Swoosh.

Snick.

Swoosh.

Snick.

Squeeze.

He’d clicked the blade firmly into place, but squeezed the handle so hard that he thought he might draw blood anyway. He forced himself to relax his grip, his right hand throbbing in time to the beat of his heart.

“Danny? Danny, are you—” Her words cut off, chipped away by the cough that was slowly killing her.

“Coming, Ma,” Dan called, and slipped the switchblade into the back pocket of his jeans. He ducked through the window, leaving the fire escape and crisp October night behind him. The inside of the apartment was warm by comparison, but Seanna Mangan shivered under the quilt wrapped around her shoulders.

“You’re home,” she said when her coughing subsided.

Dan nodded, looking anywhere but at her. If he looked at her, he’d see the fresh bruises. And he’d have to hide the fact that he’d seen the fresh bruises, because if she knew he knew, they’d have to talk about them. And if she said it out loud, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from doing something about it. And he wouldn’t be any better at covering up that than his mother was at covering up the bruises.

“Sit,” she commanded, managing an entire word without the cough resuming.

It wouldn’t last.

It never did.

But he sat, careful not to jostle her. As he tucked the quilt more securely around her shoulders, he inadvertently brushed one of the new light green stains on her cheek. Seanna flinched, and then they both froze. Dan opened his mouth without knowing what he was going to say, but knowing that he had to say something. It wasn’t right, the way Leonard treated her. It wasn’t ever right to hit anyone, let alone someone you were supposed to love.

“Ma,” he started, but it seemed that he couldn’t manage more than a single word, either. The words stuck in his throat, his thoughts left unarticulated. There were so many things he’d left unsaid. How much he loved her. How much he missed his dad, too. How much he hated what his stepfather had done to them. How much he was going to miss her when—

The last thought was one thought too far, and he had to backtrack. Anger. Anger was easier than pain. And Leonard made it so very easy to be angry.

Angry at the way Leonard had swooped in, pretending to love his mother, when what he really wanted was his very own family to control. Angry at the way he’d eroded their connections to the outside world until there was no one to go to for help. Most of all, angry at the way he’d been unable to prevent Leonard’s abuse of his mother.

The knife in his back pocket burned.

A heavy tread echoed down the outside hallway. Dan schooled his face to be completely blank and knew that his mother would do the same. To do anything else would be to let Leonard win.

One word.

One word from Leonard would be all it took, Dan knew.

One word and Dan would give the older man a mark to match the one Seanna bore.

The knife burned.

But Leonard stumbled past Dan and Seanna, ignoring them other than to mutter a curse in their general direction. Dan didn’t want to let out a silent sigh of relief when the bedroom door slammed shut, but he couldn’t stop himself, either.

“Sleep on the couch tonight, Ma,” Dan suggested, unable to stomach the idea of Seanna having to share a bed with a man who had no compunction about beating her only hours earlier. If it meant that Dan slept on the floor, or even out on the fire escape, that was fine with him.

Seanna bit her bottom lip and Dan worried that she’d argue with him, but instead she nodded tiredly and handed him the blanket she’d used to try to keep herself from shivering all day. “Here,” she offered him a pillow as well.

“Nah.” Dan shook his head and shoved his hands in his front pockets. “I’m going to sit outside for a bit. Get some fresh air.” They both grinned at the idea of the air in their neighbourhood ever being described as “fresh”. And then Seanna doubled over, a fit of coughing racking her until Dan was convinced that there would be nothing left of her when it passed.

“Ma!” Putting his arm around her shoulders, he supported her until the fit subsided. She trembled, though a faint sheen of sweat covered her.

“I’m okay,” she whispered, but Dan knew it wasn’t true. She closed her eyes, exhausted from the toll on her body, and within only a few minutes Dan could feel her drop off to sleep. He stayed, though. Keeping his arm around her, he waited until her breathing settled into a deep, rhythmic pattern and ignored the rattling in her lungs. When Leonard stumbled out of the bedroom and lurched down the short hall to the bathroom, Dan tensed. All he had to suffer through, however, was the sound of Leonard recycling the copious amounts of alcohol he’d consumed throughout the day. Leonard emerged from the washroom and eyed Dan and Seanna with a bleary stare before utterly dismissing them and retreating to the apartment’s only bedroom.

And somehow, the utter dismissal was worse than the scorn, the yelling, and the beatings. Rage, always ready, rose in him and he couldn’t sit still a second longer. Leaving Seanna tucked under the quilt, he made his silent way to the fire escape. The ancient steel groaned and complained but held his weight. “That’s right,” Dan muttered, tempted to aim a vicious kick at the decrepit metal. “I’m here. Deal with it.”

Because, for once, it would be satisfying if someone had to jump because he said so. Dan squashed the thought almost as quickly as he’d had it. He didn’t actually want to control anyone else. He was just tired of dancing to the whims of other people. Why couldn’t everyone just leave him alone? Leonard, Luke, the school counsellor…

A bird alighted on the railing next to him. “Not you, too,” Dan muttered. The tiny red bird stared back at him and settled itself more securely. Dan rolled his eyes. It was dark. It was New York City. Why on earth was an undersized bird out so late, and more importantly, why was it bothering him?

The bird stared boldly at him, and then lunged to peck at his hand. Dan jerked away, but not before the bird had drawn blood. “Jerk,” he muttered, and the bird ruffled its feathers. Dan lifted his hand to shoo it away, but before he could take a swipe at the bird, it was joined by two more birds of the same size and colouring.

“No, really,” Dan muttered, sucking at the wound the bird had inflicted. “Feel free to invite your friends over. Plenty of room,” he scoffed, waving his arm to encompass the tiny fire escape. As he dropped his arm back to his side, another three birds landed on the railing. And then another two. And then four.

Dan stopped counting as a swarm of the birds appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. When the railing was completely lined with the small birds, the newest arrivals took to the grated metal “floor”, and Dan inched back toward the corner. They were only birds, he told himself. They were tiny. Something in him, though, recoiled at the idea of contact with them.

He didn’t know how he knew, but he just knew that the one bird staring directly at him was the one who had arrived first. The one who had pecked him. It ruffled its feathers and continued to stare at him even as it left its place.

The one time he wanted it to burn, it didn’t. Dan had to fumble to find his knife and struggle to press the button that would snick it open. The bird landed beside him, still staring. Dan brandished the knife, but the bird remained unruffled. Slowly, deliberately, the bird gave his hand, the one that held the knife, a sharp stab with its beak and Dan dropped the knife. It bounced once on the grated floor and Dan’s heart stopped. Maybe it wouldn’t fall, he thought. Maybe it would just land. The birds would fly away eventually and he’d be able to retrieve it.

Instead, the birds moved as one and swarmed the weapon. The knife clattered to the ground three storeys down.

He hated the knife, but he hated being without it even more.

Unnerved, he pressed his back to the apartment building wall. The original bird stared at him with much the same expression he’d seen on his school counsellor’s face. Assessing. Dan stared back, terrified and angry. The bird gave his hand one more sharp peck that was more insulting than painful, and then flew straight through the window Dan had left open when he’d sought the privacy of the fire escape. And before he could even blink, every last one of the other birds followed the leader, a red ribbon flowing into the apartment.

Switchblade forgotten, Dan scrambled after the birds. His mother was in the apartment! He tripped on the windowsill and landed in a heap on the scarred linoleum floor. The pain of the harsh landing didn’t register. All that mattered was keeping the hell birds away from his mother.

But when he’d regained his footing, the kitchen and living room were free of red birds. Had he imagined them? Dan rubbed his eyes. When he opened them, he saw that Seanna was awake and staring at the bedroom door.

She pointed, her hand trembling.

Not a dream, then.

Dan heard a grunt, and then a thump, as if Leonard had fallen out of bed. A hoarse cry. And then nothing. Until…

A sharp cry, quickly stifled, repeated almost immediately. And again. Louder. Dan and Seanna stared at each other, eyes wide. The bedroom door closed with a disjointed thump, as if the birds had thrown their collective weight at it but hadn’t been completely in sync. With the closing of the door, the sound dropped to almost nothing, even though the apartment had never exhibited any noise-reducing capabilities.

Dan looked away from the closed door. “Did you just see—” He shook his head. It couldn’t have happened. It was physically impossible for those birds, however intelligent, to have done what he was attributing to them. Seanna shivered and turned away. Gathering the blanket around her shoulders, she resumed her position on the couch with wooden movements. Dan joined her, all thoughts of sleeping on the fire escape banished. Aside from the occasional muffled sound from the bedroom, the apartment descended into an eerie silence. Without speaking, Dan and Seanna sat side by side on the couch with no thought of sleeping.

When the sun fought its way through the dingy window Dan shook off the blanket and glanced at his mother. Still wide awake, Seanna nodded, and he helped her walk to the bedroom door. He hesitated, his hand poised above the door knob. Before he could steel himself to opening the door, Seanna slipped her hand beneath his and turned the knob. The door swung open, aided by a breeze coming from the bedroom window.

On the bed lay a pile of ashes and a single red feather.

They stared at the pile of ashes a full minute before a particularly strong gust of wind swept through the room, scattering the dust and flinging the majority of it out the window.

The room immediately felt brighter, lighter.

Clean.

Seanna Mangan picked up the feather, studied it for a moment, and then handed it to Dan. He ran his finger along the edge, watching the barbs fold down, and then float back into place. Without thinking, he placed the feather in the back pocket of his jeans, as if it belonged there.

Seanna coughed, breaking the perfect silence, breaking the momentary utopia. Still, Dan thought, closing the window, he wouldn’t complain. He’d never complain, he resolved, and the feather in his back pocket burned.