Anna

The Crow

The crow cawed in the December chill.

I lifted my eyes. My right hand paused, halfway down smoothing the crease in my apron. Its dark form perched on the tree just outside the window, head slightly inclined as if in acknowledgement. Low-hanging stray branches stretched lifeless, just a breadth short into my room, like groping skeletal fingers. The bird, inching ever closer, took them as invitation. It hopped with more grace than for my own walk, arm flailing for balance, skirts hiked up out of the way to my knees, feet getting tangled in sheep and grooves in the road from the daily traffic to and from London. I bent to speak to its ear.

Before I lowered the wooden latch in place, I let my eyes follow it. Release the branch, dip, reangle beak forward and up. The glass showed only a small square of grayish sky and I did not find the bird there. Maybe it had to peck through one of its corners to reach Heaven, if that was where it was heading, if there was such a thing. I wished I had pointed it toward our thatched roof. It seemed a pity no one climbed up anymore, the sun-warmed seat by the chimney left to cool, the matching brown hues of the treated straw and my drab dress unappreciated, the men loading crates of raw wool off and woolens on wagons out of sight. And did you know you could have a glimpse of the church’s backyard? You would not imagine the building dwarfed us all; you could see right over its whitewashed stone front into the lumpy lawn.

Atop the working counter, my volume of the Bible awaited, its black bindings fading and coming apart at the seams. Drowsy mornings of flipping pages through, back rows at Sunday services. Worn paper green at the edges from plants I had been handling. Miracles brought alive in ink, the wonder of it. One of my favourite words probably. I dug in when no one was looking.

I suspected the pastor did not like me very much. I had been told I was not doing a great job at hiding how much I preferred the written scriptures over his clumsy attempts at oratory. I had tried apologising by offering backyard improvement advice. He had thinned his mouth and refused to believe I could have any way of knowing the state of his backyard. Watching over from above, he had said, was God’s work, and I ought to make a trip to the confessional for lying about roofs and being idle. “But I’m right there in plain view if you’d only look up!” I had protested, “Besides, it must be an awful chore having to keep an eye on all of us, what with America to care for now too —”

Mother had forbidden me from the roof after that.

She always asked me to try. Just a little harder. The lines around her eyes deepened when someone complimented her lamb stew, one of the many dishes I messed up with too much salt, meat chopped into chunks instead of morsels, herbs thrown in to cover up my mistakes. Her brow smoothed out when she relaxed into a rhythmic motion—needle in, thread pulled straight, knot tucked into the woolen folds of a trim men’s vest. I poked at my uneven stitches on a nearby stool. A mouse might think my scrap of cloth a good cape. I overflowed with tidbits I picked up. I finally got the batch of witch hazel to thrive; there was a litter of foxes near the lemon groves that you would not have noticed unless you crouched low to the ground. They were having some sort of excitement over on the Continent. I eavesdropped on a boatman who came up the Thames that morning. Her usually faded lips flooded pink where she bit them hard, and she might as well have spoken into my mind, even though the lips curved up at the corners. Just try a little harder.

I tried. I never read where people saw me doing it, nothing that was not the Bible. I dragged my feet to every sermon and observed the Sabbath. I schooled myself out of walking with spring in my steps, out of running at all. I pulled every strand into a tight braid, much as I missed the wind through my hair. Flowers were for the garden, not behind my ear or at my collar or hanging down my belt. Deep breaths and swallowed retorts were the way, when men with dirt up to their elbows came up to me about the uncleanliness of my plant-stained fingertips.

We made harmony, all of us who lived here. Come spring, our fields were going to be bright with rapeseed after the last few years’ poor barley crops. Some of us would be at the heart of the yellow, to tend the plants and sing of the harvest. Others would stir pots, take baskets of bread to the edge of the fields with sleeping children on their backs, nod when their husbands raised their voices over a stray finger on a sprig of flowers. It occurred to me that there was a silence where you chose to be so, and another where you had no choice.

Silence. I realised the absence of Mother’s humming. An urgent thumping reverberated, breaking the spell. My hand tingled. It was nothing; she must have fallen asleep. The last few weeks, a tight knot had taken root between her eyebrows, the skin around her eyes had been taut. A good sign, that she could find sleep. I had better answer the door before she was disturbed.

I called out for the pastor’s young wife. Bruises, purple and yellow and blue planted on her arms. Left hand tenderly held, bent to an odd angle. Stuttering and jumbled words. A secret. She had come to me in the night, a dozen pins firmly pinning her cap over her hair still. He cannot know I was here. “You need to stand up for yourself.” I had had to stop myself from using too much force on her wrist, “You’re not really one of his ribs.” She had shaken her head and told me she wanted to go to Heaven. “Behind those clouds, with glowing winged children?” I had covered my mouth in mock horror, “It must be as bad as in the bakehouse with all the mothers and too many ovens!” She had laughed, and it had been all right. I paused over the Bible. “Is that you?” I called again.

Instead, I grabbed the bundle of primroses, witch hazels tucked underneath. I hurried to the door.

Shouts, clanging of metal against metal, the crunch of wood pushed over and splintered under foot—first past the walls then from within. In the hallway, I stood and put my hands to my ears. The bundle dropped to the hard floor. Something flashed outside the front window, something alight. There was another something glinting in that light, sharp, pointing upwards, the shape of a fork but larger. I sent prayers. To God, to open ears. It might have been to Mother, who moved up in front then. Her tight-lipped smile struck me. I had a strong urge to run. She made to speak but did not. I heard her voice telling me to be a good daughter anyway. Her unsteady hand reached out. The door’s creaking hinges gave. Rough voices and rough hands came from behind her, behind me.

Clutches at my arms and wrists. A fist in the air, brandishing the crop of herbs I had left on the ground. Faces in a frenzy. The matronly woman next door, I had caught her eyeing the ladder up our roof a few times. Her neighbour who let me play with his small son, he chuckled when I read tweaked stories from my black book. His son, hefting on his shoulder a stone, larger than his fist and jagged enough to be more than a toy. The young man I had taught to dance against the rules, his hands around my waist, whom Mother hoped I might marry. Our old pastor, wearing black and a mask, I could not discern. Not his wife. My body was dragged out of the door. A faint herbal fragrance and the scents of the heated crowd clogged the hall. They all had a hand in it.

Mother was frail, unmoving among the others. Her lips parted. She did not move to stop anyone. Would she not call for me at the end, not defend me? Did she, too, believe me to be what they said? I craned my neck. I watched her go to her knees in the ruins of our garden. The delicate white and yellow flowers of chamomile and feverfew were indistinguishable from the common daisies, a pulp akin to squashed eggs. Primroses would have been in full bloom in a few months alongside the yarrow, in the same shade as newborn chicks. I had been planning to bring in snowdrops. I would figure out some use for them eventually. She did so love snowdrops. It did not make a difference. She would not keep them. She grew distant.

At the end of the sludgy country road stood the village church. The whitewash was smudged in the shadows. Mud crept up its base, clung tightly to the stones tightly, with darker stains that suggested sheep. It was not going to shift a hair. Right in front of the building was a stake, kindling ready at its base. Not a cross, not for me or for others, not here or within. Mockery in His light. They were having some sort of excitement over on the Continent. We were a channel, across from the Continent. I choked back something. I was to have no voice, was I?

There, hair loose in my face, my dress a mud-splattered mess, my efforts came undone. I looked down. The people were all so tiny. Tiny and all the same. Don’t resist. Don’t question. Don’t talk back. Don’t get ahead of the Bible. Try a little harder. But they were the ones. They would not try, I saw.

They discarded what was left of me. Sometimes when the wind passed through, something spoke to whoever would listen.

“Is the pastor’s wife here?”

“Has Mother tried the roof?”

“Does he still rule over his lumpy backyard?”

“What about the flowers?”

“Do you think my version sounds better?”

The crow cawed. The bird spread out its wings. A burst of dark feathers—it dipped, reangled its beak, soared. The sky was not a gray square. The blue stretched into blue. There were no corners. I went along.

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