Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
The next morning, Aila sprang from her bed like an uncaged water panther, clawed her phone off the bedside table, and pulled up her email to check for…
Nothing important. She scowled at the new messages in her inbox as if each one had done her personal insult: a monthly internet bill (drab, unnecessary, who didn’t use automatic payments nowadays?), a notice from the San Tamculo Humane Society about an open house to raise awareness for illegal carbuncle pup mills (Teddy would probably drag her and Tanya to that), a newsletter about rescued Vjari auks in knitted sweaters that Aila didn’t remember signing up for (but they were very cute sweaters).
No reply from Director Rivera or IMWS about the phoenix transfer.
It had, she supposed, been less than eight hours since she sent her request. And most of those hours had been during the middle of the night. She could be patient.
Surely, Aila thought, there’d be an update by lunchtime.
But there wasn’t. She dragged the app screen to refresh a dozen times, ignoring Tanya’s judgmental squint from her desk.
Surely, Aila hoped, there’d be an update by the end of the day.
But there wasn’t. She scowled at her phone for the entire train ride home, checking inbox, then spam folder, then trash, then archives, then inbox again.
Surely, Aila begged, there’d be an update by the end of the week.
But there wasn’t. Each time a new email notification appeared, her heart skipped. Each time it turned out to be nothing, she felt like crawling into Khonsu’s muddy hole to hide with him. The tiny message icon haunted her dreams.
She could only wait as one week slipped into two. As midsummer came and went.
Summer hit hard in Movas. Along the arid western coast, there’d be no drop of rain for months. Heat and sweltering sun turned spring blooms into dry scrub upon the hills, sent the people of San Tamculo flocking onto sandy beaches—and into the shaded gardens of the zoo.
Aila added an extra ten minutes to her morning routine, time to slather every exposed inch of pale, freckled skin with sunscreen. Damn Vjari genes. Just because her distant ancestors were lucky to see sun once a month in their foggy, sub-polar moorlands didn’t mean she deserved to suffer for all eternity.
She arrived at work just after dawn. Already, the sky tinged yellow, the air sweltering, only the balm of the ocean to provide meager relief. The crowds would be packed today, draining the zoo of slushies and novelty unicorn-head ice cream pops like an invading army. Aila needed to check the misters at the phoenix observation deck. Skies and seas forbid one of them went out, or her exhibit comment box would be inundated with complaints.
She nearly slammed into another keeper at the staff office.
Aila snapped out of mindless-walk-and-think-mode in time to shrink out of the way. Past averted eyes and a murmur of “excuse me,” she registered the face of one of the griffin show keepers. Aila averted her eyes harder .
Mercifully, her colleague shuffled past without attempting conversation. Most people around here knew to leave her alone like a liquefying starfish—prone to transform into jelly and hide in the nearest crevice when startled (a neat trick at the zoo’s touch tanks, though).
At least it hadn’t been Luciana. Aila had steered clear of the Renkailan section in its entirety, still haunted by the witch’s words about Rubra being transferred.
She pulled out her phone for a glance at her email notifi-cations. Still nothing.
Her morning routine passed without incident. Aila—working at heightened speed thanks to stress—was ahead on her weekly tasks. Time to tackle one of her monthly chores. She dragged a rake and waste bin into the World of Birds aviary to deep clean the waterfall outlet.
“You know. This would go a lot faster if you could help, Archie.”
The archibird perched on a molded waterfall rock, crest half-raised as he inspected her tools. He replied with a low wheeze.
“You, too.” Aila faced the vanishing ducks bobbing in the pool. “Don’t think I don’t know that half these leaves got dragged in here because of you.”
The pair quacked, then vanished. They reappeared near the waste bin, white tails wiggling, inspecting the gray plastic with inquisitive bill nibbles.
Aila heaved the valve to shut off the waterfall. As the rumble of water subsided, the glass-domed aviary settled to an odd quiet. Dew pattered on the wide forest leaves. The pair of screaming mynas rustled branches as they hopped through the canopy, observing Aila while muttering muffled shrieks that sounded uncannily like her late aunt.
Raking leaves off the waterfall outlet grate was the easy part. Aila’s longer task was power-hosing the pool, then climbing into the rocks to remove more stubborn clumps of detritus and vegetation.
“Miss?” A group of patrons stood on the observation deck. “Why’s the waterfall off?”
Aila gritted her teeth and heaved at a tree branch wedged between rocks. “Maintenance.”
“Can you turn it back on? We want a photo.”
“No.” She planted a boot, seeking better leverage.
“But—”
A myna screeched from the canopy, the cadence a perfect imitation of a small child. The patrons huffed and continued down the boardwalk. If only Aila could scare people off that easy.
The branch came loose with a wet slurch , sending her staggering backward and nearly onto her ass. She added the refuse to her pile and trudged onward.
Sweat beaded her brow in the humid aviary air, more suffocating than the dry heat outside. Mud and pond grime splotched Aila’s arms. She felt at least one cool slick on her cheek. Her efforts yielded a growing pile of tree limbs, leaves in various states of decomposition, novelty soda cups, and a lost hat that Archie deposited as a show of helping. She didn’t ask where he’d gotten it.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Aila swore and fished it out with her driest fingers.
A fleeting hope surfaced. Maybe IMWS wouldn’t send a reply as a lowly email. Maybe they’d call Aila to tell her about their ground breaking decision to transfer five new phoenixes to the San Tamculo Zoo. She fumbled to unlock the screen and—
Shit. It was just Andrea. Aila’s therapist.
Shit . Was their next telephone appointment today ?
When Aila was a kid, all her problems came back to being too quiet. She’s excelling in every subject! her report cards read. But she doesn’t participate well in group activities.
Her reading level is above average!
But her math instructor has complained about her reading books during class.
She has a bright future ahead!
But we have concerns that she’d rather sit in the classroom during lunch than socialize with her peers.
Aila’s parents were never neglectful. They just didn’t know what to do, other than smile and reassure her she’d grow out of it. They sent her on playdates in elementary school (literally torture). Signed her up for sports in high school (who thought it was a good idea to let Aila anywhere near a tennis racket?).
When Aila went off to college, she became aware of this weird concept called “therapy,” and how sometimes people went to therapy when they had trouble talking to people and stayed up at night planning out worst-case scenarios for every event in their lives. She’d tried out a counselor at the campus clinic.
The room had been dimly lit. It smelled of calming cinnamon bird incense. The feathers magically absorbed and enhanced any scent they came in contact with—cinnamon in their native Ziclexian rainforest, but captive populations could be trained with other scents. Aila had asked the therapist if the incense used humanely molted feathers from a sustainable population. The woman had smiled blankly and said she’d have to look into it.
She’d told Aila that worrying was a natural part of the human condition. Had recommended swinging in a hammock as a form of reconnecting with the serene headspace of a child rocking in the womb.
So, yeah, Aila didn’t go back for another session.
She suffered in silence through the rest of school, spent her time bottling everything up and berating herself for not just acting like a normal person for once. This, to her equal perplexity and annoyance, didn’t work, either.
It was Tanya who’d finally sat Aila down. They’d combed through a list of local therapists together, even created a color-coded ranking system that made the process feel less impossible. Aila had to try a few more out before she found Andrea, someone who actually listened and offered more tangible strategies than positive thinking.
Aila adored her. And telephone appointments were great for a busy schedule.
Just maybe not right now, while she was covered in waterfall sludge.
She swiped the screen to accept the call. “Hi, Andrea.”
“Hello, Aila,” came a bright, soothing voice. “So good to hear from you. How’s your week going?”
Aila considered the mud in her hair. The email notification icon haunting her like a vengeful phantom cat. She sighed and sat on a rock, beyond view of the public deck.
“Oh. You know. The usual.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to?” Andrea said, undaunted.
“I went to a staff meeting last week.”
“How was that?”
Aila had spent a full day before the meeting working up the courage to wave at Connor if he looked at her. He’d never looked at her.
Luciana had looked at her, dark eyes and black eyeliner honed like daggers. Aila spent the rest of the meeting staring at the carpet beneath her chair, privately rolling her eyes as the zoo director regaled the meeting with the latest attendance records the griffin show had broken.
“Nothing important,” Aila mumbled. She propped her phone between chin and shoulder, leaving her hands free to pick mud from her nails.
“Did you try talking to your coworkers, like we discussed?”
“Umm…” Aila scavenged her memory. “Someone asked ‘Is this seat taken?’ and I said no, so they took the chair and carried it to sit somewhere else. Does that count?”
A pause. Aila imagined her scribbling notes. “How did that make you feel?”
“Minor panic.”
“Why do you think that is?” Andrea pressed, that soft but firm tone zookeepers used to talk to animals. “What sort of situation were you envisioning during the conversation?”
“Well, I don’t really envision , I just sort of—”
A man’s shriek cut through the aviary. Then, a wheeze. In the canopy, a screaming myna carried the hat it had stolen from Aila’s pile. Archie followed, breast puffed and crest raised in indignant anger.
On the phone, a longer silence passed.
“Aila. Are you at work?”
“Well… yeah. It’s the middle of the day, Andrea.”
“We’ve talked about scheduling sessions during work. It’s important to set time aside for your mental health. To approach our meetings without distraction.” Andrea never used the disappointed tone Aila was used to hearing from other people, but this was still firm.
“I’m really busy.” Aila knew that wasn’t a good excuse.
“Yes, you work very hard. But it’s important to maintain a healthy work-life balance. What self-care have you done for yourself this past week?”
“I…”
On the phone, Andrea was silent. Waiting. Curse this woman and her professionalism.
“Well… I… um…” Aila ran down her list of scrubbing food dishes, ordering produce, staying after hours to finish their monthly equipment inventory, then getting home so late she barely had the energy to… “I watched a new documentary about Silimalo plains pegasi.”
“That’s good, Aila! How did that make you feel?”
“Kind of a waste of time, honestly. I knew most of the info already.”
“Why do you feel like that’s wasting time?”
“Because I could have been doing something else,” Aila said. “Something more productive. Like catching up on phoenix papers. Or researching a better nesting box for the pixie wrens, so they don’t accidentally levitate up to the ceiling again.” Once she started, the words cascaded out, as if she’d opened the valve to the waterfall. “And I still haven’t gotten a reply to my email about the phoenixes, and I still feel panicky whenever I see a notification, and I don’t know what I should do, whether I should leave it alone or follow up or what .”
Aila winded herself. Tension wound into her shoulders, her jaw, making her want to scream like one of her mynas. Why. Why was this always so hard ?
“Would you like to try a mindfulness exercise?” Andrea said, calm as ever.
No. “Sure,” Aila said, gloomy.
“What topic would you like to focus on?”
“The phoenix email.”
“All right. So when you think about the phoenix email, what comes to mind?”
Aila hunched over her knees and let the string of consciousness flood out. No filter. “Waiting. Too long. Failure. I’m a failure. I’m not good enough. What if I could have worded the email better? What if they never reply? What if I lose Rubra?”
The list went on, each item worse than the last, until Aila fought a prickle in her eyes.
Andrea didn’t speak until she’d finished. “Do you notice any tension in your body?”
Literally. Everywhere. Aila was nothing but nerves, mud, and sunscreen.
“Now let’s do some grounding,” Andrea said.
Aila sprawled upon the rock, staring up at canopy leaves and the glass of the aviary.
“I invite you to close your eyes, if you’re comfortable,” Andrea instructed.
Aila did so.
“Start with one deep breath in. Then out. Another breath in. Then out. Focus on the feeling of each inhale and exhale.”
Aila breathed in, then out, lungs filling with warm air and the scent of damp loam. And waterfall muck. And a bit of bird poop.
“Next, focus on your body, the places you’re holding tension, how your weight feels in the position you’re sitting…”
Aila took another slow, deep breath. Following Andrea’s guidance, she focused on relaxing her shoulders, then the feeling of her back against the stone, then the rough texture beneath her fingernails, then the drip of dew in the canopy. As she filled her thoughts with physical sensations, her worries receded—temporarily, at least.
“OK,” Andrea said. “When you’re ready, you can open your eyes. Then describe your topic again.”
Aila blinked her eyes open, squinting at bright light through the glass. She reached again for the thought of her email to Director Rivera.
“Waiting,” she said. “Impatient. Uncertain…”
The descriptions came smoother this time, still anxious, but not in that debilitating way that brought her to the brink of tears before. Aila was always a little annoyed when the process worked so well. Like some weird mental magic trick.
“That sounds difficult,” Andrea said. “Why do you think this email is so frustrating?”
“Because I can’t do anything. I have to sit here and wait.”
“And why is that a negative mindset?”
Aila heaved the world’s biggest, most resigned sigh. Then, she repeated, “It’s unhealthy to base my self-worth on goals outside my control. Centering myself in the current moment will help avoid triggering my brain’s fight-or-flight response.”
“And what’s one thing you appreciate in your current moment?” Andrea asked.
A flutter of wings crossed the canopy. Archie swooped down to land beside Aila, his stolen hat reclaimed. With a triumphant honk, he dropped his prize on the rock and dug his stubby black beak into the fabric, trying to detach the shiny metal fastener in the back.
Aila grinned. “Archie’s pretty cute. In the current moment.”
She wrapped up their call and scheduled her next appointment—not during work hours, at Andrea’s stubborn insistence. After another tranquil minute of breathing in her aviary, Aila pushed herself to her feet. She turned the waterfall valve back on and cleaned up her tools with a lighter chest than before. Amazing, how much better she felt after talking things out.
“Hello? Do you work here?”
Aila froze on the boardwalk, arms laden with rake and waste bin, stomach sinking like a stone. Amazing, yes, how much better she felt after taking a moment to breathe. And equally amazing how swiftly the real world came crashing back.
She plastered on a smile and turned. A middle-aged woman stood behind her, dressed in enough bright purple to put the pixie wrens to shame, sun visor tight on her forehead.
“I do work here.” Aila’s words came out malevolently chipper. “How may I help you?”
“Do you know much about birds?”
Aila winced. “Yep. I sure do.” She only had every single magical ornithology textbook published within the last twenty years, plus several editions of each major field guide, plus—
“Can you identify a bird for me?” The woman approached, cell phone in hand.
Aila went clammy in horror. Oh no. It couldn’t be. Not here. Not the eternal curse of every bird enthusiast in the world, the shackle clasped to their wrists the moment they dared pick up an avian field guide. Aila tried to back away, but the woman already had her photo gallery open. She came closer, fingers swiping through images as she muttered to herself.
“No… not that one… not that one… I could have sworn I had it right… here!”
She beamed and held up her phone.
Aila squinted at the image of smudged trees, a pixelated brown blob in the center. Her fear, realized. By the endless skies and seas, blurry bird photos were the worst .
“It was far away,” the woman explained.
“I can see that.” Aila squinted harder, trying to make sense of the stretched proportions, the wide tail…
“It was very big,” the woman said proudly. “I think it was some kind of hawk.”
“It’s a squirrel.”
“Excuse me? No, it was definitely a bird.”
“Definitely a squirrel.” It usually was. Aila picked up her waste bin and resumed walking. “Enjoy your time at the zoo, miss.”
“But…”
“Next griffin show is at two p.m.,” Aila called back, not pausing. “Consider making the most of your visit today by applying your entrance fee toward a zoo membership. See the front kiosk for more information. Thank you.”
Aila was gone before anyone else could stop her, back into the safety of her keeper quarters. Talking with Andrea always helped—she just wished the effects lasted longer.
She checked her phone one more time. Still no email about her phoenixes.