Page 6 of Veil of Death and Shadow

Before I broke out into a run—effectively undoing the whole calm-heart-thing—I froze.

A few feet away, half-hidden next to a pile of leaves, was a small, black, furry lump.

One that had just risen and deflated, as if taking a breath.

I squinted, trying to focus on it as I crept closer.

Not a lump.

A crow.

I crouched down, my fingers hovering a few inches away from the small head, unsure of what to do.

I waited, staring at the bird’s chest, hoping for it to take another puff of air.

The feathers of its right wing were ruffled, the appendage bent at a strange angle as if it had recently been injured.

Its eyes were closed, beak scarred and slightly parted so that it looked like it was simply trapped in a peaceful dream.

But I knew it was a dream it wouldn’t wake from again.

The poor little guy was dead.

My chest tightened at the realization, and I fell back on my ass until I was sitting next to the unfortunate thing.

So, Deathhadreared his ugly head again after all—just when I thought I’d pulled one over on him.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the bird, feeling only slightly ridiculous. “This—this is probably my fault. Somehow.”

The limits of my curse were a little unclear, but something told me the crow got caught in the crosshairs.

I cleared some of the debris away from the crow, a sorry attempt at making its resting place a bit nicer, more intentional.

Was this the cost of sparing my own life today?

Would this bird have died if I hadn’t followed the strange pull that led me into the park?

It felt wrong to simply leave it here—not when I’d watched it take its last breath, the final witness to its existence.

While I’d grown accustomed to Death’s haunting, I was never sure how to handle the aftermath.

It didn’t make sense, and hardly seemed fair, that this bird was alive one second ago and now it was just gone—empty—with no one here to properly mourn it. To say goodbye.

I searched around, looking for something, though I wasn’t sure what.

I fiddled unconsciously with the silver beads of my ring. I paused, warring with myself for a moment before I tugged it off.

“Crows like shiny things, don’t they?” My voice was loud and rough, at odds with the quiet solitude of the woods. I was suddenly hyper aware of the fact that I was an interloper here.

I set the ring down on the bird’s chest, feeling suddenly absurd and ridiculous.

It was one of those cheap fidget rings. I found it in a resale shop last week.

I wore a much nicer one on my other hand. Someone had given it to me awhile back—an attempt to keep me from picking at my nails and fingers. Now, I felt naked whenever I left the house without it.

It didn’t cure my anxiety or anything, but it did give it something todo, and sometimes that was all I needed to push through the particularly restless moments.

I didn’t have a sentimental attachment to this new one. In fact, I’d half gotten it as a sorry attempt to divorce myself from the sentimentality of the other one. It hadn’t worked. I still couldn’t leave the house without the original ring.

---