Foreword: The Jealous Crow

Night: it was her favorite time.  She especially enjoyed the crisp, chilly clean air of late autumn nights, when the fire was lit for warmth as well as for light.  Tonight was especially lovely.  Through the thin glass panes she could see the dark outline of naked trees against the deep indigo sky.  The perfect full moon hung large and low, whispering promises of mystery.

The scene outside carried to her nostalgic remembrances of the Old Stories she had heard growing up.  In the span of Grey-Night, there is the Long Perfect Stretch of Time.  Well after midnight, when everything is deeply asleep and the despair of the day is released in the sigh of the Dream, one would sometimes hear the night-bird.  Offering his lonely, longing song to the deep of the Night and the power of the Dream, the night-bird sang his prayer.  It was said that the purity of his voice could pierce through the Veil of Separation.

She sauntered slowly, dreamy-eyed, toward the fireplace and her favorite rocking chair.  Her long skirts swept up a few stray ashes from the piney wood floor.  She felt a tingle in her nose and heard a scratching tap at the window.

She sneezed from the stirred ash, or was it the smoke?  Now that she took notice, there were tendrils of smoke starting to wind and curl like vines up the posts of her bed.  The floor was now an undulating foggy mat, growing and climbing up the bases of the walls.  She could not see her feet.

She heard a slight scratching tap at the window again and, pivoting quickly, looked up to see a straggly naked branch claw irritatingly at the thin glass pane.  

The wind stirred awake and the air shifted moodily outside.  Clouds covered the moon, diffusing soft light over the bare forest trees and pale shady ground.  The Night-scape shifted into greys and greens; soon everything outside appeared as present, as distant and as shifting as Dream-scape.  

“Hssss” the wind shhhsshhd and howled and the tapping scrape at the far window continued.  “Seneca…” the wind called her name.  The clawed branch tap-tap-tapped in rhythm to her quickening heartbeat.  A pair of vivid green eyes peered at her through the darkened window.  “Seneca…” she heard again.  One eye disappeared and the other singularly latched its beryl green stare onto her.

“Let me in, so that I may praise your beauty, Seneca,” said the wind, then blinking one verdant eye and claw-tapping outside the far window.

Chills drew up her arms and she shivered from the swiftly creeping sensation.  She would not break her line of sight from the vibrant green gaze.  “No,” she said with a confidence that belied her racing pulse.  

Her feet were cold, numb and unresponsive as she tried to take a step.  The cloth-like foggy smoke clung to her ankles and calves, keeping her quite easily fixed in place.  Her doe-eyes dilated until they were nearly all black.  Was this a dream?

“Oh Seneca,” the windy voice whispered through the crack at the window.  The silhouette of a black bird beak chipped at the glass thrice before she heard, “Come to me, beautiful Mistress!  I have many wonderful gifts to give to you.  I have been seeking you for such a long time, my lovely.  Open the window, darling girl,” the voice was a softly beckoning, compelling coo.  “Your dark hair is rich and deep like burgundy, the slow and heady scent of which makes my mouth water.  I dream to sip a kiss from the top of your glorious crown.”

Vaguely, she could feel a warm breath upon the nape of her neck, and the top of her head was dancing with heat from lively licks of fire.  Her hand slowly snaked up her body to touch her shoulder, neck and head, gingerly feeling with measured caution for the presence of another.  Was this a dream?

“Seneca… Seneca, lovely Seneca,” the voice whispered and cooed, subtle vibrations accented in such a way that her name became a luscious, sensual and provocative sound, pleasing and arousing to hear.  “Seneca…”

Her eyes closed, the hard-lined gaze she held with that singular green eye was now broken by her lack of will.  “Mother,” she heard herself say out loud and without thought; the cry was more akin to a plea.

The light in the room dimmed darkly as the fire in the hearth deadened.  Smokey fog rose up to choke the girl, circling her with cloying closure.  Her body felt wrapped in sticky sweet warmth; pure putrid evil, like dark molasses, dripped down from the top of her head and clung to her skin.  Her body was slowly being consumed by jealousy.  Digestive residue slid down her face and she inhaled the acrid sweetness of death.  It was very, very difficult for her to move.  Was she in a dream?

The wind flew down the chimney, resin and soot fluttering around like a murder of crows.

“Vengeful creature!” a large green eyed crow sneered and pecked at the top of the girl’s head. Seneca tried to toss up her arms to protect herself, and felt the cinch of the bird’s beak bite a chunk of flesh from her hand instead of her scalp.  A deep rush of blood soon surfaced from the wound to spill and stain.

“How dare you try and keep your beauty from me!  You are so selfish!” The crow screeched and pecked again, this time not only grabbing a big bite from her cheek, but also leaving 3 deeply trenched claw-marks on the side of her shoulder and neck by her collarbone.

Her sight became blurred by tears and blood.  She felt woozy from the lack of air.  Trying to speak, her mouth parted in agony, ready to scream, but not a sound spilled from her lips.  A creamy film covered her vision.

Seneca felt the black-bird swoop down again and again from its lofty heights above, diligently plucking away bits of flesh from her torn cheek and now-opened neck and shoulder.  The scavenger laughed coarsely.  “You can’t keep your beauty away from me, my lovely little girl; it’s mine!  It belongs to ME!” With a gluttonous cluck, the crow perched on the girl’s shoulder and began to pick heartily at the tender flaps of skin along her slender throat.

Wantonly gloating with glee, the green-eyed crow gave a guttural squawk and several other black birds came to roost on the girl, ready to feast.  Each crow began to pick and pluck at her, until she was completely enveloped by a mass of furiously flapping feathers and gorging black beaks.

The willow pendant started to shine with her dying light.  She felt a warmth in the center of her chest spread throughout her body evenly, extending in all directions.  

A high-pitched scream assaulted the air, the sharp sound ricocheting from each stony crack.  A flash of bright opalescent white lasting as long as a breath suffused everything with opaque stillness.

The light dissipated.  The stillness remained.  

It was very dark now.  The fire in the hearth was completely out; there were not even any orange embers glowing.  The sconces along the walls, the candles in their holders, each torch and lamp and lantern, all had been snuffed out.

There was a slow creaking from the old rocking chair.  In the darkness sat an ancient, bent woman.  Her hands, spotted and time- withered, lay with unevenly curved fingers on the knobby arms of the birch-root rocker.  Dull, grey hair tangled like a crow’s nest around her head and shoulders.  She lurched forward, pointing a single, talon-black finger toward the silhouette of someone emerging from the shadows beyond the dampened fireplace.