Seven Crow Stories

by Robert J. Wiersema

  He crushed the coals in his hand and dropped the stiff, black mud into the bloody circle at Paul’s feet.

  Paul looked at him.

  “This,” he said, “is man’s magic. Blood, fire, and earth. Now, shape.” He gestured to the circle.

  And Paul knew, without being told, what to do, as if it had been within him the entire time. As if he had always known.

  He plunged his hands into the circle of sand at his feet, warm with his blood and the embers, and began to shape. And from the mud, the coals, and his own blood, there emerged a form, a perfect, tiny child, dark, dun-coloured and still. His hands moved of their own accord, until they held between them, perfect in every way, his child. He held it up, toward John, toward the sky.

  And John spoke. “That is your child, made of the earth, the ash, and the blood of your hopes and fears for it. It has no life, for a child made up of the hopes and fears of its parents is no child: it may live, but it cannot survive, cannot ever prosper, cannot ever be its own life. In order for this child to live, it must come into the world of its own hopes, its own fears. Yours must be washed away.” As he spoke, the child grew heavier in Paul’s hands, and he felt a throbbing move through him, from the ground at his feet and up toward the child, which slowly turned its head toward its father, and opened its eyes. They were dun-coloured, flat, reflecting only the orange glow of the fire, nothing of any inner light.

  Without being told, simply knowing, Paul walked to the water. Kneeling there, holding between his hands the child that he had created, the child that looked silently up to him with one eye of brown and one eye of green, he lowered it to the water, and watched, tears rolling down his cheeks, as the water rushed across the small form, washing away the blood of his hopes and fears, the ash and the sand, until his hands were clean, and empty. As he stood up, John was behind him, and held him as he cried.

  “It is done,” he said to the sky.

  In the backyard, near the garden, as if she had heard, Claire dipped her hands into the basin, and taking a double handful of water, flung the moon, fully formed, back into the sky.

  From the house, a hoarse scream echoed through the silvery night, and a shower of cold rainwater fell on Claire Joseph. She ran her wet hands through her damp hair, and turned back into the house.

  Her hands were still cold and wet as she laid them, side by side, on Abigail’s stretched belly, and she began to sing. “Breathe,” she said, interrupting her song.

  Abigail’s face was covered in sweat, her hair sticking to her forehead, and standing in clumps where she had pulled it. Blood ran down her chin from where she had bitten through her lip.

  “When will this be over?” She choked, her voice thick with phlegm and rough from screaming. “I just want this to be over.”

  “Shhhh,” sighed Claire Joseph, reaching for her hand. She swayed at the side of the bed, as if dancing to an unheard music. “Not long now.”

  Another contraction, and she sang louder, dipping her hands under the hem of Abigail’s gown, where the sheet was warm and wet, then laying her palms on her belly, where she was still glazed with the moonlit rainwater. “Blood, water, and the moon,” she said quietly, as Abigail screamed one last time, her voice mingling with that of her child, screaming out its first breath in the cold world.

  “John,” she called, her voice catching in her throat. “You can both come in here, now.”

  And from the back stoop came the sound of footfalls, and both men appeared in the room as if by magic. Paul’s face was drawn and wan and white as the moonlight through the window, his arms and hands brown with dried blood, but Claire knew he wouldn’t be feeling that, any more than John was feeling the burns on his hands.

  As soon as he came through the door, as soon as he saw Abigail on the bed, he was at her side, crouched next to her. “Are you okay?” he asked, urgently.

  She nodded, unable to keep herself from crying. “Yeah. Where were you?” The question was almost frantic.

  “I was out walking. With John.” He glanced behind himself at the older man in the doorway. “I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

  “I had a baby,” she said, as if she couldn’t quite believe it herself.

  And for the first time, looking away from her face, he saw their child laying at her breast, eyes open, brown and rimed with white and wet, looking up at their faces.

  “Well, you can go pick it up,” Claire said, not quite brusquely. “It’s not gonna bite you.”

  He stood up, and lifted the child with an exaggerated care that John and Claire knew would take another birth to ween him from.

  And as he stood there, looking at his child, he realized that it was nothing at all like he had hoped for, and nothing at all like he had feared, and he felt Abigail’s sweat damp hand against his arm as his daughter looked up at him for the first time.

  The Crying in the Walls

  The key hesitated in the lock, and Curt had to jiggle it slightly to get it to turn. When the tumblers released, it was with a soft pop like the cork on a bottle of wine sliding free, as if a seal had been broken.

  He also remembered to lift the doorknob slightly as he turned it, and to push the door more firmly than one might expect to get it to open.

  “Well, you have to understand, it’s an old house,” he said, smiling, as the door swung open into the empty vestibule.

  The phrase had become a running joke between them over the past several weeks. They had heard it so often from the realtors, from their mortgage broker, from the lawyer who had drawn up the transfer, that they could recite it verbatim, significant pauses intact.

  “But it’s ours,” Laura said, a half-step behind him as she finished her part of the patter.

  His smile broadened and he stepped into their new house, almost a century old. The air seemed to echo, sharp with plaster and hardwood, the smell of floor polish and lingering traces of cinnamon and apple. The realtor had had a pie baking during their third walk-through, the semi-detached house warm and inviting with the smell. As if they needed to be convinced. As if they hadn’t known the first time they walked through that tricky front door, caught their first glimpse of the shining floors, the colossal staircase that stretched to the second floor landing above the fourteen-foot ceiling. Laura had squeezed Curt’s hand as the agent detailed the selling points, her grip tightening and tightening as she tried to maintain her poker face.

  “Honey, we’re home!” Curt said broadly, for effect, turning to see if she was smiling, if she was allowing herself to savour the moment.

  She was still standing on the porch, the toes of her sandals snug up to the line of the doorway.

  She was looking at him, half-smiling.

  She waited a beat.

  Then another.

  Then, finally, “Aren’t you supposed to carry me over the threshold?”

  He almost laughed; she looked so earnest, but with that gleam in her eye. “I think that’s after you get married,” he said, stepping toward her. “Not when you buy a house. Especially—” he let the word hang as he looked meaningfully down at the solid roundness of her belly “—when you’re—”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “—as big as a house.”

  “Asshole,” she said. “What was that the doctor said about not upsetting the pregnant woman?”

  But she was smiling, and he trailed his fingers over her belly as he reached to take her hand.

  “Welcome home,” he said quietly as he led her inside.

  She trailed her fingers along the rough plaster under the empty coat-hooks as she followed.

  They didn’t unpack most of the boxes—plates enough for Indian take-out, a glass for Curt’s wine, a mug for Laura’s tea—but Curt made sure to find the carton marked “Bedroom—Bedding.”

  He made up the bed, even though the mattress and box spring were floating in the
centre of the room, the frame in pieces against one wall.

  “We could have just slept on the air mattress,” Laura protested when she came into the bedroom, breathing heavily from climbing the stairs.

  “Don’t be silly,” he said, gesturing at the bed, as if putting on sheets and pillowcases and a duvet were an achievement. “You’re not sleeping on an air mattress.”

  She had taken, almost as soon as she learned she was pregnant, to resting her hand on the swell of her abdomen. She rubbed it in a small circle as he drew back the covers for her.

  It was hours later, in the dark of their new house, surrounded by new creaks and groans, that she heard it.

  She started awake. Curt was holding her from behind, his arm curled over her bump.

  Her eyes wide, she tried to make sense of where she was. Sharp angles, shadowy blocks, it took her a moment to remember that she was in their bed, a soft island in a sea of boxes and confusion.

  But what was that sound?

  It seemed to be coming from that corner. No, just to the left. The right, maybe?

  What was that?

  She tensed, starting to turn to sit up, but Curt snuggled in, his arm close around her, his face nuzzled into the back of her neck.

  It was almost impossible to hear anything over the sound of his breath in her ear. But something had woken her.

  Something . . .

  She willed herself to listen more closely, to tune out the gentle half-rasp of Curt asleep.

  She strained.

  Nothing.

  She hadn’t realized how quickly her heart had been beating until it started to slow.

  That can’t be good for the baby.

  As her pulse calmed, her whole body relaxed, seeming to sink back into the mattress.

  Her eyelids grew heavy.

  Her breath thickened.

  She thought of the baby. And something about a circus. Ringmaster. Acrobats. About witnessing pink elephants. Thoughts she knew, even as she was having them, were the nonsense of almost-asleep.

  And just as she had that realization, as she was about to slip away into sleep, she heard it again.

  This time she sat up, Curt’s arm dropping away from her as she pushed herself upward. He flopped onto his back and began to snore.

  “Jesus Christ,” she muttered, straining to hear again.

  Yes, there it was. Near the corner.

  She dropped her left hand to her belly.

  It was a faint sound, not quite distinct, distant, a faint mewling, like a kitten in the next room.

  No.

  She listened more closely as she stood up, as she carefully crossed the room in the half-light.

  Not a kitten.

  Closer to the wall, she could hear it more clearly.

  It was a baby.

  There was no mistaking it, the sound, that high, thick desperate sound, or the effect, the ache she felt in her breasts, her belly.

  She could feel the cry. Was the baby hungry? Frightened? Alone? Her sister would know; she would know soon enough.

  The crying was coming from a spot not far from the corner of the room, along the wall that would be to the left side of the bed once the bedroom was set up.

  The wall that they shared with the neighbours.

  The neighbours.

  Of course. A new baby.

  That made sense.

  A moment later, the crying stopped.

  She smiled as she padded back to bed, slipping between the warm flannel sheets, imagining another bedroom just on the other side of the wall, a mother going into the dark, the light of a hallway falling across the crib as she picked up the crying baby.

  Or a father. It could be the father.

  Curt had curled onto his other side on the far edge of the bed, his back like the shell of some insect or sea creature, curved and hard and resistant. He didn’t stir as she adjusted herself in the bed, as she struggled to get comfortable.

  No, probably not the father.

  Laura fell back to sleep with her left hand on her belly, listening to Curt breathe, imagining their new neighbours.

  He made breakfast—oatmeal and a half grapefruit each—while she was still asleep. He was about to go up and wake her when he heard the sound of her heavy steps on the staircase.

  He flipped the switch on the kettle to re-boil the water.

  “Good morning,” he said as she came into the kitchen.

  He moved in for a quick kiss, but she turned sleepily away.

  “I made you some breakfast,” he said, unfazed. “And the tea—” the kettle clicked off “—will be right up.”

  She sat down at the table. Her hair was dishevelled; she was still half-asleep. “The top stair is loose,” she said, her first words of the day.

  He sat the tea in front of her, next to the grapefruit. “What?”

  “The top stair,” she said, curling her hands around the mug. “The board wiggles.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said, sitting down across from her. “Sorry. I couldn’t find the brown sugar.” He tilted his hands helplessly.

  “This is okay,” she said.

  He watched her staring into the bowl as if transfixed. It took her a long moment to come back to herself. “Thank you,” she said, glancing over at him. “For making breakfast.”

  He held his tie back and leaned over his bowl to eat, watching her the whole time. She picked at her oatmeal, stirring it, lifting spoonfuls only to dump them back into the bowl. She did eat a couple of bites, though. Better than nothing. Better than some days.

  “I know you’re going to want to get at the unpacking,” he said, looking down at his bowl. “But it’s Friday, and it’s a short day for me. You should just take it easy today, and we can spend the weekend making this place homey.”

  “I can start on it,” she said. “I’m not an invalid.”

  He reached his hand across the table.

  She ignored it.

  “I know you’re not an invalid. I just don’t want you to—”

  “Drive myself crazy?”

  “—stress yourself out,” he finished over her.

  Their eyes met, and locked.

  “I know you’re not an invalid,” he repeated, his voice low and warm. “I just want you to be careful.”

  Her smile was tight and pinched. “I’ll be careful.” She leaned back in her chair, resting her hands on her belly. “I think that’s enough breakfast.”

  He looked at the churned, solidified bowl of oatmeal, the untouched grapefruit, at her hands.

  She wanted to start in the bedroom, to get rid of those stacks of boxes, to see the closet full of their clothes, to see the top of the bureau cluttered with jewellery and knickknacks and photographs again.

  But the bureau was in pieces in the corner, near the bedframe, and she knew how Curt would react if he came home from work and found it built.

  Better to let him have his moments of manliness where he could get them.

  The kitchen, maybe.

  Speaking of manliness. . . . The top step wasn’t dangerous or anything, but it gave her a start when it seemed to tilt just slightly when she stepped on it.

  Curt would take care of that, too.

  It made her smile, the thought of him with his toolbox, filled with screwdrivers only used to change remote control batteries, the hammer that had only ever driven nails to hang pictures.

  It was very sweet.

  He was very sweet.

  Patient. Kind.

  He deserved better.

  She would be better.

  Curt had already partially unpacked several boxes, likely looking for the makings of breakfast. There was a cloth hung over the faucet, a tea towel on top of the stove.

  She pulled a chair over to the counter and
ran hot water onto the cloth. Steadying herself with one hand on the countertop, she climbed onto the chair and opened the cupboard door.

  The previous owners had cleaned everything thoroughly before they left, but she scrubbed the insides of the cupboards with the dishcloth anyway, making sure to get into every corner, not forgetting to wash the undersides of each shelf.

  She was careful each time she stepped down from the cupboard to rinse the cloth, each time she climbed back up.

  She had originally planned to do all the cupboards, but by the time she was finished with the upper set she was sweating and breathing heavily. She pulled the chair back to the table and collapsed into it.

  She would just rest for a minute, then she’d start unpacking some of the boxes. She’d leave the lower cupboards for Curt to clean. She probably shouldn’t be—

  The baby cried behind the wall.

  Laura jumped.

  It sounded like the baby was right there in the room with her, its cry deep and plangent.

  Hungry, she thought.

  As if in response, the baby cried louder, building to a level of breathlessness that made her heart ache.

  Why wasn’t someone picking it up? Why would you just let a baby cry like that?

  She didn’t know where the idea came from—it was completely unlike her—but once she had it, she couldn’t shake it. She would go next door. She’d introduce herself. She’d offer to help.

  She looked down at herself: she’d need to get dressed first.

  As she went upstairs and looked for something to put on, she thought of what Dr. Talbot would say about her now. Confronting her fears. Getting out of herself. Meeting new people.

  He’d probably be so proud.

  By the time she got dressed, though, and made it back downstairs, the crying had stopped.

  She stood in the kitchen quiet, motionless, holding her breath and listening. Nothing. No crying, no faint, comforting voices.