Someplace to Be Flying

by Charles de Lint

  "I didn't get born at all."

  "Then how come you're here? You had to come from somewhere."

  She shrugs. "I think I just happened—like an accident."

  "You don't want to put yourself down," I say. "You're better off doing what we all should do, and that's making the most of yourself, seeing how that's all there is of you."

  She gives me this streetwise look, a laugh hanging there in the back of her eyes. "So I come from these animal people, huh?"

  "There's no arguing it."

  "Maybe that's why I'm so different."

  "Different from what?"

  She makes a motion with her hand that takes in the other people on the beach.

  "From them," she says.

  "I reckon."

  That steady blue gaze of hers studies me for a long moment.

  "So do you have a twin, too?" she asks.

  I shake my head.

  "I do," she tells me. "We look exactly the same, but otherwise we're not at all alike. She's locked into who she is and won't have any fun. And then she makes me feel guilty when I do."

  "So you don't much like this sister of yours?"

  "Oh, I love her—you can't not. But I don't understand her. I can't figure out why she lets everybody tell her what to do … unless it's because she's one of them." She gives me a sudden smile. "I never even knew there was a 'them' before and that makes me feel a whole lot better. I always thought there had to be something wrong with me."

  I'm trying to get a measure of her and it's hard. She seems a lot like Nettie at the same age, only she's running wild through a concrete forest instead of those old piney wood hills, and she's full of more contradictions than her mother ever was. As innocent as she is streetwise. Independent, but she's yearning to be looked after. Thoughtful, with a giddy undercurrent.

  The more I think of it, maybe she doesn't remind me so much of her mother as she does Maida and Zia. Lose the red hair and you could almost take her for a crow girl without having to work too hard at it. Has the temperament down pat.

  "So do you live around here?" I ask.

  She shakes her head. "I don't live anywhere in particular, but I like it here." She grins. "It suits me."

  "I can see that." I stand up. "Well, maybe I'll see you around."

  "If you're ever looking for me," she says, "this is where I'll usually be."

  I feel her watching me as I walk off. I get about a block away and she starts to follow, so the first time I'm out of her line of sight, I shift back into my jackdaw skin and fly up to a perch on the closest telephone pole. She looks puzzled when she comes around the corner, checking up and down the street, but she doesn't think to look up. Most people don't. There's a whole world going on up here above their normal sight lines, but it might as well be invisible.

  I'm feeling pleased, looking down from my pole. Things worked out pretty good, I'm thinking. I made a connection, intrigued her a bit, let her know she's not alone, she's not some kind of freak, but didn't open the door to her getting dependent on me. What I want to do is have her get comfortable around us, let us be a part of her life so that we can look out for her, but not get her to thinking we hold all the answers. And I particularly don't want to get too close to her myself.

  That's not a mistake I'm about to make again.

  It works out pretty well for a while. We take turns checking in on her over the next few years—Margaret, Annie, Paul, the crow girls, Alberta, and some of the others that Nettie used to know from up around Hazard. We feel kind of proprietary about her, considering her history and all, but no one tells her about her real mother. They leave that up to me and it's not something I figure she has to know. If she asked me straight out, I'd have to tell her because I'm not about to start lying to my own child, but it doesn't come up.

  She doesn't talk about her sister much, but you can tell Kerry's on her mind a lot—why exactly, I don't find out until years later, when Katy moves to Newford. I try to convince her that whether or not Kerry believes she exists makes no never mind, but it's hard to be convincing when none of us can actually explain what she is. Maybe this idea she's got about Kerry is true, but if it is, it's a cruel trick fate's gone and played on her. 'Course fate hasn't proved too kind to the Beans before this and life isn't fair.

  "Imagine if life was fair," she says to me one time. "I think maybe that'd be worse."

  "How do you figure that?"

  "Well, then we'd deserve all the awful things that happen to us, wouldn't we? It'd mean that at some point in our lives—or maybe some life we had before this one—we were pretty creepy people."

  I never thought about it like that before. Seems odd to take comfort in life's unfairness, but I start to feel the same way she does.

  For a long time I think she's going to stay on the West Coast, but then one day she gets the traveling bug and starts to wandering. She can't change skin like we can, but she gets pretty adept at some of our other tricks—riding around the country for free and the like. Most of them she picks up from Margaret.

  I never ask her what put the itch in her feet until she finally shows up in Newford and makes like she's planning to settle down.

  "I had to get away from her," Katy explains.

  "From who? Kerry?"

  She nods and I see the hurt in her eyes. Then she asks me something that makes my heart want to break.

  "Have you ever loved someone so much you don't think you can live a moment without them, but at the same time you know that staying with them is maybe the worst thing you can do to them?"

  It takes me a long time to get my voice.

  "Yeah," I finally manage to tell her. "It's the hardest decision I ever made and the worst thing is, in the end, I made the wrong one. I had the best of intentions, but all I did was screw things up worse."

  "I don't think it's something you can work out," she says. "It doesn't matter if you stay or if you go, you're still going to hurt them."

  "I can't answer that for you," I say.

  "You don't have to," she tells me. "I know that's how it is for me when it comes to Kerry. But I have to try staying out of her life. I don't really feel like I have any choice."

  "There's always a choice."

  She shakes her head. "I know for sure that my being in her life wasn't ever any help to her at all."

  She takes to hanging around the school bus a lot, bringing me coffee or tea or a sweet pastry—casual, like she was just in the area. All she asks in return is for me to tell her stories. I figure she's got too much affection for me, treats me like her best pal and father all rolled into one—an irony that doesn't escape me. But it's too late to do anything about how she feels now and the truth is, I don't want to. Her company means the world to me and I'll do whatever it takes to keep her happy and safe. It's got nothing to do with the promise I made her mother and everything to do with a father's love for his child.

  Lord knows I cherish the time we have together. Not just for how good it is, but because one day it's all going to come out … who her mother is, how it was between us, how hard Nettie died.

  And then Katy's going to hate me forever.

  I won't blame her. Whenever I think of what happened to Nettie, I hate myself.

  CITY OF CROWS

  Jack's crows are in for a murder

  a murder is a gathering

  some watch, some go a little further

  some eat what the others bring

  to Jack's crows, Jack's crows

  where everybody's from, and nobody goes

  that's where you're gonna find Jack's crows

  —John Gorka, from "Jack's Crows"

  1.

  Newford, Tuesday afternoon, September 3

  Tired from a morning's fruitless search for Raven's pot, Annie found herself a perch in between two gargoyles, high above the rose window of St. Paul's Cathedral. It was an old thinking spot of hers that she'd claimed from the pigeons years ago. She shifted from her blue jay skin and sat with her back again
st the thick stone wall behind her, legs dangling into space. From her vantage point she could look past the sweep of the cathedral's steps below, over the roofs of the buildings on Battersfield Road, across the river and all the way up the wooded slopes that backed the high-priced real estate of the Beaches.

  It was a spectacular view, but today her gaze was turned inward, scanning landscapes of memory and conjecture.

  There was something wrong about all of this.

  It wasn't that the pot had gone missing again. The upheavals it brought into their lives occurred with such regularity that Annie had decided a long time ago that the pot must have a mind of its own, that its periodic disappearances served some private agenda, one only the pot understood. They were related to the constant discrepancies in its appearance, she was sure, and just because she was the only one ready to assign sentience to it, it didn't mean it wasn't true.

  So what was it after this time?

  Chloë seemed to think that Rory's friend Lily might have inadvertently come into possession of it—and the interest that the cuckoos, with their gift for finding things, had taken in Lily appeared to bear that out—but what would be the point? Whatever plans the pot might have for her, Lily couldn't do anything with it. That required more than the thin trace of grackle blood running through her veins. And anyway, Annie had gotten no sense of the pot's presence when she'd flown by Lily's apartment after the meeting last night.

  She'd tried talking to the crow girls about it, but they were oblique as always. That wasn't particularly unusual, either. They pretended indifference to everything, more often than not, or offered up contradictory advice as they had last night at the gathering when the pair of them had come in and suggested they try to smell out the pot's whereabouts. A fine idea, except the pot didn't have a smell. It had an aura, but no odor.

  Of course they were at least willing to pitch in. Chloë hadn't come to the meeting, nor was she helping in the search. She claimed she couldn't leave Lucius, but Annie suspected Chloë was simply becoming more and more agoraphobic. Another few years and she'd be as withdrawn as Lucius.

  And that, for no good reason, reminded her of Paul, who'd been as outgoing as the crow girls, but sensible. A deep melancholy settled in her. She missed Paul terribly at times, more than the others did, she was sure, but then she'd been closer to him than anyone. Sometimes, if she closed her eyes and listened hard, she could still hear his piano.

  She did so now, but all she heard was the sound of wings. Opening her eyes, she found that the crow girls had come spiraling down from the sky and joined her. They were perched on the backs of the gargoyles, one on either side of her, regarding her with serious expressions.

  "Did you have any luck?" she asked.

  But the girls didn't seem at all interested in the missing pot.

  "You're looking veryvery sad," Maida said.

  Zia leaned forward so that her chin was resting on the broad brow of the gargoyle she was straddling. "Veryvery."

  "I was thinking about Paul," Annie told them.

  "We liked Paul," Maida said.

  "He was always nice to us."

  "And ever so wonderfully musical."

  Annie sighed. "I know. I used to leave my apartment door open so that I could listen to him practice. We always planned to do some recording together, but we never made the time and now it's too late."

  "Too late," Zia echoed.

  "Those are two of the least fun words in the world," Maida said.

  "When they're put together."

  Maida nodded. "And in that order."

  Annie had to agree. How many lingering regrets weren't born from missed opportunities that could never be recalled?

  "About the pot," she said, trying to get the conversation back on a less depressing track, though chasing after that damned pot of Raven's was hardly the most cheerful of occupations. "Have you heard any news?"

  "Nothing interesting," Zia said.

  "Have you been swooping about, trying to sniff it out?" Maida asked.

  Annie nodded. "But it doesn't have any scent. You know that."

  "I thought it was a good idea Ray had," Maida said.

  "Ray's the one who suggested that?" Both girls nodded.

  "I don't believe this," Annie said. "Yesterday you were ready to stick a knife in him and now you're having little chats?"

  "Oh, he's all changed," Maida told her.

  "Mm-hmm," Zia said. "He's gone very corbae now and ever so tasty looking." She put a hand over her mouth and shot Maida a quick glance. "Or was that supposed to be a secret?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Why's he disguised as one of us?" Annie asked.

  "Well," Maida said, drawing out the word. "It could be because we're all so very intriguing and he wants to be just like us."

  "But we think it's so that he can follow Kerry around and maybe we won't notice him."

  "But of course we did."

  "Because we're very observant."

  "Of all the corbae, we're probably the most observant."

  Annie had to laugh. "But you don't know where the pot is either."

  "No," Zia said. "But we're not in such a hurry to find it."

  "Why not?"

  Zia shrugged. "Because it'll just get lost again. Don't you find it all sort of boring?"

  "Except it's not really," Maida said before Annie could reply. "Because every time it gets stirred up, the world changes."

  "This is true." Zia gave Annie a considering look. "Maybe we should be trying harder."

  "Chloë thinks that Lily has it," Annie said, curious as to their reaction.

  But of course that simply sent the crow girls off on a new tangent.

  "Now Lily's very interesting," Maida said.

  Zia nodded. "She has a new boyfriend."

  "A very nice boyfriend—all sort of gruff and tumbly."

  "But kind."

  "Oh, yes," Zia said. "Veryvery kind."

  "And she has new enemies, too."

  "And new friends."

  "Like the pair of you?" Annie asked.

  Maida shook her head. "We only kind of know her. In a mostly peripheral sort of a way."

  "But she's met Margaret, you know," Zia put in.

  "And they like each other fine."

  "We knew they would."

  "That's why we suggested that Margaret go see her in the desert."

  Sometimes Annie thought she'd go mad trying to sort out any sort of linear sense in a conversation with this pair.

  "In what desert?" she asked.

  "You know," Zia said, as though everyone had the same access to what they knew. "For her job."

  Maida pretended she was taking pictures with an invisible camera. When she lost her balance, Annie caught her by the scruff of her collar and pulled her back onto the ledge.

  "I can fly," Maida said.

  "I know."

  "Don't get grouchy," Zia told Maida. "She was being nice."

  "I wasn't being grouchy."

  "You were."

  "Well, maybe a very little." Maida gave Annie a sweet smile. "Thank you for catching me."

  "Do you think Lily has the pot?" Annie asked.

  "You were supposed to say, 'You're welcome,' " Maida told her.

  "What?"

  "When I said, 'Thank you.' If you were polite, you'd say, 'You're welcome, but it was nothing, really,' and then I could say, 'No, really, thank you,' and we would go on smiling and being polite and not asking boring questions."

  Annie sighed. "You're welcome," she said. "Now can we be serious for a moment?"

  The crow girls exchanged looks that Annie couldn't read.

  "The pot's wherever it's supposed to be," Zia said then. "That's how it works."

  "Wherever it's supposed to be," Annie repeated.

  Maida nodded. "So there's no point in looking for it, really, unless you're planning to write a book about it and you have to write down everything it does—you know, where it's been, who's been carrying it, t
hat sort of thing."

  "You've been looking for it," Annie said.

  "But only because you asked us to," Maida said.

  "And we haven't been looking very hard," Zia added.

  Annie began to speak, but Maida leaned over and put a finger against Annie's lips, almost losing her balance again in the process.

  "Raven understands," Zia said as Maida regained her perch. "That's why it doesn't matter if he goes away inside himself."

  "So everything'll be okay?" Annie asked. "No one's going to get hurt?"

  The crow girls both frowned.

  "We don't know about that," Maida said.

  Zia gave a slow nod of agreement. "Only the pot knows that."

  "I thought I was the only one to think it has a mind of its own," Annie said.

  "I don't know if it's a mind so much," Zia said. "It's more like an idea. The way a wind or a view is both a thing and an idea."

  "I think it's more like a storm," Maida said. "You can't hold on to it, but you can't pretend it's not there."

  "And the only answers you can get from it are what you'd get from a storm."

  Maida nodded. "They wouldn't make any sense."

  "But …"

  "The only way no one gets hurt when the pot's stirred," Zia said, "is when whoever's doing the stirring understands exactly what the pot is and what they're doing, but that means you have to give up a piece of yourself to it."

  "It's like trying to break it," Maida explained.

  Zia nodded. "But if you do understand it, you can stir up whatever you want."

  "I don't understand," Annie said.

  "Most of us don't."

  "It's like what happened to Paul," Maida added.

  Annie gave her a sharp look. Paul had died in his sleep, though she'd always suspected that the cuckoos had poisoned him in retaliation for keeping them out of the city. He'd always worked the hardest of all of them to stop them from leaving their eggs in Newford nests or settling in themselves.

  "What happened to Paul?" she asked.

  "He stirred up a dream in the pot, but he lost himself in it and never came back."