Free The Spirit Tree by Kathryn M. Hearst Page B

the inside out. I screamed inside my head, and the earth shifted under my weight, as if to swallow me. My body changed so quickly I didn’t understand what had happen until I caught a glimpse of feathers where skin should be. Oh my God, I shifted?
    The pain threatened to consume me, until my body lifted, and a cool gust of wind replaced the burning sensation. I soared through clear-blue sky, still internally screaming. Sound filled my ears, alongside the sound of a bird screeching.
    Brilliant red, orange, and yellow feathers moved in my peripheral vision. I cried out again, and the feathers shifted to flames. On the ground, three men crouched on the far side of the railroad tracks. I could make out the barrels on their rifles so clearly I could read the manufacturer’s stamp. The men looked toward the heavens when I screamed. I locked onto my prey. Something inside me took over, a primal instinct. I descended, and my talons moved through flesh, until the only things that mattered were blood and flames.

Chapter 20
    The engineer signaled three quick blasts of the train’s horn to get off the tracks. He hit the brakes but needed more time. The brakes squealed. The train smashed into a man on the tracks. When the train came to a complete stop, the carnage stretched for several hundred yards.
    I sat in the tree, but I wasn’t myself, I’d become some sort of strange bird. My feathers faded as I hid in the deep shadows of the tree. The train conductor went to his knees and sobbed. I wanted to tell him he hadn’t killed the man on the tracks, only I couldn’t speak. I could no longer see the two women holding each other, or the large black bear that guarded them. They’d gone inside the pink house; they were shouting.
    I’m not dead. I stretched my right wing and groomed the coppery feathers. I’m not dead . I fluttered both wings and my head.
    A man emerged from the house, went to a car, and pulled out a suitcase. He wore a towel around his waist and was barefoot. I edged forward on the branch until one of the rays of the sun touched my wing. It turned from dull copper to vibrant shades of red and orange. I screeched and pulled it out of the light.
    The man in the towel turned his head and searched the tree, but I perched too high to be seen from below. He turned in the other direction as sirens screamed in the air. I jumped onto a higher branch to see five cars approach. The train conductor stood at the sound of the sirens. The man in the towel had changed into clothes and was walking toward the train.
    The women came out of the house and walked toward the train as well. I worried that they’d see what I’d done. They would be disappointed in me; after all, I’d killed three men. Hadn’t I killed before? I couldn’t remember. Their tearstained faces drew another screech from my throat, and I leaped into the air. I soared high over the field until the trees ended and asphalt took their place. I circled back and flew over the house. One of the women looked up and pointed, and the other looked at me. They were yelling, angry.
    Cars came to a stop on the sandy road; people spilled out and walked to the tracks. From the air, it looked like a beehive. Everyone focused on the dead man spread across yards of track—everyone except the two women. One shielded her eyes from the sun and smiled. The other waved her arm above her head, calling to me. I circled lower, trying to remember something I’d forgotten, something on the edge of my consciousness, just out of reach.
    I alighted in the oak, and the women moved toward the tree. The closer they came, the farther back I went. Instinct told me to stay away from humans, but the women drew me to them. I fluttered my wings before settling. My predatory eyes turned to the uniformed men near the tracks, and I craned my neck to see if any were watching before easing from the shadows again.
    “Tessa Marie, get down from that tree,” the white-haired woman called to me.
    Her voice