Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (read any book .TXT) 📗

and sits on a bench beside the rail-tracks to watch the magpies at play. They balance on branches, fanning their long tails, and they flap across the grasses, flicking the white tips of their wings, and sometimes, if Adam sits still enough, one will perch on the back of the bench beside him, bobbing up and down.

When a train rushes past, they all fly away.

He twirls a fallen feather between his fingers, studying it like a detective might: opalescent blue infused into black. There is only one way he can think of trying to find Magpie, but he will have to wait until after dark. So, Adam sits on his bench until he gets too cold, and then goes in search of a coat.

Everywhere he tries, the coats are made for smaller people. At last, he comes to a crowded vintage shop, and at the very back finds an ancient military overcoat which fits well enough across his shoulders. At a mirror, he stops. There are dark patches across the breast where medals must have once hung.

Further along the road, there’s an old second-hand bookshop, and he picks up a book at random. It’s a collection of memoirs written by a nineteenth-century entrepreneur, heavily embellished, but still charming in its way. He reads until the light starts to fail, and then continues reading until the shop’s owner tells him that the place is about to close. He pays, and goes out into the dark city, the book in his pocket.

At a crumbling graveyard beside an abandoned church, he breaks the lock on the gate and makes his way among the tombstones. Well beyond the street lamps, he comes to a vine-encrusted slab, which he clears with his hands. The moon isn’t casting enough light on it, so he traces the letters with his fingers. Here lies Captain Adam Carris, it reads, and the dates beneath it have been worn away by time. Hauling the lid back, he searches the empty interior by touch, fingers feeling the earth and the worms curling. But there is something in there, after all. A small metal box.

Pushing the gravestone slab back into place, he sits beneath a gnarled old oak and pries the box open, holding the contents up to the half-moon. The silhouette of a rusted, skeletal key is there between his fingers. He places the key into a pocket, and begins to relax.

The moon is snuffed out by clouds, and it begins to rain. Beneath the graveyard oak, Adam falls asleep.

* * *

Awoken by dry leaves falling on his face, Adam opens his eyes to behold the cold sun. His extremities are numb, and there’s a thick layer of frost covering him. He flexes his fist and shards of ice fall from his fingers. More leaves tumble across his shoulders, and he looks up to see the source of all the rustling. An enormous pair of yellow eyes glare down.

Stretching to break through the frost, Adam stands. He stamps his feet until his toes start tingling. “Have you seen Crow?” he asks.

Owl makes a soft noise and shudders in the cold, splaying his feathers. With a thump, he hops across to a lower branch, so that they are level.

“I’m gonna try and find Magpie,” Adam tells him.

He leaves the graveyard by himself, feeling Owl’s gaze follow.

Soon, the life returns to Adam’s limbs. He feels as if he’s been asleep for centuries. The remnants of his dream start to come back to him – he remembers the smell of gunpowder, and the screaming of gulls, and the booming of cannons. There was a pain in his neck, too. He rubs at the place, and feels a long scar there.

At a DIY centre, he tests a few different sledgehammers until he finds one that feels good. With the sledgehammer wrapped up in several plastic bags, he returns to central Edinburgh and the old tall houses there, stacked up against each other. He has a bit of trouble finding the right house, but eventually manages to make his way there by trusting his feet. In the front garden there’s a dead apple tree.

The windows are all different, and so is the door, but the stonework is familiar. Adam rings the doorbell and nobody answers. This street is empty of cars; everyone is at work. Gripping the handle, he leans against the door and quietly breaks the lock. Wood splinters and he steps inside.

The walls seem thicker. He runs a hand down the striped wallpaper and feels the tiny bubbles, the multiple layers behind it. Further in and there’s a family portrait: three happy children, a slender, thin-lipped woman, and a rotund, moustached man. In the living room, the fireplace is metal instead of stone, and Adam realises too late that he’s leaving enormous muddy footprints across the fluffy white carpet. He flicks toys aside with his sledgehammer to make space.

Tapping the pristine back wall with his knuckles, he finds the right place. Then, hefting the sledgehammer, he gets to work.

It doesn’t take long to smash through. Dust rises, and broken brickwork is scattered everywhere, revealing a hollow compartment beneath the ruination. Below the rows of ragged clothes hidden in the wall, there is a reinforced wooden chest.

Dragging the chest out and wiping the dust from the lid, Adam is surprised at how well preserved it is. Engraved above the lock is the legend Property of Captain Adam Carris, and he idly traces the letters with the tips of his fingers, as if they are scars etched into his skin. Then he takes the ancient key from his pocket and unlocks the chest.

Inside, there are rows of ornate powder pistols. Eight of them are arranged along belts, each intricately and uniquely decorated. But it isn’t the pistols that interest him. Rummaging around among the bags of coins and papers and ledgers at the base of the chest, he finally locates what he came here for: a thick, leather-bound book.

Sitting back on one of the room’s stained