The Raven's Eye

The rapping stirred Edgar from his slumber. Just the wind, spitting pinecones from the conifers against his door. Then it rapped again. He sat up wondering who was here on this dark blustery night and his heart did flutter with a sprig of fear, though he did not know if that was right.

Sliding his fingers over the cold glass of his coffee tabletop he left a smear that distracted his thoughts as it obscured the collection carefully archived below. There were shells, a variety of multi-hued metal nuts and bolts, bits of dried bone, a single earring, paper clips in different colors, a set of car keys and various colorful pebbles. The most prized was the silver charm, of a baby swaddled with the inscription ‘Pallas’ engraved on the back of the blanket. This gift he had placed in a bed of cotton batting and displayed it under the glass in the very center of the table.

Elenore had celebrated her joy of pending motherhood by feeding the crows that gathered in the forest. He helped. In the winter he strung a clothesline to hang the suet and, in the spring, he fashioned a giant wooden bowl on his lathe that he hung from a bough and she filled, insisting on teetering on the step ladder in her swollen state, with sunflower seed harvested from the autumnal garden.

When Elenore and the baby passed, the crows began bringing him these gifts, and each one he took and gently placed in a small glass Gerber’s baby food jar before arraying it under the glass top of the coffee table. The tabletop was now full, and the overflow of the collection was arranged on glass shelving throughout the room.

Again, a rapping but now at the window.

“Who’s there?” he cried. But only the wind replied.

He stood, pulled his torn, stained t-shirt down over his scrawny chest, flung open the door and stared into the murky dark of the forest, but his eyes could discern nothing in the gloom beyond. He grabbed a packet of kindling from the stack beside the door and yelled at the dark once more.

“Who’s there?” But only the creak of the swaying pines groaned a reply.

He started to close the door, when from the shadows emerged a saintly raven of lore.

She was statuesque. Twice the size of any of the crows they had fed. She had a Bowie knife of a beak and a thick stole of black feathers around her neck like a sable. She bounded, hopping on two legs before spreading her majestic wings and gently alighting on the coffee table where she nestled over top the charm named Pallas.

“What are you doing?” cried Edgar before he saw the gold ring clasped in the beak of the bird. She dropped the ring on the glass top where it gracefully rolled in ever diminishing circles before settling with a metallic song.

“What is this? A gift? For me?”

“Evermore,” spoke the bird.

“A clever trick, you can speak.”

“Evermore,” repeated the Raven.

“Now you mock me. For I know the word is Nevermore. You understand? They are gone, both, baby, and Madonna. Gone.” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

The Raven stretched her head forward as if to speak. Instead, she cocked her head and fixed her black eye first on the ring and then, twisting her neck, she peered at Edgar before looking once more at the ring.

Edgar stared at the ring and saw it was inlaid with an obsidian stone that mimicked the eye of the Raven and as he picked it up, he swore the jewel winked at him.

“Evermore!” spoke the Raven once more.

“Thank you for the gift. I will treasure it.” Edgar placed it into an empty jar, whereupon the bird advanced on him, plucked the ring from the jar and placed it back on the table.

“Rest assured, I was going to give it a seat of honor.”

“Evermore,” repeated the bird and she fixed her eye on Edgar and raised her wings.

“They are gone. Don’t you see? All around me I have entombed myself with the gifts of your clan and now you have come to seal my fate. I understand and I thank you. You may go now.”

But the Raven did not leave and instead pushed the ring with her beak towards his outstretched fingers.

“You want me to wear it? Fine why not. It looks like it will fit my stubby talon.”

And as he pressed it on, the Raven stretched up tall and preening her plumage she grew into the slender form of his betrothed, Elenore and the table transformed into a crib with a wide-eyed babe mesmerized by a dancing mobile strung with the enchanting crows’ gifts.

“Cast out the darkness,” she said. “Now is the time for light. Forevermore.” And she smiled upon him.