Watercolour feather on a forearm

The parcel came through the sorting office at half eleven, soaked at one corner from a leaking van, and when Mr Okafor tore the brown paper there was a feather inside, laid flat between two sheets of card like a pressed flower. Blue at the crown, going green down the middle, then yellow at the tip where the barbs had frayed. The customs slip had no name on it, only "Fragile, do not bend." I took it home in my coat pocket, which I know is against every rule the Royal Mail has.

Mum always said you could read a bird's temper from its feathers. I thought about that on the bus, watching the wet streetlights slide past while the feather sat warm against my hip. Then I found an address in faded pencil on the back of the card, a flat above a launderette on Chapel Street, and I decided to walk there instead of going to bed.

The launderette light was still on. A woman was folding sheets behind the glass with the radio murmuring about delayed trains. I asked whether she knew who had lived upstairs. She said a painter, years back, who rinsed his brushes in the sink by the back door until the water ran the colour of a kingfisher. He left in a hurry one winter and never came for his things.

I didn't stay long. I left the feather on the counter, tucked under the lint tray, where she'd find it when the shift changed. It seemed right that it should be somewhere with a bit of warmth and a view of the street.

Love, Nell