13. Feathers
Summary
- Kya, a 14-year-old girl, notices a foreign presence in her lagoon; eventually realizing it's an older boy who has spotted her.
- Startled, Kya hides from the boy, running and concealing herself within the surrounding brambles and undergrowth.
- Feeling exposed, Kya takes precaution and locks her shack's door, something she only does seldomly.
- By morning, her fear turns into curiosity after discovering a feather, lodged upright in a moss-coated stump. Kya recognizes it to be a rare feather of a great blue heron, suggesting it was intentionally placed there by the mysterious boy.
- Kya has been fascinated by birds and is skilled at painting them; she meticulously sketches the feather and places it in the center of her feather collection decorating her wall.
- In the following days, she excitedly discovers more feathers, including a rare tail feather from a tropicbird, significantly more impressive than the other feathers in her collection.
- After a few days without a new feather, Kya grows restless and starts to anxiously check the stump multiple times a day.
- Relief floods her when she finds a wild turkey tail feather on the stump, indicating the boy's "game" is still ongoing.
- However, the turkey's feather also reminds her of an earlier, traumatizing experience with a flock of wild turkeys brutally killing a tangled member of their own to avoid attracting predators.
- The memory is further associated with a night of verbal abuse from local boys, who had come to mock her known as the "Marsh Girl" from outside her shack.
- The boys' ridicule fills her with shame; yet, Kya takes solace in the game with the mysterious boy and the beautiful feathers he leaves for her.