Page 128 of Fumiko and the Finicky Nestmate
“Secrets must be kept.” Juuyu quietly pointed out, “I have been entrusted with yours.”
“You could be our secret,” Zuzu suggested. “Entrusted and kept.”
Fumiko knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing ever was. People came and went like the tides, and the only difference was in how long they lingered on their shore. A few weeks. A few decades. Was it so terrible for her to want a husband who could match her, century for century, millennia for millennia?
“Trees are forever generous,” he murmured.
“Sister!” Zuzu’s eyes had gone round. “Try one. It might work!”
“I don’t think they’re good enough.”
“It might be,” she insisted. “It will be if he wants one.”
Juuyu’s attention snagged on something in the vicinity of her bedside table, and Fumiko thought he might be memorizing things again. Although the rest of the house was being quickly and quietly set in order, Juuyu hadn’t trespassed here. Until now.
He stood very still.
She waited quietly.
The silence wasn’t the empty sort; it was the purposeful sort. Maybe silence wasn’t lonesome when it was shared?
Juuyu blinked and looked her way.
Was he there for a reason? Had he forgotten it? She did that often enough that it no longer bothered her. Reasons seemed to come and go, along with everything else. If only she had a good enough one for him to stay.
“Try one,” Zuzu repeated in an urgent undertone.
Juuyu overheard. Of course he did, being Amaranthine.
“Try what?” he asked, inviting more.
Fumiko edged sideways and waved at the collection on her coverlet. “Are any of these right?”
He came to stand at her side, and he exhaled on a pretty little trill. Was that a good sign? She and Zuzu had searched high and low, but nothing seemed good enough for the enormity of what Fumiko was asking.
A brown hen’s egg, still cold from the refrigerator.
A lavender plastic egg, leftover from a springtime library event.
A coffee cup with a hatching chick and text that read, GET CRACKING!
An oval plate with shallow depressions, intended for devilled eggs.
The prettiest piece was a netsuke that looked to be carved from pale green jade. It was shaped like a nest with three eggs inside.
Jiminy had also mentioned shiny things appealing to some avians, so she and Zuzu had begun adding them to make up for their lack of eggshell.
Sea glass was pretty, but did it shine enough?
A rhinestone-topped hairpin had plenty of sparkle, but it didn’t seem very personal. Not when they came in a box of twenty-some.
The sequined Christmas ornament was probably all wrong. Yes, it was avian, but she’d seen Juuyu in truest form, and a phoenix bore no resemblance to a pink flamingo. Except perhaps in dignity.
“I can keep looking,” she whispered.
“Fumiko?” Juuyu picked up the lavender egg and asked, “What is this for?”
“Candy, I suppose. You fill it with sweets and hide it for children to find.”
