“No, thank you,” they said at almost the same time.

Mama showed them out the door. After she fastened all the locks, she knelt and took Raven’s two long braids gently into her hands, as she sometimes did. “You’ve done well, Daughter of Raven,” she said. “I’m very proud of you. After we eat, let’s walk up the hill trail.”

“Will we ask for something?”

“What do you want to ask?”

“For Aunt Sondra to never come back,” Raven said.

Mama laughed and tugged her braids. “No, Daughter, we will not ask this of the earth. My sister truly cares about you, though she shouldn’t interfere in your upbringing. You have to be careful what you ask for. What if you need her in the future?”

“Why would I need her?”

“If something happens to me, you’ll need her help,” Mama said in a serious voice.

“What would happen to you?”

“All things pass from this life into the life of the earth. You know this.”

Raven’s heart hurt just thinking about it. “Nothing will happen to you. And even if something did, I wouldn’t need my aunt. I’d go to my father.”

Mama smiled. “Oh, would you, now? You’d ask a great and mysterious spirit for help?”

“I would. And he would come, because I’m the best daughter he ever had.”

“You certainly are,” Mama said, hugging her tight.

3

Raven sat in the bean tent made of branches and looked around at her first garden. The once-brown patch was now green. To put seeds in soil and watch the plants grow was almost as miraculous as Mama asking the earth for a baby and getting one.

She flopped down on her belly and watched a beetle crawl up a leaf of lettuce. Ants scurried busily like people she saw in town. A white butterfly floated over the garden like a cloud.

“Raven,” Mama called. “Come here.”

Raven got up and met Mama as she came out of the woods from her walk. She had something in her hand. Mama uncurled her fingers, and there in her palm sat a naked baby bird with a few pinfeathers.

“Steller’s jay,” Mama said. “A raven killed all the babies but this one. It was on the ground beneath the nest.”

“Will we feed it like we did with the baby robin?”

“You will,” she said. “Because your kin made the bird lose her home and family, you will make amends.”

“But won’t my father be mad if I help it when his kin wanted to eat it?”

“I considered that before I helped it,” she said. “But the raven stared at me as if to give me a message. I believe he wanted me to bring this bird to you. Caring for it by yourself will be like getting lessons from your kin. Ravens and jays are in the same family. Do you remember the name?”

“Corvidae,” Raven said.

She nodded. “Maybe the raven wants you to see what it’s like to become a bird, to feel closer to your kin.” She closed her fingers around the bird. “She needs to be kept warm until she grows feathers. She’s been warmed by her nestlings and parents.”

“I’ll get the pouch.” She ran inside to get the “nest” they had used for the robin, a fabric pouch with a foam bottom lined with pieces of soft flannel that could be removed for cleaning. She slung the strap over her neck, slipped on her hiking boots, and went back outside.

Mama gently settled the jay into the fabric pouch. Raven closed the drawstring over her, leaving it open a little. The jay’s beady dark eye stared up at her through the opening. “She’s scared of me. I think she knows I’m Daughter of Raven.”

“Being afraid and staying still are her only hope of survival when she’s in the presence of a predator. You’ll have to win her trust and make her eat. Do you know what to look for?”

“Insects. Almost all birds feed them to their babies because they have lots of protein.” She didn’t know what protein was. She only knew it was something people and birds had to eat to live.

“What else will you need?” Mama asked.

“A beak.”

“How will you get one?”

“I’ll make it out of a stick.”

“Do you have your knife?”

Raven pulled her folding knife from her pants pocket and carefully put the pouch inside her shirt, settling the bird against the warmth of her chest.

Mama patted her cheek. “Go to it, Little Mama. I won’t see you until twilight. The bird’s mother feeds her until the light fades. She has to take advantage of every bit of light she can.”

Raven entered the forest with purpose. She must find food for her baby or it would die. She must keep her warm or she would die.

But first she needed a beak. She found a small, sturdy stick and whittled it into a rounded point. Then she rolled over a rotting dead branch. There was a centipede there. Maybe poisonous. She wouldn’t feed it to her baby. She rolled over more logs and dug in the leaves, catching a fat cricket. She squeezed its life away. Please forgive me for returning your spirit to the earth.

She sat in the leaves and squished the soft part of the dead cricket onto the point of her stick. When she opened the pouch, the nestling scrunched in terror. “I’m your mama. Don’t be afraid.”