Flames: Feather Summary & Analysis

In his diary, Allen Gibson writes that something is killing the wombats on his farm in Melaleuca. The deaths are unnatural—the wombats’ eyes have been removed and there are holes in their throats and stomachs. It seems like some kind of bird is attacking them, but there aren’t any birds around that could do this. The most territorial one around is the cormorant that lives in the tree above the grave of the farm’s founder. Allen doesn’t go near the tree, not only because he dislikes the bird, but also because the main shaft of the tin mine is in that field, so there could be deadly hidden sinkholes in the grass. It seems logical to assume the killer is human, but the only people around are Nicola and Charlotte, the two farmhands, and Allen himself, along with a ranger who visits occasionally.

Allen feels a close bond with the wombats—they’re the closest thing he has to a family. He knows he’s not the one killing them, but he can’t imagine Nicola or Charlotte doing so either. Nicola is in her second year on the farm and is both diligent and caring; though she’s from the north coast, she seems to belong here. Charlotte might be the most likely killer, but Allen can’t believe she’s capable of it—while she sometimes loses control of her emotions, she seems to love the wombats even more than Nicola does, and she cares for them meticulously. Nicola cries when there are more wombat deaths, but Charlotte screams uncontrollably.

Allen doesn’t think it’s necessary to contact the farm’s owner, Mrs Quorn, yet. He doesn’t want her to doubt his capabilities as the farm’s manager or, worse, to fire him, because the farm is his home, and he loves Melaleuca’s “lonely beauty.” He, Nicola, and Charlotte have come up with a plan to sleep amongst the wombats in order to catch whatever is killing them. Though he knows this plan will worsen his already fitful nights of sleep, he suspects his bad dreams are due to the killings and that solving them will help in the long run.

In his next diary entry, Allen writes that the plan to sleep amongst the wombats seemed to succeed for the first six nights. On the seventh night, during which Allen was keeping watch, he let himself fall asleep. He woke in the morning to find three dead wombats in a neat line, and he felt angry not just at himself but, for the first time, at Melaleuca and its isolation. He could tell these deaths affected Nicola and Charlotte more than the others. Though that was the hardest day he can remember on the farm, Allen refuses to give up hope.

In the next entry, Allen describes finding six cormorant feathers with the most recent wombat corpse. He concludes that the killer is the huge cormorant. Nicola and Charlotte aren’t as relieved by this information as he’d expect. They seem to blame Allen for all the deaths. When he sees them together, he assumes they’re gossiping about him. Meanwhile, the surviving wombats have stopped eating and are succumbing to fleas and mange, meaning the farm won’t be able to meet its orders for the season. Allen knows he needs to tell Mrs Quorn, but he wants to kill the cormorant first. On top of this, his dreams have changed: they used to be full of menacing feathers, but now the feathers are objects of curiosity instead.

The next diary entry details Allen’s frustrating pursuit of the cormorant. He can find it easily, but as soon as he aims at it with his shotgun or net, it leaps away. He thinks it can sense his fear. Its high-pitched cry stays with him even when he’s far away from it. Meanwhile, the wombats are still dying, and more cormorants arrive at the farm each day. The feathers they drop bother Nicola and Charlotte, so Allen collects them to store in his room. He begins to resent the farmhands’ emotional behavior and describes the way they “simper” over the wombats as “futile, feminine softness.” Though Allen knows he can kill the cormorant, he’s beginning to respect it.

In Allen’s next diary entry, he describes the dreams he had the previous night, which felt more like “visions,” in which the fluttering feathers turned into the sharp shapes of cormorants who seemed to acknowledge and welcome him into their flock. At the center of the whorl of birds was the largest cormorant in Old Quorn’s tree. When the huge bird screamed, Allen woke up. He headed outside to see Charlotte corralling the wombats into their burrows and felt a sense of hatred for them and for the “barren southern hell” of Melaleuca—a hatred he suspects he’s always felt.

Allen’s next entry begins, “Damn these women!” in response to Charlotte and Nicola contacting the ranger to tell him “lies and exaggerations” about the farm. The ranger arrives to tour the farm and eventually asks Allen how he’s feeling and if he needs to see a doctor. He tells Allen that the farmhands have asked to be flown out of Melaleuca, so Allen needs to work out how to solve the farm’s problem quickly. Allen threatens the ranger with his shotgun. Rather than feeling sad to end his long relationship with the ranger, he feels joy and power; he’s relieved to restore his control over the farm. Before he goes to sleep, he resolves to visit the huge cormorant the next day, because he knows that will reveal the next step to take.

Allen writes the next entry despite being overwhelmed by pain. He describes waking up after the ranger’s visit and going to see the cormorant, taking his knife and journal but not his net or gun, and feeling buoyed by optimism. Unusually, the cormorant isn’t in his tree, so Allen sits and waits for him. When he falls asleep, the cormorant appears behind his eyelids, swooping toward him. Just as it’s about to plunge into him, he wakes to the feeling of a wombat nudging his legs. Without thinking, he rolls the wombat over and stabs it. He feels a rush of realization: he’s the one who’s been killing the wombats. Suddenly, he remembers all the previous times, and the way he grew more confident with each kill.

Allen feels the scraping of a beak, not from outside but from within himself. He hears a sharp cry and realizes it has come from him. It’s clear now that the cormorant wasn’t a dream—it actually entered him and now lives in his body. A huge flock of cormorants flies out of the mine. The pecking inside Allen urges him to keep killing, so he makes for the wombat burrows.

Allen is about to stab one of the wombats when he hears Nicola screaming at him. He walks toward her quickly, aiming his knife. Charlotte leaps toward him, and he and the cormorant agree to kill her first. Charlotte lets out a yell and streams of fire escape from her eyes, nose, ears, and fingertips. The flames begin to spread. After a moment of shock, Charlotte, Nicola, and Allen begin to run. In his desperation, Allen hurls himself into the abandoned tin mine.

After a week in the mine, Allen’s severe burns have healed well (which he assumes is because of the cormorant within him). His skin has fused with the feathers that littered the mine, and the feathers are growing instead of dying. His nose has become bonier and straighter. He treasures his solitary time in the mine away from the wombats and the farmhands. Still, the cormorant in him knows they’ll leave the mine one day: he’s hungry and will need to kill again.