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CORA’S father never moved. Months passed. Cora turned eight, then nine, then ten, then fifteen. Every morning her father would walk to the castle before she woke and return after she had gone to bed. She hardly saw him anymore.
One night, though, she stayed up late to see him, just for a moment.
He walked into their home and startled. “Cora,” he said. “I did not expect to see you.”
“What is it, Father?” she said. “What is it that keeps you so long at the castle?” She pulled out her father’s chair, where a bowl of soup had grown cold. He sat and picked up his spoon.
“Thank you, my dear, for cooking,” he said. He looked up at her, and his eyes were so very sad that she could not bear to see. She turned away while he said, “I should be cooking.”
She waited for him to eat what little there was, and then she asked her question again.
“The king,” her father said. “He has demanded more hours and more responsibilities. I have only just finished.”
“What responsibilities?” Cora said.
“Securing the food,” her father said. “The king must ensure that no food leaves the castle.”
“But no one from the castle even comes to the village anymore,” Cora said. “Not since King Wendell was banished.”
Her father raised his eyes to hers again. “I do,” he said, and the words held a thousand regrets.
“But you do not bring food,” Cora said. “Do you, Father?”
Her father did not answer. He stared at his soup, which was only broth now.
“What do they do with all the extra food, Father?” Cora said.
“It is time for sleep,” her father said, rising from his chair. “I am very tired.”
“But what do they do with it?” Cora said.
Her father shook his head. “Must you know?”
“Yes,” Cora said. “I will not let you rest until I know.” She smiled, but her father did not smile back at her.
“They dump it,” he said. “In a heap pile beyond the castle.”
“Where we might collect it?” Cora said. An idea warmed her chest. There might yet be a way.
Her father shook his head again. “No,” he said. “There are guards. Many of them. You would never make it out alive.”
But she would. She knew a way, you see. And so one night she tried. She slipped into her feathers and flew in the dark of night with the biggest basket she could carry in her beak. She landed on a wall and watched the guards, memorizing their movements. And then she made her move.
She filled up the basket as quickly as she could, and then she disappeared. She dropped the offerings at the doors of the people, and, come morning, they were gone.
Over time, she grew stronger and was able to carry a larger basket. Back and forth, back and forth she flew. Before long, the people had called the feast waiting at their doors a miracle of the most magical kind.
Until, one night, she was discovered.
It was a new guard, who did not keep the same rhythm as the others. She had been careless, not wasting precious time to watch where he walked.
“Hey,” the guard said, as if he knew exactly what she was. “Shoo.” It took him a moment to notice the basket in her beak. She took to the sky before he could reach her, but she knew that he had seen what mattered most.
The next evening there were six guards, one on each side, stationed there, and two who roamed, and she flew over the great heap and did not stop. The people had no leftover roast lamb the following day. And the next evening was the same. And the eve after that, the king stood waiting.
“There,” a guard said. “There it is.” He pointed to the sky, to her.
“Blackbirds do not venture this close to humans,” the king said, “It is no place for them.”
“Perhaps it is hungry,” another guard said.
The king squinted up at her. She saw her chance. She made her calculations. And then she dove.
The king’s scream was heard all the way back in the village of Fairendale. It took only seconds to gouge out his eyes, and then he was writhing on the ground, and the men knelt beside the king and tried to staunch the blood, but she had already taken flight. They looked up at the sky, and then they looked back at their king, with no eyes and a blood-stained face, and they drew their weapons, for they knew then that this was no ordinary blackbird. They chased Cora as long as they dared, but she flew into the Weeping Woods, and they did not follow.
Cora, though, did not return home. She saw another opportunity, for she had drawn the king’s men far away from the side of the one they had sworn to protect, and so she returned for one last attack.
Her hate, you see, had become dark and sinister, and the kingdom, in her eyes, was better off without a man such as this one ruling it.
When she took flight again, she did not know if she finished the job. But she returned to her father’s house and waited for him to return as well.
He came hours later. She was still up waiting, sitting by the fire, staring into it.
“Cora,” her father said. “My dear, it is very late.”
“I could not sleep,” she said.
Her father looked at her. His eyes were sad. “The king,” he said. “He was attacked tonight.”
Why would her father feel sad about a man like the king getting what he most deserved? Cora felt only relief.
“Attacked?” Cora said, though the only question she wanted to ask was whether or not he was alive.
“Yes,” her father said. “By a blackbird.” He looked at his daughter long and hard. He did not know about her shape shifting. No one did. This was a secret Cora had kept from the world, though if her mother had been alive, she would have guessed, for Cora’s mother had been a shape shifter in her time.
“How very strange,” Cora said. A hardness crept into her voice. “And does he live?”
“Yes,” her father said. “Barely.”
So she had not finished the job. She felt the disappointment of regret.
“The healer says he will not live the morrow,” Cora’s father said.
“How very sad,” Cora said.
Her father still gazed at her. Perhaps he had guessed. “A blackbird,” he said. “A blackbird who pecked out the eyes of the king and left him to die.” He knew about her mother. He had seen her transform once. He had never asked about it, but he had known.
“If he dies,” Cora said. “What will happen?”
Her father drew a long breath and then let it loose. The fire flickered on his face. She noticed new wrinkles. He looked much older than he used to.
“Prince Willis will take over,” her father said. “And we hope for better.” He rose and kissed the top of her head and then disappeared into the room he used to share with her mother.
Cora remained staring at the fire until just before dawn.