CHAPTER THREE

Two voices. Two human voices, singing. The notes climbing above the infinite cicadas, curling one around the other like feathers. I love you, a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck though you make my heart a wreck … And then, two Marnies, black-haired and white-throated, walking through the pines. A doodle oodle oodle ooh doo, they sang, which made no sense. One of them warming a baby against her chest like an egg.

‘You need to think about diversifying. Alpacas. Organic honey. Elk.’

‘As in venison?’

‘And velvet. It heals wounds, boosts immunity. Helps in the bedroom. They can’t get enough of it in China.’

‘Yeah, but Rob’s good at sheep. He knows sheep.’

‘The sheep aren’t making you any money.’

‘It’s just a bit of a downturn. We’re in it for the long haul.’

‘Nick’s been looking into peacharines. Or there’s saffron – what about that? Thirty thousand dollars a kilo, apparently.’

‘I think Rob wants to stick with what we’ve got.’

‘Has he … how’s he been?’

‘Fine. Happy about his win at this year’s carnival. Busy training for the South Island champs.’

‘Only whenever I see him he doesn’t look very happy.’

‘Oh, he’s just worried about the farm – you know. Still not sleeping well.’

‘But he hasn’t done it again.’

‘It was an accident. He was drunk.’

‘Right, so because he’d had a skinful—’

‘It was an accident. He doesn’t know his own strength.’

‘Marnie.’

‘No, Ange. He hasn’t done it again. He’s no monster.’

‘Because we’re just next door.’

‘I know. And it was an accident.’

‘Okay. All right. Hey, you could milk the sheep. Hawk the stuff to all the people who’ve gone off cow’s milk. Make boutique cheeses.’

‘Can you really see Rob milking sheep?’

‘Well, I imagine they have machines. He wouldn’t be out there with a stool and a bucket.’ The Marnie who was called Ange – the Marnie who warmed the baby like an egg – rummaged in her pocket. ‘Cherry?’

‘You’ve had a dream first season.’

‘The birds took their share. We need the nets.’

‘Still, though – no major disasters.’

‘Pray the rain holds off for one more week.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Sorry. I know you guys could do with some.’

‘Rob’s obsessed with it. Checks the gauge every morning even though the ground’s bone dry. We have to watch the forecast for the whole country in silence.’

‘That’s a bit extreme.’ She looked up then, and I saw that her face was different, the eyes darker, the cheeks thinner. A sister. ‘Someone’s watching us,’ she whispered.

‘What?’

‘There.’ Tilting her head at me.

Marnie looked up too, and I thought she would smile and would know me and hold out her hand as a perch, the hand I had thought was my mother, but she froze. Death by cold.

‘What’s wrong, Mar?’

‘I think that’s the one that attacked me.’

Cold, cold, despite the great hot eye of the sun.

‘They remember faces. I read that. They remember enemies.’

‘I’m not an enemy.’

‘You took its baby.’

‘I saved its baby.’

‘Don’t break eye contact. Eyes intimidate them. And don’t flap your arms. See? It’s fine. We’re fine.’

‘Promise me you won’t tell Rob. He’ll be out here with his rifle.’

‘You’re joking.’

I didn’t hear Marnie’s reply – they were too far away by then, so I didn’t hear if she was joking. Away they walked, spitting a path of cherry stones all the way back to the house.

Only after they’d gone did I realise I’d made a mistake. Only then did I realise what I should have done, what I should have said.

‘I’m going home,’ I told my sister that evening. That was my second mistake.

‘You are home,’ she said.

‘I’m leaving the pines.’

She grabbed at my wing, pinned it to the ground with her claws. ‘We are your blood. You belong with your blood. We’re teaching you that. All the bird things you should have learned when she took you prisoner.’

‘I miss her.’

‘What? What what what? How did our mother die?’

‘Death by car.’

‘Who kills with cars?’

‘Humans.’

‘What is she?’

‘Human.’

‘Our father will die for the shame of it. His last son, leaving to live in a house with a human. Death by shame.’

‘I don’t belong here. And I miss her.’

‘You know he’ll blame me. He’ll pierce my eyes and drink my blood and clean my bones for the shame of it.’

‘He loves you. He loves you best.’

‘I could scream for him right now.’

‘And I could peck out your throat.’

‘See, you are bird.’

‘I miss her. She loves me.’

My sister’s claws slipped a little. ‘Who will play the leaf game with me?’

‘All the leaves are yours.’

‘I don’t want them.’

‘When my eyes opened, I thought her hand was my mother.’

‘We have no mother.’

‘No, we have no mother.’

‘Death by car.’

‘Death by car.’

‘No more brothers, either, who spoke to us from their shells. Death by cold.’

‘Death by cold.’

‘And you, the last son, leaving the pines to live in a house with a human.’

But she let go of my wing.

At dusk, when the day birds were calling and carolling and the night birds rehearsed their hollow hoots, and the sheep glimmered in the falling light and the cherries hung black in black trees, I flew home. Straight to the ledge of the laundry window I flew, and I tapped three times on the glass. It still held the shapes of the bird silhouettes they’d fixed there so I would not hurt myself, and I saw another bird in it too, life-size, that tapped when I tapped – but I was quite alone. Again I tapped, and again, and then she came and peered from the unlit room, hair wet and eyes as black as black cherries.

‘Oh!’ she said when she saw me, and I heard it through the glass, a soft single note. ‘It’s you, isn’t it?’

And through the glass I said what I should have said in the pines: ‘Mar Mar Mar Mar.’ My first word. My first human word.

‘What?’ she said, and then, ‘Rob!’

She opened the window and I repeated it: ‘Mar Mar. Mar Mar.’

‘Did you hear that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What did it sound like to you?’

‘Like it’s asking for its mother.’

‘He said my name, Rob.’

They stared at me and I stared back.

‘That’s crazy,’ he said.

‘So is a bird asking for its mother.’

‘Yeah. Well, yeah. Both scenarios are crazy.’

I said, ‘Crazy.’ The word a wet cherry-skin in my mouth.

‘Holy fucking shit.’

‘Don’t swear in front of him.’

‘Jesus fucking Christ.’

I stepped from the ledge to the windowsill. From the windowsill to the deep-freeze. My right eye saw the gathering night and my left eye saw Marnie, and she was not going to wring my neck, or run me down, or shoot me, or poison me. That was not how houses worked. I threw myself on my back and waited for her to scratch my belly because she loved me.

‘This time we’re keeping him,’ she said.

Then she scratched my belly.