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She picked it up by the base and carried it up the stairs. She stopped in the kitchen to wipe the cage down, admiring the beautiful scrollwork of the bars. Scarlett didn’t necessarily love the idea of birds in cages, but for their temporary purposes, it would work nicely. And they’d leave the door propped open as a sign of their abiding belief that beautiful, feathered things should not be locked away, unable to fly as God intended.
She took it to their attic room where Haddie sat on the floor, her stuffed animals in a circle, the box holding the injured baby bird directly in front of her. Scarlett set the cage down and grinned at Haddie. “Look what I found in the basement. A recovery hospital for our little patient.”
Haddie stared at the cage for a moment, her eyes widening momentarily as her forehead creased in a frown. Her gaze moved to Scarlett, her lips parting slightly as though she was about to say something, but changed her mind. Haddie’s expression was so . . . strange.
Confused, Scarlett looked from the birdcage to Haddie. “We can leave the door open, baby. I just thought it would be a good temporary home. He’ll be right at your eye level and you can check on him easily . . .”
Haddie picked up the baby bird gently from the box, cradling him against her chest. She turned her shoulder outward as if . . . shielding him. Haddie moved her eyes to the cage, that same peculiar look on her face as she shook her head. “No,” she asserted. “I’ll just keep him with me.”
“Are you sure?” Scarlett glanced at the cage, wondering if it appeared scary for some reason to her daughter. “It’s perfectly—”
“No.” She lowered her face. “No, thank you,” she whispered.
Scarlett paused. Haddie was . . . Haddie, but all kids got strange ideas in their heads sometimes. She supposed the cage might look sort of imposing, especially to such a small girl. “Okay, then. I’ll just put it back.”
Haddie nodded, laying the baby bird back in the box.
“How’s he eating?”
“Good,” Haddie said, using a finger to smooth the downy fluff on the top of his head. Scarlett had looked online and found that softened dog food or well-mashed hard-boiled eggs could be fed to orphaned baby birds, so she’d prepared the eggs. If the little guy was eating well, it gave her even more hope that he’d survive. “How about you get all your friends ready for bed,” she said, smiling around at the circle of—primarily—fur-filled, non-egg-eating pals.
“Okay, Mommy,” Haddie said, shooting the cage one last wary glance. Scarlett picked up the apparently offensive piece of furniture and set it outside their room, shutting the door on it.
Half an hour later, Haddie was snuggled up in her bed, the baby bird next to her on the bedside table. Scarlett sat down on the bed and pulled the blanket to her chin. She stroked her daughter’s silken hair and leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I love you,” she murmured just as a loud creak sounded from a floor below. Haddie’s eyes widened. “It’s okay,” she said, smoothing Haddie’s hair back calmly even as her pulse quickened. “It’s an old house. There are going to be lots of creaks.”
“I think it’s waking up, Mommy,” she whispered, but there was no fear in her voice.
Scarlett’s gaze moved over her daughter’s features. “I suppose even houses sleep sometimes if they’re left all alone.”
“Yes,” Haddie agreed. “They do.” She yawned, turning toward where the baby bird slept, its bony breast rising and falling.
Skittering sounded somewhere in the walls. Mice, Scarlett thought. Great. She wondered if there might even be a bat or two. She’d move that exterminator up higher on the priority list. “Sleep tight,” she whispered to Haddie as she stood, picking up the bird in its makeshift nest so it wouldn’t wake her daughter later, turning on the white noise machine, and heading downstairs.
In the kitchen, she stood at the window, staring at the deepening nighttime sky, the silvery stars as clear as scattered diamonds on a bed of azure silk. Movement near the edge of the woods caused her to suck in a startled breath, but then she saw a small red fox duck around a bush. Her heartbeat slowed. Taluta. Her lips tipped as the red fox disappeared into the dense trees beyond.
Her gaze moved to the edge of the windowsill where she’d set the blade of grass Camden had miraculously fashioned into a fox. The grass had stiffened as it died, its color fading from emerald-green to brownish-gold. She picked it up, holding it in her fingers and marveling at it again.
Behind her, she heard the sound of a door softly closing. Scarlett whirled around, a startled breath escaping in a soft gasp. She placed the grass-shaped fox on the counter and moved cautiously toward the kitchen door that led to the hallway, and the foyer beyond. What had that been? A shutter flapping maybe? But no, it’d sounded distinctly like an internal door clicking closed. And it’d been close.
