A Circle Of Crows Read online

  For years, Bella's mother had volunteered with abused and abandoned children, sometimes to their adulthood, so her words were always sage to Bella.

  Staring at Colin on the porch, she prayed he would not falter. More than just the lives of two young children were sitting atop his shoulders.

  As if sensing her eyes upon him, he turned and faced her. He strode toward the door and opened it softly, so as not to wake the sleeping pair in the bassinet.

  "Bella, I need a moment alone, if you please,” he said softly.

  She nodded and went outside.

  * * * *

  Colin sat with his head in his long-fingered hands next to the bassinet. As he looked at his children, he was forcibly reminded of his own father, and one of the man's hearthside lectures. A learned man, his father had possessed a love of language and other cultures. He had purchased a book at a dear price from one of the Porticos. Porticos used the portals for regulated exploration before the regime change. The lecture of that date concerned love—and how many different types of love existed. The book, translated from a language called Greek, he had said, described a few accurately: Eros—the visceral love he had felt for Marisol, this surprisingly, did not upset him further since he was already quite numb. Phileo—the tender affection type of love he was experiencing now staring at the wee ones; and Agape—the love of principle, which was what was forcing him to speak the words he had been dreading.

  He stared at his twins somberly. He could barely stand to look at them. He reached out and took a tiny fist and opened it and slid his index finger through the curl of his daughter's fingers. He sighed audibly and tears streamed silently from his eyes.

  "How can something I love more than anything else in the world cause pain so unbearable, that I cannot stand to touch it? It is time to name you. I am sorry I have not done it as I should."

  He placed his hand upon his daughter's tiny head and said, “Hope. That is all we have left. And that shall be your name."

  To his son, whose facial features already resembled as his own, he said, “Cullen, a name used in each generation of our clan. It is a noble name, and I hope I prove as useful to you as my Da was to me."

  His hands began to shake as he spoke. “I am going to have to leave you. If I do not, there will be no world worth living in for you. I have never seen anything more wonderful than the two of you.” He removed Mari's braids and laid them at the bottom of the bassinet. One of Hope's tiny feet was without its sock and her foot rubbed gently on the braid below it.

  Colin opened the door quickly and his eyes bore into Bella's, alive once more.

  "I must go. If we do not act, the end will come quickly. I know the queen and the beast still live. I realize I ask a huge responsibility of you, but if I do not return, will you take the children?"

  "I already promised Mari that I would."

  He nodded. “I will send word as soon as I am able. I will also leave some militia members left behind to see to your needs."

  He strode off the porch and directly to his mount, his saddle packs had been prepared days earlier and laid on the floor of the barn. He clucked and the horse wheeled and began to gallop.

  From inside, two hungry cries filled the air and Bella looked down to see her shirt soaked with wetness. She turned and walked into the cottage, fully aware of her isolation.

  Before the door closed completely, she heard a cawing a few miles away and her eyes darted to the sky as she shivered.

  * * * *

  Rae looked out her sitting room window from her rocking chair at the cloudy, dusk-colored sky; thunderheads were blowing in off Hudson Bay, and dark, thick shapes loomed ominously.

  She rocked and stroked her cat absently. This was not how she had pictured her life turning out when she was a little girl.

  She was beginning to feel that their family was cursed. First Morgana, with an incident horrible enough by itself to change her life forever, and now Bella. Loneliness she had not felt since the death of her mother creeped into the shadows of her psyche and threatened to take hold of her. She got up from the chair and walked to her tea trolley—which had not held tea in a very long time—and poured herself a glass of absinthe. She walked to the window and stared into the blackening sky searching for them—the wretched black harbingers. When they appeared, at least she knew that all the events she had experienced had actually occurred and were not a cruel joke from her overwrought mind.

  Rain began to fall, softly at first and then in sheets. She could hear the girls downstairs playing something. Surely this must end soon, one way or the other. Everyone deserves some degree of happiness in this world. What was it she wanted? She had put aside her own desires for so long, ever since the death of her brother-in-law, she wasn't even sure what she needed now; aside from the safe return of her possibly pregnant sister. Perhaps it was just having something of her own.

  Her work she shared with her sisters. The children she shared with her sisters. Her history she shared with her sisters. Love? How long had it been since she attempted to let a man into her life? Years ... Why?

  Her experience with men had involved the type she had labeled, “amygdala disabled.” She had participated in a research study in college where she was hooked up to electrodes to measure nerve impulses with regard to empathy, and being able to mentally imagine oneself in someone else's situation or life.

  One of the areas of the brain dealing with empathy is the amygdala. She herself had been categorized as being in two standard deviations above the mean for impulses—meaning, she could almost feel someone else's pain acutely. Which some would consider an asset, she herself considered a curse. She wished she could be obtuse and ignorant like the majority of the world, but apparently, she was not genetically hard-wired for that.

  The men she had been with were all about themselves—their careers and aspirations—and women were just something with which to pass the time. Her own gran had been “amygdala disabled” as evidenced by her frequent jabs at Rae throughout her life.

  The truth was, love of anything greater than self was difficult to find nowadays. Usually, if that person even existed, they were already committed to another. So, it was better for her to be alone with her principles, than to be with an idiot and unhappy. But your principles won't keep you warm at night, or hear you sobbing yourself to sleep, you stupid girl. Always too smart for your own good, you were, she could hear Gran saying.

  Rae downed the absinthe and grimaced. The thunder raged on outside her window. This is gonna be a long night.

  Chapter 26

  Colin rode at the front of the wagon train, followed by seven hundred men, all on horseback or atop the wagons.

  The winding trail up to the mountain seemed much longer to him for some reason. Directly behind him was Nathaniel, his captain, Christian, his first officer, and his cousin from the southernmost shire, Oliver. Men had come from every land, from inside and beyond the forest when they had learned of the queen's defeat and her removal from power. When word had been sent of the need for the resistance to finish off the regime, men from every race followed the calling. Most, to avenge the death of their loved ones at the hand of the queen's scepter.

  Nathaniel clucked to his horse and nudged it up with Colin's mount.

  "Can you smell it?” he requested.

  "No, not yet. But I am of the belief that in the last battle, my sense of smell was damaged from the inhalation of sulphur."

  "I can smell him now. He is either dead, and his carcass is rotting, or he has found something besides children to sustain him since we saw him last."

  "He will be weak, for sure. He needs them to prolong his life. He will surely have lost power since last we saw him."

  "Shall we stop at sundown? The weather appears to be turning foul,” Nathaniel said, his eyes scanning the sky.

  "Let's try to get to the Rouge Rock formation, it is roughly halfway to Mount Morte',” instructed Colin.

  Nathaniel turned to him with an uncharacterist
ic expression on his broad face. When he spoke, it appeared to be with great effort. “How is the Outlander female who did not make it through the portal?"

  Colin smiled gently. “She is as large as a cottage and I fear she will give birth here, instead of in her own world. I know this weighs heavy on her mind. She is anxious to find her way back. She has been caring for my two ... children; and I wonder what will happen when her own arrives."

  "Any news of her family?"

  Colin raised his eyebrows. “Nothing. The portals have all been quiet since their departure. I fear the queen has mastered the use of the dark book and has a scheme for the portals, as they no longer have any correlation to the lunar cycles. All the more reason to quickly find her and dispose of her and the book, once and for all."

  Nathaniel turned his mount and rode toward the back of the procession. Colin smiled to himself and whispered quietly, “I believe the fair sister has an admirer."

  * * * *

  Rae awoke with a start to a crash of lightening. Her two cats leaped from the bottom of her bed and promptly disappeared beneath it. Sweat made her nightclothes stick to her, and her chest was heaving in an attempt to breathe.

  She had been dreaming of her mother, and wished she could return to sleep since Rae desperately needed the woman's advice in so many matters, it made her head spin. Thunder boomed again and she jumped. She slipped into her robe and padded down the hall and down the creaky stairs.

  The window in the front door shook from a thunder clap and caused the silver bell to tinkle with the force of its vibration. She turned toward Rachael's suite and quietly slipped inside. Her heart warmed with the sight in front of her. Sprawled on the floor in a sleeping bag were Morgana and Eva, with the dog firmly sandwiched between them. Her twin was on the couch with her head resting on her hand.

  Rae pulled a blanket over her twin and shut off the television.

  Lightening flashed and the small lamp on the coffee table flickered once, then everything went dark.

  As quietly as she was able, she snaked her way through Eva's toys, which littered the floor, and went into the kitchen. She fumbled around in the drawer till she located the utility candles and lit one. Its hazy light filled the room. She glanced down at what her feet had brushed up against, and there stood Chloe, shaking from head to foot and whining softly.

  "It's just a storm, girl,” said Rae, and she lifted the small dog into her arms and made her way for the stairs. She felt slightly woozy from the alcohol she drank and for a moment, it appeared as if the stairs had just shifted to the left. Shaking her head, Rae ploughed upward, vertigo threatening to overtake her.

  She reached her bedroom, and seeing the bottle of alcohol on her night table, poured herself a glass and raised it into the air. “Might as well do the thing properly."

  At that moment, a thunderclap sounded so loudly, that she was certain the glass in the nearby window would shatter with the force of the vibration.

  Quickly, she made her way over to the window, and at first, all she could see was deep dark and swirling wind. Lightning lit the sky, and she almost dropped the candle she was holding.

  Below her were crows, hundreds—perhaps thousands of them—flying in a circle. As they flew, they cawed and savagely pecked one another. While Rae watched, one crow attached itself to another and promptly plucked out its eye. Suddenly, she could hear something. Whispers, just like the night she and Bella raced across the yard; and just like the time when she was twelve in front of this very window. She could see her mother taking her hand and stepping off the window ledge, lightening serving as a backlight behind her.

  Faster and faster the crows flew, forming a cyclone. Something began to happen inside that circle. Lightning flashed again, but this time, it was within the circle of crows.

  Rae gasped and held her breath. She wrenched the old window open to get a better look. The night air extinguished her candle and sent the curtains flying.

  Lightning again flashed in the circle, then, like a badly tuned station, images began to appear inside the crow's formation; a battalion of men, undoubtedly heading for war; the beast, sleeping, but small tendrils of smoke escaping from his nostrils, she could even smell the sulpher; two small babies, asleep in a pram ... and a hand reaching for them ... on it perched a ruby between two diamonds.

  "I'm going,” were the only words Raena said as she threw some clothes on and perched on top of the window ledge. Briefly, she thought of the girls, and their restful sleeping forms urged her on. She leapt into the center of the circle.

  The circle vanished; the night storm ceased, and the wind subsided into a gentle blowing breeze.

  * * * *

  Bella lay on her side, her giant belly heavy as she slept. Involuntarily, she clawed her stomach in her sleep when false labor tightened her belly, as it had been doing for two weeks now. In her dream, she could see her baby and Sam. She whimpered softly as she reached out her arms for the baby. The baby began wailing hungrily and her breasts leaked, making her stir in her sleep. The baby in her arms suddenly stopped crying and was silent. Bella sat up as quickly as she was able.

  Had that been Cullen, or Hope crying in her dream? The cottage was still and silent—too silent for her liking. She could not hear either of Colin's two dogs outside, either. She awkwardly got out of the bed and began to move toward the twins’ room, when she doubled over with a contraction. She bent over and waited it out. Still no noise.

  "Hope?” she called, not worrying about waking them up—indeed that was her plan.

  She opened the door and as her eyes met the pram, she vomited onto the floor. The bed was empty and the window was broken, night air streaming through it.

  She ran to the window, slipping in her own vomit, and grabbed at the windowsill. Frantic, she looked outside. Just within her eyesight, she could see two figures on horseback, now almost off Colin's lands. Out in the yard, the two border collies lay dead, pierced with arrows.

  She ran out into the great room. As she began to gather the bow and arrows and horn, all of which Colin had taught her to use over the past nine months, another contraction hit her. She was forced to her knees, and without realizing it, she cried out. Water flowed from between her legs and pooled all around her on the hardwood floor.

  The baby was coming, and she was utterly alone.

  Chapter 27

  Colin lay in his blanket beside the fire, finally succumbing to the many consecutive nights without sleep. When a knot burst in the fire, he opened his eyes and scanned the area while not raising his head from the ground.

  Was the fire all he had heard? He looked over the sea of sleeping men and his eyes located the four sentries he had posted before retiring. They were all upright, all seemed to be in order. Then he heard it—a high-pitched sound, either a woman, or perhaps a baby, or even a cat-bird.

  It sounded again, but was immediately dampened by the sound of crows cawing in the distance.

  "Murderous, treacherous creatures,” Colin mumbled and slowly rose to his feet.

  He walked across the camp toward his horse. The horse was tired from the journey, and was uncharacteristically still as Colin mounted her bareback.

  Quietly turning the horse, he weaved his way throughout the makeshift camp, being as quiet as possible.

  He scanned for Nathaniel, then realizing Nathaniel had taken a small band to return to check on the settlement, acknowledged that he must get some proper rest. His mental clarity was waning.

  Colin made eye contact with Christian, who raised his eyebrows in question. Colin returned the question by putting his fingers to his lips and pointing in the direction from which the cry had sounded.

  As he pulled away from the camp, he quickened the horse's pace to a gallop. He could hear, as well as see, the crows now.

  The flock flew about wildly, a black tempest, cawing and dive-bombing one another. As he watched, a larger one ripped the talon off another and the bird fell to the ground, bloody.

  As he drew
closer, he could see they were swarming over a body of water, a small pond.

  Lightening flashed within the murder, and Colin stopped his mount to watch as he had never witnessed storm activity in the flock. He had begun to believe his father had fabricated this idea to frighten his rebellious sons into submission, but there it was, right before his weary eyes.

  He reached over and drew an arrow from his quiver. He positioned it in his bow and urged the horse forward. She whinnied softly and side-stepped, voicing her own reservations about advancing toward the murder of crows.

  "Come on, girl,” he spoke quietly to her, and she slowly advanced.

  The flock was diving and swooping toward the surface of the water, as if fishing. Indeed, they reminded Colin of kingfishers or pelicans in their behavior. He peered to the surface of the water to attempt to glimpse their prey, when his heart began to beat wildly.

  When a circle of water would appear on the surface, a long-haired head would appear above the waterline, gasping for breath, while two hundred crows dived at it. It then would disappear again, seemingly trying to make its way toward the shoreline.

  Mixed amongst the murky water was a bloody trail that followed the pursuit of the struggle.

  Colin unsheathed his sword and urged the horse toward the water. When he got to the water's edge, she reared up and Colin quit the struggle. He dismounted and began wading into the water. The flock shifted their attention to him, and in one massive black cloud, they descended on him.

  He sliced into the air, sending many bloody corpses into the dark, murky water.

  Off in the water, he could hear gasping for breath when the woman surfaced. The sheer number of the creatures was forcing Colin to step back toward the shore. He removed his horn and blew into it hard and long—a cry for reinforcements.

  The woman, seeing that the whole flock had descended upon his person, began to cry out, “Come over here, you vicious flying harpies! Come get me! I'm not afraid of you!"

  And as Colin chanced a look at his would-be rescuer, he wondered which was more frightening, the crows, or the woman.