As the Crow Flies

by Rysa Walker

  GAME OVER.

  “NO!” Julie Kennedy’s eyes fly open as she screams, but the thing she sees is not the scarecrow, not Mr. Giggles, as she fears. A bird flaps its wings nervously, startled by her scream. It’s just a crow, right outside her bedroom window, silhouetted against the early morning sky.

  Despite her fear, or perhaps because of it, Julie utters a shaky laugh. The wheel has turned. Now she is the scarecrow, striking fear into the hearts of crows.

  She lies back on her pillow and stares at the ceiling for a moment, giving her breath a chance to catch up. Her legs are damp and cold with sweat.

  Thirty years ago. Thirty goddamn years and still…

  There’s a click from the nightstand beside her head. The radio announcer’s voice is deep but chipper. Who in their right mind is that cheerful at six twenty in the morning?

  “—blast from the past now. Here’s Warren Zevon bringing you a little Werewolves of London. Happy Halloween, everybody!”

  Julie rolls over and hits the top of the radio. “Yeah. Happy frickin’ Halloween.”

  In the very heart of Haddonwood, at the intersection of Main and Cobb, the town’s lone traffic light is flashing yellow. Each time it flashes, a low buzz fills the air.

  The crow swoops down and parks on the mast arm just as Luke Randall pulls his battered Silverado up to the light, taps his brakes gently, and then sails on toward the county line and ten fun-filled hours at the plastics plant. Her eyes follow the taillights for a moment, a vague premonition hovering just beyond the reach of her not-crow brain. She gets those occasionally. Luke is going to have a very stressful day. But that’s Raum’s business, and there’s not much she can do about it.

  Cassandra Lovett, Sandra to her friends, emerges from Viola’s Best Bakery and Café to set up her chairs, tables, and chalkboard sign. The heady aroma of sugar, butter, and fried dough wafts through the air, and even though the bird is here on vital business, the part of her brain that is still simply a bird understands that a body needs fuel to fly. Perhaps a generous (or clumsy) customer will provide her with breakfast.

  And so the crow circles back around and lands on the mast arm of the traffic light. The not-crow doesn’t quarrel with this decision. She has one last bit of business to attend to before departing, anyway. Raum has assured her that everything is stable, and he seems to be correct, at least on the surface. But the balance can tilt in a heartbeat. Things always seem to fall apart much more quickly than they come together, and in her experience, it never hurts to have an insurance policy. A backup plan. And before she leaves Haddonwood, she needs to be sure the pieces of that plan are coming together, connecting.

  At the far end of Main Street, the steeple bell of the First Community Church strikes seven. A few seconds later, the traffic light issues a faint click and switches to daytime mode—green on two sides and red on the others.

  The crow’s black head cocks to the side as the library doors swing open, and Barb Starrett exits, huffing and puffing as she tries to maneuver an unwieldy book cart down the ramp.

  “LordhelpmeJesus. This thing weighs a ton!”

  Sandra hurries over to help the librarian, taking the front end of the book truck. Together they wrestle the heavy cart down the sidewalk and park it against the brick wall between the library and the bakery.

  Barb tucks a stray piece of hair back into her bun. “One day that old cart will take me with it.”

  Sandra retrieves the one book that bounced off while Barb takes a Mason jar from the bottom shelf and places it on top. Gently Used Books—$1.00 OK TO MAKE CHANGE.

  “Can’t lose this one,” Sandra says, handing the librarian the worn paperback copy of As I Lay Dying. “Clarence isn’t done yet.”

  “Or maybe I should give him the darn thing,” Barb says, placing the novel next to the change jar. “He needs a good distraction to forget. Dealing with his mother can’t be easy.”

  Even though the doors of the library won’t open for another hour, Barb always arrives early so that she has time for coffee and a nice, gossipy chat with Sandra before starting her day. The crow could easily slide into either woman’s train of thought, if you could really call it that in their case, just as she had with Daisy Gray. Just as she had with Julie Kennedy. But the crow loses interest quickly. These two are merely bit players. Barb will push her cart out of the library again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. Each day she’ll praise Jesus that the cart didn’t drag her into traffic, and each day she’ll talk with Sandra about some mutual acquaintance. Each day, Sandra will bake her pastries and brew her coffee. Each day, Clarence will arrive around noon, sit in the chair closest to the book cart, and read. When he finishes As I Lay Dying, he’ll replace the book on the shelf and grab the one next to it. Sandra will refill his coffee. He’ll tell her that she sells the best coffee in town, and she will laugh and tell him thanks, but it’s easy to take first place when you don’t have any competition. Each day, with minor variations for the weekend, some version of this scene will take place. There will be nothing new here. There can’t be.

  Other people begin to appear on the sidewalks, popping into view in clusters of two or three, as if by magic. Soon the little town is buzzing with folks on their way to work, to school, or out on errands. These people do not interest the crow either, aside from their potential as bringers-of-breakfast.

  Julie Kennedy is late, which is odd. But when the minister finally rounds the corner, she is smiling. Fresh air and sunshine seem to have chased away any lingering threads of her nightmare. She crosses the street humming “Morning Has Broken,” a hymn both Julie and the not-crow think is perfectly suited to this brilliant autumn day.

  She stops into the bakery for a coffee, and as she selects six pumpkin-spice muffins, the not-crow picks up the current of her thoughts. Bill says she’s trying too hard, and maybe she is, but it always feels weird to stop by in the morning without something for him and the girls.

  It’s still a little early, though, so Julie finds a seat near the window that overlooks the small park across Cobb Avenue and takes one of the muffins from the bag. She gazes out the window at the fountain, bubbling away in the sunlight, and is a little unnerved to see a crow sitting on the top level, its black head cocked to one side, almost as if it’s watching her. Is it the same crow she frightened earlier?

  Julie leans her satchel against the wall, debating whether to pull out a book. But there will be time enough for that later. The morning is too pretty to ignore. After she stops in to tell Bill goodbye, she’ll head for her favorite alcove at the library to work on her weekly message. She has an office at the church, with her name on an engraved plate in the center of the door. But there always seems to be a distraction when she’s there. Her mind just works better in the library, maybe because it reminds her of her seminary days.

  Back then, she’d retreated to the local off-campus library for the sole purpose of escaping her classmates. She was the first female student admitted to the sacred halls of the Asheville Theological Seminary, shortly after her denomination reluctantly endorsed ordaining women. The men in her classes hadn’t been hateful to her face, but she had a stack of notes in her desk back at the church that she received during her four-year tenure at the school, many with biblical passages designed to put her in her place. Verses like 1st Timothy 2:12—Suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. She fought their evangelical furor with the sword of sheer determination. By the time she graduated, she’d gained the respect of a few colleagues and professors, but she was still treated as a token. She was introduced more times than she cared to admit with the words, “And this is Julie. She’s a lot prettier than the rest of us.” Laughter would ensue, and some would shake their heads. A sign of the times, she’d heard several of them mumble, with the clear implication that what they really meant was a sign of the end times.

  A few people in her local congregation seem to agree with that assessment. Mostly m
en, but a few women, too. At the front of the pack is Scott Jenkins, who clearly feels a woman’s place is in the pews, not behind the pulpit. Julie still hopes to win them over—even Jenkins—but it has been slow going. It probably doesn’t help that she and Jenkins have decidedly different views on the role of preacher. For Julie, the ministry is mostly family psychology, with a side of social work. Her Sunday messages—she can never quite bring herself to call them sermons—are more about applying the Golden Rule in the here and now than about fire and brimstone in the hereafter. That doesn’t sit well with the Scott Jenkinses among her parishioners. They want less smiling and more smiting. She’s surprised that they haven’t abandoned First Community for a different church.

  Except…there are no other churches in Haddonwood. They only need the one. The residents barely fill the pews as it…is…

  Julie stops with her coffee halfway to her mouth, confused at the stray thought. Of course there are other churches. No matter how small the town, there has to be at least two, right? As the old joke goes, you need one that says there ain’t no hell, and one that says the hell there ain’t. So there must be others.

  The other four churches pop into her memory. How could she forget First Presbyterian, just down the block? That’s where Bill and the girls go, on the rare occasions they attend services. Also, the tiny Catholic church near the high school. The Baptists. The Methodists. The names of their ministers come back to her as well, along with the ecumenical service they held last Christmas.

  This lapse of memory is unnerving. She’s not even forty. How could her mind be going already? To forget one church, one minister, would be understandable. But to forget all of them? Last night’s lousy sleep seems to have rattled her more than usual.

  The glitch worries the crow, too. This isn’t her first surveillance, by any means, and she’s seen gaffes before. Some small, some large. But she’s not quite sure what to make of this one.

  Julie gathers her things and steps outside, still eating the last of her muffin. Maybe she’ll take the longer route to Bill’s house. Get a little more exercise, a little more fresh air, to clear out the cobwebs.

  She can still feel the crow watching her. There was an article online a while back about crows and their uncanny ability to remember a face. Maybe she’d fed this crow once, and it is waiting for more. Or maybe it’s just pissed that she’d startled it earlier.

  The last thing she needs is another enemy in Haddonwood. So she gives the bird a shaky smile and tosses the last bit of muffin onto the sidewalk. The bird flies down to retrieve the offering, but instead of the quick retreat Julie expects, it looks up at her with solemn, slate-gray eyes. Measuring her.

  “Sorry, little guy. That’s the last bite.”

  The bird stares at her for a moment longer, and flutters its wings once, almost as if to say thanks. Then it flies back to the fountain with its prize.

  There are more people on the street now. More cars. Almost in defiance of her thought that the town had shrunk down to a skeleton crew, Main Street is teeming with vibrant life. The sun is shining, spilling down on the town in that special golden way that only happens in autumn. It really is going to be a beautiful day. Midsixties by the afternoon, the trees a blaze of orange and gold against a bright blue sky, with just a few puffy white clouds.

  Fall in all her crisp glory. A perfect Halloween.

  The crow watches as the woman turns onto Elm, where she will deliver her offering of pumpkin spice to the girl. Connecting. That’s good.

  And perhaps her insurance plan isn’t even necessary. Maybe Raum is right. Aside from a few minor glitches, he seems to have everything under control. Perhaps the balance will hold despite the addition of the boy, and their secret will remain safe.

  With her surveillance of Haddonwood now complete, the crow flies back toward the hill where her journey began. More than a hill, really, but too small to sensibly be called a mountain. Is there a word for that? If so, the bird doesn’t know it.

  The house lies near the top of the hill, a large miserable thing falling down impolitely beneath the gravity of time. It looks down on the town season after season, year after year. Long ago, it housed a family. Later, it was a retreat for those who could not adjust to the expectations of the world beyond its walls. No one has lived there in decades, no one has taken care of the beast, and the whole structure has gradually collapsed inward, giving up the ghost one shingle and splintered piece of wood at a time.

  Despite the years of neglect, the house remains, watching over the small patchwork quilt of homes, stores, and trees that make up Haddonwood. In turn, every structure in the city seems to lean away from the hill, trying desperately to creep inch by inch toward the river and the woods. Anything to escape the watchful eye of the house on the almost-mountain.

  The crow comes to rest atop one shingled turret and gazes down at the front lawn, where a gravel path curves around the fountain before doubling back the way it came. It’s a large fountain, with four descending tiers. The basins are filled with rainwater that has grown black and brackish over time, to the point where no sane creature would drink from it. Intricate angel carvings encircle the lower pool. Their cherubic faces look sad, with gouged-out eyes and weathered cracks carved into their cheeks.

  Beyond the fountain, the once carefully manicured lawn has turned brown. Nothing remains that is fresh or good. Tall witchgrass, the height of a grown man’s chest, sways on either side of the gravel path.

  Usually, when she sits atop an old house, even an empty shell like this one, she can pick up echoes. There’s a sort of energy that lingers behind in houses. Piano music and singing inside Daisy Gray’s house. Laughter from years past in the hallways of the house where Tucker Vance lives. Tears and anger inside the trailer that houses Chase and Ben Rey. And farther back, fainter, there are echoes of others who came before.

  But this house is different. The bird feels only a void, as though no one ever lived here. And then, almost as if conjured by her own thoughts, something inside the house moves, sending a faint vibration through the crow’s talons. Laughter. Sorrow. Joy. All of the energy she’d thought missing only a few seconds before is suddenly, amazingly there.

  The bird leaves her perch and flies down to the narrow ledge above the front door. It’s the opening closest to her portal, and while she could enter through any of a dozen other shattered windows, she is a creature of habit.

  When she lands on the ledge, however, she sees that the window is now intact. This is perplexing, and her beak bumps against the glass as she moves in for a closer look. She finds the room in full shadow, but then there’s a slight shift, a tiny gleam in the darkness. Another burst of laughter. Children, she thinks, running through the corridors. Talking. Singing. The bird cocks her head, straining to make out the words.

  What she hears next are the footfalls, not of children, but of a single child. A young girl steps out of the darkness into a patch of space faintly lit by the morning sun. Her dress is ragged, dirty, and threadbare. As the bird looks more closely, she notes that the girl herself seems pretty threadbare too.

  The girl-thing’s cheeks are sallow and sunken, and her head lolls from side to side as she shuffles across the room on two legs that are spiderlike, broken. At first, the crow thinks the child is Raum, in one of his many guises. A macabre guise, to be sure, but it is Halloween, and the holiday seems to play a role in this latest pastime he’s created. But then the creature looks directly at the crow, with eyes that gleam a red-streaked white in their sockets, like a flashlight smeared with blood.

  The girl-thing’s hands are hidden behind her back at first, and when they come into view, they are barely recognizable as hands at all. Ten small digits, as crooked as her legs, wrapped around a slingshot.

  Not Raum, but his father.

  Which means the center did not hold. Andras has found them.

  The shock of this realization overwhelms the bird’s tiny processor. Before she can muster the sense to fly away,
the girl-creature pulls back the band of the slingshot and fires. The bird caws, her wings beating the air, as the window shatters.

  Despite the wrecked state of her limbs, the girl scurries toward the broken window with uncanny speed, stirring up the inch-thick carpet of dust on the floor as she goes. She looks down at the bird, which lies on the small balcony, surrounded by shattered glass. Its right wing, a dark-purple velvet in the glow of the morning sun, is stretched out, quivering.

  As the girl reaches through the broken window, her face splits into a toothless grin. The crow rights herself and backs toward the edge of the balcony. This wing will not hold her weight, but falling would be infinitely better than—

  The bony hand strikes like a viper and seizes the crow, laughing as the bird struggles and pecks wildly at the misshapen fingers tightening around its body.

  Game over.

  Andras wins this round. She must go.

  The not-crow is now a tiny speck of amber light. She has a brief moment of pity for her host as she darts away from the window. The crow has done nothing wrong. It’s just a bird, and now it will suffer.

  But she had no choice. There is simply too much at stake.

  One quick squeeze later, the bird’s steel-gray eyes close, and its heart stops cold. The girl-creature smiles and squeezes again, more gently this time. As she does, the hand holding the bird dissolves, along with the rest of the girl, into a cloud of bone-white dust. The crow’s body falls to the balcony, lifeless. Then it shudders violently, and the eyes snap open—no longer gray, but now the same blood-streaked white as the eyes of the girl.

  The crow shrugs its broken wing back into place with a faint snap and swoops down from the balcony. Over the fountain. Down the hill-that-is-almost-a-mountain toward the small town below.