Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology(54)

The boy’s disappearance troubled me. Inevitably, it called to mind the fate of my mother. As then, police were out searching Glasfynydd and the wild country to the south, around the Black Mountain. His face was on the news and in the papers. When my sister called, she spoke about how awful it was. After four days, he hadn’t been found. I thought about his parents and tried to imagine how they felt. I wondered if he’d been one of those I’d met in the forest. Had I spoken to him? After they’d gone, I remembered Blyth had alerted me to the presence of someone else in the woods.

I found him on the roof of the Austin. I asked him if he recalled the day we met the kids, how he had seen someone or something after they had left. Chyak-chyak, he cried. I asked him to tell me what it was. Blyth tilted forward, half-turning to show me his nape. He ruffled his head feathers, as though he wanted me to groom him. I pleaded with him to tell me what he knew.

He ignored me and began to preen.

Although it wasn’t uncommon for him to behave that way, his diffidence angered me. It seemed deliberate, an affectation meant to provoke me. I decided not to rise to his bait. “All right, Blyth,” I told him. “Have it your way.”

I went to the workshop and began assembling the newly bleached bones of a raven. Since returning to Cray, I had taught myself the art of skeletal articulation. My knowledge of avian physiology helped, and the rudiments of maceration were not hard to grasp. The process was absorbing and helped take my mind off the theoretical aspects of my real work. While still an undergraduate, I had begun to focus on birds, particularly on avian intelligence. An investigation into the language of Corvids formed the basis of my masters thesis and would, so I had planned, go on to provide the platform for further research. Although those plans had stalled in York, I had come to see that the isolation of Cray and its abundant birdlife, offered an opportunity for a radical new approach. Blyth’s friendship served only to increase my hopes of success.

I worked on the raven late into the evening, feeling an odd detachment from my surroundings. I was aware of the maceration vessels beneath the worktop and the half dozen bird skeletons I’d successfully articulated. Two rooks hung from the roof beam as though suspended in flight; a magpie and a crow were perched on separate shelves. They seemed to be watching, waiting for their fellow corvids to be reborn. My thoughts loosened, became abstract and indecipherable. I felt separated from my body, hovering in the air above, looking down on someone with whom I felt only a tenuous connection. Disoriented and vertiginous, I sought for something to hold onto, something around which my sense of being could coalesce. Abruptly, I became aware of another presence seeping into my consciousness, allowing me to see the world through different eyes. The night opened up and waves of electromagnetic energy streamed across the sky, through a body that was no longer earthbound. I tumbled and soared, riding currents of air. Around me, the sky teemed with a great clattering of rooks and crows, their calls echoing across the night. We flew over forests and mountains, over landscapes I had never seen, and I felt as though I could fly to the edge of the world.

I woke at dawn, in an old sycamore. The branches were heavy with birds cawing to greet the day. My head was fuzzy, my throat raw. I had no idea how I had got up there. Scraps of memory drifted through my mind, elusive as dreams. Had I spent the night roosting with these birds? It wouldn’t be the first time. I looked for Blyth, struck by a sense of weightlessness, of having been outside myself. Leaning forward to ease the stiffness in my back, I lost my balance and nearly fell out of the tree. I grabbed the branch in time and hung on. After a while, I clambered down to the lowest branch and dropped to the ground.

I’d been having such dreams for two years. I’d come to believe that Blyth was the stimulus. I reasoned that just as migratory birds could detect magnetic fields and use them for navigation, Blyth drew on similar electromagnetic tools that allowed him to project his consciousness into my dreams. Thus I saw the world through his eyes, and as exhilarating and profound as that was, at the dream’s end I was left only with nebulous impressions that could not be transcribed in the rational world of human consciousness. That failure ate at my soul.

I stumbled across the yard, searching for Blyth. I needed him to decode the dream for me. I staggered towards the Austin and pulled the door open. Inside I found a red baseball cap with a cartoon logo on the front such as a child might wear.


A week ago I watched a young kite die among the rocks in the pass below Fan Brycheiniog. We were hiking along Fan Hir when Blyth heard its cries. He took off over the ridge and disappeared from view. Minutes later he came back, sounding his alarm. I found the kite about halfway down the bwlch. One wing was badly broken, and her breast was torn and bleeding. I held her until she was dead. Afterwards, I put her in my rucksack and headed northwest along the ridge. The sky was clear and the sun shone bright on the Black Mountain. Though I regretted the kite’s demise, I was pleased to have such a specimen to investigate.

Soon, we descended to Llyn y Fan Fach below the north face of the ridge. Children played and swam in the clear, blue water. I watched them awhile, Blyth circling overhead before settling at the water’s edge. While he drank I took out the kite and began to wash the blood from her plumage. A boy who had been wading nearby came closer. He asked if the bird was dead. I told him it was. He asked what had happened to it.

“Got in a fight with another bird, I guess. Probably over carrion.”