When
the kind mother finch brought the little elf to her nest, she fixed his wounds
and told her four children that he was to be treated as their brother. So that
was how he was raised as a bird instead of an elf. He was named Goldenrod for
his hair, which he thought of as a crop of yellow down feathers. He thought of
himself as a bird, and knew of no other world but the tree where the finches
nested. He learned to peep, call, and sing as well as any finch. He spent the
days singing and playing with his mother and siblings, who loved him dearly. But
it wasn’t long before his brothers and sisters received their wing feathers and
had to learn to fly. He would sit on a thick branch beside his mother and
listen to her instruct her children, cheering them on and congratulating them
on a job well done. But he was never invited to take part in the flying lessons.
“Mama,” Goldenrod would say after
each lesson, “when will I get to learn to fly?”
His mother would pat his head and
tell him, “When your wings come in, dear.”
“Why aren’t they in now?” he would
ask. But she never had an answer to that.
The mother finch knew that someday
she would need to tell him that he was an elf and not a finch, but she was
afraid that he would not believe her, or else be very sad and pine for his elf
parents. So she put it off as long as
she possibly could. But when her children had finally completed their flying
lessons and Goldenrod was still pondering the whereabouts of his delayed wings,
she knew she finally had to tell him the truth.
The afternoon of the last flying
lesson, Goldenrod, as always, asked, “Mama, when will I get to learn to fly?”
This time, his mother said,
“Goldenrod, there is something I need to discuss with you in private. Come to
the nest with me now, while your siblings are out flying.” Goldenrod obeyed and
followed his mother to the nest. She sat down, and motioned for him to sit
beside her. She wrapped her warm, brown wing around him and pulled him close to
her.
“Goldenrod,” she began, “if you let
me say what I am about to tell you, do you promise that you will believe me, no
matter how strange it sounds, and do you promise not to be angry or upset with
me?”
“I promise, Mama,” said Goldenrod,
who didn’t think that he could ever be angry or upset with his kind, beautiful
mother.
She shut her eyes and took a deep
breath before saying, “Goldenrod, you are not a bird.”
“I’m not a bird?”
“No, Goldenrod,” she said. “A few
weeks ago, when you were still just a very little baby, I found you lying on
the ground. You were horribly wounded, though I still don’t know why, and I
took you to my nest and took care of you. You didn’t have a mother of your own,
so I became your mother.”
“Then if I’m not a bird,” Goldenrod
said, “what am I?”
“You are an elf,” said his mother.
“An elf?” Goldenrod was bewildered.
“Mama, what’s an elf?”
“An elf,” his mother explained, “is a small
creature that lives in trees. Elves live in the forest just like birds, but
they do not have any wings or feathers.”
“Do my brothers and sisters know I’m
an elf?” Goldenrod asked.
“They do,” said his mother. “But
they were told to treat you as if you were a member of the family, so they
treated you like a bird. I knew I would have to tell you that you were an elf
someday, but I dreaded the day, because I thought you might want to get away
from me and be with the other elves.” She paused, and looked right into his
eyes. “Goldenrod, do you want to get away with me and be with the other elves,
now that you know you are an elf?”
Goldenrod shook his head. “I don’t
want to be with any elves,” he said. “I want to be with you and my brothers and
sisters.”
When he said that, the mother
finch’s fears melted away completely, and she let out a joyful cry. She picked
him up and hugged him tightly and kissed him over and over again. “Then you can
go on being a bird, darling,” she said, “and we can pretend I never told you
that you were an elf!”
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