As Oddo glared into the depths of the cauldron, the flickering strands glowed brighter. Flames filled the cauldron and shot upwards in a sheet of golden light, and beyond, perched on the side of the curach, was the shape of a bird.
Oddo’s body seemed to flow towards the flames. His heartbeat quickened, faster, faster. The blood pounded in his head. The wind was roaring, trying to knock him off the boat. He hunched down, and clutched the wood tighter with his feet.
Hairydog barked and launched herself towards him. Instinctively, Oddo raised his arms and pushed downwards. With a shock, he felt his body lifting. The solid wood under his feet fell away and he surged forward.
The wind was lifting him, carrying him. He was flying! In a moment he was far from the boat, far out over the sea.
He flicked his wings and bounded, like an arrow springing off a bow. He sped across the water, the wind rushing through his feathers.
‘I can fly!’ he thought, exultantly.
He rolled his wings through the air, like oars sweeping through water. Higher, he soared, higher and faster. He watched the waves streaming past. From up in the sky, they looked like harmless ripples.
‘How do I turn?’ he wondered. ‘Maybe that’s like rowing, too.’ He beat one wing faster than the other, and managed to veer round in a curve.
The curach came into sight, the figures inside it all scanning the sky. But only Hairydog could see his magical bird shape. As Oddo drew closer, she yipped a welcome, while Dúngal and Thora looked blankly upwards, even when he swooped right over their heads.
‘Kik kik kik!’ he called. But of course they couldn’t hear him.
He stretched his wings and began to drift, buoyed on air. He could feel the currents lifting him, carrying him, like a boat on a gentle sea. He skimmed the waves, then hovered for a moment, watching the silver backs of the darting fish. Suddenly his wings snapped against his sides and he was plunging like a stone. He hit the water with a splash, his beak stabbed, then he was in the air again, water droplets showering him in rainbow-coloured sparkles and a live fish wriggling down his throat.
In the same instant he heard the whirr of something diving through the air. He glanced up and saw a huge skua swooping towards him. Oddo tried to twist out of the way, but his pursuer twisted with him. The vicious talons slashed at his wings, then gripped hold of his tail feathers and dragged him backwards. He squawked in fright, and the skua grabbed its chance to rip the fish from Oddo’s gaping beak and sweep away with it.
Frightened and dishevelled, Oddo wobbled back to the curach. His feet fumbled for a perch on the yardarm, and his wings flopped against his sides. He huddled there, swaying with the rhythm of the boat, his feathers torn and ruffled. As soon as his body stopped quivering, his head twisted towards his back and burrowed under his tail to pick up some preening oil. With the pointy tip of his beak he nibbled his feathers, rubbing them with the oil to make them smooth. He straightened his two long tail feathers, then started on his wings, stroking and rearranging. Only when all his plumes were neat and mended did he peer down at the boat.
The fire was still burning inside the cauldron, and Hairydog was curled around it. Oddo watched Thora cut a piece of cheese and hand it to Dúngal. She leaned towards him, the wind lifting up her long, honey-coloured hair so that it wrapped around his head. They looked cosy and contented, not thinking about him at all. They even had their backs turned on his boy shape at the foot of the mast.
‘I’ve left Thora alone with that oaf,’ thought Oddo crossly.
For an instant, he was tempted to abandon his shape-change. The flames in the cauldron reached out invitingly towards him. Then he saw Thora shade her eyes and peer out to sea.
‘Can you see any land yet?’ she asked.
She was speaking to Dúngal, but Oddo lifted his red webbed feet and twisted round on his perch so he, too, could look. Even with his bird’s-eye view, all that was visible in every direction was endless sea.
‘If I get back in that boat,’ he thought, ‘we could sail for ever and ever, and never find Ireland. I’d never get rid of that conceited, puffed-up—’
At that moment, Thora turned to check inside the cauldron. So, she hadn’t forgotten him. She picked up a strand of nettle rope to feed the flames, but as she leaned forward, Dúngal tugged her skirt and held up the hunk of cheese.
‘Leave her alone, you poophead,’ thought Oddo crossly. He lifted his tail and sent a blob of white shooting downwards. It plopped onto the red hair, and trickled across Dúngal’s cheek. Oddo squawked with glee. ‘Now you’re really a poophead!’
A pity Thora couldn’t see it. But his droppings were no more visible to her than his magical bird shape.
He rested a moment longer, then, with a last longing glance into the boat, he lifted his wings and flew away.
