The Blood of Caged Birds (Mortalsong Book 1) Read online

  “Smile, your smile is so beautiful,” he says, and I think that he does not like what I’ve said.

  “Please!” I try to remain stern, but, nevertheless, a smile erupts on my lips.

  “There we go. No more talk of practicality. I’ll be damned before I let you end up in such a boring life.”

  “As if you have a say in it?” I arch a brow. “We have just met.”

  “I’ll make it my say.”

  Overhead, the clock gongs. Usually, I am sleeping at this hour. I laugh as he watches me so keenly. I laugh because I have my sister back, and now I know I am not incapable of attraction. Rather, I have entered into some divine dream with him at its center.

  “Listen.” My nerves tingle, and the world spins as I say it. “My sister and I are playing a game. It was said that whoever kisses a man first…wins.”

  His smile broadens, and his brows raise.

  “Will you…kiss me?” My stomach is fluttering, making me almost nauseous.

  “I shouldn’t,” he utters, playing at chivalry. “We’ve only just met.”

  Though, as he says this, his eyes are riveting, perplexing, and darkly passionate. He wants it just as much as I do. I know what a man wants when he looks this way.

  “Please, it would be doing me a favor. I do not want to think of my sister kissing that abhorrent man Beauchard.”

  I try to play it off as if this were nothing. As if kissing him will give me no feeling whatsoever.

  “Well, if it’s to save your sister,” he reasons in amusement. “But, you kiss me.”

  My brows furrow, but I give my assent with a small, confused nod.

  I lean forward slowly, and he watches me with heavy lids. I shuffle until his skin presses against my cheek, and then I do it. I kiss him. Just enough to feel a slight flesh to flesh. Then I reel back, feeling lightheaded and seeing little stars pop around my head in a halo of vertigo.

  “Was that your so-called kiss?” he whispers.

  I nod unable to meet his gaze, not looking for anything more. Though I want it. I want to lurch back and fall into his embrace, to kiss him deeply and feel it all.

  “I just wanted to be able to say I did it. And now I have.” I cannot look at him now. The ache within me is too great.

  “Yes, so you did,” he agrees. “We should go. I think someone is looking for you.”

  I look back to see my mother glaring at me. I worry that she’s seen our kiss. If she has, there is no hope for us.

  “Find me later?” he asks.

  “I will.”

  Whatever it takes, I will.

  Benjamin

  I don’t see her again. When Father asks me to recount what we spoke of, I offer him a shrug. Nothing more.

  We are seated in the carriage that will take us home to Marseille. Alphonse slouches in his seat, a petulant expression rotting his face. When he catches my eye, I smirk at him.

  “What the fuck do you want?” I ask him.

  He blows out a hot breath and wipes his face. “Just wondering if you scared the poor girl, that is all. Just wondering if you managed yourself properly.”

  “I managed myself perfectly,” I jab. “Actually, I think she liked me quite well.”

  Alphonse grimaces darkly. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”

  I ignore him and cross my arms. The waistcoat bunches at my elbows and feels tight across my back. I wrestle the buttons and slam the damned creation to the carriage floor; loosen the ruffles at my neck. I want to be home in my loose white shirt and breeches, informal and careless. I am not built for stuffy French fashion.

  “Jealous?” I ask him.

  Alphonse glares at me. “I could not be jealous of you if I tried.”

  I laugh.

  “Will the both of you shut up?” Father rounds on us.

  His head is tilted back, and he is attempting to rest. Darkness has covered us. The hour is late. We won’t reach home until sunrise. This event has been a nice reprieve from the work I have undertaken. I am piecing together an entire nautical atlas for Father, an atlas that covers all of France and surrounding territories. It is tedious work. We will make copies of it and send it to Versailles.

  “If you do this…you may well make yourself a fortune of your own,” Father told me when I offered the idea to him. “But you will do it yourself. Alone.”

  When Alphonse discovered my plans, he began his own project. Something similar. He cannot be brought to do much for himself. He never speaks of his goals or plans. I am convinced he takes mine on as his own.

  He spoke of nothing but the angelic Claire before we had arrived. His nuzzling comments about her annoyed me. He had said that he met her before on some social interaction.

  When he saw her tonight, he practically pissed himself, and instead, he went for the younger.

  Giselle. I feel my body ache when I think of her again, and I tilt my head back on the seat. When she came down the marble steps into the hall I watched her. I could not take my eyes away from her. It was as if she glowed for me. I have never been so drawn to a woman before. The thought of Alphonse taking her into his hold draws fire to my blood.

  There is anxiousness waiting for me when I think of not seeing her again. I must. I imagine her lips, so gentle and soft. Her skin. Her naïve doe eyes. I wanted to unravel her hair and wrap myself in it, breathe the scent of her in.

  “I wonder what she would think of you if she knew you could offer her nothing. Girls like that?” Alphonse sighs. “All they want are men with gold-lined pockets.”

  I try to ignore him. He’s baiting me. Maybe it is my downfall, but I cannot resist.

  “I wonder what Claire would think of you…” I pause, “Oh wait. You didn’t even have the balls to talk to her.”

  “What in God’s name? Shut up! Is it so hard to be silent?” Father sprays us with spittle, and he settles himself again, shaking his head as if he is disgraced with us. “Alphonse, leave him alone. Benjamin, let things go.”

  We glance at one another, and Alphonse rolls his face away towards the window.

  Mirth rattles within me. I want to go back to the Bonteque Maison and talk with her, simply talk. If I were one to imagine myself having a soul, I might think that we had known one another before. I am tired at this thought and lean against the doorframe. To hell with souls and gods. There is so much more out there to know. Alphonse will never understand that.

  Now I will focus. I will zero in upon the work I have to finish. Now, I have so much to work toward.

  ____________

  We live in a cottage on the hillside. It is somewhat of an ancient chateau, with its five bedrooms, a large study, salon, and dining hall. The floors are all wet stone. It smells of the sea here in Marseille, brine and piss comingled. We can see the bobbing sails from our windows, and this gives me a sense of security. These ships are my father’s and at least half will someday be mine.

  In truth, they should all be mine. I have accompanied father on far more expeditions than Alphonse.

  I go to the study the morning of our return. Everything is as I left it. The vast canvases are lined and spaced to the degree. I have yet to paint in colors and label a few small areas of topical relevance, but the majority of this map is finished. I find a sense of pride in doing my work, drawing in the lines meticulously, making sure the charts are up to date and will serve any navigator well.

  I work at finishing this page in my sea-atlas. I spend hours doing so but I am distracted. Giselle continues to probe my mind. I toss my quill aside and take out some parchment. I will write her.

  “Ben.” Father enters through the great doors, and there is a gust of air. He comes to stand before the desk that I am seated at.

  “What are you still doing in here? Have you slept or eaten?”

  “I am not hungry,” I tell him. “I was just finishing up.”

  He nods and proceeds to the real reason he has come. “I believe I was too hard on your before,” he explains. “I treat you differently
than Alphonse, and that is not right of me. I have higher expectations of you because I know you can meet them.”

  I look at him. I don’t know what he wants from me, but he seems a bit nervous, as if something is prodding him onwards.

  “I want you to pursue that girl.”

  “What?” I feel myself jerk when he says this.

  He lays a few fingers on the map and traces along the lines of a current.

  “I think that if you want her then do what you must to get her. I never had a father to tell me to reach out and take the things I wanted. I may as well tell you,” he grumbles. “If I were any kind of father, I’d teach you to go after your passions.”

  I grow slack in my chair. It is the strangest conversation I have had with my father. He is not a sentimental man, and I wonder if he has now reached his maximum.

  “You want me…” I trail off in shock. “You want me to do what I must to get her?”

  “Marry her, fuck her, keep her as a mistress,” he explains stiffly. “Whatever suits your tastes boy. Just do it.”

  I shake my head. “Her father wouldn’t allow a marriage between our families. They would never let her to marry someone that looks like me and you know it.”

  Father shifts his stance and looks at me as if none of it matters. “The world is changing. You never know.”

  But it is not so simple. I can most likely bet upon her mother hating the prospect of me as a son by law. I give my father a sardonic smile. What does he know about women? He is as dry as a bone in that regard. If he visited the local brothels, I would think I would know. I can only know that he had two liaisons. One for Alphonse, and then a year later, me. Did he love these mothers of ours?

  “I doubt it will ever change that much.”

  The shadows beneath his tired eyes brighten for a bit. He faces me fully, nodding as if he is understanding his own thoughts as they come.

  “There are always ways to get what you want,” he speaks, and his voice groans against the dust-ridden rafters of the study.

  “I’m not a fool father.” I am getting irritated. “What is it?”

  “Be smart son. What do both of our families have in common?”

  His austerity is grating. I exhale slowly.

  “Trade? Seafaring?” I fling a hand out testily.

  “How do you infiltrate a family whose father is constantly at sea?” he continues, walking towards the window.

  He is brainstorming, and I can hear in his tone that he already has an idea. Why would he care about my relations with Giselle? I look at my charts, the extensive work I have done. Giselle’s father has purchased them from us occasionally.

  “Benjamin,” he growls. “We own the seas. All traders, all voyagers, all naval ships, even the King himself. Anyone with a hint of predilection for the damnable ocean—they require us.” He sniffs then and adds, “or perhaps, they do not even know that we have something they need.”

  “I thought you did not want to sell any of your so called treasure maps?”

  “No,” he barks. “Not talking about those. I am talking about the power of suggestion.”

  Father walks the room so that he is now standing right before me.

  “Her father has yet to forge ties along the coast of the Africa’s. The good Monsieur could be making a mass of wealth if he would only entertain a new route.” Now a smile is twisting his face. “Don’t you think?”

  I come to understand him. “I’ll send him a message straight away.”

  _____________

  A café was built around four years ago in the town center of Marseille. It is a hovel for merchants, travelers, and deckhands. When I lose my momentum, I walk the shadowed narrow streets through the city, past the structures for new buildings, churches, and hotels for this very café.

  The sea air lightens my senses. I can see the water on the skyline, always rolling in new ships and carrying new products on its tide. Our world is seeing growth beyond imagination because of people in faraway countries, people with unfamiliar cultures and ways of life. I cannot imagine it all and my mind pulses because I want to. I should just go. Leave the stagnancy of my father’s house and begin my own life.

  Before her, I had everything planned. My goal was to make a small sum off of the atlas to buy one of my father’s trade ships then establish myself as a merchant. I would find people who wanted to make ties across the ocean. In the West Indies, the New World, India…even the Africa’s if it suited them. I would go anywhere. Make my own profits.

  Now, it’s not so simple.

  It’s like there is a line that is pulling me back to her. I can’t help but wonder if she’ll understand this need I have to explore the world. Will she want to stay here? Will I have to buy her a Maison in Paris? What will she want? I want to give these things to her.

  The café is stifled and smells strongly of the exotic roasted beans. I order one of their richest brews and settle myself at an empty table. I set my hat aside.

  “Tell me. What do you want out of life boy?” a man asks.

  I stare disconcertedly at the man who speaks. He is old, his eyes sagging and his nose a soft round bulb on his face. He wears a neatly embroidered coat and his graying hair is collected in a low tress. Fanciful, just as a man of French integrity would express himself.

  “I can tell that you don’t have it yet. You have the face of someone unsettled. So, which is yours? Money, glory, or power?”

  “None, sir,” I am honest.

  “None?” He laughs. “Every man wants at least one of those things. Only some men achieve them.”

  “Why’s that?” I ask, humoring him.

  “The world only works for those who work for themselves. You see them?” He points across the cafe to a few dockhands. “All they want is to fill their bellies and have a warm bed at night.” He takes a sip of his strong coffee, lips pinching as he comes up for air. “The lower you think, the lower you will reach.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Monsieur?”

  There’s always someone without boundaries down here. Today it’s him.

  “You look like the sort of boy to take advice to heart. I thought I might give you a short lesson. If I had a son, I’d want him to be open to the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  “That we will never know the real nature of the universe. We will never know anything that really matters, not now anyways. But to be aware of it, ah, now that is something truly special.”

  “I want more than what you said,” I tell him gruffly. “I’ve always thought that life is a race of rats climbing towards the same goals, never truly understanding why they do it.”

  “Yet, you do the same?”

  I allow myself a grim smirk, “What the fuck else is there to do?”

  The man laughs, his stately curls bouncing, “Shit on the world, son. Shit on the world. We may not know truth but we can be champions of it. Throw everything you know out, throw it away. Let yourself come to your own conclusions, even the things you would assume inherent to you. Morality. Are we good or are we bad? Is that even a question I can ask? Our language cannot express the complexities of our minds.”

  I listen, volleying the words in my head, attempting to make sense of it.

  “Don’t settle for what you were taught. Reach out and find what you want to learn. Demand the world your answers,” he says.

  “Your words cannot be lived in real life, sadly. I’d say that there is no way to change what is now. I have to make money to live.”

  “Money, oh.” He smiles. “The universe has a funny way of granting you your needs as your continue your journey toward understanding.”

  “Do you speak from experience?” I chuckle.

  “I feel,” the man stares down at the table, his eyes not seeing but reflecting eons of distance, “that I have lived too many years. I have been awake far too long. I want to be finished with this place and its unending madness…it’s unknown. Either that or have more time.”

  My f
ace sours. “We’re all human. We’ll die when our time comes.”

  He gives me a thin smile, shaking himself away from the darkness that had passed over him.

  “Don’t let me put a damper on your day. Live your life. Question everything!” He rises and pats me on the back. “Oh, and don’t be oblivious, like them.” He nods in the direction of the men who are fooling around in the corner, reprising their days to one another. “They think life is all about the quick fixes, the pursuit of coin. Somewhere inside them there is a desire to know, to travel, to experience the earth, but they will only go so far as their mind takes them. Let yourself be free.”

  The man then pats me hard on the back and trundles out of the cafe, hands settled in his coat pockets.

  I sigh deeply into my cup. “Crazy man.”

  It is odd, the way things work. This man’s words I bury inside, knowing that he is right. There is something so false about the natural flow of things. I would think, not so natural. But, perhaps, that is just because I am aware that there is more out there. Am I? Father has always said there is. Do I throw away my plan of leaving to go back to that place and seek her out? I don’t know why I care so much. It gives me a feeling of panic; a prickle in my chest when I think about her. Almost as if every moment I am away from her she could be lost to me, and if that happened…

  I am a madman. I have always tried to stay near to my personal beliefs and to never sway for feelings. Feelings are illogical. But meeting her, feeling her hesitant lips against mine—the way our energies connected—it was real.

  I have to make her mine, and then, I will do everything that the man said.

  Giselle

  I keep returning to that night.

  I had been breathless with excitement and terror. My heart felt crushed, like it was herniated and swollen larger than my chest cavity had room for.

  Claire was standing at the edge of the hall with Monsieur Francis Beauchard. Her face obscured all emotion. I skidded to a halt, grabbing her with both arms.