Featherlight by Peter Bunzl (debian ebook reader TXT) 📕

busy rushing around I don’t hear half of what they’re saying. It is only when the young boy smiles and asks me about my bird that I realise how wet and sad and silent I am.

Grandma and the boy and the two fishermen listen as I tell the tale of how I found Tan. When I finish speaking, I open the flask that holds Tan’s ashes and peer inside.

I expect to see a glint in the dark interior of the flask. Some sign that Tan is springing back to life. But there is nothing.

“Perhaps if we put her somewhere warm?” the elder fisherman suggests.

We put the flask by the range, close to the fire.

By now the young boy is almost asleep in his seat. Grandma carries him to my parents’ bedroom and tucks him into bed there. By the time she returns, the embers in the grate are getting low and threatening to go out. Grandma stokes the fire as best she can and makes another pot of tea for the two fishermen. Then she heads off to the lighthouse to check on the lantern once more. The two fishermen make themselves cosy in their chairs to wait out the rest of the storm. I leave them there and go to bed myself. I am so tired and shocked I can barely stay awake any longer.

The last thing I remember as I close my eyes is Tan’s feather lighting up the lighthouse lantern. I wonder if it is still shining?

16

A LITTLE BROTHER

The next morning, the sea is as flat as a pancake, and the air is still and silent. The young boy sleeps in my parents’ bedroom long after sunrise, while his father and older brother doze in the armchairs in the sitting room next door. I look in on each of them from time to time. They have slept for so long that it is as if they are in a fairy tale from my book. Some strange version of Sleeping Beauty.

Grandma has been out seeing to the hens and milking the goat. She and I have breakfast together in the kitchen. I take the flask of Tan’s ashes from beside the range and check it again. I am hoping that there will be a tiny glow of light inside it this morning.

But my hopes are dashed once again. There is nothing.

“Maybe the kitchen’s not the best place for Tan’s ashes,” Grandma says, “Maybe she needs to be free, floating on the wind.”

“Just as she did in life,” I say.

I think of the shooting star then. How I saw it streaking across the sky that first night I was alone. It wasn’t a shooting star at all, I realise. It was Tan spreading her fiery wings and flying to our island.

“You’re right, Grandma,” I say at last. “I think Tan needs to fly.”

We take the flask and climb the winding steps to the top of the lighthouse.

When we step into the lantern room, there’s still a soft glow coming from inside the lantern: the feather.

It is hard to see the feather’s light now because of the powerful sunshine flooding the room, but it’s most definitely there. I open the lantern and take it out.

The glow from the feather is very faint, but Grandma sees it too.

“I’ll get some more oil when I take those fishermen over to the mainland,” she says. “Then we won’t need to use the feather tonight, Deryn. You should keep it. As a reminder of your friend.”

I brush the feather against my cheek. It feels warm. I put it in my pocket.

Grandma and I climb out onto the metal walkway that runs around the outside of the lantern room. Grandma hands me the flask and I unscrew its lid.

“Goodbye, Tan,” I say. “And thank you.”

I lean over the edge of the rail and pour the ashes out in a cloud of grey dust.

A warm breeze whips the ashes away, and we watch as it carries them far out to sea.

“That wind is special,” Grandma says. “It comes from the desert, but people say it carries a little stardust with it. A little magic.”

I breathe the warm air. Grandma is right. It does smell faintly of magic.

*

After lunch, the two fishermen and the boy finally wake from their deep slumber and Grandma rows them over to the mainland in her boat.

I find myself alone on the island once more. I sit in Dad’s chair in the keeper’s office and aim his spyglass out of the window, watching the sea for Grandma’s return.

In the late afternoon, she arrives back. She has brought a big barrel of oil with her for the lantern and fresh provisions for the cottage.

“I checked on your mother and father and the baby while I was in town,” Grandma tells me as we roll the barrel of oil back to the lighthouse. “I spoke with the midwife too.”

“And?” I ask. “How are they? How’s the baby?”

“Doing a lot better,” Grandma says. “They named him Cyrus, like you suggested, Deryn. He’s a bonny lad, full of life. The midwife reckons your mum will need a couple more days to recover. Your dad’s decided to stay on with the pair of them. But as soon as your mum’s up and about they’ll all be back here to join us.”

I don’t hear half of what Grandma’s saying, I’m just relieved that my baby brother is all right. His name is Cyrus, and he’s going to be fine!

That night, alone in my room, I put Tan’s feather in a jam jar by my bedside. The light from it is very faint, but I can still read my book of fairy tales by it.