Tempest

“A Huggin and your collection of doves,” her father says, bending down to come eyelevel with one golden cage, then straightening to look up at the bottom of another. Cages almost fill the room, littering the floor with feathers caused by the occasional shaking of a cage by aviator intentions. “Yet no Munnin? Do you know why you prefer birds so much?” he asks as one of the birds in question, Huggin, settles on the back of the armchair she sits in, and caws.

She does not have a response but he doesn’t seem to care.

“You are like the wildcat, like a lynx or a tiger. You are powerful and birds intrigue you. You like to play with them, but ultimately they are weaker than you. I am disappointed, you could such better things with your time.”

She wonders how her habit of bird keeping could be a disapointment, besides, she reasons, they are beneficial for practicing physical changes. She has learned to master changing her snow-white doves to canary yellow and pumpkin orange. She can feel so familiarly from the inside out their network of bones that she could, with very little difficulty, fix them, were they broken. It is all easier with her own birds, she doubts she could even make the most superficial of impacts on any outside creature, and she is certain it would not be permanent.

“I do not have a Munnin because memory is not all that special, father. Thought is more productive, I would think you of all people would approve, wouldn’t you?”

Her memory is a long jumbled passage of tests and challenges, brief moments of respite with Piper, tenderness from her father in the farthest reaches of her recollection, his dark snapping eyes, and black birds.

“Don’t be clever, you should be above such smart remarks. I expect more from you.”

Huggin turns his head to her father, his eyes flashing brilliant blue as he cocks his head. The cages begin to shake, upsetting many birds and causing a new rain of feathers. They swirl madly in the air.

“Stop that,” her father says, frowning.

She signs and closes her eyes. Slowly the cages come to a halt, the tempest of feathers settles. Huggin’s eyes are black once more.

“These creatures amuse you, because you are too easily amused. You should aim higher.”

“You are quite fond of ravens, aren’t you father?” she asks. Her father once bestowed upon her a magpie, from his own collection, a collection that has dwindled to nothing in recent years. “You were once, don’t you remember?”

“You require more study. If you have become too familiar with these birds I’ll get you new ones.”

She picks up one of her newest volumes and opens it to a clean page. “Then I will study. Getting me new birds is not the issue, Father. You haven’t taught me anything new for ages.” The inkwell on the desk lifts into the air and appears at her elbow, accompanied by a long pen.

“You require more study,” he repeats. “When your control has improved, there will be more. You are too strong for this nonsense. For now I suggest you do not divert your attention. No… distractions,” he does not look at the birds as he speaks, but straight at his daughter.

She looks down, wearily regarding the page, as her father wanders toward the bookcase.

They are so silent that she does not realize when he has left the room. When the light has faded from the room and she lifts her head, her neck aching and fingers stiff, she is surprised his lack of presence has escaped her.

She regards the clock in the corner, then the birds suspended in ornate golden cages above her, for some time before opening her book and taking up her pen once more. 

Text by Lucie MacAulay