First Chapter: The Watchers

It was a matter of crows she said. I heard her say it. My back was turned. But she said it anyway. Then I saw her cross the street and walk away into the wild crowds. They were always wild this early in the morning. Left and right, up and down. Not like here. Here they just stare, unseeing. So wild, and beautiful like the flocks that travel south. Only watching for directional alterations from one individual.

The wire is cold today, and the lights come on earlier now. Winter is coming, yet there are more people sitting on the street than before, and they are younger. They are invisible to the wilds that trudge past them with their vacant eyes. Winter freezes not just the ground. My cousins are calling and I am away. The grey light must filter through many clouds before it belongs to us.

It feels so good to stretch my wings, far above those Torn Feathers. They limp along on two feet as us, but their feathers will never grow back. We follow them and their lives around. Torn, they lay on the ground and we lost our family. It happened so long ago grandma says, that some believe that there is no relation. But I say let them watch. I say watch long enough and it hurts and blinds my eyes; what will it do to yours?

Ah the cold winter wind, how sharp it feels. Like I am the knife in the air. My cousins tell me where she is; our newest witch. She was born with three standing on her roof –three for girls they say-. We go now to meet her. She is still too young for us to take her to the Mountain and train, so for now we go to introduce more than just ourselves.

Our beautiful mountains. So beautifully purple in the dying light. The white tipped conifers pass beneath me, breathing their warm breath on my belly, lifting me higher with their warm currents. We are almost arrived and I see the smoke from their fire curl fine swirls and dissipate.

The window is glowing and I see her shadow loom against the wall, larger than life and full of portent. “Crow” she says and points at me. There is an old man in the room with her. He is sitting on a worm wood rocker. His brightly coloured shawl is wrapped around his shoulders and he is humming and watching her. She is building a tower, with turrets and parapets. It bears a striking resemblance to the castle on our Mountain. I wonder if she has already begun the dream.upstream. The old man stretches out his legs and with a sigh looks up at the window.

“Holy Crow” he mutters. “Grace, go grab your shawl”
The girl turns from the window and stares at him. Her light eyes catching his concern. Quickly, she grabs her shawl and they leave the room. A moment later and they are here outside. And I see her with so much clarity. Behind her eyes the stone is shaping, and she is aware of the change. The old man is behind her now; both hands are on her shoulders, keeping her. She gazes at the wrinkled hands, saying in her mind, “here is the long hand of time on my shoulder”.

He looks down at her and laughs. I see him bend by her side and whisper that I am come to see her. We are not the law-abiding crows you may think. Or maybe you think we have no laws? We are here to disrupt, as my grandma said, the status quo. We want her to have an unfair advantage when the time comes, because nothing is fair. We want her aware so that she may result change, so that we may witness it. We will assist her in any form possible. And the others like her. The old man knows this too.

They call us crow, we call us Djinn. Black and mischievous, we work for purposes not your own. We spinn the black tornadoes; like dark particles in a fog bank, drawing the eye to the light inbetween. We have never stopped flying. And from this height I can see the pace of the world, and I am still. Playing I Spy at a new level. There are more elements at play than a crow could count. But we’ve never been just crow.

But Grace has been born. At long last. The soul of the kiss, from sky to earth. The legend my grandma tells is of a grace who brings our lost family, home. And this small Torn Feathers before me, standing with her bright shawl-wings down. Looking hopeful.