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Description
Night was falling when I returned to the woods after a long day in the town.
The forest that I lived in bordered a small village that had today been in the midst of a yearly Harvest Festival celebration, that marked the end of the Harvesting season. Stalls had been set up where various craftsmen sold merchandise of their trade. There were animals on display. People sold fruit preserves and jellies, as well as fresh produce from that years harvest. There was even a magic show to entertain the younger children. I had gone every year for 3 years now and it was still a wonderful experience.
I never bought anything in the market, since I didn’t need anything. Not to mention the fact that I had no means of purchasing anything, since I had no money and no way to obtain any. I had entertained the idea of making little crafts out of natural materials that could be found in the woods and selling them, but then again, there was nothing that I wanted to purchase anyway. The only thing that ever interested me were books. I had been taught to read at an early age by the village schoolteacher and had loved reading ever since then. But books could be obtained at the local library, a small, square house that was concealed from the main road by thick bushes. I had gone there just a few days earlier to take out a few books. The librarian told me that as long as I did not get any leaf litter on the pages, she would allow me to take out as many as I wanted. Therefore, I kept the library books in a nice, dry hole in a tree.
That’s where I headed now. I never had a particular place where I slept. I usually just wandered through the woods and slept wherever I took myself. Mostly, though, I took myself to the tree where my books were. As of late, I had found myself going there every night and was beginning to think of it as home. It was a comforting thought to have.
My feet dragged a little on the forest floor. I was quite tired, so I decided to fly the rest of the way to save myself some trouble. Closing my eyes, I imagined myself as a bird. Slowly, I morphed into a hummingbird. I rose up from the ground, beating my tiny wings to propel myself forward. I rapidly zipped and zoomed to the tree where I kept my books, weaving through tree trunks and flying around obstacles. Twice, in my haste, I nearly crashed head-on into a bush. I really needed to get a better hang of flying. Even after morphing into all sorts of birds for my whole life, flying had never come that easily to me.
I landed in the entrance of the hole in the tree and looked in. It was dark and warm and the air was a bit thick, but it was cozy during the autumn and winter, so that is what mattered to me at the moment.
Still as a hummingbird, I settled down in a little nest that I had made for myself and closed my eyes. Listening to the cold, still night air, I gazed at the library books, which were lying a few inches away from my head. I kept them well covered with debris so an unsuspecting animal would not notice them if they happened to look around here.
Slowly, after perhaps an hour of listening to the night, I fell into a deep and uneventful slumber.

The late-autumn sun beat its way into the hole in the tree where I was sleeping and scorched my eyelids. I didn’t open my eyes and turned over so that my back was to the entrance of the tree. I was about to drift off to sleep when I became aware of two voices coming from the entrance to the tree!
My eyes flew open and I listened carefully, lying very still in the meantime. The voices were talking in loud whispers.
“I’ve never seen that hummingbird before,” a male voice was saying.
“Do you think she’s new here?” a female voice answered and I allowed myself to relax a little. They seemed to merely be two juvenile hummingbirds.
“How do you know it’s a she? It could be a he!”
“What-ever. I don’t really care.”
“I’m just asking a simple question, Sugarfest!”
“Your questions never make any sense, Soren.”
“WHAT? I just asked how you knew the hummingbird was a she! How does that question not make any sense?”
They were obviously siblings.
“I didn’t say that particular question made no sense. I’m just saying that your questions in general make no sense.”
“You are such a menace, Sugarfest!”
“Not so loudly! She’ll hear us! We’re supposed to be sneaking up on her, remember?”
“Sneaking? You never said a thing about sneaking!”
Unable to stand the bickering any longer, I sat up sharply and turned. Silhouetted against the bright circle of light that the entrance to my tree cast, were two young hummingbirds: Sugarfest and Soren. They were, as I had predicted, siblings. They had similar markings on their wings and were both a similar shade of emerald green.
“May I help you?” I asked in a polite voice. The two hummingbirds froze. Then they flew off shrieking.
I smirked slightly in satisfaction. I never liked scaring young animals, but one had to draw a line when they were annoying.
Sighing, I settled back into my nest, with the intention of sleeping for quite a while longer. But unfortunately, what happened next did not go according to plan.
Not very long after Sugarfest and Soren had made their very loud exit, I heard a rush of wings and heard something perch noisily in the tree’s entrance.
“Celeste? Are you awake?”
Perfect. It was my hummingbird friend, Skyrafina. She was a ruby-throated hummingbird, with a voice like honey and quite an amiable personality. It wasn’t that I didn’t welcome her visit, for I always loved to talk with her. I just was not in the mood to talk to anyone at the moment.
“Celeste? Are you awake?” Skyrafina’s voice was louder and more agitated this time. I almost considered feigning sleep, but I thought that would be more than a little rude. Skyrafina was my friend, after all.
So I sat up, blinking at the sudden burst of sunlight that erupted in front of my eyes.
“Good morning,” I muttered sleepily.
“Well, aren’t you awake and alert this morning,” joked Skyrafina. “The early bird gets the nectar you know!”
“Yeah, I know,” I chirped and yawned.
“That was a huge yawn!” chuckled Skyrafina. Her eyes lost their teasing glint, though and became more serious. “I have something to discuss with you.”
“Go on,” I prompted.
“You did see two little hummingbirds in your tree earlier, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I groaned. “They were disturbing my slumber and they were planning to do the old sneak-up-and-pounce thing. They were quite irritating.”
“What’s this ‘sneak-up-and-pounce thing’ you refer to?”
“I’m surprised you don’t know what it is. It’s something that we wildcats will do for fun. It’s exactly how it sounds. You sneak up on something and then you pounce on it!” I looked up at her, waiting for some sort of recognition to flash across her face. Then I remembered with a jolt that she would not know what I was talking about. I had forgotten for a second that I was not addressing a wildcat. I had realized my mistake too late. As much as I liked Skyrafina, I was not going to tell her my secret.
“We wildcats? You aren’t a wildcat!”
“I meant the wildcats,” I explained hastily, hoping that it wasn’t to late to fix my slip-up. “Don’t you ever mix up ‘we’ and ‘the’? They’re so similar to each other. Plus I tend to slur my words when I’m tired.” I yawned again for emphasis.
Skyrafina looked inquisitive for a second and then to my relief, she grinned. “Have you been spying on the wildcats, Celeste?”
I jumped at her suggestion gratefully and nodded.
“You sure do some silly things,” she observed. “Just a couple sunrises ago, you said you had been observing frogs down by the swamp. Very odd.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I didn’t come to discuss your fascination with other animals. The two hummingbirds you saw were my younger brother and sister, Soren and Sugarfest. They came flying to me saying that you had frightened them.” She cast me a stern look.
“I only said ‘may I help you’!” I spluttered indignantly, still trying to sort out my thoughts after my slip up about the wildcats.
“But it scared them!”
“I’m sorry about that, but they shouldn’t have been sneaking up on me in the first place!”
“Well, I’ll have a word with them about that. I just wanted to tell you that they got scared and ask you if you could please not scare them again?”
“How’s this,” I said. “How about Sugarfest, Soren and I make a deal. They don’t sneak up on me and I won’t scare them.”
“I’ll tell them that,” replied Skyrafina brightly. “Well, I should be going now. Thank you for your time, Celeste!” And with that, she flew off.
I watched her go until she was nothing more than a speck in the vast blue sky. As soon as she was out of earshot, I scolded myself, “Celeste, you fool! Why on earth were you going on about wildcats? No one can discover your secret! No one!!”
I flopped back down in my nest, then got up again almost immediately. I would not be able to get back to sleep.
I decided to go into town as a human and see it after the Harvest Festival. I zoomed out of my tree and buzzed around for some flowers to sip nectar from. I found a clump of clover within about five minutes, which was slightly surprising, given the chilly weather. When I had drunk my fill, I landed lightly on the leaf-strewn ground and morphed into a human.
The ground became much further away and the leaves and flowers became smaller as I grew. My wings disappeared and were replaced by arms. My beak shrank rapidly into a nose and my talon-like feet grew until they became legs. It was never painful or uncomfortable to morph, but it did take a lot of concentration and focus. I could morph into any animal I wanted, as long as I had a basic idea of what the animal looked like. I had tried once to morph into a tree, but it had not worked.
I proceeded through the forest as a tall girl with green eyes, a fair complexion, and frizzy shoulder-length brown hair. I wore a simple gray dress and a brown cloak. Conveniently, whenever I became a human, my figure was equipped with the garments, so it saved me a lot of trouble.
I had probably walked about ten minutes when I heard a rustle of undergrowth.
Instinctively, I dove behind a still-leafy bush.
The reason I was hiding was that I did not want to be seen until I was absolutely certain of who it was. If it was someone I knew, they would probably recognize me. Or at least, that is what my overly-paranoid brain had led me to believe. Even though I appeared different as every animal, my eyes remained exactly the same shape and color. I also always had the same distinctive brown coloring. Anyone who knew me would know my eyes and coloring, or so I thought. If someone recognized my eyes on a human girl, they might become suspicious. The one thing that I was afraid of beyond anything was someone finding out my secret. What frightened me so much was that I had no idea what would happen if someone found me out. I didn’t want anyone to realize how much I’d lied to them. That was why I thought it was much better safe than sorry.
I peered out from behind the bush to see what had rustled the undergrowth. The creature that had just emerged from behind a thick tree looked around impressively for a moment, its hooves kneading the ground with the air of impatience. Recognizing it, I morphed into a deer and stepped out from behind the bush.
“Celia!” cried Fawna, my best friend as a deer. “What a lovely surprise to see you up and about! How are you? It’s been quite a long time since we last saw each other! What has been happening in your life?”
Chatty and friendly, Fawna had dubbed me “Celia” early on in our friendship since she thought “Celeste” sounded very grand.
“I’m fine, Fawna. How are you?” I asked.
“Oh, me? Well, I’ve been alright. Actually, nothing new has happened to me since we last met. Where were you off to?”
“I thought I might go into town- I mean, I thought I’d go see... um... Blossom! I haven’t seen her for a while.” I’d slipped up again! That was twice in one morning! Fortunately, Fawna did not seem to notice. On the contrary, her eyes lit up. “What a good idea! I have not seen her for a while either! Why don’t we go together? You wouldn’t mind if I tagged along?”
“Um... no, I don’t mind.”
“Wonderful!” cried Fawna. “Let’s go!”
So we set off. Of course I didn’t really need to go into town. And I hadn’t seen Blossom for a while. I therefore shrugged the matter off as I walked side by side with Fawna. I just hoped that I didn’t encounter any other animal. If anyone recognized me...
Fawna and I reached Blossom’s cave sooner than I had expected. We received a very warm welcome and Blossom invited us into her cave. She and Fawna chatted merrily and while I tried to join in, I found it difficult to keep my mind on the conversation when my mind was a bundle of worries.
After a while, however, I shrugged off my worries and let myself talk and laugh along with the other two.
By the time Fawna and I left Blossom’s cave, it was almost twilight. My trip to town would have to wait until the following morning.
Morphing into a sparrow this time, I fluttered back to my tree and settled down among my books to get some rest.
Little did I know that the next day, my life would change forever.