Keeper of Crows (Keeper of Crows #1)(17)

“When I go home, will I be the same?” Pam asked.

Keeper shook his head. “You will be forever changed in small ways or large. Most remember portions of the journey.”

“What about my body?” she asked.

“It will recover if we can return you soon, though you’ll be in considerable pain, given your condition. He smiled at her again. It seemed all his smiles were reserved for her.

“How can you tell that by looking at her, or me?” I interrupted, making sure my hospital gown dipped low in the front, drawing his eyes toward my breasts for a second.

Completely unaffected, his eyes fell to the forest floor as he ducked beneath a thicket. “I’ve seen many souls cross the threshold, and each one bears a resemblance to their earthly body. As such, I can guess what your recovery will be like.”

Great. He can guess. He probably thought I would heal up and remember my journey and blah, blah, blah.

“I don’t think that at all. In fact,” he stopped, letting me catch up to him. “I can’t get a read on you. My pleas don’t work to cloud your mind.”

Pleas? Not spells? Maybe he wasn’t a wizard.

To that he snorted, so I continued my interrogation.

“You can hear my thoughts, but you don’t know if I’ll recover.”

Keeper shrugged. “You may not. This may be the next step in your journey. You wouldn’t be the first brought here against her will, only to find out that this is where you would have ended up in a few days anyway.”

A single crow let out a caw as Keeper held a vine overhead for us to duck beneath. “We should hurry. Follow him,” he instructed, pointing to the bird leading the others, and us.

“Where is he leading us?” I panted, struggling to keep up. Sweat beaded on my forehead, upper lip, lower back, between my breasts, and everywhere in between those places.

“A fissure is about to appear. He’s telling us where.” Keeper extended his fingers and then balled his fists, rushing after the bird. I was losing the battle. Somehow, Pamela could keep up just fine. She ducked under, jumped over, curved around, and stepped through the brush like it was nothing more than a field of delicate hay, swaying in the wind, more like water than plant and soil.

The two of them rushed ahead, leaving me in the shade. The crows followed their leader as well. A singular ebony feather fluttered toward me, and I caught it in my hand and held it up. The feathers shimmered. They sparkled black as coal, as rich as the fabric that had melted into my hand. I watched the feather harden, melt, and re-harden. Black held every color of the rainbow and for a moment, I could see them as separates and not as one.

“Keep up!” Keeper yelled over his shoulder.

I was trying. Before the feather fell, I was pushing hard toward them, but I stopped. I couldn’t move my legs any farther. They turned to stone. I looked down to confirm it, but only saw flesh, so colorful against the shadow of this place. So foreign.

“Bring her,” ordered Keeper from over the next hill. Thousands of birds swooped from the sky, swirling around and lifting me off the ground. “No!” I screamed, until I realized they weren’t attacking. They never touched me with their beaks or wings. I was levitating several feet off the ground and they were moving me, as if they were of one force and mind. The forest, as quickly as it began past the few houses at the outer edges of the city, disappeared. The crows deposited me gently onto the ground at the edge of a steep cliff. Far below was a ravine with jagged rocks and a flowing river of gray, frothy water swirling around them.

I collapsed, my mouth in a silent scream as pain tore through my body. Blinking away tears, I panted until the spell passed. “What the hell was that?” I rasped. Keeper and Pamela hadn’t seen what happened. “Didn’t you feel that?” I muttered. It was like being torn in half from the head down, but it passed as quickly as it came. The spell was gone. Maybe something happened to my body on Earth. If he was telling the truth, that could be it…

“It’s coming,” Keeper said, watching the sky.

Pamela squealed in excitement, rubbing her hands together rapidly. “I’m going home,” she said. “I can’t wait. I want to see my children, and my husband and my mother. She’s still alive, you know.” I didn’t, but I just nodded and tried to smile. Her excitement vanished in an instant. “You’re not coming, are you?” she asked, sadness seeping into her voice.

“Of course I am. My hospital room is right next to yours. We’ll go back together and then we can eat bland oatmeal and red Jell-O as we heal up. The nurses will make sure we have lunch dates.”

She smiled, but the outer corner of her eyes didn’t crinkle. She looked at the sky beyond Keeper as he kneeled on the edge of the rock cliff. He should really scoot back. A sizzling sound, like some giant amp was being electrified, filled the air. The sky faded to black and the black began to churn and sparkle. “I’ll try to remember you,” she said wistfully.

When the tearing sound began, I covered my ears, feeling something warm and wet cover my fingers and palms. When I pulled them away, blood covered my skin, dripping down my wrists toward my elbows and reversing their tracks when I eased my arms down again. Bright white light shone through a tiny, vertical slit in the ebbing black mass.

“Pamela. Come.” Keeper watched as she obeyed, walking toward him. He motioned for one of his flock. “Take her across the divide.”