The frost on the sandstone weathering blocks catches the first silver light of the Derwent. Tabitha stands as still as the perch, her gloved arm a steady horizontal line against the biting Hobart air. On her fist, Saoirse bates once, a frantic explosion of slate-blue feathers, before settling back into a watchful, hooded silence. Steady, girl, she thinks, feeling the bird’s talons shift through the thick leather. The mountain, kunanyi, looms behind the mews like a debt, cold and indifferent to the two years Tabitha has spent in quiet retirement.
She is fifty-seven now, and her joints ache with the coming winter, yet the call of the mews remains. A heavy thud at the gate breaks the morning stillness. A courier in a bright jacket leans over the stone wall, clutching a thick vellum envelope that looks entirely too formal for this dirt-track address. He mumbles a greeting that Tabitha doesn't return, her eyes already fixed on the embossed crest pressed into the paper. It is a wedding commission from the Cresswell estate, a name that carries the weight of old Tasmanian money and high-society expectations.
She takes the letter, the weight of the cardstock surprising her. She hasn't flown a bird for a ceremony in a decade, preferring the honest grit of training to the performance of a lawn flight. But the fee mentioned on the exterior slip is enough to fix the mews roof twice over. She stares at the red wax, a strange premonition prickling at the back of her neck like a shift in the wind. Tabitha’s thumb breaks the heavy wax seal on the crested envelope.
