But this time, after she got past her initial aerobatics of delight at being able to fly again, she had no trouble getting her magpie to settle into seriously looking for Charlie. Her worst fear, that she would fly off in search of something bright and captivating, did not materialize.
Instead she settled into a search pattern, trying to fly as systematically as the storm and her magpie’s erratic nature would let her. It was increasingly hard for her to tell where she was. She couldn’t see the mountains, and could no longer see the lodge. She glimpsed a roof, and flew low enough to see that it was a house, but it looked like there was nobody home.
As she swooped past the house, she suddenly caught a flash of something pink through the snow and the trees. Birds had acute color vision, even better than humans, and Maggie zeroed in on that glimpse of pink like an avian torpedo.
It was Charlie. She was sitting under a tree, her arms over her knees, looking lonely and scared. Maggie landed in the snow in front of her and hopped from foot to foot.
“Hey,” Charlie said in a small, sad voice. “Are you lost too? Wait.” She leaned forward. “Are you a shifter?”
Maggie hopped up and down, made little wing-assisted leaps, tried to indicate to Charlie that the girl should follow her. And then she had a horrible thought.
She wasn’t sure which way to go.
She’d found Charlie—but where was the lodge? She was even more turned around than she had been yesterday on the snowmobile.
“What is it?” Charlie asked. She grimaced. “I feel like I’m talking to Lassie. I know you’re a shifter. Can you, uh, talk?”
Maggie definitely could not talk. Some corvids were capable of human speech, but if magpies were one of them, she had never learned how.
Instead she hopped under the tree. It was a pine with dense branches, and there was very little snow right around the trunk. Charlie had chosen as well as she could for a sheltered spot; it was only by sheer chance that Maggie had spotted her.
Gritting her teeth against the cold, Maggie shifted. Charlie let out a little cry.
“Sorry!” Maggie said. “Oh goodness, that’s cold.” The wind on her naked body was awful. “Your dad sent me to find you.” This was sort of true. True enough for now. “Do you remember how you got here?”
“No,” Charlie said. “I’m sorry. I was—I was looking for?—”
“Your mom’s necklace,” Maggie said. “We know.”
Charlie abruptly burst into tears.
“Maggie, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to—I mean, I did, but—I couldn’t let Dad know I lost it. I just couldn’t. I didn’t find it and?—”
“Hush,” Maggie said. She would have loved to wrap Charlie up in a hug, but right now she felt as if her body temperature was dropping by the second. Her teeth were beginning to chatter. “None of that matters now. We need to wait out the storm. I could maybe scout and find a way back for you, but the snow is getting deeper and I don’t know if you’d be able to walk it.”
“I can probably stay here?” Charlie offered, wiping at her eyes. “It’s not so bad under this tree, I guess.”
“I don’t think spending the night outside is a good idea at all. But I know where we can go,” Maggie said through chattering teeth. “When I was looking for you, I saw a house. I don’t know who lives there, but it’s not too far away from us. I can’t get you back to the lodge, but I can take you there.”
Charlie nodded, wide-eyed. “Yes, let’s do that, but please shift back. You’re going to freeze like that.”
Maggie already felt like she was frozen. When she shifted, her bird form plopped to the snow, temporarily unable to move.
Gentle hands picked her up. Before she knew what was happening, blessed warmth surrounded her. Charlie had tucked Maggie inside her coat.
After a few minutes, feeling much more capable, Maggie squirmed to let Charlie know she was ready to be let out.
Charlie opened her coat, and Maggie launched herself into the air.
The storm had gotten worse just in the few minutes they had been talking. There was no way they could make it back in this. The trail would be drifted and impassible soon, if it wasn’t already.
But she remembered the direction of the roof she had seen, and she circled high enough to catch a glimpse of it. Yes, she could get Charlie there, even if the girl had to fight her way through winds and drifted snow; it wasn’t so far that it would utterly exhaust her.
She just hoped they wouldn’t be completely out of luck when they arrived. The house was dark, with no sign of lights. The owners were evidently gone for the holidays.
It had to be better than nothing. Between the two of them, Maggie hoped they could find a way inside.
As she spiraled down to signal the direction to Charlie, she found herself thinking of Sam. He would have no idea what had happened to either of them. He must be going out of his mind with worry.
