Chapter 9
CHAPTER
“I’ll wait for you outside.” Elsa was ready to trade the dank odor of the pool building for open air and the warmth of the returning sun.
“Sure.” Luke scooped her up again, as though she were no burden at all.
“Oh! I didn’t mean you had to carry me.” She looped her arm around his neck anyway. The rain-dampened shirt beneath her hand clung to his muscled shoulder.
“The point of me getting the truck is so you don’t have to walk and further stress your leg. Where to?” Stepping outside, he squinted in the suddenly too-bright light. “That bench near the bird feeder?”
“Yes, please.” If any birds ventured out after the storm, she’d enjoy observing them there.
When they reached it, Luke set her down. “How are your lungs?”
Taking a seat, she took a deep breath. “A little better.”
Barney sat on the ground beside her.
Luke nodded at the dog. “Looks like he’ll stay with you while I fetch your ride.”
“Will he chase away the birds?” she asked. But so what if he did? They could fly out of his reach, and they could come back. An aging war dog ought to have a little fun in his retirement. Just not with her specimens.
“He’s worn out from his earlier adventure. Be good, Barn. See you soon.” Rolling up his shirtsleeves, Luke turned and walked away with an enviable ease and grace of movement.
She peeled off the slicker. Closing her eyes, she relished the sound of the calming breeze through the pine needles and the black-capped chickadees in the woods. What little busybodies they were, chattering about everyone else’s business.
When Elsa opened her eyes, she found Danielle standing a few yards away. She was staring at the dog.
“Would you like to pet Barney? He’s very friendly.”
The girl reached out, and Barney sniffed the offered hand. A smile turned her serious face pleasant. “He’s very friendly,” she said, repeating not just Elsa’s words but her inflection as well.
“He belongs to Mr. Dupont, one of the men working at the mansion. And how is George these days?”
Danielle looked over her shoulder at the pool building. A crow stood on the porch, staring back at her while remaining a safe distance from Barney. “He’s fine.”
“Is that him?”
“Yes. He likes to watch and see what I do.”
“You are sure that’s the same crow?”
The bird flapped up and flew into the trees to perch from a branch. Danielle continued to pet Barney between the ears. “He has his own way of turning his head, and there’s a bend in his tail the others don’t have.”
Elsa was stunned. Not only at Danielle’s level of observation, but that she and George maintained some kind of relationship even outside the context of the food she left for him outside her cottage.
“Ever considered a career in ornithology? The study of birds?” She was only half joking. Truly, the girl was a natural.
“That’s what you do.”
“Yes. Listen, Danielle. Do you hear that song? ‘Chick-a-dee-dee-dee . . . chick-a-dee-dee-dee.’”
Danielle cocked her head, listening. “Yes. That’s why they call the Poecile atricapillus a chickadee. They come to feeders but never stay and eat there. They always carry the seeds somewhere else to eat or hide away.”
“That’s exactly right. Did you know a single chickadee can store a thousand seeds a day as he prepares for winter?
And he can remember where he hid his food six whole months later.
I can’t remember where I’ve put my handbag half the time!
And those little birds—their brains are only twice the size of a pea. ”
Danielle came and sat by Elsa on the bench, Barney following her. “Tell me more.”
Elsa smiled. The chickadee was so common, people never came to the museum asking to learn about it.
But it was one of her favorite little creatures.
“Listen to that song again.” After a few moments, she explained, “That sound is a signal that there is a predator waiting motionless nearby. Maybe perched on the roof of the pool building or on a tree limb. Even other species listen when the chickadees signal a hawk or an owl is near. Squirrels, for example, depend on their arial warning system. The number of dees in its song communicates how dangerous it is. The more dees there are, the greater the threat.”
Danielle’s eyes widened. “That means the bigger the predator?”
“One would think so, but in this case, no. The smaller predators are more agile and quicker and, therefore, more dangerous than bigger, cumbersome ones. These calls from the chickadees are actually recruiting reinforcements to mob or harass the predator. Let’s watch and see what happens.”
Sunshine warmed Elsa as they waited in silence, alert for drama and action. Her heart beat quickly, either anticipating the scene about to unfold or still recovering from her ill-advised run. She told herself it was the former.
Soon a few chickadees swarmed together and mobbed a hawk until it gave up and flew away.
Danielle laughed. “Run off by such little things!”
Elsa laughed with her. “Their size doesn’t matter when they band together with friends. That’s not so different from people, right? Do you have a friend you band together with when you need help?”
“I told you. I have George.”
“Oh yes, of course. But I meant of the Homo sapien variety.”
Danielle made no reply, and Elsa decided not to press.
If the girl didn’t have friends her age, the last thing Elsa wanted to do was pour salt in that wound by pointing it out.
Perhaps there had been other children of servants who worked here, and they moved away when Birdie died.
Perhaps Danielle had lost more with the old woman’s passing than Elsa had realized.
The sound of the approaching truck turned her head. It rolled to a stop, the engine cut off, and Luke hopped out and walked toward them.
“Speaking of Homo sapiens,” Elsa said to Danielle, “this is Mr. Dupont, Barney’s owner. Luke, this is Danielle Petrovic. She has a crow named George. You just missed him, but he’ll be back, I’m sure.”
Luke approached, and Barney ran to his side, clearly eager to be with his master again. “Nice to meet you, Danielle. You can call me Luke.”
She glanced up at him but didn’t shake the offered hand or meet his gaze. “What happened to your face?”
Just like that, she posed the question Elsa had been wondering but couldn’t justify asking. The tone, at least, had been one of innocent curiosity, not disgust or revulsion. Still, the timing was abrupt.
“Danielle—” she began.
“It’s all right,” Luke assured her. “It’s a fair question. It happened during the war. A wounded French soldier thought I was his enemy and struck at me with the only weapon he had left—a knife.”
Elsa covered her mouth, a knot pulling tight in her chest.
“He was angry at you? He tried to kill you?” Danielle asked.
“He was afraid. He thought I was trying to kill him, and he defended himself. He was confused.”
The girl stared openly at him then. “Confused,” she murmured, almost as if to herself. “You weren’t trying to kill him. You were not his enemy. What did you do next?”
“I took his knife away, and then I put him in the ambulance and brought him to the hospital so he could get the care he needed.”
Danielle studied the grooves in his face, unflinching.
When she reached up toward him, he crouched.
With the frankness only a child could get away with, she touched each scar in turn.
“He thought you were a hawk. And he was only one chickadee with no one to help him. He didn’t know you were a chickadee, too, and that’s why you came in the first place.
You came to band together. That’s a metaphor, what I said. ” A rare smile flickered.
“That’s right,” Luke said. “I did.”
When a crow cawed from a branch overhead, Danielle patted Luke’s shoulder.
“Good chickadee—that’s the same metaphor.
” She rubbed Barney’s head. “Good dog—that is not a metaphor because he is really a dog.” She even waved to Elsa.
With that, she called to George and walked the opposite direction, the crow flying along with her.
Astonished, Elsa watched them go. “Danielle is so smart,” she murmured. “I’m smitten.”
“I can see why. I’m glad I got to meet her. And her crow.” Luke cracked a smile and picked up the slicker off the bench. “Shall we?”
“Let’s do it.” This time, Elsa insisted on simply leaning on Luke’s arm as she limped to the truck, the extra time to rest having made it possible to walk without as much pain.
Before she could work out how to handle the running board and climb up inside, Luke’s hands came around her waist, and he lifted her up.
After closing the door, he let Barney into the side of the delivery truck, tossing the slicker in, too.
Once they were driving, she said, “That was so good of you to answer her questions and let her touch your face. Did it bother you?”
“No, I’m only bothered when I think other people are. She didn’t balk.”
“No, she didn’t.” Elsa shook her head, still marveling over their exchange, and over the implications of Luke’s story in particular. “The soldier struck your face three times, and still you didn’t turn away from him. I find that amazing.”
“I don’t turn away from someone I care about, and I don’t turn away from a fight. In this situation, it happened to be both.” He looked her over before fixing his eyes on the narrow avenue again. “You don’t have a change of clothes back at the mansion, do you?”
“Nope.”
“Then you’ll need to borrow some. Even if you take the next train back to the city, that’s too long for you to be in wet clothes. What about Danielle’s mother?”
“I’m sure she’d loan me something. I’m not ready to quit here for the day yet, and I confess that being dry would be far more comfortable than my current state.” The sun had helped to dry her hair, but her dress still stuck to her skin.