My eyes opened - surprised to see that it was still dark in my room. I wiped them to find them sore and dry. It seemed as if I had been crying in my sleep, judging by the stain of moisture on my pillow. It was far too early to be up just yet, and I moved to turn on my side only to find resistance. I hadn’t changed out of the heavy black gown yet, and in my tossing and turning, I had tangled myself up in the fabric.
With a groan, I sat up straight on the edge of my bed, debating whether to re-adjust myself or actually get dressed. It seemed like more pressing of an issue than it should have been in the mind’s early morning fog.
But it was just as I settled on a decision that I heard something odd.
Tap, tap.
My eyes widened as I turned towards my window - half expecting to see a shivering Mary pawing to get inside. But no- it was not her.
In the dim light of the moon, I saw a silvery silhouette of a crow. Its dark feathers glimmered in purple hues as it flapped in agitation.
I couldn’t help but jump as it tapped on the glass again - this time more urgently.
“Okay, okay. I’m awake,” I mumbled in a hoarse voice.
I reached the window in a clumsy step- carefully avoiding my piles of books in the dark. My hands stretched to open it from the below frame before I stopped myself.
What am I doing?
Why am I letting a wild bird into my room in the middle of the night?
The bird and I locked eyes in the dark for a moment.
I took a hesitant step back before the crow began to peck at the window again, louder than ever.
“Okay, okay,” I breathed, thinking of Limenta in the other room.
To wake her up before daybreak would be to ask for murder.
I slid the window open with a wooden creak, and the crow jumped to the ledge, pacing back and forth.
“What do you want?” I whispered impatiently.
It was then that the bird flew up and behind my head, causing me to duck as it caused a flitter of loose parchment to fly about the room. I stood up straight as the last pages fell and began to turn when a pair of pale hands grabbed my shoulders from behind, stopping me.
Before I could scream, there was a cool hand covering my mouth.
“Mira,” whispered a cool silken voice from behind my ear.
I tried to turn again but the hands once again stopped me.
“Mira,” the voice continued, “Please calm down. I need you to focus.”
It was the stranger - the masked man from yesterday - who was behind me in the dark of my room, I had no doubt. His voice was unmistakable.
“Don’t turn around. You can’t look at me… You can’t see my face.”
“Why?” I mumbled through the cracks in his slender fingers.
“They took my mask. I’ll explain later. But now - right now - I need you to listen. I need you to focus,” he said, his low voice urgent and intense.
“Who-” I started to mumble before he interrupted me as I tried to turn around yet again. This time he held me tighter, and I felt my stomach twist as his chest pressed against my back, and one of his long arms grabbed me around my waist.
“Close your eyes. Please.”
Whether from fear or surrender, I did finally close my eyes, and somehow, he was able to tell because as soon as I did, there was a cloth over my face. My heart raced as I gasped and pulled my free hand upwards to remove the cloth mask, only to have both his hands grasp my arms from behind.
“Let. Me. Go!” I seethed, kicking backwards in the dark.
“Quies…” he whispered in my ear, and a ripple of what felt like the finest silks unraveled within my body. Every muscle slackened in his arms, and I let out a breath that I seemed to be saving in the deepest part of my lungs.
I was a cotton sheet falling off a clothesline in a peaceful summer breeze.
I was a flick of grass in the warmest wild shade.
I was the first sip of rich hot cocoa in midwinter twilight.
I was bewitched.
Magic. He was performing magic with a single word.
“Gods, I’m so sorry… you poor sweet thing. I did not want to do that,” he whispered through the cloth at my ear, “But we do not have much time. They are coming to take you away… To a place I know you do not wish to go.”
Although my anxious thoughts were muted by his lingering spell, I could not help but think of the dream I had only just awoken from. In the dream, I had performed the ultimate sin - I created life from magic. Could they tell - the Guardians? Even though it was just a dream, were they still going to send me away to the judges - to meet my fate?
“I’m… I’m not ready to die,” I said in a lavender-scented tone, a betrayal of my own seriousness.
“I… I know,” he responded, and I could hear a smile in his voice, “We will not let that happen. All I ask is that you trust me, and I will get you out of here.”
All I could do was nod. If he wanted me dead, I would be dead - judging by how easily and effectively he was able to weave a spell with a single word.
I had only been bewitched one other time in my life - at least that I could remember. We had planned a trip to the city of Carroway when I was little - one of the seldom few times the entire family was together. I had let go of my father’s hand to cross the busy carriage-ridden cobbled street to get to a sweet merchant across the way. I was running to them, not paying any attention of course to the rogue horse-drawn cart barreling towards my little toddler body.
“MANERE.”
The word rattled in my little ears as I rose from the ground. Everything floated in a sudden stillness, akin to being under water, as I drifted slowly above the street - just as the stampeding carriage whipped by my little feet. The old man with the crisp, scholarly clothes of a Tumet time mage stood beside me, and my wide eyes met his as I noticed his bronze clockwork scepter hung high in the air above his head, tight in his gloved hand.
“Mira,” the stranger said, calling me away from my memories, “Mira, this may feel a bit strange, but it’s the only way we can both get out of here… Forgive me… Fiocorvo.”
Before I could respond, an intense pressure rattled through my body - followed by an immense relief as every muscle slackened then… disappeared?
It was a surreal sensation, and the cloth at my face suddenly became massive, heavy, claustrophobic as it weighed me down. Every movement felt strange but familiar. I felt a bizarre lightness, almost similar to when I was floating above the street, bewitched by the mage. I stretched out my arms and fingers, only to find them caught in the same dark cloth. With a final desperate shake, I was finally free from the heavy cloth - only to find myself much closer to my bedroom floor than I anticipated.
My head automatically turned towards the floor length mirror in the corner of my room - and in the dim moonlight, my eyes caught my own reflection - only to be met with a familiar beady black stare.
I was a crow.
He turned me into a crow.
If I could have screamed, I would have, but only a sharp honking caw escaped my… beak. There was a fluttering of wings, and my reflection was met with another crow, landing softly beside me on my now pile of robes.
“Well, you do make for a cute crow - If that’s any consolation,” said the stranger in a cooing song.
There was another fluttering of pages on my bedroom floor as he flew up to the windowsill. I watched him as he took the tiny tin of powder in his beak and throw it out the window to the corridor.
“Why did you do that?”
“As I said… I can answer all your questions later,” he cooed, pacing on the window frame, “They’re almost here.”
I made a steady hop and was able to get to the open window with a few careful beats of my wings. It was such a strange sensation - knowing how to move in that unfamiliar body. I may not have known how to fly, but this body did, and when the black silken feathers lifted me up into the night sky, everything perfectly fell into place. Every tiny lift of my wings, every gentle turn of my neck, followed as naturally as if it was the body I was born with. I had heard of this sort of magic before in the stories, turning oneself or others into beast - an ancient magic. Usually the rituals involved catalysts - taking magic from the earth, from stone or sea, carefully coordinated together - but never from the utterance of just a single word.
I followed the stranger behind the manor and through the garden, turning the corner around the roof, before he took a sharp turn to land on some nearby trees beside the front gate.
“Why are we stopping?” I cawed.
“Shh…” his head turned towards two black-robed figures approaching the front gate, heads shrouded in golden veils just glimmering in the moonlight.
“Can they hear us?” I cooed as softly as I could.
“No… but they can,” he replied, gesturing with a nod to the front of the house.
Through the window, I spotted Mother upstairs drinking her morning tea by candlelight - even through the thick lens of night. My senses were keen, heightened more than ever in this new body.
The two figures, clad in black cloaks and golden veiled masks, had made it past the gate and were now walking slowly down the cobblestone path to the front door. I had never before seen anyone like them - were they sent by the high courts? Maybe even called upon by the guardians themselves?
The heavy knock on the wooden door sent shockwaves through the early calm morning air, sending neighboring birds into flight. I watched for a moment as the door opened, revealing my robe-clad mother who only barely had started her exhausting morning routine. As much as I tried, I could not hear what they said to her, but it must have been important as she swiftly ushered them inside.
As soon as the door shut, the strange man - now a strange crow - turned to me.
“Now. Fly Now. Follow me,” he cawed.
With a flick of my wings, I was following close behind. I turned my head to get a final look at my childhood home, only to see Dearest Mary flicking her tail at me in the high tower window.
