The Aviary (11 page)

Elliot, age 5 mos. Not pictured
.

They all were, at that moment, completely alive to
Clara’s eyes and deeply familiar. It took a few moments for the crashing realization that they were all … dead.

Shaking with feeling, she read on. They were taken—all of them, not just Elliot—along with “Nelly Smith, age 22, nanny.” On November 7, 1855.

Also missing—coins, jewelry, cash, and silver.

“Woodruff Booth?” Clara shook her head and tried to remember if she’d heard the name before. She tucked the poster under her arm and left the room, careful to shut the door firmly. Clara could only hope that Daphne had seen her signal. This picture of the living Glendoveers was too extraordinary to keep to herself.

Into the downstairs closet she went, through the trapdoor to the gray and musty room below. She nearly pounced on poor Daphne when she approached the back stairs.

“Aah …,” groaned Daphne, clasping her own throat. “Clara, you frightened me out of my skin!”

“Daphne, you angel. Come quickly, inside!”

Daphne followed. “Is someone at home?”

“Not yet,” Clara said. “But I can’t have you upstairs without knowing precisely when my mother is due back. We’ll be safe down here.”

“You look so anxious.”

“Yes, I’m a bit beside myself right now. Thank goodness you are here.” She placed the poster in Daphne’s hands and watched her unroll it.

“Well, I’ll be …,” she murmured.

Clara watched her friend’s lips move silently as she read.

“Don’t you see, Daphne? The children were kidnapped as part of a robbery. How anyone could say the Glendoveers had a hand in it is beyond me.”

Daphne nodded, never taking her gaze from the children’s faces. “Awful,” she said. “Harebrained Lockhaven gossips …”

“It is hard to look away, isn’t it?” Clara asked. “My heart aches for them.”

“Of course,” Daphne said. “Wouldn’t you give anything to have known them? And what do you make of this Woodruff Booth?”

Clara took the poster back and examined it. “I know. A twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward!”

“It’s a hefty sum. I think he’s worth investigating, don’t you?”

“Yes, but I have no idea how,” admitted Clara.

“Neither do I. Maybe in an old newspaper? There has to be a way to—”

The sound of footsteps above made both girls hush.

“Oh!” breathed Clara. “Thank goodness we’re down here. But whoever it is will be looking for me. I must go.”

“Listen,” said Daphne, “I’ll leave anything I find out
about the Glendoveers or Mr. Woodruff Booth under the door here. So do check every day, won’t you?”

Clara agreed. “I’m going up to distract whoever is there. Wait to leave until you hear some stamping on the floor. I don’t want you running into anyone outdoors.”

“Yes, yes. Be careful,” Daphne replied.

Both girls waved silently to each other, and Clara climbed her way back into the dark.

Clara had no opportunity to invite Daphne for the next week. Still, she checked the boiler room door for messages from her friend every day. At last, on a Friday, she was delighted to find a thick envelope, a little battered at the edges from the push under the door.

Clara hugged the letter to her chest. “I knew it!” she said. There could be no doubt now that the Glendoveers
had been smeared. How Clara yearned to speak to Miss Lentham herself. And now Daphne was going to correspond with the actual Woodruff Booth? Well, if anyone should do it, it should be Daphne, though Clara felt a stab of envy nonetheless.

After stashing Daphne’s note with Mrs. Glendoveer’s embroidered graveyard scene, Clara rested her arms on the bureau’s top and gazed into Citrine’s cage.

“Citrine, do you ever wish that you could fly? Freely, I mean.”

The bird hopped to the edge of the cage. “Tsip-tsip!”

“I think it’s time we remove the bandage and see what you can do.”

Clara unhinged the top of the cage and lifted Citrine onto her bed. She unwrapped her gauze and cupped her hands around the bird’s body.

“Careful now,” she said. “Let’s see if you can move the wing first.”

Citrine seemed cautious and shrugged unevenly. When she attempted to flutter, one wing moved more fluidly than the other.

“At least there’s some movement,” said Clara. “That’s a good sign. Mustn’t try too hard, though.” When she reached for the bird to return her to the cage, however, Citrine quickly hopped out of reach.

Clara understood. Without speaking, she watched as Citrine shook herself all over like a wet puppy, trying to get the injured wing to move. Her feathers fanned and ruffled as she hopped to the edge of the bed and back.

She wants to be healed so badly
, thought Clara. But it seemed obvious that the bird was not ready to fly. After what must have been an exhausting effort, Citrine stopped and tucked her head beneath her wing. Clara imagined that this was Citrine’s equivalent of a good cry.

“Citrine, sweet, would it help to tell you that I sympathize?”

Still, the bird would not look up.

“What if I brought you some biscuit?”

“Tsip-tsip!” was her muffled reply.

“Stay, then, and I’ll fetch it for you.” Clara lifted the bird back into the cage but did not attach the top. She was halfway down the hall when she heard something like the soft clapping of chalkboard erasers.

“Tsip-tsip! Tsip-tsip!”

Streaking past in a flurry of foam green was a most ecstatic honeycreeper.

“Tsip-tsip!”

Clara clapped her hands as Citrine zipped up and down the hall, then lighted on the lip of a hanging lamp.

“Citrine! You excellent bird!”

Citrine cocked a shining eye at Clara and—“Tsip-tsip!”—ahead she flew to the kitchen.

Now Clara began to feel uneasy. How was she ever to lure Citrine back to her cage? And if her mother should find the bird flying free, what would she have to say?

“Citrine? Citrine?” Clara tried to sound as sweet and
reasonable as she could. Luckily, neither her mother nor Ruby was in the kitchen. “Where are you, please?”

Clara investigated the ceiling, the curtain rods, anywhere a bird might perch. Was the door to the backyard firmly shut? She ran to rattle the knob but was distracted by a distinct, yet feeble, hammering sound.

T-t-t-t-t-t-t-t! T-t-t-t-t-t!

There, on the white biscuit tin, perched Citrine. She was knocking the lid with her beak like a woodpecker.

Clara had to laugh. “What? That didn’t take you long to find.”

The bird persisted until Clara lifted the lid and put half a biscuit out on the counter. There, Citrine proceeded to peck voraciously at the edge of it.

“I’ll have one too,” Clara said. “We’ll celebrate together.”

In the meantime, Clara’s mother entered the kitchen bearing a wicker basket full of laundry.

“Uh-oh,” Clara said.

“Uh-oh, indeed. What is the bird doing out of the cage?”

“She can fly, Mama.”

“That’s good news. But I don’t think it’s wise to have her flitting about. What if she were to find an open window?”

“Truthfully? I think that if she found an open window, I could easily lure her back with the sweet shortbread. She’s mad for it. Look.”

Her mother drew closer and watched as Citrine finished up the last crumbs. Clara held out her hand, and the bird hopped on.

“We have an understanding,” said Clara. “Isn’t it remarkable?”

Her mother chuckled. “You do have a way with her.”

“I’ll put her back now, so you won’t be nervous.”

“Thank you for that. But before you go, I’d like to ask you something.” She dug into the laundry basket and produced a small ivory silk stocking. “Where did you get this? I found it in your pocket.”

Clara stammered and was about to say she found it upstairs, but the bird in her hands trembled so violently that even Harriet was dismayed. Citrine stretched her neck and chanted her
tsips
so shrilly that Clara wanted to cover her ears.

“Perhaps Citrine wasn’t ready for all that exertion,” said her mother, dropping the sock back into the basket. “She seems distressed.”

As suddenly as she started, Citrine stopped.

“You’re right, Mama. I’ll put her back.”

“But first, Clara, what about the stocking?”

Clara thought quickly. “I was hoping you would tell me,” she said. The look on her mother’s face showed that she was not prepared with an answer.

“I want to know where
you
found it.”

“In Mrs. Glendoveer’s room. I sometimes go there
and sit at my old desk. We spent so much time together there.”

Her mother pulled in her chin. “I never saw such a thing in her room. Are you sure?”

“Where else would I find it?” Clara asked. She waited while her mother considered.

“I suppose it’s an antique of some sort,” she said at last. “It’s no matter, then.”

“I’ll take Citrine now,” Clara said. As she walked away, she marveled at how easily she could fib to her mother. Only a few months before, she would have been mortified at the thought.

Clara held Citrine to eye level. “Do you think I’m a bad girl?”

“Tsip!”

“No?”

“Tsip!”

“I think you idealize me, Citrine. I hardly know who I am at times.” At this, a cloud overtook Clara, and she felt horribly guilty.

She set the bird back in her elaborate cage and fastened down the dome. Citrine fluttered up to her swing for the first time. She lifted her tail up and down, shifting her weight until the swing began to move.

“Tsip! Tsip! Tsip! Tsip!”

It was a charming diversion, and Clara couldn’t help but feel lighter.

“You’re such a pretty clown, aren’t you?”

“Tsip-tsip!” cried Citrine.

If only all the other birds were this delightful
, thought Clara. And then, despite her best intentions, her thoughts turned toward tomorrow and the hope that Ruby and her mother would find some business to take them out of the house in the morning.