Blown Away

Carolina's eyes fluttered open. Her head throbbed. Something with jagged edges dug into her abdomen. She caught a breath and glanced down. It was a timber, as long as her toothpick legs, with splinters poking against her belly and digging into her ribs. Her heart pounded through her chest, but her vision was clearing. She was lying on a sea of timbers crammed onto the floor of what? A cave? Nothing she’d ever seen before. It had smooth tree limbs holding up the sides, yet the thinner limbs held no nests. How could any of her friends build a home in a tree like that?

She waited for the whirr of crickets, the bellow of a bullfrog—any sound from her beloved marsh. How could she have blown so far off course? Without her mother or grandmother to guide her, she didn't know what to do. She was starving and couldn't think.

She set out in search of food, creeping toward the front of the cave, and peered out. The morning air hung thick with haze, shielding her until she could rustle up some breakfast. As she ventured forward, she saw nettle leaves. Never particularly fond of "fairy leaves," as her mother called them, she could stomach them with nothing else to sustain her.

A roaring monster lumbered around the side of a red brick mountain. Whirling claws forged from iron were chewing up the tender grass and the clay beneath it, spitting debris and a thick cover of poison seeds into the air. The beast rumbled straight at her. She raced to the furthermost corner of the cave. Just when she thought her head would split in two, the roaring stopped. The creature had eaten its fill and moved on.

Someone else had taken shelter in that cave, someone with a compact body, stubby and soft around the edges.

"Whoever you are, I'm not afraid of you. I just escaped the Great Clawing Monster."

"Can you help me?" a tiny voice asked.

Carolina felt the sting of isolation. She longed for her family and her swamp friends. She crept forward. "Come out where I can see you."

A snip of a creature met her gaze. "I'm Ben," he said. "My family sent me for help. That bloodthirsty Red Tail is back." He whimpered. "He kidnapped my brother last week and tore him to shreds."

"They call me Carolina. But I can’t help you. I haven't eaten for hours, maybe days.”

"My family has plenty to eat. Are you smart?"

"Smart enough to know my limits."

“Get me back to my family. Then we can hatch a plan to get rid of Red Tail."

She inched closer to Ben who was just a baby bluebird. A brave little bluebird at that.

A clap of thunder shuddered through the cave. Then the heavens belched rain like an engorged river, filling the cave.

Carolina cried, "Get yourself onto one of those branches."

They scuttled to safety, clambering onto a high limb, Ben clinging to her side. The rainwater kept rising, the current teasing further into the cave.

"I can't hold on any longer," Ben cried.

“Lay back. Let your head touch the water. Ease into the water." She tilted her head back to show him. In the next instant, she floated atop the current. "Float. Now."

As he cried out, his body was buffeted by the rushing water, floating faster than Carolina because of his featherweight frame.

The flood waters sent them careening out of the cave, headlong into the storm. The river continued to churn, with Carolina and Ben bouncing over the swells.

Stinging sprays pelted them, dragging them under, then shooting them out of the water like flying fish. Faster and faster they tumbled over and through the waves until the raging water dumped them on top of another peak.

As quickly as the river had swelled up, it was now subsiding, revealing the crag they’d landed on. Black flies and maggots wriggling through it. Across the way, they spotted a barn, a coveted shelter for them.

"We made it," Carolina cried, ushering Ben to his feet. "You're on your feet. Let's head to that barn."

Ben shook his head. "Can't fly yet," he confessed.

"Shake yourself dry, and we'll practice on top of this pile."

Two flashes of blue flittered toward them from the barn’s eaves.

The bluest of them chirruped, "Son, we found you."

The paler bird stopped beside them.

Ben nestled against his mother with his father perched on the other side. Ben looked in Carolina's direction. "She saved me."

"Who is this brave bird?" his father asked.

Carolina stool tall and said, "Carolina Wren."

His father gasped. "How did you wind up in these parts?"

"A Great Wind Water dropped me here.”

Suddenly, a giant winged shadow loomed overhead.

Ben's mother covered him with her wing. "It's Red Tail!"

Carolina would never see her family again. She needed to do this. Hawks loved the tender flesh of bluebirds. "You all must go now," she said. “I’ll face Red Tail."

The winged monster circled the crag one last time and descended into a death spiral, wings filling, tail expanding, talons poised for the kill. It snatched up Carolina just as Ben's family flew to safety.

The hawk's eager claws sunk into her back, her chestnut feather fluttering to the ground but not before she pecked a hole in its belly. Being blown away was not for nothing. She had wounded Red Tail. And, most importantly, Ben and his family made it safely to the barn, she realized, as she breathed in for the last time.