It was as though he’d done all this before, how he knew who this was, that this was the form she would take: it cost him not even a moment’s thought. And there on the ledge that ran around her house was a basket full of straw, and in the straw was laid a large green brown-speckled egg, a Crow’s egg.
The Crow of this world now seemed to suspect something was amiss, or at least was new, of which there had been none such in aeons. She leaned her broom against the wall, went around the cold fire pit to the ledge where the egg was; she bent over it tenderly, tapped it with her black fingers, and put her ear to it, as though to know if it spoke or made a sound. She looked up sharply then with one eye, but before she saw him, Dar Oakley had flown.
He banked sharply this way and that down over the yard, the palisade and walls tilting in his sight, and landed square on the back of the black Pig. With his strong bill he bit down hard on the Pig’s long, veiny ear—the Pig awoke and squealed in rage. The little black Dog raced around the house at that and charged at Dar Oakley, barking fiercely in an unbroken string of curses, eyes red as coals. But Dar Oakley, spitting pig-bristles, was gone again up to the housetop just as the Crow of this world rushed out the door, broom in hand, to see what was the matter, who’d intruded.
Dar Oakley dropped down into the house.
The egg was bigger than any he’d ever seen a Crow lay, bigger than any egg he’d ever broken with a mad mother on the attack. But the green speckled shell gave way at his first dag, and fell gently in two. He heard a queer moan. There was nothing at all inside.
He thought of the Eeclass="underline" It’s nothing. He thrust his bill within the empty shell, and took hold of it, of nothing. Nothing took hold of him, resistant and refusing. Dar Oakley had the sensation of a squirming, thrashing thing, though looking down along his bill as best he could, he saw only nothing.
Holding tight to it, he rose up to the smoke-hole. He heard below him a sound, a screaming such as he had never heard any being make even in death, and as he fled out the hole and away from the house, he knew he was pursued. A blackness only, but flapping, snapping, like a People’s banner in a sharp wind. He couldn’t look back, wouldn’t have if he could, but he knew the blackness was close behind him and growing larger as it overtook him, darkening the dull sky. He spied the hole in the land that he had come up through, almost overshot it, fell toward it in a sudden dive, trying to guess how fast he could go and have any chance of not breaking his neck on the lip of it (though what would it mean to die here, where all were dead?), and felt, as he went down through, his wing brush the edge—he tumbled as much as flew down and out below.
The blackness didn’t pursue, or couldn’t.
Fox Cap, pale face turned up, waited at the tree’s foot, growing larger as he came down. He wanted to cry out, tell her he had it, he had it, but to cry out in pride would be to let go of it—every Crow child knows how that story goes.
She stared at him in wonderment as he flew around her head, shaking his bill and making a faint meaningless groan from his throat, but she seemed frozen, until he flew nearly into her face with it—and she backed away with a look he couldn’t grasp, horror, doubt, amazement, fear, what was it? Anyway she understood now what he had, and tried to think what to do; she searched herself—for what? This thing he held on to would be off and gone in a moment! She took out the only thing she had: the little metal cup that fit on the tip of her finger.
She held it out to him. He alighted near her, and she knelt and held it close to his bill. He thought her hand trembled. Certainly his bill did; the cup was so small, and how could what he held fit into it? Because it was nothing, that’s why, and could fit anywhere. It slid from his bill as though still desperate to cling there, but in it went. Fox Cap set the tiny cup on a knee of the great Beech, and they both looked in, heads almost touching. The pebbled bottom of the cup could be seen just as before, but there was no doubt that it was in there, the Most Precious Thing; no doubt at all.
“I couldn’t touch it,” she said. She was still trembling. “I can’t.”
“It’s caught,” Dar Oakley said. “It can’t get out of that—that—”
“Thimble,” Fox Cap said, for that’s what it was—Dar Oakley would see many, and steal one or two, in later times. A thimble.
It seemed they had done that which they had come to do. Hadn’t they? Now and then Fox Cap would raise her eyes to Dar Oakley, and now and then Dar Oakley would raise his eyes to her. Her hands rested on the Beech-root, but never took up the thimble.
“I’m so tired,” she said. “So tired.”
Dar Oakley sensed a stirring, far away, so far it was maybe not in any place at all, but a stirring, as though something or many somethings were awaking troubled.
“So tired,” Fox Cap said. She drew away from the Beech and sat, then sank, hands on the forest floor.
“No!” Dar Oakley said. “No, don’t.”
“A little while,” she answered. “It’s done.”
Dar Oakley wanted to speak again, but he could see it would do no good. With weary slowness Fox Cap drew her mantle to her chin and pillowed her head on her arm and drew up her knees—like the man of the barrow, like any of her kind.
Sleep? That’s what they were to do now? It was indeed dark in the Beech-wood, as though the furious Crow of this world had overspread the whole land. Reluctantly he took a stand on the knuckle of a Beech root where it rose to join the trunk—at least it wasn’t the bare ground. He supposed he wouldn’t sleep, and even when he awoke he felt uncertain that he had. How long had he roosted there? It was day again, or still day.
What had waked him?
You, he heard. That was what had waked him, a word.
He looked around. Fox Cap slept. The Beech-wood was as empty as before.
You, said the voice again. Then: Listen.
In growing dread and certainty, Dar Oakley turned his head to where Fox Cap’s thimble had been put. It was clear: nothing had spoken.
Crow, said the voice from within the thimble. Listen to me.
Dar Oakley couldn’t do otherwise. The feathers of his head and neck rose, his ears opened.
Take me away from here, it said. Quick, before she wakes.
Take you where? Dar Oakley said, looking sharply with this eye and then the other at nothing, speaking to nothing, awed by the impossibility. Who are you?
You know who I am. I am who you think I am.
Then you are hers.
No! No. Listen to me. I belong to the one who finds me, you see? That’s you. You found me, not her.
I don’t want you, Dar Oakley whispered—perhaps he made no sound at all, yet he knew he’d been heard. I don’t want you; you can’t do anything for me. For my kind.
Wrong, said the Most Precious Thing. Trust me. A Crow was my mother. My foster mother anyway. She’s lived a thousand years.
Dar Oakley couldn’t respond to that, the little of it he understood. It was absurd, arguing with a thimble. He looked to where Fox Cap lay, thinking he’d wake her now.
No, don’t! said the Most Precious Thing. Take me away. Pick me up quick and put me in your pack.
I don’t have a pack, Dar Oakley said.
No? I thought you would have a pack.
I can’t carry a pack. I’m a Crow.
Never mind! said the Most Precious Thing. Pick me up now and carry me how you can. I’m good for Crows! I promise. It’s your chance! You!
That strange surge of alertness Dar Oakley had heard gathering far off had grown stronger. He thought, Why shouldn’t it be? And why shouldn’t I? Didn’t I bring Crows the flesh of People, the news about battles, all that wealth? This would be the last gift, the best gift. It would pass from Crow to Crow, he didn’t know how, but somehow it would make the whole of his kind glad. He would make them glad; glad forever.
Yes! said the Most Precious Thing from within the thimble. Now you’re thinking right. But quick! She’ll wake!