Starling

There is a sound above her. Scratching. Star opens her eyes, stares at the ceiling.

The birdsong wakes her in spring and in summer. Before the full sun, before the man. 

But there is something else this morning. More scratching, scuttling. Light feet. 

The birds return with the rhododendrons’ bloom. The purple, pink, white explode from the green stout trees, fireworks paused in the sky. The birds stay long after the flowers fade to brown, folding and crumbling, leaving skeleton hands begging the sky. The hatching comes then. 

She has been here for four hatchings.

Star loves the orange-blooming rhododendron at the back of the property, the one that arrives late and stays long, on account of the sun only peaking into the shadows. It reminds her of the mother. There was a mother before. Star closes her eyes, finds the blue building with white trim, the seagulls, the orange ice cream dripping down the back of her hand. 

A bird calls. Eager cries sound back.

A mother bird. Her babies hatched and nesting in the attic.

Star listens until it is time to feed the horse. She does this every morning before the man awakes. The door to her small room has been taken off its hinges. She descends the narrow stairs, opens the front door to the porch. She slips the boots over her bare feet. Her night gown dampens on the tall, dew-burdened grass. The horse is waiting at the fence.

Hay, oats. Fill the bathtub with water. 

Star walks around the stall to look back at the old farmhouse, tall and narrow. She peers up at the small window three stories above. Her room. She shields her eyes from the sun, spots the small, brown bird. Smaller than a crow, she sits on the roof above a hole. Something in her mouth. A branch, a worm. She swoops, she trills. The mother bird flies into the hole above her bedroom window. The nestlings’ hungry chorus. 

The first season, Star found a nest in the orange rhododendron. It rested high in the branches, under the dark green leaves, thick and mottled, like a witch’s hands. She watched that nest all spring, but no bird ever came. She told the man. The nest wasn’t there the next day. 

That same season, she found a nest in the Wisteria, the trunk of the plant so thick, the vines so strong, it threatened to pull the shingles off one by one. It threatened to tear the whole house down. This nest had a bird in it, its yawning beak visible.  Star had told the man. The next day, the nest was gone. The small, black bird lay on the ground near the side of the house. It wasn’t broken, just on its side. Star had picked it up, touched its gray, downy feathers. The body was stiff, but no maggots or ants. 

She buried the bird at the base of the old Wisteria, willing the vine to tear the whole house down. Every shingle. Every wall. Every beam. They would have to leave. They’d have to take Star from here. There was no other way.

She places her boots on the porch. In the kitchen, she fries eggs. She brews coffee. This is her job, no one else’s, not even when there are other girls. Girls the woman delivers. Red-faced girls who cry and cry. Dark-eyed girls who’ve fallen silent. The other girls leave before Star ever finds the words. 

Star has never left.

The man arrives first to breakfast. Star slides his eggs onto his plate. She pours his coffee. She does not mention the attic, the nest.

He eats silently, the fork loud against the plate. He has never left the property, only the woman. 

The woman has been there for six days now. There had been a girl with her when she’d first returned. She looked older than Star. Angrier. Star could see in her that she would run, that she would not have listened to Star about the consequences. About the cement floor and the chain. Star would’ve had to hear the consequences through the floorboards. But the girl did not sleep even one night in the house. She was gone by evening. Headlights, two strangers on the porch. The man did not invite them in. 

Star lamented the woman’s return. Each time, she would bring a girl. Once there was a boy. But only once. There were scabs on his lips. Star wanted to bring him water. She didn’t. The boy stayed two nights. He did not try to run. Star was grateful.

When the woman eats breakfast, she eats her egg in two bites. The second bite is the whole yolk and whatever is left of the white. She drinks her coffee in long pulls. The man sips. The man has time. He and Star do not go anywhere. Star remembers her legs are not fast enough. Star remembers the consequences.

She washes the dishes and sweeps the floor. The man and the woman are outside the house, by the truck. The front door is open. They are talking fast. Maybe they are angry.

Star leans the broom in its closet. It is time for her to be in her room. She sits on her bed, waits for the man. After, she will be allowed to bathe. To dress.

Only after.

But he has heard the scratching. The bustling and chirps above the bed. The mother’s calls.

The man instructs Star to dress. He does not leave the bath towel on the bed. She will not be bathing. She feels the filth, the sickness on her skin. In her skin. Her clothes trap it against her person.

Outside, she must hold the hammer and wire mesh while he sets up the ladder. She must hold the ladder while he carries the hammer and wire mesh. 

The mother bird cries. She dives. The babies say nothing because they do not know what has happened.

Star wills them to die fast. For the mother’s sake.

Star wakes to the pecking, the beak on metal. Frantic. The babies cry, they shuffle. Soft talons on plywood. 

Star puts her hands over her ears, but she can hear the pecking.

A bushel and a peck, Star remembers. And I love you like heck. Star closes her eyes, finds the mustard yellow carpet, the white sheer curtains, the long black hair and green eyes. 

Star’s legs were not fast enough.

She leaves early to feed the horse. She makes breakfast. There is only the man. The woman is gone. When she returns, there will be a girl. Never more than one. Star will feed her the girl too, but the girl will not be allowed at the table.

Star wakes to pecking. You will break your beak on that mesh, Star thinks to the mother.

The babies chirp. They scuttle. Their mother cannot reach them.

You should have flown, she tells them through the ceiling.

It is only quiet at night.

The mother is there every morning. Maybe a nestling has died. The movements fewer, softer. But there is the pecking, there is the shrieking. Star swears she can hear it even in the kitchen, louder than the frying bacon. She swears she can hear it over the water when the man permits her to draw the bath.  

 The man had said it would take three days, but there is still something alive in the attic. It shuffles, but no longer chirps. The mother pecks at the mesh, but sometimes a whole minute goes by. 

How long does it take to fledge, Star wonders.

Star visits the horse. Hay, oats, water.

She walks around the stall. The mother sits on the eave. She flits to the roof. Back to the eave. She pecks at the mesh. Her attention is fleeting. She eyes the chimney, another bird, a cloud, Star.

Star goes to the barn, finds the wooden ladder on its side. It is heavier than it looks.

She lifts and drags it across the dirt and sawdust. She drags it across the dewy grass. She shifts, leans, hoists, maneuvers. She climbs till she faces the mesh. The mom wails and fusses above her on the roof. She does not peck her, but Star would understand. 

She has the hammer. She wedges it under the nail. She pushes the handle against the eave until it gives and a nail drops to the grass below. She does this a second time, then peels back the mesh. 

One stares at her with black eyes. The other three are dead.

“You have to fly away from here,” she tells the bird. 

The mother cries. She dives. 

Star pulls out the last two nails. She does not reach in to touch the bird. The mother might finally abandon it. She does not reach in to remove the dead. That’s between the mother bird and nature. Star doesn’t know what the mother will do now with only one left. What she will do with the dead.

Star does not want to know.

The man shouts her name. He is in the yard. He is at the horse. He rounds the stall. He is three stories away. 

Star closes her eyes, finds the mother with the blackbird hair.

Her legs are lead on this earth.

Star must fly.

And so she does.

About The Author

Erica Sage placed 1st in the Summer Short Story Contest, August 2021, with their award winning story Starling. Erica won the $300 cash prize and publication in Indie It Press’s forthcoming Anthology, 2022: COURAGEOUS CREATIVE.