Damien looked around, his eyes wide. He had never seen so many bird cages, never seen so manybirds, although none of the fluttering wings behind the cages looked exotic. This “Miss Lillian” kept pigeons aplenty – white ones, black ones, mean-looking grey ones – as well as a jackdaw, which was hopping up and down the breadth of its perch, chittering noisily.
But it was the magpie that made him grip the back of the rickety wooden chair and lean a little closer. For the magpie wasn’t moving at all, it was just sitting there, watching Damien, and for a moment Damien stood and watched it back, wondering idly if it was entirely normal for a bird to focus its attention quite so wholly upon a person, and to stand quite so still.
The magpie cocked its head to one side, as though proving it was, in fact, a normal bird, and Damien straightened, turning his attention to the room instead. Against one wall was the fireplace, and a mantlepiece stuffed with brass clocks that all showed slightly different times. On the other was a bookshelf laden with yellowingbooks and brown-black boxes – some with paper spilling from their lids, some with string wrapped around to try and keep it all contained. He reached towards the nearest one, and the magpie began to chitter, quietly at first, and then more urgently, flapping its wings so rapidly it sounded as though there were a hundred birds sat inside its cage, and not just one.
And then they all began. The deepcooof the pigeons, the sharpsquarkof the jackdaw, and the harshchakker-chakof the magpie, its dark eyes fixed upon Damien now, the discordant screeching rising to a heinous crescendo until Damien withdrew his hand, and sat down, as a single sound began to cut through the din.
Clack.Clack.
‘My my,’ said a red-haired woman as she hobbled inside, easing past him and sinking into the velvet chair on the other side of the desk. ‘My little ones don’t usually dislike someonethisquickly.’
She had a faint trace of an accent – one she’d clearly worked hard to bury. Damien’s eyes slid immediately to the cane, its ivory handle carved into an elegant wing, though the hand that clutched it wasn’t age-spotted and wrinkled as he’d expected. The woman looked only a decade or so older than him, heavy golden earrings matching the adornment of pendants that dipped at increasingly bold angles down the front of her tight, black corset.
‘Perhaps they are singing my praises,’ Damien said. ‘Unfortunately I do not speak “bird”, otherwise—’
‘Well Idospeak bird,’ said the woman, opening the magpie’s cage. The bird hopped out of it, walking languidly up her arm until it could come to rest upon her shoulder, and stare at Damien all the harder.
‘They are excellent judges of character, Mr—?’
‘Damien,’ said Damien.
The woman’s auburn eyebrows raised. ‘There is usually a reason why people avoid using their family name,’ she said. ‘And that reason is not usually good.’
‘Oh, I’ve no issue with mine,’ Damien replied nonchalantly. ‘It is just a preference.’
‘A preference that causes you to waste five minutes of breath explaining it,’ said the woman, her dark eyes glittering now. ‘But one I understand, nonetheless. I don’t use my family name either – so you will call me Miss Lillian. Now then,Damien…’ The magpie fluttered its iridescent wings upon her shoulder. ‘Tell me what you were doing on Miss Adams’ doorstep.’
Damien sat back in his chair. ‘I wanted to know if she could do it,’ he said, not looking away – though holding the woman’s gaze felt like stepping into inky, icy waves. ‘If she could find lost memories.’
He watched her slide a cigarette from a golden box, tapping it against the leather cover on her desk. ‘Do you believe she can? Do you believe she can reach into your mind and pluck forth the things that are hidden there?’ Her smile sank into a smirk as the sharp scent of tobacco filled the room. ‘You think she has that kind of power, hmm?’
Now Damien looked away, his gaze upon one of the brass cages instead, and the small grey and white bird digging its beak through the fine down of its feathers. ‘I don’t know what I believe,’ he said.
‘Well, I shall tell you whatshebelieves,’ said Miss Lillian. ‘She believes her gift is gone. Lost.’
‘She lost her confidence,’ said the black-haired woman. ‘Right up there, on the stage. Froze, she did. And ran off. And now—’
‘Now she’s retired,’ Damien murmured – thinking back on what she’d said.
‘Yes, thank you Bertie,’ said Miss Lillian, affixing the black-haired woman with a sizzling glare. ‘Which is whereyoucome in. Because you,Damien, will help her find it again. You’ll ready her for the stage – and when the time is right, I will have her back as the star of my show.’
‘Will I?’
‘I want information, too,’ said Miss Lillian. ‘Like what she was really doing in Edinburgh. Why she chose this precise moment to come back.’
‘Just as the Royal is reopening,’ supplemented Bertie.
‘Just as the Royal is reopening,’ agreed Lillian.
Damien put his hands into his pockets. ‘She already told me she doesn’t do it anymore. What makes you think she’ll change her mind for me?’
‘Because you’ll make her change her mind,’ said Lillian.
‘How?’
Lillian looked at him – her dark eyes scratching the length of him, from his boots, to his hat. ‘Oh,’ she said quietly. ‘I think you’ll find a way.’
‘Let’s say I do,’ Damien agreed, fidgeting a little in the chair now. ‘Perhaps the reason I walked away last night was because Ididn’twant her holding all my memories up to the light.’
