A Fledgling Sings a Skipping Song

First prize, Reflex Fiction, Spring Competition 2022

One, two

Buckled into sturdy shoes, she gimbals on a walking stick. Father calls her Pigeon-toe – my darling hop and limp girl. Pigeon knows the name has weight, heavy as her nickel shin. Heavy as her father’s fears: the world’s not safe for you, my dear.

Three, four

Shutting the door she stumps to her garden, walled in yew, to skim flat stones on a mirror pool. One-two-three-flutter-six-seven-eight – she loses count at the pond’s far edge, where a breach in the hedge starts to mumble. Pigeon hides deep in a rosemary roost to see a black spaniel tumble in. Wagging, sniffing—

Five, six

—picking up her stick in his mouth. The girl rises.

Seven, eight

The dog lays it straight at her feet. Pigeon bends. Throws. The cane soars, the cocker bounds to fetch and water shatters. He returns and shakes the flagstones stippled. Pigeon laughs, her face diamond freckled. When a whistle whips through crystal air, the dog skips back beyond the hedge. Leaves her in her garden exile. In her world of flattened pebbles. Listening for her father’s warning, she hears again the whistle’s note. A shoulder-thrust through dusty yew—

Nine, ten

Brings a great fat hen to view. A barn, a vale and, hip-high in wind-bent oats, a smiling girl. A threshold sun burns inside her; Pigeon’s heart is warmed. Her leg absorbs the nickel brace, her father’s voice grows feeble. She pushes through the hedge and out: an owl, a girl, a steeple.

---

‘A Fledgling Sings a Skipping Song’ is forthcoming in Reflex Fiction Volume 6, tba