Lost things

A foray into fiction, suitably gothic, suitably dark…

She had fled, in those painful days, to a tiny house on the edge of a river. Small, but all she could afford, now she was alone. Hidden behind impossibly intricate tangles of bramble and drifts of purple buddleia, the paint peeling and the paths overgrown. It was crooked, and perfect and a new sanctuary, as she saw it. A refuge from the maelstrom that had been her life in the last few weeks. The uneasy entry to the faded door had sold her. If it was this hard to get in, she could be sure of being left well alone. She had caught a glimpse of a similarly ramshackle structure, further down the bank of the slow-moving waters and assumed it abandoned.

During her first night she had noticed a faint but perceptible light, escaping from the irregular planks of wood, masquerading as shutters, over the windows of this neighbouring property. Cursing herself for only viewing this place during the day, to be sure of solitude, she had wrenched the newly hung curtains closed and faced the emptiness of the room. A wave of loneliness, hot and painful, surged through her torso. The undulating waters of grief sweeping over her once again, as they had every day since, as regular as the tides. She forced herself to move to the bedroom, lying on the mattress on the floor. Bedframes would come later, she had had to dismantle her life so urgently, and it hardly seemed urgent. She knew sleep wouldn’t come naturally, and so resigned herself to the night time babblings of the river, and the occasional screech of winged, nocturnal hunters, terrorising the hedgerows.

Tap.

Tap.

She jolted from unexpected sleep, startled and disorientated. Reaching to the other side of the bed, she found it empty and for a split second was confused, until her memory caught up with her and his name rose in her mind, unbidden and uninvited. The familiar burn in her chest as she sobbed only stopped when she heard the noise again.

Tap.

Tap.

It came from the wooden front door. Polite and curious all at once. She could see dust motes exploding in the sunlight from the windows either side of the door as the visitor tapped on the wood. This house had been cheap, and the state of repair spoke to why. She had reasoned a broken person should live in a dilapidated house, and bought it anyway. Pulling yesterday clothes around her, crumpled from sleeping, she twisted the lock on the door, and pulled hard against the bowed door and frame. It inched open, then gave up the fight and opened.

“Ah good morning, I thought I saw a light on last night,” came a desiccated voice, from a bundle of clothing that resembled a well tossed table at a jumble sale.

“Is that your car up the lane?” the jumble continued.

“Yes, yes it is,” she responded. Anxiety already rising at the anticipated row over parking she’d had frequently when she’d lived in the city.

The jumble of clothing pulled off something like a frown, “Hmmm, didn’t bring much with you did you?” it said, a mixture of observation and question.

“I left in a hurry,” she’d snapped, without thinking. Then drew herself up against the door, breathed in deeply, exhaled slowly and tried again. “I only moved in yesterday, I had thought this was the only place still occupied down here.”

“Nah, I’ve been here years and years,” the jumble exclaimed. “Didn’t think I’d see another neighbour down here before I died. It’s a bit cut off and isolated down here for you younger lot. I’m Meg, by the way,” and the jumble of clothes extended a knitted appendage for a handshake.

“I’m Clea,” she replied, shaking the bumpy woollen hand. “I’m sorry, I’d only just woken up when you knocked, ” she said apologetically, gesturing loosely at the dishevelled clothes and flattened hair. ” How long have you lived down here Meg?”

“It’s got to be about 40 years, all in all. I’ve been alone the last 15 or so, with nothing but the birds for company.” She tugged down the hood of her fleece coat, to reveal wild grey hair, skin like leather and sharp green eyes. “Until now of course” she smiled. Despite appearances, the comment was warm and friendly and Clea, who a few months ago would have recoiled from this shambles of a human being in the streets of her city, found her quite endearing.

“We get all sorts of wildlife round these part though, on account of the.. wilderness,” she paused, clearly searching for a positive way to describe the derelict nature of the area, this far from the main road. “The animals are really quite friendly once they get used to you, clever little things,” she chuckled, sending ripples through the layers of well-worn clothes. “Be sure to leave them something out in the garden, make friends you know?” She’d scrunched up her leathery face as she explored Clea’s eyes, watching for a reaction or a response.

Clea smiled, attempting to smooth her unkempt, dark hair. “I shall Meg, a girl can never have too many friends, especially out here. Thank you for popping over and saying hello, it’s been nice to speak to someone.”

“Not at all,” Meg grinned. “It seemed only right to come make my introductions and welcome you to this little corner. I shall be on my way, got to feed the birds and get something out for those squirrels, they’ve been eyeing up my felt roof and I swear those buggers will start chewing it if I don’t put food out fast enough.”

She threw her head back, while rolling her eyes at the audacity of the rodents and shuffled off up the leafy path. Clea could hear her still talking away, and wondered who she was talking to, and what she was saying. She pushed the door firmly back into it’s frame and resolved to do something more than just mope about today. She’d been wallowing for some time now, and confronted with the spectre of her future self at the door this morning had given her some comfort that being a heart-broken spinster wasn’t all that bad. Meg was quite charming, in a rustic way, and clearly enjoyed her own company and the quiet life out here.

Clea couldn’t quite face the unpacking of lonely belongings, into half filled drawers and cupboards, and so decided to try her luck in the rear garden. It was walled, and overgrown and clearly had not been touched by man or beast in some time. She’d not been much of gardener, he’d always done that. But she’d wrestled some things from the shed in her flight from the unhappy home and they waited, where she’d dumped them, just outside of the back door. Logic dictated she cut back the brambles that criss-crossed the space, and turned the soil in what were once raised beds. They currently sagged against their partitions, empty and lacking. Donning some thick gardening gloves, and a change of clothes she grappled with the spiny tendrils all morning, until she could see from one end of the garden to the other. She had filled dozens of dark green garden waste bags, and her arms were scratched from the cuff of each glove, up to the rolled up sleeves of her t-shirt. Then, a scrambling.

She could tell she was being watched. Then more scrambling.

She turned slowly, to see an oily black raven, perched on the aged and grey wooden garden door that punctuated the stony boundaries of the yard. It’s claws grasping and ungrasping the wood as it danced side to side along the wood, turning it’s head one way, then the other, focusing a dark glossy eye on her, one at a time. It screeched, so loudly and suddenly, that Clea jumped, pushed down on those claws and took off, in a sweep of feathers and sharp beak. Feeling a little rattled, she went inside and slowly closed the back door. Staring into the garden for some time, heartbeat slowing, the raven returned, pecking through the freshly turned soil and pulling worms and insects that Clea had disturbed up and swallowing them cheerfully.

“I had better get some bird food,” she whispered to herself. “That must be one of the birds Meg mentioned” and laughed as she realised she was both talking to herself, and was stood in dirty clothes, twigs and leaves in her hair, looking every part like a creature of the woods.

Having not left the house, or really looked after herself in some time, Clea had convinced herself to get out to the shops at last, if only to buy bird seed, and a nice loaf of bread. She’d got back from a trip, made a few days later, and had been amused to see that bird, watching her again from the garden gate. It was like it had watched her leave, followed on the wing to the shops, and arrived here, to appraise what offering Clea had selected. Clea set out a shallow dish on the edge of a raised bed, and sprinkled some bread around the flagstones. Noticing a long-forgotten sensation of hunger in her own stomach. It had been a while since she had had any sort of appetite. She torn off a chunk of the bread and chewed it, as the raven bobbed impatiently on the gate for her to go inside.

Watching from the kitchen window, and slowly chewing, Clea watched the bird hop down from gate, to branch, to flowerbed, and peck slowly and tentatively at the seed. That brilliantly glistening eye fixed on her, between jerks of the head. It then hopped down to the mossy flagstones, and pinched up puffs of white bread until the ground was clean.

Clea spent most days out in the garden, over the coming weeks. She named the bird Corvo, which seemed most fitting, given Clea’s own Italian roots. As she worked to tame the garden, and restore it to its former glory, the bird would scrabble onto the gate and watch her work. Each day would conclude with Clea leaving bread, or the rind from her bacon, or some such treat for Corvo, who would patiently wait for her to close the rear door, and come down to eat. On the days when it rained or was too cold to work out in the garden, Clea would see the bird, perched on the fence, watching and waiting. It’s feather were iridescent in the rain, and as the boxes in the living room were slowly emptied and the house slowly filled on the days when the garden was impractical, the bird watched.

Clea had spent one afternoon, wet and cold outside, going through her jewellery box and items from her old bedside table. She’d taken off her ring the day he had asked her to leave, and jammed it, full of sorrow, between the velvet of the jewellery box. A wave of anger struck her now, anger at being thrown aside and discarded and she impulsively wrenched down the sash window of the bedroom and launched the rings out of the window and into the storm. Oddly, she felt a little better, and thought no more of it. A few days later the weather had brightened and she’d been out to buy some bedding plants for the garden.

As she dug a small hole to bed the first plant in, she heard a familiar scrabbling at the garden gate. She turned to see the bird, perched and watching her intently. She smiled, greeted Corvo and returned to the soil and roots she was tending to. The bird hopped onto the raised bed, closer than Clea had ever seen it come, and dropped the ring she had tossed out into the unknown a few days prior, into the mud. Clea gasped, and picked them carefully out of the soil.

“Corvo, did you bring these back to me? Did you know they were mine?”

The bird turned its head to one side, that unusually large black eye fixed on her.

“Did you think I’d lost them? I meant to lose them,” she sighed.

The bird appraised her, flapped it’s wings and was quickly gone. Clea, now hot again with grief and anger, called it a day, left out the customary offering of bread and decided to pay her neighbour a visit.

Meg opened the door, wearing exactly the same quantity of mismatched fabric indoors, as she did outdoors and ushered Clea into her front room. The room was exactly as Clea had pictured it might be, full to bursting with trinkets, plants and mementos. Having settled down with a cup of tea, Clea explained to Meg that she’d made friends with a raven.

“Oh I know the one, big one, even the magpies leave that one alone” she’d laughed. Funny, it would never come into the garden, don’t think it liked the food I put out ’cause it was for the smaller birds.”

“She likes crusty bread,” Clea remarked, before realising how absurd that was. “I’ve been leaving it out every evening as a way to say thank you for keeping a beady eye on me during the day.” She smiled at the image in her mind of the bird on the gate, taking in everything Clea was doing.

“Do you know, Meg, I threw my engagement ring out of the bedroom window the other night, in a fit of rage, and a few days later, the raven brought it back to me. Dropped it into the flowerbed while I was gardening, like it was nothing!”

Meg paused, mug halfway back to her lap and nodded “I knew you were here hiding from something,” she said, sagely. Clea flushed, feeling she’d overshared. “But they do say corvids are exceptionally intelligent, and it you befriend them, they’ve been know to follow you, and bring back things you lost when you were out, you know.” Clea couldn’t help but feel affection for this bird, who had clearly seen her angry outburst and mistaken the tossed ring as a lost item, and returned it to her. She said her goodbyes and returned home, sleeping more peacefully than she had for some time, and in the morning she didn’t reflexively reach for him across the bed.

She worked in the garden daily, some days sitting out there with the bird, reading and admiring the plants as they grew bigger and taller and stronger each day. She developed a habit of chattering away to the bird as it perched on the garden table, looking for all intents and purposes as though it heard and understood her. A usually private person, Clea began to talk about the breakdown of her relationship. How he had fallen out of love with her, and she had finally lost his heart. How she’d taken the bitter money of separation and fled to the further reaches of the city, as far from him as she could get, and still make occasional visits in to her practice to see clients. How she’d buried herself under the tangles of weeds and hoped to never be unearthed.

As the last few boxes gave up their contents as Clea’s resolve grew and she built her new home, she came across the ring again. For the first time in a long time, she felt she had the courage to return it. She didn’t want it, she didn’t want any money from the sale of it, and Corvo hadn’t let her throw it away. She drove for around an hour, as the landscape became more and more urban, back into the city and life she once had there, to the building she knew he had moved to. She’d rapped the glass of his door, seen the blurred shape of him approach and draw nearer and pressed the ring into his surprised, open palm as she turned her back on him and all of the pain of the last few months. As she climbed back into the car, vision distorted by tears, she didn’t notice the oily black raven, perched in the trees overlooking the house. It’s shiny black eyes taking in the scene, having followed Clea from the secluded riverside. The drive home turned greener and greener, wilder and wilder until she made it home and feeling inexplicably lighter, went to bed and fell into a dreamless sleep, free of the spectre of him.

Tapping woke her again the following morning. She moved to the front door, expecting the jumble of Meg to be pecking at the wood again. But there was no one there. She heard the tapping again, behind her. Turning to face the back garden, she saw the bird, perched this time on the window sill, its beak wet in the morning sunshine. It tapped again. She moved toward the door, expecting the bird to fly off as she opened it. The bird stayed put, bobbing as if excited, chattering and screeching. As Clea stepped into the garden, she noticed the dark rust coloured smear across the flag stones, like an oil slick across the moss. She followed the streak with her eyes, across to the side of a wooden raised bed, and then she saw it. The dew was still on the leaves of the plants and the sun had not fully risen, so she knew it was still warm, by the gentle steam rising from the instantly recognisable human heart, dropped unceremoniously in her back yard.

The bird chattering paused, and she looked in horror at the bird on her windowsill. She all at once understood it had brought her another lost item, that it had listened to her stories as she’d cried and raged, and fallen apart in that garden, mourning everything that she’d lost.

A gentle caw broke the silence, it couldn’t be, could it? Clea thought. A gentle caw again “his,” it croaked across the garden.

She felt nothing as she buried the item the bird had pecked free for her, and flown back with, following her car back into the wilderness the night before. She dug a deep hole in the soil, and patted the fill back down firmly, throwing a bucket of water across the flagstones to wash away the blood. As she approached the threshold, the bird hopped onto her shoulder, wiping its beak on the fabric of her sweatshirt. “Good Corvo,” she murmured as she carried the bird inside, to her new home and new life. Free of loss and free of sorrow.