Dark in Motion
Jamey Toner
No bleakness is complete
without
a crow. A ruined church, a barren moor, a graveyard by a grey and empty
sea—without the brooding shadow of a solitary rook, their desolation lacks its
full potential. What old forgotten skull could molder properly without the
croak and mutter of a murder overhead, the hop and flutter of black wings?
Mind you, we’re a
merry folk. We
glory in the gloom, and this dark world has plenty and to spare. But when Fr.
McReady installed a new electric light above the rectory door, my favorite
eaves were flooded with a bloodless yellow glare. It wouldn’t do.
My name is Quick of Shadewood
Murder. We are wise and fast. I’ve seen sweet summers and bitter winters in the
lands around St. Bernadette’s, and the honor of old age descends upon me now.
Life’s flight should fall in veiling shade, a crimson leaf on autumn’s dusky
breeze—not in the dry click of a motion detector. I was poised upon the steeple’s
topmost needle, thinking on these things, when Sharp came gliding by.
“Ho, Quick! What news
from the
west?”
I made no answer. The cold
red
sun declined among the mountains.
“You look troubled,
Quick. What
can I do?”
“Light,” I said.
“They’ve made a
light beneath my favored perch.”
He flapped a bit and cocked
his
head. “I see no light.”
“Fly down there, lad.”
“In your favored perch?”
“It’s all right.”
He swooped down to the door,
beat the air, and swooped up to my spot below the eaves. As he did, that ugly
yellow light came on. He squawked indignantly and flew back to the chapel roof.
“Twenty thousand lightnings!
There you rest most every night, and have done these many seasons past. It’s
man’s meanness, sheer and clear!”
“Not so, I think.
He’s a kindly sort,
the vicar.”
Yes, we know your temperaments.
We know your faces. And we can tell each other which of your folk have decent
hearts and which of you are cruel. Only two creatures in all of life are
cleverer than my people: you, and those oafish dolphins. But only we can fly.
We, and the dead.
“Then why, Quick?”
“Like me, the man
grows old. I
saw him slip and nearly fall some mornings since. The light is no doubt for his
safety.”
“The man’s just
a man! Pluck the
eyes of his safety, pluck and gulp ’em both.”
I shifted from foot to foot,
considering. Of course, a crow’s life comes before a man’s—but a crow’s
convenience? After all, the rectory was his home too, in a way. But on the
other hand, our life-flight is so much shorter. In a few more seasons, I’d be
gone, and Fr. McReady could install a hundred lights.
Beyond the west, the blood-orb
sank. As darkness rose, the buzzing bulb grew brighter down below. “How long
does it burn?” Sharp asked.
“An hour. Every time
it lights.”
He said nothing.
“. . . It must be
destroyed.”
*
Seagulls. Idiot birds. Their
chattering woke me early. “Hey look, food! Guys, there’s food here! Hey guys,
look at the food!” Seven or eight of them in a dirty white ring around the
jetsam of some satiated human’s breakfast sandwich. I dropped to the earth
right in their startled midst.
“Be off, or I’ll
stuff your
holes with your own fat heads.”
They scattered, screeching
admonitions. “Look out, it’s a crow! Hey guys, look out for the crow!”
“Morons.” It
was a warm, bright
day, and my mood was grim. I’d stayed up late examining that hateful light, and
slept in a hollow pine. The bulb was protected by some manner of metal cage
that surpassed my solving abilities. No rook likes to meet the limit of his
wit.
The sandwich, however, broke
my
fast more pleasantly than I had expected. Better still, as I glanced up from
snatching down the last morsel, I glimpsed a distant shadow moving through the
orange-blue dawn, and caught a faint scent of rain. My spirits kindled
cautiously.
“Well. If wisdom fails,
use
speed.” An age-old proverb of my kin. “It is time for the shine-star.”
I went to the secret place,
the
ancient place. There by the fallen stone, beneath the rotten root, the
shine-star lay hid. Many times had the leaves of Shadewood turned since I took
it from a dead woman’s hand. It was my greatest treasure.
“Gather!” I
cawed, rising above
the trees. “I, Quick, summon the Murder to meet. Gather!”
The call went out, and swiftly
spread. My wing-mates came floating through the wood as the welcome storm
clouds began to congregate above us. It wasn’t long before we had a quorum, nor
long before Glint came hobbling up the branches to his venerable perch.
“Shadewood Murder,”
he rasped.
“By the power of the sacred Moon, I call this parliament to order. Who has
summoned us together, and for what purpose? Speak!”
We were hatchlings together,
Glint and I. Long ago. I was always faster, but he was always smarter. I did
not challenge him for the leadership. He was the better choice, and I’ve never
regretted standing down.
“The call was mine,”
I said. “I
seek a boon from the council.”
“What boon, friend
Quick?”
“The old man of St.
Bernadette’s
has made a light beneath my favored perch. The slightest movement ignites it,
and it burns away the hours of my slumber.”
“It’s true!”
cried young Sharp,
several branches below. “An affront to our brother, and to all our kind.”
“What boon do you
ask of the
rookery?” Glint demanded.
“I ask this,”
I said.
And set forth my plan.
There was silence. The spirits
of thunder were stirring overhead. A few of our brethren rustled in the trees,
ruminating. At last Glint replied: “You ask much, my old friend.”
“I offer much.”
I ducked my beak beneath
my wing
and brought forth the shine-star, and a murmur ran through the parliament.
Solemnly, I trod the bending twigs to the perch of honor and laid the
glimmering stone at Glint’s feet.
“Much indeed,”
he said quietly.
“Knock!”
“Here, sir.”
Knock was as big as
a raven, our strongest fighter. An old scar marked his breast, and his left
wing was white as bone.
“Will the raptors
fly on such a
day as this?”
A wry note entered Knock’s
voice. “Only the boldest and the dumbest.”
“Perfect. Ready your
team.”
“Yes sir.”
As he spoke, the first globed
raindrop tapped upon the leaves.
*
Hawks. Accursed birds. They
care
for nothing but the hunt, and few who fare the sky are deadlier hunters. Their
eyes are needles of ice, their talons the grip of despair.
Four of us flew in the vanguard:
myself and Knock, and his lieutenants Sharp and Trunk, young and battle-eager.
Behind us were half a dozen more tough rooks, flapping grimly as we climbed
toward combat.
Knock gave me a sidelong
glance
as the rain grew heavier. “Quite a plan you’ve hatched here, Quick.”
“My days are going
down into the
west, my friend. I want to live them out in solace.”
“If things go ill,
good carrion
awaits us both in the shadow-fields of the Moon.”
“Truly said.”
“No fear,” said
Sharp. “We can
handle those goblins.”
“I can handle two!”
said Trunk.
“Just keep to the
plan, lads,”
Knock said harshly.
I pointed with my beak.
“There.”
A single bird, cruciform,
sailed
through the wet grey empyrean with never a twitch of those tireless wings.
Ancestral dread coiled in my gut. But I am a crow of Shadewood. Fear is for the
foolish and the slow.
“You!” I cawed.
“You trespass in
our nesting grounds.”
The bright, keen beak swung
toward me. The merciless gaze regarded me. “And if I do?”
“Then murder be upon
you!”
No more talk, then. The
raptor
wheeled and dove, his terrible claws outstretched. We broke formation to the
four winds, but his ire was fixed on me. At the crucial instant, I rolled to my
back in midair and caught his plunging feet in my own, entangling us. His power
and weight were far beyond mine, and we plummeted down toward the spinning treetops.
Knock sprang on the monster’s
back, shrieking like the gale, and his lieutenants attacked its mighty wings.
Lightning blazed. I was upside-down, blinded by the driving rain and the
pounding pinions of my foe, but I could sense the earth hurtling up to meet us.
Somehow Sharp and Trunk
managed
to turn the wings, steering our whole grappling quintet in the necessary
direction. I clung tenaciously to the talons as it dragged me through the
howling, weeping skies. We were parallel to the ground now, soaring toward the
target.
Then the hawk made an impossible
barrel roll, flinging my friends clear. Over the shattering thunder, I heard
the deep cold voice: “Die now.”
But six more of us pounced,
weighting our enemy, forcing it downwards, blocking its view. From the corner
of my eye, I saw the steeple of St. Bernadette’s flash by. I heard Knock’s
frantic cry: “Now, Quick, now!”
And I ripped myself free
just as
the hawk smashed into Fr. McReady’s light.
*
There were revels that day.
We
flew and spun and danced our corvine dances. We sang together and retold
ageless tales of heroes past. The storm raged and the day waned, and at
eventide I went home to my favorite eaves to slumber in the kindly dark.
The night was frosty cold.
When
I awoke and fluttered down to the windowsill to stretch my wings, I saw patches
of ice on the walkway outside the vicar’s door. I glanced up at his light: the
little cage was dented in, the bulb and fixture cracked beyond repair. And then
I glanced in through the window.
Fr. McReady was buttoning
his
coat. On the dresser by his bed, in a nest of blankets, was my injured enemy,
the hawk. It stirred in its sleep, and one of its wings flapped
crookedly—broken, evidently, in the impact. The old priest set a dish of water
by its beak and left the room.
A hawk and a human—they
were
nothing to me. And yet, the one had fought with honor and the other showed
kindness and mercy. Perhaps they deserved more respect than I had given.
As I thought these thoughts,
the
front door opened and the old man emerged, walking slowly in the predawn gloom.
His vision was less keen than mine, and his agility as well; I saw him heading
straight for an icy patch, and knew that he would fall. I croaked a warning and
flung myself through the air, landing on the ice just before his foot came
down.
He gazed at me with a puzzled
smile and said something in the strange liquid tongue of your people. Then,
looking closer, he saw the ice. His smile grew, and he spoke again, and from
his pocket he drew a muffin in a napkin. Breaking it in half, he set it on the
pavement in front of me. I shuffled and gave a quiet caw of thanks, and he was
on his way.
The next morning, we did
the
same. That evening, I moved a loose stone on which he would have turned his
ankle, and he gave me meat. A few days later, the parish handyman removed the
broken fixture of the light. And a few weeks after that, the hawk recovered and
returned to the distant sky. Neither hawk nor light were seen again.
Since
those days, a friendship
has grown between myself and McReady—a greater friendship than I ever thought I
could forge with one of your kind. And at every funeral Mass, I come and perch
by his side. That is why you see me here today. I cannot vouch for certain that
your soul will reach the Moon; but I will travel with you as far as I can. No
dying is complete without a crow.
