Crow Country

  One of the men swore, and scrambled up. ‘Look at that! Up there—’

  All the men stared at the sky, frozen in disbelief. Walter and Lachie broke apart, panting, and lifted their faces. Sadie’s mouth dropped open.

  Hundreds of black crows came silently wheeling through the sky toward them. Without a sound, they eddied high above the dried lake, a thickening, churning mass of birds, a black whirlpool in the sky.

  ‘Lord Almighty,’ whispered Craig Mortlock. ‘What the hell?’

  The cloud of crows seemed to tighten around the circle of stones. One by one, the men stepped backward until they had cleared the space. Lachie ran for his bike and clutched it like a shield. Mute, sinister, with the rustle of a thousand wings, the crows wheeled lower and lower, tighter and tighter. Sadie saw the gleam of hundreds of beaks, jet black and glistening.

  Walter touched Sadie’s shoulder. Their eyes met, and they ran. Sadie found Walter’s hand groping for hers. She grabbed it and gripped hard. Slipping and sliding, they pelted across the yellow mud. The cloud of crows blotted out the sun; a shadow spread like ink across the valley.

  It wasn’t until they reached the edge of the lake bed, the edge of the shadow, and were safe again in the winter sunlight, that they dared to stop and look back.

  A gunshot cracked across the valley.

  The cloud of birds exploded, scattering like black sparks from a firework. The air filled with caws of alarm, the panicked beating of innumerable wings. Instinctively, Sadie ducked. Another gunshot echoed across the lake, and another.

  ‘They’re shooting the crows!’ screamed Sadie.

  Wah! Wah! Wah! Crows flapped away in all directions. Wings whirred above Sadie and Walter’s heads. And still the shots rang out.

  ‘We have to stop them!’ cried Sadie.

  But she knew, as Walter did, that there was noth- ing they could do. They could only stand helplessly and watch as the crows scattered, and count them as some fell, like black stones, from the empty sky.

  'It’s all my fault,’ said Sadie. ‘I called them, and they came.’

  ‘Not your fault,’ said Walter. ‘You didn’t know the men were going to start shooting.’

  ‘I didn’t know they were going to come,’ said Sadie. There was a short silence while they trudged along the road. Then Sadie repeated dully, ‘It’s all my fault.’

  ‘Not your fault,’ said Walter again. He halted in front of the supermarket. ‘You wait there. Better not come in. Don’t want you having any more flash- backs.’

  He came out with two bottles of lemonade. ‘Auntie Vonn says something sweet’s the best thing when you’ve had a shock.’

  The lemonade was delicious. Sadie suddenly realised how hungry she was. She hoped Ellie had made a huge lunch.

  ‘Car’s gone,’ observed Walter as they neared the house. ‘David and Ellie must’ve gone to the footy already. We’re playing Charlton today.’

  ‘But then why were Craig and Lachie hanging round at the dry lake? They should be at the footy too.’

  Walter shrugged. ‘Plenty of time till kick-off.’ He glanced at the sun. ‘Another hour, maybe? David’s got to get there early for coaching, but Craig and Lachie don’t. We’re playing at home; it’s not far to the oval.’

  Sadie liked the way he called Boort we. ‘They’ll wonder where we are. David and Mum, I mean.’

  ‘They won’t care,’ said Walter. ‘Long as we’re getting on okay, we could go to the moon and they wouldn’t care.’ He shot Sadie one of his swift, rare grins.

  The house was locked. Sadie fished for the key that Ellie hid in the gumboot by the back door. ‘I guess we can make cheese on toast,’ she was beginning to say, when she heard Walter’s sharp intake of breath, and turned around.

  A crow was in the garden.

  It was slightly larger than an ordinary crow. It opened its beak, but no sound came out. It lifted one stiff wing, and Sadie saw a sticky patch that marred the smooth gloss of its feathers. Blood.

  Sadie pressed her hand to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

  The crow’s round eye regarded her coldly. ‘The Law is broken.’

  ‘I know I shouldn’t have taken Lachie there,’ said Sadie wretchedly. ‘It’s all my fault—’

  But the crow spoke over her. ‘What was lost must be found. What was stolen must be returned.’

  ‘What are you talking about now?’ cried Sadie in despair. ‘Why can’t you just tell me?’

  The crow’s head swivelled. He stared at Walter.

  ‘The story goes on, as it always goes on. The Law is broken and there is punishment. The dead cannot live again, but what was taken from the clever man must be returned. When the Law is broken the world is broken. The circle must be joined again.’

  Sadie snatched a glance at Walter. He was looking down, his eyes wide, shaking his head slowly from side to side.

  ‘Do you want us to find something?’ asked Sadie desperately. ‘You have to tell us what it is! What was taken?’

  The crow spread his wings and cried out in pain. Waaah!

  ‘Please tell us!’ cried Sadie. ‘How can we know what to do if you won’t tell us?’

  The crow rolled his eye in her direction. He didn’t call her a fool, but he was clearly thinking it.

  ‘You cannot know all of Crow’s stories,’ he said. ‘And Crow cannot know all of yours. Your story is dark to Crow, as Crow’s stories are hidden from you. You must find the place where the stories cross, and there you will find what is lost. Join the circle, mend what is broken.’

  ‘But how—’

  The crow gave a last anguished croak of waa- waaah! ‘The crows will help you. When you call, the crows will come.’

  And then he was gone.

  Sadie spun around to Walter. ‘Did you hear it? Did you hear it speak?’

  Walter rubbed his eyes. ‘Yeah, I heard him.’ He sounded dazed.

  ‘Its wing was hurt; did you see?’ said Sadie. ‘They must have shot it.’

  Walter stared at her. ‘His wing? But he was a man.’

  Sadie stared back. ‘It was a crow!’

  ‘A man and a crow at the same time,’ said Walter. ‘A messenger from Waa, the Crow. A spirit shaped like a man. A man with a bleeding arm.’ He shivered and sat down abruptly on a garden chair.

  Sadie sat down heavily in the other chair. ‘Why won’t they just tell us what they want us to do, instead of talking in riddles? Unless – did you understand?’

  Walter shrugged. ‘He was talking about the Law, and stories, and something lost. Didn’t make any sense to me.’

  ‘Something stolen from the clever man,’ said Sadie.

  ‘A clever man means someone with special powers,’ said Walter. ‘Someone who knows about magic and spirits. Like Auntie Lily.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Sadie. She remembered the figure of the crow in Walter’s painting. ‘Did she lose some- thing?’

  ‘I dunno. I don’t think so.’

  They sat silently in the afternoon sun. Leaves rustled and danced in the breeze. Sadie shivered, and hugged herself. ‘Let’s go inside. I’m starving.’

  Walter didn’t move. He said slowly, ‘She could help us.’

  ‘Auntie Lily?’

  ‘No, the tooth fairy. Of course, Auntie Lily.’

  ‘You think she’ll believe us?’

  ‘I’ve told her about my dreams and that. She was good. She knows about this stuff.’

  Sadie shook her head. ‘No way. We can’t tell any- one. I shouldn’t have told Lachie. I probably shouldn’t even have told you. Except . . .’ She hesitated. ‘You did hear it talking, too, so I guess that was all right . . . But we can’t go round telling people we’ve been going back in time and hearing crows talk. They’ll think we’re psycho. Mum would freak out.’

  ‘Not saying we should tell people. Not your mum, not David. Just Auntie Lily.’

  ‘No. We can’t. It’s secret.’

  Walter stared up at the sky. ‘I can tell her w
hat I saw today. That’s my story, too. That’s not our secret. You can’t stop me talking about that.’

  ‘But she’ll think we’re crazy!’

  Walter said nothing.

  ‘Right,’ said Sadie. ‘Fine. Whatever.’

  She stomped inside, banging the door behind her. She dragged out bread and cheese; she was so hungry she couldn’t wait to assemble it into a sandwich, but tore a hunk off the loaf and stuffed it into her mouth. She could see Walter through the window, hunched on the garden chair, hands clasped between his knees, unmoving.

  ‘I don’t want to!’ she said aloud, as if they were still arguing. ‘I don’t want to tell anyone else.’

  But she knew, even as she spoke, that they needed help. The crows had chosen her, but she couldn’t understand what they were talking about; she didn’t know what they wanted from her.

  You cannot know all Crow’s stories, and Crow cannot know yours.

  The crows had shown her the story that belonged to her, to her family – the story of Clarry and Gerald and Jimmy Raven, the other Sadie’s story. Find the place where the stories cross, the crow said. But what did that mean?

  It seemed that she and the crows were supposed to help each other, but how? Would Auntie Lily know?

  Walter stayed stubbornly hunched outside.

  Sadie slapped some cheese between two wedges of bread, slid it onto a plate, and wandered out of the kitchen. The whole house smelled faintly of paint fumes. Her bedroom! She’d forgotten that Mum and David had been painting her room.

  Her furniture was jumbled in the hall. She took her sandwich into the bedroom. It was transformed: the hated flowery wallpaper had disappeared beneath a lilac-tinged wash of paint. The room seemed bigger, lighter.

  She touched one wall gently with her fingertip. Up close, the raised pattern of the wallpaper was still just discernable. And what lay under the wallpaper, how many layers of paint and colour? And after she was gone, some stranger might paint over her lilac, bury it under cream or green or yellow or stripes . . . How many layers would line these walls before the house crumbled?

  Layer upon layer, story upon story . . .

  In 1933, Gerald Mortlock killed Jimmy Raven, and Clarry Hazzard hid it, and Gerald and Clarry died. Three friends, all dead, and Sadie dead, too. Punished. That story was covered up, buried, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t still there. Blame and bitterness, trickling through the years like poison, bleeding through like the pattern of the wallpaper. All the stories, all the joys and tragedies laid on top of each other like transparencies, each one smudging and blurring the rest until it was impossible to tell what the truth was. Stories building up a residue on the land, like layers of dried yellow silt, with the bones of the past thrusting through . . .

  Sadie realised with a start that Walter had moved silently into the room behind her, a box of cheesy biscuits in his hand.

  ‘I am going to tell Auntie,’ he said.

  Sadie traced an invisible swirl on the wall with her finger. ‘Okay,’ she said, after a moment. ‘But I want to come too. And just Auntie – not Mum or David.’

  Walter nodded. ‘Going round there tomorrow,’ he said. ‘To Auntie Lily and Auntie Vonn’s. You can come.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Sadie. She felt a weight lift from her stomach and knew it was right.

  ‘Room looks good,’ said Walter.

  ‘Yeah, it does.’

  He dug out a handful of biscuits, and pointed toward the living room with his chin. ‘There’s footy on the TV. Bulldogs versus Freo.’

  Sadie followed him and plumped down on the couch. On the television, the crowd on the far side of the desert gave a tinny roar as the ball flew bet- ween the goalposts.

  ‘Good game?’ said Sadie.

  ‘Nah. They’re killing them.’

  Walter passed her the box, and they sat side by side, companionably munching, until there was nothing left but crumbs.

  Walter told David that he and Sadie were doing an oral history project for school.

  ‘I thought you were in different years?’ said Ellie.

  ‘Getting kids in different levels to work together,’ said Walter, without missing a beat.

  ‘That’s right,’ Sadie chipped in. ‘Building bonds across the school community.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said David. ‘All right, why not?’ He tossed his car keys in the air and looked at Ellie. ‘If the kids are at Vonn’s place all afternoon, we could drive down to Bendigo and grab some lunch maybe?’

  ‘Lunch with the game-winning hero coach of the Boort Football Club? How can I refuse? You should have been there,’ she said to Sadie. ‘We smashed Charlton. It was beautiful to watch.’

  ‘Yeah, you said.’ Sadie rolled her eyes at Walter. ‘About a million times.’

  David dropped them at Auntie Lily’s house, a tiny, shabby weatherboard cottage at the edge of town. As the car drew up, a crowd of children spilled out of the house, shouting for David’s attention.

  ‘This is my friend, Ellie, and her daughter, Sadie,’ called David over the racket.

  ‘You coming in for a cuppa?’ A large, deep-voiced woman in swathes of red and orange stood on the porch with her arms folded across her ample chest, staring hard at Ellie.

  David looked at Ellie. ‘Ah . . . Don’t know if we’ve got time, Vonn . . .’

  Ellie smiled. ‘We’ll bring everyone back a treat from Bendigo, okay?’ She waved her arm across the crowd of children. There was an instant clamour of approval.

  Vonn nodded slowly and uncrossed her arms.

  David said, ‘Walter and Sadie want to talk to Auntie. That all right?’

  ‘She might be asleep,’ warned Vonn. ‘But they can go in.’ She stood back to let Walter and Sadie slip inside.

  The kitchen was full of women drinking tea, smok- ing, laughing. They greeted Walter with cries of delight; they all wanted to hug and kiss him, passing him around the table from one set of arms to the next. Sadie shrank shyly into a corner.

  ‘I’ll take you in,’ said Vonn. She dropped a hand on Sadie’s shoulder and propelled her down the hallway. Walter extricated himself and followed. Vonn knocked softly at a door and waited until a voice called, ‘Come in.’

  The bedroom was dim, the curtains drawn. Sadie could just make out a figure propped on pillows in the bed.

  ‘Auntie Lily? Walter’s here.’

  ‘Eh, beautiful boy!’ Auntie Lily was an old, old lady with wispy white hair. She reached out two hands to draw Walter to her for a kiss. ‘You never come to see your auntie no more?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Walter humbly.

  Sadie hung back during the greeting and scolding. Then Vonn beckoned her closer. ‘Auntie, Walter brought a friend to meet you.’

  ‘Eh?’ Auntie Lily squinted at her.

  ‘We want to ask you something,’ said Walter.

  Auntie Lily patted the edge of the bed. ‘Sit down, sit down. I got time for a chat today, I reckon.’

  Vonn withdrew. ‘Don’t tire her out,’ she warned, before she shut the door.

  Outside, Sadie could hear shrieks and yells beat- ing around the tiny house like a whirlwind. It reached a crescendo of cheers, then faded into the distance. Sadie could imagine the wave of kids running down the road after David and Ellie’s departing car. Her mum would love all that attention, thought Sadie rather wistfully; she enjoyed crowds of kids. She always said she wished she’d had more children.

  Walter perched on the edge of the bed and began to talk earnestly to Auntie Lily. The old woman leaned forward intently, peering into his face. Sadie saw that her eyes were milky, that she must be almost blind. Sadie wasn’t sure that Auntie Lily even knew she was in the room. She was too shy to sit on the bed.

  Walter sat close to the old woman. His voice rose and fell like the murmur of a creek. The stone circle, the crows. Sadie shifted impatiently in her corner. He wasn’t telling it properly; he hadn’t started at the beginning; he was leaving things out. She couldn’t hear what h
e was saying. Auntie Lily nodded, murmured in reply. At one point she began to tell Walter a rambling legend, about how Crow had stolen something from the moon. Sadie’s foot twitched. What did that have to do with anything?

  At last Walter told Auntie Lily what Crow’s messenger had said to them in Sadie’s backyard, about returning what was stolen from the clever man. Auntie Lily’s expression suddenly seemed to sharpen; her gnarled old hand shot out and gripped Walter’s tight.

  ‘My uncle, he was a clever man,’ she said. ‘He was killed, you know, long time ago. Got in a fight, some bugger shot him. Never find his body. My auntie, she look all over; never find him. They tell her he gone away. But she know that’s not true. He come to her in a dream, you know; he tell her that bugger shot him. She never find his body.’

  Sadie jumped as if she’d been bitten. ‘What was his name?’ she cried. ‘Your uncle, was his name Jimmy Raven?’

  Auntie Lily’s mouth screwed up and her eyes narrowed as she peered toward Sadie. ‘Who’s that there?’

  ‘Sadie Hazzard,’ faltered Sadie.

  ‘Huh.’ Auntie Lily’s milky eyes raked her up and down. ‘You people, you think you know all about the Dreaming. You think the Dreaming was long, long ago. But you’re wrong. The Dreaming is now. The Dreaming is always; forever; it circles around and around. It never ends. It’s always happening, and us mob, we’re part of it, all the time, everywhere, and every-when too. You think you know everything, but you don’t understand. Everything’s alive, not just people, not just animals; every rock, every tree. Do you know that?’

  ‘I guess so,’ whispered Sadie.

  ‘Huh!’ said Auntie Lily. ‘You think you can hear all the secrets?’

  Sadie knew there was no right answer to that question. She said nothing.

  ‘Well, Sadie Hazzard, you go wait outside.’

  The old woman drew herself upright and stared with her blinded eyes as Sadie backed miserably out of the room. She felt like crying. The crows had come to her; she hadn’t asked them to choose her. This was her story, long before Walter arrived. Now Auntie Lily had shut her out. It wasn’t fair.