The Duchess had molted and emerged anew. Her brown speckled plumage and white belly were displayed like the headdress of a Mardi Gras Indian. After a brief spring, she had found her mate
and was now perched proudly atop a nest of a single candy cerulean egg. She willed the fragile being to life with the trill of her beak. The time of flight was approaching, and she would embark
on her journey from north to south. She listened to the wind gently blowing a soft breeze through her home in Delaware. This year would be a good year for the first-time mother. The Duchess
was prepared for The Great Migration.

Yet, something was immediately wrong. Her egg, though a miracle of nature, would not hatch. It possessed an otherworldly quality. It almost glowed in the morning sun. Most veeries lay three, four, or even five eggs, but The Duchess had laid just one. The Duchess worried about her small family’s ability to take flight in time, but The Duke attempted to soften her fears by reminding her that both of them had taken flight when they, too, were young. He proposed that the egg would hatch just in time for the family to join the other birds.