Free Wabi by Joseph Bruchac Page A

mound of earth in the middle of the seven stones. I wasn’t hurt, but it took the wind out of me and I didn’t feel like moving for a while.
    How strange, I thought. Why wasn’t I able to fly?
    Then something even stranger happened. The ground around me began to move and shift. It felt as if I had landed on an ant hill whose occupants had just wakened and were now crawling all over me. I began to sink into the ground. I tried to open my beak to say something, but my mouth was filled with the flow of that glowing earth that was now all around me and all over me. A bright light began pulsing, blinding my eyes to the comforting darkness. Then I became lost in that light.

CHAPTER 16
    In the Light of Day
    WHEN I OPENED MY EYES again, it was no longer night. I was flat on my back and the bright sun was shining down on me through the leaves. Things looked different. It was as if I was seeing the light in a different way. I tried to close my inner eyelid, but nothing happened.
    I wasn’t in pain, but when I turned my head, my neck felt unusually tight. I raised my wing to my beak and was shocked at how soft it was. What were these even softer things under it and around my mouth? Lips. I had lips. For that matter, what were these wiggly worms at the ends of my wings? Fingers?
    I started to sit up, but was pushed back by two big paws that pressed down on my chest. A large head thrust itself into view, mouth open, long, sharp teeth exposed.
    Then a tongue came out and lapped my face.
    Are you you? Malsumsis whined.
    I lifted my legs, as an owl would do, and pushed against my wolf friend with my feet.
    â€œGet off me,” I said.
    My voice sounded strange, but it seemed to please Malsumsis. He leaped back, crouched down wagging his tail, ran in a quick circle, picked up a stick and dropped it at my feet. It was his signal to play the game where I would pick up a stick, fly some distance, and drop it. When he had found it and brought it back to me, I would do it again.
    I pulled myself up. It was not easy, for it seemed as if the earth itself was sticking to me. Malsumsis sat on his haunches waiting impatiently for me to begin our game.
    Oh, all right.
    But when I tried to grab the stick in the talons of my right foot, I couldn’t do so. No talons. My foot was so stiff. It was just about useless. Without thinking, I reached out with one wing—which was no longer a wing—and grabbed the stick in my what? My hand? Then I drew my wing—er, arm—back and threw the stick as I had seen humans do. To my surprise, the stick went flying far off into the brush. Malsumsis bounded after it.
    I looked at myself. My whole body was bare. Not a feather to be seen anywhere. It was not a cold day, but it made me feel exposed everywhere except on my head. There I had long black hair that fell down over my face when I leaned foward. I brushed that hair back with my hand. I truly was a human being.
    â€œWell done, Wabi,” said a familiar voice from a low branch just above me.
    â€œGreat thanks to you, Great-grandmother,” I said. “But . . .”
    I paused. It wasn’t because I didn’t know what to say, but because I didn’t know which to say of the many things that swarmed through my head like bees.
    â€œGreat-grandmother,” I said, holding up my hands, “what shall I do now? I have no clothing, and humans always wear clothing. And I do not have human weapons to hunt with, and I . . .”
    I stopped, realizing that I was talking far too much. Apparently finding it hard to keep my beak shut was as much a part of my being a human person as it had been when I was an owl.
    Great-grandmother nodded her head and lifted up one foot to point with a long talon at a hollow in the base of her tree.
    I stood up and walked. Human legs were longer than I had realized, but I got the hang of it quickly. Although they were not useful for grasping things, these human feet were well designed to