Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology(20)

All is serene, near-motionless as in a dream.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, about twenty feet away, there appears a curious long-legged creature making its way along the shore, in the direction of the mallard nests.

The wife stares, appalled. It is a great blue heron, a predator bird, very thin, with a long snaky neck and scaly legs, a long sharp beak. Eerie and unsettling that the thing, the creature, makes no attempt to use its wings to fly but simply walks awkwardly, yet rapidly, like a human being in some way handicapped or disfigured.

Before any of the mallards sights the predator it attacks the nearest nest. Its beak stabs pitilessly, with robotic precision. There is a violent struggle, there are shrieks, a frenzied flapping of mallard wings as the heron stabs at the nest, piercing eggs with its bill; within seconds it has gobbled down mallard eggs, brazen and indifferent to the smaller waterfowl hissing and flapping their wings in protest.

At another nest the heron discovers tiny unfledged ducklings. The affrighted mallard parents are unable to interfere as the tall snaky-necked bird lifts ducklings one by one in its bill, swiftly, and swallows them whole.

By now all the mallards are protesting, shrieking. There must be two dozen mallards aroused to alarm. Some are on land, at the shore; others are flailing about in the water. Their cries are cwak-cwak-cwak, emitted in fury and despair. But the cries come too late. The alarm is ineffectual. The great blue heron remains unmoved, indifferent. Within a minute it has eaten its fill and now lifts its wide gray-feathered wings, extends its leathery-looking neck, and flies away across the lake with a horrible sort of composure.

Only now does the predator emit a cry—harsh, hoarse, croaking—triumphant-sounding, grating to the ear.


Oh God!—she is waking now.

Now, her eyes are open, stark and blind. So surprised, she can’t see at first.

For long minutes unable to move as her heart pounds. Stunned as if her body, in the region of her heart, has been pierced by the predator bird’s long sharp beak.

She wills herself to wake fully. It is a conscious, moral decision, she thinks—to wake fully.

Throws aside the bedclothes that are stifling to her, removes her nightgown, damp with sweat, and tosses it onto the floor like a disgraced thing.

The bed beside her is empty. Of course, the bed is empty.

It is three weeks and two days since her husband’s death.


He has left. He has gone. He will not be returning.

These words she tells herself a dozen times a day. These words that are the flattest recitation of horror yet somehow cannot be wholly comprehended. Thus, she must repeat.

He has left. He has gone. He will not be returning.





A jangling at the front door. There is no keeping the intruder out.

Not a predator bird but a scavenger bird. Hunched shoulders like deformed wings, rapacious bright eyes that move over the widow like hunger.

“You will want to sell this property. Of course.”

No. I do not want to sell this property.

Gravely the brother-in-law speaks. Though she has told the brother-in-law that it is too soon after the husband’s death to think of such matters.

“. . . always said, the property is really too much for just two people. And now . . .”

He’d stood on the front stoop ringing the bell. Calling Claudia! Claudia! It’s me.

And who, she wonders, is me?

What has she to do with this me?

She could not keep the brother-in-law out of the house. She could not run away to hide upstairs for he would have called 911 to report a desperate woman in (possible) danger of harming herself or worse yet he’d have broken into the house to find her, in triumph.

Saying then—Poor Claudia! I may have saved her life.

It is all beyond her control. What people say about her now that her husband has died.

It is astonishing: the (uninvited, unwanted) brother-in-law is sitting in the living room of this house in which he has not (ever) been a guest without the presence of his brother.

The first time (ever) that the brother-in-law has been alone with his brother’s wife who has long been wary of him—his glistening eyes, too-genial smile.

The brother-in-law has even helped himself to a drink—amber-colored whiskey splashed into a glass, from a bottle kept in a cabinet with a very few other, select bottles of liquor. The brother-in-law has asked if the widow will join him in a drink and the widow has declined with a nervous smile. How strange, to be asked to join an unwanted intruder in a drink, and to murmur No thank you in your own house.

A numbed sense of horror is rising in the widow, of all that she has relinquished and lost.

In his earnest salesman’s voice the brother-in-law is speaking of planning for the future, the widow’s future. She is the executrix of the husband’s estate which involves a good deal of responsibility, and “expertise”—which the widow does not have, understandably.

“I can help you, Claudia. Of course . . .”

How strange, her name on this man’s lips—Claudia. Worse, he sometimes calls her Claudie. As if there were a special intimacy between them.

The brother-in-law speaks of “finances”—“taxes”—“lakeside property”—as if he is being forced to utter painful truths. As if this visit is not his choice (not at all!) but his responsibility as the (younger) brother of the deceased husband, the (concerned, caring) brother-in-law of the widow.