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A quietly frantic energy buzzed through the passengers in the airplane cabin, a sleepy red-eye pumped full of the stress Christmas Eve Eve brings. Jackdawshade heaved himself out of his seat, stretching his back nice and deep and cracking both his knees. Passengers shoved their way through the aisle, all too eager to get off of the cramped plane.
Stepping into the airport was like stepping into another world. Despite it being four in the morning in fucking Missouri, it was crawling with activity and noise- a jarring shift from the irate silence of the three and a half hour flight.
He collected his bag- the smallest he could find in his closet, stuffed to bursting with only one change of clothes, a stick of deodorant, and his phone and charger- and meandered through the sterile white maze, dazedly walking past shitty cafes and sandwich shops and clothing kiosks. Walking through the revolving glass doors into the cool, blue night was a shock of relief, breaking the seal of stale air he’d been breathing all night.
Snowflakes landed on his muzzle and whiskers, and he could already feel his eyelashes freezing moments after setting paw outside. He pulled his phone out of his woefully thin jacket’s pocket and shot off a quick text- “Just landed. Omw.” The read receipt popped up immediately.
Waiting for his Uber, Jackdawshade watched his breath come out in clouds of swirling fog. He thought of himself as a dragon- breathing out burning steam, and leaving pawprints that lasted.
It was only the fourth time he’d seen snow in his memory. As a kid, he and his family lived in Minnesota. They’d been crashing with his mom’s best friend, Embernettle, after she left his dad. He had his second birthday in that city, and left when he was four. Their family moved to Arizona once they’d found their footing, and there had been two short trips to visit family in places that saw a white winter.
But living with a baker's dozen of siblings and a borderline evil mother took its toll on him, and he fled to Nevada just weeks after his eighteenth birthday. The last straw was the fire. A wildfire had started during Jackdawshade’s junior year. As it spread out from California, there was a call for evacuation.
She’d waited too long to leave, fretting over her belongings and packing and unpacking her bags. Jackdawshade had run away to evacuate with his friend Wolfpaw, but ended up trapped under a fallen bit of debris. It took just over a day for him to be found, and the entire time he thought he was going to die. If he wasn't dead already. There was talk at home of him receiving his degree posthumously. Turned out he wasn’t dead, to his siblings’ disappointment. He did lose vision in an eye and get some gnarly scars, though. He ran his paw up and down his sleeve, and the damaged skin underneath felt nothing.
His Uber pulled up and called out his name, pulling him from his thoughts. He trudged through the snow and climbed inside.
Fancy guy , he thought, casting a glance up at the driver. Heated seats.
The driver turned on some music by way of a greeting, low volume jazz that was a little grating to Jackdawshade’s ears. His phone buzzed with a call from his roommate, Rookfish.
“Hey dipshit.” The voice over the phone was crackly with static. Outside the window, the buildings were growing sparser, lightposts giving way to distant telephone poles with wires spanning the sky like spiderwebs. “I saw your note. What a goodbye, huh?”
“Sorry, man,” Jackdawshade said, rubbing his eyes. “Short notice. Had to leave right away.”
“Yeah, yeah. When will you be home? We need groceries.”
“You can go yourself. I left the car, the keys are on the hook.”
“Whatever. When are you coming back?”
Jackdawshade yawned, staring at his reflection in the dark car window. He looked exhausted- ears drooping, whiskers unkempt, and little gray strands of fur peppering the fur his muzzle and eyebrows. He was only in his early thirties- way too young for this shit. He minimized the call and googled the distance between Nevada and Missouri, holding in a groan at the result. Over fourteen hours of driving.
“I don’t know. Tomorrow night at the earliest, but probably not til later.”
“Kay. Night, good luck on whatever you’re doing. If you’re robbing a bank, I knew nothing about it.”
“Uh huh. Night, bud,” Jackdawshade said, hanging up and holding his head in his paws.
Forty minutes later, the car crunched to a stop in the church’s gravel parking lot. The sun was just starting to rise behind the trees. Everything was soaked in shades of deep blue, which was uncanny reflecting off of the deep snowdrifts that were only getting higher with the falling snow.
He thanked and tipped the driver before climbing out of the car with his tiny little suitcase, striding down the cracked and pothole-ridden road with a newfound urgency, passing perfect little identical suburban homes with sprawling lawns tucked under blankets of white.
Jackdawshade counted the mailboxes- pointlessly, he realized as he spotted the right one. It was adorned with blue and white balloons, most sunken and half deflated. "Happy birthday Ferret!" was printed across them in peeling latex letters.
Propping his hood up, Jackdawshade hurried along to the side of the house. Duffel bags and suitcases were piled up under a window, dusted with a light coating of snow. He picked them up and carried them around back to the garage, one by one. When he was done, he crept around to the door and sent another text.
Soft footsteps pattered up to the door, and a white face peeked through as it cracked open. She pushed it all the way out and pulled Jackdawshade into a deep hug, burying her face in his shoulder and trembling. Her ponytail tickled his jaw.
“You’re late,” she whispered, not letting go. He squeezed her back and untangled himself from her arms, letting her pick up the baby carrier on the floor and leading her by the hand to the garage. The sun was a little higher now, but it still hadn’t cleared the horizon. Jackdawshade could see the little critters on her pajama pants, the moon on her too-big t-shirt.
He climbed into the passenger seat as she started the car, cringing at how much noise it made. Stealth part’s over .
She backed quickly out of the driveway and pulled onto the road, not turning on her headlights until she’d rounded a corner. He watched her as they drove away- her shoulders were tense and locked, and her mouth was tightly shut. Her ear kept flicking.
Only minutes later, when the houses drifted farther and farther apart, giving way to rolling fields, did she relax. Feathersong let out a long, shuddering breath.
“How do you feel?” Jackdawshade asked, his eye still trained on her face. She shrugged, a little wildly, and cursed under her breath as the car swerved a little at the sudden movement.
“I- yeah. Good.” Her paws clenched on the steering wheel, but she couldn’t stop them from shaking. “I feel good. Or at least, I will in a few hours. Tomorrow. I don’t know, someday.”
“You’re doing the right thing,” Jackdawshade said, wishing he could offer her more. “I’m so glad you reached out. And I’m so, so sorry you needed to.”
“Can we not talk about this?” Feathersong asked, voice strained and high.
“Yeah, of course, sorry,” Jackdawshade said, breaking his gaze away from her and looking out over the empty highway. “Want some music?”
“That’d be great. Thank you.”
Jackdawshade scrolled through a playlist made by his niece, Silv. He put on a song with a nice title and let the soft noise fill the car, cushioning the sharp stony edges.
They drove in silence for three hours. Even as the night gave way to day, Feathersong kept glancing in the rearview mirror.
“Will he be getting hungry soon?” Jackdawshade asked, holding Feathersong’s little toddler Ferretkit on his lap. He was sleeping now, but he was getting fretful. Little grumbles and whines had been coming from the back of the car for the past few minutes.
“Yeah. I packed some snacks, they’re in the bag on the seat.”
“Thanks. Maybe we can stop at a diner or something for breakfast, and we can switch out. You deserve a break, I doubt you’ve slept tonight.”
Feathersong glanced over at Jackdawshade, and a wide smile spread across her face. She looked away, almost bashful.
She caught his face in the mirror, and straightened herself out.
“Sorry,” she told him with a breathy laugh. When she next spoke, her voice was tight with tears. “It’s not funny- it’s just, that’s the first nice thing someone has said to me in over a year. I just realized that.”
The words hit Jackdawshade like a punch, stealing the air from his lungs. He didn’t know what to say, so he just fed Ferretkit a little stick of celery and jingled a mouse toy in his face, looking up diners in their area with his other paw.
A realization dawned on him with horror. “ Shit. ”
“What?” Feathersong asked, alarm in every exhausted crease of her face. She twisted around so fast her seatbelt locked, but there was no car following them.
“Did you bring your phone?”
“No, no technology at all.”
Jackdawshade leaned back against the seat with a sigh, his frantic heart rate beginning to slow. “Thank Silverpelt. I didn’t think of that at all.”
“Yeah. They won’t suspect I’m with you.”
She was right about that. They hadn’t spoken one on one since high school graduation, and maybe a few dry text chains in the months following. They only saw each other at family gatherings, on the off chance they’d both make it to the same one. Feathersong was his sister in law, or at least she had been until today. Over the past few years, she and his sibling Hornetstrike had come to less and less family holidays. The commute was too far to be practical with work, they were busy with the baby, a dozen excuses that all sounded hollow now that he knew the truth.
The car pulled into a tiny parking lot and jolted into park. Feathersong leaned her head back on the seat, closing her eyes.
“I am so thankful that we never got legally married,” she said, sounding haunted. “Hornetstrike thought weddings were a scam. ‘Why should I need a piece of paper and a judge to prove that I’ll love you forever,’ they’d say. ‘Why does Silverpelt need to verify our relationship if I don’t believe in or follow her’.” They slammed the car door shut and locked it with care. “Now I don’t need to see their sorry face ever again, not in court or fighting over divorce papers.”
The bell on the door jingled as they stepped into the diner, and a friendly hostess showed them to their booth.
“What’ll it be today?” she asked, her tail flicking from side to side as she smiled brightly down at them, clutching her notepad with a picture of a sunny-side-up egg on the cover.
“Can we start with some waters?” Feathersong asked, picking up her menu.
“Chocolate milk!” Ferretkit piped up.
“And a chocolate milk please,” Jackdawshade added. The waitress left to get their drinks, and Jackdawshade flipped through the menu.
“Get anything you want,” he told her. “I got you today.”
Jackdawshade wasn’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, he was an author and a carpenter. But Feathersong had a hard few months ahead of her. Starting over in a new state, with no job set up and only as many of her possessions as would fit in the car, it was a bleak prospect. And Jackdawshade was more than willing to skip out on Rookfish’s cocoa puffs for a couple grocery trips if it meant treating Feathersong to a nice breakfast on the morning of her escape.
They ordered and ate mostly in silence. As promised, Jackdawshade took over driving when they got back out to the car. Feathersong scrolled through his phone in the passenger seat, looking at all of his playlists.
“What are these titles?” she asked with a shaky little laugh. “ Inexcusable bops ? Thursday night vibes ? Wh- half of these aren’t even words!”
“Hey, just pick one!” Jackdawshade said, his fur prickling on the back of his neck and his ears flushing hot with embarrassment. “The one I was playing earlier was ‘In My Girlboss Era’.”
“And which of you chose that title?”
“She did! Obviously!”
“Uh-huh.”
Feathersong picked a playlist and turned up the volume. “Got any games on this?”
“Yeah, there’s a folder full of ‘em. You might need to update or redownload some.”
Feathersong fiddled with the phone for a minute before handing it back to Ferretkit in his bulky carseat.
“All of his toys are still at home,” she said, turning to look out the window. Her voice shook with guilt. “I couldn’t fit them. I barely brought any food, and nothing from his nursery. He- he has a favorite stuffed animal, it’s a giant giraffe- you know, one of the prehistoric ones, still on four legs. He loved it. But it couldn’t fit in any of the bags, and I needed the car space for clothes and documents and all the shit that might be worth selling so I can even begin to get back everything I lost.”
By the end of her confession, Feathersong was crying. All morning, she had been teetering on the edge, pulling closer to and farther from the brink of tears like the ebb and flow of the tide. Jackdawshade couldn’t blame her.
Jackdawshade didn’t know what Hornetstrike had done to her. He sure as hell wasn’t going to ask.
All he knew came from a text he had gotten from an unknown number just the other day. Feathersong had introduced herself, told him she needed help. Needed to escape, and a place to crash until the dust had settled.
He’d bought a plane ticket before the conversation was over, and Ubered into Vegas to catch the flight the next night. And now he was here, in the middle of Kansas with a stranger and her son.
Well, he reflected, she wasn’t exactly a stranger. The two of them had gone to school together, and their mothers were close for a while. Feathersong was a year older than him, but their families had been friends since they were young kids.
Feathersong was always closer with Hornetstrike and their sister Ivoryjaw, and Jackdawshade always had his own little clique of followers. But he’d watched her. She was over for dinner all the time, and he listened to her stories with reverence. When he was young, he always pushed to hang out with his cool older sibling and their cool friend, but after the accident he avoided them as best he could, and Hornetstrike made no effort to reach out either.
Feathersong was there, even if she didn’t witness it. Jackdawshade was only seven. They were swimming. He’d pushed Hornetstrike off the pier, a joke gone way too far. The water was too shallow, and they cracked their head wide open on a rock. They almost drowned- Fernspark was screaming and crying about losing her baby, and Jackdawshade was confronting the reality of being a murderer at seven years old.
Jackdawshade glanced over to Feathersong. He wondered if she feared violence from him, or if she thanked him in retrospect. Revenge, way ahead of its time.
Whatever she thought, Feathersong didn’t say anything. She watched the world go by through the window, her jutted jaw breaking the illusion of peace and instead painting a picture of a woman trying to hold it together.
Hours later, the terrain around them was rocky and peaked, bathed in the bloodred light of the setting sun. Jackdawshade could hardly see for the glare in his eyes, even with the sun shield.
“What do you say we stop at a motel for the night?” he asked, yawning. “I can’t see shit, and neither of us have slept in over a day.
Feathersong glanced up in the rearview, so brief Jackdawshade almost missed it. “Okay,” she said, “but we’re leaving at five at the latest.”
“You got it,” he said, scanning the highway for exits. Half an hour later, they were pulling into a quaint but poorly maintained motel, a view of the mountains visible on the windowless side of the building.
“It’s amazing what a coat of paint can do for a motel,” he said. The bright, poppy colors made it so much more appealing, despite the dirty windows and cracked lobby door.
“One of the best investments they can make,” Feathersong agreed. “I’m going to wait in the car with Ferretkit.”
Jackdawshade checked in and took the keys to their room, pushing the door open. Evening light spilled into the empty little room, illuminating the lumpy carpet and peeling walls. Guess they used up all their paint budget on the outside. The sun reflected white off of glass framed paintings of jungles. Immediately, Jackdawshade noticed a glaring problem.
“There’s only one bed,” he told Feathersong as he opened the door and unbuckled Ferretkit from his carseat. “But I can sleep in the armchair.”
“You just slept on a plane!” Feathersong exclaimed. “I slept in an actual bed last night. You deserve it.”
“Yeah, and you’re going to be sleeping on a couch for the next two months, so savor it while you can.”
Feathersong didn’t argue. Jackdawshade could see how deflated she looked, and took her bag from her hand. “Get some rest,” he said, his voice soft.
She stepped inside and took in the room. A massive downgrade from her two-story suburban home, from what Jackdawshade could see of it from the outside. He saw himself in her, at eighteen, opening the door to his first apartment. It had mold in the corner and water stains on the ceiling. It was his first breath of freedom, but the loneliness was crushing for a long time.
Feather set up the baby rails on the sides of the bed and climbed in with Ferretkit, too exhausted to even change into sleeping clothes.
“Light on or off?” Jackdawshade asked, reaching over to the little lamp’s switch.
“On, please,” Feathersong said, wrapping Ferretkit in blankets. Silence stretched across the small room, roaring louder in Jackdawshade’s ears the longer it spanned. He could see Feathersong tossing and turning out of the corner of his eye, pulling the blanket on and pushing it off again.
Finally, Feathersong broke the quiet.
“Can you.. Come up here with me?”
His surprise must have shown on his face, because she quickly switched off the light. But it wasn’t quite dark out yet, and he could see her hugging a pillow to her chest.
“I haven’t slept alone in seven years,” she said, unlatching the baby rail. “I feel like they’re here. And I want them to go away .” Her voice broke, and she curled herself up. She wringed her tail between her paws. Jackdawshade stood and joined her without a word. Jackdawshade was pushed almost off the bed, perched on a stretch of mattress barely wide enough. He was grateful for the baby rail.
Feathersong pulled the comforter up around them and turned her back to Jackdawshade, her paw resting on Ferretkit’s back. After a while her breathing fell into a peaceful rhythm, and her shoulders relaxed for the first time all day.
Hours passed, and the shadows outside cooled from orange to a deep blue. Jackdawshade didn’t sleep- he kept his eyes trained on the window, jolting at everything that moved. A car pulled into the parking lot and he shifted the pillows to hide Feathersong’s face, but the person checked into their room without incident, and he let himself breathe again.
His phone chimed. The light from the screen was blinding after hours of straining to see in the pitch dark.
Rookfish had sent him a picture of his baby nephew Rowankit, dressed up in a truly horrible Christmas sweater. It had lights and everything. His dad, Cedarfleck, was holding him up by his underarms, and Jackdawshade’s sister Ivoryjaw was giggling out of focus in the background. Her arm was around a pretty brown cat Jackdawshade had never seen before.
Past midnight. It was officially Christmas. He looked down at Feathersong, sound asleep. What a happy holiday. Maybe there was a way to make it better for her.
The baby rail squeaked as Jackdawshade took it down and climbed quietly out of bed. The carpet was rough under his bare paws.
He slipped his shoes on, closed the curtains, and left a note on the nightstand. “Motel’s wifi went down. I need to call my roommate. Going into town for service. Call me from the office phone if you need me.”
He drove for close to forty minutes before he came to a town that had what he was looking for.
Walking into the department store reminded him of the airport- bustling and confused, too late at night to make sense. He hurried to the toy section, knowing he had a return trip ahead of him just as long as the one that had taken him there.
He scanned the aisles, walking past at a brisk pace until he saw what he was looking for.
He tucked it under his arm and bought a bag of nice coffee grounds and a bouquet of pretty pink and white flowers on his way out.
The little ragdoll giraffe smiled at him in the rearview mirror.
“Morning,” he said softly, shaking Feathersong awake. He’d been back for a few hours, and the red clock blinked ‘4:30 a.m.’ She turned over, eyelids heavy with sleep and hair a mess. It had come out of its ponytail sometime during the night, and she swept it out of her face with a clumsy paw. Jackdawshade held in a smile- he didn’t want to look like a total creep.
“Morning,’ Feathersong mumbled, sitting up and arching her back in a big stretch.
“Merry Christmas!” Jackdawshade said, putting a little reindeer antler headband on her head. “I know it’s kind of a shitty way to spend it, but I tried to make it special.”
He felt a little sheepish as he rustled through his bag and pulled out the flowers, setting them on her blanketed lap. Next were the coffee grounds on the bedside table, and finally the little giraffe.
“It’s not four feet tall, they had one but it wouldn’t fit in the car with all our stuff, so…”
Feathersong reached up and grabbed him in a big hug, catching him by surprise. Of course she was a hugger, he thought as he squeezed her back.
“Merry Christmas,” Feathersong whispered in his ear. She pulled away, holding him by the shoulders and looking into his face with a smile that made his heart skip a beat. Her expression was vulnerable and warm, and it struck him that he was doing something good. He wasn't sure how he had earned her trust, and he was terrified it would be misplaced, that he hadn't grown enough. She needed him to not fuck this up. He hoped he was the cat she needed him to be.
“Thank you so much, for all of this. It really means the world to me.”
“Yeah, of course,” Jackdawshade said with a nervous little laugh. Feathersong let go of him quickly and pulled her paws to her chest, looking away. “Sorry,” she said, “Forgot. Not big on touch.”
“Sure I am, just not when it’s Fernspark .”
Feather rolled her eyes and grinned. “By the stars. That woman is- well, I don’t know how you grew up with her.”
“Glad you’re spending Christmas in a motel instead of her house?”
She laughed, and Silverpelt, there went his heart again. While Feathersong was busy making the giraffe dance in front of Ferretkit, Jackdawshade watched her in the window’s reflection. She was pretty, and she was soft, and she was so, tooth-achingly sweet. His childhood admiration was back with a fervor, and though he knew there would never be anything between them- and frankly, he wasn’t looking for anything- he figured it couldn’t hurt to indulge for now. It’s not like he was going to say anything to her, even if they weren’t in the middle of her escape from her abusive ex.
Jackdawshade had had girlfriends before, and a couple boyfriends too. And whatever Rookfish was- a roommate he kissed sometimes when they were high. Some of his relationships were casual, some were pretty serious. There was this one girl, he was thinking about proposing to her. But she went missing one day, when the two of them were on an anniversary trip through the city. He canceled his flight home and spent every day searching for her, but eventually he had to give up. He had to get back to work so he could afford to keep the one place she knew where to find him.
Eventually, his nights of staying up by the phone paid off. It turned out, she’d fallen down a canal out on a night walk and gotten badly injured. Was in and out of consciousness for a while, and since her emergency contact was someone else, someone who didn’t know him, Jackdawshade didn’t hear about it for a couple weeks.
She’d told him that almost dying made her realize she wanted more out of her life. Those words stung Jackdawshade for a long time, burning him fresh every time they passed through his head. She was married now, with kids. They still followed each other on social media, went out for coffee and to catch up every few years. His updates were always the same.
That was the closest he ever got to true love. He wasn’t too worried about settling down just yet, or maybe ever. He didn’t need kids, though he certainly wasn’t opposed. He had a small circle of close friends, and was fine with where he was at.
So no, he wasn’t going to try anything with Feathersong. Besides- he hadn’t had a real conversation with her since high school. He’d changed since then, mellowed out and learned to slow down. It just wasn’t reasonable to look at her like she was the same cat she had been back then. Maybe she was going to be the worst roommate, and the sight of her would make him feel sick. There was just no way of knowing. Another good reason to stay quiet.
Feathersong stood up, and he turned away from the reflection to see her for real.
“Ready to go? It’s already almost five.”
She continued to speak as she stepped into the motel room’s little bathroom to change into her day clothes. Jackdawshade heard the spray of dry shampoo through the door.
Within ten minutes, both of them were all packed up and ready to go. Ferretkit was having a tantrum about not wanting to get back into the car, but Jackdawshade could see from the tension in her shoulders that Feathersong was not comfortable with the thought of staying here any longer than they had.
“Hey, little buddy,” Jackdawshade said, squatting down to Ferretkit’s level. “Do you know where we’re going?”
Ferretkit only screamed louder in response, his face fur damp and matted from all the tears.
“We’re going to Nevada . It’s an awesome place with so much cool stuff to do! We have museums there, I know you’re a prehistoric guy-” Jackdawshade reached out and patted the proto-giraffe’s head. “They have all the old animals that used to live in the area, and they’re totally different from the ones in Missouri. I can take you to one. There are models of bighorn sheep, and jackrabbits, and burrowing owls- those are little birds who dug deep into the ground to make their homes. And there are these big lizards called gila monsters, who are super cool.”
As Jackdawshade talked, Ferretkit gradually quieted down to listen, shifting his weight and swaying from paw to paw. He glanced up, and Feathersong was watching the two of them with a fond smile. One that reached her eyes.
Jackdawshade stood up and offered his paw to Ferretkit, who tentatively took it in his own. He’s so small. They walked out the door together, hand in hand, Feathersong in tow with the suitcases.
“Have you ever been to the beach?” Jackdawshade asked Ferretkit. He nodded, but didn’t say anything. Jackdawshade buckled Ferretkit into his carseat, then stepped into the driver’s side. He never stopped talking the whole time. “Well, I live in a desert. The area I live in has grass, but if you go a little further out, the entire ground is sand and rocks like a beach, except there’s not much water.”
The engine roared to life. Feathersong stepped out of the main office, having returned their key, and climbed into the car. They rolled out of the little parking lot, and were back on the interstate within minutes. Their speed climbed, and the mountains and foothills sped by faster and faster with every moment. Ferretkit was completely pacified now, staring out the window and playing with his giraffe.
If Jackdawshade was being honest, that thing kind of freaked him out. The toy was cute, but real giraffes from that era? Ugh. Their necks were just so long, and their legs looked like they couldn’t hold any weight at all.
“Did you know those things used to fight to the death by smashing their necks together until one of them broke?” Jackdawshade whispered to Feathersong. She made a face. “Did not need to know that, thanks,” she whispered back, glancing behind her. She started to speak, but the words died and a look of complete horror fell over her face.
Shit. A million worst case scenarios flashed through Jackdawshade’s head, all involving Hornetstrike. “What is it?” he urged her, pressing the gas a little harder. In the rearview, he could see a dark green car tailing them.
“That’s their best friend’s car.” Feathersong’s voice was a strained whimper. “I knew taking our only car wouldn’t be enough- they found us. They’re gonna run us off the road, they’re gonna take Ferretkit, they’ll make me come home .”
She slid down in her seat as far as she could go, squeezing her eyes shut and breathing in harsh, ragged sobs.
“What does their friend look like?” Jackdawshade slowed down to about five below the speed limit. Feathersong looked at him like he was crazy, a feral terror in her eyes. “What are you doing ?” she hissed. She looked about ready to bolt, throw herself out of the moving car.
“I’m going to make them pass me. See if the driver is Hornetstrike or their friend.”
The fear of the situation wasn’t lost on Jackdawshade. His heart was going a mile a minute, and the horrible possibilities Feathersong had expressed were playing in his head on repeat like a twisted slideshow.
Feathersong started to sit up to look, but seemed to think better of it.
“Uh. She has black fur, with some red on her face.”
After a minute or so of painfully slow driving, the green car passed with a brief honk. Jackdawshade watched out the passenger window as they flew by, speeding up and disappearing around a curve.
“Gold fur,” he told Feathersong, “and wasn’t Hornetstrike. We’re okay.”
Feathersong drew in a long, shuddering breath and sat up, pulling her legs up onto the seat and burying her face in her knees. Jackdawshade reached over and awkwardly patted her on the back, cringing even as he did so.
“I’m sorry,” she said, lifting her head and wiping her eyes with a sleeve. “I shouldn’t have gone to pieces like that. There have to be a million green cars in the world.”
“No, no, you’re fine,” Jackdawshade told her, trying to make his voice as soft and warm as possible. Something she was way better at than him. He felt like he just sounded impassive. “You have every right to be worried here, okay? What you’re doing is a really brave and really terrifying thing, and I’m totally amazed by how far you’ve made it already. So fall to pieces all you need. You’re safe now, and I’m here for you.”
For the next few miles, Jackdawshade pretended not to notice her crying in the passenger seat.
The day rolled by, and they switched out drivers at lunchtime. They decided not to stop to eat, their finances running thin. They fed Ferretkit more of his packed snacks, and Jackdawshade was grateful they’d have enough to make it home. He didn’t want to be trapped in a car with a hangry toddler for four more hours.
“How’re you feeling?” Jackdawshade asked, leaning back in the passenger seat and closing his eyes.
“Rested.” Feathersong looked more comfortable with each mile put between her and Hornetstrike. “But ready to be out of this car.”
Jackdawshade cringed a little. “I didn’t take time to clean before I left,” he warned her. “And Rookfish definitely hasn’t done anything either. He’s probably made it worse, actually.”
“I have a kid, Jackdawshade. No mess can faze me.”
“Right, right. We might.. have to clear a layer of debris off of the couch before you can lay down.”
Feathersong shot him a look. “Seriously?”
“I know! And I don’t even have the excuse of a little force of destruction running around. Unless you count Rookfish, but he’s in his late twenties, so-”
Feathersong scoffed and rolled her eyes, but a smile pulled at her cheeks. “Clearly, you need me in your life.”
“I guess so.”
He entertained the thought of her staying. It wouldn’t work, not with the current lease. But he wouldn’t mind if she stuck around. She could be the cool girl up the street again, he could babysit Ferretkit and be the fun uncle.
“Do you think you’ll like it in Nevada?”
Feathersong let out a long breath. “I’ve never been one for hot weather. I don’t know how you are either, considering..”
She reached over and picked up his arm, then dropped it. It- like much of Jackdawshade’s body- was covered in patchy fur that revealed twisted skin, rippled with burn scars. It turned out, too, that skin grafts could grow fur again eventually. The color stayed the same as its source. His pretty patterns were all out of order. On one particular patch, he’d had to get skin grafted from a donor- the fur there grew white and soft gold.
“Yeah, it took a while for me to be okay with it,” Jackdawshade admitted. “It was fine most days, but when the summer heatwaves hit, I had some trouble managing. Got heatstroke a few times, thought I’d die. Turns out you’re way more susceptible if you’ve gotten it even once before. But I eventually got used to it.”
“I can’t imagine how any of that feels,” Feathersong said with a shudder. “You say I’m strong? You went through all that when you were a kid .”
“I didn’t have any choice.”
“Neither did I.”
Late afternoon sunlight washed over Feathersong’s white fur, staining it a beautiful rose gold. The mountains and the pines carried the same rosy hue, and even the dusty, dry grass was given new life as rose hour set in.
“Oh, look at that,” Feathersong said, pointing to a sign rolling past. Welcome to Nevada . “Look at your phone. Timezone should be changing around now.”
“Only two hours left!”
“Cheers to that.”
Though his legs were aching and his back was stiff, Jackdawshade felt himself bouncing back with a renewed energy now that home was so close. “What do you think about switching out again?” he asked her. “You’ve been driving almost six hours.”
“I think I’m good, but I want you to take over once we get close. Driving in the city stresses me out.”
Jackdawshade nodded and watched the now familiar terrain go by, a rosy stained glass picture of safety and comfort. As the shadows grew and the red sunlight’s last grips shrank farther and farther away, he let himself drift into a peaceful doze.
The rest of the drive had been entirely uneventful. They switched at a quiet park in the early winter twilight, and a sense of exhausted relief passed between them as they pulled off the interstate for the final time.
Their impromptu road trip was at last brought to a close, pulling into the sprawling parking lot. Jackdawshade pulled the keys out of the ignition, and the car died with a little sputter.
“Let’s take as many bags as we can carry, and we can unpack the rest tomorrow.”
Feathersong gave him a drowsy thumbs up before dipping down to unbuckle Ferretkit. They hauled their luggage (and baby) up the stairs and down the hall to Jackdawshade’s apartment, and a growing sense of apprehension built in his gut as he fumbled with the keys and swung the door open.
The apartment was dark. No lights were on, and the watery moonlight streaming through the windows did little to fight back the shadows. Feathersong set her suitcases down by the door and meandered over to the couch. True to Jackdawshade’s word, there was a layer of papers, napkins, and a big plate strewn with shredded cheese and cracker crumbs. But Feathersong just set them carefully on the floor and climbed up, without a word of judgement.
Jackdawshade draped a fuzzy blanket over her and set a pillow by her head.
“Need anything?” he whispered, setting a glass of water on the coffee table. She opened her arms, and he leaned in for one last hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered back, holding on tight. She was firm and solid, and Jackdawshade melted into her touch.
He let go first, and she laid back on the cushions. Jackdawshade set up Ferretkit’s collapsible crib, adorned with a cozy den of blankets, pillows, and Ferretkit’s giraffe buddy, aware of Feathersong’s eyes on him all the while.
When he was done, he whispered a goodnight and left.
Jackdawshade walked down the hall, the familiar carpet a relief under his sore paws. He knocked lightly on Rookfish’s door, and his roommate only grumbled in response.
He cracked the door open, and the hallway light spilled into the room in a long stripe. Rookfish had a pillow over his face and a big bottle of aspirin on the nightstand.
“I’m home,” Jackdawshade whispered through the dark.
“I can see that.”
“We have a visitor. She’s sleeping on the couch. And she has a kid with her, too. So just- don’t be surprised when you see them in the morning.”
“Why the hell-?”
“She just needs a place to crash for a while. She’s a friend of mine from high school.”
“Okay. Whatever. As long as she contributes to rent.”
Jackdawshade privately decided to let Rookfish believe Feathersong was paying.
“Goodnight. Merry Christmas.”
Another grunt was all the response he got. Jackdawshade closed the door and finally, finally stepped into his own room.
He’d only been gone a little over two days, but he was so thoroughly exhausted it felt like a week. It was only seven p.m.- Rookfish was clearly hungover from his Christmas Eve with Cedarfleck and Ivoryjaw. Feathersong was as worn out as he was from the long drive, and it was Ferretkit’s bedtime anyway. So as weird as it felt to turn in at 7 p.m., Jackdawshade couldn’t help but lie back and drift off.
“FEATHERSONG! GET YOUR MONSTER!”
Rookfish’s shrill voice rang through the apartment. He ran through the kitchen, chased by Ferretkit with a chair leg from the set Jackdawshade was building from ikea. Rookfish hopped nimbly up onto the counter and dodged away from the weak toddler jabs. Feathersong watched from the doorway, a mug of coffee in her hands and a smile on her face.
Outside the window were signs of spring. Grass that was yellow instead of brown, and little pink flowers on the ugly plants strewn around. It had been two and a half months since their flight from Hornetstrike, and Feathersong had settled easily into Jackdawshade’s life. She was working a part time job at the drugstore, and though she confided in him that she still felt a spike of fear each time the bell jingled to announce a new customer, she seemed to like having something to do.
The apartment was still too small for three cats and a kitten, but they were making it work. Every other week, Jackdawshade and Feathersong would rotate who got the couch and who got his room. Some nights, though, when they were sore or sick or scared, they’d share the real bed like they had at the motel. It was sweet, and was never mentioned in the daylight.
The pining came in waves, an irregular and unreliable ebb and flow. Jackdawshade couldn’t be sure if it was something real, or only a projection of what he wanted for his life. In any case, she wasn’t ready for a relationship. Probably wouldn’t be for a while. So he had plenty of time to figure it out.
Jackdawshade brushed past Feathersong and scooped up Ferretkit, pulling the chair leg from his paws and setting it on the kitchen island.
“You’ve suffered enough,” he told Rookfish, stepping back so his roommate could step down from the counter.
“For what? ”
“What did he do, little guy?” Jackdawshade asked, hoisting Ferretkit up onto his shoulder. Ferretkit whispered some little kid nonsense in his ear.
“Ah, of course,” he said, nodding sagely.
“What did I do??”
Feathersong chimed in from the doorway. “You know what you did!”
Rookfish wailed and retreated to his room with a dramatic slam of the door. Ferretkit followed him out, and suddenly it was just the two of them.
Her company had become familiar to him. They’d gotten to know the new versions of each other, slowly exploring their changed relationship. Her presence felt warm, and he found himself seeking out her company more and more. Wanders through the duneside cordwalks, conversations over coffee, late night silences.
She sat down on the kitchen stool and set her coffee on the counter.
“You think he’s forgiven you for bringing me home yet?” She asked, swilling the coffee around with a little grin.
“He’ll live.” Jackdawshade sat down on the half assembled chair across from her. “He’ll get a say when he starts doing chores.”
Feathersong reached her paws across the counter, pads up. He took them in his.
“I checked their social media,” she told him. “I know I shouldn’t have, but I just had to know.”
“And? What’d you find out?”
“Well, they blocked me. And then changed their mind. I know because they disappeared from my pinned members, even though I haven’t touched that app since before I left.”
Jackdawshade laughed.
“And they had a totally public meltdown.” Feathersong groaned and hung her head. “Went through all the stages of grief, about six times over.”
“Yeah, well fuck them,” Jackdawshade said, squeezing her paws. “They had their chance.”
“A hundred of them,” Feathersong said, looking up into his face.
“They can whine and cry all they want now. They didn’t give a shit when you were there, and now they’re facing the consequences.”
Feathersong smiled, and little butterflies erupted in Jackdawshade’s gut.
“I blocked their sorry ass.”
Jackdawshade untangled his paw from hers and held it up for a high-five, which she enthusiastically gave.
“Can I ask-” he hesitated, and she looked him in the eye. “Did you leave them a note, or anything? They didn’t report you as missing.”
“Oh, I did. In hindsight, I really hate how coddling I was. I wanted to soften the blow as much as I could- I mean, I’d never see them again, so it didn’t matter, right?” Her voice was bitter. “I told them it wasn’t all their fault, that I needed to ‘find myself’ and I was sorry it didn’t work out. I’ve never been sorry. I have nothing to be sorry for.”
Her paws clenched around his, her claws pinching his paw pads. “They said all of those awful things to me. That I was worthless, just like my mother, and I would damage our kid like she ‘damaged’ me. They ruined my relationship with my half-siblings, I tried to email Violetberry the other week but she had me blocked. Who even blocks someone on email ? They withheld money I earned, on bad days even withheld food if they didn’t like something I did. All I ever did was be my own cat. Be the cat they chose to be with.”
She’d never told him the details of what Hornetstrike had done to her. All he knew was that it was bad enough for her to reach out to a near stranger for an escape. Hearing the details, even just a few of them, made him ache for her. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to live with that.
Feathersong sighed and let go of his paws. “No use regretting. I’m not going to send an angry letter, saying everything I wish I’d said. That wouldn’t do any good for anyone.”
“You’d be totally justified if you did. But yeah, wouldn’t help anything. The best revenge is to live well, and know that they’re still all alone with nobody to cook and do their laundry for them.”
Feathersong took a long sip of her coffee- the bag he’d bought her for Christmas- and leaned her head against the window. Her breath made a cloud of fog on the glass.
I promise, I will take care of you in the way you take care of everyone else, Jackdawshade vowed. As long as you live here, you will never have to be alone.
Outside, in the windowsill planter, little pink and white flowers bloomed. And for now in the fragile ecosystem of their lives, everything was okay.