Prologue: The Crows
The crow fluttered,
the crow flapped.
Perhaps it had been blown off course by an unexpected squall at sea, or banished from its clan for some crime
whose nature is only understood by crows.
Whatever the cause, it fluttered,
and it flapped, and down it came.
It stalked the roof-slates of the town, hooded;
it winked like a sly preacher, cawed and pecked.
It observed the town with a carrion eye,
coughed, opened its mouth,
and said
Murder.
Chapter 1: Bobby
Bobby was ill. His mother detected it on him,
heavy and pungent as damp wool.
Every morning she found his sheets tangled in violent patterns, as if he and his sleep had fought.
The boy was silent,
and brittle as a pane of ice.
His mother tied shopping bags over his shoes,
to keep out the misty morning that awaited him.
Locked in a memory,
his heart twisted and
clenched inside him.
Chapter 2: Dreams
Bobby dreamed: a strange seed had unfurled in him,
was shouldering upward through him, seeking the surface.
A tree, leaping from seed to sapling, striding a year in moments.
He dreamed the bite of an axe, teeth of saw and chisel edge,
and binding strings.
Strange dances followed. Entrapment, escape, like a moth passing through a flame.
Blackness,
a loosening of strings,
the saw of teeth.
Chapter 3: The Theft
The boy was woken by his feet, cold against the bare boards of the landing.
His dreams had been crowded; turned around and around with nightmares.
Half-sleeping still, he watched his body
stumble
down the stairs,
beyond his command.
