A Nest for Celeste (11 page)

T
he day dawned bright and clear. The sun was hot and brilliant, but the shade under the trees was cool. The storm during the night had washed away the dust of summertime, and now the sky was cobalt blue. Wet leaves were plastered against the trees and fences, houses and barns. Broken tree limbs littered lawns, and countless hollyhocks and sunflowers lay prostrate, blossoms stuck facedown in the mud.

Roads were pitted with gravelly ruts that had been washed out by the raging torrents of the night before. Birds began singing again as a salute to those among them that had survived the storm.

Celeste blinked. She saw the sky, heard a cardinal and a mockingbird singing morning songs. She moved to sit up, but her body ached; her fur was stiff with
mud. In a cloudy blur of pain and weariness, she sank down again.

The first of the stars began to appear, bright and sharp against the clean sky. A catbird sang an evening song. The swollen creek had dwindled to a gurgling trickle. Still Celeste didn’t wake from her dreamless sleep.

I
t was the dappled glow of the late-summer sun that finally revived Celeste, warming her body, soothing her aches.

She sat up and blinked, trying to take in her strange surroundings. Tall sycamore trees towered overhead, their roots twisted
and arched and sculpted by the riverbank. A jungle of purple, yellow, and white wildflowers, most of them beaten down by the rainstorm, was being visited by scores of brightly colored butterflies. Celeste had never seen anything so dazzling.

But she paid little attention to the beauty of butterflies. She was starving. Every bit of her energy had been spent in surviving the storm. Glancing around, she found some soft grass blades and nibbled at those. She made her way along the sandy riverbank slowly; found jewelweed seeds, some wild cherries that had blown to the ground, and a small beetle; and quickly gobbled them down.

She was totally disoriented—which way was the plantation? Intuitively she figured she should head upstream, along the bank; but how far?

She was contemplating her next move when suddenly she was cast in shadow. An enormous bird swooped down at her, almost but not quite grabbing
her with strong talons, and then landed with a flourish beside her. Celeste did a double flip in the air, landing on all fours, ready to race away. But the bird didn’t attack; in fact, it looked at her curiously and asked a question: “Are you out of your cotton-pickin’ mind? What are you doing way out here in the middle of the day? You should be under cover somewhere—somewhere safe and protected—’cause something’s going to want to eat a little tidbit like you, sweetheart!”

Celeste was so surprised she could barely say anything. “I…I…” she stammered.

“I understand perfectly, darlin’,” the bird said. “You’re lost, you’re covered with dried mud, you look like a drowned rat, and I bet you’re hungry enough to
eat a dead polecat. Am I right?”

Celeste couldn’t help but giggle. “Yes! Do I really look like a drowned rat?”

“You do indeed, honey pie. You take a ride on a mighty big raindrop last night? That was a humdinger of a storm!”

Celeste smiled. She liked this big bird! He had huge, golden yellow eyes that twinkled and a sharp beak that smiled. His wing feathers were dark brown, his chest creamy white with tawny streaks and spots. There was something slightly amusing about him that made Celeste feel safe and happy at the same time.

He continued. “I was way, way up in the air; and I looked down and I said, ‘Lafayette’—that’s my name, sugar plum, Lafayette—well, anyways, I looked down and I said to myself I said, ‘Self, now, that looks like somebody in trouble; that’s what I think. I need to go check on that one, like any
good osprey would do’ and I circled a couple of times and then swooped down, and here I am! Now, what I want to know is, are you in trouble or not?”

Celeste thought she’d better answer honestly. “Yes, I guess I am, Lafayette. I got swept up in the rainstorm last night, and the current carried me here. I don’t know where I am!”

“Lost, huh?” Lafayette scrunched his face as he stretched out one wing, then the other. “Ooh! That feels good! Been flying all morning.” He sighed.

“Your wings are amazing…. Is it fun to fly?” asked Celeste.

“Well,” said the osprey, “I guess I never thought much about it. You’re high up, of course, and so you can see quite a ways. It’s quiet, and very green, because there’s mile after mile of treetops—tall, tall sycamores—just the river and fields in between.”

“Sounds lovely,” murmured Celeste.

“Most of the time I spend sailing up and down the
river,” the osprey continued. “I know every snag, every shallow, all the good trees to sit in. Up and down, up and down, miles and miles along the river.”

“I live at the plantation, in the house. Do you know the plantation near here? I want to get home.”

“Well, there’s lots of plantations ’round these parts. Lots of ’em. You say you live in a plantation house?” He eyed Celeste doubtfully. “Well, well. Which one is yours?”

“It’s a big house, with big magnolia trees around it. There are some barns, and horses; and a family lives there, and so do I.”

“Hmm. You’re a long way from home, that’s for sure, dumplin’. The closest plantation is quite a ways. There’s the big plantation beyond the cypress woods, and the big plantation out on past the bayou, and…” Lafayette continued talking, telling Celeste about his brother-in-law up the river and his second cousin once removed down the river…chattering away
while Celeste was formulating an idea.

She interrupted him. “Um, Lafayette,” she said. “Could you meet me right here at this very spot tomorrow, say right about sunup?”

“Why, sure, sweet potata. I can be here any time you say. But what for?”

“I want you to help me get home.”

“Now, how do you figure I can do that? You gonna
hang on to my claws? Ride on my back? That’s a little dangerous, don’t you think?”

“I’ve got a plan, and I think it will work. Will you be here?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be here. You want to tell me what the plan is?”

“I think I’ll surprise you, Lafayette!”

“Okeydokey, I like surprises. I can wait to hear about your mysterious little plan. And now that I know you’re all right, will you pardon me while I continue on with my fishing trip?” With a series of strong flaps, he lifted into the air. “Toodle-oo!” he called from high above the sycamores. “Now, you be careful!”

Celeste was alone again.

F
irst, Celeste went to the edge of the creek and took a long, cold bath, rinsing out the dried mud from her fur and whiskers.
“Brrr!
That was cold, but it feels good to be clean again!” she said, shaking off as much water as she could.

Then she set to work, finding a spot nearby under the protective cover of some thick weeds. She started by collecting dried grasses and weed stalks from the surrounding area, gathering big armfuls from the thick tussocks that were growing in abundance along the creek. She was delighted to find several strands of horse or cow hair, washed along the banks of the creek from some distant pasture upstream.

Emerald green dragonflies and cerulean damselflies darted around her head as she worked. She stopped briefly to nibble on more seeds.

She carefully laid out her supply of dried material across the ground. She selected only the strongest grasses, those without any insect damage or weak stems or other flaws, and set them to one side.

Of the selected grass blades, she chose the two thickest ones and, braiding them tightly around the strands of horsehair, made a very strong length of rope. Then she started weaving a large basket, bigger than any she had made before, using strong blades of grass and weaving them tightly and with extrastrong knots. She took the rope and wove it into the basket, interlacing it over and through as she created a large gondola, big enough to hold a mouse, with a rope handle. Celeste thought of her mother as she worked. Her mother would have been proud.

The moon rose, a pale rose-colored disk that
illuminated the jewelweed.

Before morning she had nearly finished. Scouting the sandy shoreline of the creek, she found several tiny white coquina shells with holes in them, and used them to decorate the sides of the basket. As a last touch, she added a red cardinal feather.

Celeste carefully dragged the basket to a little clearing in the weeds. She covered the basket with a sycamore leaf in preparation for Lafayette’s return.