Page 33 of Beasts of Mine

It was fascinating, but it was also a lot.

Fortunately, I was slowly learning not to focus on every voice at once. If I concentrated on my footsteps, the pressure of the camera beneath my hands, or whatever animal I was actively searching for, the other conversations faded enough to become part of the background again.

Birds were proving the hardest to ignore because they never seemed to stop talking, although some of what they said was genuinely useful.

Snake near your foot, a small bird warned from somewhere to my right, its sharp voice making me stop before taking another step and shift my attention immediately toward the leaf litter.

I searched the ground and found a narrow body partially concealed beneath one broad leaf several feet ahead. It wasn't close enough to be an immediate threat, but I gave it plenty of space and moved around the opposite side of the trail.

“Thank you,” I told the unseen bird, keeping my attention on the snake while I carefully picked my way around it until enough distance separated us for the tension between my shoulders to ease.

Other observations were considerably less useful.

Her nest-head is smaller today, a small brown bird announced from a low branch farther ahead, hopping closer to the edge as if he needed a better look. I recognized him immediately as the same tiny critic who had commented on my hair the previous morning, and I stopped beneath his branch to touch the braid hanging over my shoulder. I'd taken considerably more time securing it this morning after yesterday's unsolicited reviews.

“I braided it,” I explained to the bird, trying not to feel ridiculous while he leaned forward to inspect my hair with the seriousness of someone judging a competition rather than a woman attempting to keep humidity from destroying her sanity.

Better, the bird decided, hopping a few inches closer while his tiny claws tightened around the damp bark and his head tipped first one way, then the other.

“Thank you,” I told the bird, unable to keep a faint smile from my face because I was more pleased by his approval than I wanted to admit.

Still strange, though, the bird added after studying me for another moment, spreading his wings before disappearing through the foliage and leaving several small leaves trembling behind him.

“You should've quit while you were ahead,” I muttered to the empty branch, shaking my head as I continued along the trail.

The path curved closer to the river and narrowed between two enormous trees whose trunks were covered in thick moss. Long vines hung from higher branches, while last night's rain still clung to nearly every leaf around me, catching the light whenever the canopy shifted. A faint tapping sound came from somewhere to my right, and I slowed to listen as it came again. Unlike the voices I'd grown accustomed to hearing, this was physical—something hard striking wood.

I waited without moving, scanning the branches until a toucan emerged from behind a curtain of leaves and hopped onto an exposed limb with a dark berry held near the end of his oversized bill.

My camera was halfway to my face before I remembered that I could actually ask now.

“Would you mind if I took some pictures?” I asked the toucan, keeping the camera below my chin while he studied me through one dark eye and shifted his weight along the branch.

Why? the toucan asked, still holding the berry as his toes tightened around the bark and his head tilted slightly toward the camera.

“Because you're gorgeous,” I answered the toucan, smiling as I waited to see whether he would stay instead of lifting the lens without permission. The bird tossed the berry farther into his bill, swallowed it, and puffed his chest slightly before turning enough to give me an almost perfect profile.

I know. You can take them, the toucan replied with effortless confidence, resettling his wings as though he had simply confirmed something obvious.

A laugh escaped me.

“Confidence definitely isn't a problem for you,” I told the toucan, raising the camera once it was clear he didn't mind and adjusting the focus around his eye.

Why would it be? the toucan asked, hopping farther along the branch while I changed my angle to follow him.

“That is an excellent point,” I admitted to the toucan, smiling behind the camera as I pressed the shutter. He stayed surprisingly cooperative. The dark feathers along his body stood out beautifully against the wet green foliage, while the shape and color of his bill made him impossible to lose against the background. I shifted slightly to improve the angle and took another photograph just as he reached toward a new cluster of berries.

The toucan stopped with his bill inches from the fruit and looked directly at me.

You smell like the spotted one, the bird remarked, saying it with the same casual interest he had shown the berries.

My finger stopped against the shutter button, and the camera lowered several inches before I'd consciously decided to move it.

“I smell like what?” I asked the toucan, staring at him over the top of the camera while part of me hoped I'd misunderstood despite being reasonably certain I hadn't.

The big spotted one. The one who watches you and gets angry at Red, the toucan clarified, turning his bill toward his shoulder to scratch beneath one feather while I stood there trying to decide which part of that statement bothered me most.

“I know which leopard you're talking about,” I told the toucan, rubbing my thumb over the textured camera grip as curiosity began overtaking my surprise. “Why do I smell like him?”