The Aviary (16 page)

“Well?” asked Clara, full of her own vindication.

“Astounding!” said Daphne. “Absolutely. My stars, Clara, I’ll never doubt you again.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Clara, motioning her inside, “because if you can bear it, I have
so
much more!”

After Clara returned her mother’s cloak, she took Daphne safely down below the house into the boiler room and told her about the candle-dousing winds in the Glendoveer dining room.

“That raises bumps on my arms,” said Daphne. “How do you sleep at night?”

“I do get frightened,” Clara said, “but it isn’t so bad if you believe, as I do, that it is Mrs. Glendoveer who still has a presence here. Mrs. Glendoveer was not a scary person.”

“I think any kind of ghost is at least a little frightening,” Daphne said. “But enough of that for now. Let me know about the birds!”

“Shh!” said Clara. “Let’s make sure we keep our voices down. I already feel that I betrayed them, having you eavesdrop like that.…”

“I have pledged to you before and I’ll pledge again,” whispered Daphne, holding up her hand. “I am sworn to secrecy. To my dying day.”

“Very good. Now all I need is for you to listen with an open mind.”

“Definitely,” said Daphne, leaning in close.

“I have reason to believe that these birds are … not just birds.”

“Yes?”

Clara cleared her throat. “They are, to the best of my knowledge,
the actual Glendoveer children.
” Clara waited for Daphne’s response, which was slow in coming.

“Could you say that again?”

“I mean, of course, that the Glendoveer children used to be regular boys and girls. But somehow, they’ve come to inhabit the bodies of these birds.”

“No,” Daphne said. “How can that be?”

“I don’t know how. But I do know that they respond to each of the Glendoveer children’s names. And not only that, they match the character of each child described in Mr. Woodruff’s letter. And when I asked them directly if they were the children, they said yes! The ones who can speak, that is. The honeycreeper, Helen, can only chirp true or false.”

Daphne considered this information. “If I hadn’t heard the creatures speak to you myself, I don’t think I could believe you.”

“But you do now, don’t you?”

Daphne thought for a moment and then replied with absolute certainty. “Yes. I do.”

Clara wanted to hug her. “You can’t imagine how comforting it is to share all this strangeness with someone else who understands.”

“I only barely understand,” she said. “I have so many questions.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, why are the birds talking now? Are you sure they’ve never spoken this way before?”

“I’ve thought this over,” Clara said. “As far as I know, they’ve been here for nearly half a century and not spoken to anyone except me. So I know that I’ve set them off somehow.”

“But you’ve lived here almost twelve years. Why haven’t they said anything earlier?”

“Maybe because,” said Clara, “I never spoke to them. The first time the mynah talked to me, I had spoken first. Since then, the birds have been learning to communicate at an alarming rate.”

“Do you remember what the bird first said to you? I imagine whatever she told you must have been important to her.”

“Yes. She said, ‘Elliot.’ ”

“The youngest Glendoveer?” said Daphne. “And which bird is he?”

“There is no bird for Elliot. None of the others know where he is. And what’s odd is, he is the only child
Mrs. Glendoveer ever talked about. It’s as if he were the only one who existed for her.”

“Interesting.”

“And another thing,” Clara said. “The birds want
me
to find him.”

“Really? Don’t they know by now that you’re not allowed to leave the house?”

“I’ve tried to explain that they shouldn’t expect such a thing from me. After all, if no one came forward with baby Elliot years ago when there was a huge reward offered, how could they expect me to find him as a grown man now?”

“It does seem an unlikely quest,” Daphne said.

“Doesn’t it? But stranger still—both George and Mrs. Glendoveer made provisions in their wills for this house to be kept up for at least fifty years after Elliot’s disappearance. It seems that the Glendoveers never gave up hope that he would be returned. And his brothers and sisters haven’t either.”

As the clock struck four, the girls gave each other looks of desperation.

“My mother will be going out of her mind if I don’t get home soon,” said Daphne. “I am so frustrated with our arrangement, I cannot tell you.”

“Imagine how I feel,” Clara said. “At least you’re free to come and go every day. I’ll admit that I felt a touch of envy when you wrote to Mr. Booth. And meeting Miss Lentham! If I could speak to her now, the questions I’d ask.”

“Then you should,” Daphne said. “Ask her tomorrow, if you can.”

Clara tried to decide whether she should laugh.

“I’m serious, Clara. Did you know that Miss Lentham volunteers at the Lockhaven Historical Society? She’s there weekday mornings. I never mentioned it because I couldn’t go, what with school. But now … why not you?”

“Do you suggest that I step out onto the street and hail a car?” Clara asked.

“The Historical Society is straight downhill nine blocks away. It’s an old brick building with a captain’s walk and black shutters. Keep your eyes open and you can’t miss it.”

Clara did not want to draw attention to her own cowardice. Instead, she said, “I could, certainly. But what happens if my mother finds out?”

“In normal circumstances, a parent might put you on restriction. But as you’re already on restriction for life, what more can she do?”

Clara didn’t have an answer. But the terror that had been built up inside Clara since she was a baby was formidable. “You don’t understand. I can’t disobey my mother like that.”

“Clara?” said Daphne. “Shall we be honest?”

“Yes.”

“You have been disobeying your mother for some time now.”

Clara hung her head under the weight of this truth.

“It is no new thing,” continued Daphne. “And I have encouraged you, I know. But is it wickedness? Think of those wretched birds! You’ve said it yourself that they are children and that they speak only to you. Who else has even come close to discovering their secrets? Who else will help them?”

“You have helped,” Clara said. “And I am grateful. But you don’t understand. I know you try, but you don’t. My mother wants only to protect me.”

“Then tell me everything. You have been clever and brave so far. What is so hazardous about a walk down the street? At the start, you told me that your mother wishes you always to keep still. But why? I have enough manners to know that you don’t ask people about these things, but I can’t help it. What ails you, Clara?”

Clara cast her eyes to the floor. She did not know why this question made her feel such burning shame. “Don’t make me say, please,” she said.

Daphne jammed her hands into her pockets. “No matter. You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, guess what?” she said. “Life is for the
living
!” She made a fierce-comical face and held it—until she remembered that she really, truly had to leave. “The next time I see you,” she said, “I hope you have something extraordinary to report!”

Clara knew that Daphne did not want to leave her with
the feeling that she’d been scolded, but as she stood alone in the half-light of the underground room, Clara did have the sensation that she’d been jolted into another frame of mind. She had been challenged, and, after the shock wore off, it had the effect of sharpening her focus on her surroundings.

“I am here and I am not locked in,” she said. “I can come and I can go.” She put a hand over her beating heart and noted how sturdy and regular it felt. All her life she had been cautioned not to trust it, that it was fickle, could fail and even kill her.

“I am going to give you a chance to prove yourself, heart,” she declared, tapping herself on the chest. “You survived an outing among the living, and you’ll do it again.”

Clara spread her arms and was practically beaming with confidence when she felt a tickling over the top of her shoe. When she looked down, she spied a big, fat rat running circles around her ankles!

“Aaahhh!”

She yelped and hopped up on a small wooden crate. Her weight, however, proved too much for the box, and one leg crashed through. The rat skittered off into the shadows, but Clara was stuck. The heart she had just lectured now pumped furiously as she pulled at her knee to free her foot. Her hem ripped before her stocking foot came out—bootless! It was when she reached in the box to retrieve her boot that she also felt papers in
a stack, but there was not enough light to see what was inside.

Clara stuck on her boot and dragged the box closer to the little window until she could make out a lithograph at the top of the pile, all red with black and white lettering. The section of the picture she saw showed a partial arm and a gloved hand stretched palm up with a black bird perched atop it. The cuff link was engraved with what looked like letter
G
s linked back-to-back.

“George Glendoveer?”

Using all her strength, Clara pulled up the wooden boards that crossed the top of the box until she had made a hole large enough to see the entire picture.

Clara could not believe her eyes. She thrust her hand into the box and pulled the handbill from the top of the pile, tearing it slightly down the center. At the bottom of the paper was mentioned in small print:

Clara immediately thought of showing this broadsheet to the birds. Presumably, the Glendoveer children had seen these advertisements when they were … alive. What would Frances say when she read it?

Anxious for more, Clara dug in again. There were several velvet jewel cases that she piled one on top of the other, a sheaf of posters featuring the missing Glendoveer children (just like the one Clara had found upstairs), and a large book of some kind. No, not a book but an album. Holding her breath, she turned it over and saw the lock.

It was here in her own hands: Mrs. Glendoveer’s stamped leather album!

Clara pictured her mother rounding up everything she could find and hammering it into this crate. “I might never have found it,” she said.

And now another problem presented itself to Clara: how to hide the damaged box from her mother.

Hastily, Clara tucked the jewel cases into the pockets of her pinafore and set aside the handbill and the precious album. There was no question of her repairing the box, so she turned it hole-side-down and dragged it back
where she found it. She crept up the stairs, back into the closet, and listened with her ear on the door for signs that her mother and Ruby had returned. When she was satisfied, she tiptoed to her room and laid all the objects on the bed.

The first velvet box had a ribbon that resembled a military decoration, inscribed with
HONORARY MEMBER OF THE COURT OF OLAV
. Another was from a Leopold II of Belgium. Another held the key to the city of Lockhaven—which made Clara wonder if it was actually possible to open and close a city with a key.

The last box was stamped inside on the satin lining with the names Eicholt and Goessler, Lockhaven Jewelers. Beneath a folded paper were gleaming cuff links with the two letter Gs, exactly like the one in the handbill.

Clara took the paper and spread it out.

Clara was about to take the links out of the box when she heard Ruby and her mother speaking animatedly somewhere in the house.

Gathering up everything from the bed, she wished she had opened Mrs. Glendoveer’s album first. Now that discovery
would have to wait as she tucked away her new finds in her bureau drawer, covered them with a pile of winter woolens, straightened her skirts, and went out to meet her mother.