Mrs. Robin's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The hawk ate the worm without looking away from her. Its beak clicked shut. Blood still matted its wing feathers where the cloth bandage had come loose. Mrs. Robin watched it breathe, slower now, less panicked. Her babies pressed against her legs, chirping soft questions she didn't know how to answer. She needed to fix the bandage before infection set in. The first aid kit sat tucked beneath a loose piece of bark near the nest base — she'd kept it there since the babies hatched, just in case. Mrs. Robin hopped down and pulled out the roll of gauze with her beak. The hawk's eyes followed her as she climbed back up. She set the gauze on the rim and stepped closer. The hawk's talons flexed. She froze, her body going cold the way it did when her babies got too close to the edge. But the hawk stayed still. Then the air changed. Two shapes cut through the canopy above, fast and sharp. Adult hawks. Their wings beat hard as they landed on a thick branch overhead, and Mrs. Robin's chest tightened. She stepped between the young hawk and the adults again, the same way she'd done with her babies. The larger hawk screamed — a sound that made her babies huddle together behind her. Mrs. Robin didn't move. She pointed her wing at the bandage on the young hawk's wing, then lifted the first aid kit so they could see the white cross on its red surface. The adults went quiet. One tilted its head. The other shifted on the branch but didn't dive. Mrs. Robin unwound a fresh strip of gauze and wrapped it carefully around the young hawk's wing, her beak working slowly so the adults could watch every movement. The young hawk let her. When she finished, she stepped back and met the eyes of the larger hawk above. It watched her for a long moment, then settled its wings against its body. The other did the same. They weren't leaving, but they weren't attacking either. Mrs. Robin had shown them what she was — someone who fixed broken things, even when those things had talons.