She slipped over to the room at the other end of the house and carefully opened the door a crack. A raw, rank odor met her. The hollow coughing was coming from a settle bed, where she could discern a figure.
“Well, come on in,” said a man’s voice.
The Crow-Girl moved closer.
“That’s right, come over here!”
She stepped all the way over to the bed. An old man stretched out his hand and took hold of her arm with an iron grasp. She leapt back, terrified, but he held on so tight that she could not get away.
“Ha, ha,” he brayed. “That scared you, I bet. You probably didn’t think a weakling could be so strong, but it’s my legs that are no good. There’s nothing wrong with my arms, by Jove. And what are you sneaking around for? You won’t find anything here, for the little there is I’m lying on. No, but you should see the other side of the house. That’s where the chests are full.”
“I know,” said the Crow-Girl. “That’s where I’ve just come from.”
“I see, and what did you find there?”
“Nothing. I was just fixing the food.”
He let go of her arm, and she rubbed it where he had held it.
“Food,” he said. “What kind of food are you making?”
“Mutton stew.”
“Do you have that often?”
“We had it yesterday, too.”
The old man sat up in the bed with a start. “That stingy hag,” he hissed. “She comes in here with a bowl of cold, thin soup and a piece of stale bread and says that that’s all she has. But if I give her one of my gold coins, she’ll get something better—as if she herself didn’t have enough.”
He struck his fist down on the chair next to the settle. “Never,” he said fiercely, “never will she get them. It’ll be over my dead body.”
Coughing, he sank back against the pillows. “And she knows that, and that’s why she treats me like dirt. She hopes I’ll die from it, but she can just wait. She can just wait! Weeds are tough to kill, and it’s happened before that a father has outlived his daughter.” Then he cackled to himself.
While they were talking, the Crow-Girl began to feel chilled. It was as if the cold streamed out from the whitewashed walls and up from the stone floor. She clasped her arms about her, wishing she had her shawl. Then she saw that the hearth was empty, even of ashes. The old man must be cold through and through.
“Shouldn’t I start a fire?” she suggested.
The man looked at her, confused, as if warmth was something he had forgotten. So without waiting for an answer, she hurried into the other room to get some heather twigs and firewood and prepared a small heap of them. Then she fetched a burning branch and lit a fire for the man.
When she turned around and looked at the old man, she could see that his eyes were shining at the sight of the flames.
He said, “And if you could also get me a bowl of that mutton stew, then…” He dug in under the pillows and found a small silver coin, which he handed to her. “But don’t show it to anyone. Promise me!”
The Crow-Girl nodded and went in to get a bowl of stew for him.
“And you’ll come every day and start the fire?” he said when she handed the bowl to him.
“I promise,” said the Crow-Girl, adding more wood to the fire before she left him.
* * *
She was alone in the main room the whole day. Not until the evening did the woman and her husband come back.
“What a lovely shawl this is,” said the woman as she took it off and draped it over a chair. “And now you shall see what I have for you in return.”
She went over and pulled out a drawer in one of the chests and handed the girl a child’s shawl, black with gray squares and a worn fringe.
“Thank you,” said the Crow-Girl. “Is it for me?”
“The old one is, after all, too large for you, even if it is a good shawl. And since you were so kind as to give it to me, I thought I would give you the one I myself wore as a child.”
“But…” the Crow-Girl began.
“What’s more, if you can imagine, my grandmother made it for me when I was small.”
“But…”
“Besides,” said the woman, looking the Crow-Girl directly in the eyes, “I have not been chilly at all today as I usually am. And surely you don’t want me to go around being chilly, do you, little Crow-Girl? For you are certainly not a bird of ill omen?”
“Of course not,” said the Crow-Girl, frightened.
The woman pinched her cheek, shook her slightly, and said, “Well then, the matter is settled.”
The Crow-Girl didn’t know what to say.
“And now let us see whether you can make mutton stew,” said the woman, sitting down at the table across from her husband. They waited while the Crow-Girl filled the bowls and served them.
When she had done so, she prepared a helping for the old man at the other end of the house. With the bowl of stew in one hand and a large piece of driftwood in the other, she was just about to go out the door when the woman stopped her.
“Where do you think you are going with that?”
“Over to your father.”
“Do you intend to kill him? He cannot stand such rich food; it will ruin his stomach. Put that bowl down,” the woman ordered.
The Crow-Girl put the bowl on the table, and the husband, who had already emptied his, started eating from it.
The woman went out into the hallway between the rooms, where there was a crock of kale soup from the day before. She half filled a bowl and splashed some water on top.
“You see, it mustn’t be too warm or too thick,” she said. “He can’t tolerate that at all.” She handed the bowl to the Crow-Girl along with a chunk of dry bread. “And the bread mustn’t be fresh; it would be too sticky for his stomach,” she explained. “And what do you think you are going to do with that piece of wood?”
“Put it on the fire.”
“On the fire! Are you crazy, girl? There’s scarcely enough firewood to cook the food. And you’re thinking of making a fire for the old man. Just for his entertainment.”
“I can gather driftwood tomorrow.”
The woman tossed her head back, laughing.
“Gather, indeed, that’s a good one. That’s what everyone does, as soon as there’s been the least bit of wind. How much wood do you think it takes to keep the pots boiling in all these houses?”
“I’ll very likely find some,” said the Crow-Girl. She turned her back and went off with not only soup and bread but firewood as well.
6
The Crow-Girl kept her word. The next day she got a piece of rope from the outbuilding and set off along the shore.
She knew that most people would rather stay indoors during a storm and would therefore not know how high and how far the water could reach. And she had noticed that the children who gathered firewood nearly always went all the way down to the water’s edge. So the Crow-Girl began hunting farther inland, behind rocks and in hollows. And when she came to a stream, she walked up against the current and found driftwood along the banks where the sea had pushed its way in.
She gathered all that she could carry, tied the rope around it, and took it back to the house. Then she left again for a new load. She continued like that most of the day.
At last the woman came out into the yard. “How are you managing to find all that?” she exclaimed at the sight of the firewood. “I don’t understand. But,” she added, “it doesn’t help us much just now. It will have to age so that the salt can be rained out.”
“I think it already has,” said the Crow-Girl. “When did you last have a storm that was so violent that the water beat in across the road in front of the house?”
“Well, it was probably over half a year ago,” said the woman.
“So it’s all right,” said the girl, “for that’s how high up and far in I’ve gone to gather it.”
“You are a strange child,” said the woman, and shook her
head. “But now you had better get started on dinner. People have to work for their food, you know. It doesn’t fix itself.”
* * *
A couple of days later the Crow-Girl walked up along the shore, in the direction she had come from. She remembered that during the last part of the trip she had crossed a brook that ran through a broad strip of valley, and there she counted on finding a lot of driftwood.
Sure enough, the silver-gray wood lay shining everywhere on the grassy slopes. It surprised her that the other children had not noticed it. They must walk with their noses toward the water’s edge all the time.
It did not take her very long to collect as much as she could carry. So she sat down beside the brook and listened to its murmuring and looked out across the sea.
A spattering of raindrops as fine as mist forced its way in from the sea. She shivered under the thin shawl. Then she saw the two crows. They were walking around pecking in the seaweed at the edge of the water, searching for food, just as she had been searching for firewood. Suddenly they flew up, as if something had frightened them. They spread their wings wide, feathers splayed out like fingers wearing black gloves. Screeching hoarsely, they fled right over her head.
She got up to watch them go and could see that they flew in a large arc that avoided the hamlet before they continued down the coast.
She picked up the firewood and hurried back to the house.
* * *
In the afternoon she went in to see the old man and placed more wood on his fire. His room was cozy now. The stone walls and floor had sucked up the warmth and held it all night long while the fire was covered by embers.
“It’s a good thing that you’ve come to work at the house,” said the old man.
The Crow-Girl did not answer. She stood for a bit, deliberating. Then she said, “I think that once in a while you ought to give your daughter a coin for taking care of you.”
“Why should I do that?” he growled. “Isn’t it a daughter’s duty to see to her parents’ old age?”
“No doubt it is,” said the Crow-Girl, “but a person has no need of money when he’s dead.”
“Well, no,” said the old man, “he probably doesn’t.” Then he grew silent.
The Crow-Girl hurriedly slipped out of the room in order to avoid having to listen if he should start complaining again. She had just reached the staircase in the hallway when she heard him yell.
“I’ll never do it. The way she treats me. It’ll be over my dead body!”
* * *
In the evening the woman was quite friendly toward the Crow-Girl, praised her for her work, and asked if she liked the food.
The Crow-Girl sat on the wicker chair by the fireplace. And even though she ate until her stomach felt like a stone, the food did not really satisfy her. And even though she was right by the fire, it did not really warm her.
“How down in the mouth you look sitting there,” said the woman. “You aren’t getting sick, are you?”
The Crow-Girl shook her head. “I’m just tired,” she said.
“It’s probably all that firewood you’ve been dragging here,” said the woman in a kindly way. “Maybe you should go to bed early and get some rest.”
The Crow-Girl nodded and rose to clear the table.
“No, just let that be. I’ll take care of it,” said the woman.
Her husband sent her an amazed look, but she did not bat an eye.
* * *
Up in the attic the Crow-Girl wrapped herself in the blanket and laid her head on the pillow. But she could not sleep. All the while she continued to picture the two crows as they had flown, screeching, right over her head. They passed over at least a hundred times before she finally fell asleep.
She awakened with a start from a heavy black sleep.
“Get away!” the crows had shrieked. “Get away!”
She lay in the darkness, listening. Then she suddenly heard voices from the room below. Carefully, she crawled out of the hammock and sneaked over to a crack where she could see the light seeping up.
“If we take her in as our own, everything she owns will be ours,” she heard the woman say.
The Crow-Girl knelt and peeked down through the crack.
“What can she own?” said the man. He was sitting at the table with his head propped against one hand, while he twisted a tuft of his long red beard with the other.
“Well, now, there surely has to be something. The shawl was all right, wasn’t it? And then, you know, there’s also a house,” said the woman, leaning toward him from the other side of the table. “And then there is, of course, all that driftwood.”
“Driftwood?” said the man. “Why, everyone has the right to gather that.”
“Yes, that’s why there isn’t enough,” said the woman.
“Well, she brings in several bundles a day.”
“But for how long? Until there is no more. And when will a storm come along again? Now listen to me.”
She told him her plan. They would sail the Crow-Girl home to her grandmother’s house and let her stay there a couple of days to gather up driftwood. And then they would fetch her again and sail her and the timber back. And then they would sell the timber.
“If she lived by herself as she says, no one else is gathering wood there, so we can have her do it several times a year.”
“How wise you are, woman,” said the man. “But how will you get her to stay?”
“Why shouldn’t she stay?” said the wife. “We are good to her. She gets both bed and board. Besides, you see, she has no place else to go.”
Shivering, the Crow-Girl pulled back from the crack. She had begun to itch all over from listening to their talk. They would never get her grandmother’s house! They would never get the right to plunder the little cove! She had to get away.
She forced herself to lean down over the crack to look one last time to see where the woman had put the shawl. It lay over the chair she was sitting on. And the chair stood with its back toward the door.
The Crow-Girl pulled out her knife and cut a large piece of meat from one of the legs of lamb. She could just make it out in the dim light. Afterward she cut off one of the bundles of dried fish and packed everything in her black kerchief, tying it securely to the walking stick. She worked speedily and quietly.
Then the light downstairs was put out, and the attic became pitch-black. The Crow-Girl fumbled her way over to the hammock, crept up into it, and lay waiting for a long time, until she heard snoring.
She slipped out of the hammock again, folded the woman’s shawl in the dark, and placed it on the floor beside her bed. And as payment for her food, she placed the little silver coin she had received on top. Picking up her walking stick, she stole down the stairs to the hallway.
She took a loaf of bread from the box in the hall and stuck it in her bundle. Then she stood outside the door to the main room and listened for a long time. At last she could distinguish between two sounds of snoring: the man’s breathing, which was deep and steady, and the woman’s, which was fast and slightly wheezy. The Crow-Girl opened the door slowly and carefully.
Warmth and the reek from cooking and the odor of their bodies rose up to meet her. She knew where everything was. But the woman had left a footstool standing right in the middle of the floor, and that was what she stumbled over.
The woman awoke and sat up in bed. “Wake up!” she said to the man. “What was that? Do you think it was a thief?”
The Crow-Girl remained on the floor. She lay completely quiet. She could tell that the woman was listening out into the darkness, and she held her breath.
Irritated, the man grumbled and turned over. “It was probably a mouse,” he muttered, and snored on.
But the Crow-Girl could feel that the woman was vigilant.
Then she suddenly let out a scream. “A mouse! It was a mouse. It ran right across me. I’m going to light a candle, and you must get up and catch it.”
“No, I won’t,” said the ma
n. “It’s the middle of the night! Lie down now, so a person can get some sleep. I’ll borrow the neighbor’s cat tomorrow.”
The woman lay down, but the fright must have kept her wide-awake. It was an eternity before the Crow-Girl again heard her short, hectic snoring mix with the man’s noisy breathing.
She crawled on all fours over to the chair and slowly pulled the shawl down from the chair-back. Turning around, she traced a large arc around the footstool as she moved toward the door.
She listened for a long time, until she was certain that she heard them both. Then she stood up and carefully pulled the open door shut behind her, threw the shawl about her, put the walking stick with the bundle on her shoulder, and left the house.
7
A pale crescent moon could be seen behind the tattered clouds rushing across the sky.
The crows had flown in an arc far from the houses, so the Crow-Girl decided to go inland rather than follow the coast. She found the narrow rutted trail leading up from the head of the fjord and began walking along it as fast as she could.
Time after time she turned to see if anyone was following her, but the road was deserted and the hamlet slept. The moon moved in and out of the clouds, but her eyes quickly grew used to the dark, and the thought that she had to get away drove her on.
The narrow road met a broader road that went in the same direction as the coastline. She continued down the wide one, pausing only for short rests.
She walked the whole night and most of the next day, until she was so tired that her legs could hardly support her. So she left the road and climbed up behind some rocks, where she found a hollow she could rest in. She ate a bit of the lamb and drank water from a nearby brook.
Then she lay down and fell immediately into a dreamless sleep that lasted until the next morning.
* * *
When she awoke, she felt better than she had in a long time—as if someone had relieved her of a large load of firewood that she had borne on her shoulders without realizing it.
The Crow-Girl--The Children of Crow Cove Page 3