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seems, even in those which seem prosperous and normal and happy. You can’t always tell by
people’s faces, but at any time on any city street, the wounded walk among us, undetected.”
“Undetected that is, until a detective comes along.”
Trevor shrugged. “I don’t make claim to understand the human heart, Geraldine. Not
half so well as a poet, or even a priest.”
“A woman can be wrong about a man.”
“I daresay she can.”
“And men…are sometimes wrong about women. They often fail to see the most
important things about them, even when they stand in plain view.” And before he could ask her what
on earth she meant by that, she abruptly asked, “Where are the others?”
“Tom has moved back to the jail to clear out our things,” Trevor said. “Emma is packing
for the two of you, and Rayley has gone down at the docks trying to finagle us all onto the next ship
out of Bombay. You have no objection to leaving today, I trust?”
She shook her head. Quite vigorously. “And Davy?”
“I’m not entirely sure where he is,” Trevor admitted, as he guided Geraldine carefully
around a gash of missing cobblestones. “He only said he has one final task before he is prepared to
say goodbye to India.”
***
The Cliffs Above Bombay Harbor
1:27 PM
It was not much of a cage, Davy thought. A determined bird could have broken through
the fragile bamboo walls at any point. Pecked or chewed her way free and found the broader world
that lay just beyond.
He had carried the cage to the cliff on the hills beyond the Weaver House, a moderate
walk which had caused great agitation to the bird. She had hopped from perch to perch within her
flimsy palace, looking around with her bright black eyes and chirping in the manner of a question.
Where are we going? she seemed to ask. And shall I like it when we get there?
As he neared the edge of the cliff, Davy paused. Bombay lay dozing in the midday heat
beneath him - the glittering harbor, the exalted waterfront buildings, the bright colored huts and
hovels behind. He could see their own steamer with its immense gangplank, no doubt trembling and
belching as the engines began to be fired up, the ship as anxious as a racehorse in the slot. Within
hours he would be aboard it, and India would be just one more thing behind him. One more story for
his grandchildren.
He pulled open the door of the cage and it cracked in his hand. Brittle and insubstantial.
Tentatively, carefully, he reached for the bird.
She drew back. Or perhaps he was the one to hesitate. It occurred to Davy he had been
thinking of the little yellow songbird as female all along, based largely on its seeming helplessness
and sweetness, and his own somewhat irrational desire to protect it. But males can become trapped
as well, can they not? Men as well as women often need someone to lead them out of their captivity,
to illustrate how easily the walls surrounding them can crumble and snap.
Davy’s hand closed around the feathers. He could feel the rapidly beating heart of the
bird, the tremor of the untried wings. Would it even know how to fly? he wondered, for the creature
had likely spent its entire life within this ornamental cage. So he did not toss it into the air in a
flamboyant manner and thus risk the irony of throwing it to certain death. Instead he merely opened