hand over hand, stepping onto limbs when he could, sometimes keeping one hand on the rope and one on a branch for balance. Kishan was always careful not to injure me. Other than the bouncing, the swinging hundreds or maybe thousands of feet into the air, and the stomach dropping leaps from branches, I felt pretty comfortable. In fact, it was a little too comfortable being pressed up against him.
Tarzan-like men are my weakness, apparently.
When we reached the tree house door, Kishan climbed the rope a little higher and hung still while I carefully disengaged myself and jumped onto the wooden floor. Then he kicked off, swung, and landed with a flourish. Clearly, he was having fun.
“Stop showing off, for heaven’s sake. Do you realize how far up we are and that you could fall to a grisly death at any moment? You are acting like this is a great, fun adventure.”
He replied, “I have no idea how far up we are. And I don’t care. But, yes. I’m having fun. I like being a man all the time. And I like being with you.” He wrapped his hands around my waist and drew me closer.
“Hmm.” I extricated myself as quickly as possible.
I couldn’t blame him for the being human part and didn’t know what to say about the being with me part, so I said nothing. We sat down on the wooden floor of the tree house and searched through all of Mr. Kadam’s notes. We read through them twice and waited, but still nothing happened in the tree house. This was supposed to be the house of birds, but I didn’t see any. Maybe we were in the wrong place. I started to get antsy.
“Hello? Is anybody here?” my voice echoed.
A flapping and hoarse croaking rrronk answered me. Up in the corner of the tree house, we saw a hidden nest. Two black ravens peeped over the edge to watch us. They called to each other with a thumping sound, a knocking that came from deep in their throats.
The birds left their perch and circled the tree house, performing acrobatics in the air. They did somersaults and even flew upside down. Each pass brought them closer to us. Kishan unlatched his chakram and raised it like a knife.
I put my hand on his and shook my head slightly. “Let’s wait and see what they do.”
“What do you want from us?” I asked.
The birds landed a few feet away. One twisted its head and stared at me with one black eye. A black tongue tasted the air from the beak’s rictus as the bird moved closer.
I heard a rough, scratchy voice say, “Wantfrumus?”
“Do you understand me?”
The two birds bobbed their heads up and down, stopping occasionally to preen feathers.
“What are we doing here? Who are you?”
The birds hopped a little closer. One said, “Hughhn,” and I could have sworn the other said, “Muunann.”
I marveled incredulously, “You’re Hugin and Munin?”
The black heads bobbed up and down again. They hopped a little closer.
“Did you steal my bracelet?”
“And the amulet?” Kishan added.
Heads bobbed.
“Well, we want everything back. You can keep the honey cakes. You probably already ate them, anyway.”
The birds squawked hoarsely, snapped their beaks loudly, and flapped their wings at us. Ruffled feathers puffed up, making the birds look much bigger than they were.
I folded my arms across my chest.
“Not going to give them back, huh? We’ll see about that.”
The birds hesitantly danced closer, and one hopped onto my knee. Kishan was immediately concerned.
I touched his arm. “If they are Hugin and Munin, they whisper thoughts and memories into Odin’s ears. They may want to sit on our shoulders and speak to us.”
It appeared I was right, because the minute I tilted my head to one side, one of the birds flapped its wings and settled on my shoulder. It stuck its beak near my ear, and I waited to hear it speak. Instead, I felt a curious pulling sensation. The bird tugged gently on something in my ear, but I felt no pain.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Thoughtsrstuck.”
“What?”
“Thoughtsrstuck.”
I felt another gentle tug, a snap, and then Hugin hopped away with a filmy, web-like strand hanging from his beak.
I covered my ear with my hand. “What did you do? Did you steal part of my brain? Do I have brain damage?”
“Thoughtsrstuck!”
“What does that mean?”
The strand hanging from the beak slowly dissipated as the bird clacked its beak. I sat there, staring, mouth gaping wide in horror, and wondered what had been