A Nesting Above the Mantel by Zary Fekete

The narrator has mixed feelings about the birds who have made a home in his chimney.

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I have found the house to be satisfactory in most ways. It is a gentleman's residence of modest scale but of sound construction, situated upon a rise of land overlooking the vale, with generous southern exposure and a fine if somewhat neglected garden. The walls are of good plaster, and the windows let in a quality of light that flatters the dust. I have lived here since Michaelmas, and although the surrounding village is not known for its society, I have had few complaints. The quietude is welcome. After the tiresome complications of town life, I had longed for silence.

Yet silence is a more demanding companion than one might suppose.

It began, I think, sometime in late April, though I could not name the precise day. A curious sound, faint at first, like the soft scuffle of fingernails behind the mantelpiece in the study. I had recently arranged the furniture there to my liking and taken to spending afternoons reading in the armchair near the hearth. The fire had been let out weeks before; the days had warmed. But the noises persisted... scratching, fluttering, and on occasion, a low chirring, as if something winged and half-dreaming had made a home in the dark hollows of the wall.

I suspected birds.

Indeed, when I climbed the narrow stair to the upper rooms and leaned out the window just above the chimney, I caught sight of a clutch of twigs protruding from the bricks like a dry bouquet. Sparrows, no doubt, or perhaps starlings. I had read that such creatures favored crevices in warm stone during the spring months.

My first instinct was to write to Mr. Chilton, the groundsman, to have him investigate the flue and make the necessary removals. But there was something strangely companionable in the presence of those birds. The sound of their industry was, in its way, a kind of music. It reminded me of childhood mornings in my aunt's country house, where swallows nested in the rafters. Their comings and goings had delighted us then, a token of continuity and season.

I told myself that they would soon be gone. Birds are fickle. The fledglings would fly, the nest would decay, and the house would again be mine.

Yet as days passed, the activity behind the wall only increased. Not merely a pair, but an entire brood had taken residence. I could hear the rustle of wings, the mewling cries of young. At night, they fell silent, but each morning resumed their duties with tireless resolve. They became, in effect, my tenants.

It occurred to me to mention the matter to Miss Wetherall, my housekeeper. She is a thin and precise woman, not given to sentiment. When I described the birds and their dwelling place, she frowned.

"It is not well, sir, to let such things go. They bring mites. Droppings. And worse, sir, they invite decay. Shall I have Giles come up with a broom and a hook to dislodge them?"

I demurred. Something about her severity unnerved me.

"No," I said. "It is not urgent. Let them be."

But she looked at me then with a certain hardness. "As you wish, sir. But such allowances breed disorder."

And so, the matter rested... for a time.

That week, a friend visited from Oxford, Mr. Calloway, a botanist of good humor and little concern for propriety. He took one turn about the house, inspected the roses, declared the soil too acidic, and remarked upon the ivy with suspicion. When I told him about the birds, he raised an eyebrow.

"Charming," he said, but without conviction. "Though if they're in the wall, best not let it stand. They'll ruin your chimney.

"Still," he added after a pause, "some noise is preferable to none, I suppose."

He stayed the night, and in the morning, said nothing more.

But the sound grew louder.

By early May, the fledglings had hatched. I heard them all day now, crying out with ceaseless hunger. Sometimes the wall thudded, faintly but unmistakably. I began to dream of wings, of flutters behind my chair, of shadows shifting behind the fireplace.

I sat in the study one evening, reading Montaigne, when a feather drifted from the mantel. I reached for it. It was downy, grey-white, nearly weightless.

And that, I confess, disturbed me more than it ought to have.

The next morning, I found Miss Wetherall in the kitchen. I opened my mouth, but she raised one hand.

"Giles will see to it," she said, before I had spoken. "They've begun to stink, sir. It's unhealthy."

Giles arrived shortly after luncheon. A broad man, with arms like stove-pipes and a silence that seemed learned, not inherited. He carried a sack and a short-handled spade.

"I'll not need more than ten minutes," he said.

I followed him into the study.

Giles removed the brass grate with a slow, practiced movement. He peered into the chimney, whistled through his teeth, then reached in with the hook. There was a low, muffled sound, and the faint clatter of debris.

Then he reached further. I saw his face tighten. Heard the rustle, then a high-pitched squeak. A then several more. I winced and eventually was compelled to clap hands about my ears in a vain attempt to keep myself from the horror.

And then the sound stopped.

There followed a series of sharp, economical movements. Nothing theatrical. No malice. Only the precise execution of a task long familiar. The sack shifted slightly at his feet.

When he emerged, there was dust on his shoulders and a faint smell in the air... not foul, exactly, but warm and strange.

"Done," he said.

He replaced the grate. Picked up the sack.

I asked him no questions, and he left with a mild chuckle of satisfaction for having clapped shut a job.

Miss Wetherall nodded once as he passed. I think she smiled. I returned to the study and sat again.

It was quiet now. The wall, the hearth, the room itself... still as a painting. The book lay open in my lap, but I did not read. The silence, at last, had returned. But it was a different kind of silence.

It waited with me. A hush that did not welcome.

And in it, I became aware of a new sound... not a rustle, not a call, but something smaller. The faint, persistent echo of something taken away.

I cannot say whether I was relieved.

I only know that when I pass the mantel now, I do not look directly at it.

And I do not sit in that chair.