The Recovery of Maeve

 

🌸🖤🌸

            What can a Raven do while recovering?
            In a way, all she can do is return to the days of her youth and lie in a nest, being fed and tended, in this case, by Ramona or Twigg or Cherry. Or even Ralph.
            It was quite a change. No messenger bird flying with Ralph’s words, or Ramona’s either.. If Ramona wanted Thaga she had to send Twigg with a message which was slower and allowed more room for random motion. As it happened, Ramona did want Thaga to bring a basket and to confer on medical treatment of a broken wing and foot.
            Ramona didn’t say so, but she wasn’t absolutely sure that Maeve would ever fly again, which was an awful thought. She wanted to talk to Thaga about the case.
            So, Ramona sent Twigg to Thaga with her requests. She said an old basket would be just fine, and maybe some old towels or something.
            In about an hour, though Ralph and family are innocent of such contrivances, Thaga returned with Twigg carrying an older basket which had been used for potatoes in the garden, and some of that anonymous fabric junk that collects in the back of closets for nesting material.
            Thaga also brought a liniment of her own recipe to anoint the broken bones with. It was based on some of that pitch that Ramona had given Ooog a year or two before, which was dissolved in something, and it had added fat of some kind. It might not really do anything, but it smelled like it would, and sometimes that’s all it takes.
            First they arranged the fabric into a nice soft bed for Maeve, who was watching from Ralph’s arm where he was still holding her. Her black eyes followed every move.
            That done, Thaga splinted the wing bone, which fortunately was not displaced. She didn’t use tape on Maeve’s feathers. She used strips of soft cloth torn off of the nesting materiel. The ointment went on before the splint.
            Ralph said, “why don’t you make a little ball of cloth, and put that underneath her foot with her talons around it, and then tie it all together?”
            Ramona and Thaga thought that was a good idea. So, with Twigg and Cherry watching solemnly, the ladies helped each other to wrap Maeve’s foot, being very careful of the placement of each toe.
            Ralph laid her carefully in her nest on her good side.
            “Thank you. Thank all of you,” said Maeve, rather drowsily, because she had had a few hard days, and she was pretty tired.
            For about three weeks they fed her by hand. She liked Ramona’s cooking, so that went well. The family tended to all of her needs, bringing her little basket into the cave at night. If you think about it, it was a pretty full cave these days. The big bed, with Ralph and Ramona. The children in the child bed with the quilts that Thaga had made for their Christmas gifts, and Bob and Berry, who were full sized pumas by now. And then, Maeve in her basket was included.
            After about those three weeks Maeve was able to sit in a more normal position. Ramona noticed that Maeve was moving around better so she decided to take the splints off and just check on the breaks. She could always wrap them back up if necessary.
            It seemed to Ramona that the breaks were healed. But she left Maeve in her basket, just to see how she would act without the bandages.
            In a couple of days, Maeve climbed out of her basket and started walking around the Home Clearing, but she didn’t try to fly. She seemed comfortable, but to have lost something, the knowledge and exultation of flight.  It appeared to be absent from her mind. She just walked.
            Ralph watched Maeve walking. He knew it wasn’t right for Maeve to be earthbound, not up in her tree canopy world hollering “evermore.”
            She had not uttered “evermore” once since her collision with the lookout tower a month or so ago.
            He began to think of a song for Maeve. He worked on it until it was just right.
            One day, the right day he thought, he told her, “Maeve, old Black Leg, I want to sing you a song. How about that? Would you like to ride up on my shoulder and listen to the song?”
            Maeve said, “yes. I would. Why haven’t I been riding on your shoulder lately?”
            “I’m not sure,” said Ralph. Then he picked her up and set her on his left shoulder, just to see if she could hang on like she used to, and she did after a minute or two.
            While she was up there, Ralph strolled down toward the river and as he walked he began to sing the new song to her. She listened carefully, without remarks.
            The river was kind of a special place of renovation and even healing for some reason. The water murmured; the sun flashed off of the running current. A soft wind fiddled around Ralph and Maeve.
            She began to feel the wind under her wings, and it reminded of something, of old days, of the sky and forest top. The wind tugged at her heart. She began to listen, to hear it again.
            Suddenly she left Ralph’s shoulder as she had always done before. She bolted into the air, a creature of the sky once again.
            Ralph shielded his eyes with his big right hand, then he waved to her as she flew. He laughed a little, pleased as he could be. Then he went on home.
            He was getting a little hungry, and wanted to give the good news to Ramona and the kids.