Page 50 of Strange Grace
She hums, holds herself still, though her body trembles to run.
When the song comes around again and Mairwen falls silent, there’s a second of peace and a soft sigh from the bird women.
“Sing!” one cries.
“Sing,” begs another.
“No,” Mairwen says. “I must find my friend.”
Pain flares at her ear from a sharp bite, and then the bird women pull at her hair. They bite her fingers and Mairwen flings them away with a scream. She knocks at the woman on her shoulder as blood slips down her neck. “No!” she yells.
“Sing! Sing!”
“She tastes like a saint!”
“She tastes like the forest!”
“Sing for us, forest-girl saint!”
The demand echoes and swirls around her as the flock flies circles, darting in to scratch at Mair’s skin, to grab curls and tear. She tries to run, but they dive at her face, swiping at her eyes and snapping at her lips. They drag back her hair, tearing her scalp. They giggle and shriek, tangling her hair in the dogwood branches. “Sing! Sing! Sing! Give us your voice, or give us your fingers and toes! Give us your eyes and give us your nose!”
“I am the daughter of a saint,” she cries, holding herself still again, hands out and trembling, breathing too hard as the burn in her scalp and ache in her fingers and her ear gentles. “I am a Grace witch, and I already gave you a song!”
“WE WANT MORE!” they scream. “Stay with us all night! We will not let you go! You are ours, Grace witch!”
Mairwen opens her eyes. She has power here. They can taste it. Bird women perch on her outstretched hands, showing her those needle teeth. Bird women crouch at her eye level on the dogwood branches, tearing at the blossoms as they long to tear at her skin. Bird women stand on the ground, surrounding her in circles and circles.
“I will give you something better than a song,” she says. “Something that will last.”
“Forever?”
“Songs last forever!”
“We love your song!”
Mairwen shakes her head, pulling painfully at the curls tangled all around her face and neck, stretched out to the dogwood branches like snarling vines. “I will give you all a piece of my hair.”
The bird women stare with their blank, black eyes. They blink together.
“A strand of hair!” one of them sings: Mair has lost track of which was the first. “Yes!” sings another. “Hair! Braided and curled for us!”
“What lovely hair she has!”
Mairwen says, “Let me go, and I will sit. I will take my hair and give it to you until each of you has your own. But free me, and let me sit.”
Several dive at her, fast enough she startles back, pulling hard at the tangles. They grab the ends of hair stuck in the trees, unwind it all with skill, unknotting and unbraiding, until Mairwen feels the last of it fall free.
She kneels with relief, surrounded by bird women darting nearer, fluffing their wings and clicking their teeth.
Tears build in her eyes as she reaches for the ax tucked into her shawl. She places it on her lap and then braids all her thick, brambled hair. Grabbing it in one hand, she lifts the blade and before she can think, saws through with five rough, hard, slices.
Twice as many tears fall onto her skirt.
The bird women laugh and cheer. One flies up into Mairwen’s face. Mair cries sadly, but the woman only licks up one fat, salty tear. “Oh!” the bird woman sings blissfully.
Another takes her place, and licks, then a third and a fourth. The fifth bird woman bites Mairwen’s cheek, and Mairwen gasps, pushing them all away.
Her hair spills across her lap, dark as cherrywood, tangled and dirty with bits of bark and even a few snow-white dogwood blossoms. “Come,” she murmurs over her sorrow-thick tongue. “For your nests or belts or charms.”
