The Bitching Tree

by Scott Hungerford

  “You’re welcome.” She gestured to the couch. “This is where you’ll sleep tonight. You can use the bathroom if you need to. Tomorrow morning I’ll make breakfast, and I’ll take you to my father.”

  “Thank you,” Cobb said again, not sure how else he should respond.

  “If you need anything, just holler. I sleep light, in case my father radios me.”

  “I think I’m going to sleep for a very long time.”

  “I bet you will,” she replied, then gestured for him to get in. Grateful for her kindness, he climbed into the tangle of musty covers and dust-smelling pillows, only to have her tuck him in so the cold air couldn’t sneak through. She kissed him on the forehead then, gentle and chaste, then clicked off the lamp by the front door, leaving him in darkness. When she closed the door to her own room, only the orange light from the radio shone in the corner, the connection to her father, a burning sun hanging amid shadow, just like the crow tales of old when Raven stole the sun.

  For a moment, he thought about being lost, trapped, exiled from his people, but quickly set it aside. He wanted to think about something else right now, something that would relax him and help him sleep. “Hawna,” Cobb whispered to himself, thinking about her hair, the sound of her voice, the way she drank wine with bright eyes. Then he slowly fell into slumber, imagining that he was warm and safe in her arms.

  [For.]

  Cobb dreams, deep and wide. An image flashes through his mind, of the picture of the woman on the edge of his desk, dusty but enshrined. He remembers drawing charcoal pictures of that woman with his own hand, night after night as she poses for him on his bed. Later, as they roll and writhe on the sheets, paper crinkling, his charcoal sketches smearing to ruin by skin and sweat and friction, their love and lust seem a perfect match for one another.

  Cobb shifts again—and he is dreaming of flying, of falling, of tumbling upward into the sky, being drawn helplessly into the dark storm clouds above, leaving the ground and his flock abandoned far below. Old Thom is above him still, rising like a shattered puppet on his broken wing. Together, they flap for every inch, every foot, so they can keep their flock alive and safe and free from harm.

  At the whim of the wind they tumble up into a blinding rain, cold and icy on their feathers, riming their beaks with ice. Lightning strikes in the distance, a jagged force of raw, unbelievable power, smashing down onto a limbless tree. The bark-stripped trunk is shaped with faces and animals, stained ochre with sap and blood. With the next lightning flash, Cobb can see the storm coming, a storm made entirely of crows, black wings by the thousands beating through the fog.

  The army roosts on the old dead oak, their weight causing the branches to bend and creak. As they settle, the murder of crows makes an off-key symphony of cawing and tawing, a tumult of noise and fury that echoes even amid the drone of the rising wind. At the heart of the wings, enshrouded in their darkness, Cobb can see it now, can see the same thing that Old Thom dreamed of before he sent Cobb away. A red crow, Thom’s brother, twice as large as any of the others. The color of its feathers is like fresh blood on ice; its eyes and talons are as black as night.

  This fearsome army taws challenge in one voice, and Cobb and Old Thom taw back, two against many, two against thousands. But their voices are drowned out by the tumult, even as their own flock huddles in helpless fear far below. But Old Thom, his leader, his king, steps forward on his branch, trailing his broken wing. The old crow is undaunted, brave, ready to fight to the end for his people. Cobb, knowing that there is no other choice, steps up beside him and taws challenge as well, his voice ringing through the fog like a clarion call.

  The enemy army ceases their noisy display, shocked by the upstarts. As the Red Crow approaches, sharp talons digging into the wood, his flock is reduced to a rustling, feathery silence.

  “Who are you?” the Red Crow demands of Cobb, his voice old and ragged and filled with hate.

  “I am righteousness,” Cobb calls out, his words sharp as knives. “I am justice and the keeper of the way.”

  “I am power,” the Red Crow returns. “I am a leader of armies. You are in my way.”

  “Brother mine, I am still the keeper of the sacred tree,” Old Thom cries out. “I am its guardian and the master of secrets. You shall not have what I keep safe.”

  “I will take it and more,” the Red Crow says, “and your flock besides. I shall find you.”

  “No!” Cobb shouts.

  “Do you challenge me?” the Red Crow demands. “Do you challenge my right to take?”

  “Yes!” the two of them say boldly together, Cobb’s own voice as firm and resolute as his king’s.

  “THEN DIE!” Like an exploding sun, the Red Crow bursts into flame—and Cobb screams in terror as the thing comes for him, fire and fury, wrath and hate, leading its entire flock into battle against them, their circling, endless wings blotting out the light—

  The bang of a cupboard door wakes him up, shocks him from sleep. Tangled in the covers on the couch, still panicked from the terrifying visions, Cobb realizes that his robe is drenched anew with sweat from the frightening dream. But that is over and done with now. He breathes easier when he realizes he is in Hawna’s living room. He is safe. It is morning now; sunlight pours in through the front windows, casting dappled shadows on the wall across from him.

  He can hear Hawna doing something in the kitchen, can smell something that reminds of him of bread and fruit. Getting up, Cobb realizes that his head hurts, and that he needs to urinate quite badly. Seeing that Hawna already brought his clothes in from the other house, he takes his things from the chair by the door and goes into the bathroom. After relieving himself, he changes back into his old clothes and leaves the robe draped across the cabinet for her to find. His hair still smells like smoke and steam, but he decides that he kind of likes the strange blend of scents for now.

  When he comes back out into the living room again, he can hear sizzling in the kitchen, and can smell something cooking that will probably taste delicious. Salt? Fat? Bacon? The human word comes easier this morning, as he feels a little bit more integrated, his thoughts just a touch more collected than the night before. He is about to go say good morning when he sees the pictures of the other two-in-ones on the bedroom wall again, next to the cluttered bureau at the foot of Hawna’s bed. With quiet footsteps he sneaks into her sanctum, wanting to have a private chance to look at the pictures one more time.

  All of the men and woman on the little white squares are posing either inside or outside one of the two houses, with the earlier pictures having faded a bit over time. None of them are people that Cobb knows or has seen before. He looks for any signs of similarity, of particular characteristics that make a two-in-one more likely to succeed or fail. But Cobb knows that each of these people, no matter how human they look on the outside, deep inside they are a crow just like him. They’re struggling to understand the world they’ve been thrust into, and how to navigate not just human society, but the tangle of their own confusion, loss, and grief.

  The young girl in the middle, Clara, interests him the most, with her curly hair and small eyes. While the rest look strong and brave, the girl looks like she is just being herself. She’s smiling, but it is a thin smile, showing the truth of her emotion rather than casting a false front of strength or confidence for the camera. Cobb decides he wants to be like that when Hawna comes for him, when she puts him on her wall to immortalize him with the rest.

  That’s when Cobb realizes that he doesn’t expect to return. If not from the forest, then from the threat of the Red Crow himself.

  He waits for a moment, for the surge of flailing panic to overwhelm him, to reduce him to a fearful state. But when it doesn’t come, he’s relieved. The tide of his heart is still. He knows now that he’s ready for whatever the old man throws at him today, and that whatever the two-in-one puts him through, he will endure. Even if he can stop the Red Crow for a single heartbeat, it will be one more moment in which his
flock can run, can hide, can flee to safety.

  His sacrifice isn’t futile, he realizes. But it is necessary, if he is to do his part, to learn to become human, to fight like a human. To die in battle doing the right thing, to meet a fitting end, that has a kind of worth he can understand.

  Especially because he knows he has no other choice.

  “Hey you,” Hawna says from the door. When Cobb turns, a smile rising to his lips, something in her hand snaps and sparks. A blinding flash of bright light sends him flailing back against the bureau behind him. One arm accidentally knocks a fleet of bottles and figurines off the bureau, all of them smashing into a thousand pieces on the hardwood floor. He collapses into the corner, terrified.

  “Oh, shit!” Hawna exclaims, tossing the camera onto the bed, coming over to Cobb to help him up. At first he resists her touch, doesn’t want her anywhere near him. But as she whispers apologies and holds his hands, just long enough for him to stop shaking, Cobb calms down enough that he can finally open his eyes. He is still seeing sparks, burning white traces of phosphorous fire across the inside of his lenses, just like when he once looked at the sun’s watery reflection in a puddle for too long.

  “It’s a camera,” Hawna says apologetically. She is wearing blue jeans and a tan knit sweater, different clothes than yesterday. “The flash makes for a better picture.”

  “I think I understand,” Cobb said, as he slowly let Hawna help him up from among the bits of wrecked glass. Embarrassed, he tries to sweep aside a piece of a broken raven figurine, only to cut his thumb a little bit on a sharp edge. He swears and sucks at his thumb reflexively, shocked at the taste of human blood.

  “I’ll clean all this up,” Hawna said, clearing a walking path through the broken glass with a throw pillow. “Go to the kitchen sink and run your finger under cold water. That will help stop the bleeding. I’m sorry I startled you. I just wanted to catch you … to catch you in the moment. An honest moment.”

  “Well, you did,” Cobb said curtly, embarrassed at feeling so foolish. Leaving her behind, he hurried into the kitchen, dripping small spots of blood on the hardwood floor. He can feel that his face is red with embarrassment. He turns on the tap and runs cold water over this thumb, threads of red running across the whorls. Even as he grimaces against the numbing, shrieking feel of cold water running across the cut, he can hear her sweeping in her bedroom, the rattle-tink of glass in a metal pan.

  “I’m sorry,” she says again when she comes into the kitchen, dumping the remnants in the trash. “I should have realized—”

  “No, it’s my fault,” Cobb replied. “I’m sorry. I reacted badly. I’m just not used to human things yet.”

  “I still should have warned you.”

  “I’m fine.” He turned off the water and held up his thumb, letting her inspect the small wound. The bleeding seemed to have mostly stopped.

  “Did it frighten you? The flash?”

  “Yes,” Cobb said, not knowing why it had bothered him so much. Just like a loud noise, it inspired him to fly, flail, and run.

  “I have pancakes and bacon in the oven. They’ll help.”

  “Pancakes?” Cobb faintly remembered pancakes, served up on a white plate, crisp and hot.

  “You have them with jam. They’re like bread, but sweet. But you have to get in the shower first.”

  “How come? I’m hungry now.”

  “I’m supposed to get you to my father by noon. It’s already ten now, and it takes at least an hour to get there. So, go take a shower and I’ll get everything on the table. That way you can eat and have enough time.”

  “Time for what?”

  She stopped for a moment, realizing that she’d said too much. “Time before dark. I can’t say anything more than that.”

  Nodding, he left her to cook and went into the bathroom and closed the door. He managed to strip down and make the shower work. This stall was smaller than the one in his apartment, and the hot water didn’t last for nearly as long. But when he was clean, he stepped out, toweled off, then got dressed again. He thought about brushing his teeth, but figured he’d be fine for now, as the fuzzy little squares in his head didn’t taste too bad.

  When he came out, Hawna’s door was closed, though he could hear drawers opening and closing inside her room. There was a plate waiting for him on the kitchen counter, along with a fork, knife, and the familiar earthenware mug of water. The plate had a couple of crispy, buttered pancakes, some delicious-smelling bacon, and a small dish of jam to spread. As he took the plate, he looked up at the clock and saw it was 10:25. With a start, Cobb realized that the human numbers on the clock actually meant something today. That something really had changed in him between last night and this morning. He wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or frightened by the revelation, by how he suddenly grasped the human sense of time, constant and fleeting all at once.

  That’s when he saw the picture sitting on the counter next to his mug. It is his picture, trapped in a square of white plastic, the one that Hawna took just before he knocked everything to the floor. Carefully, he picked it up and looked at it, looked at himself looking at her, the wall of two-in-ones behind him for all the world to see.

  He noted with despair that he doesn’t look like Clara, the one he most wanted to emulate. Instead, he already looks like all the rest, a false front cast against the horrors to come. While the picture’s flash was quick enough that it caught his image before he flailed, before he broke things, he can clearly see the doom living in his eyes. In this moment, he knows that he has already changed; Hawna was right. The person he was last night is likely no more.

  Sitting next to the picture is a little black figurine, a comical stone raven with its beak lifted up high. One wing broke off in its fall, making it seem lopsided. Picking it up, Cobb looked at the little thing and decided that he liked it, and that he was sad he’d broken it in his fear.

  When Hawna came out of her room, her still-damp hair let down from its braid, she was combing it out from the top of her head down to where it fell to her waist. When she saw Cobb looking at the little raven, she smiled wide.

  “He’ll be okay,” she said as she came up to him. “The wing broke off once before, back when I was young. I can glue it back on.”

  “What else broke?”

  “Nothing important,” she told him, and he knew that it was a lie. But this morning he knew to let it go.

  “What is the raven to you?”

  “A reminder of my grandmother. She used to run a knickknack shop back when the cruise ships still visited Cordova. It was a little store filled with everything. After the cruise ships stopped coming, I worked at the shop for a couple of summers when I was still in pigtails. But she loved that place and was down there every day, winter and spring, summer and fall. Just talking to folks, taking care of people, trading and bartering for art pieces she loved but knew she could never sell.”

  “So, this is precious to you?”

  “It was precious to her. She gave it to me just before she died, as a thing to remember her by. She was nearly a hundred, and had seen everything in life there was to see.” She took the little raven from him and put it back on the counter. “Now, eat up while the food is still warm. We’ve got to get going very soon.”

  At eleven o’clock sharp, his backpack securely in hand, Cobb climbed up into the passenger seat of Hawna’s truck, then slammed the door and buckled himself in. Just as soon Hawna was in the truck, slamming her own door in turn, the fiddle music was turned up and the windows rolled down. As she got the old engine started, then got the truck turned around and headed away from the house, Cobb got a glimpse of the two buildings, side by side, and knew that he would miss this place. Already he wanted another chance to steam his sore muscles. But he knew that wouldn’t be an option until he completed the old man’s tests.

  The daylight drive took them away from town, away from the maze of sleepy streets. As Hawna drove out along the coast, saltwater on one side, hig
h mountains rising on the other, Cobb kept his eye on the sun and the blue skies above, his personal defense against the winding, dizzying road that threatened to make him sick if he watched the pavement for too long.

  He saw ravens flying overhead more than once, including a mated pair that circled together in a rising thermal. Hawna didn’t seem to notice. Cobb had the odd thought that perhaps it was some kind of sign that he was going to nest soon, but then caught himself. If he saw two humans walking in a park, hand in hand, did that mean he was going to find a mate? He decided he was being silly and did his best to ignore his thoughts. He just tapped his foot along with the music as they went to wherever they were supposed to go, doing his best to enjoy the ride.

  After they had been driving for a while, the road cut through a little town, far smaller than Cordova. Downshifting, Hawna took them off the highway, up a narrow, paved road cutting between the trees. They passed a couple of houses as they headed into the deep woods, the smell of fire smoke and wet, rich earth combining into a delicious scent. They traveled along this road for a while, rising up and over low hills, riding the outskirts of a high mountain made of trees, earth, and stone.

  While Cobb felt apprehensive about the fact that he didn’t know where they were going, he knew there was only one road between here and there. Cobb felt that if he needed to get help, or needed to leave, he could just follow the road back to Hawna, back to Cordova. That tether, that lifeline of knowledge made him feel better even as self-doubt gnawed at him, burrowing all the way into the bone.

  Finally, Hawna pulled the truck up in front of a little ramshackle house, half the size of her own cabin. There seemed to be nobody home, no smoke coming out of the chimney. The moss-framed windows showed darkness inside. The heavy metal chain and padlock on the front door seemed a sure sign of foreboding. No safe place here, fly on, fly on!