Crows of Eldertree

I remember the days we’d run in the woods, Myron and me. I remember the crickets singing, the toads humming, the wind whispering. I remember the forest song.

In my mind it calls to me, as it did to him then, beckoning me to the center of the maze. In my mind I fly from this tower, fly far from its chains, and we’re together once more beneath the boughs of our hidden world.

When I was young we’d play in the woods on the edge of my father’s fields. We’d dig in the dirt for worms and other grubs, climb the few trees with branches low enough to allow it, and generally create mayhem. None of the other children would ever join us—they’d heard tales of dark, insidious things lurking just out of sight. We weren’t worried.

Where we played the trees were sparse enough not to frighten us but still thick enough for us to feel we had some privacy. We never ventured far from the edges, not at first—further in the trees got thicker and closer together like they’d hatched a plan to blot out the sun. As we got older Myron became curious about what was in there. He told me he heard a beautiful song that called him to the heart of the forest. I did my best to put on a brave face, but whenever he started cajoling I’d refuse.

Eventually Myron wore me down, or found the right argument, or maybe picked a time when I was in the right mood. I’m not sure why I relented, but I did.

So we dove deeper. We set out under a sky like blood and oranges, with the sunset at our backs. The shadows stretched, our own intermingling with those of the trees looming over us. We didn’t make it far that day, no more than fifty or so steps further than we usually played. I got scared and turned back. Before I could go Myron made me promise we could try again the next day.

That night I dreamt I was a bird. I had great big black wings but I never flew. I just perched on a branch and eyed two boys approaching, their tentative steps snapping twigs and crunching leaves underfoot. They were too far away for me to make out their faces but instinctively I knew it was us, Myron and me, striding into a world that didn’t want us. All night that dream lasted, playing over and over in my head until I woke the next morning.

I never told Myron about that dream. Even if I had I doubt it would have changed the way things turned out.

Every day for weeks we’d creep into the forest at sunset—each time getting further than we had the last—and every day it got a little less scary. The other children chided us, the adults shook their heads and dispersed grave warnings. Myron said they were all fools so many times I believed him. He had so much confidence it was hard to disagree with him. His presence alone inspired courage in me, both to turn my nose up at my parents’ admonishments and to keep up our pursuit of the heart of the forest.

A few weeks after the dream we saw the crow. It was sat up on a branch twenty feet above our heads and as we moved its head moved with us. Its eye followed as we approached, its beak dropping steadily lower as we came into the shade of its perch. My heart pounded as Myron bent down and scooped up a small rock from the soil. The stone sailed upward and hit the bird square in its puffed-out chest, but the crow did not move.

“Bloody strange,” Myron said as he stared at the motionless sentinel suspended above. “Tough old bird, we’ve found—”

A voice exploded in my head and I fell to the ground, hands uselessly clawing at my ears. I saw Myron on the ground doing the same and knew my agony was not solitary.

GO NO FURTHER. IT IS NOT MEANT FOR YOU.

My fingers scrabbled in the dirt as I rolled and flailed, blood pounding in my head. The pain was white hot but all-present, as if I’d been dunked in a cookpot at full boil. I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel anything but that searing agony and the deafening drumbeat of my own heart.

I don’t know how long that lasted. It may have been minutes, though it felt like days. When I came to, I was still in the forest’s eternal twilight, though Myron and the bird were gone. In their place was a shallow rut leading deeper into the forest. I’ve never been much of a tracker, but it was clear to even me that something had been dragged that way.

I called for Myron, turning in circles and doing my best to peer into the darkness. The forest’s answer was silence.

What was there to do but follow the track? It wound seemingly randomly; its direction was fitful and never straight. I followed as closely as I could, all the while getting more and more lost in the maze of trees all round.

After a while I began to wonder whether the trail had an end, and the fear of an endless chase became too much for my young mind to fathom. I turned to go back but the trail had disappeared behind me. Where only seconds ago had been a clear furrow in the earth there was naught to see. The forest floor lay untouched.

I spent a few minutes gibbering, sitting on the ground, and rocking back and forth. I cursed myself, wishing my will had been stronger when Myron was persuading me, and regretting that I had allowed him to stoke the weak sparks of courage in my heart. I was lost in the forest; how far I had come I did not know. Eventually I saw there was no way but forward. I stood and followed the trail once more.

I heard my quarry before I saw it. The cries of hundreds of birds pierced the silence of the forest all at once. They came from ahead, though the trees between us obstructed my view. I tucked my chin and forged onward until I came to a dense thicket like a living wall of brambles that gently curved away into the distance on either side. There was a small opening low to the ground, and though I was pricked by many thorns as I squeezed through, I managed to reach the other side.

I came into a clearing, a great circle of utterly still grass ringed in by the thicket. The ground sloped towards a small hill in the center on which stood the largest tree I had ever seen. Its trunk extended far into the moonlit sky, its branches grasping at stars high above. Although it had no leaves, I could see it was otherwise adorned, though with what I couldn’t surmise from that distance.

I approached hesitantly, climbing the hill with tentative steps. My legs halted abruptly when I could make out the tree’s inhabitants.

Each branch, from tip to union, was covered with crows. There were far more than I could count, and each had a beady eye fixed upon me. Larger figures hung interspersed and as I came into range, I saw that they were bodies. They dangled precariously by their throats, where twigs had grown round and taken hold. Most had rotted and were little more than skeletons, but one was still bleeding and struggling feebly.

It was Myron.

I sank to my knees, speechless in the face of the horror before my eyes. One of my hands reached out of its own accord, trying to surpass the seemingly insurmountable distance between me and my friend. He did not notice.

As I watched, the crows on his branch lifted off, letting the branch drift upward just for a second before they landed heavily and forced it back down. Myron flailed, and in the instant the birds landed I heard a sharp crack. His neck twisted at an impossible angle and the life left my friend’s eyes.

A lone crow flew from its perch as the rest watched. It landed before me, and I knew it to be the bird from my dream as it spoke in my mind.

THIS WAS NOT MEANT FOR YOU. NONE SHALL KNOW.

I tried to speak but found I had no words. A few seconds later, everything went black.

I woke screaming in my bed. My parents rushed in from the other room. I told them nothing, they told me I’d had a nightmare and should go to back to sleep. I made myself believe them.

But the next morning I could not find Myron. I searched the entire village for days but found no trace. My parents asked what I was doing and I told them I was looking for him, but got only puzzled looks in response. They did not know who Myron was, said they’d never seen nor heard of any boy by that name. They kept asking why I was so panicked, why I was searching for an imaginary boy. They knew my fear to be real but did not know its inception. I was too frightened of the forest to tell them.

For days I could not sleep. I was scared the crows would come for me, that they’d string me up as they had Myron. I kept silent about what had happened.

But life went back to normal. The village did not notice the missing boy, and even Myron’s parents acted as if nothing had happened. I grew complacent. The other children would pester me, and in my shame I began to believe what had happened in the forest really was nothing more than a bad dream. I made myself believe it was fantasy because I could not stomach the thought I had left my friend to the birds.

Years passed, and I grew. I worked in the fields with my father and made friends with the others close in age to myself. I refused to go near the forest, however, and got many questions about why. For years I kept my silence on the matter, and it grew to be quite the mystery in their minds.

Our village flourished in that time, with many new faces setting up homes of their own to profit on our bustling trade of grain and poultry. Once a week we’d have a great bonfire on the village green where we’d laugh, drink, and tell stories.

One of those nights I’d gotten too far into my cups and was swept up in the merrymaking when a young lad—near as young as I had been when I played in the forest—asked why I never went near it any longer. Everyone gathered round the fire. They could see on my face their mystery was about to be solved.

I told them all of my nightmare from so long ago. Of the forest, and my friend Myron, and the crows with their eyes of death, and the great hanging tree in the clearing. I’ll admit I may have embellished the parts my memory was foggy on, but I drew gasps, oohs, and aahs at each of the interesting bits. At the end they slapped me on the back and those of us old enough to quaffed a tankard of ale together.

The next morning, they were all gone.

I stumbled through an abandoned village, past homes and shops that were full of light and life the night before. All was still. All was silent. The dirt was lined with hundreds of furrows, just like the one I’d followed to Myron. Each led into the forest.

With tears in my eyes and my heart in my throat I ran, a madman sprinting between trees. The tracks all came together to form one big rut, and I ran alongside it deeper and deeper until I came to the thicket once more. I pushed through and entered the clearing.

The tree stood on its hill, grander than before. It had grown leaves, though wasn’t as full as it should have been in midsummer. The crows remained, a mass of black with glistening eyes fixed upon me. Their heads were downturned and their bodies flat against the branches. They appeared almost somber, as if a great weight pressed down upon them and they were struggling to bear it.

My friends and neighbors swayed from branches, on their faces rictus anguish. Men, women, and children I had grown with and loved bled before me. A few noticed me through their pain and reached out, their eyes begging for mercy, but all were silent.

I made it halfway up the hill before I collapsed to my knees and retched bile into the torrent of blood cascading down the hill around me. Crimson splashed my legs as my knees hit soft ground. I raised my head back to the tree and wept.

The crows lifted off, landed, and life was extinguished before me with a crack.

As it had so long ago, a lone crow left its perch and alighted before me.

NONE SHALL KNOW.

In a burst of feathers the other crows swept toward me. I was enveloped in a whirling mass of black and could see nothing but their small forms circling all round. The ring tightened around me, closer and closer, and a myriad of beaks and talons raked my flesh. My mouth opened to scream, and a crow snatched my tongue in its maw, ripped it from its roots. Blood filled my mouth as my own gurgling shriek pierced the deafening roar of their gales. Both sounds were taken from me when they dove for my ears. In my mind, the lone crow spoke once more.

NO OTHER SHALL KNOW.

I do not know why those beasts spared me. I do not know why I still live.

They think me a madman, the other inhabitants of this tower. They say they found me in a puddle of my own blood and tears, on a road outside the forest where a village nobody remembers used to stand.

But I do remember. I am not mad. It was no nightmare.

I am not mad…