He trailed off, looking at the bird, and saw it staring at him. Very still. As quiet as the smaller one was animated. Deidre hadn’t said anything, so he elaborated, “…I was going to say guardian angels, but…”
“But?”
He thought of the white haired girl he’d glimpsed, the way she’d disappeared.
The ‘guardian angel’ thing had been an amusing thought before. Now it felt a little less like an idle thought.
He couldn’t put words to that feeling. Instead, he said, “I really like the idea of them being along for our road trip. Especially while you’re with.”
She smiled, approaching to grab him by the shirt front, and gave him a peck on the lips. “Sure.”
The little one peeped.
“If they’re coming,” she said. “I’m happy if they are, but we can’t get your hopes up.”
“I think they are,” he said. “Are you two coming with? Deidre and I are heading to Labrador.”
The little one peeped again, bouncing on the spot. The big one only turned, facing forward.
Dominic smiled.
“How about we loop back, see if we can’t take the other road and head down to explore the little ghost town, satisfy your curiosity?” he asked her. “Then we can head on our way.”
“Sure!”
They began to steer the bikes around. It was only a short trip back to a branch in the road. The birds remained at the front of the bikes.
A chain stretched across the side road, but it wasn’t impossible to duck under.
The moment they had the bikes pointed at the road in question, however, the birds took off, first the large one, then the small one.
Both perched on branches, just a short distance away.
Dominic blinked.
“Come on,” he said.
The birds didn’t move.
“Just visiting the town. We can pass right through and pop out the other side, head to Ottawa, then Montreal, maybe.”
The little one peeped.
Still sitting astride his motorcycle, he raised his hands, and tried the bird call.
He got two blank stares instead.
“Won’t?” he asked.
“I’ll remind you that you’re talking to birds,” Deidre pointed out.
He leaned forward, elbows and arms draped over the handlebars of his motorcycle. “Come onnn.”
The birds didn’t budge.
“Maybe they can’t?” Deidre asked.
“Can’t?”
“It’s like… you hear about animals reacting before an earthquake hits. You said it was groundwater contamination. Maybe they sense something wrong down that way, so they’ll instinctively refuse.”
“Maybe,” Dom conceded. “Poisons in the air?”
Deidre offered a shrug. She had very nice shrugs.
“How committed are you to going this way?”
“Not very,” she said. “If I’m being totally honest, I had a bad feeling, like the one you described. Nothing I can reason or explain, but-”
“But a bad feeling,” he said. He sat up straighter. “Good enough. On to the highway, head to and through Ottawa, find some spot between there and Montreal to settle down for the night?”
Deidre smiled. “Sounds good.”
“What about you two?” he asked.
There was no response.
“Right,” he said.
But as he turned the bike around to go back toward the little shack and the highway beyond, there was a flutter.
The birds settled in, the large one perched on his headlight.
He paused. The girl with white hair stuck in his mind.
“Two ways we can go,” Dominic said, “Take the main highway, or we can go by the water.”
No sooner was the word water out of his mouth than the little one started to bounce in place.
Even the large one looked at him, which was about as much attention as it had given him in the entire road trip last summer.
Deidre laughed, and it was a good sound. “I don’t think I get a say.”
“By the water it is,” Dom said.
Dominic led the way, easing in, gently ramping up the speed, one eye on the sparrow.
It managed a good enough grip, though the vibrations of the engine had to be rattling its brain in its skull.
Tough little critter didn’t seem to mind.
He picked up speed, until he’d matched pace with traffic on the highway. He merged into traffic, glancing back to make sure Deids and the little guy were with him.
They passed the trees that seemed to surround the little ghost town. It didn’t take long to pass it outright.
Small as it was, the sparrow couldn’t hold on forever. Shortly after the town was left behind, there was a bump in the road, and it came loose, disappearing off to the side.
Dominic tried not to worry, but it was hard.
But, sure enough, just as it had been last year, the bird reappeared. It wasn’t faster than the bike, but the highway curved gently, and the bird could fly in a straight line, meeting him further ahead, then continuing on, to meet him at the next bend.
It would fall behind eventually, he knew, but it would always catch up somehow. If it got tired, it would take advantage of his stopping for gas or food to catch a ride, somewhere where the wind wouldn’t throw it loose.
In Dominic’s peripheral vision, the sparrow was joined by its smaller companion, and the two drifted out in the general direction of the lake.
The way got clearer as they got further from Toronto and the annoyance of the slower traffic around the ghost town. He smiled, accelerating, content to be leaving it all behind.