Plumage by Nancy Springer Page B

destroy property, risk my sole source of income, why not?”
    â€œLook, don’t ever let me blackmail you again. I won’t tell anybody about you. I promise.”
    â€œHey.” Racquel grinned.
    Sassy smiled back and stroked the parakeet. She liked the feel of its smooth feathers, its lightweight warmth against her chest.
    â€œWhat now?” Racquel asked. “You going to take that bird home?”
    â€œI guess so.” It seemed like the logical next step. Insofar as anything about her situation could be called logical.
    â€œYou want a box?” Racquel began to poke around his back room, looking for one.
    With the parakeet cuddled to her chest, Sassy wandered out into the shop. With no lights on, but with the early daylight filtering in through the display windows, it was a place of platinum shadow, a tarnished-silver mystery in which feathers fluttered and rustled like living presences whispering.
    A thought occurred to Sassy. “Racquel,” she called.
    â€œYo.” He appeared with a smallish cardboard box in hand.
    It had been a long night of waiting, with plenty of time to talk. After all that talking, Sassy found to her surprise that she trusted this weirdo more than anybody else she knew.
    That was just it. He was a weirdo. He was unlikely to pass any judgments on her .
    She said, “Racquel, do me a favor.” As if she had not asked enough of him already. “Look at me in the mirror and tell me what you see.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œIt’s too hard to explain. It won’t take a minute. Just look.” Stroking the parakeet nestled against her chest, Sassy walked a few steps to stand in front of one of PLUMAGE’s floor-to-ceiling mirrors.
    She gasped.
    A resplendent ten-foot winged presence, an angel—no, a great eagle made of thunderstorm—no, a plumy winged tree with a serpent of lightning in its branches and the face of a—God, Sassy couldn’t say what it was, its wings and feathering all colors of fire and cloud and rainbow, she was shaking too hard to speak or think, and its featherleaf hands reached toward her and its eyes blazed like ten thousand sunrises and—it called to her, a great melodious cry—
    In answer to its cry the parakeet in her arms turned and yearned toward the mirror, gave a wild screech and took wing as if flying to a long-lost love. But somehow Sassy had not let go, and she flew too. Faintly she heard Racquel call, “Sassy!” but it didn’t matter. The bird-presence’s sunrise eyes offered to take her in, the parakeet’s flying carried her toward them as if on a river of light, and she did not understand what was happening or where she was going but it was all right. Nothing in her entire life had ever felt so right.
    Then she felt Racquel grab her arms.
    That strong grip stopped her like hitting the end of her bungee. There was a slingshot effect, and the parakeet flew loose from her hands, and everything was confusion. She struggled, thumped down, and found herself sitting on the floor of Racquel’s shop still facing the mirror. But there was nothing in it except her blue budgie. It looked distraught.
    â€œWhat—” Sassy gasped.
    â€œYou were heading right into the mirror.” Standing over her as if to grab her again if necessary, Racquel sounded stupefied.
    â€œWhat—did you see it?”
    â€œSee what? I saw you dive into the mirror. Into it!” Racquel’s tone had not changed.
    â€œI wanted to,” Sassy murmured, staring without moving.
    â€œYou half disappeared. How did you do that?”
    â€œI wanted to.” Sassy struggled to her feet. “Where’s my parakeet?”
    â€œGood God, like I care about your parakeet?”
    â€œWhere is it?”
    Racquel didn’t answer, but Sassy knew the answer.
    â€œIn there, right?” She pointed at the mirror.
    Whatever “in there” meant.
    Racquel took a deep breath.