“Put me down and follow!” commanded Moh-shon-ah-ke-ta, and she obeyed unthinkingly, opening her jaws, then followed as the owl plunged forward into—

The cool, green depths of the forest.

A very, very large forest—

No, she was simply very small.

She scampered instinctively into the shelter of a leaf-filled cranny beneath the trunk of a fallen forest giant. She was a deermouse; beside her was a chipmunk, and beside him, a vole. She peered out at the forest outside; it was as silent as the city had been noisy, with one lone bird calling off in the distance, and not even a faint breeze rustling the trees. Sunlight lanced down through the branches, making shafts of gold among the green.

“Kestrel, will you trust me?” asked her ancestor, twitching his whiskers with agitation. Nearby, a black wolverine snuffled through the dead leaves, and she knew that this was the Evil One, looking for them. But for the moment, they were safely hidden in the hollow beneath the fallen tree.

“Yes,” she answered simply.

“Then when you find yourself as a swallow, fly into the first cave that you see.”

Fly into a cave? But even though swallows were clever flyers, and often nested in caves, how would that help?

She never got a chance to ask that question, for at that moment the black wolverine caught their scent, and began to dig at the entrance to their shelter.

“Follow!” cried Mooncrow.

And once again she darted through the air, this time above a landscape she recognized. It was the area around Carlsbad, New Mexico, and she was, indeed, in the shape of a swallow.

Unfortunately, she was entirely alone.

And behind her was a Cooper’s hawk, talons outstretched to snatch her out of the sky.

The Cooper’s was the deadliest predator of birds that flew; Kestrel had seen them take starlings and crows before their prey even knew there was a danger. With a squeak of panic, Kestrel twisted and dipped and turned, trying to outmaneuver her enemy.

But she was tired, and the Evil One wasn’t even missing a wingbeat!

She looked down, hoping for some kind of brush to dive into to shake her pursuer. But there was nothing down there but rocks and cactus—

And the mouth of a small cave.

She folded her wings and dove. The hawk followed, but as she looked back, she heard him laugh, and saw him transform in midair from a hawk to a great black owl!

Too late for her to change direction—

She shot through the mouth of the cave into echoing semidarkness. “How kind of you to be so stupid as to go into a place where I have the advantage!” he mocked, as she banked frantically, just in time to avoid the back wall of the cave. Then she had to bank again, as her flight took her too near the entrance he was guarding, evading his talons by so little that she squeaked with pain as he grabbed one of her primaries and yanked it out.