'You have your wings, Corvus.'
* * *
Ben is chasing fireflies.
Mark and Zadie are arguing.
Sean is whittling a reed.
Stella is kneading bread dough.
Pani is adding a cheeky grin to a snowman.
* * *
The great wings open to the gathering light. How magnificent they are, how fearsome. What must it be like to soar? Childhood's dream, yet Zach knows that dragons too can fly. He sends his gaze once more out onto the ice. In a last attempt at a warm start, he mutters the abort code. Another bout of trembling accompanies his silent message to Lev. Play your music: the voice is Lev's is the birdman's is Laura's is Corvus. There can be no evading this, his diabolus. Without another word he raises the clarinet to his lips. He fills his lungs the way Sean taught him so long ago. Laura, he thinks, or perhaps whispers. If the birdman utters an incantatory phrase, Zach doesn't hear. He is listening for time's torturous tritone. He plays. He plays, and fearing, steps forwards into the column, forwards into the codes beyond code, into that strange and wonderful theatre of living where he feels the first feathery touch on his face. It's beginning to snow, light snowflakes which soon thicken and obscure the ice.
* * *
Laura refreshes her memory, and for one canted moment sees him as she first saw him-late for class, leaning into the wind, indifferent to the sheeting rain as if it were no more than planes of grainy light, unsmiling. He lifts his head and his eyes pass over her, then he smiles, a slow and dazzling smile, a smile to stop the clockwork of her heart, to blind the watchmaker of the gods, to fibrillate time itself.
'You're wearing the chain.'
'Of course, you know I never take it off.' She glances at the countertop, but it's too late to conceal Max's toy gun. 'Where have you come from? I didn't hear you at all.'
He waves a hand towards the double doors. 'I was checking out the auditorium. You were supposed to stay put.' He points to the gun. 'What are you doing with that silly thing? Do you want to get yourself killed?'
'Have you found them?'
'Only Fabio. But Max is OK, he's not here.'
Laura stares at him in some consternation. 'Zach, you're acting very odd. First the chain, now this. You know Fabio's dead.'
'No, it was one of his less endearing ruses. It's a long story . . .'
They both look round at the sound of footfalls. Fabio clatters down the staircase from the upper level, brushing a cobweb from his hair. 'Bah, this place is filthy.'
'A ghost ought to expect a few spiders,' Laura says dryly.
'I see you've found her, Corvus,' Fabio says with his usual infuriating glint. 'Good. It's about time.'
* * *
Corvus ex machina
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Tom Reynolds, London EMT and writer, for his medical advice regarding Chapter 11. Tom blogs at:
I would like to thank Dr. Lawrence Kaplan, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Director of the Alaska Native Language Center, for his help with the Inupiaq Eskimo language. Any errors, however, are entirely my own.
And most of all I am hugely indebted to Welsh actor Ioan Hefin, who has narrated the podcasts (audiobook). His incomparable artistry as well as unflagging dedication and support have brought Corvus to life in a way that I couldn't have imagined when I first glimpsed Zach struggling in the midst of a blizzard. Thank you, Ioan.
. . .
