Split Feather

by Deborah A. Wolf

  Bad things have happened to you. Well, she’d nailed that part. “Okay, but how did I lose my, uh, my bear-spirit? And how is any of this going to help?” I waved my hands at the little fires.

  “Someone stole your bear-yega. Some bad shaman.”

  Somewhere out in the darkness, a woman screamed, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. She screamed again. Only… I was pretty sure it wasn’t a woman. Every hair on my body stood upright, and everything I was wanted to run back into the hut, slam the door and bar it, and hide under the furs until whatever it was had gone.

  A shudder ran through Grandma’s thin frame, but she smiled, too.

  “Someone stole your bear-yega… and we’re going to steal it back.”

  24

  She prowled about the perimeter of our fires, looking for a way in, this girl who wasn’t a girl, trying to find a way through so that she could tear our souls out and eat our corpses. She was the Giyeg, and the Giyeg is always hungry.

  That’s what Grandma said, anyway, as she sat cross-legged on the ground, knitting. Because who doesn’t knit when some demon-girl with tusks and eyes like burning coals is screaming and tearing her hair out because she wants to eat you? Seriously?

  Seriously?

  “You’re tense,” Grandma observed, and her needles laughed clack-clack.

  “You’re crazy,” I replied, pacing the inner ring of the fire even as the demon-girl bared her fangs. She did look hungry, I thought—she could have been a runway model, with ribs like that. If the fangs and glowing eyes hadn’t been enough to tell me this was no ordinary girl, and even if I’d been deaf to her screams, the fact that she was bare-ass naked in this cold would have been a dead giveaway.

  Dead giveaway, right? Ha ha. Yeah, I’m funny when I’m scared shitless.

  “You are meat,” the demon-girl growled, red tongue lolling between her tusks. “I will tear your flesh from your—”

  “Bones and drink our blood and wear our finger bones as a necklace,” I finished, and rolled my eyes to show her I wasn’t afraid. “So you’ve said.”

  “Don’t be rude,” Grandma chided. “Either of you.”

  We both rolled our eyes at that. Grandma finished off her row, bit the yarn off, and set her work aside. Then she stood, and stretched her back, and smiled across the ring of fire to the Giyeg.

  “Well?” she asked. “Are you satisfied?”

  “I cannot enter,” the spirit admitted. “Why have you lured me here with the scent of flesh? Do you mock me?”

  “Never. I have invited you here so that we might strike a bargain.”

  “Bargain?” The Giyeg went still all over, but her eyes blazed with interest and her nostrils flared like a bear scenting fresh meat.

  Grandma motioned me close, put her hand on my back, and pushed me closer to the fire as if I were a little kid being introduced to a family friend. “This is my granddaughter. Something has been stolen from her.”

  “Yesssss.” The Giyeg tipped her head back, wrinkling black lips away from her tusks and flaring her nostrils wide. “Her souls are torn and bleeding.” She smacked her lips and leered at me, and I scowled back at her. “And she reeks of fear.”

  “I’m not afraid of you,” I lied.

  “You should be,” she snarled. “I—”

  “Girls!” Grandma snapped, and we both looked down at our feet. We realized at the same time what we were doing, and our eyes met across the fire, and the demon-girl smiled a little.

  “I have a grandmother, too,” she confided, and she shuddered.

  “Are you quite finished?” Grandma snapped.

  “Yes,” we agreed in unison.

  “Good. Now,” she said to the Giyeg, “you can see that Siggy’s bear-yega has been stolen. I would ask your help in getting it back.”

  “And why would I help you, human?” The Giyeg laughed with a sound like hissing teakettles, red tongue lolling. “I have a better idea. I think I’ll just wait for your little fires to die down, and then I’ll eat you both.”

  Shit, I thought. Fuck. Shitfuck.

  “Oh, but you haven’t heard the good part yet.” Grandma smiled as if they were discussing the weather over a cup of tea. “I have a pretty good idea who stole it.”

  The Giyeg snorted. “Why should I care?”

  “Someone you know, I think. She is called Puyuk.”

  The Giyeg’s eyes bugged out, and her mouth opened wide, wide enough to swallow my head, and she screamed. She howled, and gnashed her teeth, and her clawed hands dug furrows in the frozen ground, but for all her fury she could not break through the ring of fire. Finally she calmed and, ribs heaving, snarled at my grandmother.

  “You wish me to help you steal this female human’s bear-yega back from the sorceress Puyuk.”

  Grandmother inclined her head.

  “The price will be very high,” the Giyeg said.

  “Of course.”

  Her eyes gleamed. “You will bring me the hair of the sorceress Puyuk.”

  My grandmother frowned. “Impossible. Puyuk is far too powerful an enemy for Siggy to face directly.”

  “Not impossible,” the Giyeg said. “Merely improbable. This is the price of my assistance, old woman.”

  “Hair?” I looked from one to the other, frowning. “You want me to bring you somebody’s hair?”

  The Giyeg lolled her red, red tongue.

  “If my granddaughter is to pay such a steep price for your help, it is only fair that she gets something extra in return.”

  The Giyeg turned her hot gaze full upon me, and I felt my heart squeeze shut under that brimstone stare.

  “What boon would you ask, human?”

  “I… uh… I…” The Giyeg lifted her lip in a delicate sneer, so like those bitchy girls back in high school that I found my anger and, inside it, a sliver of courage. “I am haunted by a demon back home,” I blurted, “in the land of the living. I would like to be rid of it.”

  “Agreed,” the Giyeg growled, and she spat into the fire. The flames leapt at her face, and she laughed. “I will help you get into Puyuk’s lair undetected so that you may retrieve your bear-yega. If you are able to overcome her.” Her voice was rich with amusement. “And if you bring to me the hair of Puyuk, I will give you a weapon powerful enough to defeat your worst enemy.” Her smile was brilliant, and beautiful, and I didn’t trust it one whit.

  “This weapon will help me get rid of my demon?”

  “Oh yesssss,” she breathed. “I will make you a weapon that can defeat any enemy. A weapon fit for a hero.” She leaned in close to the fire, face avid, eyes bloody bright. “Do we have an accord, human?” She spat into her hand and reached through the fire, palm up, waiting.

  “Siggy!” Grandmother cried.

  “Do we have an accord?” Those hellish eyes bore into me, laughing, mocking my hesitation.

  “Yeah, sure,” I agreed. I spat into my hand, and reached for hers. A weapon fit for a hero…

  Her hand clasped mine, and for a moment there was warmth, and a feeling of fellowship, an understanding of sorts…

  But then there was only pain.

  My back arched…

  My head snapped back…

  As the Giyeg laughed in delight, I opened my mouth to scream…

  “Qa’hoq,” I cried. “Qa’hoq!”

  25

  “Oh, hold still!” Grandma scolded. “It’s your own fault, you know. You’re lucky that Giyeg just turned you into a raven. It could have been a lot worse.”

  “Qa’hoq,” I fussed, flapping around like an idiot. I hadn’t mastered the art of flipping my wings closed yet, and kept getting them all fouled up and backward.

  Hell, I had wings… this whole situation was fucked up. That bitch Giyeg had turned me into a fuckin’ bird and then poof, disappeared, but I swear I could still hear her laughter howling on the wind. Sure, I’d probably be able to get into the witch’s lair undetected, but what was I supposed to do once I got there, peck her head off?


  To make matters worse, Grandma had laughed at me. Laughed! When she finally stopped, she warned me that this Puyuk would like as not eat me if I showed up at her place like this. Raven meat was kind of her thing, apparently, but to hear Grandma talk, it was all my fault for being “hasty.”

  “There’s no way around it, I’m afraid,” Grandma said at last, looking up from my poor tangled wings. “You’re just going to have to learn how to be a raven, so that you can sneak into Puyuk’s house and kill her. You seem a resourceful girl—I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

  Resourceful? Resourceful? I pecked her hands to make her stop fussing with my feathers, and then pecked the old book she’d been studying. Surely there was something of use in there.

  “Oh, this?” she laughed. “This isn’t a spell book, you know. Silly bird. Knitting patterns… see?” She held it up. “I wanted to make you a little hat.”

  “Fuck!” I shouted, quite clearly, and she almost fell off her chair in surprise.

  “Excellent!” she beamed. “I mean, that’s hardly fit language for a lady to use, but it will be very helpful if you can figure out how to talk in that form. Can you say anything else?”

  “Fuck,” I cawed, and again, “Fuck. Qa’hoq.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that—unless, of course, you intend to remain a pet bird forever. I admit I could use the company. I could make you a tiny red riding hood…” She reached for her book of knitting patterns.

  “Fuck,” I muttered. “Qa’hoq. Siggy.” It sounded more like “Aggy.”

  “Aggy. Siggy. Awk. Nevermore. Nevermore. Fuck.”

  “Well, I can see we have work to do.” Did she have to sound so cheerful about it? “I listened to that speech therapist lady working with the kids, back when your mom was a little girl. Okay, Siggy, repeat after me. ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.’”

  “Fuck,” I squawked, and pooped on her table just to be ornery.

  * * *

  The Underworld was a dreary place, devoid of color but for shades of bone-white, snow-white, ice-white. That had been my impression of it, but it was because I’d been looking at it through the eyes of a girl. In the eyes of a raven, it was a wonder.

  In my new sight, everything sparkled and glowed, and everything was in focus. It’s difficult to explain, but it was as if I’d been walking around with eyes full of mud, and now they’d been cleaned off. The sky was brilliant, painted in whorls and streaks of funky colors, and everything kind of glowed.

  That was the best I could do to sort out what I was seeing. Try describing a sunset to someone who’s never seen the color red. I had a helluva time at first with depth perception, too, because seriously, everything was in focus all the time, and I kept bumping into stuff or thinking the ground was closer than it was. Once I learned to keep my human thoughts out of the way, my bird brain handled all the mechanical stuff—eating, drinking, pooping, flying—but coming to terms with this new way of seeing things was hard.

  “You’re doing that on purpose,” Grandma accused, picking her hat up off the ground for the fucktillionth time and brushing snow off of it.

  “Not,” I squawked, and I tried to look innocent.

  Ravens never look innocent.

  “Try it again,” she insisted, scooping me up in both hands and tossing me up into the air. My arms—my wings—snapped open as I scrabbled for purchase, and I flailed, I fell…

  I flew.

  I flew.

  The sky caught me up in her laughing embrace and I climbed higher, higher, so strong and sleek and good. I tucked my wings and looped over backward into a barrel roll. Finally, I’d discovered why ravens do that.

  Because it’s fucking awesome, that’s why.

  I plummeted, squawking, toward the diamond-brilliant ground, and pulled out of my dive at the very last moment, losing a few feathers in the process. Totally worth it. I shot up, up, up, so fast I had to blink my extra eyelid shut—that felt weird—so high I thought I might touch the bottom of the Underworld sky.

  “Siggy, that’s high enough!” Grandma shouted.

  Up I shot, up, up, up.

  “Siggy, come down!”

  “Nevermore,” I laughed.

  I was free.

  * * *

  Being a raven was hard goddamn work.

  Grandma scooped me up out of the snow bank and carried me into the hut, scolding me the whole time. I was too tired to even roll my eyes, or fold my wings, or anything. I let my head droop and my beak hang open. So tired.

  She carried me into the hut and set me down into the wide birch-bark basket lined with soft bits of flannel that served as my bed these days. I sighed as she built the fire higher and my poor strained muscles relaxed into the warmth. My third eyelid was closed, and everything looked soft and fuzzy. I must have dozed off. So warm.

  Grandma appeared before me as if by magic. “Eat,” she said, holding a bit of fish up to my beak. “Eat.”

  I was too tired to eat, but she was a bossy old woman who wouldn’t leave me alone, so I ate, and I drank, and I suffered her touch as she smoothed my feathers. When she took her hands away I floofed everything back into place and snuggled down into my nest.

  “My poor little Siggy,” she sighed.

  “Aggy,” I agreed. “’Oor Aggy.”

  * * *

  I was jerked out of a deep sleep by the sound of a monster roaring.

  I’d gotten trapped in its cave somehow—perhaps it had caught me as I slept, and brought me there for its dinner. My feathers crested and my heart leapt wildly as I tried to figure out an escape. There, there, between the burning trees and the snarling beast, a sliver of light. Freedom. I launched myself through the gloom and tried to batter my way out, strong beak and sharp claws rat-tat-tat against the prison door.

  Trapped, trapped, I was trapped.

  The monster rose from its corner, ugly mouth gaping wide, grasping at me with its mass of short pink tentacles. I pecked at it, raked my talons across the featherless hairless flesh, and shrieked in despair as it seized me.

  “Siggy!” it roared. “Siggy, stop!” I stabbed at it, determined to put out one of those eyes before it ate me.

  “Siggy!” it roared again.

  “Aggy!” I screamed. “Aggy aggy aggy!”

  Oh…

  Siggy.

  I was Siggy. I stopped fighting, held firm in my grandmother’s gentle old hands. She was bleeding. She was crying.

  “Oh, Siggy,” she sighed. “We don’t have much time, do we?”

  “Nevermore,” I agreed.

  * * *

  I rode on the old woman’s shoulder, like a tame pet. It might have been true, at that. She fed me fish and gave me a soft warm nest to sleep in, and in return I chased the stardust demons away when they lingered at her smoke hole too long, and I came when she called.

  Usually.

  She’d never walked this far from her lair before, though. It wasn’t safe out here on the ice, and I wondered idly what she was up to. Hunting, maybe? I knew that humans liked to kill, and that they’d leave enough meat for a raven to feast on for days. Most of the things out in these parts were more likely to eat an old human, however, than be eaten by one. Perhaps it was time for her to die?

  How long did humans live, anyway?

  Foolish questions. I shook my head to be clear of such nonsense, and floofed my feathers. Why was I sitting here like a pet when I could be free? I stepped to the edge of her shoulder and shook my wings loose, prepared to…

  “Siggy,” she said. “Stay with me.”

  Siggy, I was Siggy.

  “Aggy,” I agreed, unhappily, and settled down. “Aggy.”

  * * *

  In the end she betrayed me, as all humans will.

  We came to the edge of the old forest. I wanted to fly up into the trees and above them, I wanted to dart in and out of the clouds of bone-dust and soul-dust and seek out others of my kind, even though this forest was sorrowful and silent. I would
find a mate, this was a good place, and we would fill the trees with the sound of laughter, qa’hoq.

  There was a female humanish at the edge of the forest, splitting a pile of old dead wood and making funny soft sounds. I tipped my head and thought I might like to try making that sound—such a thing attracts the best, the cleverest mates. I tried crooning her song in my raven’s voice.

  Rrrrroooooo-rrrrooo—oooOOooooak.

  The humanish looked up, startled. “Hello, pretty girl,” my friend the old woman said. The one who fed me fish. I snapped my beak, irritated. Any bird with two eyes could see that this humanish was neither young nor a girl, no matter what her outline might suggest. This one had teeth, hidden though they were.

  “Grandmother,” the humanish replied, and it bobbed in place. It cast her eyes down as one might for a high-ranking elder, though it was clearly the more powerful of the two. Humans and humanish were odd creatures. I floofed my feathers and decided to ignore them.

  “I am tired, and I am hungry,” the old woman said. “Do you mind if I rest here for a little while?” The humanish shrugged, clearly uncomfortable. Then it noticed me, and its eyes lit up. Not with hunger, I hoped, sidling closer to the old woman’s hat. Plenty of things in the Underworld would eat a raven, given half a chance.

  “Lovely bird,” the humanish crooned, gliding closer. It wore shapeless rags and an elaborate golden collar, and its feet were wrapped in tattered cloth. It was a pretty thing, young-looking and frail-looking, but I wasn’t fooled. I pecked at its fingers when they got too close.

  “She’s a pain in my ass,” the old woman complained. “I don’t know why I keep her, but she’s too scrawny to eat, and sick besides. She pecks, and she shits everywhere.”

  I squawked indignantly.

  “I’ve half a mind to trade her for that nice ax of yours,” she continued, looking longingly at the pile of wood. “Is that living steel?”