A Bird Will Soar

THE WORLD IS FILLED WITH MYSTERIES.

Clues, everywhere-cracked shells, forgotten feathers, deep prints left in soft soil. Axel gathers clues wherever he goes. From the four walls
of his bedroom to the rushing creek and deer-spotted trails tucked behind his house, he wanders and wonders.

Axel is never truly alone in the woods, even though he feels completely alone with his thoughts here. He brings with him a partner to gather clues. An exceptional partner, really.

Ray.

Ray, whose nose picks up things Axel’s eyes can’t see. Ray, whose ears perk to the sounds of songs invisible to Axel. Yes, Ray is an excellent partner for walking in the woods. And best of all, Ray doesn’t talk. Doesn’t try to interrupt the important observations or thinking time that the woods offer.

And the nest, of course, is a favorite place to stop and gather clues. To listen. To watch. To wait.

Today, Ray’s whole body wiggles with excitement when the two approach the nest. Axel knows just how his best friend feels. His insides come alive at the sight, too. Five feet wide and four feet deep, raggedy with sticks and moss and lichen, the eagles’ nest is squished into a crook in the branches of a massive pine located along the same creek that rushes past Axel’s home. As though this tree was grown, in this very special way, just to host this family.

Listen! There’s a rush of movement inside. An important clue. When a cry comes from high inside the nest, shrill and lightning quick, Ray bounces on his back legs. There is no response to the cry. No deeper, longer hush from an adult bird to its baby.

“I wonder where the parents are today,” Axel whispers. Most days, after a cry, there is an adult eagle who responds. Axel knows that sound too. Some days, Axel and Ray are lucky to see an adult coming or going from the nest. Comes with food or goes for more, that is.

But not today. Today, it is just earth, and sky, and the cries from the nest.

Ray settles and Axel thinks. Thinks about the parents coming and going. Thinks about the baby or babies inside the nest. That’s another mystery to solve: not just where are those parents…

But how many babies could there be?

Axel can’t see into the nest. He can only hear-can only gather clues in this way from outside and down below. He has a guess about the number of babies-“Eaglets,” he would say if asked. He’s almost certain, even if he can’t prove it just yet.
Ray leans into Axel, his short hair pressed soft against Axel’s leg. He stays quiet, though. He knows Axel likes thinking time and thinking spots. The woods being a favorite thinking place.

“Come,” Axel says after a long while after his listening, watching, and waiting for clues. Today’s trip into the forest is a thinking day, not a solving day. Some mysteries can be solved quickly. Some mysteries go on for a long time. The best Axel can do is show up and wonder. The answers will come eventually.

Come, Ray says in his own way to Axel, bounding ahead of him, zigzagging through the woods on the paths that they’ve created, boy and best friend. He knows which knotty roots to leap over, where to turn, and where to pick up speed.

Axel likes to run too. This time for the fun of following his friend away from the thick green plant life, away from the nest and the missing eagle parents, across an imaginary line between forest and home.

Home. The farmhouse, the cottage, the barn, the fence. Home. Where Ray finds his favorite people.
Home. Where Axel, just for a moment, wonders, Where are those parents? The question doesn’t fill his brain long be cause, just as they emerge from the woods, there in the clearing, Axel sees Byrd in her flower garden.

Axel doesn’t race to his mom the way Ray races to one of his favorite people.

…”I would still wonder about other things,” Axel says, looking from the dense forest to his mom in the garden.

“Yes, but would you still go to the nest? Would you listen as intensely if I said how many babies I think there are?” George asks.

Axel is a good listener. Great, actually. George knows this; he’s just testing, the way George does.
Axel claps his hands. “You just said ‘babies,”” he says, presenting this clue back to George.

George smiles.

Axel’s been observing the nest for many years. Back when George would walk him out to the water, then wait and watch for clues. Back when Axel’s dad would too.

Axel has observed many pairs of eagle babies come from that nest. Once there were three, and Byrd said that was a miracle. One year there were no babies, and no one had to tell Axel what that was.

This year, though, Axel heard a hearty flutter of activity. He knows, deep in his bones, this year there are two. He wasn’t certain before, but he is now. And, after all, George said “babies,” didn’t he? An important clue. A mystery solved.

Some mysteries can be solved like Ray’s licks, quick and your face.

Some mysteries are harder. Ones like missing parents.

The question comes back into Axel’s mind. Where are those parents? It’s stuck inside his brain, on repeat, the same loop. Parents? Parent? Like George’s words or Ray’s wags.

Axel can’t solve this mystery today, not for the eaglets, and not for himself.

____________________________________
CHAPTER TWO: State Birds
The state bird of Pennsylvania is the ruffed grouse, shaped like the splotch of white on Ray’s brown chest, a hardy bird made to survive deep winters.

The state bird of New York is the eastern bluebird, a songbird unable to stick out deep colds, the bird escapes south to feast.

(It should be noted, the eastern bluebird is among the first to return home each spring. Rushes the season, sometimes, arrives before the last of the snow melts. Races back, though it doesn’t have the thick down of its neighbor, the well-armored talons of the grouse. It always comes back.)

It always comes back.

(Also of note, about ruffed grouse and eastern bluebird, about Pennsylvania and New York, Axel is in one, his father feasts in the other.)

…Byrd isn’t subtle in her movements. Not today, not ever. There are tears on good days and bad, kicked over clay pots, more times than Axel can count, and loud, loud laughter. She isn’t afraid to let her whole body show just how her heart is feeling inside.

Though she is, even with all her out-loudness, at times, a complete mystery.

Today she rips her garden gloves from her hands, whips them at the kitchen island, and screams like she can’t stand the very sight of them.

Byrd shifts from her naughty gloves to Axel in his thinking spot.

“Did you say something?” he asks. Sometimes his mind moves away from the sounds of Byrd so he can focus on the sights of her.

“There was a snake,” Byrd says, her voice still high like a scream.

There’s always a snake in Byrd’s garden. Always.

In late spring, as the days grow longer and warmer, the snakes will all slither back to their thinking spots. They’re creatures of habit, after all. They like what they like, and go where they know they can find food and warmth. So it isn’t at all surprising, at least to Axel, that Byrd’s flower beds filled with slugs and sunlight are happy spots for the garter snakes.

Axel appreciates the predictability of them. Byrd doesn’t share this logic.

Though Byrd, too, is a creature of habit sometimes. Times like when a snake is in her garden and she acts surprised. Her habit, though flawed, is predictable. “You should favorite roadrunners,” Axel says.

“I don’t have favorites,” Byrd says. The panic settling out of her voice. “Except for you.”

Caw. “Everyone has a favorite bird. Or at least they should,” Axel reminds his mother. “And roadrunners kill snakes.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Byrd says. She begins an other one of her rituals, the garden-wear disrobing. Predictable in the order, but a mystery where things will end up.

Garden shoes off.

One here.

One there.

Hat on the back of that chair.

But the long-sleeve button-up, the one she always wears over her regular clothes. That one item hangs in the same spot, day-end to day-beginning.

It’s the oversized one, a very light blue, almost like to day’s sky. The one with Frank’s initials stitched onto the front chest pocket. She keeps it loose, unbuttoned. Sleeves rolled, though still long enough to protect her white arms from the sun.

Axel can smell the manure from her enriched soil as she takes it off. The shirt and the scent linger.

Byrd slips out of the shirt, lays the collar over the hook on the back of the door, and runs a hand down it.

With the last of Byrd’s busy movements, Axel returns to his book. A real masterpiece, as thick as a brick and packed with noteworthy bird facts.

He’s rereading the passage on kestrels and their perfect hunting groups when Byrd interrupts. “I’ve decided on my bird,” she says. She waits for him to look away from the page. “The pigeon,” she says, flopping down on the couch near him.

Caw. The scent that pops off of her is almost as putrid as her answer. “Pigeon?” Axel says in disgust.

Byrd’s joked about this before. Axel’s very own mother, a pigeon lover or even liker… Absurd!

“Who would ever favorite a pigeon when there are arctic terns in the world… and great blue herons… and red-tailed hawks… and peregrine falcons . . . and golden eagles… and…”

“You… asked… about… t…my… favorite…bird,” Byrd says slowly. Like there’s a clue in these words. Like Axel better pay attention to a hidden message. Like there’s a mystery to solve.

But Axel isn’t up for a mystery right now; he’d rather point out that technically he did not “ask” about her favorite bird, he only suggested what her favorite bird should be. A roadrunner who kills snakes.

As though Byrd can read his very mind, she catches Axel, like snake to mouse, in her gaze. “Pigeons can always find home,” she says. And before he can argue, adds, “Pigeons recognize kindness in others… Pigeons can do backflips.”

Caw. Axel drops his head back to his book. Byrd knew nota wisp of those facts until he shared them with her. He does not see the point in bringing any of those pigeony things up when he could be reading more about kestrels. Finer birds, obviously.

“They taught themselves to ride the subway,” Byrd continues. “They-”

“You know the only good thing about pigeons?” Axel interrupts this time. “Pigeons are a peregrine falcon’s favorite meal.” Now, that’s a juicy fact. But is it juicy enough to keep Byrd quiet? To let Axel get back to his own thoughts?

“What is it about those poor birds that makes you hate them so? You love all animals,” Byrd says. “Even snakes. Why can’t you love an animal that’s mastered the art of adaptation?”

This is a test.

A Byrd mystery.

Axel wants no part. Byrd can solve it on her own.

Byrd presses flat palm to Axel’s round shoulder. There’s comfort to her touch. Byrd’s not made of air-filled bones. Neither is Axel.

“I want you to have wings, Axel… I want you to soar.”

“That’s impossible,” Axel says.

It’s Byrd who looks away first, but it’s Axel who feels her worry.

So he flips in his big, bird-filled book. The rush of pages fans against his thumb.

L-M-N-O-Osprey.

“What about an osprey?” he asks. “As your favorite? The osprey mom is the finest of all aves. Will protect her babies no matter the situation.”

Byrd turns back to her son. Lets his words settle like the soil in her flower beds. Deep down and full of potential.

“Osprey, you say?”

Axel nods.

“Sounds like a lovely bird. But can she do backflips?”