The gossip and superstition surrounding her brother’s death makes it hard for her to make friends, while her family are all caught within their own grief and as a result, she’s lonely.
Jewel is fascinated with rocks and desperately wants to be a geologist (an occupation that her mother disapproves of). Her grandfather hasn’t spoken since, while her father has become superstitious – concerned that duppies (evil spirits) will do further hurt to his family, while her mother is angry and sad, throwing herself into her work for the town’s mayor. The day she was born her older brother, John (nicknamed Bird by their grandfather), died in a tragic accident when he jumped from a local cliff. That’s because that very day, I was born.ġ2-year-old Jewel lives with her parents and grandfather in a remote house in the small town of Caledonia, Iowa. The day that Bird tried to fly, the grown-ups were out looking for him – all of them except Mom and Granny. From that day on, Grandpa never spoke another word. Grandpa kept talking like that, and no one paid him much notice until Bird jumped off a cliff. Bird’s thick, black hair was like the head feathers of the blackbirds, Grandpa said, and he bet that one day Bird would fly like one too. His name was John until Grandpa said he looked more like a Bird with the way he kept jumping off things, and the name stuck. Grandpa stopped speaking the day he killed my brother, John.
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