These two chapters are Emily at her very best! She has come so far from the hesitant little one who asked, “Why do you always draw me small?” She has transformed and grown up into her full brave and loving heart, the kind of heart that is always valued by chickens, and at last, perhaps as affirmation of Emily’s transformation, Nate is finally able to draw her iridescence.
“Will you take me up on the roof with you? Like when you and Amelia were up there together?”
“Why do you want to do that, Emily?”
“So I can possibly be closer to Amelia up there. Maybe I can see her when I’m up there. Or perhaps she can see me.”
It took a considerable amount of bravery for her to ask this, not only because she didn’t know what she would do if I said “No” but also because it most exposed her heart to everyone unashamedly.
“Emily, I won’t take you up there. But I will let you fly up there on your own.
“You are stronger than you think, just like Amelia always believed about you. I will help you get up to the special door made for Amelia before climbing the ladder up to the roof. You follow me. The door will close behind you, just like it did for Amelia, with the others still safe inside.
“Even if your first part of the flight is only to The Healing Tree’s lowest branch—the one that hangs over the garden gate and path—that is fine. You may not do this as skillfully as Amelia, but you can do it. No one says you must do it all in one flight. I will be up there waiting for you, and you will be safe with me.”
This was not easy for me to say. I normally would have given her anything her heart desired, simply for the asking. She is the one that the others always prompt to ask me for treats or more free-range play time because she usually gets what she asks. But Emily needed to see that she was stronger than she believed she was. It’s what I believe Amelia would have told her as well.
“I will stay up there with you as long as you want, and then I will carry you back down in the bucket, just like I did with Amelia. Only you have to fly up to the roof, just like Amelia.”
And Emily did all that, just as I knew that she could. I sat with my legs hanging over the edge of the roof as she flew into my arms. When she was nestled comfortably, I whispered into her ear, “Amelia would have been so proud of you.”
After surveying the world from the roof, she flew up to the top of the old kitchen chimney and stood as tall as she could. She called out in Old Chicken, hoping those sounds would somehow carry the farthest, all the way to the moon if necessary. I did not know what she had said. Old Chicken is only for chickens to speak and understand. But I understand the sounds made when a heart is breaking.
We watched as the moon, an almost full moon, slowly rose and began crossing the darkening sky.
“Emily, we can stay up here as long as you would like.”
“I do not want to go down until I have heard from Amelia. It is daytime on the moon now. See how it is all lit up. She can’t be going to sleep like those down there in the garden below. I only want her to say something. I wish with all my heart I had followed her.”
She strained her body towards the moon and pleaded again, “Say something so that I won’t give up on you, Amelia.”
There was no answer.
“Then we will wait here together,” I said. “Come and sit in my lap, Emily. We will wait together where the moonlight is shining brightest. This chimney is blocked by The Bottle Cap Lady’s elm tree.
“There in the moonlight, Amelia will have the best chance of seeing us. We will wait and call to her together for as long as we need to get a message to her.”
The night air was growing chillier, and Emily fluffed out her feathers to keep herself warm. I held her close and placed her in my jacket. It was me who would keep her warm throughout the night, rather than Amelia or the others remaining in our little flock.
“This is just to keep you warm,” I said. “You can still watch and listen.”
Towards sunrise, she lowered her head and closed her eyes. Her feet stirred and so did her wings, as if she were tossing and turning in her sleep.
I did not know what I would say or do when she woke up. Like Amelia, she didn’t understand astronomy or how very far away the moon truly was. But I wanted Amelia to be there. I wanted Amelia to look down and see Emily and me sitting in the moonlight on the roof beside the red flag we had made for her. I wanted to believe she was there and that she missed us. Likewise, I wanted to watch her flying back home to us all the way back from the Moon. I wanted to watch Amelia do that as much as I wanted to see Gracie dancing at the Palais Garnier with the Paris Opera ballet.
But chickens don’t dance ballet on a grand stage. Nor do they fly to the Moon and back.
Once the sun began to rise, Emily woke up, startled by the bright light of a new day. “I dreamed about Amelia. She needs us. She is not on the Moon at all. That was just a sign like a big poster of the Moon and words, and the place where she is, it is not a good place at all.”
I unzipped my jacket to let Emily stretch out her wings and feet and said to her, “Tell me some more of what you dreamed.”
“All I really remember was that I dreamed about the sign I noticed when I was flying with her before. The sign was in my dream last night. I thought I had helped her get to the Moon, but I had only gotten her to a sign with the moon on it. She is somewhere else that is not a good place at all.”
I felt around in my jacket pockets to see if there was anything to write with to make a record of this before her dream was forgotten. There was a short, stubby carpenter’s pencil.
“Emily, would you be willing to try something? It might help you to hear from Amelia.” I didn’t wait for her to answer because I already knew what she would say. She would do anything to speak with Amelia.
“I want you to use this pencil to draw the word ‘MOON’ as closely as possible to how it looked when you saw it in your dream. Make a drawing of it, Emily.”
“But I need paper to make a drawing.”
Just then, we heard Gracie coming down the chicken ladder. From the way she sounded, she must have had a good night of sleep. The autumn air was delightfully crisp, and she began to dance in response, as she was often inspired to do.
Fortunately, no one was calling for their breakfast salad yet, and so I felt again in both of my pockets, even the one inside the jacket, but there was no paper. Then I looked down at the metal roof where we had spent the night and felt it with my hand. Surely the layers of paint from over the years had enough rough texture to hold the marks of a drawing. They had when I had been up there repairing under the eaves with Amelia. I remember writing down the measurements I had taken for the repairs.
“Draw on the roof, Emily. The roof can be your paper. Draw the letters for the word ‘MOON’ just as you dreamed them last night. Then look for Amelia like when you flew with her before.”
She took the stubby pencil in her beak and slowly drew the letter shapes on the roof just as she had seen them. They were thick, blockish letters. The “M” and the “N” had embellishments which she also drew. As anxious as we both were to see if this experiment would work, she took her time until she had them as close to her memory as possible. I did not question whether those extra curlycues would be important. Communicating with Amelia was the essential thing.
“Drawing lets you do things you cannot do any other way,” she said. “I should have thought of doing this myself.”
She stood at the peak of the roof with the chimney to her back, closed her eyes, and then she opened them again. She closed her eyes for a bit longer, and then she opened them once again. The third time, she closed her eyes and kept them closed.
Slowly she stretched out her wings until they were fully extended, and just as before, she trembled with excitement. Her eyes opened wide, but she wasn't seeing the sunrise or me.
She swayed from side to side, as if being carried along by winds high into the sky above.
She looked to her right, then she began opening and closing her beak. No sound or words came out, but I knew she was calling to Amelia.
A look of gleeful surprise came over her face as if she heard Amelia answer back. After what seemed like some chattering back and forth, followed by wing flapping as if to land, she folded her wings against her body and stood still, as if perched beside Amelia.
Emily tilted her head and listened intently. Her brow looked troubled. Then she acted as if she was tracing letters in the air. Since I didn’t know whether she was doing this for me or for herself, I found the pencil and began writing the letters on the metal roof.
The letters in the air spelled out “Home of Professor Accipiter’s Blue Moon Bird Circus.”
Emily continued acting as if she were listening to Amelia. She would nod from time to time, and occasionally speak a word or two. At last, she shook out all of her feathers and said, “Did you get all of those letters. There were so many, I didn’t think I would be able to remember them all, and I drew them in the air for you to write them done for us.”
“You were smart to do that, Emily. I got all the most important letters.”
“What do the words say? I have to know. I am sure they are crucial to helping her.”
“They say she at the home of Professor Accipiter. We learned about him before you and Amelia moved here to live with us. You are right to be worried. This Professor Accipiter has a Bird Circus, and I don’t believe it is a very good place for any bird, chicken or otherwise.”
“What is a Bird Circus? Is it a nice home for chickens? That word home is in there too. Home is a good place. Maybe I was wrong. It could be she does not need us and is not in a bad place after all.”
“A bird circus is where birds such as chickens do tricks. They get food for doing tricks.”
“And what if they do not want to do tricks?”
“Then they get no food.”
“We get food whether we do any tricks or not. We get food whether we lay eggs or not.”
“That is because you live in a real home that is a garden, one that is not a circus.”
Just then, we heard Bessie clucking that she had waited long enough for her breakfast salad.
“I am ready to go down now. I have more to tell you, but first we need to have breakfast and plan our next move. We are going to bring Amelia home.”
“Whatever you say, Emily. Let me put you in the bucket, and I will lower you down from the roof the way I did with Amelia.”
“Thank you, but no. It’s not dark any longer.” With that, she flew from the edge of the roof and landed as perfectly as Amelia would have on the best branch of The Healing Tree.
“Hurry,” she called back to me. “We do not have all day. And do you know what else? I did not need to travel far away with Amelia from the beginning. She was always with me, right here in my heart. Isn’t that curious?”
“Iridescently curious,” I called down to her.
“Amelia has been captured by Professor Accipiter,” said Emily as Bessie and Gracie leaned in curiously.
“But she is not one of the performers,” reassured Emily, and then Bessie and Gracie relaxed a bit.
“She is actually coming up with ideas to help him make money.”
“That seems very wrong and very dangerous,” said Bessie.
“She is only doing that to gain his confidence,” explained Emily. “As things are now, he has not clipped her wings. He believes she is on his side, so she has more freedom than the captive birds performers.”
Gracie and Bessie nodded knowingly, and said together, “She has always been very clever.”
“Amelia is planning a huge Christmas Eve Extravaganza, and during the distraction of the show, she will help all the circus birds to escape.”
“Where will they go after escaping?” asked Gracie.
“The strangest thing happened not long after she left on her grand adventure—she found Mayflower’s tree there in the forest by the river.”
“The one with the two barn owls?”
“Exactly right. They are going to take care of the circus birds until their health returns. The ones who are too old or not well enough to make it on their own will retire there with Mayflower and the owls.”
“That sounds exactly like something our friend would do,” said Gracie, and Bessie nodded in agreement. “But how is she going to help them to escape when they are too old or not well enough?”
“It will happen during the Christmas Eve Extravaganza,” said Emily. “Pearl should already have an idea of what Amelia is planning. It has to do with Pearl’s Comedy Coop Show and how she was able to fly without flapping her wings.”
Everyone looked over at Pearl, who was rearranging some of her fabric scraps in one corner of the coop and run that she and Blanche had shared together. Pearl looked up when her name was spoken. She had not been paying attention to what the others had been discussing.
“Did somebody say my name?” asked Pearl.
“We would all like to know how you were able to fly without flapping your wings,” I said.
“It was done with Amelia’s help,” explained Pearl. “When I designed my sequin jacket, I added almost clear fishing line that was tied to a bar high up above the stage.”
“You turned yourself into a puppet,” said Bessie.
“I did indeed,” said Pearl. “Amelia only needed to move the bar along the path set up for the puppet ballerinas.”
“How will this work in the circus tent?” said Gracie. “What if there is no path set up for puppets?”
“That is where the barn owls and the starlings fit into her plan. They will grab the bars wrapped up as presents attached to each sequined Christmas jacket worn by the bird performers—”
“—and then carry them off into the forest to where Mayflower will be waiting!” said Gracie.
“Exactly right. The barn owls will help with the bigger, heavier birds, and the starlings will work together to carry off the lighter birds. They are all undernourished and weigh much less than normal.”
“But what about our friend, Amelia? How will she escape?” asked Pearl. “She cannot stay in The Circus. She belongs here in The Garden. This is her home and we are her family. Doesn’t she know that?”
“Amelia will be able to fly herself out of the doors of the circus tent,” said Emily. “She has not had her wings clipped like most of the other birds. And then the next morning, Christmas morning, when the sun is as high in the sky as it will be, I will help her fly back home to us.”
“It is a risky plan, but I know it will work,” said Gracie. “But where are those costumes going to come from?”
Gracie and Bessie looked at Emily, and Emily looked at Pearl.
“Well, I told her how several clever field mice helped with the sewing for my sequin jacket. With their small hands, they were superb at passing a needle and thread from one side of the cloth to another.
“And if she is anywhere near the river, there’s sure to be plenty of fishing line that has been caught in the trees along the shore line. Fishermen are not always as clever as they might think.”
“Amelia will be able to make it all come together and work,” said Emily. “When she sets her mind on something, she sees it through until it is completed.”
“You’re sure about bringing her home to us on Christmas Day, aren’t you, Emily?” I asked.
Emily nodded.
“Then that will be the best Christmas gift I could ever hope for. Did she say anything about an alternate plan in case something should go wrong?”
Emily shook her head.
“Anything about how to get a message to her if we needed to contact her?”
Emily’s shook her head again, and then leaned in and whispered as if to share a secret. “The Absence Of Love is behind all of this. It wants to destroy our Healing Tree, even though we do not know how a Healing Tree works. I landed on its branches yesterday on my way to the roof and again this morning on my way back down, and I don’t feel any different.”
“Maybe we should try to find out from The Living Library,” suggested Gracie, looking around for her wren who had always been so helpful, like when he sent The Robin to be her dance teacher.
They heard a rustling sound in the leaves of an azalea bush, and Gracie’s Page appeared.
“Need to know about Healing Trees?” he asked. “There is already a Page assigned to the one right here in your backyard, a small raven, the granddaughter of a raven you know quite well, The Raven with Blue Eyes. All Healing Trees work differently. Each adapts to its own particular place to be used for good. If every Healing Tree worked the same way, they would be misused. I will send for the small raven Page.”
As soon as Gracie’s Wren had flown off, I said to Gracie, I’d better go sit with Pearl and read my newspaper. The Healing Tree Page may not want to come and speak to you while I’m close by.
Pearl began sharing a story with me about what she heard when The Big Boy from the end of the street had explained about Christmas to The Little Boy from the end of the street.
As she spoke, I looked up and saw a small raven there on a lower branch what the birds call The Healing Tree. It was the same raven I had seen with The Laughing Gull when Pearl gave her performance for Blanche.
“Let me help you,” said The Small Raven. “But I should first let you know that ravens are not normally Pages in The Living Library.”
“While Pages protect knowledge, our friend, The Raven With Blue Eyes, is a Messenger who seems to protect other birds,” Gracie explained to me.
“She is my grandmother,” said The Small Raven. “For family safety, She will not let any of her children or grandchildren join her and the Squadron of Crows. But that is not why I am here. You want to know about The Healing Tree and why The Absence Of Love seeks to destroy it.”
“That’s right,” said Gracie.
“As the wren told you, each Healing Tree adapts to its surroundings to provide what will best serve the birds in that particular place. This Healing Tree has a purpose for only this garden.”
“What is so special about this garden?” asked Gracie. “It isn’t all that different from other garden.”
“The Head Librarian believes that this garden is where The Key to The Living Library will be found. The Key is the one who can unlock the past, present, and future of all birds and preserve life on Earth.”
“But how can that be?” asked Gracie.
“It is something my grandmother told you. It is all part of a much bigger plan which we are unable to see in its entirety, but we know each of our lives is a smaller plan within that much bigger plan.”
The Small Raven pointed towards Pearl. “Watch her smaller plan.”
They watched as Pearl rolled up a piece of paper to make it fit through the fencing. Then she called to one of her favorite songbirds, a thrush, who took the paper in its beak and flew off with it.
“Her smaller plan is only a part of a bigger plan, one which is only for this time and this place.
“Your Healing Tree has stretched its roots deep and far beneath this garden. It is being nourished by all that is part of the soil and the earth here. It is nourished by the love here. That is why it is growing so strongly.
“Gracie and Bessie, do you remember when you and your hatch mates used to sing each other to sleep at night? Your songs nourished this Healing Tree just as surely as the presence of every songbird with a voice that was carried through the live-giving air that your Healing Tree breathes in and exhales.”
“How do you know all of these things?” asked Gracie.
“Because of these—” said The Small Raven. She moved her head forward, and as Gracie, Bessie, and Emily watched, her eyes began to change. The grayish protective membrane that stretched from front to back across her eyes was withdrawn to reveal the true color of her eyes, blue like her grandmother.
“Your Healing Tree came from a pecan of the tree that used to grow behind your new coop and play area. It’s the stump you see there with the hollow under it that is favored by box turtles. The Boy’s Grandfather used to sit under that tree. He cried and he prayed until The Boy came to live there.
“The Grandfather’s tears were the water that nourished that big pecan tree, and his prayers were its song that made it grow. With the help of a squirrel, one of it’s seeds became what you see growing by the gate that shelters part of your ballet stage.
“The Healing Tree is the result of The Grandfather’s love for both The Boy and The Garden. The Healing Tree is for whatever The Boy loves and brings him joy,but its curious magic can only be used once.”
As we near the climax, we will learn more about whether or not Amelia’s great plan is successful and if she can safely return home with the help of Emily’s unusual gift as a Living Treasure.
Thank you for reading!
Our best advice to you this week comes from Emily: Dare to do what you have never done before! You can do more than you ever thought possible when you trust yourself!
John, Gracie, Bessie, Blanche, Pearl, Emily, and Amelia
moving toward the rescue...
Interesting and encouraging