Queen of the Crows

by Harmony Wagner

  The princess looked at Breezy and Careen. They shrugged and shook their heads with confusion. The princess looked back at Lustre.

  “Indisposed? What does that mean?” she whined.

  “Indisposed?” “Indisposed?” “What’s indisposed?” “Has someone gotten rid of her?” “Where is she?!!” came hundreds of whispers and shouts from the crows in the trees.

  This time Lustre didn’t care if they shut up or not. And he certainly wasn’t going to beg them to quiet down. He glared up at them with a look of superiority and they soon settled, waiting for an answer.

  “Indisposed means she is unavailable at the moment and we must wait patiently for her return.”

  Elsa noticed Cracks smile a deep smile of satisfaction to himself.

  “But why?” “Why?” “Why?” “Why?” “Why?” cawed the masses of crows all around.

  Lustre chose not to answer that question and instead parted his wings and bowed deeply to the princess to signal that the court was over. She gave a small curtsy and lifted off, followed by her ladies-in-waiting.

  As was customary, the crows dispersed to seek out their day’s food and entertainment on their own or in small groups.

  Lustre flew away quickly, to avoid direct questioning from the princess, but also hoping he’d be able to find the queen first if he searched.

  Or better yet, he thought, maybe I’ll find her dead.

  Lustre’s eyes narrowed as he realized that what he had first seen as an embarrassment might end up being an opportunity. He soared as high as he could.

  Cracks and Elsa were soon the only ones remaining in the clearing. Cracks waved his straggly wing. “Ahoy, Elsa!”

  Elsa waved back and approached her new friend. “You seemed to be very happy with what Lustre said about the queen,” she said, hoping he’d tell her more.

  “Yes, indeed,” smiled Cracks. “He got the right answer, even though he has no clue where she is.” He giggled with a look of impish delight. “Plus, I most thoroughly enjoy watching Lustre squirm.”

  “Do you know where she is?” Elsa asked.

  “The queen of the crows?” asked Cracks.

  “Yes,” said Elsa, smiling. “Who else would I be talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” said Cracks flatly.

  “Oh,” sighed Elsa, a little disappointed, since she was all wrapped up in the mystery now.

  “But if you are talking about the queen, well, she’s gone to the Hollowing Tree, of course.”

  Jesters.

  “The Hollowing Tree? What’s that?”

  “I’d tell you all about it, but you’ve got to go get in in your cage now.”

  “My cage?” asked Elsa, perplexed. Then it dawned on her and she smiled. “Oh! You mean school.”

  “School? Is that how they teach your young folk? How can anyone learn the ways of the land in a box?!” Now it was Cracks who was perplexed.

  “Yes, I’ve often wondered that myself. They let me out for fresh air three times a day. Come visit me!”

  “Aye,” said Cracks, drifting off into thought. “I will if I can, Love.”

  Elsa nodded softly. She realized he had bigger things on his mind.

  It was time for her to go to school and face another day. She scampered off through the woods with her mind full of thoughts of crow court, the Hollowing Tree, and this mysterious queen. She also couldn’t help but savour the way he had called her “Love.”

  Elsa squeaked in just in time, denying Ms. Witherspoon the opportunity to scowl at her. Her homework was complete and she knew all the answers when asked. But she was completely bored and all morning drifted in her mind to the world of the crows. This seemed to make Ms. Witherspoon even more disgruntled.

  The lunch bell couldn’t come soon enough. When at last it did ring, she grabbed her lunch and headed straight outside. Her restaurant Chinese lunch would have gained her some points in the lunchroom, but she didn’t care.

  It was cold, so very few other children dotted the schoolyard. She munched her noodles, scanning the trees and field for Cracks.

  Caw! Caw!

  There were a few crows here and there, but no sign of her friend.

  Her knuckles felt tight bracing against the wind. She slurped up the last of her lunch and went in to warm up in the library.

  She sat down at a computer to search information about crows. At the computer next to her, Eh Ta Taw sat very straight, with his traditional Karen handwoven bag draped over his shoulder, reading something very seriously. She studied the curves of his nose and cheeks, his stern brow. She could tell he would grow up to be very handsome.

  Instead of looking up crow behaviour, she typed “Karen People” into the search. She read about Burma, also called Myanmar, a small country in Asia where a strong military and monarchy had ruled for decades over the people, denying them good healthcare, education, and many other freedoms. The Karen people, a northern tribe in the country, had actively resisted this oppression for years as soldiers in a civil war, insisting that they wanted to be their own country.

  Elsa scrolled through horrific pictures of people with their legs, arms, and eyes missing from stepping on land mines. These were explosives that the government had buried along the borders of the Karen-held territory that would explode if stepped on. She read about hundreds of thousands of refugees, some who had to walk through land-mined areas, hoping to seek refuge in neighbouring Thailand. Karen children were being born into refugee camps and growing up there, unable to leave the camps and never knowing their own country. But despite the hardships, the Karen people refused to give up their struggle and continued to wage war from both sides of the border.

  He has been through so much! No wonder the schoolyard antics don’t make him flinch.

  She sighed and paused at a disturbing photo of a coffin set on top of many logs and several burning tires. It belonged to Saw Than Htoo, a famous Karen rebel leader. This was his funeral pyre after he was assassinated by Burmese forces.

  “That was my uncle,” said Eh Ta Taw, making Elsa jump. He tapped gently on the photo on the screen. “He was a great general.”

  Elsa swallowed uncomfortably. She wanted to say so much, but felt paralyzed.

  “He gave me this bag,” said Eh Ta Taw stoically, sitting a little taller.

  “You have a lot to be proud of,” she mumbled softly.

  He gave a slight, firm little nod. His dark, full eyes went back to his screen. Elsa closed down her computer. Crows seemed like child’s play after reading all that.

  As the clock slowly ticked away the afternoon, Elsa felt more and more like she was in a cage. She shifted in her seat uncomfortably. Monsieur Gopaul droned on about conjugating verbs in French. She felt that feeling of bursting at the seams again. She tried to breathe and crunch the feeling down, but felt her arm shooting up uncontrollably.

  “May I go to the washroom?” erupted loudly out of her mouth.

  Monsieur Gopaul’s shoulder’s slumped at the chalkboard. He didn’t even turn around.

  Lenore and Gabby snickered quietly and looked at Breagh. Breagh knowingly mouthed the word diarrhoea and all three of them swallowed their giggles.

  “En Français, s’ils vous plaît, Elsa.” He continued writing out his verb tenses.

  “Les toilettes, s’ils vous plaît, Monsieur Gopaul,” she muttered.

  Without looking back, he gave a dismissive flick of his chalky hand.

  Elsa looked over at the mean girls. The eager look in their eyes and gaping smiles tipped her off that something was up.

  Elsa stared straight into Gabby. She enjoyed watching Gabby shrink in her skin a bit. Then Elsa very deliberately grabbed her best graffiti pen and shoved it in her pocket. At least now she was armed.

  She felt the pressure of the cage release a bit as she burst into the hallway. She didn�
��t really have to go, but she figured she could kill some time in the bathroom and try to repress the scream that was building up inside her.

  As she walked to the washroom, rage flickered inside her like a flame.

  Why do I even have to ask an adult permission to use the toilet? I have been taking care of myself for years and you need to tell me when I can pee?!

  The cool, stale, damp air of the washroom had a calming effect. She ran her hands under the tap and splashed her face. This line of thinking wasn’t helping any. She cleared her mind and ran her wet hands through her thick hair to dry them. She puffed out a big sigh at her reflection in the mirror.

  Now onto this mean girl business.

  Elsa opened each stall down the row. In the last one, in the same spot where she had found the comment about her mom, was a poorly drawn cartoon of her with a poof of cloud blowing out her behind. Above, it said: Elsa drops fart bombs!

  Elsa spent the next ten minutes drawing a pretty good rendition of Breagh’s head under the fart cloud. For good measure she added Lenore and Gabby standing behind, looking horrified.

  As much as she wanted to stay in the cool stillness of the bathroom, she knew she could only milk this little escape for so long. One advantage of being an eleven-year-old girl was that teachers started to give you more graces with bathroom time. She didn’t have her period yet, but they couldn’t be sure, and she had noticed she could push these bathroom breaks a little longer with no questions asked.

  She slipped silently back into the class. Monsieur Gopaul droned on, writing out French onto the chalkboard that no one was paying attention to.

  Breagh, Gabby, and Lenore looked at her with blank faces but then sheepishly grinned to each other.

  Obvious little schoolgirls.

  Elsa burrowed her head into her book, fastidiously copying the verbs onto the page.

  At last the end-of-day school bell rung.

  As she left the schoolyard, Eh Ta Taw walked just ahead of her, by himself. Elsa thought about catching up to walk with him a while, but she opted for the park instead.

  Lustre had flown high all day. As one of the highest crows in High Crow society, he prided himself on his ability to look down at everything from above. Also, it had conveniently kept the Low Crows from pestering him for answers about the queen. He had circled the entire city from the highest heights for hours and had even ventured far into the outskirts but had seen nothing. He realized he was famished.

  From his high vantage he spied a young female crow who had just pulled a choice-looking pizza crust from a garbage bin. He spiralled down to grab it from her. She squawked as his talons pierced her foot. He snatched the crust from her clutches and soared up to a high tree to feast.

  After wolfing down the crust, Lustre swiped her blood off his talon with his beak and savoured the taste. He was in the mood for something more than pizza.

  Lustre lifted up high above the trees and houses to scan the vicinity. There were no other crows in the area. The little injured crow hobbled on the ground below, one foot curled up in great pain. He tilted down and dropped out of the sky, soaring at full speed for her tiny neck. With a quick squeeze she went silently limp and fell over sideways. Lustre took a quick look around to make sure no other crow had seen, and with two swift pecks he ate out her eyes.

  “Oh, I am so tired,” yawned the princess. “We simply can’t have another roost like last night’s.”

  “That was terrible,” Breezy agreed. “I hardly slept a wink with everyone flitting about, not knowing where to land or when to quiet down.”

  “Everyone should know a black crow doesn’t fly at night,” scolded the princess.

  “Yes, but the Low Crows need the High Crows to keep them flying straight,” sniffed Careen. “What will we do if the queen hasn’t returned? Who will choose the roosting trees?”

  Breezy and Careen looked cautiously at the princess, who was preening her feathers absentmindedly.

  “Well, I certainly hope someone does, because I simply can’t have another night without my beauty sleep,” said the princess, not picking up on their hint.

  Breezy and Careen shared a quiet, helpless look. Though they knew it wasn’t their place to say, both felt it only natural that the princess should take up the queen’s responsibilities in the queen’s absence. It seemed this hadn’t even occurred to the princess.

  “Do you think she could have gone to the Hollowing Tree?” wondered Breezy.

  The princess sat up abruptly from her preening. “Now? But why would she go there now?”

  “Perhaps she’s considering your name?” Careen placed the question delicately, hoping to plant the idea of queenliness in the princess’s mind.

  Breezy and Careen shared a look again.

  The princess shifted uncomfortably side to side on her branch. “My name! But I am too young to be queen! And she’s a perfectly wonderful queen. Why would she want to pass it on to me now?”

  Breezy and Careen had to admit all that was true. But in their hearts they couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that the princess wasn’t showing any signs of leadership in their time of need.

  “It must be some other matter,” soothed Breezy.

  “I’m sure she’ll be back as soon as she can,” cooed Careen.

  The princess’s ruffled feathers settled as she went back to preening.

  Boughbend couldn’t fly quite as high as Lustre, but he had spent the entire day circling the city as high as he could. He too had ventured far out into the outskirts, but had returned with no news. As the protector, Boughbend felt positively sick not knowing the whereabouts of his queen.

  Why didn’t she tell me? he wondered. He was very hungry, but he couldn’t bring himself to take a break. He lifted up into an updraft and began to circle again.

  Boughbend loved his queen more than anything he could think of. Her soft, strong voice; her kind, luminous eyes; her sharp mind. As protector, he was privy to almost her every interaction, and he held her in the highest regard because he had never once seen her make a selfish decision. Without fail, her choices were always fair, sound, and what was best for the individual or group, even if it meant more trouble for her. Boughbend knew that it was the queen who was the true protector of the group. He only hoped he could become more like her, the more he served her.

  As Boughbend meandered over the same circles he had traced all day, his mind began to drift. The hunger and the repetitive gliding were making him feel spacey. Suddenly, his body clenched as he saw two young foxes fighting over something black below. He pulled his wings back tight and tipped his broad, sharp beak towards the road to drop out of the sky at lightning speed.

  It was definitely a crow they were fighting over. It seemed too small to be the queen, but he had to find out.

  “CRRRRRrrrrrrrrrllllllllkkkkk,” he hissed as he swooped and pecked at the two foxes on his first pass.

  One fox let go of the crow to bite back at him. He turned tight on his wing to circle back quickly as the other young fox tried to make a break with the prize. With one strong draw of his powerful wings, he extended his talons for her face. She ducked and dropped the carcass and both foxes scuttled off sheepishly.

  Boughbend settled close to the body. Even though it wasn’t the queen, his heart still sank. It was Berry, the little daughter of Ruffle and Popcan.

  He felt anger well up in him from his very core as he examined her wounds. He could see where the foxes’ teeth had dug into her wings as they tugged. But they had not killed her; they had found her dead. He could see the clench of talons in her neck and her two eyes pecked out. This was most definitely the work of a bird.

  “KRRRK, KRRRKKKKK, KARRRRRRRK!” He sounded the alarm.

  A few trees down, a crow repeated it. Another crow repeated it even farther down the block. He heard the alarm call spreading out in all directions th
roughout the city in the distance. He gently picked up Berry and carried her back to the park.

  Much to Lustre’s chagrin, most of the other crows were already gathering around the clearing by the time he arrived. He had been far out in the outskirts when the alarm had reached him, calling him back. He assumed the queen had returned and he wanted to be there to greet her and give a sense that all was under control in her absence. Of course, a small part of him couldn’t help but hope that she had been found dead.

  His stomach tightened when he saw Berry’s body lying delicately before the empty stone throne. Boughbend stood over her, at solemn attention. The princess was nearby with her head buried in the wings of her ladies-in-waiting. Cracks stood with his head bowed, far off to the side. Lustre spiralled down and took his place close to the throne.

  “One of ours!” “One of ours!” “It’s one of ours!” the crows cawed loudly from the trees around the pond.

  More and more crows streamed in from all directions, including Ruffle and Popcan.

  “Nooooooo!” screamed Ruffle as she swooped down and landed sobbing over her daughter’s tiny form. Popcan huddled close, spreading his wings over her and the body. “Caaaaaaaaaaaw, caaaaaaaaw,” they moaned with grief.

  Out of respect, all the crows in the trees fell silent and bounced back a branch or two. Boughbend and the others all stepped back two steps. Lustre held his place.

  “What happened? What has happened to my Berry?” demanded Popcan, enraged.

  “I found her being fought over by two city fox pups,” said Boughbend respectfully.

  “But you can see by her wounds this is clearly the work of birds,” announced Lustre commandingly to the group.

  “The gulls!” “The gulls!” “It was the gulls!” erupted the masses in the trees. Their howls were deafening.

  Cracks cast a sidelong glance at Lustre and saw a flicker of smile dance through his dull, cold eyes.

  Use their fear to control them, thought Lustre.