A gathering of crows part 1

     ‘The dream is a dark lagniappe. The crows are in flight.  There are hundreds of them…hundreds of them…flying in a circle It’s early…early in the morning…or evening… I can’t be sure of which… the, the, cloud is touched with gold and steel .  I see their three lobed eyes blink with slick greasy ease… their dark wings stretch out…causing the wind between the feathers to sound susurrus…The crows touch the cloud….Misty…grey…cold…the cloud is  swirled into  evanescent spirals  that ripple  at  the  wing tips…. the cloud become darker…heavy…then heavier… weighed by elemental pressure… A minute raindrop -lighter than air- takes shape….It begins to swell…It silently falls with other drops…through clouds to hurtle towards the ground…I follow it down.  Down.   Down.  Faster and faster….I see the village – Bridgeton- from a  very high point.  All the slate rooves… the hills… The gnarled oak trees… The stone walls….all there in minute detail…I,  I follow the rain drop….It falls down… as a tear from God…down… until, until it touches my cheek.’
      ‘-And,  you awake screaming?’
       ‘-yes.’
       ‘-interesting…’
       -‘it’s  been the same dream now for months.  I fall and  I…I-’
         ‘… listen…you’ve  been under a lot of anxiety of late. The death of your brother-‘
         -What’s that go to do with it? That, that was two years ago.  I’m I’m  dealing with that-‘
         '-Be honest, you’ve not let him go.’
         ‘- he is, was, my, my brother, I love… loved him.
          They sat in the musty oak veneered and book filled vestry. A room that naturally doubled up as Father Douglas’s  study.  Light came in through the arched lead- lined window that was behind where Dawn sat, leaning forward. Her hands pressed together, her creased face,  wrought with lines of anxiety. Dust particles floated as the grey cloud gave way to yellow morning sunlight. They swam lighter than air before they dissolved into the dark once more. The pale ochre turned to dark earth, with the turning of a spade. Father Douglas solemnly stared at Dawn from his red leather wingback chair.  His large oval, opal eyes glistened.
         Dawn watched Father Douglas carefully. She noted that his partially bald head had a trace of sweat; and that for the  third time in half an hour, he looked as if he  was on the verge of saying something.   His lips were parted, almost trembling. Words were being fought against with a shake of his head, that reminded  Dawn  of an attempt  to defend oneself against  an angry wasp in late summer.
         She chose to release the situation from him.
‘I, I have to admit father…’ the word “ father “clawed at Dawn’s  throat.  ‘ I… I That  I think  you’re   right… I, I haven’t let Davey   go…He was, is  my little brother an, an  I…’
‘- it’s understandable….’ Dawn received comfort in the gentle  sounds  of  Father  Douglas’s  voice.  ‘…The loss of a loved one takes time…Sometimes it never really leaves.’
‘-I know father…’  She faltered again as she stared  into his eyes.   ‘…You’ve  been a huge  help since, his, his..’ a  tear formed.
         Father Douglas got up from the  chair, he reached for her and hugged her gently.  ‘There, there, there… there.’    His old voice sounded cracked, tired yet kind.
They released slowly.
         In penumbra from the lead-lined window, Father  Douglas  McIntyre Brooded at  Dawn’s  back  as she  left the tiny church of St Andrews and walked down the path towards church Street.  His eyes narrowed as the grandfather clock, in the left hand corner of the room, ticked the seconds off in dark regularity.
        Dawn left the small church. She covered her fetching thick chestnut, tousled hair, with the hood of her black fur-lined winter coat.  Her  sharp clicking shoes, becoming a resonating echo down the narrow concrete path. How long had it been?  Two years, yes two years since Davey’s  sudden death.  His body found in his attic bedroom. No trace of a weapon… nothing found…. Not a fingerprint nor a footprint…despite the  blood….The blood.
She remembered the day too well. The phone call…the police… going to the Mortuary, in Exeter, to view the corpse. His face…. his handsome, youthful, face.  Broken.  Savaged.  Dented with vile, viscous  te filled blows.  What caused that hate? Why?  Davey was an innocent.
She blocked that image. She didn’t  want to see that dead face. She wanted to see Davey, as she remembered him.  The bright cornflower eyes, the brown scraggly mop of hair on top. The pointed chin and the narrow nose  beneath.  The wry smile or  that cheeky grin. White teeth. Smiles and laughter…Yes…Smiles  and laughter. Then there was a return of loss and the  sudden stab of heartache that came with it. 
        His loss brought the end to her family. She was all alone.  Alone with nothing but the dry crusty church; and the crumbling faces of the   parishioners for company. Most of whom, it had to be said, or, at least considered,  were unable to try to resolve,  either  her anger or her frustration.  No, she corrected herself, there were  two. Father  Douglas,  who had listened, given support  and occasionally  prayed with her and, of course, Dorothea…Dorathea…Why hadn’t she mentioned Dorothea to Father Douglas?   after all… it was her funeral today.
Dorothea’s cracked face and tired eyes shone.  Another pang came.   As she walked towards the village shops, her forest green eyes with their own crow’s feet, became misty.  Perhaps …perhaps I’m afraid to…. Though that’s silly…She looked at her watch. 10:35… time enough for a tea in the Cakehouse before the funeral-
        There was a sudden very loud “Caw”. A Crow  flew past her head. Its wings  clipped her hood.  The  sudden sound brought her out of herself.  She looked up, absorbing  the scene. She shuddered violently.  The sky was becoming  dark with storm  and something else… Crows had slowly begun   to gather.

        “ The cakehouse”  can only be described as  artisan.  Away went  the 60’s  style  greasy  joe, after  the old “Bridgeton Café”  owners moved to Exeter -or so she had heard via  the  village  gossip-. Now  the old place had a late Victorian feel.  The newly added arched windows had a selection of pastries and breads next to a large heavy oak  counter.  The  old  greasy  cream walls had been painted with a mixture of Chartreuse  and  olive  green ;  also  the tired, chipped  plastic counter at the back had been removed  to make way for more tables.  Instead,  rough  wooden steps  at the back of the  café,  ascended  into the secret recesses where,  behind a newly painted white door, the new owners could be heard clattering  cups and plates to fill their orders.  In short, Dawn approved.  Besides the tea  was very  nice and so was the Carrot Cake. She forked off a corner  of the  crumbling  cake onto  her  stainless steel fork, and tasted the morsel.  A slight twinge of pleasure filled her mouth and then her stomach.
        ‘-Are  yer  goin’  to  Dorathea’s   funeral? I ‘eard th’ ‘ole  village will be thur.’
The voice caught her off guard.  It was Elizabeth Cawerson,  though  Dawn recalled she liked to be  called  “Dizzy”  due to her liking for  wine at   Three Arms. She had the  ruddy face  to prove it.
Dawn smiled and looked down into her cup of steaming earl grey. ‘yes…yes,  I intend to.’
        ‘-Thur’s   goin’  to be a huge  wake at th’ Arms  if yur comin?’
        ‘-I might…it, it  depends.’
        Dizzy stared at her.  The word  “depends”   were perceived  as a look of bewilderment upon her round face, who’d not like to go to the Arms?   To defend herself from the onslaught  that  would inevitably infer,  if she refused, Dawn quickly  added:   ‘I, I have a  distant  cousin   coming  for tea. He has some information about Davey… so …he… said.’    It was a lie.  But convincing enough to sound true.
       Dizzy looked sadly down.  There was a clatter of plates and a murmur of voices.  ‘Losin’ Davey was tough for us all.  Many o’  us  looked to him, fer,  yer know…Even though I’m new, Davey helped me wit’ his ways….Worse than losing a doctor that.’  With a sad smile  Dizzy stood  to leave. ‘Well,  I best be  goin’,  got  a mountain to do a’fore  fune-ral.’
As  she rose, there was a sudden  sharp  clatter, crash and a hideous  screech  at the window.   The  clientele stared towards  the front of the  shop; just as  the middle pane  exploded inwards.
Glass  scattered. 
        The cake house became silent.
          People  stared.
        A  crow  stood in the  broken  window frame.  The   narrow   beak bobbed,  the  wings   flapped aggressively.   It  Caw’ed,  raising its head as it did so.   Another Crow came,  Then   another,  and  another. They stood there. Looking in at the people sitting at their tables aggressively claiming their demesne; their heads motionless. Their three lobed eyes black blinking, greasy grey black. All three stared directly at Dawn.
        Suddenly they rose. One at a time, they circled inside  the  shop. Flying low,scratching at the heads of the clientele as they did so.  Cutting the soft skin with their talons.  With a squeal , Dizzy ducked,  as  one  attacked her hair.  While another went for an old gentleman sitting by the entrance;  as the third, once it had completed its circuit,  stood on the counter staring at Dawn. Blinking its black eyes.  Then they flew out, one at a time and were gone.
       The following silence was numbing.
      ‘-Me god’s’ said one.
      ‘-That be baaad. Said another.
        A third  silently wept in shock.
        ‘I’m   sorry I have to go.’  Dawn said to nervously to  nobody.  She stumbled as she made her way  out of the buzzing  room and onto the  high street. She looked up at the slow gathering dark clouds, and the   truculent rustling of feathers that was gathering in the wind.  Slowly she crossed the  high  street  and  followed   the old red wall as it descended and then rose a sharply into middle  distance; where  the  medieval  block  tower  of St Andrews church,  and the fingers of the old  yew  trees could be  glimpsed.
       In the gathering  storm,   the  assemblage of  mourners, wrapped black against the rain,  seemed to her, disembodied  the darkening  light.  Everything began to unravel into unreality.  Suddenly, a  westerly  tore down the  street, making the  trees rustle and the gathering crows call out in rasping CAW’s; and as they called out.  Suddenly, for  no reason that  she could fathom,  Dorothea  appeared in her mind.   -I have some news, some news about Davey… listen, listen , Dawn Listen!’  Dawn fought against the image; thrusting it from her mind. ‘Come on Dawn ! Hold it together!’  The words failed to work.  She had reached the church now and with that  a deeper anxiety began  to fester inside her.
       During the summer, these haphazard heaps of   fragmented stone, ravaged and twisted by age, had almost been lost amongst the tall pointed brown stalks of the wild grasses. They had become home to  blue winged  butterflies and the plump  bumble  bees,  whom  floated  about them with spectral abandon; around  the shadows of the ancient gnarled and twisted oak tree’s, who  with their lush  green leaves , looked down upon the stones  with kind friendly faces. Their branches, open arms, giving the appearance  protection to this  now  long  departed congregation.
       However, in the dark, brought about by the season’s change,   and the strangeness  of the  day, came  the twisted things.  The  old  stones were  now  riddled  with Verdigris. They  were   homes  to plump shiny hairless  spiders;  whose  over-long  spindling legs  took a  careful strokes,  over  the aged copper bold fronted letters ; or covered  the  stone  creases,   with gossamer,  to  hide  the  names of interred.  Leaving, in their stead, pale pearls of moisture  gathering  in tiny  cold blue  droplets. While the naked trees,  broken backed  and saw toothed, heaved as  they leaned over;  ready for revenge…It was as if… Dawn thought… as if… the long interred dead had come to welcome  her  dear, dear, dead  friend , with both  savage triumph and hideous laughter.
       She looked down as she made her way towards the heavy faced pall-bearers, around the finely polished rose-wood casket.  Looking towards her right, she saw Father Douglas  who –after greeting a couple of the mourners- slowly began to limp towards her, across the brown damp grass.    There was a sharp screeching sound followed by a ‘click, click’ and a rasping reaching ‘Caw…caw.’ It made her jump and look around. Upon one of the aged grave-stones rested another  crow.  Only this was the biggest that she had ever seen.  its’ sinewy,  scaled  three toed talons, made a nerve-shredding gravelly scraping sound,  as it  extended  its  long pointed claws upon the crumbling stone for support.   It let out another rasping ‘Caw’; as it aggressively bobbed its head, then stretched and throbbed its large shiny black wings in a sudden sharp move.  It made her jump back a little. The crow called out once more; and  from above, came a reply.
         She looked up to see another crow, just as huge as the first, slowly curl down from the grey spectral sky, to settle upon another of the broken grey-brown stones directly in front of her.  Then another and another and another.  They stared at the growing  congregation blackly. Their eyes, a black  pale glistening slick,  flicked up once… twice… then slowly one final time, to  stare  with  alien  malign intensity.
         Dawn felt nervous.  They’re looking at me… I know it…I can feel their cold eyes burning into me.. .Its’ as if they’re absorbing me…I don’ want to be absorbed… taken   by these creatures.
’I’m not one of you!’   The desperate words fell from her mouth  as  a bitter, half meant,  prayer.  She shuddered, as the creatures stared.  Then, came an answer from their cold,  dark world.  A world that she could almost touch; for the crows called out in unison and they were  calling out  to her. ‘Dawn Shaw… Dawn Shaw… CAW’ click, click, ‘CAW,  CAW… CAW!’