The ibis blinked a pale, weary eye. Elara felt a kinship with it. She, too, had been blown off course long ago—a city girl who had washed up in this swamp after her husband died and her children scattered. The swamp had become her shell. But this bird… this bird was a color that did not belong in a world of moss and mud.
She should leave it. Nature was cruel, and she had learned not to meddle. But the ibis dipped its head, and she saw her own loneliness reflected in that tiny, wild eye. old woman swamp scarlet ibis
“You’re lost, little one,” she whispered. Her voice was a rusted hinge. “Hurricane must have snatched you from some island a thousand miles south.” The ibis blinked a pale, weary eye
“Alright,” she said. “Alright.”