Queen of the Crows Read online

  “Well, I would lose my position as a lady-in-waiting if I did,” she said carefully. She paused, extending her neck as regally as she could. She tilted her head away from him slightly, but looked deep into his eyes, with a sidelong glance. “It would need to be worth it to me,” she said in a cool, calculated tone.

  Lustre felt a strange surge of attraction flicker through his body. He had never even bothered to think about mating before. But it would seem odd if he didn’t get on with it eventually. And this one had a thirst for High society. Or so it seemed.

  Keeping Careen close shall be useful to me regardless of which side she is on. I will play this carefully.

  “Come,” he said as tenderly as he could, “let’s get you home safe.”

  Careen straightened with a smile. “Before we return, Lustre…”

  Oh, it’s so delicious to say his name to his face! She tingled all over. I must ask now, while I have a chance.

  “Could I fly high with you? I must always stay at the princess’s level.” She leaned towards him with a hint in her tone. “But I am quite sure I could fly much higher if allowed.”

  Now it was Lustre who felt his feathers rise. He cleared his throat to regain his composure.

  Is she saying what I think she is saying? I would certainly need a mate if I’m to be king.

  “I understand how frustrating that can be,” he said carefully.

  Their eyes locked and an unspoken tingle of conspiracy rushed between them.

  “I guess we shall share two secrets, then,” Lustre said coldly.

  He launched off the branch and volleyed up over an updraft. Careen followed suit. They soared up into the darkness. She had never felt so free.

  Lustre watched her as she carefully worked the gusts to her advantage, taking height.

  “The wind is stronger up here!” she whispered gleefully.

  He nodded, as if to say: It’s true, but don’t caw about it. Careen understood.

  They circled ever higher. He had never flown with a female to these heights. She seemed to be navigating just fine.

  Wordlessly, he asked with his eyes if she was okay. She blinked back with a smile, gazing up as assurance. They smiled broadly and lofted up another tree’s length.

  Careen couldn’t believe how much she could see. The city lights spread out like an electric spider into the dark web of outskirts. Lustre flew even higher above her. Careen had reached her limit. She admired how effortless he made it look.

  If Lustre were to become king, then I could be queenmate, she schemed.

  He tipped his beak down towards the roost and they spiralled silently back down to the trees.

  The next morning, Elsa awoke late again. She found Claire’s thin body sleeping stiffly on the couch. The sprawl of art supplies and empty coffee pitcher on the table in front of her indicated it had been another late night.

  Even when she’s resting she looks tense.

  Elsa decided not to put the kettle on. She wanted Claire to get as much sleep as she could on her day off.

  It frustrated Elsa that she couldn’t help Claire more. It wasn’t fair how much weight Claire carried for this family.

  Elsa recognized how deep that tension ran. She knew that Dana had inherited the same mental illness that Gran had and that Claire had grown up in a household where nothing was certain, just like Elsa had.

  Elsa had often worried about this generational affliction. She wondered if Claire had ever questioned, as she had, whether she might one day turn out to be crazy, too.

  These thoughts were too stressful and Elsa squashed them down.

  She grabbed an apple from the bowl and wrote a note that said:

  At the park.

  She slipped out quietly.

  When Elsa entered the woods, she could tell the crows were at court by the caws that rang out from the direction of Dead Man’s Pond. She hoped the queen had returned.

  Out of respect, she opted to take the path that would allow her to peer at the throne from behind at a distance, amongst a thick grove of closely growing pines. She didn’t want her presence to disturb them.

  She peeked over the hill. The princess still stood meekly on the throne.

  “Berry must be avenged!” shouted Billow from the tree line beyond.

  “Hear, hear!” agreed many in the group.

  “Why do we put up with the gull menace? This is our park! Those ugly palefeathers should find other shoreline. There is plenty to be had,” added Wrapper.

  “Palefeathers!” “Palefeathers!” “Out with the lowly palefeathers!” chanted the masses.

  “The queen has always brokered peace with the gulls,” piped up Boughbend from his place beside the throne.

  The princess listened carefully. “’Tis true.”

  “But that was before they took our Berry,” Lustre added quickly with a conniving tone.

  “Hmm,” said the princess. “That is also true.” She tried to sound like she knew what she was doing.

  “Take them out!” “Lesser, ugly, savage birds!” “They are lower than low!” “Send them back to the sea!” The jeers became wild and angry in the trees.

  Lustre tried to contain his joy.

  Boughbend seethed with frustration. “ENOUGH!” he bellowed deeply.

  “Arr! Arr! Arr!” squawked Cracks from the sidelines, imitating a gull. “Let’s get rid of the humans and foxes while we are at it. The queen will be proud of us for declaring war on the whole park in her absence!” He did an awkward somersault and landed on his bum, with his spindly legs spread-eagle.

  Boughbend shook his head, impatient with the foolish antics of the jester.

  “We have no proof it was a gull at all. Her neck was crushed.” Boughbend looked up apologetically towards Ruffle and Popcan. “Forgive me,” he said to them with respect, and then turned back to the group. “You have all seen how clumsy they are. A webbed foot could not inflict that kind of damage.”

  The group of crows all sat back on their branches in silence, considering the truth to that statement.

  Lustre tightened in his place, his innards curdling as he cursed in his mind that useless hunk of muscle Boughbend.

  Cracks scooped up a circular piece of birch bark on to his head and let it fall over his eyes. He pawed blindly at the air, moving straight towards Lustre.

  “My crown! My crown! Someone has toppled my crown! Help! I can’t see. Where is the queen?” Cracks pawed around foolishly in a circle.

  Lustre gritted his beak. With an uncustomary loss of composure, he batted the birch-bark crown off of Cracks’s head with an angry swat.

  “Yes, where is the queen?” “We want the queen!” ‘Where is she?” “We need our queen!” erupted in a burst from all the crows in the trees.

  I will kill that jester as he sleeps, seethed Lustre, his claws squeezing deep into the earth where he stood.

  He had completely lost control. Lustre could do nothing but wait for several minutes for the din to subside.

  “Our queen!” “Bring us the queen!” “She must be found!” “Summon the queen!!!”

  Careen watched anxiously as she saw Lustre trembling, ever so slightly, with frustration. She knew it was not her place to say anything on the court floor, but she couldn’t stand idly by and watch her love be humiliated like this.

  When she felt like she could be heard, she shouted out in a strong, clear voice, “Has she gone to the Hollowing Tree?”

  You stupid girl.

  Lustre’s eyes shot daggers towards Careen. She crumpled with hurt, thinking he would have been appreciative of her bravely crossing the line for him.

  “The Hollowing Tree!” “The Hollowing Tree!” “She must be there!” shouted the masses.

  “Ahem!” shrieked the princess, flapping her wings to get everyone’s attention.

&nb
sp; The crows settled.

  “It has been three days, Lustre. Don’t you think we should go check just to find out?” asked the princess in a nasally voice.

  Lustre straightened his feathers. “It is very uncustomary, m’lady, to disturb the monarch on their sojourn. Plus, a king or queen always announces their plan to visit the Hollowing Tree to the group. But if that is what you think is best—” He gave a deep bow and extended his wing in a slow, grand wave to the ground. “—then by all means.”

  “Good. Do it, then,” she snipped.

  Lustre sat up with a jolt. Despite Lustre hinting several times at how it would be prudent for him to know it, the queen had never yet told him her name.

  He certainly did not want the rest of the group to know this.

  “Perhaps Boughbend, as her trusted protector, is a more appropriate choice?” he asked as sweetly as he could.

  “I have never been made privy to the queen’s name, sire,” Boughbend responded.

  Good. Lustre’s competitive nature flickered with a surge of joy. He was never quite sure if the queen considered Boughbend to be Higher Crow than him or not. She seemed to enjoy his company so much more.

  But in truth, this was bad. Now he had no one to foist the mission off on.

  “Naturally,” Lustre said condescendingly. “How silly of me.”

  Boughbend burned with rage. You haughty crow, do as your princess commands. Now! He would have said it out loud and given Lustre a swift peck to the forehead, but he knew it would not please the queen. All he could do was lock eyes with him and puff up his chest.

  Lustre stiffened. If Boughbend ever turned on him, he knew he was no match for his strength. Lustre’s only defence would be to fly as high as he could, and that might be seen as a sign of weakness and cowardice to the other crows. Plus, he would have to come down at some point.

  Lustre smiled his most charming smile and turned back to the princess.

  “My lady, I am all too happy to oblige your every wish. But since the Hollowing Tree is a sacred space reserved for royalty, don’t you think it best that you, the princess, be the one to disturb the queen’s peace?”

  “But I don’t know her name either,” she whined.

  “Huh?” A collective hushed inhalation of surprise spread across the tree line.

  Lustre’s heart dropped. Even the princess doesn’t know it. All eyes turned to him.

  “Only the Highest Crows can know!” cackled Cracks, hopping up and down, waving his head side to side, flapping his untidy wings. He did a backwards somersault, cackling with glee. “Only the Highest Crows!”

  “Only the Highest Crows can know!” chanted the crows in the trees, escalating in volume. “Only the Highest Crow!” they screamed in a frenzied rallying chorus to Lustre to go get their queen.

  “WAIT!” bellowed Lustre, pointing his powerful wingtip straight up to the sky.

  The agitated mass hushed, waiting on his word.

  He lowered his wing slowly to point directly at Cracks. Lustre’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Not until this lowest of the Low, no-good gull of a crow has been sufficiently punished for insulting our princess! How dare he belittle Her Highness?!”

  With all the talk of gulls, war, and hierarchy, the chanting had worked the crows up into a fever pitch. They quickly forgot they had been shouting the same insult and looked angrily down at Cracks.

  “Yeah!”

  “HE EVEN SAID HE WANTED TO BE KING! He has sullied the throne with his dirty claws. GET HIM!!!” yelled Lustre in his fiercest, most commanding voice.

  Hundreds of crows soared out of the trees immediately, swooping down in a blind rage, beaks and claws eagerly extended for war.

  “Oh dear!” said Cracks as he took lift and flapped as fast his straggly wings could carry him through the trees towards the Hollowing Tree.

  Cracks!

  Elsa covered her eyes as several strong young crows veered by, pecking at him viciously.

  But Cracks was surprisingly acrobatic. He turned and dodged erratically, evading them, flying low into a grove thick with branches and brush.

  When Elsa opened her eyes to see, he was ahead of them, darting and weaving randomly at high speed through the many thin trees. His attackers bonked clumsily into the obstacles and got their wings caught up in the brush.

  “GET HIM!” boomed Lustre, in swift pursuit.

  More crows swooped in to add to the charge. They awkwardly made their way through the thick wood as Cracks zipped and flitted unpredictably. More yet flew up and over the wood to cut him off when he came out into the clearing.

  “Get him!” “Get him!” shouted crows hungrily from all directions. “Get that nasty Low Crow!”

  Boughbend urged the princess to follow him. As much as he disdained the jester’s shenanigans, he knew the queen was very fond of Cracks. She would be heartbroken if he were to be hurt seriously. It was Lustre that Boughbend wanted to keep an eye on. How far was this going to go?

  Elsa turned and raced down the path for the Hollowing Tree. When she burst out onto the crossroads of paths in the clearing, crows were flying everywhere in a wild mess. It was difficult to see which one was Cracks.

  Lustre saw the red-headed girl right away and broke from the group to scare her off. He swooped close and fast and from above, hoping if he kept her disoriented, she wouldn’t be able to identify him later, if she was indeed the queen’s spy.

  Or perhaps she’s Cracks’s spy?

  By now the whole group had gathered around the clearing. Many hovered and shouted support from the sidelines. Others sat on high tree branches in silence, disgusted at the sight of crows turning on another crow. Some even shouted desperately for it all to stop. But hundreds of crows now surrounded Cracks, each fighting to try to get a scratch or peck in for themselves.

  Elsa batted away the attack from above. Lustre’s claw cut her hand. She didn’t seem to flinch. She moved closer to the horde around Cracks.

  “Stop! Don’t hurt him! He’s just looking out for you,” she shouted at the writhing mass in the air. It buckled and twisted around Cracks like a shoal of fish.

  Lustre turned wing to fly upwards. That was when he saw it. He shuddered all through his body when he saw the emblem of the shiny around Elsa’s neck.

  What could this mean? How could our queen entrust such a treasure to a lowly, lowly human?

  Cracks dipped and evaded as he was pecked at voraciously by the other crows. He quickly realized that only so many could get to him at one time and he started using them to block each other. He twisted and dropped, flying so unpredictably that it lessened the damage.

  “Yooo-hoooo!” He flew by Elsa and gave a mischievous little wink as he passed. “Don’t worry, Elsa!”

  Elsa had to duck quickly to avoid the pelting of crows that followed. He swooped up, doing a loop-de-loop to get them away from her and to add insult to injury.

  Who knew he could fly like this? wondered Boughbend. We’ve all judged him by his shabby wings.

  Boughbend, the princess, and her ladies took a perch with a good view, in the highest elm.

  “Get him! Get that miserable Low Crow mess!” screeched the princess at the top of her lungs, swept up in the fervour.

  This rallied the combative energy of the group. With permission to cheer, Breezy and Careen added their shrill voices to the cacophony of taunts.

  Lustre flew deep into the cluster of attacking crows. “NOW!” he boomed. “GET OVER HIM AND AIM DOWN.”

  Suddenly the angry horde thought to work as a group. Elsa watched with dread as they pecked and clawed at Cracks, forming a thick mass above him.

  Boughbend tensed, readying himself to fly straight into the frenzy to prevent them from pecking Cracks to death once he was pinned.

  Cracks bore his beak down straight at the ground and dropped out of the sky.<
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  No. Don’t go down. You’ll be trapped! thought Elsa.

  At the last second, Cracks swooped parallel with the ground. He turned with a grin at Elsa and shouted, “I like your necklace!” as he soared straight into the Hollowing Tree and disappeared.

  Hundreds of crows crashed into the tree with a flurry of bonks. Three flapped in a panic in the hollow itself.

  Lustre reared up and lifted up over the clearing. A hush fell over the whole group.

  How did the lowest of Low Crows know the queen’s name?

  The weight of realization that things are not always as they seem sank in.

  “But only the Highest Crows can know!” exclaimed the princess, whining her and everyone else’s thought aloud.

  Lustre almost screeched with frustration.

  I’m losing them. Something must be done.

  Elsa fell over laughing. “Ha ha! Don’t you see? High Crow isn’t about who sleeps in the highest tree. You are all being Low Crow right now. High Crow is about seeing things with a broader vision and taking everyone into account.”

  The crows pondered her words. Most had never thought in this way.

  She’s right, thought Boughbend.

  Lustre’s blood boiled. “Look at her shiny!” he bellowed. “She is a spy for the KING OF THE GULLS!”

  Elsa looked down at the crowned, winged heart on her chest. So did the rest of the group.

  Lustre tilted his beak and pulled his wings back for attack. “GET HER!!”

  He swooped down for her, followed by hundreds of crows still hungry for war. The rest of the group followed to see what would happen. Mass attack on a human had never occurred in their collective group memory.

  Elsa followed Cracks’s lead and ran into the thickest area of wood to deflect them. She ducked and weaved as they tried to get close enough to peck and scratch at her.

  In the chaos of the chase, Lustre veered up and over the wood and looked around. The group was caught up entirely in the spectacle of the hunt.

  Now is my chance, he thought. If I disappear now, they will all think I followed Cracks into the Hollowing Tree. That is my only recourse.

  As fast and silently as he could, Lustre flew across the river for the countryside.