The furless creatures made up their minds a bit sooner than I expected. I was in a box and now I am in a field and it is wide open and exposed to all the wild things of the night forest.
The Brown Frizz stands holding the box. Her eyes lock on to mine. I lift my tufts. Will she hoot a warning? Advice?
But she merely whuffles something in Furless Creature–ese.
She believes I am ready.
I turn my ears to the wild. A map of heartbeats rises from the shadows, life pulsing through the grass, out of the darkness. I am ready.
I open my wings, press on the air, and rise up, up, hit a current of heat, and glide into the bent talons of the trees.
“Goodbye, Brown Frizz!” I hoot to her. “Thank you, partner!”
She’s already walking away. But that is how it must be for furless creatures. Help a hurt owl, heal it, move on to the next.
I circle the trees, fly higher, higher, and see the perch meadow below, not far in the direction of the sunrise. I swoop down and land on Red’s roof.
“Red!” I hoot. “I’m free!”
“Then be free, Hatchling,” Red screeches.
Red flaps down to a perch, and I swoop onto one of the dead trees in the perch meadow so we can look each other in the beak.
“I just wanted to say goodbye,” I chirp. “And thank you.”
“Survive,” she says. “Say goodbye to me in the springtime.”
I bow to her. “I will,” I hoot.
Her eyes gleam in the last glimmers of sunset. “Then go do it,” she tweets. “This bird is finally going to be able to get a full night’s sleep.”
I bob my head, lift my wings, and flap off, hooting as loudly as I can, just so she won’t forget me.
The night is cold and dark. I fly high, look down on the rivulets of light that cut the darkness. Somewhere down there is Mother. Only one owl can help me find her.
First.
I swoop through the breeze, my feathers slicing the air currents, splitting them into eddies of silence. I was so afraid to fly high before. What was I afraid of?
The rivulets lead toward rivers of light, which pour into a vast lake of brightness. First will be there, hunting along the shores in the shadows. I glide lower, begin hooting for her. It doesn’t take long for me to sense the shadow diving down, talons out.
I dip and swerve to avoid her attack.
“You’re out!” First cries, wheeling around.
“Take me to Mother,” I screech.
First pulls up in front of me. “You dodged my attack.”
“I’m not an owlet.”
Her tufts lift. “Oh?”
She swoops toward me and I dive, then twist around, talons out. We lock talons and beat our wings, pulling each other in a circle. Our ear tufts are straight up, our eyes fierce globes glowing.
This is and is not the same game we played in the nest. Now, I’m bigger. And I believe I have a chance.
First releases me. “I guess you have grown,” she hoots, ear tufts lowering. She flaps away from me and then glides down into a hummock of trees between the lights.
I follow her into the shadows.
First has set up a perch for herself between the forking trunks of a tall evergreen tree. Discarded remnants of furless-creature stuff tumble across the scrubby grass and dirt below. Furless creatures’ monsters roar by, flashing their lights like lightning through the branches.
“Why do you perch here of all places?” I chirp, landing on a small branch above her. We may have made peace, but who knows when First will break it.
“I told you,” she says, “the lights attract rodents.” She rouses, begins preening her feathers. “Also, I don’t have to fight any other owl for the food.”
“Did you have to fight other owls in the woods?” This is news.
First finishes her grooming and pulls her feathers in. “Even Father warned me off his territory.”
My gizzard turns cold. “Father did?”
“I told you to stay where you were. The wild is cold and cruel.” First looks away, down at the shadows below.
I want to hoot something comforting to her, but I sense there is no comfort to be had. Father was never a gentle owl, but perhaps that is because there can be no such thing.
“I’m sorry,” I hoot.
“I’m not,” she chirps back. “Better to have it honest. Better to know the truth. And I have found my own place. I hunt here at night. During the day, I perch near a lake in deep woods.
“You will find your place, Second. If you fight for it, you will.”
“I have to find Mother first,” I say.
First dives down from her branch, landing like a stone on a tuft of grass. Then she flaps back up, a vole between her claws. She gulps it down whole. “I’ll take you,” she chirps, wiping her talon across her beak. “But you should grab a meal before we fly.”
I raise my tufts. “You don’t mind sharing your territory?”
She twitters, tilts her head. “You beat me at Talons,” she says. “I’ll let you share my territory tonight.”
I bob my head. “You’re too kind.”
“What’s a hatchmate for?”
“Apparently, one night of hunting.”
“More than you’d get from any other owl.”
She has something there. I focus on hunting. It’s instinctual now, getting my feathers in line. The heartbeats glow in the darkness. I dive, catch a mouse. Dive again, just miss a vole.
First really has found herself a prime hunting spot. Even if you do have to swoop through garbage to grab your meal.
Once we are both fat and happy, we rest in the tree. The busy world of the furless creatures slows to a grumble in the deep night, and I close my eyes. When the half day breaks through the darkness, First hoots to me softly, “It’s time.”
We pellet, then dart beneath the branches and fly out into the dim gray light. First leads me over the black expanses of the furless creatures’ paths, over their caves and meadows. I wonder which of them are like my Brown Frizz and the Gray Tail and which have the fire sticks. I wonder which is the kind that has Mother.
First swoops low near a human nest set between thick patches of trees. I follow her and perch in a leaf tree.
“In there,” she hoots. “I heard Mother inside that cave.” She turns and looks skyward.
“You’re leaving?”
She tilts her head to me. “You want me to stay?”
“We have to help Mother escape.”
First blinks her eyes slowly. “But I already tried and failed.”
“We can try together.” I glide down and perch on the branch above her.
First’s ear tufts lift, then soften over her brow. “Together,” she chirps, digesting the hoot like a morsel of meat. “All right. We shall try. Together.” She steps closer to me.
A happy hum warms my gizzard. “Together.”
We fly around the place, hooting a greeting to Mother. She had a special hoot to let us know she was returning to the nest, and we cry this special Hoot-hoo-hoo-HOOOOOOOOOT! all around the human nest. A few owls screech or hoot back to us: a pair of screech owls cry for us to go away, that they’re not owls but rather bumps on a tree—not a convincing tactic; a snowy owl warns us away from its nest with threat of talon; and a grumpy barred owl chirrups that we’re too late.
“Too late?” I perch near where I heard the barred owl. “Too late for what?”
The barred owl is in a small enclosed nest outside the human nest, similar to the one the Brown Frizz let me roost in.
First, always one for direct assaults, slams her talons into its roof. “Where’s Mother?” she screeches.
“Get off my nest, you great tufted gizzard.” The barred owl flaps down to a lower perch, as if avoiding First’s talons.
I raise my ear tufts at First, bob my head to signal her to move off. We need this cantankerous owl’s help! Then, lowering my tufts and tucking in all my feathers to create a compact and respectable appearance, I hoot to the barred owl, “You know something of our mother?”
“I don’t know if she’s your mother,” he chirps back. “But there was a nice female great horned here. Her wing never healed right.”
My gizzard frosts over and sinks in my gut. “Never healed?”
First is sending off waves of rage. “So the humans killed her?”
The barred owl clacks his beak with disdain. “You fluff-for-brains hatchling,” he screeches, “I have a broken wing, and no one killed me. I live here with the humans. These humans take me out and show me off to other, smaller humans. I think it’s part of an owl-human alliance they’re trying to develop. We’ve never quite worked out our mutual goals, but they feed me all the mice I can eat without my having to fly on my busted wing, and I let the tiny human hatchlings stare at me and sometimes stroke my chest feathers.”
“Owl-human alliance?” First squawks with disdain.
“That sounds right to me,” I hoot quietly. “We do live in the same patch of forest. Makes sense we’d want to get to know one another.”
“And there is the matter of the food. All I can gobble. Plus, they clean the nest for me. Quite a fine arrangement, if I do say so.”
“But Mother is not here,” First hoots. “Clearly, she is not a part of this alliance.”
“Not this one,” the barred owl replies. “But other humans came in one of their rolling hollow rocks, and they took the great horned with them. I believe my humans are trying to spread word of the alliance to other parts of the forest.”
It makes quite a bit of sense to me. The Brown Frizz and Gray Tail are certainly the kinds of humans who would support an Owl-Human Alliance. Maybe there are more of their kind of human than there are humans with fire sticks. Or maybe the Alliance is meant to control those fire sticks, at least with respect to owls?
“So you think she’s safe?” First chirps. “That the humans mean to take care of her?”
“Of course,” the barred owl grumbles. “These humans help owls. At least, they try.”
First flaps up and away from the barred owl’s nest.
She has absolutely no manners. I bow to the barred owl and hoot, “Thank you,” before flying off after her.
“First!” I cry, pumping my wings against an onslaught of icy currents curling down from a nearby mountain. “Slow down!”
“Why?” she hoots back. “We looked for Mother, she’s not there, it’s over. Go find your own territory.”
The air currents push down on me, forcing me to curve around to flap out of their thrust. It’s too much pressure. I glide down to the nearest treetop. First fights the currents, burning far too much energy, and then drifts down like a leaf, swerving one way, then the other, and comes to rest in a tree not far from mine.
Half day cracks open into full light. It’s too late for us to try to find another day roost. I decide to risk a quick hunt to restore my gizzard. My feathers naturally arrange themselves, and I find a clutch of mice in a nearby tussock of grass. I flap up, silent as a breeze, and glide down, down, and crash into the leaves. My talons squeeze around a mouse and then I fly with it up into the branches.
I find a solid perch and am about to gobble down my kill when I look up and see poor First. I can hear her gizzard grumbling from here.
I flap up to her, present the mouse. “Here,” I hoot. “For you.”
First cracks open her eyes. “Why would you give me that?” she peeps. “You’ve got to be as hungry as I am after all that flying.”
“I’m hungry,” I hoot, “but I can catch another, and you seem in a bad way right now. You need this mouse more than I do.” I nudge the mouse toward her with my talon.
“This is not how it’s supposed to be,” First grumbles. “The rule is every owl for herself.”
“Maybe,” I hoot, “but I’m not sure those rules apply to hatchmates. At least, I don’t think they should.”
First fluffs her feathers a bit and raises her tufts. Then they smooth down and she reaches a talon toward the mouse. “Maybe I can agree to that,” she chirps. She grips the meat and gobbles it down. “Thank you,” she hoots softly.
“You’re welcome,” I say. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meal of my own to catch.”
I swoop down and catch a bite for myself, and when I fly back up to First, she’s moved over to make a bit more room on her branch for me.