Black Bird of the Gallows(50)
“Leave your phone on,” my dad says at ten to six. “Fair warning. If I call and you don’t answer, I’m coming over.”
“Fine.”
“And stay out of their basement.”
“God. No basements, Dad. We’re going to watch a movie.” My teeth grit. “That’s it.”
My dad’s brows raise. “Do I sense trouble in paradise?”
“No.” I say, then sag into a chair. “I mean, I like him. He’s just very…different from me.” To put it mildly, and it doesn’t really matter how different or how similar we are, or if he’s holding on to secrets, because that whole “murder of crows” is turning into birds and flying away in a short while. My thoughts turn bitter. He wants to focus on us until he disappears forever, but he expects me to live with these questions about my mother and Rafette for the rest of my life.
“He’s not pressuring you about anything, is he?” Dad asks gruffly. “If he is, I’ll—”
“No!” I grab my coat and yank it on. “It’s nothing like that. I think his family moves around a lot, that’s all. I’m trying not to get too attached.”
“Oh,” Dad says. “Well, that’s sensible.”
“Yeah. Hooray for sensible.”
My dad smiles gently. Knowingly. “If only the heart knew the meaning of that word.”
“If only a lot of things.” I force a smile, scratch Roger’s ears. The Lab’s brown eyes are wide and worried. He lets out an anxious whine. “What’s with you, boy? Sorry, you can’t come, although Fiona won’t be happy with me for not bringing you.” I tuck my phone in my pocket and wave to my dad. “I won’t be home late.”
It’s a warm evening. Spring replaced winter so suddenly, the ground is soggy. Tonight, the rain has eased to a balmy mist. My eyes adjust to the dark when I reach the wooded divider between the two properties. I put my hands on the rough pines to keep my balance on the uneven ground.
Halfway there, a shadowy shape moves in the dark trees. I gasp, but it’s only my crow. He’s alone. None of the others are taking up their perches in the naked branches. The bird lowers its head and caws gently, hopping to a branch in front of me before gliding to the ground. It hops toward me, head bobbing. Something pink is pressed between its beak.
I crouch down, surprised. It doesn’t usually get close to me. “What have you got there?”
The crow carefully drops a faded, water-stained bow at my feet, then hops back, as if to ensure I won’t touch him. I pick up the bow. It’s small. A soft clasp is attached to the back. I smile at this latest gift, a little girl’s hair bow that somehow escaped the locks it had been fastened to.
Suddenly, the crow distorts, bloats grotesquely. I back up with a gasp. Fear crawls into my throat, squeezes it shut, as the crow spreads its ever-enlarging wings. A thick, dark mist swirls around the thing’s legs and body, enveloping it entirely. The black vapor grows heavier. The acrid smell reminds me of the time I visited a blacksmith’s shop at a historic village with my dad. My legs are too rubbery to stand up. I scramble backward until my back bumps up against a tree.
My crow is not a crow anymore. It moves with purpose, seething, growing bigger. Much bigger. I don’t know what it is—maybe a harbinger. But if that’s the case, it isn’t transforming correctly. Something is wrong with this creature. My hand covers a whimper as the bird begins to take the shape of a half-human man with a feather-covered torso.
Two legs form, but with claws for feet. Wings spread six feet in diameter from the man’s shoulders, just for a second, before one of them shrinks into an arm—just one. The other remains a wing. Black feathers cover much of his body. One human eye where it should be, one jet black crow eye, set on the side of his head. His hair is a shock of white in an otherwise middle-aged face.
He looks like something that just crawled up from hell. My back presses against the tree, and I freeze there, too afraid to turn my back on him and run. Tiny tornados of black twist and whirl around his limbs. They migrate upward, toward the man’s mouth. The man tilts his head back and hinges his mouth open as wide as he can. He looks to be in horrible agony as the black vapor, or whatever it is, sucks inside his mouth like a vortex. Finally, the last bit of black disappears through his lips. He closes his mouth, looks at me.
I see his face, and my heart stops. Despite the distorted features, I know this man.
“I beg your pardon, Angie.” His voice is the same low, gentle rumble. It’s an easy voice to trust. An easy voice to love. “I hope I haven’t frightened you too much.”
I can’t drag my gaze away from his face. I did love this man once—my mother’s favorite and longest lasting ex-boyfriend. “Hank…”
He was my now-and-then father whenever the wind blew him our way. He had been kind to me, taken me to the arcade and took me shopping for clothes. He’d shown me some stuff on the guitar. He’d been so kind. I had learned from my father that it had been Hank who reached out to the private investigator Dad had hired to find me.
He’s a harbinger. Tears itch along my jaw and neck. My body shakes with a legion of emotions. Too much of the past intruding on the present. Too much stuff tumbling from boxes. My fingers clench around the bow. “You’re the crow that’s been…leaving things for me?”