and the cold waiting (TWS) - thoroughly abandoned!

Hold your breath. A perfect moment. Wonder.

Can she draw it, perhaps?

Maybe it's hungry.

She holds her breath and tries to listen, under the banging of the curfew bell and the shrill-and-glitter of the tree outside- tries to hear through her fingertips the heartbeat battering itself to pieces against her skin, beating and beating and beating and beating. The bird, breathing and beating like a tiny drum.

She nearly drops it. It’s a rhythm, the heartbeat. One she can’t quite name, all triplets and skips and false starts, and the tree outside is scratching against the wall and shrilling, commanding-
“Are you-” she tries, and then, at the window- “yes, yes! I’m going. Going.” She gathers up the basket, the filled bowls, turns the oven off. It’s slower with one hand out. “Are you-” she tries again. The bird blinks. She changes her mind. “-hungry?”

More blinking. The birds in the stories and the picturebooks could talk, could argue and mislead wanderers and tell dark secrets, but this one- this one is watching her expectantly, and saying nothing.
She swallows. One hand in the flour, fingertip sketching out the pear-body, the crooked feet, the head-
The tree. “Yes! I’m going.” She stares blankly at the cupboards, trying to think of something- anything- that could feed this.

SpoilerShow

and what now?