Lusa pricked her ears as she realized that this noisy bird looked very similar to the one that had carried Ujurak to the healing den when he was injured by the fishhook in his throat. It was the same size, and the same red-and-white color.

Maybe all those birds nest in healing dens! I must be close.

Lusa scampered up the tree and tracked the metal bird with her gaze as it swooped over the denning area. It landed on the roof of a tall white den some distance away, but still close to the shiny barrier.

That has to be the healing den!

Fizzing with excitement, Lusa half fell, half scrambled down the tree and headed alongside the barrier in the direction of the white den. There was little cover except for a few scrubby bushes, and as she darted from one to the next, Lusa’s pelt crawled at the thought of being spotted by the flat-faces inside the denning place.

I should wait until dark . . . but I can’t waste the whole day. That’s time Yakone might not have.

After a while, when she seemed to have gone unnoticed, Lusa decided that the flat-faces were too busy roaring about in their firebeasts to pay much attention to one small black bear, and her confidence began to return.

At last she reached the part of the barrier close to the big white den. All her instincts were telling her to scramble over the shiny metal mesh, but now she realized that she would have to wait until the sun went down. While she was on the ground, she stood a chance of hiding, but once she began to climb, she would never get past the flat-faces in daylight.

Lusa spent the rest of the day crouching in the bushes a little ways off from the silver mesh. Her belly felt hollow, and she tried munching a few of the leaves, but they were dry and tasted like firebeasts. The sun had never seemed so slow as it crept down the sky.

I said I’d be back by now, Lusa thought as the sun dipped lower. Kallik and Toklo will be worried.

As soon as the scarlet light of sunset had faded, Lusa sprang out of her hiding place and raced up to the barrier. It was higher than she first thought, and the holes in the mesh were too small for her paws, which would make it almost impossible to climb. Perhaps she could go under it? Sniffing at the foot of the mesh and testing it with one paw, she discovered that it was fastened to the ground somehow. Slowly she padded alongside the barrier, testing again at every pawstep. It held firm, barely swaying even when she leaned her whole weight against it. Lusa started to worry that she would have to go a long way from the healing den before she found a way in.