She Commands the Wild and Winged Things by Steven Hage

“She’s coming back!”

I yelled to Henry who was upstairs changing out of his school clothes. Outside the window, a squall was whipping through the trees above the confident stomp of a five-year-old girl. She made her way along the narrow path that connects her yard to ours through the small stand of firs and underbrush. Her blonde curls bounced and tangled about her face. She licked at the strands catching her lips as she marched and pawed them clear with both hands from eyelashes. In the air above her, a mismatched flock of finches, sparrows, and chickadees darted and swooped. She had knocked on the patio door only five minutes before, but she was on her way over again.

I hurried through the hall to beat her to the kitchen, but through the glass I could already see the advance guard arriving – a dozen purple finches and a couple of robins alighted on the deck railing outside, and a pair of doves fresh from the nest with cowlicks of fluff landed and began marching about the porch looking confused. The wind whistled up full of leaves and rage and hummed across the screen. The noise almost drowned out the pitter-pattering of a half-dozen chipmunks and a fat, gray shrew racing to scout laps around the deck. I tried to unlock the latch in time, but her bare feet slapped up the deckboard stairs and two fists pounded the glass. I slid the door open.

“Sam, please don’t bang on the window, remember?” I had to shout over the cawing of two crows that tussled for purchase on the light fixture and glared at me.

“Can Henry play yet?”

I shooed at the birds, “He’s still changing, but he’ll be out in a minute.”

The shadow of a cloud blew across her face, and all the birds panicked and took to the air as her eyebrows crashed together. Then the tiny storm was gone, and she almost smiled.

“Tell him to hurry!” and she ran off in a joyful flutter that rang a tribute from the wind chimes by the arbor, and gang of grackles croaked and whistled from the ridgepole signaling the entire company that they were moving again. A rearguard trio of clumsy young rabbits tumbled back down the stairs after her, and the whole complement followed their queen back through the trees. Deep beneath the grass, the worms hid for a long time before they decided it was safe to come out again.

Illustration By

Adrian Maxwell

@adriana.k.maxwell