Page 3 of Skysong

Oriane looked up. Arthur wasn’t eating either. He folded his hands on the table before him, watching her expectantly over the wire rims of his glasses. When Oriane said nothing, he sighed.

‘You didn’t think I hadn’t noticed, did you? How preoccupied you’ve been these past days? You’re not usually prone to fits of fancy, Oriane. It’s not like you to get caught up in your own head.’

Had it been that obvious? ‘I’m sorry, Papa,’ she began. ‘I know I’ve been scattered – I forgot to collect the girls’ eggs for three whole days, and I only realised this aftern—’

‘It’s not the eggs I’m worried about. It’s you, Oriane. What’s wrong? What has changed?’

Everything, Oriane thought. ‘I thinkIhave,’ she whispered instead, and told her father the whole of it. The people, the laughter, the way a thought had wrapped itself around her mind and refused to let go: the thought of the outside world, its call a glittering lure on the end12of a fisherman’s hook – and she the fish, darting after it through the water without knowing where it might lead.

‘I just want to see it, Papa,’ she finished, almost ashamed at the note of desperation in her voice. ‘The rest of the world. The other people in it.’

Arthur had sat still and silent as she spoke. He took off his glasses with a heavy sigh, then closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. He stayed like that for a while, until Oriane ventured, ‘Papa?’

‘This is my fault,’ he murmured, not raising his head.

‘No, it isn’t,’ she replied immediately. ‘It’s nobody’s—’

‘I never should have let you fly in the woods.’

A bristle of something – was it anger? – ran its way down Oriane’s spine. It was gone as quickly as it came, uncertainty taking its place. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

Finally, Arthur looked up, but not at Oriane. He stood abruptly and started clearing the half-eaten meal from the table. ‘It’s dangerous for you to fly too far from home,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you that before, but I thought the radius I showed you would be safe—’

‘I wasn’t even flying when I heard these people,’ Oriane said, frowning. ‘I was collecting water, like I told—’

‘That day you said the wheel had broken on the cart, when you came home without it,’ Arthur said quickly, glancing her way. His gaze was sharp enough to startle her. ‘You lied to me.’

‘I didn’t want to worry you.’

Arthur gave a little scoff. ‘Well, you are worrying me now.’

Oriane felt another flicker of irritation. Why was he acting as if she had done something wrong?

‘Papa,’ she tried again. ‘I didn’t mean to worry you. I only wanted to talk about how I’ve been feeling. I thought … I thought if I could—’13

‘If you could what?’ Arthur asked, pausing on his way to deposit the dishes in the washbasin. There was something in the way he asked it, something that told Oriane she was on a kind of precipice, and if she chose to go over it there would be no going back.

Perhaps she didn’t want to go back.

She took a deep breath. ‘I thought if I could fly to the city, and stay in my bird form, I could just take a look at everything. That’s all I want – just to look.’

But Arthur had already started to shake his head. He closed his eyes before she finished speaking, pressing his lips together in an odd smile. He kept shaking his head, as if it would make Oriane unsay her words, or make him unhear them. ‘No,’ he said, eyes still closed. ‘No, Oriane, that’s out of the question.’

A wave of hurt washed over her. He never dismissed her like this. She was twenty-one years old, for skies’ sake, a woman grown. And her father was treating her like a child. She got up and followed him to the washbasin, where he was scraping their uneaten stew into a bucket for the animals.

‘Why?’ she asked quietly. Arthur didn’t turn around. ‘Why is it so dangerous for me to fly even a half-mile from here? Don’t you trust me?’

‘I don’t trustthem!’ he cried, dropping a bowl into the basin with a clatter. ‘Do you know what they will do to you, Oriane, if they find out what you are? They will never leave you alone again!’

‘They would never know! I would just be any other bird—’

But Arthur seemed not to hear. ‘It isn’t worth the risk,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t let you take the risk. It’s my duty to protect you. I promised her I wouldn’t let anything happen. I promised.’

Oriane wasn’t even sure he was talking to her anymore. For some reason, it made her angrier.14

‘I am a grown woman, Papa,’ she said, her voice low. ‘I can take care of myself, and make my own decisions.’

‘And what if they’re the wrong decisions?’ he shot back, whipping around to face her. ‘What if your decisions put you in danger?’

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