Crow Flight Read online

  It was odd, but Gin couldn’t help watching it a few times, whispering the words to herself. As though she were there at the side of the old pond, watching the frog leap in, hearing the sound of water.

  TimeKeeper buzzed—time to reedit college essays—but before starting, she scratched something out on a piece of paper. It didn’t have the right number of syllables, but she wasn’t counting:

  Raven black sky.

  Night flutter of leaves.

  Satellite soars.

  // Thirteen

  The sky was gray and the sun was low. It was the day after Thanksgiving and Gin still felt full from the pre-made turkey dinner her mom had heated up. Chloe hadn’t come home, instead electing to video call from her boyfriend’s house in Rhode Island, where she was spending break. At least, Gin’s mom said, it was better than staying at the Alpha Phi house for the week.

  For some reason after dinner, Gin decided to ride her bike. The old blue Schwinn was heavy and rusted but still functional. The wind kicked up as she left her neighborhood, and she almost turned back. But then it calmed, the sun nudging itself out from behind the cloud cover. Gin pedaled through neighborhoods and a wooded park, along sidewalks and winding paths, until she found herself at her old elementary school.

  She rode up the grassy hill to the brick building and stopped at the top, the playground and wide field below her.

  Her body was warm from the exertion, her breath exploding in iced puffs as she leaned over her handlebars. The dried grass was pale yellow and brown, and the ground was edged by shadows of bare oaks.

  She stood, prepared to ride home, and that’s when she noticed the flash of feathers.

  Black. Soft in the sky. Catching the afternoon light. Pushing back the air, like smoothing a child’s hair.

  A crow.

  Flying fast, up and around, as though it were flying with a purpose.

  She scanned the sky, the field, and then she froze, mouth opened, unable to believe what she was looking at it.

  Because down in the middle of the field, was Felix.

  He looked smaller in the big open space. But still exactly like himself. Shaggy, gold-brown hair. Jeans, low on his hips. The bottom of a pale yellow t-shirt just visible under his forest green fleece. Instead of his sandals, he wore old tennis shoes. She had never seen him wear tennis shoes.

  But the most amazing part was his focus. It was like every bit of his body was tense, ready. His feet firmly planted, back straight, one hand at his side and one held halfway up in the air. Eyes narrowed. Lips barely opened.

  She followed his gaze—he was watching the crow. And when she saw what was happening, she gasped. Because the bird was coming right to him. It got closer and closer, and for a strange second, she worried that the bird was going to attack, to heave its body into Felix and pierce him with its thick beak.

  But there was no attack. Instead, just as the crow was within reach, Felix stretched his right hand further up, and the bird flew to his fingers. As though it were completely ordinary to walk out to field, raise a hand, and have a bird fly down to you.

  The crow stayed there, perched on Felix’s right hand, totally, unimaginably relaxed. Felix moved the crow to his shoulder, then pet its head.

  Gin bit her lip, gripped the handlebars harder. This—whatever it was—was what she’d been wanting to ask about. And it was crazy. Felix was strange, but in a popular, athletic sort of way. Not like this. To be out here with a crow sitting on his hand. Like an animal whisperer or circus act.

  Felix squatted down, crow still on his shoulder, to a black mesh box near his feet. He opened it, reached in, and took out another crow.

  With a crow on each hand, he held his arms up to the sky and whistled. Immediately, both crows took off, flying a long wide arc to the right, around the field. Wings easing up and back, up and back. Black bodies like holes in the sky.

  It was beautiful. Why had she never watched birds like this before? After reaching the end of the field, the crows angled back and flew towards him, making a loop.

  He turned, following the crows’ flight, and that’s when he saw her. Her heart beat fast, her face turned bright red, like a flag, and all she wanted to do was leave.

  The birds flew so close overhead she swore she felt the rustle of their feathers, and Felix raised his hand, almost tentative—if anything Felix did could be considered tentative—to wave. And then, he smiled.

  She couldn’t help it. Her hand shot up in a wave, and before she knew it, she was riding towards him. As though everything in the universe had set itself up to create this moment: her flying downhill, bumping over the wintry dirt, bike jolting beneath her, and him standing there, a crow on each shoulder.

  She pulled her brakes hard, the thin pads rubbing the steel rims, and put her left foot down while staying on the bike. She tried to act as though it were comfortable standing like that—body leaned over the bike frame, arms rested on the handlebars, everything balanced on one foot—when in reality, it felt extremely awkward.

  “Hey.” There was no silliness or charm in his voice. He sounded nice.

  “Hey.” The quiet wrapped around them for a second. This field, tucked away from busy roads and surrounded by trees, felt as still as the Old Pond. And Gin felt like the frog, poised to jump.

  “So . . . you like crows?” It was not at all how she had planned to broach the topic.

  The smile hit his eyes first, then the corners of his lips angled up, those lips that were somehow always slightly puckered. And he grinned.

  He crossed his arms and in that second, with a crow on each shoulder, he looked like some strange medieval prince. Or a king. Someone from an old Norse legend, who ran around with crows and wolves and conquered lands with his bare hands.

  She breathed in deep, and it smelled like wet ground and geese and gray skies.

  “Yes, I like crows.” His answer didn’t sound silly or condescending but seemed genuine. “Actually, I train them. Want to see?”

  She tried to consider the offer, to tease out what Decider would say. Situation: In a strange field with a strange boy and his trained crows. Decision: Stay or go? But instead, she set her bike down on the ground. The bike’s left pedal sunk slightly in the dirt and her pants scraped along the chain ring, leaving a narrow smear of grease, but it didn’t even bother her.

  She stood by Felix’s side, close enough to see what he was doing, but not too close to scare the crows. Because she was certain she would scare them. They were right there on his shoulders, and she was so near, she could reach out and touch them. Glossy bodies like bundles of energy. Stocky with compact muscles. Onyx eyes that blended in with their midnight feathers but caught the light and shone.

  The crow closest to her tilted its head to the right and held Gin’s gaze.

  “This is Maggie.” Felix pointed to the bird that was watching Gin. “And this is Frederick.” He pronounced it “Free-derick.”

  “Maggie and Free-derick,” she repeated. “Good to meet you both.”

  “They were doing some simple flights. But we’re about to practice retrieval. It’ll only take a few minutes. Ready?”

  At first, she thought he was talking to the birds, but his eyes, with their flecks of green and gold, were still locked on hers. “Ready.”

  He straightened his body and touched each bird on the head. They immediately stilled. He whistled two low tones—Phee-Phaa—and the birds were off. Wings beating fast, moving them farther and farther away, until they had disappeared over the trees at the far edge of the field.

  There was a breeze, soft and cool, and Gin pulled her sweatshirt around her tighter. Her nose felt iced, and her hands ached. A plane flew across the sky and for a second, she imagined the rows of people tucked neatly inside, watching movies and sipping sodas. No idea they were flying over a boy training crows.

  She waited a second longer and turned back to Felix. His eyes were set on the horizon.

  “Ar
e they supposed to disappear like that?” she asked.

  He moved a little closer. “Are you worried?”

  Her face flushed, and she felt the muscles in her body tighten. “No, not worried. Just curious.”

  He stepped closer again, so he was standing right next to her, their feet and legs and hips inches apart, and watched the sky. “They’ll be back. They’re both old pros at this.” He looked back at her, eyebrows furrowed. “You must think it’s really strange?”

  It was strange. But instead of telling him that, she just shrugged.

  “My dad travels a lot for work,” he continued. “And my mom has her own stuff going on. So I’ve always had copious free time. So much free time, I learned to work words like ‘copious’ into sentences. And I worked with the crows. It’s kind of a family thing. My dad trains them, too. He started it all. Frederick is almost as old as I am.” He stopped talking and pulled his hand through his hair. “But that’s a lot of information I’m sure you don’t care about.”

  “No, I don’t mind, it’s interesting.”

  “Interesting. I like that.” He looked at her closer and reached a hand out. For a full second, she had no idea what he was about to do. And suddenly, his hand was on her cheek.

  It felt like every sensor in her body had pooled in that one spot. A jolt ran through her, as though his touch had reached down to squeeze her stomach and tighten her throat. She could barely breathe. She couldn’t move. Like her brain had stopped processing.

  He pulled his hand away. “Got it. Mud splatter. That’s what you get for biking down a wet hill.”

  She put her hand to her face and felt the heat still there. “Thanks.”

  “And here they come,” he said.

  She turned to watch, the sleeve of her jacket brushing against his.

  The crows were flying straight for Felix, their bodies dipping and rising with each stretch and release of their wings. Contractions, like a heartbeat. In a bustle of movement, they were there.

  Gin stepped back and lifted her face up, feeling the wind from their wings. In another second, the crows were perched on Felix’s shoulders.

  Felix held his hands up in front of the birds, and they both dropped something from their beaks.

  “See?” He opened his palms flat to show two small blue bells.

  Gin picked one up, felt the cool metal in her hand. She shook it, but it didn’t make a sound. “Magic bells that only birds can hear?”

  “Just broken. So they don’t ring. The birds like them for the shine and the color. And believe it or not, different colors can mean different things.” He jammed his hands in his pockets.

  She liked how it felt, standing there with him, crows perched on shoulders and all.

  “That’s amazing. I didn’t know anyone could do this. I mean, training crows? Where do you even start?”

  He laughed. “Where you start everything: at the beginning. Want to see some more?”

  And before she could answer, he whistled again, the crows taking off in a dark, cool wind.

  The sun had nearly set, leaving the sky gold-blue at the horizon and navy above. The first planets were popping out, turned on by the darkening air. Rogue wisps of cloud, pink just minutes before, were fading to charcoal.

  The crows had worked for more than an hour. Gin’s nose was nearly frozen, and she kept squeezing her hands to keep them warm. She should go. But she didn’t want to.

  “I love your Pata-Gucci, by the way,” she said. It was meant as a joke—Hannah was always calling Patagonia “Pata-Gucci,” and it was funny when she did. But from Gin, it seemed to fall flat.

  “What, this?” Felix pulled at the bottom of his fleece. “You must be cold. You want it?” Before she could protest, he was pulling off the fleece and holding it out to her.

  “No, I was joking. You know. Patagonia’s so expensive and all. It was a bad joke. Put it back on—I’m cold just looking at you.”

  “Really, I don’t want it. I only need one fleece, and my crazy mom who buys all this stuff just got me another. Don’t ask me why she buys Patagonia. I guess so I can fit in with the cool kids. You know, every mother’s dream?”

  It was funny. Thinking about him having to wear something to be cool.

  The fleece was flying in the air, towards her. Before she could plan an appropriate reaction, her hands went up, and she caught it. She held it to her face, warming herself, and couldn’t help breathing in the smell of him.

  “You’ll be cold.” She said it quietly, suddenly wanting to keep the fleece. It was warm.

  He shook his head. “No way. It’s good for me. It builds up endurance for the elements. You know, like how they go from hot tubs to snow fields in Sweden. Seriously, the fleece is yours. If you try to give it back now, I’ll leave it on the field for some dog or kindergartener to find.”

  She pulled the fleece over her head, wondering what all of this was. The talking. The fleece. The crows on his shoulders—Beatrix and Rufus now. She swam in his fleece, even with all of her layers. But she was definitely warmer. In the process of pulling it on, she lost the rubber band holding her ponytail. When she couldn’t find it on the shadowy ground, she pulled her hands through her hair, shaking it out.

  She caught him watching her, and when their eyes met, he smiled. “You look warmer already. You wear it well.”

  She flushed at the compliment and turned to watch a group of starlings settle into the oak trees around them. Chattering and chirping. Beatrix and Rufus seemed to watch, too, cocking their heads one way then another. It smelled like night.

  “All right, buddies.” Felix’s voice was soft and kind, like he was talking to a baby. “Time to go home. Good work today.”

  He put the two crows in the box with Maggie and Frederick, secured the Velcro tabs, and gingerly picked it up. The birds rustled inside but didn’t complain.

  “Can I give you a ride?” he asked.

  She almost said yes. She wanted to—to sit in his car, with the crows, with him. But there was the matter of her bike. And the fact that he wasn’t in her results. And the reality that she’d likely never be in his.

  Maybe in some alternate universe it could work. One where she wasn’t so smart and quirky and he wasn’t so cool and easygoing.

  “No,” she said. “I’m good.”

  “All right. Well, be safe. Good to see you, Gin.” He smiled, and the last bits of light hung on his cheeks and his teeth and his eyes.

  She turned and picked up her bike, forcing herself to look away. “You too.”

  He started up the hill, then paused. “Oh, and, about the crows. Most people have no idea what I do with my spare time. And it might help me out if we kept it that way, you know?”

  She did kind of know. And she wasn’t about to go tell everyone about this afternoon. Except maybe Hannah. But how could she explain any of this? It’d be like trying to describe the ocean to someone who had never been. How waves rose and crashed. The sand and salt and wind. Whipping your hair, stinging your eyes, sticking to your mouth.

  “So you like crows,” she said. “No big deal, right? Nothing that anyone else would even care about.”

  “Thanks.” He grinned, the sort of smile that was impossible not to return. “See you at school.”

  She watched for a second as he walked towards the parking lot, which was still empty except for his car. That old, beat up 4Runner, tucked in the corner of the expansive blacktop.

  Then she pushed her bike forward, and after two steps, she was up, pedaling hard, pedaling home.

  // Fourteen

  Mr. Ryan stood at the blackboard, rolling a piece of chalk between his fingers. Gin had grown to like the chalk—the sound of words knocking on the board, the soft swish of the eraser, the bits of yellow dust everywhere.

  He turned back to the class. “Anyone?”

  As always, he had written the quote in the upper right corner. “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” �
�Zen Koan.

  Gin typed it in her notes. But she wasn’t thinking about one hand, or clapping, or class. She was thinking about Felix and the crows.

  Gin had told Hannah everything. Saying it out loud made it seem even more odd. But Hannah pointed out that all rich people were somewhat strange—who else had time for something like training crows?

  Gin had wanted to ask Felix more about it at school, but modeling class had been busy with lectures and anyway, he had more or less asked her not to talk about it. And the crows felt almost sacred, like if she brought them up at school, she’d be ruining whatever had happened on that field. So she didn’t bring them up.

  Instead, she filled up every crevice in her schedule with researching crows. She watched videos, read scientific studies, even ordered books about the birds. She did all of that while also wearing Felix’s fleece. The bit about the fleece had put Hannah over the edge—“He likes you, it’s so obvious,” she had said. But to Gin, nothing was obvious. She didn’t want to get her hopes up when there was nothing but circumstantial evidence.

  Anyway, crows were fascinating. Like how they could do complex cognitive tasks. Or how they worked together to hunt. Or how they mourned when another crow died. That last one was really strange. If one crow, say, got hit by a car and died, then dozens of other crows would gather around the body. They’d stay for a moment, silent. And eventually, they’d caw together and fly away. Like a tribute. There was probably a more scientific explanation—maybe they were taking note of the death to increase their own chances of survival. But every person who had witnessed a “crow funeral” swore there was something deeper going on.

  Gin started seeing crows everywhere. The crow that flew over her house each night. The group of crows that hung out near the school’s dumpsters. Crows settling into trees or hopping down sidewalks or flapping up to street signs and peering down at her.