Chapter Three: The Spade

Titus was not exactly Lily’s idea of a suitable guide. In his haste to get to the Rookery, he kept flitting anxiously from branch to branch, sometimes almost out of sight, and always up above and out of reach. The path was straight enough if one had wings, but Lily, like most little girls, did not. She was forced to walk, climb, and even crawl to keep up with Titus’ impatient skipping.

She had just used her best crawling skills to squirm underneath a particularly prickly briar patch, when she stood up and saw that her dress had been ruined. Nan would certainly not take kindly to the streaks of dirt across her knees, nor would she appreciate having to mend the slight tear where her dress had snagged on a wayward thorn. “But,” she said to herself, “at least this settles the question. I’m going to be scolded for ruining my dress whether or not I turn around now, so I might as well keep going.”

"Excuse me, sir..." Lily asked as she attempted in vain to brush the dirt from her clothes.

"That is very kind of you," interrupted the rook, who had flown over the briar patch and was waiting rather smugly for Lily to catch up, "but simply Titus will suffice. I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure of being knighted."

Lily giggled at the thought of a rook being knighted, "What a silly idea!"

"Perhaps not as silly as you might think,” Titus huffed. “Rooks are brave and noble creatures. What is more knightly than that?"

"That may be so," Lily admitted, "but it would still be strange."

"Then I have every intention of proving otherwise," said the rook in a very knightly voice. "Now, what was your question?"

"Oh, I was only wondering why I could not have walked around the briar patch instead of crawling under it. I shall be in dreadful trouble for ruining my dress and stockings."

"A path is a sacred thing, little girl,” he said a little too gravely for Lily’s liking. “A path that is strayed from is no longer a path at all—and this path happens to pass through the briar patch. I cannot help it if you are too large to fit into the hole beneath it. It was carved, after all, by animals much smaller than you."

The rook took to the air again and flew to another branch further off in the wood. For the first time, Lily noticed that he was flying directly over a faint depression in the ground. She looked behind her and saw that the depression led back through the briar patch, and she squinted into the darkness toward Titus and saw that it ran straight and true ever deeper into the forest.  In the places where it wasn’t covered by fallen leaves, the path bore the imprint of numerous little animal feet—claws, paws, hands and hooves and others all mixed together in one great jumble. Lily had to admit that Titus was right. It did indeed appear to be a path, though a rather difficult one to make out and certainly not the sort of thing a person would notice if she was not looking for it.

"I could have strayed from the path for a just a few moments, couldn’t I?" she suggested somewhat glumly, walking quickly to catch up with the rook. "Then I could have returned on the other side. It really might have saved me a scolding."

Titus made a sharp clacking noise with his beak that echoed in the distance. "One day you may attempt to come here on your own," he warned. "And when that day comes I am sure you will find the forest to be a very different place. Even those of us who have lived our entire lives among these trees can become lost from time to time if we abandon the path. How much more, then, for a human girl who has never ventured into the forest?"

"Oh, but I have!" Lily cried, remembering her father and the fox cub with the funny tail.

“So you think yourself knowledgeable enough to stray from the path?" Titus asked.

"Well, no..." Lily admitted. "I only thought that since you know the way so well there would be no harm in going around, that’s all."

"You will not always have company on this road," the rook admonished her, "and that must be considered. It is for your good, madam."

Lily considered Titus’ words, wondering what her father would have said in such a situation. In the end, she decided that Father would have agreed with him.

"Perhaps we ought to stay on the path after all," she said, smiling apologetically toward Titus, who failed to return the look. Rooks, after all, rarely smile but in the most peculiar situations.

"I am glad you agree," the rook crowed as he swooped past her and nearly out of sight.

Lily kept her eyes on the path in front of her, listening for Titus up ahead. But she didn’t have to listen long before she heard him shout, "Oh!" as if he had been terribly startled.

“Titus!” she cried as she ran toward his voice. “What is it, Titus?”

“Oh my!” he said, with a slight tremor in his voice. As he came into view, Lily could tell that something had given him quite a shock. He was pacing back and forth on the path with his left wing in his beak.

“Titus? Are you quite alright?” she asked timidly.

“How very peculiar…and today of all days…but perhaps…oh dear….” he muttered to himself, entirely unaware that Lily had spoken. She gently cleared her throat to get his attention. “Oh, Lily! Hello. Never mind. It’s just...” he said with a glance into the wood, “Hmmm...yes. Ahem, it’s...Behold! The legendary marker of the path to the Rookery!”

Lily looked at the ground just beyond Titus. A length of smooth, perfectly rounded wood protruded from the forest floor, where it was attached to a thin, curved sweep of metal plunged into the firm soil.

"Why, it’s just a spade—and a rather rusty old spade, at that!" she cried, having expected something a touch more grand.

Titus cocked his head to the right, shook his tail feathers importantly and extended his wings to their full span. "Things,” he enunciated more carefully than was strictly required, “have only the meaning we choose to give them, my dear. To you it may be a spade and nothing more, but in the forest we have no use for such tools. We do little gardening and we certainly have no need to dig trenches. The spade is free to be whatever it wishes—and perhaps this spade wishes to mark the path to the Rookery."

"I find it difficult to believe that the spade can think at all," Lily responded.

"Never mind. It is all just a manner of speaking. Now, let us continue. We are very near the Rookery now, and in light of your imminent meeting with the rooks, I should enlighten you as to our history."

"Oh, that would be wonderful!" Lily exclaimed as she began walking along the path behind Titus. "I do love a good story."

"And I assure you that this story will not disappoint," said the rook, "for it begins more than one hundred years ago."

"One hundred years? But you cannot possibly have been alive so long ago!"

"Of course not, but this story is not about me alone. No rook's story can be told without the story of the rooks who came before him. One hundred years ago—a bit more than that, in fact—the first of my distinguished ancestors came to this forest. We are a fearless animal, you see, and we did not think twice about settling in a new and unfamiliar territory. The darkness of the forest could not slow us, nor could the hollowness of the trees keep us from establishing our new life. We were only a small flock, mind you, and the forest was a much different place in those days.  Of course there were trees here then, and shrubbery and briars and nettles and all of those little things that people think of when they consider a forest. But until then there was something missing—something far more important than any of those things,” Titus paused dramatically. “It was missing rooks.”

Lily wanted very much to giggle, but the gleam in Titus’ eyes told her that a giggle would be rather unwelcome.

"We came, Lily, and the forest was forever changed. We established a rookery at once, though that first home was only a shadow of what now exists—nothing more than a pile of sticks and leaves in the middle of the wilderness.

"Now, I don't know what a little girl would know about a rookless forest, and I don't suppose your books on science or history would offer anything of value on the subject. I, of course, have never witnessed such a thing personally, for being a rook myself I am obviously unable to witness a world without my kind, but I am certain that a forest without rooks must be a miserable place indeed.

"Establishing our grand Rookery was not easy, of course," Titus’ voice grew grave as he came to the apex of his tale. "The world is rarely prepared to accept such change—even such a wonderful change as this! But the rooks were strong enough to overcome every obstacle. We persevered and thrived and made our home here, as you shall see soon enough.”

Titus stopped speaking and Lily walked along behind him, waiting for the rook to continue. But after a few moments of uncomfortable silence, she realized that his story was finished. It had been a disappointment to say the least. "Pardon me for saying so, Titus,” she finally ventured, “but that doesn't seem to be much of a story. Nothing really happened. And there seemed to be a lot of, er, boasting.  In fact,” she added bravely, “it seemed like that's all it was."

"Perhaps you weren’t paying attention, then," exclaimed the rook, his voice bathed in grave offense, "because a great many things happened. The world was changed! The forest was spared a rookless existence! All that you will soon see was made possible! Surely you admit that you are experiencing something fantastic right now!"

"It is certainly unusual," she admitted, tripping slightly over a loose stone.

"Then you may thank the rooks! You may thank my ancestors who came to this forest long before you or your mother and father or grandmother and grandfather were even born! Such a history, once set in motion, becomes very difficult to stop. It is much like a runaway carriage in that sense." Titus had turned to face Lily and had crossed his wings tightly across his chest, defying her to argue further.

Thinking this an odd ending for such an impassioned rant, and refusing to be bested by a bird, Lily giggled. "I don't imagine that you know much about runaway carriages, do you?"

"You would be surprised at the number of things we rooks know,” he harrumphed. “Now, prepare yourself Lily, for the Rookery is just on the other side of that hedge."