Hello again, my friends. Not gonna lie–it’s been a helluva week, and the finals from students are nowhere near over. Let’s see if we can at least learn a little something from Yana Perdido and Chloe both before it’s too late.

Writing Music: Greenred Productions, Dark Cello Music

Dr. Artair laughed, his hands up in surrender. “Very well! Madame Yana, I shall take my leave–for now.” He gave them a curt bow and left, his laughter echoing up and down the foyer.

“That man is insufferable.” The grandmother picked up the tea left by the doctor and held it up to her veil. “Hmph. Medicine, indeed.”

Thomas Watchman shared a look with his daughter to head for the door, then said, “I’ll tell your children you’re–”

“Not yet.” The grandmother shuffled around the bed, thocking as she went, still holding the cup, still hmphing under layers of black lace. “Tell me, what do you know of crows? Apart from the laws.”

“Excuse me?” Chloe could see her father’s grip on the leather arm bond tighten, though his voice remained cool. A bit too cool. “I don’t hail from the South.”

The grandmother shuddered and gasped. It took a moment for Chloe to realize she was laughing. “Is sin limited to the South? I may be old, but I am no fool.”

No, she wasn’t. Chloe watched that gnarled hand carefully balance the cane against the wall, and reazlied that this woman practically read Chloe like a book in just seconds. “Crows eat garbage. Roadkill. Scavengers.”

“Did you know they are also extremely protective?” The grandmother pointed to a painting on the wall behind Chloe and her father. It was as massive as the ornate, gilded bed: a painting of crows flying after a lone owl, its eyes shut as it flees. “If there is a predator looming near a crow’s nest, a signal is called out, and all crows in the vicinity will work together to drive the predator out. Kill it if necessary.” She unhooked the brass latch of the window. Tendrils of sparkling night air curled into the room as she tossed the doctor’s tea out the window—

Screech! Harsh, sharp, grating, the sound came higher and higher. The grandmother cried out, tripping over her own shrouds, dropping the cup and shattering it with her cane. Chloe’s father ran round the bed to prevent the old woman’s fall—

A shape flew to the window. White, black, silver, wings stretched like the arms of a ghoul, eyes golden, too bright, too bright, Chloe can’t stop staring back, the refrains of a thousand songs filling her ears when she sees that gold, that gold—

Thomas slammed the window shut and latched it shut. The creature’s talons scratched at the glass, its beak clamped down on the window frame, but neither gave. Its feathers pounded the glass as hard as any blizzard, and the night air now in the room seemed to answer the feathers back, rising in the room, causing all three to shiver.

Not that Thomas Watchman was one to openly show fear. He put his nerves into his fist and pounded the window, yelling “Back! Get outta here! Out!”

Darkness.

The shape had flown away—no. No not yet. It hovered in place a few feet back at Thomas and Chloe, who’d joined him by the window. That can’t be the same owl from the truck, Chloe wondered. And yet its stare, it felt so familiar…

The owl lunged for the window, but not with its feathers. Screeee. It dragged three sharp talons against the glass right in front of Thomas’ face. Then it flew back into the snow, and the dark, and the quiet.

Chloe’s grandmother staggered back just enough to sit back down on the bed. Her words came out with what sounded like a froth brewing in her mouth. “Owls are the worst of the predators. They will hunt for crow’s nests. They will eat the weak, the young.” Chloe handed the old woman her cane, which she promptly thocked to steady her withered, laced nerves. “Owls are the boogeymen crow mothers and crow fathers warn crow children to beware.” The veiled face turned up to Chloe. “You, you must make the next sign. You, must, beware.”

Word Count: 666 Total Count: 9,998

Gah, two words short of 10,000! But supper calls, and family, and grading, and, you know, life. 🙂

For a current list of installments for What Happened When Grandmother Failed to Die, click here.

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!