Chapter One: The Rook

     Lily Watson cared very little for afternoon tea. The cakes set out by her governess, Nan, were always dry and a bit hard, and she often found tiny specks of tea leaves floating in her cup, looking very much like ants drowning in dirty bathwater. No, Lily did not care much for Nan’s tea time and always found a way to spill her tea and crumble her cakes and make herself so disagreeable that Nan would often send Lily away, intending to punish her for making such a mess, but liberating her instead.

      The rolling moor around Lily’s village was always lush and green, except in early autumn when the heather bloomed, turning the hillsides into grey pillows covered in bright purple lace. Lily loved few things more than the moor. She loved the buzzing of the bees and the sweet scent of heather and gorse that lingered in the air, and most of all she loved the fact that no matter how often she escaped to the moor she always discovered something new. Whether it was a day-old lamb in lambing season or an abandoned lapwing nest or a secret hollow, the moor offered endless tiny adventures to feed Lily’s ravenous curiosity.

      One especially crisp August evening, Lily found herself pink cheeked and out of breath deep in the heather’s fragrant embrace. She laughed as she remembered Nan’s furious face as she banished Lily from the nursery once again. A twinge of conscience pricked at her tender heart as she remembered the horrid remarks she had made about Nan’s latest teacake catastrophe, but the sky was soaring, crisp and deep blue, above and as she rolled onto her back, she forgot all about Nan and her tea.

      The gentle wind flirted with the moor’s unpredictable dips and rises, and high above her a cloud skittered from west to east as if racing the breeze. Lily reveled in the sun and the sky and the spray of bright purple heather dancing just above her, but before long she was lost in thought and dreaming of India—great green India whose wars had stolen her father. She sighed as she thought of him. Oh, she had letters from him from time to time, and once a year he sent the most wonderful Christmas presents. But letters and presents just weren’t enough. She missed his beard and his strong arms and the smell of his skin, and most of all she missed the deep rumble of his voice as he told her stories of his adventures with princes and tigers and elephants with tiny ears. Lily sighed. She longed to be with her father, to be like her father, but, as she so often did these days, she chose to content herself with a daydream instead. Minutes passed as her mind drifted through the jungles and mountains of India, down overgrown rivers, through busy port cities filled with colorfully clad Indian children, and finally back to the blue, blue sky above her. She watched the lazy looping drift of one of the forest’s birds as it floated slowly toward its home in the treetops. She wondered how free it must feel, gliding through the clouds, basking in the sun’s light, which surely must be warmer so high up in the sky.

      Lily’s eyes had drifted closed, and she was just on the edge of sleep when a piercing cry awoke her from her daydreams. “Why! Why!” it cawed from a few feet away. Lily had heard the rooks calling out to one another over the moor her entire life. But this rook sounded different somehow, and though she was extremely annoyed that it had interrupted her daydream, her curiosity took hold, and she sat up from where she had been concealed in the heather.

     Her mouth gaped and her eyes bulged as before her unfolded an extraordinary scene. Only a few yards away, the largest hawk she had ever seen stood on the hillside among the heather, still as a statue. It was the closest she had ever been to a hawk, and she had never imagined that one would look so enormous up close. As Lily rose slowly to her feet, intending to creep away unnoticed, the bird's black and gray head rotated toward her and its dark eyes looked intently into hers. Lily cringed.

      “Why! Why!” she heard again, this time fainter, weaker. She tore her eyes from the hawk’s and looked down toward its feet. Pinned between the earth and the bird’s enormous talons, a shiny blue-black rook gasped for breath. “Why…why…” it cawed as its legs twitched helplessly. In that moment, Lily’s fear and compassion melted into rage and instead of running home for safety, she took a sudden, halting step toward the hawk.

      “Go away!” she shouted, flailing her arms wildly. “Leave him! You’re hurting him, you ugly bird!”

The hawk opened its beak and hissed angrily at her, but Lily held her ground, though she was trembling with fear.

     Though the moments seemed to stretch on forever, it was really only a few seconds before the hawk finally stretched its wings and, with an enormous flap, mounted the breeze. It hovered for just a moment, staring at Lily as if memorizing her face, then turned and disappeared over the hillside. Lily shuddered.

      A rustling in the heather quickly brought her attention back to earth and she knelt, fearing the worst for the injured rook. But to her surprise, he was now standing, shaking out his feathers and testing his legs.

      “Oh, you poor thing!” she cried. “Are you quite injured? What a terrible hawk!” The rook was still a bit dazed from his ordeal and stumbled about shakily, but Lily was growing confident that he would recover. “I am so sorry that you were attacked, dear little thing,” she said, reaching out her hand in pity.

      “Thank you for your help,” the rook replied. “I do—oh, bother!”

      The rook stared at Lily, almost as surprised as she. Lily, her outstretched hand frozen, stared at the rook. A moment passed, and then: “Why! Why!” cawed the rook, leaping into the sky and speeding toward the forest.

      Lily sprang to her feet in surprise. Her eyes were as wide as saucers. Her eyebrows had all but leapt from her face. She simply could not believe her ears. Had the rook really just spoken to her?

      Lily rubbed her eyes. She shook her head. She pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. She did some sums in her head and recited a few lines from Jabberwocky just to be sure she hadn’t gone mad.  And finally, with her sanity firmly established, and the rook drawing ever nearer the forest, Lily could see no other course of action but to run after him.

      “Wait! Wait!” she cried after the rook.

      “Why! Why!” the bird cawed in return.

      “Please! I won’t hurt you! Please don’t go!” Lily tore through the heather over hill and dale, trying to keep up with the speeding bird. She simply couldn’t let him get away. Who knew if she would ever have this chance again? She imagined the adventures she could have with such a wonderful creature. Oh, the stories she would have to tell her father when he came home! “Do come back, Mr. Rook, sir!” she called out frantically.

      But she only heard, “Why! Why!” as the rook alighted on a low-hanging branch on the edge of the forest. “Why! Why!” he called again.

      Lily ran with all her might. Her dress was ripped, her shoes were scuffed and her hair was sticking out in all the wrong ways. “Because…because….” she gasped as she caught up to the bird. She just had to think of a way to keep him from flying away! Then, without warning, an idea streaked through her mind like lightning over the moor, “…because you are being very rude, that’s why!” She screwed up her face, rammed her fists into her hips, and shoved out her chin. “I just saved your life, you ungrateful rook, and you just flew away without even saying thank you! How could you be so rude? So…so…dishonorable! I demand satisfaction!”

     The rook cocked his head to the right and fixed his gleaming black eyes on her. Then he unstiffened his wings and chuckled a little. “You demand satisfaction? Do I understand that you are challenging me to a duel, little madam?”

      “Er…no.” Lily muttered, slightly embarrassed.

     “That is quite a relief. Then I would like to remind you that I did, in fact, thank you for your act of kindness,” he went on, “but you are correct in pointing out that my swift departure was perhaps less than honorable, and for that I do humbly seek your forgiveness.”

      “Oh, er, then I do humbly forgive thee, er, you, sir,” Lily stammered.

      “Then we part as friends,” the rook said as he turned to fly into the forest.

      “Wait!” Lily cried. “Please don’t go! I have so many questions!”

     “And I have terribly few answers. I am afraid I must return to my flock, little girl. We have much to discuss.”

      “Your flock? There are others like you? Do you all talk? Please! Please tell me!”

     “Dear girl,” the rook smiled, “in light of my recent misadventure, it really is important that I return to inform my fellow rooks. I must be going at once. I thank you again, and bid you good night.” The rook dropped to the ground.

      Lily wrung her hands, fearing she would lose him. “But,” she called out, in a desperate attempt to detain him, “but...I saved you from that horrible hawk!”

     A great silence issued from the shadows where the rook had landed. “The hawk, yes,” he finally said quietly. “You’re right. There is no going back for you, child. Hmm…what to do…” And again, silence fell. Moments stretched into days as Lily waited for the bird to speak, sensing that this moment would change her life. His next sentence would tell her just how much. He finally stepped out of the shadows and into the twilight of the moor. With his wings stretched wide, and bowing low, he spoke softly to her. “As a token of my gratitude, I invite you to accompany me to the Rookery.”

      Just as she was about to leap for joy, an inconvenient thought pushed its way into her mind: Nan. Nan had warned her hundreds of times not to go into the forest alone. The forest was dangerous, and little girls did not belong there—especially when the sun was beginning to set and night was creeping over the hills. Lily hesitated. She was faced with a very serious dilemma. Venturing into the forest alone would certainly earn her a severe scolding. On the other hand, if she didn’t follow the rook she might miss out on the adventure of a lifetime. Her mind pitched wildly back and forth between obedience and curiosity. Then, after what seemed like hours, she took a deep breath, fixed her eyes on the rook, and yielded to temptation.

      “I accept,” she said, and stepped through the trees into the dark forest.