The New Caledonia Corvus Research Facility and Sanctuary has visitors from the Auckland Zoo. Two women and two men are there to catch the Coconut Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus massena), so that they can study the prevalence, origin, and locations of Parrot Beak and Feather Disease in the New Caledonian parrots. Weary is with them out in the jungle now, helping with the mist net. Lotto is there, too, as is Hector, the new assistant. Yann is gone, fired. Good riddance, loser!
Maybe Weary was too hard on him. After all, even Corvus will tease another creature just because it’s funny to do so. The thing about being Weary’s age, though, and living through what Weary has lived through—you don’t put up with shit. People will treat you the way you allow them to treat you. This can be a hard-earned lesson, one that takes years and years to get through one’s slow, stupid head, but once it’s in, it’s in.
Yann begged for his job. Heh. Too little, too late, buddy. On top of making fun of Weary within earshot, Yann had made comments about the female students, their fuckability, their weight, their general worthiness. Weary hates a misogynist.
See you later, asshole.
So Hector is here as of today, tromping around the jungle with the Australians, climbing trees with Lotto to place the rope lines. God forbid the visiting researchers would have to climb a tree. Two long lines now fall from a pair of widely separated Niaoulis, dropping from the branches like the ropes from an old swing. Hector and Lotto are getting along fine, and Hector is hard working and amiable, even with all of the teasing he’s gotten this morning. Teasing, because Hector is also the name of the notorious saltwater crocodile who turned up on the beach at Mu in 1993 and has never left, the island’s only croc, a famous creature who still gets the occasional media attention of an aging star athlete. Poor Hector the human—he’s been putting up with the fallout. He must get it everywhere he goes, the giggles and jaw-snapping gestures.
“Croco!” Lotto calls. “Pull it up! Is it twisted? Hook it to that side rigging there.”
“Green side up. It’ll go up half-cocked like that,” Weary calls. Honestly, visitors make Weary a little unhinged, with their demands on his time and their prying eyes.
The net scritch-scratches up. In the often-dull work of researching birds in the field, this is a big event. “Brilliant. Just brilliant,” Callum says. He’s the alpha of the Aussie group. Now they all crane their necks and gaze at a sky full of black mesh. They admire their trap. It’s funny, the bounty of choices a person can make with a life. You can work at a tire store or become a banker or a deep-sea diver. You can live in a city, or way out here in the jungle with the birds. You can live with a creep or a sweetheart or all alone. Choices are beautiful, when you think about it.
Not one hour later, a Lorikeet flies right in. Right in! There is much excitement over one little Lorikeet. The researchers are thumping one another on the back. “Look! Look at the tiny thing!” one of the women says.
The bird twitches and flaps in shock and Callum trots over with his cage to retrieve it. As he watches, Weary can’t help but think of Isabelle and his own beloved Corvus. Corvus would never be so easily and quickly captured, and neither will Isabelle. You have small-brained birds and then you have the willful, determined, incredibly intelligent crows. Creatures like that, like Isabelle—they’ll remain cautious even if those nets are set up to save their life.
Why couldn’t she have been so cautious right from the start? Why couldn’t Sarah? It kills him. Undoing things is so much harder than doing them. Some handsome guy with a good job recites a little poetry, and bam. Smooth hotshots like Mr. Marvelous who pick up the check can be their own mist nets. Good character rarely shows off. It’s quiet.
What’re you going to do? You’re a creature, a fish, who glimpses the shiny red globes of the salmon eggs when you are searching and hungry. You bite down. They taste like heaven; there is a satisfying and salty pop. Just before the fiery pain of the hook sets in your flesh.
And yes, the hook has set, because Isabelle is still appearing in photos on ShutR. Even after receiving the package with Virginia’s watch. At least, there’s the bump of bone at Isabelle’s wrist on a handrail, and there’s a wisp of her hair blowing into the frame as they ride a ferry. There is the cuff of her sleeve during the spectacular show of a rainbow across the water.
Weary knew Isabelle wouldn’t leave Henry after one mailed accessory. He expected that, and in some ways, he respects it. Well, he understands it. She’s loyal. If anyone is loyal, it’s Weary. It’s all right, too, it’s more than all right, because the great payoff, the big bells-and-whistles jackpot, will only happen if Isabelle comes to her own conclusions in her own time. He can’t rush her. He must provide rewarding lures only, no sudden, punishing hooks. In a full-on attack, a creature will only attack back.
But now, his next package waits in his office, locked in the file cabinet. Weary looks at the sky and the sun, gauges the time. He doesn’t want to be late. Jean-Marie doesn’t wait for anyone.
“Let’s try again,” Callum says.
“Lift it back up, Croco,” Lotto yells.
Weary is pretty sure that even though Isabelle stands beside Henry North in those photos, witnessing a rainbow, the watch isn’t far from her mind. Does she guess what it means yet? The rip and tear? Sarah didn’t at first when she found it in that wooden box that Henry had in his dresser. For months, she thought it was an old keepsake. But then she discovered that photo in the garage, in the box marked Electrical, and she snuck the watch out of the house, brought it to Officer McNealy, the detective who investigated Virginia’s case all those years ago. He was unimpressed. The old watch meant nothing. Virginia meant nothing by then to the Boston Police Department.
It is so much more than an old watch.
It is proof.
After that, Sarah kept the watch in her desk at work. She only told one other person about that watch and that photograph. One person.
It pains Weary. His throat tightens. He might cry. His own culpability. Losses upon losses. He should have done more. He should have done more sooner. He worried at first, sending Isabelle that watch. It felt like a risk, sending the real thing, but only the real thing hummed and throbbed with life. Or, rather, hummed and throbbed with death. There’d be no more chances after this, regardless.
“It can’t possibly be as easy as the first time,” Callum says.
But it is. The minute the net is up again, another Lorikeet flies right in, and the researchers cheer and hoot and hop around like their team is on a winning streak.
He leaves them to it. He has his own business to attend to.
“Professor!” Lotto calls, as if Weary’s missing the exciting part. He only waves his hand and heads off into the brush. He’s in a hurry, and Lot can take it from here. He doesn’t want to chance them spotting his watering eyes, either. All of these thoughts of capture and memories of the past have made his heart constrict. He realizes that he must have bitten his tongue in his rush out of the jungle, too. There is the sudden metallic taste of blood and a throb of pain, and it’s an old taste and an old throb, like his mouth remembers long-ago hooks setting into his own unsuspecting flesh.