A Murder of Crows: Seventeen Tales of Monsters and the Macabre

by DeAnna Knippling

  The Home was gone. Top and bottom, left and right. The roof was gone, the cinderblock walls were gone, the outbuildings were gone, the shed where kids in trouble had to stay was gone, the teacher’s trailer house was gone. All that was left was the basement, which was full of tree trunks and quiet and dark.

  My Pa was standing on the edge of the basement looking down, and I stood next to him. The water was already pooling up over the linoleum tiles of the basement, and it was brown and black and shimmering green from all the dirt and ripped-up leaves.

  I looked for dead kids or blood but I didn’t see any. So that first-aid kid was just about useless.

  After a while, some people from church came up to us. Aunt Janet’s husband Uncle Peter was there, and he dropped to his knees and said, “God has taken them home.”

  Pa took a step back from the edge of the basement with one foot, which kind of spun him around so he was facing Uncle Peter. Pa punched him right across the nose.

  Uncle Peter’s nose kind of slid sideways and he fell backwards over his boots where he was kneeling. He gasped, then blew blood out of his mouth.

  “Those murdering sons of bitches,” Pa said. “Those goddamned murdering sons of bitches made all those kids stay upstairs.”

  “God called them home,” Uncle Peter honked. His nose was all clogged up. “If they’re all dead, where are the bodies?”

  “The next county over, you ass,” Pa said.

  “They deserved it,” Uncle Peter said, and Pa kicked him in the ribs with his boot, one time, another time, then walked away with Uncle Peter sobbing and saying Pa would go to hell.

  —

  Pa knew he was going to be in trouble. He wasn’t surprised when the Sherriff came to our house. But he wasn’t scared of Uncle Peter either, and he wasn’t going to be good when Uncle Peter started talking like that. You have to show them you’re not afraid, you ain’t going to be good.

  They found the Home halfway to Nebraska, mostly. It was all gone to pieces.

  The kids, they found all over the place.

  I wished and wished that somehow Tim would be dead, but he wasn’t.

  Later that week I was just messing around, stomping through the animal paths, making up stories about going on an adventure in the jungles of Africa.

  As I was walking, pretending to listen to parrots and monkeys, pretending I was stalking a tiger through the sights of my gun, I saw Martin, all tangled up in the branches of an elm tree.

  As soon as I saw him, I thought to myself, Laurie Lee, you are a fool for not smelling the stink of this earlier. You are a plain fool.

  His body had swelled up, swarming with flies like he was a beehive, and the crows were having a heyday picking at the maggots that had grown up in him.

  Pa was in jail at the time, so I had to get Ma. She took one look at him and marched me back to the house. A deputy came a little while later to get him down, just wrapped him up in a tarp that was already stained brown and black and covered with leaves and sticks, and put him in the back of his truck.

  Ma made us go to church that week, and the priest talked about wicked people would get what they deserved. And I knew he wasn’t talking about the teachers at the Home. He wasn’t even talking about those kids. He was talking about Pa being in jail.

  I walked out of that church and waited in the truck. When Ma got, she whupped me and said it was for my own good. She ain’t never whupped me so hard as she did in the church parking lot, with other people coming out to their cars and telling their kids not to look.

  Tim was there, sneering at me as Aunt Janet hurried him towards their Buick.

  I ain’t let Ma touch me since.

  She told Pa he can’t take in kids anymore, ever. She goes to church every Sunday and takes Leonard with her. She won’t play cards with me and Pa no more, either. Says it’s a sin.

  But I been watching her. And I know the real reason why.

  * * * * *

  The girl’s head hung lower and lower, until the crows sitting in the hollow of her legs had to hop away from her belly, lest they be crushed. Finally she put her arms around her knees and wept.

  That morning, you had told her to go outside and play, you were tired of her and you had enough to do taking care of the baby. She went outside and fed the chickens and gave them fresh water, tipping over their pans so the dirty ice fell out, then filling them with water from large buckets. She went into the barn and stared at the trampled straw. The cattle were gone, even the milk-cows. They had disappeared during the night—later, when I talked to the rats, I heard some very dark things about what had happened to them, and of course I saw what you had done in the cellar, later on.

  You did not notice when she came back into the house with the basket of wrinkle-ended eggs; you did not notice when she watched you from a corner of the door to the babe’s room. You can tell yourself that I am lying, but you saw the eggs in their carton in the refrigerator, you ate two of them for lunch.

  The girl saw you casting spells over the boy, and did not stop you. Instead she went back outside, sat on a swing, and wept until we took her.

  When she had finished crying, surrounded by blankets and birds, she reached one arm out of the blankets and touched the doll she had found, a fat baby doll with a scrap of cloth wound around its belly and tied with dirty yellow yarn.

  The wind yowled outside, looking to catch us with the door open.

  I climbed up into the thick, serpentine wires of the torn-out seat above her head and stood on them, trying to find a better perch. I was not the only one who shit in her nest, but it was mine that landed on her hand as she petted her baby. She looked at the back of her hand, then up at me.

  “Oops,” I cawed. Her eyebrows twisted, one up, one down, as if to say, How rude. I hopped uncomfortably from wire to wire. She wiped the back of her hand on the blanket, which seemed to absorb the whiteness entirely within the pink wool.

  Old Loyolo, who had been standing on the mirror, ruffled his feathers so they puffed out and then bobbed his head. Despite the thinness of his feathers, which looked rather pecked about his chest and head, he looked the picture of the superior crow, killer of snakes and rats, defender of nests. “You tell the next one, Machado. The least you could do.”

  He swooped into her lap, where she made room for him on her knee. That baggulo. He hadn’t killed a snake in years, and nobody living remembers him doing it anyway, except Ibarrazzo. It’s just a story, like a knight killing a dragon. Ah, at least he tells it well.

  I didn’t have a thought as to which story I would tell as I climbed down from the wires and dropped to the floor, scaring up a featherstorm of chicks. I flapped with all dignity to the perch on the mirror—the storyteller’s seat, now—and suddenly remembered a story that the human priest had told me. Oh, yes, I have talked to him, too.

  I said…

  2. The Vengeance Quilt

  In his own head, he wasn’t Father Vincent Paul; he was Sebastian Jennings, a murderer. He hadn’t meant to become a violent man. He grimaced at himself in the mirror: now there was a face that would inspire his parishioners to love God. He checked his teeth, smoothed down his hair, and smiled. Even worse.

  It was an August Saturday evening in the year of our Lord 1960, so he said Mass in his green vestments. He used to take more pride in his robes than any woman over designer dresses; now it was one more sign of his falseness under the glory of God.

  He stepped out of the changing room. His older sister, Peggy, was waiting outside the door. “Sebastian? There’s a problem downstairs.” She wore an apron and twisted a wet towel in her hands. One side of her stylish dress was black from coffee or dishwater.

  “What is it?”

  “Claire and Eileen are fighting over the quilt for the harvest festival.”

  “You should have interrupted me.” He rushed down the basement stairs.

  Claire, a small woman with mousey hair, shouted, “That quilt doesn’t belong to you!”

  Eilee
n, a much larger woman dressed in a tent, shouted back, “I paid for it!”

  Claire Christiansen was married to Frank Christiansen, one of Don Hart’s hired hands. Eileen Hart was his wife. The two women stood in the kitchen with the service window shut, as if that would make them less audible to the people drinking coffee or the kids gaping from their catechism class doors. Sebastian held up one hand to keep Peggy from trying to smooth things over; he wanted to hear what the fight was about.

  “You said the money was a donation!” Claire shrieked.

  Frank Christiansen came toward the kitchen door, but Sebastian held him back, on hand on his chest.

  “I hired you to make me a quilt!”

  “You are the most selfish—I’m not going to say! I’ll give you back the money after we auction it off.”

  “It’s my quilt!”

  “Then just take it, you cow!”

  “I’ll have your husband fired!”

  “I just told you that you could have that damned quilt!”

  Eileen noticed the others outside the kitchen door. Her blue eyes creased up at the corners. “You heard that, Father!”

  “That’s enough, ladies,” he said. “You’re scaring the children.”

  Claire turned around. She had a coffee cup and a towel in her hands; she put them down and walked toward him, her heels clicking precisely on the linoleum.

  She glared at him with eyes so dark as to seem black. “There’s a commandment about those who bear false witness.” She went in the ladies’ room, slammed the door, locked it, then turned on the faucet, high-blast.

  Eileen leaned back on a counter with a grin on her face.

  Sebastian said, “I understood the quilt was a donation as well.”

  Eileen said, “It’s my quilt. I paid for it.”

  “Just for the materials?” Sebastian said. “Or for the time she spent on it as well?”

  Eileen frowned. “That ain’t worth nothing. She owes me for lots of things. Milk.”

  “I’d like to see an agreement for payment for her work, typed up and signed by both of you. And it would be very disappointing if I heard that Frank was fired over a disagreement between a couple of ladies.”

  Eileen turned up her nose and lumbered out of the kitchen. She climbed the stairs slowly, dragging on the rail. “He could get fired for lots of reasons,” she shot over her shoulder, just as she turned the corner and went out of sight.

  “Where’s Don?” Sebastian asked Peggy.

  “Outside, smoking his pipe,” she said as Frank went back to his table, shaking his head. “I tried to get him to come in, but you know men. They don’t want to get involved.”

  The corner of Sebastian’s mouth twitched.

  Peggy shook her auburn curls. “Sorry, Father Vincent Paul. Ever since you started wearing black, I don’t know what to think of you.”

  “Me, either,” he said.

  —

  Sunday went fine, and Monday he slept in late. When he woke up, he couldn’t remember whether he had enough hosts to last the next month, so he decided to check. He was out of coffee in the house, anyway. He wasn’t about to try to prepare for Bible study without coffee. Those ladies were sharp. Claire, especially, reminded him of himself in seminary; she chased down technicalities like a dog after a rabbit.

  He unlocked the back door of the basement and flicked on the lights. He made it about three steps before he stopped. Nobody should have to face this before coffee.

  The basement was blue with mold, except for a few steps of the green carpet on the stairs, including the lights and ceiling tiles. The smell made him sneeze and his eyes water. He cursed, made a mental note to confess his cursing later, and backed up the stairs. He put out the lights and locked the door behind him.

  First he took off his shoes, dropped them in a bucket, and filled it with bleach water, which probably wasn’t good for the leather. Then he called Jim Blackthorn, his deacon. His daughter had had tonsillitis and been up to the hospital for the last few days.

  Jim picked up the phone. “Hello? James Blackthorn speaking.”

  “Don’t go into the Gray Hill church, Jim. The basement is covered with mold. Just covered. I’ll call the extension office in a minute. How’s Celeste Marie doing?”

  “She’s sore, but she’ll be all right. I’ll tell her you asked about her.”

  “Good to hear,” Sebastian said. “I’d come and visit, but I don’t want to make her sick.”

  The County Extension Office promised to send someone out. Sebastian told them where he kept the spare key, in case he got called out. Then he remembered Claire and Peggy were supposed to clean the church that afternoon. He warned Peggy first. When he called the little Christiansen house, nobody answered, so he crossed his fingers and called the Harts.

  A man answered, which was odd; it was August, and he should have been out harvesting wheat. “Hello? Hart Ranch.”

  “Father Vincent Paul. I’m trying to reach Claire and tell her not to come to the church.”

  “Father,” the man croaked. “Come right away. It’s Eileen. She’s doing poorly.”

  “Certainly,” he said. “But will you pass on my message to Claire? The church is full of mold, and I don’t want anyone getting into it.”

  “Mold,” the man agreed. “There’s mold all over the damned place.” He hung up.

  When someone was doing poorly, you drove them to the hospital; you didn’t call the priest. Unless it was too bad not to bother with. Sebastian fetched his last rites bag. Then he raised the carpet in the closet, removed a section of flooring, and pulled out a lock box, unlocking it with a key he wore with a medal of St. Jude. Inside was a simple traveler’s Bible. He riffled through the pages with one thumb. The ink, swirls of brown symbols, was still intact. He added the book to the bag.

  —

  He drove over the hill and gasped. Hart Ranch shimmered blue in the late-summer sun. The shelter belt dangled with blue streamers. Haystacks rose blue out of blue drifts. Fields of blue wheat scattered blue fog. He stopped at the edge of the mold; part of him knew he’d already come too far, but he had a hard time forcing himself to drive forward anyhow.

  He knocked on the door of the big farmhouse. Don Hart, tall and skinny and a good deal older than Eileen, opened the door. “Sorry, Father. Would you mind taking your shoes off?”

  Sebastian slipped off his shoes and washed his hands in the sink.

  The living room was full of a quilt frame stretched with the most colorful, delicately-pieced quilt he’d ever seen. Claire was stitching the top and bottom of the quilt together with a fine pattern of flowers. She had a foul look on her face.

  Don passed by her without looking and went into his bedroom.

  Eileen was lying in bed with her mouth open. Only two days had passed since he’d seen her last. Her gray skin had slid off her cheeks and into her neck; the blankets covered a good deal less flesh than they would have on Saturday.

  “Has she been to the doctor?” Sebastian asked.

  “Won’t go,” Don said.

  Eileen’s breath rattled as she struggled to suck air past something in her throat.

  “She was supposed to bury me,” Don said.

  Sebastian pulled up a chair. “Eileen, Can you hear me? It’s Father Vincent Paul. You need to go to the hospital.”

  Another rattle. Eileen’s head rolled back and forth. No.

  “This mold is going to kill you,” he said.

  No.

  Sebastian sighed. “Do you want to make your last confession?”

  Yes.

  He chased Don out, started the rites, and asked her whether she had anything to confess.

  She whispered, “That bitch is killing me.”

  Sebastian leaned back. “You can’t mean that, Eileen.”

  The fingers on her left hand curled toward him. He leaned toward her.

  “Deal with the devil,” she hissed.

  If anyone would use last rites to accuse someone of murder,
it was Eileen; nevertheless, he was shocked. Sebastian placed the host, which was the kind that fell apart and could be swallowed without chewing, on her dry tongue. He touched the chalice of watered wine to her lips.

  He finished the rites and made the sign of the cross over her. Then he backed out of the room, closed the door, and said to Don, leaning on the wall, “May I use your phone? I’ll be just a minute, and then I’d like to sit with her again.”

  Don pointed toward the door to the living room. Sebastian sucked in his gut and edged around the large quilt frame to the small table with the phone. He picked it up and dialed his brother Aloysius.

  “Aloysius Jennings farm, Mrs. Jennings speaking,” Honey said.

  “Is Aloysius in?” He glanced at Claire; her ear pointed at him like a third eye. “I want him out at Hart Ranch. Theodore too. I want them to take a look at something.”

  “Something to do with the reason Peggy isn’t supposed to clean church today?”

  Sebastian gritted his teeth to keep himself from grinning in front of Claire. That was Honey for you. “Maybe.”

  “The walls have ears, don’t they? I’ll ride out and get them. Sit tight.”

  —

  When he finally left Eileen’s room, his brothers were waiting for him, sitting uncomfortably on the couch, almost underneath the quilt frame. Aloysius said, “Did you know that’s a Joseph’s Coat quilt pattern?”

  Claire stitched without looking at her fingers. He could have sworn her eyes were black all the way through.

  “Eileen’s dead,” he told her.

  Claire nodded and went back to watching her fingers fly over the fabric.

  He called the funeral home and told them the funeral would have to be in Fort Thompson because they were having a problem at Gray Hill.

  “Sorry about the wait,” Sebastian said. Aloysius and Theodore stood up—“Ma’am”—and followed him into the hallway. Theodore handed around filter masks. “Ain’t got no goggles,” he said.

  Outside was a wonderland. Part of him felt like it was the first snow of the season, pure and untouched; part of him knew it had killed one woman already.