SNOW AS IT FALLS, by Patricia Correll 4/10
A breeze ruffled her tail feathers. The sky was endless and blue, all the world laid open before her. The crane lifted her wings. The injured one no longer hurt. After Shigeru had unbound it she had spent hours in the yard before the house, walking about and flexing her wings.
Shigeru. Was that the name of all his kind, or did it belong to him alone? She’d spent many evenings in his peculiar nest, listening to the noises he made. She had begun to distinguish words, meanings. His name.
She had come to like the warm crackle of the fire, had ceased to be amazed at the light it shed. She liked the grubs and the frogs Shigeru brought her. Most of all she liked his voice as he talked to her in the evenings, the way it rose and fell in cadences no crane could manage. She liked the way he laughed at some memories and wept over others. And as she learned more she regretted she could not laugh with him or share his tears.
But the moment she first stepped out of the nest into the open air she’d known she could not stay. Shigeru knew it too. She felt it in his gaze as she paraded around the yard, heard it in the catch of his voice as he praised her. “Good, Lady Crane. You’ll be back with your fellows in no time.”
And now was the time of leave-taking. The crane had never said farewell to anyone before. She turned and looked back at Shigeru. He stood by the doorway, watching her. The crane stretched her wings. What should she do? She knew no way to show gratitude, but surely he had saved her life.
Shigeru waved his hands at her. “Go on, Lady Crane. Find your people.” He smiled, but she heard the thread of grief in his voice.
The crane leapt into the air, flapping her wings. The injured one was still a little weak, but she caught a gust of wind and soared upward, away from Shigeru and his little nest. A few white feathers spiraled down to the ground. As she flew away she saw him bend to pick them up.
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