A Circle of Crows (8 page)

The morning light shone on Marisol's face, and its heat roused her into consciousness. She looked around, already knowing what she would find. The cot was empty beside her. She picked up the blanket, held it to her face and deeply breathed in Colin's scent. Despite her will, she felt the hot sting of tears threatening. Then she heard his voice in her head, the words he had spoken the previous night before he had drifted off.

I am always with you, simply look to your ring and remember the vow we made in our childhood. You must be strong and carry on, no matter what becomes of me. Our families would want you to lead the people if I should perish.

She removed the silver ring from around her finger and extracted a silver chain from around her neck. She placed the ring on the chain and clasped it at her nape. She wondered if she would become a bride and a widow all within the course of a single month. Unbeknownst to either of them, Colin had indeed, accomplished what he had feared. A child was already beginning to form under the hand Mari had placed over her abdomen protectively as she gazed out across the sun shining onto the lake.

Raena, Rachael, Bella and Sam sat at the kitchen table. Papers were strewn all around them, and they all were exhausted and irritable.

Rachael dragged her hand through her dark mane of hair, which hadn't been washed in days. Her face was oily and her eyes were beginning to show the slightest hint of crows feet around them. “There has to be a connection."

"Okay. Three children have disappeared from the inn over the course of one hundred years. Several more have disappeared from other parts of town as well,” said Rae.

"We've been pouring over this for hours,” said Bella. “Let's head to bed and maybe we'll be able to concentrate more fully in the morning."

Rayna climbed the stairs toward her apartment. As she passed the Autumn Room, she paused in the doorway. Morgana's dog, Chloe, was sleeping on the bed as she had every night since Morgana had disappeared from the room. The Jack Russell terrier was beginning to look scraggly and her ribs were easily discernable as she breathed deeply. The dog had been eating very little in her mourning for her mistress. The moonlight was shining through the windows and fully illuminating the room. She could see the outline of the moon reflecting in the mirror—the same mirror Morgana had disappeared through.

Rae walked over to the bed, sat down beside Chloe and began to stroke her fur. “Reflections,” she said.

"Reflective surfaces, that's the common thread. Rachael!” She bolted down the stairs.

"
Rachael!
"

Rachael came flying through the swinging doors out of kitchen into the foyer.

"What is it, Rae?"

"Reflective surfaces—that's the common link. The mirror in the Autumn Room, the lake at the quarry and the one at the park. They all have reflections and children disappeared from each place."

"I'll bet anything the children who disappeared from their yards were near a body of water as well,” chimed in Sam.

"They also all occurred in the fall,” said Bella, her eyes now shining and hopeful.

Rachael, uncharacteristically overcome by emotion, ran up the stairs, followed closely by her sisters. Rae glanced anxiously over her shoulder to meet her younger sister's gaze as she took the stairs two at a time in pursuit of Rachael.
Tread lightly
was the message conveyed and Bella nodded in silent understanding.

Rachael stood in front of the mirror and beat it with her fists with such ferocity, Rae feared it would shatter and slice her. She screamed, “Open up, you wretched beast! Give me back my baby!"

Raena felt the invisible wall rise in her mind. The one she called upon to block her emotions when she knew the situation was grave and she needed to think clearly, despite what she was feeling. She flung herself at Rachael and grabbed her, then pulled her back from the mirror.

"
No!
I am getting in there!"

"Rachael, if you break it, we may never find her...” said Bella soothingly. She again made eye contact with Rae while she struggled to subdue Rachael. Rae nodded back curtly.

"Let's come up with a plan; we need to think. If there's a way in, there must be a way out."

Rachael stopped struggling and fell limp in her sister's embrace. She began to silently cry again.

Bella walked to the mirror and placed her hands on it, then peered into it as if she could see past it. She wondered if Morgana could sense her presence. “We'll begin tomorrow by visiting all the bodies of water in town,” said Bella decisively.

Chapter 16

In the dark, Morgana lay on top of the hay bale, with Eva and another little girl, Emma, curled front-to-back for warmth and comfort. She looked around at the children on the makeshift beds and sighed. Night was always the worst; she couldn't keep her fears away. During the day, there was always so much to do, and so many of the children had come to depend on her, that she rarely found time for thoughts of hopelessness.

But in the dark, there was plenty of time to think of home, her mother, her aunts, and Chloe. Morgana shut her eyes tightly and willed sleep to come. She prayed for deliverance from this situation. As far as she could figure, most of these children came from different time periods and some were even from places she had never heard of. Why or how they were all here, she had not yet been able to decide.

Morgana laid her arm across Eva and Emma and took a deep breath.

Something moved in the dark. It sounded like her mother's laundry when it would blow on the clothesline on a windy day.

She rolled over, but could see nothing. Suddenly, through the bars on the window, came a flying line of black birds, small enough to fit through the spaces. They began to swirl around the room and Morgana was frozen in terror.

Children woke and began screaming at the top of their lungs. They all began to make their way toward her and she was soon surrounded by them.

Morgana shook with fear and pulled them to her.

The black swarm began to dive-bomb and peck any child they could reach, drawing blood on many, who wailed in pain.

A little boy, no more than four years old, was crouched by Morgana when a larger magpie came, and embedded its beak in his arm and ripped off a piece of flesh three inches across.

Morgana screamed in fury and began to smack it with her bare hands.

Blind rage took over; she looked around the room for a weapon and spied an empty manacle gleaming on the floor.

She leaped for it and began swinging it into the flock over her head in a circle, making contact with several of them as she did so.

The flock began to shriek in protest and began to concentrate on Morgana. Soon, all the birds in the room were headed for her. Five landed on her arms, which she shook wildly. She bent over and three landed on her back. She fell to her knees and two landed on her head.

Now Eva left the makeshift bed and was running to defend Morgana, her tiny body useless against so many creatures.

Morgana could see a stream of images in her mind's eye—her home ... her mom ... her daddy...

The chamber was illuminated by an oil lamp, which was casting eerie shadows as the guard ambled into the dungeon.

The largest bird spied the guard and gave one long cry, then the whole flock simultaneously lifted away from Morgana and flew out the window.

Morgana could feel Eva's tiny hands on her head before she drifted into oblivion.

Raena sat in her suite on her couch facing the window. She gazed out into the moonlit yard and felt a loneliness she had not experienced since her mother died. Thoughts of Morgana drifted in and out of her consciousness, intermingled with wondering whether she would ever have children of her own.

She shivered and walked over to the heating duct, which was a grate on the floor, and sat down with her blanket on top of it.

She placed her head in her hands and let the tears come. She cried for several minutes and then wiping her eyes, attempted rationalization.

She was sure Morgana was alive, she couldn't explain it; but as long as she had that feeling, all was not lost.

Her mother's voice, a welcome change from her Gran's, sounded in her head,
God will not despise a spirit broken and crushed...

Broken and crushed.... that about summed up the state where this family currently existed.

Moira's voice interrupted,
Couldn't hurt to throw some salt over your shoulder, though...

"Oh for goodness sake! How did I turn out even remotely normal?” she said to the cat curled up at her side.

She picked him up and placed him on top of her bed and crawled under the covers. This time, no meddling feminine voices plagued her and she slipped off into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter 17

Rachael looked out the window of the Explorer as it wound its way out of town. The silence was deafening.
What was there to say?

Rae looked at her sister and was suddenly tired. Tired of being on an epinephrine high for so many days in a row, having to deal with so much anxiety, and of trying to be the voice of reason.

The quarry came into view and Rae slowed the truck to a stop.

"What exactly are we looking for?” asked Rachael, her tone of voice letting her sisters know she was looking for a fight.

Bella slid out of the backseat and coolly replied, “Anything that might lead us to Morgana."

Rachael's shoulders slumped and she began to walk down the slope into the rockpit.

As she turned, Rae held up her pinky and Bella linked hers with it, “Good one, I'm ready to lash out myself."

"An answer when mild, turns away rage...” she replied.

"Very Anna MacBeth like answer."

"I try.” Bella flashed a smile.

They walked in silence through the quarry, each wandering off in different directions. Rae walked up on the sloping hillside; Bella went toward the water and Rachael took the opposite hillside headed south.

Rae weaved in and out of the pine trees and her feet crunched on the coniferous needles.

Gran Moira appeared in her head again, reciting another of her stories of childhood:
When the children were disappearing before I was born, they used to threaten us that a huge black bird would come and carry us away if we were bad. Just as the little children before us were taken.

"People are sick, telling a child that tale,” Rae spoke out loud, fully aware she was talking to herself more than ever lately. She racked her memory for more information from her childhood and remembered something else. Her gran had related that when she and Grandpa Ewan had returned to the inn, they were convinced it was haunted because the first week they were there, they heard all kinds of odd sounds at all hours. Then in the process of house cleaning prior to accepting guests, they entered the attic. Grandpa Ewan had related there had been
scores
of nests in the attic. Magpie nests with eggs still in them and birds still in the attic, explaining the noises at night. They had gone ballistic at the sight of her grandfather. Moira's voice blurted into her consciousness again,
Mind the birds, poppet. Always mind the birds.

"Rae! Where are you!” called Rachael, somewhere upwind from her.

Rae turned to try and locate the sound of her twin's voice. She moved out of the forest and held up her hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

She quickly blinked her eyes at what she thought must be a trick of the light, but upon opening them, it was still there.

A flock of crows, flying in an odd pattern, hundreds of them, flew from the area where Rachael's voice had come from. They all changed directions back and forth so quickly, it was as if they had one mind.

They all flew east as if they were fleeing some unseen foe.

Rae ran down the hillside and proceeded to slip on the loose slag abundant in the quarry, succeeding in bloodying her hands as she attempted to catch herself.

She could see Bella heading over the hill, running to the place where Rachael's voice had called from.

The foreboding feeling appeared again—or was it a panic attack?—and sweat broke out over her forehead while her heart began to race wildly. She was thinking of the tea trolley in her room which housed her stash of alcohol...

"Bella?!” she called as she ran toward her younger sister.

As she reached the top of the hill, she almost ran over her sisters, who stood huddled together halfway down the embankment.

Whichever way they turned to look, the entire hillside was full of bird nests, literally thousands of them. Rachael stood holding one in her hand. As Rae approached, she could see Rachael was trembling.

Inside the nest were broken eggs and ... small children's toys; a jack, a superball, ribbons and ... Rachael held up a small bone, which Rae surmised was the size of a child's finger.

Chapter 18

Mount Morte'

The train of covered wagons clambered down the dirt road. The children were packed tight inside them and the queen's guards raced up and down the procession on horseback, just like border collies herding their flock. Fifteen guards, Morgana counted as she poked her head out the back of the wagon.

Colin road up and back, checking to be sure everything was in order. Christian rode behind the train long enough to get Colin's attention.

As Christian rode alongside Colin, he whispered, “The men faithful to the rebellion are ready. I held a meeting before we departed. They await your word to begin the uprising."

"We will have to be patient; only half the men on this expedition are loyal to us. The time must be right to free the children. We must not reach Mount Morte', or I fear all may be lost."

"You have seen the beast on previous journeys, sir?"

Colin's lips set in a thin line, pressed so tightly they became white. “Yes, I have. A sight I shall carry to my end.
Hyde
they call it. I have not witnessed the sacrifices, as I would surely have lost my own soul to attempt to prevent it. One man is insignificant to this cause. We will need as many as we are able to recruit to make the slightest bit of difference."