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the crow god
He was as beautiful as dappled sunlight, with lung-coloured hair growing coarse from his skull and a tongue made of liquid silver that could pat against the sky if he opened his mouth wide enough. His skin was white-chalk, the shadows of night etched into his neck and chest like blocks of cement, thick and dark and making his features appear sharper - more birdlike.
The house around them creaked and shivered, tinsel laughter that rose and fell with each gasping, wooden breath. She watched the panels on the doorway bulge and warp with each magnificent reel of air and he sat in the corner clutching his wrists and staring dimly at the moon.
“Its rotting,” he told her, his eyes darker than the caverns of the world, dripping with fat like roasted meat as they skewed into her brain and probed lightly, sensuously at her thoughts. She wanted to shiver and hold her bare arms, take the swell of her bosom and hold it away from his clever hearing. That her heart was beating so ferociously made her blush in the dark, the house leering with grime-eyes and nervously rattling its windows to warn away the spirits outside. She hated the house, the walls leaking rain and thunder, the sand of the beach turning the floor into burning waves against her feet. Every morning she would wake up in a bed she had no memory of falling into, every morning she would look at the soles of her feet and the tips of her toes and note the peeling skin and raw flesh.
“What is?” she asked him, her perfumed neck stretching further into the shadows to catch a glimpse at his mottled wounds. He shifted them from her sight and she felt his blueblack eyes sending swift-swallow thrills down the ridges of her spine.
“The house. He rots without care. You could pay him more mind, he holds you in his belly and lets you scent his skin with flowers and spices. You should be kissing his eyes and sending him to sleep with candles and songs.” his voice turned icy, a whispering ice that coiled in the pit of her stomach and joined his eyes in pillaging her body.
“He only rots when you’re here.” She hissed back, arching her bones like a cat, ready to sink her claws into the meat of his thighs. He stared at her with his empty, ink eyes and his lips curled up in a vicious grin.
“Well, fledge, I’ll be gone in two morrows, when the moon is fat and full and the sea is quiet.” He was more demon than god, but she never once thought that he would be anything other than a creature of curiosity and mild manners. Crows, though savage and cruel, were warm-willed when it came to humans. “Besides,” he added smoothly, his words like silk on her skin, “This place reeks of your discontent.”
She stared at the space where his heart should be, his skin milk-white in the moonlight, the scars running up his chest and sides like vines of silver, glistening pulp and memories that she had no right to delve in. She swallowed back a retort and stood up, her knees cracking at the joints, her skin stretching over her flesh tight and uncomfortable.
“Goodnight, Maurice,” she murmured, padding her way to her bedroom for another night of restless sleep and dreams of blackeyed boys.
She woke to the sound of the sea, a lullaby of souls and sailors grinning ear to ear with black eyes and teeth the colour of curdled milk. The sky outside was grey and dull, a metallic thunder rolling over a barren city, something you couldn’t grasp and hold in your fingers because it would slip away like breath on skin and you would be left feeling empty again.
Someone was knocking at her door, a brisk thump, thump like her house had a heartbeat and the blood was pounding through its walls. The wind howled like wild dogs, dangerous and feral and ready to rip the flesh from her bones, whispering wickedly along the lines of her home, peeling at stones and crawling along walls to get inside to her. She threw on her woollen gown and padded down the stairs, running her fingers over the wallpaper as she went, soothing her poor weather-beaten house, who held her tight in his belly and kept her warm through such furious winters.
“Hello?” Her aunt peered at her through her door, all wild-eyed and windswept, her scarf tangled around her coat, her fingers clutching at her bag as if it might very well blow away. She let her in and trailing behind her, as sullen as a fat cat, was a tall man with eyes of liquid black and a green bag held loftily on his shoulder.
“A soldier?” She murmured, looking at his big thick boots and weathered luggage. His face was twisted in the scowl that all soldiers wear, one that has seen great tragedies and not had a chance to mourn for fallen friends.
“He’s on leave,” Aunty said, hurrying into her living room with wild, wide eyes. “He’s my friend’s nephew, I promised to give him a room for his stay, but…” She sighed and turned her awkward eyes to the flowery curtains spilling like milk froth over the windows. “We’ve no room anymore.”
“Oh.” She peered curiously below her lashes at such a beautiful man, with his long piano fingers and smooth-soft skin, standing aloof in her hallway, face pinched into an awkward frown, his black eyes sweeping over the papered walls and fine bone china she had hanging from a brown oak cabinet.
“I know this is awfully forward, but you’ve got such a large house and, well, what with having no children, we thought perhaps…”
“Oh!” She blinked, fingers clenching at her hips. “You want to stay here?”
The soldier lifted his chalk-face to stare at her, his eyes like blackened husks. Her spine tingled and watered at the base, flowing like rivers up to her shoulders.
“Well, Maurice will help around the house and he won’t invade your space. We… everyone will understand, of course.”
No one will talk.
How can you refuse a god?
Feed them milk and watch them explode.
At the market she paused in front of the fruit stall, heart looping gracelessly around her ribs, humming like fridges at night. There was hardly anything on the stand, a few bruised apples and pears, strawberries that were still green and sour, blackberries that were already on their way to rotting, writhing softly with maggots. The war had taken most of the food from their town, especially as there was a barn full of soldiers just beyond the town centre, and it was their duty to give bread and milk and fruit to their boys.
She missed the days of digging her fingers through soft limbs of bread, pulling taut and watching the dough rip carelessly. The smell of flour and earth, the tang of olive oil and fresh pasta and the crunch of apple as she bit deep into its flesh. She missed when she was a child and her mother would cook rice pudding, thick dollops of it that slumped listless and creamy in a bowl. The treacle tarts that rolled with sweet flavour and the roast dinners that warmed her belly like a hot bath.
Everything felt so empty now the war had come home.
She paused beside the fish stall, something that hadn’t really felt the effects of war. Though the soldiers required hearty meat, breads and fruit to keep them healthy in the prickling fingers of autumn, fish was not as heavily demanded. Fish didn’t keep well, unless smoked and papered properly and the efforts of war had no time for such preparation.
She smiled at the fish monger and his cherry-red cheeks balled in return.
Returning home was what she liked best. The market stalls made her stomach bubble with the smells of steaming food and crêpes being smothered in honey and cream as children pressed the palms of their hands to the wood of stalls in silent desperation. She liked the sounds of men calling prices and women chattering idly like swooping swallows gasping for insects. She enjoyed the market and the lonely walk from her crooked little house by the sea, but the walk home, heavy with paper bags, her scarf pressed tight to her neck, she liked even more.
There was something ineffably personal about walking home during autumn. The wind spat and blistered and the clouds unfurled their grey-watery wings in distaste and from a distance she could hear the sea thrash and moan against the steady earth, but to herself, bundled up tight in her winter clothes and clutching at her food and supplies, she could think.
Maurice was a very strange man.
It took time for her to remember that there was a soldier living in her home. Waking up in the morning with her nightgown tangled around her legs, breathing softly as the wind swoops and batters at the windows, she would sleepily roll onto her belly and listen to the sounds of a creature moving downstairs with growing dread, until she remembered him and grew uncomfortable. She would make him tea and leaves slices of cake for him and return to find them untouched and cold.
It was as if he didn’t eat.
As if he survived on eating time alone, sleeping curled up in the spare bedroom. Sometimes she would creak the door open and peep inside, her fingers clutching at the crying wood just to see the tuff of black hair poking through the covers, like a baby pushed from the womb. The heat of the room, so different from the cold in the rest of the house, would make her flush and take a deep breath and smell air thick with body and scent.
She didn’t see him all that much. He would move like a panther at night, stalking through her home and sometimes she would wake to hear the sly stutter and fizz of the radio playing quietly in the kitchen. In the morning, just as she was waking, she would catch the pads of his bare feet as he made his way to bed.
He didn’t talk. He didn’t look her in the eyes. She supposed he was so scarred from the war he wanted nothing to do with people anymore. She didn’t mind, not at all, because when she woke up she’d find the dishes cleaned and put away and the washing folded neatly outside her bedroom door and once she had entered the kitchen to find a vase full of sticks of berries and autumn flowers on the table. It had made her wonder if Maurice ventured outside often, wondered what the neighbours would think to a stranger lurking about the beach like some night-ghoul.
Catching sight of her crooked little house in the distance she hurried her steps, bending towards the wind so that it stroked past her body instead of her face. It was so cold, her cheeks must be flaming, she thought.
Inside the heat unfurled around her like there was some tall, grey woman folding blankets about her shoulders and kissing her forehead, welcoming her home. She often thought of her home as a person, as a stooped old woman who hummed lullabies at night and whispered spells to keep bad spirits away. Now that another person was living with her too it seemed that her house was even more content, with extra limbs and extra lungs breathing warmth and fingers trailing up the papered walls.
“Hello?” She called, pausing as she took off her coat and scarf. “Maurice?”
Must be asleep, the house whispered.
Her toes pressed against sweetwood as she crept like a morose cat towards his bedroom, her fingers itching against the door handle. “Maurice?” She murmured, tracing the bubbling paint, her heart clumping like train-cogs. “I’m making soup, do you want some?”
There was no answer, of course.
Carefully, hoping the wood would hold its breath and wait she pushed the door open and peered inside the gloom. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the shadows leaping from their perches and into the deepest corners of the room, scared of the light that filtered through the doorway.
She could see the curve of his bare shoulder as he slept, away from her, the sheets wrapped tight around his ribs like the arms of a lover. She felt heat pool in her belly and cheeks and was about to back away, leave him to his dreamless sleep, just keep his soup warm for later before she saw a box on the floor, full of old, crumpled papers and record sleeves.
an:
ah, i love this story. in 2007 i read a book of poems by ted hughs all about this crow and then i wrote this.
wish i could finish it. maybe i will one day.
happy new year, friends x
