Emily Hawthorne and the Crow

My hair was in tight curls, pinned on each side. The dress I was wearing was far better than anything I had ever bought myself, also trying to remember why I’m even wearing it. But it was full of lace, layered over white satin, hanging with crystal gems and glitter embroidered in the fabric. My skin golden brown as if it had been a little more than sun kissed. Walking around this desolate ballroom I looked for something to drink. I felt, parched. Beyond that.

I walked towards the two stained glass doors of this palace-like house where I entered what appeared to be an indoor garden, a greenhouse. Vines wrapping around everything in sight. Roses biting with thorns and a beam of light peaking in through the broken glass. This place had not been kept at all, but it was attractive nevertheless, in an eerie sort of way.

I took a seat upon the fountain bench where the water was crystal as a diamond. The water flowing and overlapping in a downward spiral, I reached my hand in and cupped a small handful and took a gulp. Realizing the urgency, I began to cup another, and another, and began to indulge myself, when suddenly I heard a metal chair fall over, clinking the concrete floor. I popped my head up in a swift movement noticing a very large bird, a crow. He released a scream, because crows sound like anything but a casual chirp. I glanced at the black bird and continued to drink.

“Emily Hawthorne,” A voice croaked.

Pausing, then slowly raising my head keeping my eyes down, I glanced over my shoulder, hands still cupping the fountain.

“Did you, just..” I paused in question.

The bird just blinked.

We starred at eachother for a moment. Wondering how long I had been here and how dehydrated I had been.

“Did you talk to me?” I asked.

“Emily, Hawthorne,” It repeated.

“How do you know my name, who are you?!” -I muttered in fright, jolting my back toward the fountain and now facing the crow.

“You look, so…” Pausing before finishing his sentence.

“Who are you?” I asked again.

“I am crow.”

“I see that,” Unamused at the vague response.

“Other than who I am, you don’t have any other questions for me, like, what you are doing here? Bound by these walls and why you haven’t been able to escape? Or why you’re so thirsty?”

“I, I…”

“You don’t remember?”

“I guess I don’t,” Looking down dazed and confused.

“Your sister Scarlet sent me. She said you’d be weary when you arose. After being left at the altar you fainted, and ran off.”

That explains the white rags, glancing at my gown.

“Collin!” I exclaimed.

“You remember?” The crow replied.

“A little,” Rubbing my head.

“…how long have I been out??”

“Well, considering you’ve been here since 1803 and it’s the year 2029, I’d say awhile.”

“What?!” Raising my voice.

“Where’s Scarlet! I gotta get out of here!” Rising to my feet and heading for the doors, but the room appeared to be a dead end.

Widening my eyes- I turned back to the bird, who seemed to have vanished.

Squeaking directly above me, I flinched looking up.

Flapping his wings, he landed on a vine-y gargoyle.

“Your stubbornness is wasting my time, girl,” He blinked.

“I’m listening” I surrendered taking a seat.

“So you said you knew Scarlet?”

“Yes”

“The day of your wedding when your dashing fellow did not show you took off sprinting, and you just ran and ran into the barren lands. You continued for quite some time and around dusk Scarlet sent out the troops worried for your well being. But, when after some time, when you weren’t found, the search was called off.”

“A few months later, Scarlets body was found. In the desert. Dehydrated. The crows pecking her lifeless body.”

“What?! Scarlets dead?”

“Do you think you are alive?” He questioned, blinking and swiftly twitching his head in a fast bird movement.

“Scarlet summoned me to give you a message. Her spirit lingers on amongst the horizon.In 1803 when you never returned, Scarlet went searching in the dessert but wasn’t found until months later with the crows.”

“And me?”

“As for you, you landed here. In Scarlets old mansion in the desert. It didn’t look this way in 1803 though, the bird said bobbing it’s head. The curtains were a bit, less, ….”

-hesitating then responded, “web-y.”

“You said I’d been here awhile?”

“Yes, you’ve been a slumber for quite some time now, decades, even centuries. It varies from person to person.”

“Which is why Scarlet sent you, a crow?”Questioning myself.

“She could’ve sent a bluejay,” I said in a bit of sarcasm, but continuing, “Crows are so…..daunting,” Sizing the crow up and down.

“Now, you understand,” He said.

I woke up to a piercing blazing string of sunlight. My lips peeled as a hard shell. Grabbing a handful of silky sand slowly lifting my head. Heaving with a powerful thirst, I coughed up a blow of dusty powder, my tongue clenched to the roof my mouth, scraping, like sandpaper.

“SQWAK!”

A loud screech came from behind me. A crow flying off into the distance.

Exhaling, and realizing I was only hallucinating or dreaming, but still in my white musty ole wedding gown. Remembering that Collin leaving me for Scarlet, was not a hallucination.

I sat up and began to stumble, and wobble upon my frail legs. My skin scorching with burns.

Engulfed in the desert's parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind.