It is only when they close the web over the opening of this new cave that I realize the furless creatures are not staying here with me. That I am alone in the wild darkness. With a very large and huffy hawk less than a swoop from where I perch.
I consider hooting for help.
But who in the whole of the wild world would help a great horned owl?
“So you’re the new bird.”
It’s the hawk. I freeze. Flip up my ear tufts. Blend in.
“If you’re trying to hide from me, it’s not going to work. You’re in an enclosed nest, a small version of what my partner lives in. I’m in the nest next to you.”
Nest?
“Meaning I can’t eat you, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.”
SHE’S THOUGHT ABOUT EATING ME?! The memory of the stabbing pain of the goshawk’s talon through my wing nearly causes me to drop off my perch.
“Not the brightest bird in the roost, are you? You’re safe. From me and everything else. Stop trembling like a chick.”
Is it much of a wonder that owls hate hawks?
“Look, Owl, we’re the only two birds around and I haven’t had anyone to squawk with in more than a season, so get hooting.”
“Was it an owl?” I ask.
“What was that?” Her talons scratch along her perch. She hadn’t expected a response.
“Was it an owl who was here in this nest?”
“No,” she grumbles. “It was a goshawk that thought he was above talking to a lowly red-tail.”
Just the word goshawk sends trembles through my feathers. “I do not like goshawks.”
“No bird likes goshawks.” Her chirp is muffled—she must be preening. “Then again, no bird likes a great horned owl, either.”
That just gets me fluffed. “You know, not all great horned owls are bad.”
“All great horned owls are large, silent predators that kill you in your sleep and eat basically everything in the forest that isn’t a moose, so no, maybe not bad, but certainly not something to be liked.”
I bob my head, considering. “You do have a point,” I hoot.
“Of course I have a point. I don’t bother screeching if I don’t have a point.”
This hawk is the oddest combination of desperate and standoffish. Not that I have much experience with hawks. This is the first one I’ve ever squawked with who was not also trying to kill and eat me.
“Why are you here?” I dare to ask. “What are these enclosed nests and what do the furless creatures want with us?”
The hawk rouses her feathers. “Furless creatures? You mean my partner? We hunt food together. She chases rabbits and squirrels from the bushes and I swoop down from the trees and kill and eat them. It’s quite fun.”
Hunt together? That was my idea! “Are you saying that the furless creatures hunt in packs with hawks? Do you think they’d teach me to hunt with them?”
“Teach you?” The hawk practically wakes the forest with that screech. “First of all, no self-respecting hawk hunts in packs like a fur-brained coyote. My partner is a useful assistant on the hunt.
“But more importantly, are you hooting that you don’t know how to hunt?”
Now I’m fluffed again, and just when I had my face feathers in perfect hearing order. Pellets. I must calm down. Breathe in through the beak, let the cool air calm my gizzard . . .
Once my feathers are back in their places and my ear tufts are straight, I chirp back at her, “I have caught a vole. Once.”
“Once?”
“Yes,” I say. “And it was quite a wonderful kill, if I do say so myself.”
“You’ve caught one vole?”
“Yes,” I repeat, a little louder. I’m beginning to wonder if the hawk is deaf.
“Only one vole and you’re, what, nearly six moons old?”
I tap out the moons with my talons. Great Beak, it has been nearly a full six moons. Six moons . . . “My mother,” I begin, but can’t finish. The hoots catch in my beak like ants in sap.
“Oh, you poor thing.” The hawk’s tone has changed like a summer’s evening: the storm has passed and now it’s warm and wet and starry and the crickets are chirruping. “Was it another bird?” she tweets.
She understands . . . “It was a monster. One of the monsters the furless creatures use to roll around the forest.”
“Oh, you poor little fledgling!” the hawk screeches. “You didn’t see it, did you?”
“I saw everything,” I peep.
“Did she hoot at you afterward?” Her tweet is flat.
“She told me to fly away. I didn’t. I tried to follow the monster.”
“The human took her?” Now her chirp is brighter, her heartbeat faster.
“The furless creature—you call them humans? The human took her. It threw a skin over her and picked her up like a piece of prey and put her inside the monster.”
“Oh!” Again, the screech sends the whole forest squeaking and rustling. “What news! That’s the best thing that could have happened!” The hawk is flapping around her nest, shrieking with joy. “The human probably brought her someplace like here. Sometimes my partner takes a bird that has been hit by those growling, shiny monstrosities and helps it get better. When it’s healed, she lets it go back into the sky.”
I run my beak over my hurt wing. It feels better—no stinging, no burning. It’s even less stiff. The furless creatures made me better. Could it be that somewhere, a furless creature is helping Mother get better too?
“Do you really think so?” I can barely let myself dream that it’s true.
“I do,” the hawk says, stamping her talons. “And when you’re better, they’ll send you out to find her. Hopefully after they teach you to hunt. You can call me Red, by the bye.”
At first, hearing those chirps, I’m ready to fly off this very heartbeat. But then somewhere out in the night, the yip of a fox echoes. And I’m reminded of all the terrible things outside these walls that are waiting for a meal to fly into their snouts. A helpless, hopeless owl of a meal. An owl who’s only ever caught one vole in his whole stupid short life.
“Don’t get fluffed, Owl,” Red twitters. “I’ll help you learn how to hunt. My partner will help too, I’m sure of it. We won’t send you out to starve and be eaten by a bumble-footed goshawk.”
Relief like smooth fur down my gullet calms my feathers. “You really don’t like goshawks.”
Red clacks her beak. “No one likes goshawks. Great big feathers-for-brains bullies.” She grumbles softly to herself for a few more heartbeats, and then I hear her snuffling in her sleep.
The furless creatures are here to help birds. They help birds get better and then let them fly free. And Red’s going to teach me to hunt. I’ll catch a vole—no, two voles—no, THREE voles and a mouse and scarf them all down! And then, I’ll be set free to find Mother and First and Father. They’ll be waiting for me in the branches, wings wide. We’ll fly together through the velvet night and hoot as loudly as we want!
HOOT-HOO-HOO-HOOT!
“Gizzards and crops!” Red squawks, sounding completely fluffed. “Please, Owl, do keep it down for us day birds.”
“Sorry, Red.”
“Blasted owls,” she grumbles. “Hooting all night. Waking me from the nicest dream. Here, squirrelly . . . I see your fluffy tail wiggling . . .”
I twitter softly to myself, just imagining her crouched on her perch, ready to pounce on her dream squirrel.
That’s going to be me, I hoot to myself. I’m going to learn how to hunt. I’m going to fly free.
I find a comfortable perch in this warm and safe nest and listen to the world of the night—my world, the world of the owl—chitter and snuffle and scrape and chirp all around me.