When dinner was ready, Lauren carried some wooden bowls and spoons outside to the small picnic table while I brought the freshly-baked bread. Charles followed behind to set a spicy vegetable stew on the table.
Aspen and Autumn joined us, carrying Red out in his cage, which they set on a large, flat stone beside the table. The children sent their thoughts to me—the only way I could read their thoughts at all—and told me the bird was safe to be released. They had used their magic to ensure Red’s presence wouldn’t harm the natural wildlife of Japan.
I opened the cage door, and Red peeked out. I realized then why I’d always been so drawn to him. Grandpa Parsons had once kept a pet cardinal, one who would sit on his armchair when we visited in my childhood years. Grandpa Parsons would tell me all the ancient myths and legends that his family had once shared with him.
Over dinner, I shared one of his stories—the German legend of the Holy Family.
“There was a time when the world was left in a natural state. It was Autumn, the time of the harvest. The trees were viewed as living beings, not cast down to clear way for modern buildings as they are in our time. Even in those times, there was a hierarchy of importance in life. So it was with a sense of greater value that the Holy Family traipsed the forest trail. The soil shifted beneath their feet, the flowers swayed as they breezed by, and the trees bowed, but there was one family of trees that did not yield in reverence. The Aspens. The Holy Family cursed the trees, and their leaves began to tremble. And that is how the Aspens became known as ‘the shivering trees’.”
I probably missed the moral when my grandfather told me the story as a small child. Even now, it held a different meaning to me than to most, though it was only natural that everything would be interpreted differently in the context of my new life.
Aspen and Autumn—they were with me now.
As I finished my story, Red strutted out from his cage. After a final chirp, he ruffled his feathers and took flight, soaring aimlessly over the yard before settling on the branch of a nearby cherry blossom tree.
We were home.