The Jealous Crow Chapter 3

The dawn would be too quick in coming.  During these final hours together, Seneca and her mother spent these moments in quiet reflection.  Rare words were exchanged, but when spoken were thoughtful and loving.  Her mother quickly put together a bag with provisions for her physical nourishment: a few red apples, a handful of dried figs and another of dried almonds, a slender jar of olives, an alternate set of clothing and a few trinkets of memorabilia she hoped would bring her daughter some emotional comfort.  Neither of them knew what Seneca would face on this immediately pending, forced journey.

The old crone simply continued to rock back and forth, humming an oddly familiar tune.  The melody was simple, compelling and hauntingly beautiful.  She recognized it, but could not place how or why.  Was it from a dream?  It was as if she were caught in the circle of time, the repeating notes of the meandering melody and the eerie rhythmic creaks of the rocking chair plucked at the strings of her memories.  The maid closed her eyes, wondering how the old woman knew this tune and why it chilled her very soul to hear it.

Seneca could feel herself altering further as daybreak approached.  Her mind was sharply attuned, but her body felt much lighter; sounds, colors and scents were losing their richness.  Her mother’s voice became fainter and the outline of her form became fuzzy.  Seneca rose quickly from her place by the fire to go and embrace the mother of her childhood.  As she approached, arms and eyes wide open, the world she knew faded completely into mist.  Nothing remained but the old woman and the sound of her low graveled laughter.

Seneca drew in a deep breath and surveyed her surroundings.  There was nothing, truly.  Mystified, she turned all the way around, dark eyes drinking naught but milk-colored mist.  She viewed no discernible form aside from her own body and the dark mass of the old woman.  Nothing else could she see in the white thicket of fog.  

“Well now,” Seneca stated evenly and turned to face the crone.  “What do we have here?”  The young woman’s eyes seized the other's gaze and held it there with quiet, unassuming authority.  “Tell me what you know.”  The sound of her voice was muffled by the heavy tomb of cloying mist surrounding them, a strained string of sound stretching to be caught by fog-cottoned ears.

The old woman's body clenched tightly and she started to shake.  A few attempts were made to cough.  After she had finished her bout of gritty laughter, she stated evenly, “I know many things.”  Sipsis cocked her head with amused annoyance, dark shadows dancing in the hollows behind the green orbs of her eyes.   “What would you like to know first, milady,” she asked, her brittle voice licked with filmy cynicism.  Thin lips curled around grey-stained teeth as she regarded Seneca with wayward reflection.

With a dose of ire, Seneca sucked in a sharp breath, held the shock of cold moisture fully in her lungs then slowly released it to mingle with the mist.  Droplets of dew coalesced and clung to the long, loose strands of her black hair, beaded her brows, laid claim upon her body entirely.  Luminescent hands smoothed down the front paneling of pleats at her waist, the willowy fabric of her dress clinging to her form with its heavy embrace.  Her vision was clouded, her skin wetted with blankets of shifting mists, but her mind was undampened and her will was unwashed.  She would know fully of her circumstance and stepped a pace to close the distance between them.

She implored of the crone, “What is this place?  Who are you?  Why am I here? What happens next?”  As the unnerving initial shock of her present situation started to subside, the rush of questions began to bubble and boil, a torrent of tumbling force.

The old crow-woman sneered and lifted an arm to broadly sweep the area of mist, “This is the Ethereal Plane, milady.  The world you knew is separate from this place.”  Her voice creaked with age as she continued, “I am called Sipsis, and now, because of that curse you’re wearing around your neck,” the crone lifted a long bent finger and pointed with her haggard sharp nail to the willow-tree pendant, “I am bound to you.”

Somehow Seneca had known this about their relationship; something had indeed altered both of them during the transformation.  Sipsis had become her thrall.  The realization disgruntled her.  This was a true curse indeed.

The old woman continued, “You’re here because the Fates have deemed it, dearie.”  The crone cackled morosely, “Just as They have deemed me serve it with you.”  So it was true, then.  Both of them were trapped here in this foggy reality where nothing else seemed to exist.  Quietly absorbing these pieces of information, Seneca allowed the hag to continue in answering her last question.

Nothing had prepared her for what happened next.  

 “Follow me,” Sipsis creaked with a sickening twist.  There was a flush of dark feathers and the old woman was once again a green-eyed crow.  The ebon bird squawked and started to fly off into the mist.  Blinking in disbelief, Seneca hurried to catch up to the large, flying crow.  In her haste, somewhere in the midst of the mist, she left the bag of provisions her mother had given to her.

Ruefully, Seneca lost sight of the crow.  It was too easy to lose track of anything not more than two feet nearby in these cloudy conditions.  The young woman stalled her pace and cursed her bad luck.  Not wishing to disorient herself further, she stood still to get her bearings.  While she looked around the foggy terrain, she became increasingly alarmed at the vast nothingness that she perceived.  She strained her ears to hear the flapping of dark wings or a call from the crow to give her a sense of direction, a sense of hope in this dense white-scape.  

Nothing.  That’s what came to her, and that’s what she was in right now.  Hearing nothing, seeing nothing, even noting no discernible scent, she started to walk purposefully straight ahead.  She was bound to find something if she kept moving in one direction.  Sipsis went somewhere, didn’t she?  Blasted bird.  What good was a servant if they left you?  Suddenly, she stopped straight in her tracks with the realization.

“Sipsis, come here,” she said clearly and a bit more loudly than necessary.  The rook was soon flying in large circles above her head.  It was to her relief to spot that fowl bird, troublesome as she may be.

In a fit of dark hurried flurry, the crow swooped past Seneca's shoulder and emitted a shrieking "Caw!" near her head.  Another, closer sweeping pass of the bird lifted the young woman's hair, the current of force carrying the crow's piercing call right to her ear. "Fly!" called the crow and then flew up and away into the sky-sea of mist once again.

Though Seneca was ready to keep her sight locked on Sipsis when she spotted her, she was not ready for that piece of advice.  “Fly?” she murmured to herself in surprise.  “I can…” it was spoken in question more than stated as she fully extended her ebony wings for the first time.  “Yes,” she soon was nodding, the ease of moving her wings without will was effortless, as if she were born knowing.  She had only forgotten.