She fell on top of me, burrowed her face in my fluff, hands smacking the down inside of me, legs kicking, wriggling, growing restless at the foot. Every night I gave her comfort, she told me her secrets, whispered in the meekest of voices of the taunts and the teases and the tortures of the day. I was her alter of which she prayed, confessed, sinned, repented.

Lips would press into me, so hard I feared sometimes I would burst and my ethereal contents would escape and whisper the secrets I held into the air, giving her confidences away, but rather I became the two sides of the red sea, and her faces Moses, and her tears the staff, parting me.

Sobs left streaks, streaks became stains, no more was I white, but tainted. Not just of her make-up and dirt and skin, but of her secrets and thoughts and emotions. Tainted so I could never be returned, not that I would ever wish to be. Shelves told no secrets, gave no importance. I was never washed, never wiped, never wet. The water, she feared, I feared, would steal the secrets taking them to the sewers beneath the city to be shared.

Or fear I would lose a feather- a frightening memory forever lost. No, that would never do. Today was no different than yesterday, no different than tomorrow would be. I kept my oath, kept her confidence. But eventually the secrets smothered her, taking her, left her lying still, secretless.