26

'Think,' Rose said. 'You know, and he knows you know. Remember it, Tom.'

'Del?' It was an almost fantastically cruel joke. 'It can't be.' He fumbled with two shirt buttons, working them with thumb and index finger until the flat white disks found the holes. Del flopped out onto his palm; the wings feebly stretched. 'Oh, my God. Oh, Del.'

'Think about what he said,' Rose pleaded.

Another pane of the glass door exploded into the living room.

'We read stories in English class,' Tom said, frantically trying to remember… a sparrow? 'We read 'The Goose Girl.' We read 'Brother and Sister.' We read… shit. It's no use. 'The Fisherman and His Wife.' 'The Two Brothers.' It's no good.' What he remembered was how birds had plagued him: how a robin on the lawn had looked in through a window and drilled him with its eyes; a starling in a Quantum Heights tree quizzing him as the world revolved and witches filled the sky.

'It's no good,' Tom said. 'Our teacher said… ah, in 'Cinderella,' he said a bird was the messenger of the spirit. A bird gave her pretty clothes. Another bird took out the stepsisters' eyes. Oh, wait. Wait. It's 'Cinderella.'' He held Del out from his body. 'Birds tell the prince that the stepsisters are not to be his bride. They make him find Cinderella. The birds make him find the right bride.' ,

In the darkness Rose was looking up at him with gleaming eyes. Del stirred on his bandaged palm.

'Find him,' Tom whispered, feeling half-exalted, half-sick with the impossibility of both his task and Del's. 'Find him.'

Del's head lifted; his wings unfurled. And Tom's heart loosened too, and overflowed. On his bloody, aching hands the bird opened its wings and beat them down. Once. Twice. Go, little bird. Go, Del. A third time the wings opened and beat down, and the sparrow lifted off Tom's hands.

The messenger of spirit swooped into the air. Find him. For us, for you. Find him.

The messenger circled in the dark air above them, then settled once on Tom's shoulder - a gesture like a pat on the head, a gesture of love - and took off down the corridor.