A bird will soar, p.19
A Bird Will Soar, page 19
Byrd?
Frank?
No.
It’s Ray who has followed him. Of course it’s Ray. He walks toward Axel with his head low, eyes lower, like he’s asking permission to go on this adventure, like this might be one of those trips George reads poems about. Things a person must do on their own. In silence. In the deep.
“You can come, Ray,” Axel says, because maybe, just maybe, he needs some company for this next part of the journey.
Ray takes the last two steps to be at Axel’s side. “Which way do we go?” Axel asks, looking out over the woods before them, woods that look more like one of Emmett’s bowls of spaghetti than any forest. Stringy, where once mighty oaks and sturdy pines stood.
If this morning’s view in the kitchen filled him with anger and disappointment, then this view now fills him with something too. His insides flame with fear. Fear that maybe they’ve gone too far. Gone too deep into the woods that aren’t quite woods. George was wrong yesterday in the clearing: Those were not the pathless woods; these are. And to answer his question, no. No, Axel does not think he can find himself in pathless woods. Not at all.
But Ray has other plans.
His pointer nose, then pointer eyes, then pointer stance locks on a squirrel up ahead. If ahead is what you can call a place that twists and turns in each direction. The twitchy squirrel looks like he too might feel a fear.
So the squirrel does what a squirrel’s instincts tell it to do in the bull’s-eye focus of a dog like Ray; it leaps.
Root. Root.
Branch. Branch.
Bush. Ground.
Under. Through.
Ray can’t help himself either. Instincts.
“Ray!” Axel shouts. “Come!”
The chase begins, squirrel and dog and boy. Under and through. Until an entrance opens, like a cave, but really just mangled trees and roots in a massive pile. Stacked higher than where that nest used to rest in that tree that used to stand by the creek that flows by Axel’s house. A house that feels gone for good.
Ray doesn’t turn back. He doesn’t come.
Ray enters the mangled maze.
But Axel stops, holds himself at the same spot that Ray ran through. Squints for any light, and movement where his friend might be. But there’s nothing.
Nothing until, something.
A crack. A fall. A cry.
It’s Ray.
Root. Root.
Branch. Branch.
Axel is called to help his friend, no matter how hard it is to see. Each step he takes, he promises his mind that it is a step closer to Ray. But this promise, like others, mists into a lie, because how can Axel tell if the steps he takes are moving toward anything? It is gray all around him, a hazy darkness before, around, over, and under him that makes right turns feel like they are behind him, and left turns feel like nothing at all.
So Axel stops. He stops the promises in his head and lets the thumping of his heart take over all sounds. It’s panic, not just for Ray, but for everything. There’s cracking branches, sweat piling on his skin, and no one here to save them. No one to rescue them the way they rescued Braviary.
But Axel is too far into his worry now about Ray to even think about Braviary’s rescue, or the fact that Braviary will be set to the sky this morning. Because to Axel, how could he be sure it is still morning at all? Or that there is sky at all? In the mangled maze of dead trees, he can’t feel those things.
How long it takes for a new image, a change to flutter into his mind, he does not know, but it does. Even with all of the fear, and with all of the time passing, somehow, a new image floats into his very heavy mind.
A pigeon flying above the maze.
A pigeon can always find its way home. After fires, and under fog, and even during storms. It follows its instincts.
Axel crawls backward. Rises tall when he can.
He uncurls the tangled mystery of this maze. Looks for clues, the best he can, until, he’s back at the entrance, which is now an exit. He won’t leave this place forever—he can’t. But he will find his way home.
“I’m going for help,” Axel calls back into the maze. There isn’t a bark in return, no cry, but Axel must hope that Ray can hear him. He must hope that Ray knows he will come back, no matter what. When it matters most, Axel will always come back.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Song
Every bird has a song.
Long and short.
Clipped and metered.
A way to connect.
A way to find what’s most important.
Safety and food and comfort and
Home.
AXEL DOESN’T MAKE IT TO HIS HOUSE, not even back to the big red barn, but places aren’t always what is needed to feel home. He makes it to a clearing, just one, that is in front of another. One with sunlight from the morning, higher in the sky, lighting a man’s back as he turns from one direction to the other but never fully around.
Axel catches him from behind. Pulls Frank tight against him, the way hope is meant to be held. Axel reaches up on the tops of his toes as his dad’s head drops down to meet his own. Axel lets no air between his dad’s ear and Axel’s words. The words he sings from that song long ago. Back when Axel needed to hear them. And now Frank gets to hear them too.
Words about a bird in the night who learns to fly.
If this were enough to feel home, Axel would know. It would be like soaring, like that sweet and open feeling he had known before. But he’s only partway to that, because he made a promise. A promise to come back for Ray.
“Ray,” Axel says.
“He’s here. He’s here,” Frank calls.
And Axel breaks from his dad to see his best friend. But that isn’t what’s happening at all. Frank isn’t talking about Ray; he’s talking to Byrd and Dr. Martin and George. All in their boots and stomping in the woods.
“Ray,” Axel says again. This time he demands the word.
Finally, Byrd—who is still in her pajamas, the green ones with pink polka dots, and her muck boots—says, “Where’s Ray?”
“He ran,” Axel says. “He followed me into the woods and chased a squirrel, and—”
“What?” George says. Then he yells, “Ray! Come!”
“No, he can’t,” Axel says. “There was a crack, and I heard Ray’s cry. I could hear him, but I couldn’t see him. I think he’s trapped.”
George by now is off. He’s far ahead.
And Dr. Martin says, “You go tell Emmett and Nance and Lark that we found him.” She says this to Byrd and Frank, and then to Axel, she says, “Take me to him. If he’s hurt, I can help.”
And that’s it. They don’t wait for questions from Frank or worry from Byrd; they are gone. Dr. Martin and Axel are off. Under and through, until they catch up to George, who somehow manages to move faster than Axel has ever seen him move before.
“This way?” Dr. Martin asks, like Axel may know the secrets of these pathless woods better than anyone else. He doesn’t, and this is why getting back to Ray takes a long, long time.
But then Axel does see the entrance. The tangle of trees, fallen in such a memorable way. He can picture the last sight of Ray’s tail before the darkness swallowed him up.
George and Dr. Martin have phone lights, and this helps, but not like it makes it clear, more like it shows ways not to go and leaves the choices up to them. George taps things before going under. Presses against things before stepping over. They keep asking, “This way?” But Axel doesn’t know. He wishes he did, but he doesn’t know.
Could it be that they’ve come back and Ray isn’t here at all?
There really is only one way to know. “Ray,” Axel calls, hands cupped around his mouth. “Ray!”
George joins the song. “Ray!”
And Dr. Martin too, because of course they need to let Ray know that they’ve come back for him. And if he’s conserved his energy, like that eagle might conserve for a hunt, this is the time to let it fly. This is the time for Ray to sing out too, so that they can find him. So that they can bring him home.
Only, it isn’t his song, his cry, his instinct, that brings Ray back to them. It is perseverance.
Axel, Dr. Martin, and George turn over branches and search under the debris until a paw brings them all to their knees.
There, pinned to the earth, under a thick branch, is a brown dog with a white patch on his chest. With golden eyes that they cannot see, because his eyes are closed.
“Ray,” George whispers.
Ray.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Rescue II
Careful.
Careful.
Careful.
Dr. Martin.
Slow.
Careful.
Let
me.
George.
It’s
all
my
fault.
Axel.
GEORGE CRADLES RAY IN HIS ARMS. Carries him out of the maze like a path has been laid before him to the exit.
He lowers Ray to the ground in the first patch of bareness he sees. Dr. Martin bends down, runs a hand over his snout. Turns her ear to his chest. And it is in that moment, with the prayers coming from George’s lips and the care coming from Dr. Martin’s hands, that Axel sees the unmistakable rise and fall of Ray’s barrel of a chest.
“He’s breathing,” Axel says. George kneels on the ground next to his best friend and stroking his soft ear and whispering his words, finally looks at Ray’s chest too. Rising up and dropping down.
Dr. Taylor M. Martin lifts Ray’s lip. “We need to get him warm,” she says. “Shock,” she says. “Can you carry him?” she says.
And George is already pulling off his shirt, ripping it away from his body, and Axel is taking his off too. “Let’s go skin to skin,” Dr. Martin says to George.
George picks Ray up again and Dr. Martin tucks the shirts around Ray’s body. Axel can hardly believe his eyes. The sight of George holding Ray in his arms. Ray, who weighs almost as much as Axel himself, sheltered in George’s old-man arms. He wouldn’t have believed it was possible. Like Daniel saying that his mom could lift that car.
And now Axel knows that to be true. These are the things we do for family. We are stronger than we might appear. Braver too.
The three of them walk-run as best they can the whole way back, over those roots and branches, until they are home. As soon as Axel sees the big red barn, he charges ahead and shouts for help. Frank hears the call and comes running.
Dr. Martin shouts for blankets.
When Axel’s dad arrives at George, ready to take Ray into his own arms, George can’t let go.
He won’t.
So Frank keeps at his side, keeps step with him. His arms under George’s arms, trying his best to give as much support as he can.
And they load up, like this was the plan all along, in Dr. Martin’s truck, which is last in line in the driveway. Frank and George in the back seat, with Ray and Dr. Martin up front.
The dust pushes toward the sky as the truck rolls away from the others, Axel out in the driveway all alone. He hears the chatter from the porch, the wishes and prayers. But he has to watch the truck as far as he can as it speeds down the driveway. Has to watch until it disappears.
“You don’t have a shirt on,” Lark says, suddenly at his side.
After the truck is gone, Axel replies, “Ray needed it.”
“He’s a dog,” Lark says. “Dogs don’t wear shirts.”
But Axel doesn’t clarify. He doesn’t say, “He’s not just a dog.” Even though maybe Lark would understand.
She doesn’t ask for more words anyway; she stays at his side and looks down the long driveway. Right next to Axel while the dust scrambles its way to the sky.
* * *
—
It isn’t until much later in the day, after Byrd asks Axel to “please drink something.” And he ignores her. And Emmett asks Axel to “please eat something.” And he ignores him. And Lark wants to go for a walk down the driveway, and play Pokémon, and talk about Braviary’s release, which he missed. And Axel tries his best to ignore her. That Aunt Nancy finally snaps. “Leave the darn kid alone. For Pete’s sake, haven’t you all just ever wanted to be left alone?” She accentuates this with a stomp of her rollator on the front porch.
A moment later she adds, “Feel free to feed me, though. I’m as hungry as an old lady who hasn’t even been offered breakfast!”
All but Axel head inside for food. It isn’t until Emmett waves from the porch later, his phone in his outstretched hand, that Axel drops from the fence and joins the others.
Emmett stands in the middle of the living room, right at the center of the braided rug’s swirl. “Uh-huh,” he says.
“Put it on speaker,” Aunt Nancy says. She isn’t about to get up from the table. Byrd and Lark do come to greet Emmett on the phone in the living room. Axel stays in the doorway, one foot inside and one still on the outside.
Emmett fumbles with the phone then, and suddenly, inside and out, the space is filled with George’s voice. “He’s banged up . . . Three broken ribs . . . It could’ve been worse . . . Dr. Martin got us here, and Frank carried him in . . . He’s still out . . .” Somehow he holds back bitter words like hurt and anger, even though Axel knows he must feel them. Axel feels them. He’s the one who took Ray into the woods.
Byrd says, “Thank goodness you got him there in time.”
And Aunt Nancy says, “You tell that good boy I’ve got a pile of meatballs here for him when he gets home.”
And Emmett says, “I love you. It’s going to be okay.”
Lark is busy clapping her hands and twirling around the living room. No words needed.
But then Emmett turns to Axel. “Do you want to tell him anything?” In this moment, Axel wants to tell him everything. That he’s sorry Ray was hurt, and he’s sorry he said Ray could come, and he’s sorry he broke his promise about not going into the woods behind the big red barn.
Axel swallows, tries to remember what it felt like to be brave enough to say the things he needed to say before. But this time, those words just won’t come.
“Hey,” Aunt Nancy calls from the table. “We just want you all to come home safe and sound. That’s all. Got that?”
George lets out a breath on the other end of the line. “Got it. I love you,” he says before Emmett clicks the call away.
The room goes back to silence with George not there to say all the words, without the sound of Ray’s collar jingling.
“I’m going back to the fence,” Axel says, and he’s not quite sure why he does. It doesn’t really matter, does it? Where they sit and think? It just won’t matter until Ray’s back home.
CHAPTER FORTY
Forgiveness
In a world full of
rough and rowdy, rage and wrong,
nothing’s more powerful
than a single
word.
IT’S BYRD THAT FOLLOWS AXEL out to the fence. Byrd that says, “Bones mend.”
Axel climbs up onto the fence. Looks away from Byrd and out over the field, out toward the big red barn. The way it hides everything that happened behind it earlier.
“We have to open our hearts up to the miracles around us, Axel. You found Ray. He made it to the clinic in time. He’s going to heal.” Axel can’t quite think about miracles right now. But the real things that Byrd says make sense; only he wasn’t the one who found Ray. He was the one who let Ray get lost.
“I hurt my best friend,” Axel finally says, turning from the big red barn to Byrd.
She runs her hands down her pajamas. Still in them from the morning that feels forever ago. She shakes her head, not to say, No, Axel, you’re wrong—more like the words he said have never felt truer to her. Like these were the words she’d been looking to say. “I know just how you feel,” she says. “I hurt you, even though it is the absolute last thing on earth I ever, ever want to do. I hurt you.” She grabs hold of the fence then with both hands, feels the prick of the rough wood under her skin. “I’m sorry, Axel,” she says. “It isn’t enough, but it’s all I can say.”
Axel takes his hand, slides it on top of his mother’s; as tightly as she grips the wood, he grips her. They stay like that, holding on longer than Axel would have thought possible, but they do.
It isn’t until a truck comes rumbling up the driveway, throwing dust all over, that Axel hops off the fence and Byrd lets go too.
“Mommy,” Lark calls, running from the porch and down the steps. She’s just as surprised as Axel when they see that it isn’t Dr. Martin who hops out of the cab. It’s Frank.
“Frank,” Byrd says. She throws her arms around him. Even though it is just the two of them, somehow Axel feels this hug too.
“He’s okay,” Frank says. “What a fighter. And Dr. Martin, she’s amazing.”
“That’s my mom,” Lark says, interrupting. “But where is she?”
“I’m going to go back with a car for George and me, and then we’ll take the truck back to your mom. She’s with Ray.”
“I’m ready,” Lark says, then promptly climbs into the back seat of her truck, not waiting for any other plans or explanations. She knows what she wants, and she isn’t shy about saying it.
“Why don’t you follow me, Emmett?” Frank says. “I’ll take this back to Dr. Martin. You can follow and then we can see what George wants to do.”
“I’ll grab my keys,” Emmett says. “And maybe a sweater for George.”
“He got his shirt back,” Frank calls, but Emmett’s already inside the house. “Here’s your shirt,” Frank says, handing Axel the T-shirt that now smells just like Ray. “And George wanted me to give this to you, too.” A red collar with three tags hanging from a silver loop.
