Crow Shine

by Alan Baxter

  The Toymaker is watching me again, her eyes dark and deep. Age and wisdom I can’t comprehend lives there. It’s clear she won’t influence my decision, but it’s obvious I have the balance of power. I can shift reality for all or some or me or them.

  I don’t want to give up the dice. They already feel a part of me. I feel bigger, fuller, my jeans less baggy. I’m growing as Luck fades. But I don’t want to be like them. I’ve never craved power, just a fair go.

  “What do I get out this?” I ask the Toymaker. “If I choose not to be Luck, what’s my benefit?”

  “Nothing. Don’t look so crestfallen, life has never been fair. Be Luck or don’t, simple as that. Hurry or he’ll be gone, and the choice with him. You took the dice.”

  Luck and Chance. All I really want is a better deal from each.

  The law of the street; never pass up an opportunity.

  “How about a compromise?” I say. They don’t answer. “I was stupid and curious, but all I’ve ever wanted is a chance.” Chance grins. “I just want some luck.” Luck smiles softly.

  I don’t want to be like them.

  I tip the dice from the bag, roll their heavy warmth around my hand. “One throw,” I say. “I’ll roll these and take whatever comes out of them and walk away with it. And maybe then my life will get better.”

  “Not if you roll snake eyes,” Chance says.

  I look him right in the eye. “I’m prepared to take that chance.”

  He smiles crookedly and nods. “Brave lad.”

  I step back, gesture at my ragged clothes, shoes held together with duct tape, filthy coat. “You really can’t get much lower than me.”

  The Toymaker’s eyes narrow. “Be careful. There are far worse lives than yours.”

  I rattle the dice in my hand, crouch down. “You all let these roll to a stop and show the result clearly. Nobody moves until I’m done.”

  “That’s how it’ll go,” the Toymaker says, and Luck and Chance sigh and step back.

  I can see through Luck, a gossamer ghost in the room. His eyes are wild, desperate. I’ll roll in his direction, give him the best chance of getting them back. But it’ll be out of my hands by then. The dice tumble around in my cupped palm, life and death circling past my fingers. Out of the box, into a life worth living, that’s all I’ve ever wanted. I’ve thrown two sevens, can I throw a third? Or a double six? “What’s the best result?” I ask.

  “Depends on the game,” Luck says, sounding a thousand miles away.

  “The game of life,” I say.

  He smiles. “Lucky seven, Skinny. It’s always lucky seven.”

  Three in a row. I can do that. If I believe strongly enough. I deserve it. I’ve struggled my whole life, I’ve always tried to be a decent person, even on the street where some people will steal the shoes off your feet or stab you for a cigarette.

  This is my time.

  I take a deep breath and roll the bones.

  Old Promise, New Blood

  I still think of myself as a twin, though it’s been fourteen years since my father killed my brother. We were twelve when he sat us down on the threadbare sofa for a talk. Twelve years old and inseparable, almost one person in two bodies.

  He explained why, our father. Talked of blood prices, old promises, stupid mistakes. He cried so hard and we’d never seen him cry before. But all we heard was, “One of you has to go.”

  He sobbed as he told us how much he wished it were different, but if one didn’t go we both would. We told him that was fine by us, but he wouldn’t have it. “Someone has to survive,” he said. “One, at least, has to cleanse the blood. Then it hasn’t cost us everything.”

  And Simon said, “Then it has to be me.” He was the elder, by twenty minutes, and that made him the one. He looked at me. “Brothers, always and forever.”

  I railed against it, but our father simply nodded. He put a shaking hand under Simon’s chin and said, “Thank you for not making me choose.”

  *

  As I walk this darkened corridor my heart is strangely calm. My mind is still. All the doubt, all the planning, all the second-guessing, seems pointless now. Even if it’s not the right thing, it’s the only thing. There’s no going back. I know he wouldn’t approve, my father, but really, fuck him. Like I owe him any kind of allegiance.

  I don’t hate him. I’ve lived a life furious with him, but hate is the wrong word to describe how I feel. I get it. He made a mistake. A terrible mistake that nearly cost him everything. And everyone makes mistakes.

  The door at the end of the hall is deep red, as I’d been told to expect. I raise my hand to knock and I’m surprised to see it trembling despite my calmness. It shudders like I’m cold, or struck with a palsy. I grip my fingers into a tight fist and the shaking stops. I rap against the crimson wood, one two three. Pause for a three count and rap again, one two three. I wait. Nothing happens and a weight descends on my mind, everything crashing down around me with the realisation that it was all a joke, all pointless and I’ve been led along on a merry dance by magi with . . .

  I jump as the door clicks open. A two inch gap of darkness appears inside the frame as the door drifts in and stops. I give it a gentle shove. It swings soundlessly all the way, a yawning blackness beyond that threatens to suck me in.

  A sharp scratch and a flare and I wince as matchlight blossoms into being. Parts of the room resolve, armchairs, bookshelves, desk, small tables, a standard lamp. In the middle of it all a man so old he looks desiccated by age, his face stark yellow in the light of the flame. Deep wrinkles seem to squirm on his cheeks as he lowers the match to an oil lamp. Light flares again and he turns the wick down, the room settles into a soft glow that doesn’t quite reach the edges and corners, thick shadow lurking on the periphery. He sinks into a chair and beckons me in with one crooked finger.

  *

  Simon’s bravery that day still shames me. I never once offered to take his place. I shouted and screamed at him not to do it. But he understood it had to be done, there wasn’t a choice in the matter. One of us had to go to save the other and I never offered my life for his.

  I turned on my father. “Why can’t it be you?” and my father hung his head, tears spattering the knees of his worn jeans.

  “I’ve offered,” he said in a broken voice. “I’ve begged, but the deal is fixed. It was made when you two were born, before I knew you. I loved you both. From the moment I found out your mum was pregnant, I loved you. When we learned there were two of you, we had twice the love. But I didn’t know you. And I . . . ” he sobbed so hard the words were lost. He sniffed, drew breath, tried again. “Damn my soul, I loved her so much.”

  “Mum?” Simon asked, as I stared in disbelief.

  Our father simply nodded, crying too hard to speak.

  *

  I stand before the old man, my eyes straining through the gloom for some kind of detail. I feel awkward, hands hanging limply at my sides. They are trembling again.

  The man’s eyes are rheumy, wet and loose. His lower eyelids hang away from the eyeball, red and sore-looking. He nods almost imperceptibly. “You brought them?” he asks, his voice paper thin with decades.

  “Yes.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the muslin wrapped parcel, grubby with specks of mud still clinging to it. I hand it over.

  The old man shifts back in his chair, shakes his head vigorously. “No, no, I can’t touch them.” He points to a sturdy walnut table beside him. “There. Unwrap it.”

  I lay the muslin down, fold back the sides to reveal the dirty, thin bones inside. My father’s hand.

  “Have any trouble getting them?” the old man asks.

  I shake my head. The gesture is a lie, it had taken months to find his grave and weeks to plan the theft. I was nearly caught, digging up the hard ground one frosty night and abandoned the operation, only to return the next. But this old man doesn’t need to know all that.

  He leans forward, his face lowering over the bones until his nose almo
st brushes them, and sniffs. Three quick, short inhalations. He nods again and sits back. “And the other?”

  I hand him the envelope with the money. More money than I’ve ever had before. Hard as the bones had been to find and retrieve, the price had been harder.

  He opens the envelope and peers inside, runs a thumb over the wad of bills. “Good. Pull up a chair.”

  *

  “She wasn’t killed in a car crash, was she?” Simon said as dad cried. It wasn’t really a question, the realisation hit us both with sudden surety. As dad’s tears soaked his knees, we knew we would soon be separated and that our mum hadn’t died in an accident.

  Our father shook his head, taking short, shallow breaths.

  “That day we were picked up from school by Aunty Sue, when you told us mum had had an accident,” I said. “What really happened?”

  My father looked up at us for the first time since Simon had offered himself and nodded. We deserved the truth, his nod said, and he wouldn’t shy away from it any more. “She couldn’t handle it.” His voice gained strength with each word. “What I’d done, it pretty much destroyed her. For years we grappled with the decision, she grappled with her hatred of me and her love for you. She endured my presence for your sake, but she never loved me, not after you were born.” He paused, hitched a couple of ragged breaths. “We both tried,” he went on. “We searched for any possible way to save you both, even if it meant our lives, but there was no option. That day, when you were ten, she finally cracked. She couldn’t bear the thought of what would happen. I tried to tell her she needed to get as much of you both as she could, that we owed both of you as much time and love and attention as we could possibly manage, but she . . . her mind . . . she broke inside.

  “I got a call at work that day because the postman heard a car running in the garage when he knocked to deliver a parcel. The garage door was locked. He called emergency services, but it was all too late. Your mother had been in the car, a hose through the window from the exhaust, for hours.” His sobs took over his voice again and he sank his face into his hands.

  Simon and I exchanged a look and we both felt the loss of our mother more strongly than ever. We knew again the pain of losing her, and her pain at not being able to cope with our father’s mistake. And we burned inside knowing she hadn’t been able to stay with us until the end. We looked into each other’s eyes and we missed our mother and, for a moment then, we certainly hated our father. I don’t know if Simon died still hating him or if he’d found any kind of forgiveness. He didn’t have long.

  “I just loved her so much!” our father said suddenly through his tears. “I loved her more than life and she was dying, haemorrhaging as she gave birth, and the doctors started to panic.” His rubbed his palms over his face like he was trying to drag it off. “I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her and the doctors said I would. They could save you boys, they told me, but not your mother. And I wished, I wished so hard for her to live.”

  “And?” Simon’s voice was hard and cold as ice.

  Our father looked up, eyes red and haunted. “And it came to me. As the doctors worked, the room around me darkened and time froze, everything stilled like a photograph. And it stepped from between shadows and said, ‘You really want her to live?’ I thought I was dreaming. I thought I had gone mad, but I said, ‘Yes! I want her to live!’”

  Our father stood up, anger pulsing off him in waves as he paced the small room. “I could only feel her loss in my heart. I loved you boys, but I didn’t know you. ‘What price?’ he said and I didn’t understand. ‘She could live,’ he said, ‘but I need to be paid. Blood for blood.’” I stared at him. I didn’t know what to do. He pointed over my shoulder at the frozen tableau of your mother in the fatal pain of childbirth and said, ‘One of them, when they come of age.’” Our father collapsed back onto the sofa, gasping breath between sobs of grief and rage. “And I said yes!”

  *

  I pull up a wobbly dining chair and sit across the table from the old man, my father’s fingerbones on the wood between us. My hands tremble in my lap, but my heart and mind are still.

  “Your father made a terrible deal,” the old man says. “A dangerous game he played.”

  I nod, unsure what to say.

  “And you play an even more dangerous one.”

  I nod again. I don’t plan to lose my nerve now. They’re all gone, my grief and pain has eaten me for years. We’ve been apart longer than we were ever together, Simon and I, and the pain won’t go away. The scars won’t heal. One person in two parts we were. Now I’m half a person in one part and it hurts.

  “If this fails,” the old man says, “he gets you all. I will not allow his presence into my life. I’ll take no chances for you.”

  I shrug. “So be it.” I’m pleased my voice sounds strong.

  The old man stares at me for so long I start to shift uncomfortably on my seat. But I won’t give in. He doesn’t think I’ve agonised over this? I don’t care now, whatever way it goes will be better than how it is. I need closure, even if that’s a new hell. My father may not have been able to find a way, but I have. This option was never open to him. Simon’s a part of me, after all. We shared blood in the womb, so much better than what little of himself my father gave to us at conception.

  Eventually the old man nods once and stands from his chair. He opens a dresser drawer and takes out a piece of chalk. With slow, careful movements he starts marking the wooden floor around both our chairs with intricate sigils of a kind I haven’t seen before. And, despite my father’s warnings, his desperate plea, I’ve seen a lot as I searched the shadows of this world for a way.

  *

  “How long have we got?” I asked my father and his eyes gave me all the answer I needed.

  “He’s there with you now,” Simon said, staring past my father. “The Devil, sitting on your shoulder, waiting for me.” He was always the smart one, Simon. Wise beyond his years. When I looked, I saw it too. A dark, cold smudge in the room. Not corporeal, but indisputably, defiantly there. Smiling.

  My father dragged a hand over his face again and shook his head. “There are things older and meaner in these worlds than the Devil, son,” he said. “Hungrier and stronger. The kind of things that would bully the Devil in his own hell if they actually gave a shit about him. And yes, it’s here, now.” He vibrated with fear and grief with every word.

  We were both so calm, Simon and I. Every time I recall that horrible day I can never understand how tranquil and accepting we were. I think it must have been some magic of our father’s. Or maybe something as simple as a drug in our meal before he told us. I’ll never know. But it was time and we accepted that. The evidence was coldly present there with us and it chilled me deeper than my bones.

  My father stood and led us down to the basement. I begged him not to do it, regardless of my calm acceptance. And Simon cried too, put his hand in mine and we gripped each other like we would never let go.

  And I never once offered to go in his place.

  In the cold basement my father stood between us and the stairs, his face a mask of misery. “I’ve done so many things I shouldn’t have,” he told us. “Messed with forces and magics I should have left well alone, since well before you were conceived. I opened myself to this and it’s cost us all so dearly. If there was another way, I promise I would have found it. But if he doesn’t take one, he will take all. I tried to go in your place, Simon, I begged and pleaded, but nothing can break the deal. The only way for one of you to survive is for one of you to go and I am so very, very sorry. But one of you must survive. We can’t let him take everything.”

  He began to cry again. I hated his tears.

  And still I didn’t offer to go in Simon’s place.

  *

  The old man slumps back into his chair, the protections drawn. He unrolls a leather wrap, smooth and shiny with age, exposing an array of knives in stitched pockets, from a tiny switchblade to a wicked long machete. He h
ands me a small, ornate dagger, with jewels in the hilt. The lamplight reflects off the silver blade, glinting across our faces as I turn it over in my hands.

  “You ready?” he asks.

  It took me so long to find him, so long to find the ritual and someone willing and able to do it, that I’ve never been more ready. I just want this all to be over. One way or another. “Yes,” I tell him.

  “There’s no going back,” he says, his red eyes serious. “Once this begins, once we call it in there’s nothing to do but let it play out.”

  I nervously twist the knifepoint between my fingers. “I know.”

  “If those aren’t the right bones or . . . ”

  “I know,” I say, a little more sharply than I mean to. “I’m sorry, sir, but I know. This is what I want.”

  “I tell you again, if it goes bad, you’ll go. I won’t chance myself. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  The old man sighs. “Then cut yourself and every time I raise my hand, let one drop of blood touch those bones. And you’d better hope your blood is strong enough.”

  With a nod, I draw the blade across the side of my index finger. My hands are criss-crossed with scars already, from previous excursions into things my father expressly forbade I do. And from practicing for this one. I can blood myself like an expert. The old man starts chanting something. I recognise some of the words, some of the phrasing. I feel the old magic, knowledge older than history swelling into the room. This is rare and powerful stuff. The old man raises his hand, two fingers extended like a blessing, and I drip my blood onto my father’s bones. The bones of the hand that shook on the deal twenty-six years ago in a delivery room soaked in my mother’s blood. An arcane wind stirs between us.

  *

  In the basement that terrible day my father suddenly switched. Something took hold of him. I like to think it was his own will, that he was determined then to see the thing through without any more delay. But I think it was more likely the strength of that evil presence taking command. He drew himself up and sucked air into his lungs. Simon took me in an embrace I can still feel to this day, and held me tight. “Brothers,” he whispered into my ear. “Always and forever.”