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Charles’ father did not believe in the rod. He knew other children were punished with caning or chores. But Father always said only brutes beat their children, and menial work was for servants.
Charles knew he was lucky to have such enlightened parents.
When he misbehaved – which he did often, because he was a spoiled and ungrateful child – Charles’ only chastisement was that he must stand still and silent while Amandine took their punishment.
Father was a short, portly man and his dæmon Netta a dowdy brown duck; beady-eyed and always watchful over her children. It did not matter what form his dæmon took, Netta never shirked, driving her blunt bill into soft fur or delicate scales over and over until the lesson was learned. Once Amandine had the temerity to take a duck-shape herself, flaring her wings and shrieking defiance. Netta tore at her feathers until they littered the floor and Amandine cringed in her smallest vole-shape, tiny claws digging into the wood floor.
Charles would have given anything to go to his dæmon, to hold her close, would gladly have taken the blows in her place. But that was the punishment, for he was a wicked boy, and it was his fault Amandine must suffer so. He stood as still and silent as he could manage, feeling each peck as though it were in his own body, praying it would end quickly. Above all he knew he must not weep. Tears were for weaklings.
After it was over Charles rushed to cradle his dæmon, as he always did, to hold her close and soothe her. But this time Amandine turned away from him and crept under the dresser, to nurse her hurts alone.
Charles understood. She had needed him then, not now.
“I’m sorry,” he told her later.
“I know,” Amandine said and he knew she meant it. But she retreated that night to the darkness beneath their bed to sleep. Charles swore to them both that he would never let this happen again. He would be good. He would.
Amandine never again took a bird shape in front of their father. But she often did when they were alone. And occasionally they would dream together, and in their dream she became a bird as big as a house, big enough to lift Charles in her claws and they both would fly away, away, away.
The months passed into years. Charles learned to be quiet, not to speak out of turn. Amandine helped him by taking small, unobtrusive forms and watching Father from careful eyes. But although he tried so hard, he could not seem to stop making mistakes. He was lazy and insolent and wilful, a disappointment, a trial to his parents. But the worst was knowing he had failed Amandine yet again, Amandine who cared for him and helped him and always forgave him even when he didn’t deserve it. On those days Charles hated himself. What kind of person could treat their own daemon so?
He loved her so much. He knew he did not deserve her. He longed to be able to protect her.
* * *
One day, a perfectly ordinary Autumn day, he earned another punishment. Charles saw Father’s face tighten in sudden cold anger. But instead of the familiar chill wash of fear Charles was surprised to feel only a dull weariness. Because he had tried so hard. He always tried so hard - and yet still it always came back to this.
Somewhere deep inside, at the bottom of a great cold sea, an understanding crystallised: it did not matter how he tried. He would never be good enough. Never.
Netta barrelled towards them, her bill stabbing the air.
Somewhere inside Charles, somewhere far distant, all emotion seemed to drain away, like a falling tide, as though the stillness he had pretended at so often had somehow reached inside him and become true.
Distantly he noticed that Amandine had changed into a beetle. Her shell was the same colour as the wooden floorboards they stood on. Netta pecked, but Amandine’s shell was hard. Netta flicked her head and Amandine bounced across the floor; but it did not hurt her. She stood up, turned, waited stoically. Father looked at Charles, eyes raking him for defiance, but there was none. They were still, and silent, and calm.
Father clenched his fist, and for the first time in his life Charles wondered if his father would strike him.
Only brutes beat their children
Netta’s bill drove down like a punch, but Amandine’s shell sent the blow glancing aside. The duck-dæmon fluttered, flapped, squawked in frustration at not getting the response she wanted.
Father took a step forward and all at once Charles felt his emotions again, a rush, vivid and jangling. A wave of fear and shock and – something else. A dizzy sense like the world had tilted sideways.
He thought: oh.
But Father came no closer. Netta subsided and a strange, almost awkward, silence filled the room until Father turned and strode out without a word. His fists were still clenched. Netta followed in a furious clatter of wings. The door swung shut behind them.
In the quiet, with the low autumn sun spilling through the window, it seemed to Charles that he now understood a great many things he had not before.
He moved to pick up Amandine and she scuttled up onto his palm. Charles lifted her with gentle fingers, wondering if her shell could feel the touch. He should have stroked her more, he thought, should have made sure that fur and feathers and scales had known a hundred kind caresses for every cruel blow. But there was no regret. Only a profound, overwhelming relief.
Amandine said what they both now knew. “He’ll start on you, now.”
Charles said, “It’ll be alright.” And what he meant was, now that you’re safe. He rubbed his thumb along the sturdy dome of her dark shell, admiring its smoothness, marvelling at how perfectly she fit together. Because it would not be forever. One day soon they would be grown. And they would leave. And they would never come back.
Charles cradled Amandine in his palm, wondering at the curve of her shape, the wave of her delicate antennae, the press of her tiny feet on his skin. And as he watched, her beautiful shell split in two as though along an invisible seam; and out from beneath came fluttering a pair of delicate, filmy, iridescent wings.
* * *
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