"So," Margaret began, "what do we do now?"

She stopped kicking the dirt and gawked at Manderley. Her eyes wide with wonder. Manderley stared back. The crow's eyes were wide in a way which could have been mistaken for awe, too.

Phillip's hand dropped from my cheek. Trying to relinquish the sensation, I pressed my hand there. It didn't have the same effect. He rubbed his hands together, much like he had during our game of charades. "There's a lake not too far from here," he said. "I could gather some things from the cabin, and we could have a picnic." He added a shrug at the end, which said more than what he'd said.

All this time, I'd misunderstood him. I'd misjudged his bashfulness for arrogance. He couldn't sense my willingness at all. It made me want him to like me more.

Something in the shrubbery caught his attention. He held his hand to the foliage. A tiny red dot crawled onto his finger, along the lines on his palms, and nearly to his wrist before Manderley lunged at it.

The crow's ferocity made me recoil. "What... What is it?" I asked.

"A crow," he said, lifting another red dot up to her. A tiny drop of blood formed where she'd pinched his skin. He wiped his hand on his jeans.

"I know that," I said. "I meant is it a girl or a boy?"

"She's a she," he said. He brought his finger to her belly. Manderley poked at it, thinking he'd offered her more food. She stilled as he stroked her feathers.

"How far is the lake?" Margaret asked.

"It's not so far," he said. "I don't know for sure. Are you coming?" He asked this as if it would be the most incredulous thing in the world if she did.

Margaret nodded. When I didn't answer, because I was too busy watching Manderley shiver under Phillip's touch, she jabbed me with her elbow. "Ivy?"

I held my side as if it hurt, but I watched the crow, the way she purred like a kitten. I wanted him to touch me that way. "I'll come," I said.

Phillip saw me watching her. "You can pet her if you want." He bounced his left shoulder where she perched. She jumped two inches off him before settling down. Her long, hooked talons made indentations in his t-shirt.

He laughed, but Manderley wasn't amused. She nipped his ear.

He winced but his grin widened. "As you can see, she doesn't bite. Not much, at least."

I hid one hand behind my back and waved my other. "No thank you." My fingers were still bandaged. I didn't need any more scabs.

Phillip laughed a deep laugh that rumbled like thunder. Manderley cawed as if somehow, I'd offended her by not wanting to pet her. Just in case, I hid my other hand behind my back, clasping it with the other.

"Worried you'll lose a finger?" He shook his head. "She's not so bad once you get to know her."

"It's not that," I said, but my hands stayed clasped behind my back.

"Well," he said. He gazed over his shoulder. Margaret and I gazed at him. When he turned to us, we both pretended we hadn't been watching. Margaret coughed into her palm. I searched for more red dots in the foliage.

He patted his stomach. "I'm starved. You guys must be, too."

"I could eat," Margaret said, the hand she'd used to cough into now on her stomach.

"What about you, Ivy?" he asked.

I stopped searching for bugs and said, "We should go."

"It's not too long of a walk. I hope it doesn't rain." He said this with a smile, which I didn't think anything of. I hoped it wouldn't rain, too.

"That would spoil the picnic," Margaret said.

He beckoned for us to follow him. Manderley decided she'd rather fly instead and took off ahead.

"I know a faster way," Phillip called behind him. We diverged from the route Margaret and I had taken. Sure enough a path appeared soon after, cutting through the trees to the cabin. Evergreen shrubs sprung up on either side.

Something pestered me as we followed Phillip to the cabin. I couldn't figure out what. We'd forgotten something, something important. Margaret and I had been afraid. Hadn't we? As I followed behind her and Phillip, I couldn't see what we'd had to fear. Everything was flourishing. The woods held the scent of possibilities. It wouldn't rain today. There'd be sun and more sun and Phillip. Phillip and Margaret. Phillip and me. That was how it was meant to be all along, the three of us, young and with our hearts full.

We climbed the sloping ground up to the cabin's fence where Manderley waited. She flew back to Phillip's shoulder as soon as she saw him, pressing her head against his cheek. I swore I heard her purr like a kitten. She loved him. It soon became clear, though, when we went inside, that Manderley had two lovers.

"She's obsessed," Phillip said, as she pecked and scratched at the coffee table. With his hands on his hips, he sighed at her. "I try to get her to stop, but she never listens to me."

"Maybe she's onto something," Margaret said. "Crows have a sense for things."

Phillip laughed that thunderous laugh. I think the walls shook. "I think she just likes to annoy me." He rubbed the back of his neck. Turning to us, he added, "Grab whatever you want. I don't mind."

In the kitchen, Margaret and I gathered a whole loaf of bread from the bread box, a jar of almond butter, some peach preserves, a bag of unsalted pretzels, water, and napkins. We put everything on the table. Phillip went through his bag, at the couch's foot, and pulled out another blanket, this one hunter green like my sweater. He saw this and held it up to me.

"You match," he said. He shoved the food aside, spread the blanket out on the old rustic table and one by one Margaret and I dumped everything onto it. He took both ends, making a bundle, which he swung over his shoulder with as much heartiness as a lumberjack wielding an ax. "Let's go," he said. "I wouldn't want to miss anything."

Manderley zipped past him out the door. He batted her away and cursed under his breath. "Where are you running off to?" Back pressed to the door, he waited for me and Margaret to leave before closing it. "I've been thinking," he said, jogging to catch up to us at the fence, "I should get a front lock. You never can be too careful."

Margaret tilted her head. "Why would you need one? There's nothing around here." When she said this, she gestured around her as if she were a realtor showing a house, or in our case the lack of them.

"The bears and raccoons can get nosy," he said, maneuvering around us to push the fence open. I noticed when he did this it didn't squeal like it had with Margaret. She must have done it wrong. He held it for us to go through.

"Bears," Margaret said, in that familiar breathy way, which I didn't think was because we were trampling down the sloped ground.

"I'm kidding, Margaret. Bears can't open doors." He nudged her shoulder with his fist, and it seemed like such a natural thing between them I rubbed my own shoulder.

"I think you'll find you like it here," he said. He held out his arms and took a deep breath. He let it out. "Nothing smells as good as the woods after a rainstorm. "Can you smell it? It's magic in the air."

He said magic as if by saying it he could speak it into existence. I tested it on my own tongue. "Magic."

As soon as I said it, I smelled it. All this time I'd thought it existed only in books, but here it was all around us, an aroma of summer, fall, spring, and winter all at once. Of chlorine, sea salted air, and cherry ice pops. Of fallen leaves, pumpkin spice, and baked apples. Of the earthy smell after it rains, fresh cut flowers, and mowed grass. Of cider, and ginger, and wood on the fire. Magic was in the air. The star beneath my skin smoldered.

From somewhere, Manderley called to him. We stopped to search the sky for her. Margaret spotted her first. "There she is." She pointed.

Manderley flew from wherever she had gone onto Phillip's shoulder. He raised a brow at her. It made him appear all cloak-and-dagger, like something magical, something other, something we shouldn't get too close to. I inched closer.

"One day you're going to fly off and never come back," he said, his features darkening. "Please don't make me remember." His voice cracked. He closed his eyes. "Remembering," he said, "makes me angry."

His words, the sorrow in them, an icy finger across my skin would have been warmer. As if the star in me had gone out, I wrapped my arms around myself. I wanted the warmth. I needed it, as the air around us grew heavier, wetter.

A familiar smell tainted it, like wood-chips and clover and white gardenias.