Remainers

The Things We Lost, Part 6

A sharp wind blew through the area, and Tia and Caleb faced each other down in the burnt valley. Caleb felt a bit nervous as Tia glared at him, but he was insistent on getting the truth out of her no matter what.

Tia sighed, then reluctantly began to speak. "I'm indebted to Kyle and Ella. They did a lot for me. I'm sure Aislinn already told you as much."

"Sure. I assume you must have met them again some time in the past few years."

"I did. And while they remembered me, they seemed to look at me with unfamiliarity, as if they were trying to recall the name of an old acquaintance."

Caleb could easily imagine the pain of having to go through a moment like that. It was the reason he avoided meeting with them again in the first place.

"I admit that when it happened, I felt a bit of resentment towards you. But I grew out of it quickly. It was just a silly judgment made in anger."

"Is that so? Doesn't seem to have tempered your anger all that much."

"How could I help it?" Tia snapped back. "After all, you–"

"Shush!" Caleb held a hand up to Tia's mouth and crouched down. "Listen! Can you hear that?"

Tia grumbled for a bit, but when she saw that Caleb was seriously listening for something, she quieted down. There was nothing but the sound of the wind for a bit, but eventually she heard the sound that had caught Caleb's attention. It was a soft tweet, one that could only have come from a bird.

After that, no more words needed to be shared between the two. Caleb and Tia immediately moved towards the sound, though they tried not to make too much of a commotion so as to avoid alarming whatever animal might be calling out. Thankfully, the bird in question seemed to not be interested in moving away, and as the got closer they began to slowly hone in on its location.

Eventually, they found the source of the sound: a grey-colored cuckoo sitting in a nest hidden in the branches of a collapsed tree. The nest already had several eggs placed inside of it, and the bird was still in the middle of reinforcing it with burnt twigs and branches left in the dirt.

"Why would a bird be trying to make a nest all the way out here?" Caleb asked, confused by the bird's actions. "It's too soon for any animals to be coming back to this place."

"I wouldn't say that," Tia rebutted. "I saw some little grubs here and there the day before, so there's plenty of food around to eat. It's been some time, too, so it's not out of the question that a bird might try to return to its nest."

"Even so, how can it have already laid eggs? None of us heard a bird yesterday, so it can't have been here long."

"I don't think it laid eggs after getting here. Rather, I think the eggs were here to begin with." Tia knelt down and gently moved the bird away from the nest. The bird squawked to protect the eggs, but once it was clear that she wasn't moving, it fled itself. With the bird gone, Tia gingerly inspected the eggs left in the nest.

"As I thought," she said quietly as she stepped back from the nest. "These eggs were probably left behind when the wildfire happened."

"But if they were left behind, then..."

"That's right," Tia said before Caleb could finish his thought. "I'm afraid these eggs have already died."

A sad frown spread across Caleb's face. "But the cuckoo still tried to come back for the eggs."

"It happens, albeit rarely. Most birds usually abandon their eggs if they see a fire coming, of course, but every now and then, one might come back for the eggs they left behind. There's no way eggs could survive a wildfire of course, but..."