Winter Moon

the other side of the glass. Its head was cocked, and it regarded them

curiously with one eye. Toby said, "He just zoomed right at me,

whoooosh, I thought he was gonna smash through the window. What's he

doing?"

"Probably looking for worms or tender little bugs."

"I don't look like any bug."

"Maybe he saw those snails in your ears," she said, returning to the

pantry.

While Toby helped Heather set the table for breakfast, the crow

remained at the window, watching. "He must be stupid," Toby said, "if

he thinks we have worms and bugs in here."

"Maybe he's refined, civilized, heard me say cornflakes."

" While they filled bowls with cereal, the big crow stayed at the

window, occasionally preening its feathers but mostly watching them

with one coal-dark eye or the other.

Whistling, Jack came down the front stairs, along the hall, into the

kitchen, and said, "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse. Can we have

eggs and horse for breakfast?"

"How about eggs and crow?" Toby asked, pointing to the visitor.

"He's a fat and sassy specimen, isn't he?" Jack said, moving to the

window and crouching to get a close look at the bird.

"Mom, look! Dad's in a staring contest with a bird," Toby said,

amused. Jack's face was no more than an inch from the window, and the

bird fixed him with one inky eye. Heather took four slices of bread

out of the bag, dropped them in the big toaster, adjusted the dial,

depressed the plunger, and looked up to see that Jack and the crow were

still eye-to-eye. "I think Dad's gonna lose," Toby said.

Jack snapped one finger against the windowpane directly in front of the

crow, but the bird didn't flinch. "Bold little devil," Jack said.

With a lightning-quick dart of its head, the crow pecked the glass in

front of Jack's face so hard that the tock of bill against pane

startled him into a backward step that, in his crouch, put him off

balance. He fell on his butt on the kitchen floor. The bird leaped

away from the window with a great flapping of wings and vanished into

the sky.

Toby burst into laughter. Jack crawled after him on hands and knees.

"Oh, you think that was funny, do you? I'll show you what's funny,

I'll show you the infamous Chinese tickle torture." Heather was

laughing too. Toby scampered to the hall door, looked back, saw Jack

coming, and ran to another room, giggling and shrieking with delight.

Jack scrambled to his feet. In a hunchbacked crouch, growling like a

troll, he scuttled after his son. "Do I have one little boy on my

hands or two?" Heather called after Jack as he disappeared into the

hall.

"Two!" he replied. The toast popped up. She put the four crisp

pieces on a plate and slipped four more slices of bread into the

toaster. Much giggling and maniacal cackling was coming from the front

of the house. Heather went to the window. The tock of the bird's bill

had been so loud that she more than half expected to see a crack in the

glass. But the pane was intact. On the sill outside lay a single

black feather, rocking gently in a breeze that could not quite pluck it

out of its sheltered niche and whirl it away.

She put her face to the window and peered up at the sky. High in that

blue vault, a single dark bird carved a tight circle, around and

around. It was too far away for her to be able to tell if it was the

same crow or another bird.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

They stopped at Mountain High Sporting Goods and purchased two sleds

(wide, flat runners, clear pine with polyurethane finish, a red

lightning bolt down the center of each), as well as insulated ski

suits, boots, and gloves -for all of them.

Toby saw a big Frisbee specially painted to look like a yellow flying

saucer, with portholes along the rim and a low red dome on top, and

they bought that too.

At the Union 76, they filled the fuel tank, and then went on a marathon

shopping expedition at the supermarket. When they returned to

Quartermass Ranch at one-fifteen, only the eastern third of the sky

remained blue. Masses of gray clouds churned across the mountains,

driven by a fierce high-altitude wind--though at ground level, only an

erratic breeze gently stirred the evergreens and shivered the brown

grass. The temperature had fallen below freezing, and the accuracy of

the weathermans prediction was manifest in the cold, humid air.

Toby went immediately to his room, dressed in his new red-and-black ski

suit, boots, and gloves. He returned to the kitchen with his Frisbee

to announce that he was going out to play and to wait for the snow to

start falling.

Heather and Jack were still unpacking groceries and arranging supplies

in the pantry. She said, "Toby, honey, you haven't had lunch yet."

"I'm not hungry.

I'll just take a raisin cookie with me." She paused to pull up the

hood on Toby's jacket and tie it under his chin. "Well, all right, but

don't stay out there too long at a stretch. When you get cold, come in

and warm up a little, then go back out. We don't want your nose

freezing and falling off." She gave his nose a gentle tweak. He

looked so cute. Like a gnome. "Don't throw the Frisbee toward the