This is a jaded city. Your friends are all oblivious to the extent of your gift, and when one of your more observant housemates once questions you about the presence of a black swan in the bathtub or a gaggle of peacocks on the arms of the coat stand, you calmly explain that a) you are an eccentric bird enthusiast, and don’t we all have our quirks? and b) the collective noun for peacock is actually ‘an ostentation’.
VI.
Only your lover really knows about what you can do.
“What is your favourite thing about your power?” she whispers as you are lying in bed together, spooning, dozing.
“Delaying the damn dawn chorus,” you yawn. “Hands down.”