Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology(102)

They’re crows, over and over again.

Pippa opens one of the drawers and picks out buttons, one at a time, and drops them into my open hand. Each one’s unique, only their colour in common. They’re white plastic, mother of pearl, enamel, stained fabric, and horn. She laughs as they spill through my fingers. The rest of that block of drawers contains buttons, each separated by compartment for the rainbow.

“Pippa, are all these from the crow palace?”

“Yes, birdies.” She mangles some of the syllables but she’s definite.

She shows me more. Her collection is sorted by type of object, or by shape where Pippa was unsure. Coins and bottle tops. Odd earrings. Screws. Watch parts. The tiny bones of rodents, picked clean and bleached by time.

I used to have a collection of my own, the crows left us treasures on the crow palace in return for food. They came with presents every day. I threw mine out when I started high school.

I regret it now, as I sit here with Pippa.

“Here.” She thrusts one of the drawers into my hands.

Something lonely rattles around inside. I tip it out. I hold it up between my forefinger and thumb. A ring designed as a feather that wraps around the finger. Despite the tarnish, it’s lovely—the hard line of the shaft, the movement of the hundreds of vanes and downy barbs.

It’s impossible that it’s here because I’m sure Mum was buried with it. I watched Dad lay out the things for the undertaker: a silk blue dress, tights, a pair of leather heels, a lipstick, and this ring. He put her wedding band and diamond engagement ring in a box and placed it in his bedside drawer. For you, when you get married, as if this was given.

The feather ring was kept to go with her into the grave. We were on holiday when she realised she was expecting. She chose this from an antiques shop in France the same day that she told me. I was thrilled. I think she’d want to wear this.

I close my eyes. Had I imagined that? As I do, the ring finds its way onto the ring finger of my left hand, which goes cold. I can feel the blood in my wrist freezing. I yank it off before ice reaches my heart.

“Where did you get this?” My voice is shrill. “Pippa?”

“Crows,” she says.


I force myself to go into Dad’s room. It’s stifling. Being north facing and a dull day, the poor quality light brings out the green undertones in the patterned gold wallpaper. The dark, heavy furniture makes the room crowded and drab.

Everything’s an effort. There’s something about being back here that’s put me in a stupor. I’m procrastinating about everything.

Looking through Dad’s things should hurt but it doesn’t. It’s like rifling through a stranger’s personal effects for clues. He was an unknown entity to me because I didn’t care enough to want to find out who he was. Shouldn’t blood call out to blood? Mine didn’t. I felt more for Pip, my dead mother, and for Elsa. Dad’s love was smothering and distant all at once as if I was something to be feared and guarded closely.

I pile his clothes in bin bags to take to the charity shop. I pause when I find box files full of football programmes. I never knew he was a fan. It looks like he went regularly before we were born. It crosses my mind that they might be worth something, but then I chuck them on the pile to get rid of.

It’s only when I’m clearing out the second wardrobe that I find something that piques my interest. There’s a steel box at the back with his initials on it, under a pile of moth-eaten scarves. It’s locked. I spend the next hour gathering together every key I can find, searching drawers and cupboards for them. Nothing fits.

I carry the box downstairs and put it on the kitchen table. It’s too late in the day to take it to a locksmith. I’ll go tomorrow.





Who knew that death is so bureaucratic? I’m relieved there won’t be a post-mortem but there’s still the registering of Dad’s death and meetings with the undertaker, bank and solicitors. Elsa’s a brick, taking Pip to the day centre or over to her place if I have things to arrange.

The future leaves me in a stupor of indecision. I stare out of the kitchen window at where the pond used to be. Now it’s a rockery in the same kidney shape.

What sort of people would have a pond with young children in the house?

The pond was where I found Mum’s body, looking boneless as it slumped over the stones at the water’s edge. I was four. I thought she’d just fallen over. I ran out to help her get up. A jay sat on her back. The bird is the shyest of all Corvids, flamboyant by comparison to its family, in pink, brown, and striped blue. It normally confines itself to the shelter of the woods.

I paused as the wind blew up her skirt, revealing the back of her thighs. Her head was turned to one side. The jay hopped down to look at her face, then pecked at one of her open, staring eyes.

The jay turned as I approached and let out a screech, blood on its beak. Or maybe I was the one screaming. I’d put my hands over my ears.

A shriek comes from the sun-room, next door. I drop my coffee cup, imagining Pippa has conjured the same image. She’d followed me out that day and seen Mum too. By the time my cup smashes on the floor and sends hot coffee up my legs and the cabinets I realise something’s actually wrong.

Pippa’s pressed against the window, shouting and banging with her fists.

“What is it?”

I grab her shoulders but she twists around to look outside again. From here we have an interrupted view of the back garden.