The Weight of Feathers Read Online Free

asked, as though Lace had said something.
    Her hair was cut to her chin, with thick bangs, like the girls in Martha’s old postcards. By the light of the candles Lace’s father left burning in glass jars, it looked orange like flowering quince. Her crown of flowers and leaves reminded Lace of fruit topping a tarta .
    She was iced as a cake, her eye shadow the mauve of new lilacs. Painted wings spread from the bridge of her nose across her eyelids and temples. Rhinestones glinted at the corners of her eyes. The blue and bronze peacock feathers on her back rippled like wheat. Not the black ones Lace and her mother kept finding. Those, her cousins swore, grew from their heads like hair, another mark of el Diablo .
    Lace’s fingers dug into the rock. She and this woman could tear each other’s hair out. Lace could scratch at those feathers. The woman could wade into the river and shred the soft fabric trailing from Lace’s fin.
    Lace could take off her costume top and swing it at the woman. The scallop shells and fake pearls would leave her lip bloody.
    She didn’t.
    If the woman pulled a wire loose from her wings, she could put Lace’s eye out.
    She didn’t.
    Lace slid down into the water.
    The woman backed toward the woods until the tree shadows swallowed her whole.
     
    On ne marie pas les poules avec les renards.
    One does not wed hens with foxes.
    They didn’t want money. If they did, they would’ve gone for his wallet as soon as they’d gotten him on the ground and then just left him outside the liquor store.
    In the dark, he could only tell them apart by size. The biggest one. Another a little shorter, quick enough to get him in the stomach before he could tense. The third a couple of years and a few inches behind them both.
    “You don’t talk, chucho ?” the biggest one asked. He hadn’t hit him for a couple minutes. He let the other two get the practice.
    The smallest of the three got Cluck in the jaw. He hit the hardest. More to prove.
    The salt taste thickened inside Cluck’s cheek.
    “You speak English, chucho ?” The quick one kicked him in the shoulder.
    Pain spread down Cluck’s arm. Letting them get him on the ground was his first mistake. He knew that now. But it always worked with Dax. Once Dax got him down, Cluck wasn’t fun anymore. Better not to fight back.
    This was about territory. These guys didn’t like him in their part of town after dark. He’d figured if he went slack, they’d know he’d gotten the message.
    Next time, he’d just walk the extra half-mile to the grocery store.
    “ ¿Hablas español? ” the quick one asked.
    It wasn’t the first time Cluck had gotten mistaken for something he wasn’t. Women often asked him for directions in Spanish. His mother said it was his Manouche blood. His whole family had it, but in him it came through like a stain spreading. It made him darker than anyone in his family except his grandfather. It streaked red the feathers that grew in with his hair, made him le petit démon to his mother.
    “You don’t speak none of them, chucho ?” the smallest one asked.
    Cluck tongued the blood on his lip.
    The oldest one grabbed his shirt. “Talk, chucho .”
    The cornflower came unpinned from Cluck’s vest, and the blue-violet bloom tumbled to the dirt. He still didn’t look up.
    The oldest one shook him. “Talk.”
    Cluck’s shirt collar came off in his hand, and he fell back to the ground.
    The oldest one’s lip curled up. He’d probably never heard of a detachable collar. Cluck wouldn’t have either if his grandfather hadn’t worn them when he was his age. The buttonholes had grown soft over the last half a century. The collars came off more easily than they once did.
    “Used to be very fashionable,” Cluck said. “The mark of a gentleman.”
    The oldest one hit him in the temple. The force spun through his head. He felt his brain whipping up like one of his aunts’ meringues. Beat to stiff peaks. Just add sugar.
    Something about