Silent Dances (24 page)

The young woman
returned the sign with emphasis,
an
d then spun

around and marched resolutely to where Taller waited. The avi
an
held

up his own three
-
fingered hand, t
ry
ing to
imitate the sign. "
What does
that me
an
?" he asked Good Eyes. Her alien eyes gleamed at him. "It
'
s
a sign from my world." She made it for him
. "
It me
an
s
`
I love
you.'"

Taller looked at Relaxed
.
With great deliberation, he enveloped the

hum
an
with his wing and made her a part of his family.

119

Tesa danced on the air, a little flying thing with shiny wings, following the

trail of drifting sweet smoke into the tiny sweat lodge. In the center of the

lodge was a shallow circular depression. That was where the hot stones

should have been, sending up their purifying
steam
, but instead, there was

only a bundle made of gleaming feathered cloth. Inside the bundle

something moved, something alive.

Beside the bundle stood a Grus, just fledged, his long, black primaries at

odds with his layered cinnamon and white feathers.

"Come outside," signed the Grus, beckoning to her as he slipped through the

slitted opening of the lodge.

Disoriented, she followed. The Grus yearling stood among
giant trees
,

beside a bundle made of feathered cloth. Inside the bundle, something

moved, something alive. "This
is the answer," he signed, simply. "Look."

She was suddenly filled with fear. An angry Wakinyan emerged from under

the cloth like a genie from a bottle. The massive black thunderbird, swathed

in
mists
and clouds, soon

120

towered over them.
It opened its beak in what had to be a ter
ri
ble sc
re
am.

I can'
t hear it,
she thought, panicking,
I can
'
t hear it!
Jagged stre
aks of
lightning
re
nt the sky
.
She looked back at the sweat lodge
an
d
realized
,
with a sick feeling
,
that its entr
an
ce was facing east, not west
as she had o
ri
ginally thought
.
This was the sweat lodge of a
heyoka
.

She felt the Wakiny
an'
s mocking words
. "
What a backward
-
forward
way to be."

Tesa turned to the Grus but he dissolved,
becoming instead a gig
an
tic

red
an
d white bear, whose ter
ri
ble jaws we
re
split in a hideous g
ri
n.

She fled back into the sweat lodge, away from the laughing bear, away fro
m

the Wakiny
an,
only to find a white bundle whe
re
the hot rocks should
be-inside the bundle
,
something moved.

Something alive.

Tesa felt a soft tickling against her thro
at
.
Her sleep
-
fogged brain t
ri
ed
to
re
spond, but her ti
re
d body
re
fused
.
She snuggled deeper into the
soft cocoon but fin
al
ly
re
alized that the
re
was something
alive
in her bed.

She edged away an
d peered down
.
Beneath her chin a ball of sleeping

fluff
re
acted to her withdrawal by snuggling closer.
Forgot about you,
thought Tesa to the chick she'd watched

hatch a few hours before.
He was d
ry
now, his cinnamon fluff highlighted

by blond tufts a
ro
und his beak
an
d behind his wings
.
His inf
an
t trust
helped dispel the wor
ry
Tesa had felt on waking
.
The chick was

undoubtedly
,
Tesa felt, the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen
, an
d
she loved him unconditionally.

When Tesa had entered the nest shelter in the early morn
ing darkness
,

the inte
ri
or had been so black she could barely make out the b
ri
lli
an
t
whiteness of Weaver
'
s
re
clining form. Soon, though
,
a luminous
,
dusky glow beg
an
to penetrate the gloom th
ro
ugh thous
an
ds of thin
slits in the tule mat walls.

The chick had nearly finished cutt
ing out of the egg,
an
d as the Mother

Sun followed the Father, he
'
d pushed out. His wet down had clung to

his spindly neck
an
d tiny, fingerless wings
.
His dark
an
d swollen legs
had been full of edema that would be quickly absorbed
.
He'd lain the

re,
one big blue eye staring at his parents
as
though wonde
ri
ng what
the crowd was for.

121

T
esa had fallen in love with him, but the hatchling would not see ve
ry

well for several days
.
Because of her dark clothes and coloring
,
he

could only focus on her poorly
,
if at all. For Tesa
,
that was

disappointing.

Weaver had probed deep into the nest with her bill,
pulling out small globs

of mud from its foundation
.
Traditionally, the pa
re
nts fed the chick
mud so that he would be fo
re
ver pa
rt
of the World
.
The mud would
give him water
,
the nou
ri
shment of minerals
,
trace elements
,
and
micro-life, along with the digestive aid of fine sand that the small,

toothless being needed. Tesa had thought again of the Hopi
'
s Sipapu
,

the Ea
rt
h Navel in the kiva symbolizing the birth of all humans from

Mother Earth.

The wet hatchling had gobbled the bits of marsh mud greedily fr
om Weaver

'
s
an
d Taller
'
s bills
,
as Tesa pinched some between her fingers to
present to him
.
Suddenly something tiny and sharp had jabbed her

thumb
an
d blood had welled around the mud
.
Tesa had
re
moved a
sliver of shell
an
d
,
at Taller's insistence
,
had fed the chick the mud
glob
,
colored with her blood.

"Now," Taller had signed, "
you are a pa
rt
of him, also." Then he
'
d urged
her to
re
st
.
The two Grus had al
re
ady prepared a place for her on the
ri
m of the nest
,
whe
re
she could feel the gentle warmth of the

decaying reeds
.
Taller's
an
d Weaver
'
s own hatching cloaks had
made the matt
re
ss
an
d blanket.

"
I won't disturb you, lying he
re?"
she'd asked Weaver.
"
Not once I tuck
my head
,"
the female had assured her. "Taller says I could sleep

through a marsh
fire.
"

Tire
dly
,
Tesa had slid between the cloaks. The subtle bo
tt
om warmth
,
and the soft
,
white feathers had lulled her within seconds
.
The

presence of the large avi
an
next to her had seemed like the most

normal thing in the World.

How long had she slept?
Had she d
re
amt? Typically, she couldn't
re

member
.
Without letting in cool air
,
Tesa pulled her head out
fr
om
under the cloak
.
The light was strong,
an
d dust motes
an
d bits of
feather fluff d
an
ced on gentle air currents. Beams of light bounced off

the wind
-
chime c
ry
stals, fragmenting into thous
an
ds of rainbows
.

The nest was emp
ty
, except for the hatching cloak haphazardly

heaped in the bowl. Neither avi
an
w
as
inside
.
However
,
the structu
re
was not unoccupied.

122

Some of the rainbows weren'
t from the c
ry
stals at all, but we
re
,

instead
,
a swarm of gossamer
-
winged
,
long-bodied insects. They
flitted around
,
captu
ri
ng the sun on wings and bodies
an
d
re
fracting
it. The arc of their perpetually moving tr
an
slucent wings tu
rn
ed them
into flying rainbows.

Those must be the insects that interested the Grus in cry
stal wind chimes!

Tesa realized delightedly.

An adult Grus entered the shelter, slipping gracefully through the entrance. It

was Weaver,
Tesa decided
.
Her long avi
an
face seemed by now ve
ry
different from Taller's. "Is the chick still sleeping
?"
the Grus asked
. "

Taller would have warmed him, but you
'
re his parent, too, so we

decided you could do that as you slept
.
It gave us a chance to feed
.

We collected food for you
.
Have you seen all the shimme
ri
ngs
?"

Weaver was obviously ve
ry
awake.

Tesa rubbed her eyes, realizing with a pang that there'd be no coffee from

her favori
te chef today
.
She felt a sudden squirming
,
then the chick
popped out from under the covers. He opened his mouth, probably

cheeping
,
so Tesa purred at him. This mollified him
, an
d he burrowed
back under the cloak.

"
That won't keep him quiet for long," Weaver assured her. "He's hung
ry
."

Taller entere
d
. "
While you slept
,
I thanked the Sun Family for our good
fo
rt
une
,"
he signed to Tesa
, "an
d told the flock that the hatching went
well
.
Now you're awake
,
and hung
ry
?"

Tesa nodded,
and indicated the cloud of i
ri
descent insects.

"'Shimmerings
,'"
he signed
.
He st
re
tched a wing
,
watching as
dozens of the creatu
re
s alighted along his feathers, like living jewels
. "

They hatched sho
rt
ly after you fell asleep. This is the first hatch in a

long while
.
It's a good sign. The shimme
ri
ngs predict rain
,
which me
an
s plentiful food
.
And they're excellent food themselves
."
Casually,
he plucked the insects off his wings
,
tossing them to the back of his

throat like so many grapes
.
They seemed to take no notice
,
as more

alighted in their place
. "
Chicks hatched the same day as the

shimmerings
,"
he signed
, "
a
re
blessed."

"But the shimmeri
ngs a
re
gifts of the moons
,"
Weaver wa
rn
ed
. "
The
chicks a
re
promised lives of newness and ch
an
ge."

Tesa thought of the Chinese curse, "
May you be bo
rn
in inte
re
sting
times."

123

SILENT DANCES 123 When the chick
'
s head popped out again
,
he

saw his natural

parents.
He scrambled out, hobbling clumsily
,
fluttering his wings

endearingly
,
his beak opening
an
d closing
.
Weaver snapped up a
shimmering and, with fingers and bill, quickly dissected out the soft

thorax
,
offe
ri
ng it to the chick, who gobbled it down.

"Puff told us human
s don
'
t eat many insects
,"
Weaver commented as
she set about preparing another morsel.

"Some humans still do,"
Tesa signed
,
crawling out from under the

feather cloaks
. "
Nowadays
,
though
,
the
re
's not much
insect-eating on Earth."
Especially not before coffee,
she
thought.

"Intere
sting
," Weaver
signed with the kind of movement that told Tesa
she wonde
re
d how the human had ever su
rv
ived childhood
.
The
chick had finished off six segments
an
d now burrowed under Weaver
'