CRY MURDER

April Steenburgh

It starts as an itch over every inch of the scalp—that prickly sensation that comes with the need for a shower and that no amount of scratching will alleviate. It moves down the neck, bringing a shiver and gooseflesh in its wake. It’s not long after that joints will start to ache, throat goes dry, and it becomes impossible to hold still.

It usually starts just around dinner time, when the day is settling into evening, a familiar warning that tonight will be just a bit awkward. It was an awkward I was familiar with, at least. And that my family was used to. It was not so hard for a young woman to explain away being just a bit off as being “that time of the month.” Honestly I had never found a phrase that killed each and every line of inquiry as quickly or completely.

It was my time of the month, just not the one I was alluding to.

It was expected that I would rush and jitter my way through dinner, hardly eating anything. It was understood that I would go to my room early, begging biological indiscretions as to why I was unable to settle in for living room lounging with my parents and younger sibling. My family respected that, bore my idiosyncrasies with indulgent smiles and well wishes. They would most likely be a bit put off by the way I hauled open my bedroom window, slipping the screen free with skill borne of repetition, the way I hung my head out into the autumn night panting like a canine.

The brisk air soothed the itching for a moment, pulled the frantic fog from my brain. It brushed across the cold sweat that covered my body until I started to shiver. The shivering was nothing more than a prequel to the shakes and then bone-shifting and crunching convulsions that rippled and ripped through me. It hurt like a bitch every time. But there is nothing a good preening session cannot solve, and preening was always almost frantically in my mind as I settled out of my human shape and into corvid. It is wonderfully satisfying and soothing, rearranging each and every feather, making sure everything is in place and well oiled. One good shake and a hop to the windowsill later and I was ready to enjoy the evening.

Crows don’t usually fly at night. Nor do they generally appear as the result of a monthly inconvenience. I was a bit atypical—enjoying feathers and flight once a month, dealing with community college the rest of the time. Well, the community college thing was only for another year—I could expect a monthly experience as a crow for the rest of my life. After a quick stretch I took to flight.

I was not pecked in the eye by a crow, or scratched by irritable corvid claws or anything like that. I am pretty sure I put the wrong feather in my mouth as a child and that was all the juju it took to get me feathered monthly. Turns out shape shifting is a communicable disease.

A communicable disease that came with social obligations. I flew over to the town Department of Transportation building and settled onto a fence post, taking a second to assess who was here already. Eric was poking around in the leaf mulch pile, probably looking for something to eat. That guy could, and would, eat anything that moved. I was a crow of distinction—I liked my snacks dead and cooked, preferably cooked on a grill, but a bit of asphalt on a hot summer day would do. The sisters, Ashley and Kim, were chattering up a storm next to what looked like a pile of food waste that had missed the dumpster. Probably trying to pretend they weren’t considering a snack themselves. Jack, an older crow who was constantly missing at least one wing feather, was perched on the fence a few feet away from where I had settled. He was the head of our strange little family, and was usually accompanied by Melody, his somewhat grumpy partner and matriarch of the murder. She drifted in with a croaking rattle, our cue to join her where she settled by Jack on the fence.

The evening had officially begun. And by the look on Melody’s face, it was a good thing I had gotten my Psych homework done early.

Everyone settled onto sections of fence with a bit of chatter and grumbling, and as we turned our collective attention towards Jack, I noticed little Anthony was absent. Enthusiastic, excitable Anthony. Melody gave a full-body rustle and shake, croaked out her displeasure before calling the evening to order. I fluffed once with a bit of reflexive anxiety, then flapped my way to her bit of fence.

We were bigger than common American Crows, and it showed the most when we perched, when our claws were visible, when we were suddenly put to scale with mundane things like the planks of wood that made up fence posts, light posts, trees. Melody was larger than most of us, and prone to wicked jabs of the beak if the mood struck her, so I did my best to perch far enough away to be out of reach, but not far enough to be considered rude. She eyed me, head turned to the side, for a long moment, then clacked her beak and proceeded to let us know our evening was booked.

We had to go find out why Anthony had missed our family “dinner.”

We were usually a tight group, my murder of were-crows. Everyone, no matter how new to the feathers you were, knew it was important not to miss the monthly family meeting. Natural crows were social creatures and were-crows were no different. We usually caught up on what was going on with each of us in our mammalian skins during our full moon soirées, touched base, let everyone know everyone else was doing well. If someone wasn’t doing well, we did what we could to alleviate the situation. Anthony was newer, smaller, and never missed our gatherings.

We were a Halloween fanatic’s dream as we took to the sky with a rustle of feathers and rattle of beaks at Jack’s command, dark wings cutting across the moon-bright sky. We were silent as we flew, apart from the occasional “no luck” or “all clear here.” We cut through the territories of sleepy local crow families who called out at our passing, wishing us well, wishing us luck, offering no answers. Until we caught the sound of alarm cries coming from a few blocks away.

Jack and Melody must have seen him first, as they shouted and turned sharply downwards, toward a small thing sprawled beneath a pine. They shed feathers as they landed, slipping out of their crow skin. Jack was a formidable man, large frame, heavily muscled, face lined and hardened by sun and wind. He gathered up the stiff, battered crow that was Anthony, cradling him close. Melody should have looked old and frail, her thin frame nothing but sinew and bone. But her eyes were something ancient and dark and right now very, very angry. We settled on the ground at their feet, quiet.

“Erin.”

Melody’s voice shivered through the air, hung like a threat. Even though I knew her anger was not directed towards me, I roused once before stepping forward and wriggling my way out of my feathers. Jack and Melody made it look easy—they were old crows and the moon was their friend. I had to really work at it, fighting my body’s desire to stay ensconced in the shape of a crow. Gooseflesh peppered my skin as I stood, shivers that had nothing to do with being naked in the fall air and everything to do with the quiet magic of a full moon and the look in Melody’s ancient eyes.

“Yes, Melody?”

I would give anything to be able to half-shift like Melody did, pulling feathers to cover socially less acceptable parts of her anatomy. Were’s have little body modesty—sort of impossible when you belonged to a social circle that was constantly slipping from one set of skin to another, a process that clothing did not participate in. But there was a certain sort of vulnerability associated with being bare-skinned that was hard to shake, especially when standing in front of a dead friend. But I was the oldest-in-feathers of the others, and as a result, a sort of second in command whenever Jack and Melody required it.

Melody gestured with fingers crooked and boney enough to resemble claws, ordering me closer. Unconsciously walking on the balls of my feet with nerves, I took a few steps forward, stopping suddenly as my brain finally got around to processing what I was seeing. There were few things that truly scared me. A dead friend was terrible, but not terrifying in itself. The sight of the feather, large and barred elegantly in browns, tucked under Anthony’s wing, kicked in a panic that was very difficult to deny.

There was an owl in our territory. “Owl. How did an owl find us?”

Eric shuddered and almost slipped his feathers, body rippling as the moon pulled him back. Ashley and Kim huddled close to him, too new to try to ride the adrenaline of pure terror back into human skin. There were few things that frightened my feather family—but the silent death that came with a were-owl definitely topped the short list. It was easy to forget, as we enjoyed the comfort of our suburbs, in our ability to move from one skin to the other, that there were other things out there that preyed on us. The human part of our brain was eternally convinced it was comfortable at the top of the predator chain. It was easy to forget that we straddled two skins, and had to account for them both.

“We will find it.” Melody’s voice was hard. “We will not let it hunt in our territory, will not let it hunt us.”

“They are killers of opportunity. So, we flush it out before it takes another of our family.” Jack, voice quiet as ever, shifted Anthony’s body in his arms. “Cry murder so that all can hear, rouse the natural crows. Come dawn we start the hunt.”

“Now, we hold close and alert.” Melody brushed a hand across Jack’s neck before taking a step away. “We will roost here until dawn. Jack will take Anthony. Everyone will clear their day. And then we begin.”

* * *

Dawn after a full moon night was a strange shivery feeling, like coming out of warm water into chilled air. It always left me a bit short of breath and wondering why I couldn’t just curl up inside a crow’s body forever. But like all leftover bits of dragging dream, the allure of being a crow full-time dispersed after that first cup of coffee. Granted, this morning it was Dunkin Donuts coffee while sending a very apologetic email to my instructors via cellphone explaining the family trouble that had come up and my resulting absence from class today. I had grabbed my phone and extra clothes from home after I had snuck back in through my window and shed my feathers. I should have dared breakfast, too, as my stomach was busy shouting its displeasure as acidic coffee mixed with the bile that nerves were producing like a champ.

I ignored the news playing on the screen in the corner of the Dunkin Donuts—it was a quiet reminder that in a few days we would start hearing stories about a missing person, about our Anthony. But they would be looking for a young man, not the battered crow skin he had been wearing when he died. They would never find him. His family would never know what happened. It infuriated me. My phone buzzed, letting me know I had a message.

Family meeting. Usual spot.

Eric had apparently been assigned the task of gathering the troops. I shifted my backpack—a smaller sporty thing meant for short hikes—downed the last bit of my coffee, and started out.

The usual spot, in this case, meant Jack’s place. It was where the murder gathered when we were inclined towards lounging on the sofa instead of perching. Jack’s place was at the edge of town, where suburbia bordered on rural, but you could still get cable internet and public utilities. I settled my bike onto the front of the bus and climbed aboard for the rambling ride towards Jack’s. I had this commute down to an art form.

We had an owl. It had only been a matter of time. The last owl had been years ago, when I was a scrawny adolescent just sorting out that flying was not an innate ability—that it had to be learned. The murder had been larger then. Predation had a way of thinning the ranks. Jenny had been a good friend, all shit-eating grins and wild gesticulations. I am pretty sure we more or less were the textbook case of troublesome corvids. I had been so new to the feathers that Jenny had seemed like an ancient sage. I still have no idea how old she had been—you learned not to ask members of the were- community how old they were as you would sometimes get an honest answer. Jenny had been one of the first kills, the first hint something was wrong. I had found her in human form, eyes open and face startled. Jack told me she had been caught just as she slipped from feathers to skin, when even the oldest were- was just that much more vulnerable. Anthony was a clean kill in comparison—wounds harder to make out through dark feathers. Jenny…I still had nightmares about Jenny.

Jenny had at least been able to have a funeral of sorts, though she had no human family to claim her. It had been a parcel of crows dressed in their funeral finery attending her burial. Anthony would be buried at Jack’s place, under the old pines in the back yard.

I got off the bus with an absent wave at the driver, unhitched my bike and started on the handful of miles down quiet roads that would take me to Jack and the rest of the murder. I could have pulled on my feathers and flown to Jack’s place, but the commute was therapeutic, it let me get my thoughts and my emotions together. It let me tumble through old, bad memories in my own time, in my own space, before I had to support the rest of the family, had to soothe and support crows who were too young to have experienced the hunt. The morning light was comforting—we had time now to look for the owl. The day was ours and we would use it to our advantage. I had no desire to spend weeks holed up, terrified and hoping the danger would pass. Not again.

I ditched my bike at the end of Jack’s long, gravel driveway and started the mostly up-hill walk to the front door. Eric’s shiny new sedan was parked in the grass at the top of the driveway, next to the mechanical Frankenstein’s Monster that was Jack’s truck. Someone must have picked up Ashley and Kim as I could hear their voices from inside, but their well-used, well-loved car was missing and they were new enough to their feathers that they would not have started the day slipping skins, not after a full moon night.

I let myself in the front door, grabbed a soda as I passed through the kitchen, and joined my family in the living room, saluting them with my drink in greeting. “Morning.”

“Good morning, Erin.” Melody smoothed her skirts before gesturing for me to join her on the couch. I did my best to ignore the way my hair tried to stand on end as I settled beside her. It’s not that I disliked Melody, it’s just my subconscious gets a bit overwhelmed by the uncanny feel of her—age and something that is far less human than it looks. Old Crows are strange magic. That is the best way I can put it to words. Something to look forward to as I get older, I guess.

The rest of the murder unconsciously moved closer to where Melody and I sat. Were we in feathers there would likely be some reassuring preening going on. We collectively ignored the dirt on Jack’s shoes as he came in through the backdoor and took his usual place in the rocker beside the couch. The family meeting was about to officially start.

“It has been some time since we have had a predator in our midst.” Melody introduced the business at hand with a deceptively casual air. “Our family is smaller than it was, and we have new members who have yet to join us on the hunt.”

“The trick is there are more of us than there are of them. And we use that to our advantage.” I leaned forward, hands on thighs. “We hunt together. We bring in the natural crows. The days are ours and we use them to our advantage.” And we stay the hell inside at night.

“Erin is right.” Jack’s chair creaked as he rocked slowly. “We are a good family. Strong. With the assistance of our cousins we will find the owl and drive it from our territory.”

Or kill it. I was fond of the killing it option. I did not trust a predator to stay gone. Owls and crows did not get along on a good day. Add in the supernatural nonsense that came with being a were-, all the size and strength and cunning thrown in to keep things interesting, and I don’t think scaring the owl off was an option. But then again, I was a bit blood thirsty when it came to owls. We all have our faults. I will give Jack credit—his gentle reassurance settled the family, so I set my bloodlust to simmer quietly in the background. “To drive it out we need to start moving now.” I settled back a bit, tried to force my posture to relax.

“Skin or feather, you will know an Owl as you pass it by.” Melody’s voice was quiet, causing us all to lean in a bit. “You can always feel another were-. Magic calls to magic, and Owls feel like the quietest part of the night, when you want to keep looking over your shoulder, just in case.”

“In human skin, it gets the hair on your neck to raise, gets you all goosebumpy. Feathered, you want to hide and attack all at once.” And shout, scream, let everyone know there is something dangerous and wrong nearby. There were memories I liked to keep swept under the rug. Staring at an owl, old and half-feathered, as it roused once and then stepped almost daintily off of Jenny’s torn body, feeling anger and terror to such an extreme that I was unable to move…that I would be dead if Jack had not arrived then, a monstrous amalgamation of corvid and man…that was one memory I tried to keep buried as deep as possible. “You can’t miss it, you will never mistake it for anything else. Trust me.”

“So we should be hitting the streets now.” Eric managed to sound confident, even as his body language suggested he was more than a little unsure, unbalanced. “Get it before it gets another of ours.”

“Eric, Ashley, and Kim—you will start hunting on foot. Stay together. Pay attention to our cousins in the trees. Melody started the alert call as the sun rose—they know to keep an eye out and to let us know what they see.” Jack stood and we all followed, even Melody. The time for talking was over. “Erin, Melody, and I will be flying. Do not try to take on the Owl alone. I buried one family member today. I do not want to bury another.”

We reassured ourselves as humans do, touching skin to skin and speaking affection and confidence. I followed the twins and Eric out to Jack’s front yard and then reached for my feathers. Slipping from one skin to the other was different when not being coaxed by the siren call of the full moon. It was less of an obligation—instead it was an action of pure joy. Nerves tickled with anticipation as I pulled my magic around me like a blanket, gave a quick shiver and stretch, and unfurled my wings. It still hurt—there was no way to get around the sensation of a body reforming bone and tendon—and I still needed to make sure every feather was where it should be as soon as the shifting settled.

I cut my preening short this time around. As soon as my stomach settled from the mix of nausea and butterflies slipping skins always produced, I took to flight with a croak of parting for my human-shaped family members. Jack and Melody joined me in flight, and we started off, our wings taking us back to where we had found Anthony.

* * *

The tall pines were filled with crows, cousins paying their respects to our Anthony, as well as passing on information, letting each crow that passed through know we had a predator in our midst. That the Crows were going to take care of it, and that we needed to know if anyone had heard anything, seen anything. The cacophony that was a large gathering of crows quieted as we approached, diminishing into occasional rattles and the hiss of feather on feather as they shifted about where they perched. Jack and Melody made a point of seeking out members of individual families, to calm as well as interrogate. Questioning was not one of my more developed skills. I was content to let them sort out who knew what while I took myself higher, giving myself a good view and space to think.

Under all of the local crow conversation, I heard the nasal call of a fish crow, a call that was short and sharp with distress. Leaving Jack and Melody behind, I called out reassurance as I flew towards the pond near the middle of the nearby community park. There, near a patch of scraggly willows, the fish crow stood, feathers raised in distress as she stood near the body of her companion. I circled, assessing the situation. They were young, still waiting to grow into their full adult glossy black. The male was limp and bloody, feathers and flesh having been rearranged by sharp talons. The female croaked and puffed, terrified and furious all at once, and unable to decide what to do about it. Calling for help. Calling for my family.

She had been there, when the Owl had killed. I could see it in her eyes. I knew that immobilizing terror. I knew that self-loathing that crept in after being unable to act. I drifted down, settled next to her, bent to preen, to calm...

She wanted none of it. With a shout she hopped back, rousing and puffing. She did not want comfort. She wanted blood.

And I could not blame her. We were the same, she and I. I had not wanted the comfort of my family, had not wanted to be preened calm. I had wanted blood as soon as the terror had left. I had wanted to see Owl feathers torn free and broken. I had wanted to be the one doing the breaking. She met my eyes, the young fish crow, held me there with her terrified anger until I roused and jumped into flight with a rattle.

It had stepped over a line, the Owl. It was one thing to hunt Anthony, a were-, to work within the somewhat bloody lines established by old conflict. It was another to terrorize my natural cousins. Anthony. The young fish crow. It was too much death, too suddenly. It dug at too many memories. And there would be more death, if we did not find the Owl, and quickly.

I did not want to think about cold, dark eyes or the crunching crush of powerful talons. I flapped higher, as if trying to flee the memory of soft, soft feathers as the Owl brushed a talon-tipped finger across my cheek, drawing blood. Instinct must have turned my flight in the right direction, something just at the edge of conscious perception. In the middle of deciding to turn back and join Melody and Jack, I felt it.

It was unmistakable—the sensation of being watched, a shiver of vulnerability and the feel of the deep woods at night. I did the thing we had spent the morning reminding each other we should not: catching a taste of the Owl, I took off in its direction, calling out to Jack, Melody, and all my natural cousins as I flew, letting them know that it was here, that I had found the predator in our midst.

A Crow will always know an Owl as we pass it by. I could taste it on the air, musty feathers and old blood. I could see it where it sat, bold as could be, on a bench in the quiet corner of the community park, away from the noise of children playing and dogs barking. Nestled in the comforting dark of the tall pines it rested in its human form, tricking anyone who glanced its way into thinking nothing more than an old man rested there.

Magic calls to magic and it noticed me, opening eyes that were too yellow to pass close inspection, lifting eyebrows that were more fine bits of feather than hair. So old it could just barely pull itself down into a human shape. It stood and slipped back into the trees. I shouted as I dove down through the pine branches after it.

This old Owl had nothing to fear, not from a single Crow, but I dove at it, claws extended, screaming and shouting to wake the entire city. It slipped out of its human skin, pulling out talons and feathers, mouth gaping in the bastard cousin of a proper smile. Anticipation gleamed in bright yellow eyes as I struck at its head, as it brushed me away with one arm. A couple beats of my wings brought me back around to strike again. It was slow, not built to be active in the day, and that likely saved me as I dove at it again and again.

This was what had killed little Anthony—so new to his feathers, an eager and excited member of my family. This was what had killed Jenny—mentor and partner in crime. This was what meant to kill me. It might be older than I, larger and more powerful, but I was a Crow.

And Crows did not hunt alone.

Melody dove with a scream that would haunt the dreams of all that heard her. Jack followed, touching ground to slip into the same sort of hybrid form the Owl was holding, providing ground support. I dove again, close behind Melody, who hit home, the scent of fresh blood trailing her as she turned up and around to strike again. I struck the back of its head with a triumphant shout, hitting and cutting before twisting into a turn of my own.

The natural crows gathered, filling the sky with black wings and shouting. They added to our mob, pressing the Owl, giving it no time to counter or plan. Stuck on the defensive, bleeding and sun-slow, the Owl started to gather itself. Jack lunged forward, swiping with one clawed hand, but the Owl was moving away, muscles rippling and arms slipping to wings.

It was going to fly and flee.

I let the rein I had on my fury slip free and came in again, shouting and screaming. The impotent rage of the fledgling I had been sitting on for years bubbled to the surface, mixing with the outrage of an adult who saw their sense of security and safety slipping away. I came down with my hands around the Owl’s neck, claw-tipped fingers digging deep into flesh as I strove to strangle it. Surprise filled wide yellow eyes, just before I felt a bone snap beneath my fingers.

I smelled blood as I pulled away, startled, as I blinked at hands that were unfamiliar- black and clawed. Adrenaline left a sense of exhaustion in its wake and I stumbled, catching my balance as the world stopped spinning. Everything was too sharp, all my senses seemed stuck on a high setting. It was disorienting. My throat offered a crow’s rattle as I decided, perhaps, it was time to sit and collapsed backwards, my descent eased by Jack’s strong arms as he came to settle beside me.

The sky was filled with crows. They would mob for a few minutes longer, making sure the threat was well and truly handled, before heading back to their own territories. The old Owl lay in front of me, seeming smaller now that it was still and unbreathing. I could still feel its neck in my hands. I could still feel its talon on my cheek. A corner of my brain was horrified at what had happened, at what I had done. Another part was content, pleased and preening, knowing my family was safe. Humanity arguing with Crow sensibilities—nothing new. I sensed I would grow out of the sense of conflict the longer I lived feathered, the less human I became.

I exhaled, forcing my way out of feathers, coaxing my magic to relax enough to give me proper hands—and who knew what else—but I was not taking the time to examine just how I had managed that half shift. Jack was kneeling in front of me, eyeing me with a mix of concern and pride. All bare skin and worry.

And here I was, sitting naked in some pine needles, a bit of blood under my nails, wondering how many days I could take off from school before someone got concerned or decided to fail me. It could go either way. “Umph.” Not my most elegant statement, but it reassured Jack enough so that he stood and offered me a hand up.

“Not the result I had anticipated, but it will do.” Jack patted me on the shoulder after making sure I was steady on my feet. Steady enough, at least. My brain kept wanting wings to fan out and balance with. I had not been this addled since the first time I writhed my way into feathers.

Melody landed beside us, feathers fanning out as she slipped back into her skin. She took my head in her hands and kissed my forehead. “My little fledgling has grown up.” Her magic danced down my spine, this time far more familiar than old and strange. I would digest that later—preferably with a side of adult beverage and Netflix. I was not ready to join the ancient and mysterious club.

While Melody was favoring me with some Crow bonding, Jack was dragging the Owl into a decorative cluster of barberry bushes, caching it there to return for later. The crows above us were dispersing, and I could hear the usual sounds of the morning—cars and kids and dogs—now that the cacophony had diminished. I wanted to get back to my pants, and cell phone. Someone needed to call Eric and the twins, let them know they did not have to jump at shadows any more, that things had been handled. That the family was safe.

Safe. I rolled the word around for a moment, letting it settle down deep where terror had been holed up for years. Since Jenny. Letting it take the painful edge away from losing Anthony. We would mourn our losses and rebuild. Perhaps pick up a handful more fledglings along the way so Jack’s house would not feel too quiet, family meetings would have more excitement. Melody and Jack, and more than likely myself now, would find the young ones as they fumbled through their first full moon, and bring them home.

I pulled my feathers around me and flapped to a low branch, waiting for the family heads to join me. Jack was missing a tail feather. Melody was, as always, impeccable in appearance. We preened a bit, there in the tree, recovering and reassuring ourselves. When Melody took to the air, Jack and I followed. I was ready for a nap, and Jack’s rocking chair sounded pretty damn perfect.