by John Klima
“Robin!” she’d called. “New neighbours.” Her voice had ended with a little surprised shriek. It had been the start. I realize that now. I think maybe I knew it then. It was that shriek rather than her words that made me rush in to see what was wrong. Her face had the pale radiance of the moon and she was rubbing a place in the small of her back.
“I think I must have strained something,” she said. “Strange, maybe I moved too quickly.” Then she’d smiled at the thought of that—that she would ever move her cumbersome frame any more quickly than was absolutely necessary—and twitched the curtain again. “Look, three of them, all of them covered up in black, just like crows.”
They had no furniture, nothing at all. Melissa waited at her post all day for something to follow them into the house, but nothing did. Her pain got worse, although she didn’t complain much. The crows’ lack of belongings seemed to agitate her more. “They must have something! No one can move into an empty house without anything at all.” Her hands twisted but the rest of her seemed more inert than ever. Eventually she summoned me to her side with an urgent bark of my name so that I could support her as she lumbered to the bathroom.
Once the crows had gone in they had not come out, not once, she reported as we moved carefully along the hall, much more concerned about this than the pain in her back.
“Maybe I should phone the doctor,” I said.
“No”—she shook her head—“I think they’ll be OK. They’re probably settling in. Maybe their stuff arrived when I wasn’t looking.”
But we both knew this was unlikely. Melissa had been at that window every day for weeks.
“Was it the allergy?” Laura, the nearest thing to a friend Melissa had had at work, peered up at me through thick frameless spectacles. Melissa’s attendance at the place had been too spasmodic to make many acquaintances. Laura’s wineglass tipped as she spoke so that the contents speckled her clean white shirt. “I knew it was bad, but I didn’t think it could…” Her voice trailed off. She noticed the wine and tried to brush it off but the drops were spreading and coalescing.
I nodded. It seemed the easiest thing to do. I wasn’t quite sure what had killed my sister, but I knew it wasn’t the allergy. She just seemed to give up in her sleep.
“Well, at least she went peacefully.” Behind Laura something fluttered. The three crows. The tall one was shifting her large black cloak as if she were ruffling her feathers. The one with the glasses tipped her head abruptly and the light reflected from the sun whipped across the room, making everyone squint. The smallest one gave a loud yawn that was as deep and as raucous as a caw. Three crows, I told Melissa—because I was sure she was still listening to my thoughts—you were right, Sis. Laura gave up on her blouse, tipped her head in a nod and walked away so there was a clear space between the three black-gowned women and me. They were watching me, waiting, I thought, and I vacillated for a few seconds. I bent down to scratch my right calf, rubbing the material against my leg to calm the itch there. Another bite, I thought: Melissa had been plagued with them too. A present from the cat, I’d told her, but she’d shaken her head. I scratched again, lifted the hem of my trousers so I could dig in my nails, and then stopped. There was no familiar redness, no slight swelling from poison, and no pinprick of a sting, just a round patch of white flaky skin that was coming away with the touch of my fingers.
In front of me all three of the crows stepped backwards, then they whispered together. I didn’t want to know what they were saying. I breathed in deeply then out again, fighting an urge to run. If I could escape into the open air then I could pretend none of this was happening. I could walk home and Melissa would be there, as she always was, looking out of the window, ready for me, smiling, telling me everything was all right that I’d just been having one of those dreams again. But I stood where I was. I decided I needed a drink. I could manage if I had a drink, just enough to take the edge off everything, to make it less sharp, bright, and real, to take me further away than I was already. I steadied myself against the wall and then lurched towards the bar, gulped at my drink and looked for the three crows. They had gone. It seemed to me that where they’d been, there was a space darker than everywhere else. I went over and stood there. It was cold and smelled of feathers.
“Where did they go?” I asked Laura.
“Who?” she said, smiling sweetly.
“The three women.”
She frowned and shrugged.
“Like crows. In black, with gowns, all over them, like this…”
She shook her head. “Honestly, I didn’t see anyone. I’m sorry.”
Then Melissa laughed. I swear it. It was so loud that I looked around. Of course there was no one there, just a few of Melissa’s old acquaintances staring at me.
Laura touched me lightly on the shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Maybe I’ll just get some air.”
The street was in darkness when I got back—just the orange glow of streetlights illuminating a small patch of pavement around them. The one outside the crows’ house was flickering—a faint crimson and then off again—as if it were a lighthouse warning about the end of the world. Or maybe it was warning about the crows. Their house was in blackness too, so I peered in as I passed, then jumped back. Just for an instant a face had peered back at me—white and oval with black holes for eyes. Melissa laughed again. Stupid boy. She was always saying that, even though we had long been adults. She had been bossing me around ever since we were children, even though she was a couple of years younger than me—though no one knew for sure how much younger. My origins were, as they say, shrouded in mystery. “You were found near an egg—Mother told me,” Melissa announced one day in the middle of an argument when Mother had been long gone, and therefore no longer available to confirm or deny. “It was an old one, but very large, and you were lying beside it—whining as usual—with a shrivelled yellow thing attached to a cord going into your stomach.”
I had touched my navel through my shirt—I had always been self-conscious of it—it was much larger and deeper than any other navel I had seen and looked as if a significant part of my stomach had been sucked inside.
“You were instead of me,” she’d added cruelly. “I was what they really wanted—a child of their own. But they picked you up because they couldn’t leave you there. You were squawking helplessly in the middle of a quarry and they were blasting out more rock all the time, so Father picked you up and hid you in his haversack, and told everyone later that you’d been born in their tent in the middle of their field trip—an unexpected byproduct of a highly successful investigation.”
“What had they been studying?” I asked numbly. Mother and Father were both geologists.
“Precambrian schists. They were hoping to find early evidence for life and got rather more than they bargained for.”
“Did they think I was Precambrian then?”
Melissa had shrugged, suddenly and obviously bored. “Maybe. I dunno.”
We spent the rest of our childhood waiting for our parents to return. They were always off on one field trip or another, until they went on one final field trip to Tierra del Fuego and were shunted from their canoe into icy weed-congested water by a large and very irate sea lion. Neither of them ever resurfaced. Their fate was reported in Santiago and there was a short note in the Journal of the European Geologist. We hardly missed them, but I would have liked to have asked them about the egg. By that time we were independent; a succession of child-minders and relatives usually failed to show up, so Melissa and I were left to our own devices. She became mother, but I failed to turn into father. I remained helpless little brother—she soon outgrew me—a condition she exploited to the full.
Even so, when I stepped into our empty house that night I wanted her back. Even Melissa’s bossiness was better than loneliness. I called her as I always did, and for a part of a second expected a reply. She eventually spoke when I was lying on my bed scratching both my legs at once because the other o
ne was itching now too.
“Always too sensitive for your own good,” she said, tutting in the dark. “Stupid boy. Stop crying. You’re wetting your pillow.”
I was between work. But then, I was generally between work. The only jobs I seemed to keep were those that involved no contact at all with the human race. There was something about me that put people off. Melissa said it was because I had spooky eyes and I used them too much. They were a very pale green, and since my skin was fairly dark—a sort of burnt plum—I suppose they stood out, and I didn’t seem to need to blink like most people.
“You stare,” she said. “It’s unnerving.”
Eventually I was assessed by the school psychologist who put me down as “borderline?” I don’t think she’d come across anything quite like me before. “Try to blink, Robin,” she’d said, rather more kindly than my sister. “Then maybe you’ll make some friends.” I tried. It didn’t work.
The next day was cold and damp and our neighbour Irene was at the door. “I’ve made out a list, Robin,” she said, holding out a piece of paper decorated with pictures of hideous yellow flowers. “It’s what you have to do when someone dies. Ken and I came up with it last night. It’ll be easier if you get on with it right away.” She glanced up at me once, then tipped her head away again. I tried to scratch the back of my knee without making it obvious. She’d known me since childhood but had never been able to look me in the eye. I took the paper and thanked her, then she scuttled away.
I sat down by the table gloomily. Most of the list seemed to involve me going to see people; there seemed to be little I could do online or even over the phone.
“Well, get on with it,” Melissa said. Even as a spirit she was bossy.
“This is all your fault,” I told her.
“Do you think I wanted to go?”
I shrugged.
“Well I didn’t. I was relying on you going first and giving me a few years of peace.”
I grinned. “Please stay,” I said. But after that there was silence.
I am good at finding things out. It is the one thing I can do. Irene and Ken had provided telephone numbers but not addresses, so I worked systematically through the list, finding the addresses from my computer and then planning a route through town. When I had finished, before I could think too much about what I was doing, I grabbed my coat and dived out through the front door. My legs were still itching. The flaky white patches had spread over each leg up to the knee. I had thought about adding “doctor” to the list but in the end had written down “pharmacist” instead.
The day passed in a grey sort of haze; eyes stared briefly into mine and then dropped away. They didn’t try to engage me in conversation, just gave me the information I required in clipped careful tones and then stood up so that I would stand too—and go. I looked forward to going back home where I could hide. The pharmacist took one look at the rash on my leg and refused to give me any medication. “I can’t if I don’t know what it is,” he said. “You need to see the doctor.”
“Just something for the itch,” I pleaded. “It’s driving me mad.” It was too.
But he’d shaken his head. I hated him. Surely he could hear the desperation in my voice. “Please!” But the stubborn old head had shaken again. In the end I had bought some cream off the shelf of a supermarket, figuring it would be better than nothing.
It started to rain as soon as I stepped off the bus. It was as if the clouds were waiting for me to emerge so they could empty all they had on top of me. By the time I reached my front door I was saturated and shivering. Just as I reached into my pocket I remembered that I didn’t have my key. Something inside me snapped. I swear I heard it. It was as clear as Melissa’s sigh that came immediately afterwards: stupid, stupid boy. I sat on the doorstep, my head lowered in my hands so that no one could see my face. I was too old to be crying; too old to lock myself out; too old to be feeling quite so desperately alone. I should have other people in my life: a woman, maybe some children or at least work colleagues or a few friends I could rely on seeing in the pub. But I had no one. I had never had anyone except Melissa—Melissa who had scorned the colour of my eyes, but had put up with them, Melissa who had put up with me even though I stared at her, Melissa who had loved me in her own way.
I tried to think of what I could do, but everything I thought of seemed to involve talking to people, so I sat there awhile longer, scratching the length of my legs and then my arms, hoping that some other idea would come to me, but nothing did. The itching was spreading—up my legs and then slowly up to my waist. My forearms were also starting to itch and as soon as I had finished scratching one part another part immediately demanded attention.
“Robin?” It was a strange, rasping voice. I opened my eyes. Three pairs of feet in identical black lace-up shoes stood in a line in front of me. I looked up. The crows.
They didn’t seem wet. In fact, as I looked I could see raindrops bouncing off them and then trickling down as if whatever they were wearing was made of something like polythene.
“Come,” the shortest one said in a voice that seemed creakier than the others’, and walked slowly down the path toward their own house. As soon as we opened the gate to the crows’ house the rain stopped. I turned to go back to my own house but the tallest one took me by the arm and propelled me firmly forward. The shortest one led while the middle one took up the rear.
Inside the house only I dripped. The light came on automatically—a glow from some indiscernible place along the top of each wall.
“Come, sit.” The small one gestured me forward.
“Where?” Each wall was lined with books, but apart from that the room seemed empty.
“Here,” she said, and she sat. I waited for her to fall onto the ground but it didn’t happen. The light was bad. There must have been a seat but I just couldn’t see it. She settled back.
“Well?” The three crows looked at me expectantly. Then they faded away completely.
I was always inclined to faint at the slightest provocation—yet another thing that marked me out as different and strange—and I suppose I’d been through a lot. I woke feeling weak, and I noticed, as I moved my head gingerly from side to side, it was supported by a long sofa that had obviously caught me as I fell.
“What is this place?” I wanted to get up but my legs felt too heavy. So for a few minutes I lay quite rigid—my heart stampeding inside my chest—the only part of me that could move. All three crows hovered over me, twittering and cawing in some language that I couldn’t understand. When at last I felt I could try to get up, the tallest one swooped forward and pushed me firmly down again.
“Wait.” She sat down again by her two sisters opposite me. While they regarded me I scratched quietly, both arms then both legs and then a swipe across the base of my belly, and then my legs again. It did no good—scratching seemed to make the itching more demanding and more desperate. I dug my nails deeper and deeper, lifted my trousers and shirt to remove great sloughs that flaked into small white scabs. They littered the space around me like tree blossoms after a storm. I felt repulsive.
“How long have you been like this?” the one with glasses asked.
“Like what?” I snapped back. The itching did not improve my temper.
“Molting.”
I looked up. “It’s not molting,” I said. “I’ve just got some sort of rash.”
Even though I couldn’t see her lips I am certain I could hear them smile. Her glasses shifted slightly. “Believe what you will, brother.”
“I’m not your brother!” I stood up and glared at them all. The only sister I had ever had cackled softly in my ear. She was fading. I knew I was losing her.
“But we can help you, bro—” the tall one said, looking from one crow to the other. “Shall I?”
The other two shook their heads. “Let him go,” said the short one. “He’s not ready yet.”
“I’ll take him back,” the tall one said, and led me out through the rain
and to my doorstep. She paused by the door and stooped down, pressed the side of her head against the wood and poked something into the keyhole, listening and turning as though she were cracking a safe. Then she stepped back, nodding at me to try the door. Of course it opened. “Take this,” she said, holding out a bottle. “One drop in the eye every night. It will help with the itching.” The glass was garishly multicolored, with a matching stopper. I turned to thank her but she had gone. There was just the sound of the door shutting across the street and I realized that time had changed.
Time is always changing, I realize now. There is nothing constant or reliable about it at all. My few years of childhood, waiting for my parents to return, took as long as the decades that Melissa and I spent alone, and after she had died time changed again. It was erratic—long hours and then short days; times filled with activity that passed in an instant and then long evenings with no one to amuse but myself. For the first few days the neighbours visited briefly, then resorted to posting cards through my door and running away. I saw the crows only at a distance: a small black huddle getting on a bus, or the tall one on her own at the checkout of the supermarket. Even so I had the feeling they were watching me; as I passed their house I could feel their eyes and the faintest twitch of something moving where they had been.
I kept my head down and tried not to look at anyone. I suppose I should have been worrying about money, but Melissa and I had always kept our money at home, unimaginatively hidden under my mattress, and there seemed lots left for now. The itching was better. As long as I remembered to drop the crows’ potion into my eyes every night. I still itched, and I was still losing my skin—all over my body except for my face—but it was not the frantic itching that it had been; and I could go for hours without scratching at all. This was a blessing, as I had to learn to shop—it was always something Melissa had insisted on doing by herself. I begged her spirit to come with me, but she faded before we reached the start of the store. So I shopped alone. I was like an explorer in a new exotic territory: everything confused me, every purchase required some decision—how much, what sort, what quality. I got a lot wrong—rice that congealed into a pudding when I wanted separate grains, cheese that was mild when I wanted strong and hard when I wanted soft, meat that was out of date by the time I came to cook it. I became slower, more careful, studying the labels, keeping my head down so that my eyes did not disturb anyone.