Diablo still recognized her. Abby, too.
“What do you mean? Changed how?”
“I don’t know,” Ellie said, as she and Abby entered the barn. “I have no more secrets. No fear of being different. We’re all different. My happiness isn’t out there somewhere; it’s in here. It’s in me.”
Abby smiled. “Does this mean we’re not going to the Healing Light Symposium this weekend?”
“No, we’ll go.” Ellie laughed. “I’ll just be going for a different reason.”
“Which is?”
“Just for the fun of it. The joy of living.”
Damian nickered at the sound of her voice.
* * *
Ellie had to go down to the police station and make a statement. As suspected, from his comments, Victor had entered her apartment. His fingerprints were all over the place, and her telephone cord, cut. There were no signs of forcible entry. Ellie had been in the habit of hanging her keys on a hook by Damian’s stall when she rode, and usually would ride for an hour or so. Apparently Victor took the opportunity to have a key made. Items of her undergarments were also found hidden in his truck.
Why her? Why single her out? She had no answers for the officer.
“And if not you, do you think he would have stalked someone else?”
Ellie refused to even speculate. She shuddered to think. There were generations of women at the barn, little girls like Julie, mothers, daughters, sisters, wives. They were everywhere. Ellie stood. “Can I go now?”
The Saturday following Grandma Betty’s death, Ellie and Diablo took to the highway again. As she’d promised, they went as far as they could go in a day. Lolita followed them, as did most of the flock. Diablo looked up into the sky. They were soaring overhead. It was dusk.
“Do you know them all by name?”
Ellie smiled. “No, just Lolita.”
Diablo found comfort in that. After all, a pet crow wasn’t so weird. Was it? He counted; there had to be at least forty of them settling in the trees.
Ellie opened Grandma Betty’s urn, bright red in color, and stared at the contents for a moment.
Diablo expected sadness. He expected tears. He was pleasantly surprised. Ellie walked to the edge of the riverbank and smiled. She could hear her Grandmother’s voice in the wind as she scattered the ashes. “Remember, dear…no regrets.” She had none.
Ellie's Crows Page 15
