CHAPTER SEVEN: {THE FLIGHT}

The world was brighter than she remembered when Crow emerged from the mountain. Squinting at the sky, Crow’s thoughts were swirling with images of strange sea creatures she could barely imagine. She was surprised by how calm she felt. The mysterious rock, the specter of the Owl, the threat of war—all of it felt smaller now. She had a warm feeling about animals helping each other and forming friendships in unlikely circumstances. Even crows and owls?  

The mountain’s words echoed in her ears—what would help her look at things from a different angle? How could she get a bigger perspective? She could never get as big as the mountain itself, but she could fly really high. She made up her mind to soar higher than she ever had before, as high as the mountain’s very peak, and survey her familiar forest from that perspective.  

The wind in her wings was refreshingly familiar, but her heart and mind were still buzzing with so many new experiences. No one she knew had ever talked to a mountain. Could she tell her family about how restful it felt? Could she describe the odd friendliness of the laughing roses? No doubt, they would find it all very peculiar. A lonely feeling came over her, and only then did she realize she was flying high above a forest—but not her forest! She had flown in the opposite direction from home and was now all alone, soaring above the forest on the other side of the mountain! 

It looked a lot like her forest from up here, but the contours were all wrong. How small all the trees appear from way up high, she thought. Like the trees were barely trees at all, but like individual feathers on a single bird—small parts of the one big forest. What did that make her? Just a single crow…a part of one, big.. what? 

Her mind was so occupied with this question, she forgot she was flying far away from her home. As the sun began to set the contours of the trees below got even dimmer. She was all alone in the sky, and felt she was flying over a vast, green ocean. She didn’t know much about oceans, but one piece of the mountain’s story was clear: it was a place where animals helped each other. That could be true about a forest, too. The sunlight helped the trees grow, the trees helped the insects grow, the insects fed the birds, and birds like her helped everyone with their beautiful singing…no, that wasn’t quite it, though. She was certain her singing was a gift to all, but she wasn’t helping the insects she ate. But birds could help each other, right?

How did it work, exactly? Some kind of network of everyone helping everyone else? 

And with these thoughts, Crow grew tired and descended in gentle, slow circles down to spend the night in an unfamiliar forest. And she wasn’t even scared.