But they didn’t come that day. Or the next. When they hadn’t returned on the third day, Raven decided she had to make a serious Asking. She did it right there next to the stream. That had to be the best place to ask for what she wanted.
Beneath a cedar tree that overhung the water, she put four leaves of different colors in a flower pattern touching each other. Green, yellow, brown, and orange, all the colors in Jackie’s eyes. Next to the flower “eye,” she put an orange mushroom for Reece with his pretty hair. On the other side of Jackie’s eye, she put a brown stone for Huck with his dark eyes and strong body.
She studied her Asking. It seemed to need something more. But what?
It needed her. Of course.
She took out her knife and cut some hair off the end of one braid. She sprinkled the hair over the three boys, bonding her to them. She felt good about it. Very good. She knew they would come back. Tomorrow or the next day.
Baby, as Raven now called her, was crying for food. She had fully accepted Raven as her mama.
As the sun sank behind the wooded hills, Raven made her way back home, searching for insects along the way.
“Look how your baby is growing!” Mama said when she got home. “You’re feeding her well. You must be hungry, too.”
She was. Mama gave her lunch to take with her when she was out feeding the bird, but it never seemed enough to fill her up.
Raven cleaned Baby’s nest and put her on her warming pad for the night. Mama set a big plate of food on the table. Ham, baked potato, squash, and green beans. The delivery from the grocery store had come that day. Mama rarely went out to stores.
They sat across from each other at the table. “What did you see and learn today?” she asked.
“I learned a baby bird is always hungry,” she said.
“You have a new appreciation for the work a bird must do. And imagine more than one in the nest.”
“That would be so hard!” Raven said.
“What else did you see?”
“I saw a coyote. And a doe with a fawn. I saw many birds. I saw a raven and told him I’m taking good care of the baby he gave me.”
Mama smiled and nodded.
“I found a white flower I never saw before. I saw a dead snake being eaten by ants. Oh, and in the morning, there was a spider’s web that looked like it had little pieces of glass all over it. It was so pretty.”
“Wonderful,” Mama said.
Raven looked down at her plate. She felt bad about hiding her Asking from Mama. But she was afraid she would say she must never see the boys again. Raven couldn’t let that happen.
Later, Mama tucked her into bed and kissed her cheek. “Good night, Daughter of Raven, my sweet miracle.”
“Good night, Mama.”
Raven was almost too excited to sleep, thinking about seeing the boys the next day.
But they didn’t come. Her Asking was still there next to the stream.
The next day, she went straight to the stream to do all her insect searching. When the sun was high in the sky and Baby slept, Raven ate the lunch Mama had given her. Afterward, she lay down, put her hands under her head, and looked up at the sun shimmering through the cedar branches.
She sat up when someone said, “Hi, Raven.”
Jackie and his brother were wading in the stream.
“How’s the bird?” Jackie asked as he came closer.
“She’s getting big.” She held Baby out for him and Huck to see. That woke up Baby and made her beg for food.
“She has lots more feathers,” Jackie said.
“She’s good with taking the insects now. She thinks I’m her mama.”
Huck was looking at Raven curiously. “Were you waiting for us?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“For how many days?”
“Every day.”
“I told you!” Jackie said.
“Where is Reece?” she asked.
“He’s helping his mom today,” Huck said.
Baby was calling for food again.
“Want me to help you find something to feed her?” Jackie asked.
“Yes.”
Huck sat on the stream bank. “I’m not staying long, Jackie,” he said.
His mood wasn’t as nice as last time. But that was okay. She was used to that with Mama.
“He’s kind of mad about coming here,” Jackie whispered near Raven’s ear as they walked.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess because Reece or one of his other friends isn’t here. He kept saying you wouldn’t be here, but I had a feeling you would be.”
Raven smiled. Her Asking had made him feel that. She had thought of Jackie most when she did the Asking, so it made sense that he was the one who felt it strongly.
They fed Baby a crane fly, a few crickets, and a caterpillar. While the bird slept, they sat on a log. They could see Huck lying on his back next to the stream, but they were out of his hearing.
“How far from here is your house?” Jackie asked.
“It’s far, but not very far.”
“We can’t see it from the road when we drive past your place.”
He got quiet and twisted the bark off a stick. She had a feeling she was supposed to talk, but she didn’t know what to say.
After a little while, he said, “Yesterday when we drove past your gate, I asked my mom if she’d ever seen your house. She said no, but she’d heard it was really nice.” He looked at her. “I don’t know how she knew that. Maybe the people who built it said that. People around here talk.”
Raven had never thought about the people around there. Not until she met the boys.
“My mom said your mom tore down the old house that was here,” he said. “You wouldn’t remember that because you were a baby. You lived in a trailer she brought in while the house was built.”
“What’s a trailer?”
“A house you can move.”
She tried to imagine that.
He threw
