The few minutes that followed would be forever seared into Michael's mind. Not as a coherent, logical series of events, but as a vivid and surreal kaleidoscope of memory. There was too much happening, too fast, for his brain to make sense of it. The waking dream unfolded like this:
Enid shoved Gretchen as hard as she could, surprisingly hard considering her advanced age and her slight frame. Kobie flew backwards into Michael, Spencer and Gretchen like a bowling ball into pins, skittering the three of them into the darkness of the mausoleum.
Michael picked himself up from the concrete floor of the chapel and caught a glimpse of Enid, head down, pushing the heavy wooden door closed. Behind her, the sky was darkening with the arrival of a great mob of ravens. Their beating wings creating an unearthly howl of sound that drowned out Kobie's scream as she jumped up next to him and ran for the door.
While it seemed insane to be running directly towards the swirling mass of crows and the darkening sky of the graveyard, Michael followed her. Kobie slammed her body against the doors that were now almost completely closed, only a crack of eerie green light still visible, outlining the opening of the doorway.
"Help me" Kobie yelled back at the others.
Spencer lifted himself awkwardly off the ground and started limping towards the door. In one violent leap Gretchen threw her tall, muscular frame hard at the door, breaking it open and revealing a nightmare unfolding in front of them. Only a few feet away, with her back to them, Enid was standing wide-legged, shoulders hunched, facing down a swarming mass of the birds that had gathered together in front of her. As they watched on in horror, the unmistakable shape of The Crow unfolded itself like a dark, veiny flower out of the heart of the shrieking feathered mass. Enid stood resolute and tiny by comparison, facing the crow as it stretched out its long arms, flexed its claws and arched its back, showing off the full height of its sinewy body.
"Go back inside and shut the door" Enid shouted at them.
It wasn't only every fibre in his body that made Michael want to turn around and scurry back into the chapel. The air itself seemed to be pulsing outward from where the crow stood. Enid was leaning forward like a storm chaser in a cyclone. The wind pushed Michael and the others back against the outside of the mausoleum.
Here in the graveyard that held the family that he was bound to, with Kobie and Enid, the only two remaining members of that family present, The Crow seemed to be at his full power. For the first time Michael saw him in his complete and terrible reality. He had pale, wrinkled skin. His face in particular was so pale it was almost translucent, except for his marble-sized eyes. Jet black, hard and protruding. His arms were long and bent in too many places. They were sinewy and taught with muscle. The black of his talons was matched only by the inky darkness of his velvet black cloak. His charcoal wings were stretched like a tapestry of bat leather across a network of razor-thin steel scaffolding.
He seemed to grow taller in front of as his swarms of ravens flew in wild circles around him. It was as if he had been born from their midst and they were now an extension of him, their wings creating a vortex of wind and sound that pulsed, deafening and nauseating, through the graveyard.
"I believe she was planning this course of action all along" Spencer shouted across at them, "she was never going to sacrifice Kobie, she was merely using the appearance of that sacrifice to lure the psychopomp into appearing, in its role as protector."
Kobie lunged forward into the force of the wind.
Enid turned to look at them and smiled. "I love you," she shouted at Kobie.
"Grandma wait," Kobie shouted back.
The old lady turned back to the crow and opened her arms. She spoke loud enough to be heard over the whirring of the ravens.
"The time has come to honour our agreement. I give onto you the promised vessel. Let my body be your doorway and your pathway back to oblivion. Your journey is completed, the pact is fulfilled."
As she spoke the whirring grew louder and the hurricane of birds seemed to thicken until the sky itself was blacked out. The crow's pale face remained emotionless and his long, angled limbs moved slowly and calmly as moved towards Enid.
Kobie screamed and lunged again towards Enid as the crow reached out a bony finger on the other side of her grandmother, his long talons almost touching her chest. Gretchen used Kobie as a windbreak, and making it within arms reach, wrapped herself around her new friend. Michael helped by pulling back on Gretchen and Spencer edged his way towards them. They collapsed in a huddle on the ground with Kobie still trying to reach forward towards her grandmother as the crow stood towering over the old lady.
Enid tilted her head back, and with her arms still opened wide, her chest arched upwards like she was being pulled up towards the face of the crow. The wind that had been pushing outwards now began changing directions. Instead of pushing them away, the swirling darkness surrounding Enid and the crow began to slowly pull them in the opposite direction. Michael could feel their tangled group inching forwards.
At first, it looked like Enid was standing on tiptoes. But then her whole body lifted off the ground. Michael could see through the darkness, Enid's mouth open wider than he thought possible, her face a grotesque parody of screaming, but no sound audible except for the beating wings of the birds and the wooshing of the wind.
The crow leant down to meet Enid's face. For one horrible moment, Michael thought it was about to kiss her. But then the reality of what was happening became apparent and it was even worse. Somehow she was opening her mouth wide enough to swallow the Crow. The Crow was being squeezed inside of her. The pull towards Kobie's floating grandmother became stronger and the birds spinning around them flew faster as the head of the Crow disappeared, at once shrinking and bending while Enid's mouth opened as wide as her head.
The body of the crow became like an arrangement of long tubes of dark liquid being sucked up into the ravenous gaping hole that was once Enid's face. Soon all that could be seen was a disgusting flurry of black wings and dark shapes swirling and then disappearing like black water down a sink hole. The whole word was a vortex disappearing into a single point. Enid's body floated in the centre of it, the eye in the calm of the storm. The forces pulling towards her were so strong that Michael had to hold Kobie down as her legs began to float forwards towards the broken shape of her grandmother.
The shrieking of the vortex had been steadily growing louder and louder until the sound was so loud and so unbearable that Michael involuntarily let go of Kobie with one hand to try and block his ears. Just when the sound seemed like it couldn't get any louder, with a sudden pop it was gone. The last dark shape was sucked into Enid and the force that had been pulling the four of them forwards towards her body collapsed. Enid fell forward onto the dirt and gravel. The sky wasn't black any more. The overwhelming noise was replaced with an aftermath of ringing, Michael was half deaf. But there wasn't anything left to hear. The graveyard was silent once again except for the distant sound of traffic.
Kobie ran forward, followed closely by Michael, Gretchen and Spencer. They stood around Enid's body which lay face down, not moving. Kobie gently turned her over and Michael was relieved to see her face looking how he remembered it. The grotesque gaping hole that it transformed into moments earlier was gone. In its place was Enid's regular, calm and peaceful face. The memory of what transpired only moments earlier already seemed like a horrible nightmare. Michael glanced around them. He couldn't see a crow or a raven in sight. Apart from some scattered flowers that had been blown off a nearby headstone in the wind, there was nothing to show what had just happened
Kobie leant down and put her head on Enid's chest. She looked up at the others with a desparate hope in her eyes.
"I can still hear her heartbeat."
YOU ARE READING
Feathers
Paranormal*** COMPLETE *** After a freak accident, Michael is left with dark visions that he's too embarrassed to tell his girlfriend about. But what if they're not all in his head? A novel about love, trauma and friendship. About the things we hide from th...
