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I slept at the feet of Boot and Sack. My one small bed went longways across the end of their big one. If I turned my head in the night and the moon was shining through, I could see the hill of Boot’s feet beside my face. Sack’s feet I couldn’t see but I knew they were there–no shoes, tipped-over and sleeping. Every night Sack pulled my blankets tight around me, pressing me down. “Lie still, Hester, not a peep from you, not a wriggle.” Every night I lay on my back looking up through the dark at the grey paint cloud, at its cracks in the shapes of wings, and the white curtain sometimes blowing.
Cat was there and together we’d wait for the bird dream. Cat’s bird dream was hiding in the long grass, a fast chase and a jump. In my bird dream everything was white without walls. Bird sang and flew and so did I. Then bird became many birds. Every part of me moved with the many birds–my fingers, hair, and toes all swirled and twirled in bird circles. Which was me and which was bird?
A secret has no sound; it lives in your darkest corner where it sits and waits.
Sometimes it gives a jump or a wriggle but mostly it waits like the spider waits for the fly. A secret grows thick like the ball of web the spider weaves around the fly when he makes the trap. Fly can’t breathe or smell in there–his world sticks against his face, small as his own eyes.