The Kindly Dark

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 Lurkwood 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 perched 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 rest.”

He flapped a bit and cocked his head. “I see no light.”

“Fly down and perch there, lad.”

“In your rest?”

“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 Lurkwood 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 rest.

“Lurkwood 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 Lurkwood. 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.