There had been a short time before her youngest brother had been born and after her older siblings had vanished when her father had frequented vaudeville theaters. As a child, she had gotten lost in the lights and sounds, allowed to crawl and climb without censure as her father disappeared to work or drink. She didn't know if she had ever been to the Hudson in her youth, but the theater felt undeniable familiar.
Audrey Kai stood just behind the curtains, curling one hand around a taunt scenery rope. She was staring up at the catwalks wistfully while impatiently nudging her boot against a sandbag.
"You can just stop thinking about climbing up there, right now," Critter warned as he pulled open yet another crate. The man stood ten paces away from the young lady, with his broad shoulders to her as he unpacked more canvas and silks. His knowing tone and sharp instruction rattled her. At his warning, she sparked to life immediately pulling on the rope to test its strength. She hoisted a hand as far up as she could reach and kicked up her feet, using her arches to gain footing.
"If you don't break your neck, I have half a mind to break it for you." Critter growled dangerously, still from ten paces away from how his voice pitched though Audrey couldn't be sure. She ignored him as she remembered how to climb the stage ropes. As she had pulled up near six feet in a quick go, she set to trying to swing between ropes.
"She's always had a petulance for perching in high places," Chesapeake's voice carried from somewhere in front of the curtain in the rows of house seats.
"You've always had a petulance for high places!" Audrey shouted back with a laugh as she threw a hand up to grip the plank of a catwalk above.
"Audrey Alexandra Kai, I will thrash you if you do not come down. Now." Critter had moved to stand beneath her. He hadn't raised his voice but Audrey knew it wasn't an empty threat.
"I am not a child." She stubbornly replied though she had ceased trying to pull herself up further.
"If she was a child, this would how she'd be clambering for your attention!" Chesapeake hollered again, louder this time.
"You should mind your own attention!" Audrey shrieked back, reaching out to try to grab the heavy velvet of the curtains. Wanting to glare at the other woman. But the weight of her skirts and the shift of her balance caused her to tumble. Before she could be frightened that she might truly break her neck, Critter O'Connell had caught her.
"What did I say?" Critter glared down at her, giving her a shake for good measure.
"I've never fallen before." Audrey frowned up at him.
"If I find out you've been climbing up into catwalks around the city," Critter began menacingly, pressing the girl closer to his torso protectively.
"Husband," Chesapeake popped up at the edge of the stage. "She is in fact not a babe…"
"I am a grown woman," Audrey shoved at Critter as the man unceremoniously dropped his arm from under her knees, letting the girl stumble to stand. He did keep her steady with an arm wrapped around her shoulders, tucked beneath her elbow. Once her balance returned, she danced away from his hold.
"I've even been…" Audrey began before stopping short.
"You've even been what?" Critter repeated. Cricket had written that there was something the girl was hiding, and for the first time, this morning Critter believed it might be true. The young lady was disheveled, her hair sticking up unbecomingly and flushed cheeks from the fall, but there was panic in her eyes that hadn't been present a moment before. Audrey swallowed air as she shook her head, feeling the way the legendry bird was studying her. She stilled and trained her gaze to lock with his.
"I've even been the bird responsible for the newest city legislation, at least four World and Journal articles uncovering scandals, and am completely undetectable." Audrey bounced her chin and smiled brightly. An overly cocky movement remembered from Conlon crossed with her newly acquired flirting skills would not fool him. Critter crossed his arms and continued to stare at her. He could press, it was believed to be his greatest skill, but he found with Laces it was often disinterest that worked best.
"I can assure you, you have been detected." Critter growled but Audrey spun away from him. She stared down at Chesapeake, precariously balancing upon an abandoned piano bench.
"Did you say, husband?" Audrey questioned suddenly.
"Quite a bird you've turned out to be, Christopher dear, you did use to demand a bit more attentiveness." Chesapeake smiled sweetly up at her husband. The sparkle in her eyes every bit the mischief and mayhem she had always been known for shining through. Chesapeake had a technique, not like any of the others, she gave up information willingly to startle others into divulging their deepest secrets. It was a method that had worked best in the pubs and once her marks were deep in their drinks.
"Get off that rickety old bench, before you also break your neck." Critter sighed tiredly. "And Audrey, she does make a fair point. You do seem to miss a great deal."
"You wed?" Audrey spun back around to gape at the man.
Critter nodded before turning his attention back to the work of unloading the new sets and props for the theater. Audrey glared at the man's back.
"When?" She demanded.
"I've never encountered a bird that demands answers from direct questions, that doesn't seem subtle at all. Maybe I should speak to dear Jasper." Chesapeake clicked her tongue.
Audrey flopped down onto the stage, letting her skirts puff around her as she fixed her attention back on Chesapeake. It had been months, nearly a year since Audrey had seen this particular bird, but she remembered the chaos of their interactions. Chesa baited and taunted, appeared and disappeared in-between eye blinks in a way that could and often times was maddening.
"When?" Audrey repeated stubbornly. Chesapeake shook her head, just once before skipping down from her perch. Chesapeake never shared anything unwillingly.
Audrey searched her memories. She had known that Critter and Chesapeake were engaged, back before Spades and Blue had married. She knew they like Cricket and South had danced around each other for years. She had seen Critter more than a dozen times in the months since the O'Reilly wedding, she had even been to the Hudson before. But she hadn't seen Chesapeake.
Audrey threw herself back, sprawling out on the wooden floor of the stage, and closed her eyes. She felt dizzy and disoriented, this was how it had been with Jacob. She hadn't known he was leaving; Critter had been right. She missed it. She hadn't been paying attention. But birds were meant to pay attention to everything.
The footsteps shook the floorboards along her spine, and she felt the teetering weight of the air when Critter crouched above her shoulder.
"Oh is Laces being dramatic this morning?" Skittery's sullen morning voice asked from a distance. Audrey pressed her eyes shut tighter at the words.
"Concentrate." Critter whispered.
Concentrate on things she knew. Birds piece together stories from what is seen, heard but more importantly understood. Giving reports was about telling a story, putting pieces together. When Jacob had told her he was leaving, she had known it to be true. She had seen and she had heard, but she hadn't understood until he told her.
"Skittery has arrived from retrieving the morning paper," Audrey replied after a moment of thought. "And you wed while I was on the shore last summer?"
"Yes."
She opened her eyes at the affirmative, finding honey-colored eyes scrutinizing her. Although she was sure he could see right through her, it was the wrinkles around his eyes she noticed. His skin creased, naturally and inevitably towards his hairline at his temples where she had begun to notice months ago the graying began.
"You didn't tell me," Audrey whispered. Her voice was full of childish hurt, and Critter heard her fears competing equal part being excluded and being forgotten.
"No." He sighed, dropping down from his crouch to sit at her shoulder. "But Laces, have I ever told you anything?"
His tone was gentle. He was ever the patient teacher. Audrey pushed herself up onto her elbows and tilted her head curiously at him. In a movement, every single bird he had ever had mimicked. Critter O'Connell wondered momentarily if he had once been particularly keen on tilting his head or if it was a behavior learned from the creatures themselves.
"No." She replied finally, a spark of understanding and curiosity in the word. In all the time she had known him, Critter O'Connell had never told her anything about himself that someone else hadn't told her first. "But if I asked?"
"If you asked…" Critter trailed off without completing the thought.
"How old are you?" Audrey asked suddenly sitting up completely.
"30." Critter chuckled. "You've been sitting on asking Jasper that since March, what made you ask me?"
"How did you know I wanted to ask Jasper?" Audrey demands before hurriedly adding. "But if you are 30, you weren't a boy when we met!"
"Dear, I know everything. Haven't you learned that yet?" Critter chuckled again, his eyes not missing the way she seemed to flinch. The girl was hiding something.
"We met in the house of refuge… but that's for children, why you weren't a child at all!"
"Christopher just started looking his age in the last year, for anyone not looking too hard he's always appeared a boy." Chesapeake skipped onto the stage, holding two mugs of a steaming beverage.
"If we're to have a show this afternoon, we best get back to work!" Skittery shouted down from a ladder he balanced on to hang new drapes from somewhere behind them.
"As you cannot keep out of trouble, we'll put you to work." Critter stood up, in a fluid movement that betrayed how easily it was to mistake Critter O'Connell for a younger man. He reached down and wrapped his arm around her waist to lift her to stand.
"She's less trouble when she's tasked with something to keep her busy." Skittery agreed from above.
"You are just a delight in the mornings Skittery!" Audrey shouted up to him.
Chesapeake handed her husband a steaming mug, sipping at her own hot liquid.
"She'll need a frock to keep her dress clean, or best even to have her change into trousers if she'll be climbing up on ladders and catwalks," Chesapeake murmured to her husband.
"Karin," Critter murmured back to his wife before taking a deep breath.
"I would work faster in trousers." Audrey nodded eagerly. It had been months since she'd been in a pair of trousers. The young lady did not miss the murmured given name of one of the most mysterious original birds. She was beginning to realize, she needed to pay more attention to everything.
"No climbing in trousers or in skirts. And you are to keep those shoes on." Critter points a stern finger at her. She nodded eagerly. Chesapeake laughed and motioned for Audrey to follow her along to the office.