The Prettiest Feathers Read Online Free Page A

would have to tear some of it down, destroy it, and I feared that once I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
    A long time passed before I spoke again to my mother, and, by the time I did, she had started back down the hillthrough the creeping fog of late afternoon. “Some people hunt them,” I said to her back.
    For as long as I could see her, I watched her go. She was dressed in light colors, and the mist was gray, almost white. She drifted like a ghost, down and out of sight.
    I followed her. I don’t know why. Moving at an angle across the side of the hill and through a stand of birch trees, I got to the edge of the yard just as she disappeared through the back doorway. I stood in the dampening silence and waited. I don’t know what for.
    Her bedroom light went on. I stepped to the back of the house and stared through her window.
    We are all voyeurs. Given the chance to look, we look—and, sometimes, the images we capture are held for a lifetime.
    My mother stood with her back to the window and stepped out of the pale yellow dress she had worn to work that day. She turned her head from side to side, as if she were stretching the muscles in her neck. Then she moved her hands over the front of her body, caressing herself.
    I was fascinated, mesmerized, and grabbed at the hardening between my legs. Even as she started to turn in my direction, I was unable to move.
    Our eyes locked and her scream shattered the quiet of the late afternoon. I had to stop her.
He
would be home at any minute. I had to shut her up.
    I ran into the house and down the hallway to her room. The door was locked. I pounded on it, but the door never opened.
    My sister had come out into the hall and I pushed past her, rushing outdoors, into the deepening fog, and up the hill.
    I was frenzied—kicking over buildings and smashing bridges with a length of limb wood. The only real sound was the apocalypse I brought down on my town, but still I could hear my mother’s screams echoing inside my head.
    At supper that evening I sensed the change, the absenceof the empty chatter about the day. It was the game of Nobody Talks. Even my little sister played the game well, looking down at her plate as she pushed peas into her mashed potatoes. My mother served. My stepfather ate, shoved himself away from the table—and, on his way to the living room with his quart, he stopped, turned to look at me, then motioned for me to follow.
    I stood, stuck my hand down into my pocket, and wrapped it around the knife. I didn’t know what would happen when I walked into the parlor behind him, but I wasn’t afraid. I left my body. Drifting. Watching from above. I saw myself looking down at the threadbare carpet, my hands behind my back, like someone who was waiting.
    But I could also see that my hands were moving the blade of the knife—unfolding it and locking it open.
    Mother grabbed me from behind, of course, before I could bring the blade down into the flesh of his neck. But I had drawn the blood that trickled down the wall, the blood that seeped into the fabric of his overstuffed chair, the blood that pooled on the pine floor. There was another beating. He called the police. And I had my first encounter with the mental health industry.
    A large woman wearing thick glasses said, “Your parents told me what happened. I’d like to hear your side of things.”
    I think the chair was made of real leather, and there was a hump in the middle of the seat. Each time I hoisted myself up, I slid forward again. I had to grip the arms to hold myself in place.
    “This isn’t comfortable,” I said.
    “Some things are hard to talk about,” she said, nodding.
    “The chair,” I muttered.
    “What were you going to do with that knife?” she asked.
    “Kill him,” I said.
    “But why?”
    “I couldn’t very well kill
her
.”
    They all agreed that I should be put away somewhere.
    The state had places for people like me. I was no good. I would hurt somebody someday.
    They