Emera

The estate was famous for its birds.

People traveled great distances to see them.

Some came for the gardens, some for the house, but everyone waited for the same thing: the moment when one of the males turned toward a mirror, mistook his reflection for a rival, and opened his tail.

Gasps followed.

Then applause.

The attendants learned exactly where to place the mirrors.

They knew which birds responded quickly and which needed coaxing.

Sometimes they rattled a silver tray.

Sometimes they moved the mirror.

Sometimes they brought another bird closer.

Whatever was necessary.

Beauty, after all, was what people had paid to see.

Emera had grown up among the peacocks.

Her mother managed the estate before her and taught her everything.

How to recognize illness by the position of a wing.

How to hold a frightened bird without tightening one's grip.

How to find a lost feather before the gardeners swept it away.

How to know when a bird was about to display.

Once, when Emera was nine, she asked her mother why the mirrors were necessary.

"They encourage them," her mother said.

"Would they do it without them?"

"Of course."

"When?"

Her mother smiled.

"When they want to."

Emera remembered that answer.

As she grew older, visitors began noticing her almost as much as the birds.

Someone remarked that the deep blue-green dresses she preferred made her look as though she belonged to the aviary.

Another said her profile ought to be painted beside a peacock.

Soon guests began asking whether Emera would be present before deciding which evening to visit.

Her mother found this useful.

Emera tried to.

At seventeen, she stood beside the fountains.

At nineteen, she greeted the visiting families.

At twenty-two, she was asked to walk slowly through the garden while the birds displayed behind her.

The visitors admired how beautifully everything coordinated.

Emera.

The silk.

The feathers.

The fountains.

The garden.

It was difficult to know where one attraction ended and the next began.

When her mother died, Emera inherited the estate.

For the first year, she changed nothing.

The mirrors went out every seventh evening.

The birds performed.

The visitors applauded.

Emera stood among them in blue-green silk.

Then, one autumn, the oldest peacock stopped displaying.

His name was Oris.

He had once been the most reliable bird in the garden.

At the sight of a mirror, his tail would rise almost instantly.

Now he looked at his reflection and walked away.

The attendants tried moving the glass.

They rattled the tray.

They brought another male nearby.

Nothing.

The head keeper recommended replacing him in the public garden.

"He isn't useful anymore," he said.

Emera looked at the bird.

His feathers were still magnificent.

His health was good.

He ate.

He wandered.

He slept in the same cedar tree every night.

The only thing he had stopped doing was opening his tail when people wanted him to.

"Useful for what?" Emera asked.

The keeper thought the answer was obvious.

"The visitors."

Oris was moved to a quieter garden behind the house.

Emera began visiting him there.

Without mirrors, without crowds, he behaved differently.

He scratched beneath hedges.

He chased insects.

He stood in the rain.

Sometimes he opened his tail.

Sometimes he did not.

There appeared to be no schedule.

Emera began wondering how much of the animal she had failed to notice because everyone had been waiting for the same spectacular gesture.

The following spring, preparations began for the estate's centennial celebration.

More than eight hundred visitors were expected.

New mirrors were ordered.

Musicians were hired.

A portraitist was commissioned to paint Emera in the garden surrounded by displaying peacocks.

Three days before the celebration, she cancelled the mirrors.

The head keeper assumed she meant the new ones.

"All of them," Emera said.

He stared at her.

"The birds won't display."

"Some might."

"And if they don't?"

Emera looked toward the aviary.

"Then they don't."

The news traveled quickly.

People wrote letters.

Donors complained.

One newspaper suggested Emera had lost interest in preserving her family's traditions.

Another accused her of turning one of the region's great spectacles into an ordinary garden.

Emera kept every clipping.

On the evening of the centennial, the gates opened at four.

The fountains were started.

The brass lamps were polished.

There were no mirrors.

At first, the visitors waited.

Children asked when the birds would begin.

Adults looked toward the attendants.

Nothing happened.

A few peacocks crossed the lawn.

One climbed onto a wall.

Another disappeared beneath a hedge.

Emera walked through the garden wearing blue-green silk.

No one applauded.

By six, some visitors had left.

By seven, almost half were gone.

Those who remained gradually stopped waiting.

They began walking.

They noticed the birds feeding beneath the trees.

They heard sounds normally buried beneath conversation.

They watched one peacock settle onto a branch above the fountain.

Near sunset, without prompting, a young male opened his tail.

There was no mirror in front of him.

For several seconds, no one noticed.

Then a child pointed.

The crowd began moving toward the bird.

Emera raised one hand.

"Stay where you are," she said.

They did.

From across the lawn, they watched.

The display lasted less than a minute.

Then the bird folded his feathers and walked away.