Matching quote tattoos on upper backs

The last of the starlings went past the observation ring this morning, a loose smudge against the dark, and I stood there longer than I should have with my palm flat on the glass. You always said I would be the one who stayed behind, and you were right about the staying, though not about the reason. The council has offered me the grain loft on Deck Four, and I have said yes, which is a sentence I never imagined writing while you were still laughing at me across the mess table.

Mum's feather is still in the tin with the seed packets. You asked me to bring it up with me, and I did, but it kept shedding into the air filters until Tomas pulled it out and handed it back with the face of a man who has found a moth in his soup. I have put it in my own pocket now, where it belongs.

Here is the thing I could not say at the port. I have been afraid of changing, Ruth. Not of the thin air or the cold corridors, but of becoming someone who no longer knows which way the birds are flying. You always knew. You would look up at a flock and call north before anyone else had finished counting.

So I am counting now. Forty-one birds this morning, all heading for the far scatter of light. Write back when the relay wakes up and tell me which way is north.

Love, Hanna