Crow Shine

by Alan Baxter

  Then stillness.

  Carly collapsed, crying, sure she would die from the exertion. It took a long time for her breathing to settle. She dragged herself up and checked the car. It was as clean as it would have been brand new. She drove it back into the corner, where Magic always parked. A glint caught her eye, her bullet sitting on the back seat. With a sound of relief, luck saving her from something she hadn’t considered, she pocketed the tiny metal lump, gathered Magic’s empty clothes, wiped everything she had touched and locked the car. She returned the keys to the office, blanked the internal security recordings, burned the clothes and mopped the chalked designs off the floor.

  She had done it.

  She let herself out into the grey, cold light of dawn and walked the four blocks to where the Maserati was parked.

  *

  Silvio wasn’t home when Carly poured herself into bed. She had to be thankful for small mercies, grateful just this once that he had been out all night. He might not be home for days and wouldn’t bother to tell her. It had happened before, until she finally called his cell in a panic and he gruffly told her not to be a nagging wife. Well, fuck him. She let sleep take her.

  *

  She awoke to Silvio yelling, somewhere downstairs. All one-sided, obviously on the phone. The clock beside her bed said 11:43 a.m. and she still felt bone-tired. Dragging on a robe and staggering down, she saw Silvio pacing the dining room, gesticulating as he yelled. He cast her a look of disdain, presumably disgusted at the lateness of the hour. If only he knew.

  She made coffee and toast, gathered herself. Act normal. Nothing is any different to normal.

  The mantra was still cycling in her mind when Silvio stomped into the kitchen and helped himself to the coffee.

  “Everything okay, baby?” she asked casually, chewing on toast. It felt like wood chips in her dry mouth.

  “Fucking Magic has done a disappearing act.”

  Her heart thumped. She hadn’t expected him to notice this quickly. Still, what difference did it make? “Disappearing act?” she asked.

  Silvio grunted, gulping down the coffee and wincing at the heat of it. “I’m going to be busy all day. This fucking Baccalieri thing needs to be fixed.” He stopped, looked at her. “Still, I don’t suppose you care, sleeping all fucking day.”

  She shrugged, smiled sweetly. “I was tired.”

  He nodded. “Took yourself off to the Volcano last night, eh?” At her wide eyes he said, “I know everything, remember?”

  She breathed deeply against her hammering pulse. “Yeah, well, I felt like a drink.”

  He laughed. “Well, good. Glad you don’t need me chaperoning you every time you go out.” His eyes narrowed. “Did Magic say anything to you about going anywhere?”

  “No. We had a few drinks and talked about nothing in particular. To be honest, I spent more time talking to that girl Selma. She’s really sweet, you know.” It wasn’t a lie.

  He turned away. “I’m gonna be in the battle room all day, probably back late. This war starts tomorrow and we gotta be ready.”

  It was unlike Silvio to be this focused. Or this talkative. The Baccalieri thing had him rattled. “Okay. Be careful, baby.”

  He grunted and left, not sparing her another look or a kiss goodbye. There was a time when he would never have left without a kiss.

  *

  It was very late when Silvio came home and fell into bed. Carly woke with a start as he bounced down beside her, whisky on his breath.

  “Everything okay, baby?” she said, mimicking the slur of sleep even though she was instantly wide awake.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Silvio muttered. He sighed, sinking quickly towards slumber.

  Carly lay still, listening to his breath settle. She waited several minutes after the snoring started before slipping from the bed. She stepped lightly on the rug, padded across the floorboards of the bedroom and into the dark en suite bathroom. She left the lights off, let her night-vision work for her. With the bathroom door wide, she took her place, held the figurine aloft and began to chant.

  It was easier this time, the sensations familiar, the designs better drawn, even on wooden floorboards beneath the rug and on tiles in the bathroom. The moths gathered, fluttering about her. For too long she had been like them, battering against the bright light of Silvio’s indifference. Time enough. She cast the tiny harbingers at the bed, watched the foul colours emerge and swallow the swirling insects. It felt good this time, even tasted good, that dry, savoury consumption. The colour descended, snaked in under the covers, and tears streamed Carly’s cheeks. They were partly tears of fear but mostly of grief, for the man who had long since gone away.

  Silvio thrashed, crying out. He was hard to see among the oily colours, in the dark, through flying bedclothes, but his howls of agony were all too clear. He swore and cursed, the bed rocked and bounced with his rage, and his pain screamed over it all. Carly held the terrible icon high, swallowing against the tastes she couldn’t ignore, certainly no longer pleasant. Silvio burst up and met her eye as he struggled on all fours, desperate to escape the bed. Their eyes locked for a moment, half his face already eaten away, as foul colour swirled around him. The entity stripped more flesh, chewed through bone like hot water through ice. Silvio’s howls of agony gurgled into incoherent noise as his arms were consumed and his ravaged body dropped, a silent, dead weight. That too passed into the colour and the sheet settled softly on the mattress.

  The entity slammed into the invisible wall containing it and Carly began the second chant, her voice almost gone from shock and grief. She screamed and screamed the horrible phrase until the awful entity was sucked away, the room still, silent. Empty.

  She sank to the bathroom floor, her breath ragged, miserable at all she had lost, at all she had become. But not any more. There was elation beneath it all. She was taking power back.

  It didn’t take long to mop up the evidence of the dark magic, wipe floorboards and tiles clean. She showered and made herself ready once the bedroom was back in order. With a grim expression, determined to see things through as planned, she waited until eight a.m., picked up the telephone and dialled. Her heart beat in time to the rings as she waited for an answer.

  Eventually a gruff voice said, “Yes?”

  She smiled. “Hello, Don Baccalieri. My name is Carly. I have a proposition for you.”

  Tiny Lives

  I twist the tiny cog into place, my old-too-soon fingers gnarled, golden brown and cracked, but true. Complete, I turn the miniature dog over in my hands, the brass and copper of its construction shining in the late afternoon sun. I lift it to my lips, breathe softly into its mechanised heart and it stirs, shifts and wags.

  The girl reaches out a greedy hand, eyes alight with wonder and I smile, place the wriggling clockwork puppy on her palm. She hugs it to herself, teeth white in a smile of innocence and immediate love.

  “It’ll never wind down, really?” the mother asks, eyes wide.

  “Never,” I reply, as the life draws through my chest like a thick needle through stubborn canvas. I wonder how many more I have in me. The breath is mere delivery, convenience. Something far deeper is taken every time.

  “Thank you,” she says, handing me so many grubby used notes, as weary as my hands and eyes.

  “What do you say to the nice man?” the mother demands of the child.

  “Thank you, mister!” the child enthuses and bounds away, her new pet dancing across her hands with tinny yips.

  “Khob kun kub, little one,” I whisper at her back.

  The money goes into the leather satchel at my feet. I wonder when I’ll have enough. Soon, I’m sure. I sit back in my tattered deck chair, let the sun bathe my wrinkled skin. My eyes roam the unsteady table before me. Boxes of parts glitter, cogs and tiny pistons, nuts, bolts, brackets and bars. But to me they are all limbs and muscles, nerves and hearts.

  A man approaches, smiles unsteadily.

  “Is it true?” he asks.


  “Is what true, sir?”

  “The toys you make. They act as if alive and never wind down?”

  I smile. They never really believe, even when they see it. “They are alive, sir, and they will live forever. At least, until the parts wear out.”

  “Some old Chinese sorcery, is it?” he asks with a crooked smile. He has no idea how offensive he is.

  “I’m Thai, sir.”

  “Ha! Well, there you go.” He leans to inspect the compartmentalised case of parts, my neat row of tools in their leather wrap, looking anywhere but into my eyes where he would have to acknowledge the hurt of his words. “Can you make a bird?” he asks suddenly.

  “Of course.”

  “And will it fly?”

  “Certainly.”

  He points to the sign on my table, written when my hand was a lot younger, steadier. “Your price is very high.”

  America, where even the capitalism is subject to suspicion. I smile. “What you buy is absolutely unique, sir.”

  The chill of the Washington autumn lifts my wispy hair, chills across the back of my hands. The man pulls his jacket tighter. I wish I was back among the warm, humid days of my home, but it’s foolish to pine for the past. Instead I am lost in the land of opportunity. But it wasn’t for me that we came here. Always for the children. At the thought I smell disinfectant and bleach, see harsh fluorescents and white coats and quickly cast the thoughts away.

  “Cash only, eh?” the man asks.

  I nod, smile again. Where I come from this much smiling shows nerves, but the Americans seem to think it denotes honesty. Only sharks and the guilty smile this much, but I’ve learned it can save me a lot of conversation.

  “All right, let’s see it then!”

  It takes nearly an hour to build the tiny hummingbird and test its wings. He’s impressed, but scepticism still lives in his eyes. I put the tiny, fragile thing to my lips, breathe into its heart and it flutters up from my palm. The man staggers back and several people gathered to watch gasp and mutter. The bird alights on the man’s shoulder and he looks ridiculous as he cranes to see.

  “Amazing,” he says.

  I smile as the life drags again through my chest, snagging against my heart and lungs, adding a wrinkle to my eyes and another layer of weariness in my bones.

  “Worth every dollar, buddy!” He hands me a folded wad of bills and I tuck them into the satchel.

  Sumalee, my eldest daughter, comes to get me, her face pained at my appearance.

  “How many today,” she asks.

  “Four.”

  “So we’re nearly there?”

  I hand her the satchel, its weight pulling against my shoulder like an anvil, though it only weighs a few pounds. “Nearly there.”

  “You must rest, father.”

  I nod, but the image of my youngest, Mali, in the hospital tears at me. She needs rest. That was how they started to tell us, to lead us to the truth that what she really needed was dollars. Tens of thousands of dollars for surgery. No insurance, they cried, aghast, and their interest drained.

  *

  It’s colder again today, winter coming with relentless certainty. I’m surprised to realise I’m sad I won’t see it. Sadder still that I’ll never see another sunset in Chiang Mai. Never taste another of Chanarong’s sticky rice rolls. But Mali will live, if I hold on a little longer.

  Word must be getting around, several people stand impatiently near the spot where I’ve set up every day for the past month. Sumalee helps me as the people mill about.

  “Father,” she whispers, and I put a hand on hers to silence the question I know she will ask.

  “For Mali,” I say. “All of these people. It’s enough.”

  “But can you . . . ?”

  “I have to.”

  Another bird, then a kitten. An obnoxious boy demands a rhino of his fur- and jewel-clad mother and that tests my skills. I’ve never constructed one before. A puppy and another bird and the day grows old, the sun sinking low. With each enlivening breath I wither a little more. A subtle fears thrills through me. Not for myself, but for her. That I may not make it.

  “Please, father,” Sumalee says in Thai as I make another kitten. “Let me. Show me!”

  “The gift is not something I know how to share,” I say, though she already knows.

  “Why’s she crying,” the new owner of the kitten asks as I put life into it. Hot rakes drag through my soul.

  I hand over the mewling clockwork cat and smile as it curls in her palm, paws playfully at her fingers. The woman looks down at the tiny life in her hand, astonished, her concern for my eldest daughter forgotten. She hands me a thick stack of bills and I check, add it to the satchel beneath the table. One more and we’ll have enough. Mali will get the operation she needs.

  Blackness tickles in at the edge of my vision and I realise I’m not breathing. My heartbeat is a staccato throb in my head. Sumalee’s face swims into view, her eyes wide, tears streak her cheeks. I was so close. I feel myself drifting away, as if carried like a dried-out leaf on a gentle stream.

  “Father? Father, please.” She speaks in Thai again and I see Mali in her eyes, stricken, pale. It halts my descent, so briefly, but for long enough. I can’t fail.

  I reach out, pull myself up with Sumalee’s help, drag air reluctantly into my tired lungs. “One more,” I whisper, my voice weaker than I expected.

  “But, father, you can’t . . . ”

  “For Mali. I must. Help me.” I look up to the next in line, forcing a smile from my numbing lips. “What would you like?” I ask in English, ignoring the subtle slur in my words.

  “A tiger, please,” the man says, tousling the hair of the young boy grinning at his side.

  My eyes hurt, throbbing with my irregular pulse. Sumalee holds onto her tears and assists me, steadying the fine tools, selecting the tiny pieces. I can’t see by the end, my vision like smoke.

  “It’s ready?” I whisper to Sumalee.

  “Yes, father.”

  I have one breath left. I’m sure I do. I must have. Suma holds the miniature tiger to me, I feel the copper coolness of it on my lips. I let my last breath go and feel the tiger twitch and stretch its tiny limbs as I sit back.

  Sumalee hands it over, thanks the man for the money. My chest tightens, desperate for air I can’t give it. The autumn cool gently caresses my face and I close my eyes against the swirling clouds of my vision.

  Sumalee slips her hand into mine and I squeeze with the last of my strength. My body is a lead weight in the tattered deckchair. I feel as though I’m sinking through thick sand. Sumalee clears her throat, my tools rattle.

  “My father needs to sleep,” she says in perfect English, almost no accent from her schooling here. “I’m afraid that’s all for today.”

  I can hear the tears in her voice. They will live for me now, my wife and both my beautiful girls.

  “Tomorrow?” I hear Sumalee say as I fade. “I don’t know, sir.” But she does, of course.

  Roll The Bones

  I look down the barrel of the revolver, held less than a foot from the bridge of my nose. I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before. Hard to believe it’s happening.

  “Please, I think there’s been a mistake.” The tremor in my voice almost masks the words.

  The man sneers. “That right?”

  I nod, words clogging my throat. “I’m just a messenger.”

  “And what’s the message?”

  The washed-out streetlight shimmers off the rain-soaked edges of the alley. Dirty bricks and rusting fire escapes, over-filled bins and broken glass. Seems like it’s been raining forever. “I was told to only tell Mr Armitage.”

  I wince as the snub-nosed gun dances closer to my face. “And Mr Armitage relies on me to filter out the shit,” the man says, rain making tiny rivers either side of his beaked nose.

  I should have known there’s no such thing as an easy fifty bucks, especially for a street bum like me. Maybe I’ll tu
rn around and leave. Give the guy in the diner his money back.

  “Well?” the small man barks.

  “I was given two very clear directions,” I say, trying to hold my voice together. My knees are rattling. “Only give the message to Mr Armitage and don’t leave without an answer.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “I don’t know. Just a guy in a diner. He gave me some money to deliver a message.”

  The man seems to waver, his confidence and swagger momentarily dented. “What did he look like?”

  I wish he’d move the gun away from my face. “He’s a big guy,” I say, mind grasping for details. “Well over six feet, broad, very blond hair. He’s wearing one black leather glove, but the hand in it seems kinda . . . I don’t know, wasted or something.”

  I stop talking at the look in the gunman’s eyes. He’s gone pale, skin like cigarette ash. “Where is he?”

  I gesture over my shoulder. “The diner . . . ”

  “Which one?” he shouts, almost knocking my front teeth out with the gun barrel.

  “Rosie’s. Right across the street.”

  He spins on his heel and disappears through a door at the end of the alley. I stand in the rain, wondering what to do. The door bursts open again and men pour through it like maggots from the split skin of a corpse. They shove me aside and hurtle down the alley, brandishing weapons and shouting.

  I walk to the end of the alley and see them disappear into Rosie’s and the gunshots start immediately. Bursts of light and noise punctuate the steamed up windows, screams wail through the night air. There’s a crystalline shower of sound as bodies fly out through the glass into the street. Some are diners running for their lives, others are the men with guns, landing in pools of blood that wash away with the rain.

  My mind is telling me to get moving, run away, but my legs have grown roots and gripped the soaked asphalt. I’m frozen, watching the macabre light and sound show. One man slumps backwards through a broken window, his face gone. Blood streams down to the pavement below.

  Everything goes quiet.