Great Horned Owl
Blue had friends in high places and decided it was time to visit Ruby the Great Horned Owl. They’d known each other since they’d been fledglings. He approached her tree house, bark as tough as the back of a lizard. He heard a clatter and a banging, then a screeching. “Tell them to go away. No visitors.” Fireflies blinked a warning signal on and off.
Blue told the fireflies. “Tell her I’m an old friend.”
Ruby pulled open the blinds. “I was wondering who was making such a racket. Do you know it’s one o’clock in the morning?”
He bowed. “Madam, I know that you are a night owl. Didn’t think I’d wake you.”
Ruby’s eyes crossed, which gave her a strange appearance.
Occasionally, her head spun around but Blue had known her long and well enough not to be alarmed.
“Come in,” she said.
He hopped into her knothole, glad to be out of the cold morning. She poured him a thimbleful of fresh maple syrup. He coughed and tucked something beneath his wing, then lifted the liqueur to his beak and tipped back his head. “Ahh, that’s good!” The inside of the tree was decorated with hanging bones and bird feathers.
He looked around. “I like the way you’ve fixed up the old place.” Many years ago, they’d been lovebirds.
“Thanks. So what brings you here?” Ruby wore a cape of red feathers with a white ruff. Only the tips of her talons were uncovered. She flexed them and made a tapping noise on the inside of the tree as she waited for an answer.
“I was in the neighborhood, so I thought, why not pay my old friend a visit?”
Ruby chewed a mouse bone and spit it out on the floor. “You don’t expect me to believe that?” Now Ruby had a soft spot for Blue. She thought his blue feathers were quite lovely and the way he angled his head back and forth, alluring. “What do you want?”
He told her about Ethel’s torn wing and Leah.“Trees are being cut down. There are less places to live and hunt,” and for a moment he turned away from her owl-gaze, “or for birds to make nests. The Glimmerine and the trees are like beak and claw, feathers and flying. Without one, you can’t have another.” Blue untucked his wing and pulled out the tissue with the remains of Ethel’s wing. “Leah thinks she can glue Ethel’s wing back. You don’t have to tell me. I know it’s a silly idea. But being a wise owl, I thought you’d know what to do.”
“Okay,” she said. “Follow me.”
Blue plucked the tissue from beneath his wing. They went to the back of Ruby’s tree trunk. She sat in front of a screen. Ruby put on a turban with a red shining jewel in its middle. “The screen’s made from the wings of a thousand flying insects and it’s held together with the bones of past lives. It’s apart of everything I’ve seen. It’s a part of everywhere I’ve ever flown. It’s my esrevinu,” she said moving a mummified mouse along the tabletop, “or universe spelled backward because that’s how I read words.”
The screen changed colors. “Who’s that?”
“There she is.” He recognized Ethel’s face that had come up on the screen. Her eyes were more flicker than glitter. Ferns and giant skunk cabbages sprang like fountains from the dark soil around her. On the ground, mushrooms curled into strange shapes and brown salamanders crawled along with pumpkin-orange bellies. Ruby chewed vole and mouse bones that were scattered along her desk, scooped up several owl pellets and mixed them together. Blue lost his appetite. She ground everything in a mortar and pestle, including the dust from Ethel’s wing. When it was ready, she poured the mess into a funnel at the side of her esrevinu. Blue watched the screen change. But then it went blank.
“Quawk! What happened?”
Ruby shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“It didn’t work.”
“What do you mean, it didn’t work?”
“See for yourself,” she pointed to her screen. “Ethel didn’t grow a new wing.”
“But I trusted you.”
Ruby tapped her talons. Her head spun. “You know I could eat you in two bites and spit you on the floor!”
“Ha! You’d never do that.”
“On second thought, you probably wouldn’t taste like much.”
Blue scratched his beak. He didn’t think it would be a good idea to rejoin Leah. She’d already called him a robber. And after stealing the remains of Ethel’s wing, how could he ever make things right? Then there was that insufferable Ms. Meow with her cat diplomas who’d take any chance to make him look bad. He asked Ruby,“ Maybe if you came with me to explain?”
“Forget it,” she said. “I’m staying right here.”
“Then pour me another thimbleful of maple syrup,” he said, “and I’ll be on my way.” Ruby had a big evening tomorrow; at least, she hoped it would be—maybe catch a mouse or two.
Yellow Flowers
Blue finished his drink and rubbed her wing good-bye. He hopped to the edge of her knothole prepared to make the journey to Alphonsa and Uriel a solo flight.
“Quawk!” he said.