Corvidae (Part IV)

Many paths converge, and for a time, refuge is found, and darkness and fear are left behind. But the evils of the world always find a way in.

***Content warning: Episode deals with themes of traumatic loss, catastrophic fire, and automobile accidents. Listener discretion advised.***

Transcript

[Eerie woodwinds music]

NARRATOR

Episode Twenty-nine: Corvidae, Part Four.

NARRATOR

The house, painted a blinding white on the outside, all dark polished wood and thick Ottoman carpets and heavy drawn curtains within, stands empty and waiting. It has not always been empty, but the cook and the maid left over a year ago, and the aging couple that once called it home at least part of the year have not stirred from their silk-sheeted Alaskan King bed in many months. The only denizens it has known since have been the little beasts of the fields, and of course the visiting perching birds, both those that remain the same and those that have changed and found new voices.

The house is not old, and yet, perhaps, through the constant breath of the western winds, through the permeating warmth of the high pale sun, through the raspy kiss of the blown prairie dust, some of the old spirit of the land has been infused into the house, for it has settled into the rhythms of this arid country, into the endless song that is alternately sweetly soft and howlingly wild.

And like the land, the house is patient. Through decades of drought, it will await the rain; through long winters of blizzard, it will await the sun; it stands in view of the mountains that silently weather into hills, and then back into the gradually but eternally shifting earth.

The house waits for people to come, and it does not need to wait so long.

The first are the two young men and the many women. They come furtively, like the field mice and insects and spiders that the maid and the aging couple once were quick to drive away. They come like those who have been hunted. The older of the men is the first to enter the house, and though he is not armed with more than a broken-off piece of a timber fencepost, he moves with the awful grace of a killer. The young man moves through the house’s bowels, his sharp eyes probing the secret shadows therein, and when he has discovered that there is no one but the disintegrating couple in the master bedroom upstairs, he calls the others inside.

The house is content to let this be. In truth, the opening of its doors and windows, the influx of fresh air and the exhalations of the stale, is a relief. A house is made to be lived in, its doors and windows not meant to remain forever shut.

The two men take the smaller guest bedroom, on the southern side of the second floor. That one overlooks the circle driveway and the recently graveled road that leads up from the highway to the house, and to nowhere else. They murmur to one another in the night, and the house is warmed by this gentle affectionate sharing, as it has not been since the middle-aged man and woman lay down never to rise again.

In the other bedroom beside that one, the room that is still decorated to the taste of a young woman who has not returned to the house in years, a new young woman sits. She does not murmur, but lies awake at night, sometimes staring at the ceiling or rising to gaze out the window, and sometimes lying with her face pressed into the pillow. The house feels this, too, as a familiar and welcome thing, though this sensation is bittersweet, for it reminds of the one who has not returned, for whom the house has yearned.

And there is another young woman, who looks a little like both the silent, sad girl and the younger man, who comes at times into the sleepless room and tries to comfort the sleepless girl. Whether she has any success in this is not clear, for the sleepless girl’s face hardly changes, her gaze seeming always fixed on something far away, beyond the walls of the house.

The rest of the woman and girls, who number five now and speak as if they once numbered more, spread throughout the house, taking couches or other bedrooms or even sleeping on the floor. None of them sleep in the master bedroom, though the young men and a few of the women carefully wrapped the couple in their stained silken sheets and then carried them out to bury them in the large and unfenced backyard, within hours of their first arrival.

The house is as content as a house may be, to be a dwelling again. But then, one by one, the five who are not bound by attraction or by kinship begin to drift away. Some announce their departure and give reasons, others slip out unnoticed – or hoping to go unnoticed – during the long, quiet hours of the night.

And before long, it is only the four of them: two sisters, their brother, and his lover. The house is a home again, and for this it is glad, but so much of it lies empty. It longs for more, a subtler hunger it had almost forgotten since the previous occupants departed, in body or spirit – not the starvation of emptiness, but the longing of an appetite not fully sated.

But again, the house needs not wait long.

A new moon waxes toward full, then wanes once more into darkness, and then one afternoon, new people come walking from across the broad and thirsty pastures, the fallow fields returning slowly to grassland: two women and a girl. The women are lean and alert and move like foxes, like stalking things that are both hunter and prey. One of them carries an old, bolt action hunting rifle, carries it with the easy mindfulness of one who knows firearms well, knows that they are a killing instrument and that, like all killing instruments, they are devoid of loyalty or love.

As they draw near, the house’s bones of wood and metal shift slightly, as though it is readying itself in anticipation. For the one with the rifle is no newcomer after all, but a former dweller returning after years of aching absence. The years have changed her, but a house cannot see, and is not fooled by sight.

As the returning woman and the thinner blonde woman and the little girl cautiously enter the house, the older man within meets them at the doorway. He has no gun, only the knife he was using to dress the rabbit he snared earlier in the day, but he points it at them without obvious fear and tells them that the house is taken already, and that they should move on.

The woman, whom the dead couple called Leah, says that the house is her home, and the house knows this is true, but the young man replies that the people who lived here are buried in the backyard, that he did this himself.

Leah’s face changes at these words, as though this is news both expected and unthinkable. Her voice changes too, comes out hoarse and thick and yet somehow crystalline when she says, if that is true, that they were her parents.

The young man’s face darkens, and he tells her that she doesn’t look much like them.

I’m adopted, is all she says in reply.

There is silence then, and the only sound is the shifting of the house in the rising northwesterly wind. A chill has crept into the air, one that had seemingly vanished with the false spring of the prior weeks. Doubt creeps into the young man’s face for the first time now, but still, he does not move, holding his knife at the ready and watching the woman with the rifle.

Then the other young man descends the stairs, drawn by the voices below, and steps into view. His eyes sweep across the four of them, and when they come to rest on Leah, they widen in surprised recognition.

You, he breathes, half question and half statement.

She glances at him, confused for a second and then mirroring his recognition.

Gently, the young man tells his lover to lower the knife, and the man with the air of a soldier hesitantly acquiesces, asking how they know each other. Instead of answering at once, the young man begins to laugh, and then Leah joins him, and the tension in the air breaks into a million motes, dispersing and falling away. The young man, Barrett, says that they should all go make themselves comfortable at the long mahogany table, and talk.

And then, he adds, looking at the weary and lean newcomers, they can all share a meal and get some rest.

As they move into the dining room and seat themselves, joined by the two sisters from upstairs, and settle into a conversation that is at first broken and awkward, but which slowly becomes easier and even friendly, sharing their tales of heartache and horror and loss and unexpected boons, the house settles into the deepest and easiest slumber it has known since the ravens first began to mutter their dark-winged words.

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

The first week, every morning is like a return to that first meeting, uncomfortable and halting, requiring a brief reacquaintance of the two parties. But as the days pass and true spring begins its subtle return, they become accustomed to one another, first as friends, and then almost as family.

The younger sister, Missy, begins to speak more, though still not much. The older, Gemma, cannot hide her smile at each word, as though every syllable is some small miracle, and her brother Barrett and she share cautiously optimistic glances and whisperings when they think no one else will notice. Asher, the ex-soldier, relaxes somewhat, no longer seeming like his muscles are overtaxed rubber bands, no longer looking at the newcomers as though he expects them to change their faces every moment. Leah, though she often falls into quiet, reflective moods and visits the unmarked grave behind the house at least once each day, also seems to smile more, and Dru talks enough for both of them. Even the little girl with them, so long speechless, has finally offered her name of Esmee, and giggles when the young men and Dru teasingly threaten her with tickles.

And the house drowses, content with all of this, fully sated now, satisfied as it has never been since its foundations were first laid out here in this lonely stretch of land. For never before has such brightness filled it, even when all its now-defunct electric lights blazed, or when in years prior a dozen well-dressed couples sipped cocktails and daintily nibbled hors d’oeurves and dreamed themselves insulated from the possibilities of disaster.

Outside, the wind blows, the sun shines, sometimes clouds pass over. A small herd of buffalo, broken free from their unmaintained fences somewhere else and roaming fearlessly over the plains as their ancestors once did, passes over the pastures with their new growth of grass. Pronghorn does, growing heavy with unborn fawns, wander near the house and look at it with dark and watchful eyes. Wolves howl in the night, and coyotes too, and sometimes, distant cougars yowl and caterwaul eerily. Once, a great roving grizzly pauses in the backyard, lets out a single disgruntled huff under the gibbous moon, then moves away on his eastward path toward regions that have not seen his kind for over a century, moving silently despite his immense bulk.

All of this, the house slumbers through. All of this, the bright-eyed ravens and crows that gather about the house see and hear, but make no comment on, to the people below or to each other. They are silent, watchful, waiting, waiting with the same infinite patience as the scarred and ancient land.

(Tranquil music)

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

It comes slowly, the subtle change that rouses the house from its pleasant slumber and makes its tired bones tense once more, until they snap and creak with every shift of the prairie airs. The first signs seem so clear, after the fact – the dwindling fare of the table at mealtimes, the lightening load on the larder shelves, the way that each trip they make outside for water from the nearby artesian well, or to hunt and gather to supplement their diet of canned and packaged food, seems to take a little longer than the last.

Then comes the night when they all gather around the table after the last meal of the day—venison roasted over the fireplace with warmed canned green beans—and talk by the light of the candles which they have previously used so sparingly. They talk about how the well seems to be failing, and Leah adds that it has probably been failing ever since the seventies when the water table first began to drop. They talk too of how little there is aside from game to eat nearby, and how once they run out of the nearly depleted canned goods, they will face a growing possibility of serious nutritional imbalance and illness.

Asher points out that they can forage, that there are things which grow here that are edible, berries and roots, but when Leah asks him if he knows how to find them and identify them, to distinguish them from the inedible, he hesitates, and then admits that he does not. But he asks, if they leave, where they will go, and how they will get there, saying that he has had enough of stumbling aimlessly over rough pastures and fields for a lifetime.

As they fall silent around the table, the adults all wrapped in gloomy thoughts about the future and its uncertainty, Esmee says quietly that she doesn’t want to leave, that this is a good place.

Leah, beside her, reaches over and takes her hand, smiling sadly. She says that it is a good place, and that it has given them much, but that they may not have any choice but to go, that they may become sick if they stay.

Esmee asks, a little sharply, how they can be sure they will be okay if they leave. For that, Leah has no answer except to shake her head uncertainly.

To everyone’s surprise, it is Missy who answers, telling Esmee that they will be alright, as long as they all stay together.

As long as we leave no one behind, she repeats softly, tears glistening behind her eyes. The image of Burton, smiling so gently down at her from where he bleeds on the scrapyard crucifix, has sprung once more into her mind, along with his last words telling her that she must stay behind, that she is the best of them and need not suffer to earn God’s love. He and the others, he said, will pave the way for her.

Outside, from a pine branch overhanging the dining room window, a raven croaks, leave, leave. None within seem to hear it, except for Gemma, who looks out in consternation, but who says that it is nothing when Dru asks here if something is wrong. The pines and the carefully cultivated maples around the house begin to sway and to rustle excitedly with the beginnings of a spring storm.

Shortly after the heavy, driving rain begins, they put out the candles and go to their beds, not having decided anything conclusively, only stirring up their anxieties and doubts about what the days ahead might bring. But the house does not sleep, for it too has become unsettled, by the talk within and by the fury of the storm without.

(Wild storm sounds)

[Long pause]

NARRATOR

Whether it was an improperly snuffed candle, a leaping ember from the fireplace, or even a chance lightning strike, they never know., but the flames have engulfed almost a third of the house before the screams wake them. Missy and Gemma manage to fly down the stairs and out into the cold, wet dark, and Leah follows close behind them, a wide-eyed Esmee in her arms. Asher and Barrett have to break their bedroom window and clamber out onto the roof, then leap perilously down into the mud of the driveway.

It is only when they have all gathered that they realize Dru is not among them, and Leah says with mounting panic that she wasn’t in their room when she woke. Guilt and terror swirl blackly behind her eyes, realizing that she did not even notice this, that she thought only of getting Esmee and herself away from the hungry flames.

And it is then that many of them realize what must have happened: that she had gone to visit the bathroom in the night, and become trapped in there by the flames, that it was her screaming that woke them all.

Gemma reaches mindlessly for a cell phone she stopped carrying years ago, and realizes that she is not dressed and has no pockets, that there would be no one to call anyway. Missy only stares at the house and says no over and over again. Leah sets Esmee gently on the ground and begins to run back toward the house, blazing and steaming even in the continuing rain, but Asher and Barrett seize her and hold her back, shouting that there is nothing they can do now, that she will die if she goes back inside.

As if to punctuate their words, the house begins to groan and then to scream over the roar of the flames, and then a large part of it collapses in on itself, exposing its devoured and ravaged innards.

Leah ceases struggling with the men, and falls to her knees, mindless of the mud, her sobs silenced by the rain and the fire. Esmee runs to her and hugs her, and they hold each other as they weep, as the house screams and burns and dies.

(Sounds of house fire)

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

By morning, the fire has burnt out, and only a few patches here and there still smolder. The survivors, having passed the night mostly sleeplessly in the detached garage, which thankfully remained untouched by the flames, wake to find the ruins of the house still far too hot to pick through.

Asher begins to work on the black BMW X7 in the garage, which is reluctant to start after sitting so long idle. Meanwhile, Leah takes a shovel and begins to dig in the backyard, near to where her adoptive parents lie. After a while, Gemma offers to help her, but Leah shakes her head, and says that she must do it.

Esmee only sits in the garage and stares at the wall, hugging her knees. Sometimes she cries softly, and Missy holds her, but says nothing, understanding perhaps that words can offer nothing here.

By the midafternoon, the grave is dug, the ashes have finally cooled, and the car is running. Together, the five of them lay Dru’s charred remains, little more than bones wrapped in a bit of blue tarp, into the earth. Together, they say their farewells, tamp a crude crucifix into the earth, and fill the grave back in. Missy has to turn away while they do this, but does not leave.

As they finish, Leah says she wishes they could have buried her in yellow. Butter yellow was her favorite color, she says.

There is a silence, and the wind soughs through the trees, shaking free a few remaining drops of moisture. The top of the ponderosa pine is singed from the leaping tongues of the night’s fire.

Well, Asher asks heavily, what now?

Barrett looks up as there is a small sound overhead, and then more. A flock of ravens is taking flight, wheeling from the trees and into the sky in a spiraling aerial dance like none he has ever seen corvids perform. They circle the ruins of the home three times, and then they fly slowly toward the highway.

An unkindness, Barrett thinks, that is what a gathering of ravens is called.

And he wonders if it is an apt name.

(Sorrowful music)

[Short pause]

NARRATOR

They take I-90 westward for a time, Asher driving and Barrett guiding them. Barrett expected the others to mock his suggestion, even to be outraged by it, but with Dru’s loss and the destruction of the house, a kind of listlessness has settled over them all. Leah and Esmee have fallen into a shared well of silent grief, and Missy and Gemma say nothing more than is necessary. Even Asher seems stretched taut, unable to speak for fear that words will break his tenuous composure.

And so, it falls to Barrett to lead them, even though it alternately makes him feel like a mystic, a madman, or a moron.

They follow the ravens, west on I-90, then north on I-15. Sometimes they have to stop and siphon gas from a promising vehicle along the road or in a parking lot or driveway, praying each time that the derelict has something to offer them and to keep them moving. The ravens seem to understand and wait for them, for they are never wholly out of sight.

Later, as they are parked along the dead highway and settling in to pass an uncomfortable night in the vehicle, after the others have fallen asleep, Asher asks him where he thinks the ravens will take them, and Barrett answers honestly that he has no idea.

Asher, whom he has never seen smoke, pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a new-looking purple lighter, which Barrett guesses he must have picked up when they stopped in a gas station parking lot earlier in the day to try and siphon the old Datsun sitting there. That had proved a failure, the tank of the Datsun almost bone dry, but apparently Asher had found a way to make the stop worthwhile.

The lighter flashes, and then the cigarette cherry blossoms with Asher’s first drag and slowly fades into a duller glow and smoking ash. Barrett coughs a little, and asks if the smoke might bother the others.

Saying nothing, Asher opens his door and steps out into the night, closing it softly behind him. Barrett follows suit, and joins him in front of the vehicle. He considers asking Asher about the smoking, but decides to let it lie for now.

As though reading his thoughts, Asher says that he’s very tired, that he just wants a little comfort right now, even if it’s not a healthy comfort.

Barrett says that he’s right here, and Asher flashes a quick smile at him, his teeth glinting in the light of the risen moon, but he says he doesn’t mean that kind of comfort. He just wants to lose himself in something quiet, he says, something that requires no motion or action, something that reminds him of when he was a small child and everything seemed alright, when the world had seemed like it was a happy place where good things could happen.

It can be, Barrett says, reaching for his Asher’s hand, but the other man steps away, takes another long drag on his cigarette.

Asher says, very softly, that he doesn’t know if that is true. And then, still speaking in a very gentle tone, almost pleadingly, he says that he needs a moment alone, just to smoke and to think in silence.

Okay, Barrett says, but inside he feels cold all over, and when he gets back into the SUV, he feels more alone than he ever has before.

Then he looks into the back seat, sees his two sisters slumped against each other in slumber, sees that Esmee has drifted off still holding Leah’s hand. And he thinks of Missy’s words at the dinner table, that they would be alright, as long as they remained together.

And before he knows it, he too has fallen asleep. When Asher returns to the car a half hour later, slipping inside as quietly as a cougar, he looks over at his sleeping lover and smiles, delicately brushes an errant lock of hair away from Barrett’s closed eyes.

Yet when he looks out over the moonlit plains, towards the mountains in the west, up at the myriad stars twinkling in the deep velvet blue overhead, he hears again the screams that have rung in his ears since the fire, hears the roar of the flames and the hissing, screaming, collapsing house, feels Leah struggling in his arms when he too wants to run inside, knowing full well that it would be death.

And he wants to cry, sitting there alone behind the wheel, but he cannot. He has not been able to summon tears for a long time, no matter how right they feel. His last thought, before he too falls into sleep, is that he needs another cigarette very badly.

(Sound effect or music)

NARRATOR

They are woken by the grating caws of the ravens, who have gathered upon and about the vehicle. Leah cannot help but think that it seems as though the birds are trying to rouse them, and she hears Barrett voice a similar thought, saying that the ravens are ready to get moving again.

Asher turns the motor over, and the ravens take to their wings, begin to guide them northward again.

From the rear, Missy asks no one in particular where they think the ravens are leading them.

Leah shrugs, and says that it can’t be anywhere worse than where they have already been.

And that is when the man stumbles from the side of the road, his eyes bleeding and his shirt and hands soaked red, shouting wildly something they cannot hear. Asher swerves to avoid hitting him, and then they all feel that awful weightless, directionless sensation that comes when a vehicle has completely escaped the driver’s control.

The last thing that Barrett sees before blackness swallows him is that the sky seems to be in the wrong orientation, and that the ravens are descending toward him, screaming as incoherently as the bleeding man on the road.

But then, as his vision fades, he does hear them – or perhaps the man, he cannot be sure. They, or the man, or both, are saying: go, go, get up and go. Go!

And behind the man, who has fallen to his knees on the asphalt and raised his hands like a preacher imploring heaven, a half dozen ragged, bloody shapes emerge from a copse of juniper and stalk toward the overturned vehicle.

(Sinister music)

[Darker Pastures Theme - Outro]

NARRATOR

Story, narration, and music by Lars Mollevand. If you enjoyed today’s story, please rate, review, and share. Thank you for listening. We’ll meet again… in darker pastures.

[Darker Pastures Theme - Outro - Continues]