“You like birds?” the old woman who lived there asked. “These ones are smart. They can always find their way home.” The neighbor wore a red coat that she’d had for thirty years, and a pair of black boots. She took out a pigeon and called him by his name, Étoile, which meant star, with extreme tenderness. “I send my sister in Lyon messages.” All she needed to do was attach a tube to the pigeon’s leg, clasped in place with a leather band. A rolled-up message to her sister was inserted into the tube. All fine here. Come visit one week from Sunday. Don’t miss our visit like you did last month.

Lea watched as the neighbor lifted the bird into the bright sky. They held their hands over their eyes, squinting, as he disappeared into the darkening horizon.

“He’ll be back, don’t you worry,” the old woman said.

She smiled at Lea, unaware that she was speaking to a thief and a liar who had come up with a plan of her own. When the woman was about to go inside, Lea asked if it would be all right if she watched the pigeons for a while, and that is what she did, she watched them coo and peck at one another as she slipped one of the cylinders and a leather band into the pocket of her dress. She ran back to the convent in the falling dark. Ava was waiting for her at the edge of the lawn. From here she could see the neighbor’s yard; she’d kept an eye on Lea. It had been her idea to send her there, after all.

“What were you doing for so long?” Ava asked, as if she didn’t know. She couldn’t abide seeing grief in Lea’s eyes, not when there was a remedy.

Lea shrugged and bit her tongue. “Looking at birds” was all she would say.

“Nothing more?”

“Could you teach me their language?” When Ava hesitated, Lea added, “I know you can. I’ve heard you talk to the heron.”

“It takes time to learn a language.” Especially when it was complicated, with an ancient structure more complex than any human language. There were no numbers, no tenses, more syllables and vowels, and a series of clicks, all with ten or more meanings.

“I have time,” Lea vowed. She knew she was asking for a favor from someone she had treated shabbily. “I promise, I’ll be a good student.”

They went to the garden so lessons could begin. They sat facing each other. Everything else dropped away, everything changed between them, they were of one mind, and as they looked into each other’s eyes neither had the desire to look away. Think in blue, in green, in starlight, in song, in a blessing, in beauty, in gratitude.