Chapter 11: The Birding Journal

Roots of Desire

Chapter 11: The Birding Journal

The morning air clung damp to the skin, still heavy with dew and the ghost of night. Mist drifted low over the hills like a sleepwalker searching for home. Little Ivy Duskvale, no older than eight summers, trudged through the underbrush beside her grandmother’s long skirts, her breath puffing in small clouds as they walked. Her boots were too big and her coat too long, the cuffs rolled and frayed, the wool picking up seeds and burrs as if the forest were trying to claim her piece by piece.

Her grandmother; tall, straight-spined, with long silver-streaked braids and an oaken walking stick; led the way in silence. Her name was Elbera, but everyone just called her Gran. The forest knew her as more.

Ivy craned her head upward, scanning the trees. She carried a small satchel bouncing against her hip, packed with dry apple slices, a blunt graphite stick, and a worn cloth for wiping her lenses. Slung around her neck, a pair of brass-rimmed field glasses dangled like a knight’s sword.

They were looking for the Ashen-Throat Songbird.

It was a myth, some said. A ghostbird. A story to teach children patience or to distract them from chores. But Gran believed in it; and if Gran believed in something, that was enough.

“Keep your eyes high,” Gran murmured, her voice low as a lullaby. “She sings when the sun kisses the treetops.” Ivy nodded, squinting through her glasses as a small brown finch darted across their path. Not the one. Not yet.

They walked deeper into the forest, where the trees grew ancient and strange. Some trunks twisted upon themselves like dancers frozen mid-spin. Others leaned so closely together their branches seemed to whisper to one another. Gran hummed softly as they went, an old tune with no words. Ivy had heard it only in the forest, never at home. It made her feel like she was trespassing on something older than both of them.

Gran stopped beneath a tall black alder, its branches still dripping. She reached into her satchel and drew out a leatherbound book. The journal was soft to the touch, worn and supple. A black tree was embossed on the cover, roots curling beneath and branches arcing upward. Ivy leaves looped around the border, and crescent moons nestled within the tangle like tiny silver eyes. Etched at the bottom in an elegant script were the words: As Above, So Below.

“What does that mean?” Ivy asked, eyes wide with curiosity.

“It means everything that grows above; sky, leaf, and song; has its mirror below; root, silence, and memory. Just like people. Just like you.” Her grandmother touched the tip of Ivy’s nose. “You’re made of both.” She handed it to Ivy with a small, knowing smile.

"It’s yours now," Gran said. "For writing down what you see. Questions, thoughts, names. Things you don’t yet understand." Ivy ran her fingers over the cover. The leather felt warm, like it had been sitting in the sun, though it had come straight from Gran’s satchel.

“I can really write in it?” she asked, wide-eyed. “Of course. Just be gentle. Every word is a seed.” Ivy sat cross-legged on the moss and opened to the first page. It was blank, but it didn’t feel empty. She pressed the graphite stick to the paper and wrote slowly, in crooked block letters:

Why do some birds stay when others leave?

Her grandmother’s fingers were warm and calloused as they folded around Ivy’s smaller ones, guiding the child’s hands to steady the leatherbound journal against her knee. They sat cross-legged in the brush at the edge of the woods, a patch of wild violets blooming nearby, unnoticed by all but them.

“Write down what you saw,” her grandmother said, her voice a hushed breeze of reverence. “Details matter. How it moved. The sound it made. Colors. What made it different?”

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They had set up a small canvas tent just beyond the treeline, where the scent of pine sap clung to everything and birdsong stirred before sunrise. Ivy had never spent a night outdoors without her parents before, but her grandmother made the experience feel like an adventure, not an absence.

That evening, as the sun dipped behind the far hills and turned the sky to honey and blood, Ivy sat on a log beside a crackling fire. Her journal lay open on her lap. Her grandmother whittled a stick with a knife, soft shavings curling at her feet.

“What bird are we looking for tomorrow?” Ivy asked, chin propped in her palm.

“The silver-throated nightjar,” her grandmother said. “Only sings just before dawn. Most think it’s a myth, but I’ve heard it. Once.”

“Do they live here?”

“They nest only where the forest remembers itself,” her grandmother replied cryptically. Ivy frowned. “What does that mean?”

Her grandmother smiled but didn’t answer. Instead, she set her knife aside and handed Ivy a small piece of bark. “Use this to press the leaves you find. Record what tree they came from. When you know the trees, the birds make more sense.”

That night in the tent, Ivy couldn’t sleep. Her grandmother breathed deeply beside her, the steady rhythm of sleep like a lullaby. But Ivy felt... different. Restless. The woods outside whispered more than wind. Leaves rustled with purpose. A faint glow pulsed beyond the canvas. She crawled to the edge of the tent and peeked out.

In the moonlight, a nearby stump glowed faintly; not silver or blue, but something older. A soft, pulsing green that faded if she stared directly at it. She blinked. The stump looked normal again. Then the owls began to hoot, one by one, in perfect succession like a ritual chant. Ivy shivered, not afraid, but aware. She was being seen.

She whispered, “What are you?”

But the woods gave no answer.

The next morning, dew clung to the grass like tiny stars and the sky yawned open in soft lavender hues. Ivy’s grandmother stirred early, wrapped in a thick shawl, and nudged Ivy gently. “Time to see if the nightjar will bless us.” They hiked in silence to a hilltop clearing dotted with stone outcroppings and moss. Ivy carried her journal tucked against her chest. Birds began to stir; sparrows, thrushes, finches, all catalogued carefully in Ivy’s scrawl.

From far off in the forest, the sound of axes echoed faintly. A sharp chop, then silence. Another chop, further in. Gran’s face darkened. She stood slowly, looking toward the sound.

"Woe you who have taken what belongs to the land," she murmured.

Ivy stood too, gripping the journal to her chest. “What does that mean?”

“It’s an old warning. We are guests here. But some think themselves owners. They take what they wish, never wondering what they’ve awoken.”

“Awoken?”

Gran knelt beside Ivy again, her voice quiet and low. “The land sleeps, but not always. And when it remembers; it remembers everything.” Ivy didn’t understand. But something in the air changed. The mist thickened. The trees around them stood taller. A breeze passed through, and Ivy felt it wrap around her like a ribbon. For a moment, she felt seen. Not watched; not judged; but recognized.

In the puddle at her feet, she glimpsed something strange: a reflection of trees—except the branches reached downward, and the roots stretched toward the sky. The image shimmered, then vanished.

And then, just as the horizon blushed pink, it came: a haunting, singular note, tremulous and perfect, drifting like smoke through the air. “There,” her grandmother whispered. “That’s her.”

Ivy held her breath. The silver-throated nightjar fluttered into view, its plumage dappled in shades that mimicked the dawn, its throat shimmering with the palest luster. Ivy drew it with clumsy wonder in her journal, her pencil smudging as she tried to capture every curl of feather and line of grace. It didn’t matter that the drawing was imperfect. It mattered that she tried.

Her grandmother leaned down and kissed her temple. “There’s magic in the act of noticing. Not everyone sees.” Ivy looked up. “Is that why you said ‘Woe you who have taken what belongs to the land’?”

Her grandmother’s face turned solemn. “Because when you take and do not see, you break something that cannot be fixed. You take it without asking. And the land remembers.”

Ivy looked back down at her journal, her small hand resting on the image of the nightjar. The leather cover, now smudged with soot and sap, seemed to hum faintly under her palm.

As Above, So Below.

The memory would linger for years; long after her grandmother was gone. Long after the trees she loved had been chopped down. Long after Ivy would forget how to wonder.

But not forever.

Years later, when her hands were no longer small and her days no longer filled with birdsong, Ivy opened an old cedar chest tucked deep in her father’s shop. The scent of soot and forge had nearly buried the scent of pine.

Inside lay the leatherbound journal.

She drew it out with trembling fingers.

The embossing was faded, but the tree still stood. The ivy leaves curled lovingly around the trunk. The crescent moons stared back like old friends. The words were still there:

As Above, So Below.