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Archimedes spots me coming and immediately swoops down from the high perch in his enclosure, keeping his wings spread when he lands. As usual, his head swings left and right, low over his toes as he takes a few lurching steps toward me.

“Yeah, I get it,” I say to him from a distance. “You don’t like me. Glad you’re okay.”

“Here, boy,” I call as I approach the fox pen. It’s afternoon, and usually Tripod would be out in his yard, tossing his squeaky toy or lying in the sun. But I don’t see him anywhere.

“Tripod?” I call, going into the pen, where I crouch down, peering into the dark mouth of his den. I can’t see anything, but when I crawl forward, a low, warning growl emanates from inside. I edge forward, which kicks off the growling again, ending with a bark.

“Buddy,” I say moving forward slowly. “I need to know you’re okay, or Widow will have my hide.”

Having someone’s hide is a favorite threat of hers, but it’s way less funny now that there’s one hanging in the office. It’s not really a hide though, it’s a shell, and my mind wanders into dark corners as I imagine what it sounded like when Darryl cracked it open.

“Tripod,” I call, my voice sharp. “Come here.”

Foxes aren’t dogs, and I can’t command wild animals, but something about my tone brings him forward, his nose edging out of the dark. I realize a little too late that the something that drew him was the challenge. He slinks forward, ruff and hackles up, tail puffed. He looks twice his size, and that’s on purpose—he’s trying to intimidate me.

It’s working.

He eases to the right of his den, belly low to the ground, focused on me. Tripod opens his jaws wide, emitting a high, chittering sound, punctuated by sharp clicks. It’s called gekkering, and foxes only do it when they’re feeling aggressive. It’s weird as hell, and I edge back toward the gate, still on my heels.

“Careful,” Widow’s voice comes from behind me, low and calm. “He’s trying to cut you off.”

I nod and keep creeping backward while Widow goes to the far corner of the enclosure, sticks her fingers through the fence from the outside. They’re covered in blood, and Tripod picks up the scent, nose twitching as his ruff goes down a little. She emits a high-pitched chirp, and he turns his head to her.

“C’mere, c’mon,” Widow says. Tripod swings back to me, gives me an annoyed chuff, then turns toward Widow, kicking dirt with his back legs to let me know that I am dismissed. I exhale a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, then crawl to the gate, latching it behind me. Widow’s still at the corner, Tripod licking her fingers clean through the fence. When I approach, he pauses, a low growl emanating from his chest.

“Just stay back,” Widow says, coming to her feet and wiping her hands on her pants, leaving behind bloody streaks of turtle blood and fox saliva. “I heard him gekkering.”

“Why does he hate me now?” I ask. “And don’t tell me not to anthropomorphize a fox.”

She shakes her head. “Tripod’s been smelling blood all night; he’s just antsy. Run up to the office and get him a treat. We’ll see if we can get him calmed down.”

I nod, winding through the trees as I make my way back to the office, where a flock of cowbirds have taken up residence in the maples lining the driveway, preparing to migrate. There were a few thousand of them last week, their mingled, jarring calls so loud that Widow and I had to yell at each other across the yard to be heard. There are more now, and almost overwhelming, an endless crescendo with the occasional odd, liquid warble that—with this many of them—sounds like a wave.

I break out of the yard and pause.

The maple trees lining the drive are completely crowded with birds, every bare branch bending under their weight. When I pass into the sunlit yard, they stop chattering. It’s simultaneous and sudden. I turn to see that they’ve all gone still, each feathered body motionless, every head turned toward me. Half a million black eyes pin me, then follow my progress as I make my way toward the office, heads turning in unison. I walk inside shakily, past the bloodied door, over to the incubator.

“Hey,” I say to the egg, my voice trembling as I open the incubator. I let its heat flow over me, feel my goose bumps recede. I reach inside to turn it, but my bandaged hand can’t flex very well, and the egg has grown heavier since I was here last. It takes both hands to lift it, cupping it in my good hand, bad one keeping it from rolling.

“See anything funny last night?” I ask it. “Like maybe a white male throwing a temper tantrum?”

I’m trying to make a joke, but I realize then that Darryl would have been inside the office, as he tore apart the snapper. If he’d taken it into his head to smash the incubator, throw the egg to the ground, stomp on it . . . something lets go at the base of my spine, something that holds me together giving up, just a little bit more. I sway on my feet, my energy draining.

Outside, the cowbirds call again, all at once. It’s a chorus of a few hundred thousand throats, and the sound is almost tangible in the air. They rise together, the sound of their wings like the wind, their bodies blocking out the sun.

Inside the office, it goes dark.

My gorge rises, and I feel everything in my stomach back up, the burn of acid creeping up my throat. Sweat breaks out across my forehead when there’s a sudden, stabbing pain in my left shoulder. My heart skips a beat, and my pulse jumps. I take a deep breath, wait for it to fall back into rhythm.

It doesn’t.

I’m still holding the egg, staring down into the glowing red swell of the incubator as black spots start to fleck my vision. My heart is hesitant, unsure, as if it can’t remember the necessary tempo to keep me alive. I lean forward, gasping, inhaling warm, wet air, and the deep, fecund smell of the egg.

In my hand, it pulses.

It presses outward, retracts, does it once more. My heart answers, and I tighten my grip, focusing on the egg. Warmth radiates up my arms and slides across my chest as my heart stops stuttering, picks up the beat. They syncopate, and my breath becomes regular, the dark spots swimming out of my vision.

“Ava?” Widow comes to the doorway just as I’m sinking into the office chair, hand on my fluttering heart. “What’s with the cow—”