Page 4 of Other Birds
Zoey heard Pigeon flap her wings impatiently as if to say Zoey probably should have thought about that before coming here. There were a lot of things Zoey probably should have thought about. Like how she was going to get groceries, for instance.
Earlier, she’d asked Frasier if there was a store within walking distance. Zoey had a car, one she dearly loved, which she’d bought last summer. But it wasn’t scheduled to be delivered to her on the island for another few weeks. Frasier had directed her to a touristy specialty market down the street. Zoey had never bought herself real groceries before. The closest she’d ever come were the potato chips and white bread she bought at a convenience store on her way home from her after-school job at Kello’s. Potato chip sandwiches were one of the few things she remembered her mother making for her. Her mother had had more money than she’d known what to do with in her adult life, but she’d always eaten like she was still a starving girl, lost on a boat trying to make her way to America. Zoey’s father had been the very opposite of hands-on when it had come to raising Zoey after her mother died, but it now boggled Zoey’s mind the basic things that supernaturally appeared when you lived with other people—things like salt and butter and soap and toilet paper. Zoey had been adding new things to her list all evening.
She went to the refrigerator to look inside again at the neat rows of Snapple and Orangina and the blocks of cheese and the softball-sized tomatoes she’d bought earlier. It was like looking in a mirror after a dramatic haircut and not quite recognizing herself. Who wasthis person with hard cheese in her pink refrigerator? When she opened the door, a shaft of bright light arced into the darkness of the condo. The small bottles of Orangina rattled but didn’t mask the heavythumpthat suddenly came from one of the units below.
Startled, Zoey closed the door and turned. She went back to the balcony and saw that Mac, a large redheaded man, had opened his door and was looking out into the garden, as if he’d heard the sound, too.
Something had just happened, something strange.
It left a quiet, ghostly feeling around them.
Zoey had spent too much of her life as an outsider to ever think of running to anyone when she was afraid. It wasn’t that she was particularly brave, she just didn’t want the disappointment of being turned away. But right now she felt a painful longing for something she couldn’t name. She thought wildly of texting her dad, but he hadn’t responded to her last text, when she’d told him her plane had arrived safely in Charleston.
She watched Mac step back inside and shut his patio doors, seemingly satisfied that nothing was amiss.
Before Zoey closed her own balcony doors and locked them, her eyes fell on Lucy Lime’s unit. The ember of a cigarette was still glowing near the glass doors in the dark, as if Lucy was watching everything.
And Zoey had the oddest feeling that Lucy knew exactly what had just happened.
Chapter Two
Pigeon was knocking against the doors.
It felt like only minutes since Zoey had finally managed to fall asleep. She tried ignoring Pigeon, but that didn’t work. If anything, the knocking got louder. She finally got out of bed and walked across the dark studio. As soon as she opened the curtained doors, morning sunlight flooded in, making her squint. She felt Pigeon zip by her.
The dellawisps were squawking in the garden, obviously upset about something. It sounded like a rain forest down there. No wonder her stupid bird wanted out. Pigeon was spectacularly incapable of minding her own business.
There were several voices below, almost drowned out by the dellawisps. Zoey was turning to go back to bed when she heard the crackle of a police radio add itself to the chatter, and that made her stop.
Police?
She stepped onto the balcony and looked down to see two officers talking to Frasier on Lizbeth Lime’s patio. Dellawisps were flying around them. A few of the birds had landed on Frasier’s shoulders. One was perched on his head like a fancy hat.
A clanking sound drew Zoey’s attention, and she turned to see a man and a woman guiding an empty gurney through the garden. Frasier and the police officers stepped aside to let them enter Lizbeth’s condo. The attendants looked relieved to be going inside, as it meant an escape from the cadre of little birds chasing them.
Zoey’s brows shot up with alarm.
What had happened to Lizbeth Lime?
She immediately went down the balcony steps, as if she hadn’t just accused Pigeon of being nosy.
Zoey reached the bottom of the steps and edged around the garden to Lizbeth Lime’s patio. She chewed at a hangnail on her thumb while she waited for Frasier.
She was still in her shorts and T-shirt from last night. She’d been sleeping in her clothes since she was a child, when she hadn’t truly understood what it had meant when her mother died. Her father had made it seem like Paloma had left on purpose in a fit of irresponsibility, as if she’d simply decided to go on a sudden vacation. Zoey began sleeping in her clothes so she would be ready to leave her father’s house at a moment’s notice when her mother finally returned. After her father remarried a year later, Zoey’s stepmother would sometimes comment about this habit of Zoey’s, which she found untidy—her own two tiny children from a previous marriage slept in very nice sleep things, after all. Zoey’s father knew exactly why Zoey did it, but he would always shrug as if he didn’t becausehe didn’t like saying Paloma’s name, and he knew his new wife liked it even less.
Frasier said a final word to the police officers and stepped off Lizbeth Lime’s patio. He walked right past Zoey as if he hadn’t seen her.
“Frasier?” she said, and he turned. “What happened?”
He reached out and patted her arm with a strong, bony hand. The force of it set her off balance a little. He was stronger than he looked. “Lizbeth died last night. But it’s nothing you need to worry about.”
Excepting her mother, Zoey had never known anyone who had died. Then again, she hadn’t really known Lizbeth. She had only last night resolved to get to know her new neighbors, so it felt like she’d missed a train to somewhere important. “How?”
“She fell off a stepladder and a bookcase landed on her.”
Wait, Zoey knew when it happened. She knewexactlywhen it happened. “I heard something last night!” she said. “A thump.”
He nodded. “Mac said the same thing.”
