(Fiction Special) The Dream King's Daughter
Chapter Two: The Murder of Crows

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The public domain image above is Wheatfield with Crows, by Vincent Van Gogh and is courtesy Wikimedia.

So, when we last left Aurora, she was working as a waitress in Cooper's Corners, Saskachewan, with the uncanny ability to read the dreams of other people by looking them in the eye. When a dark force arrives and tries to grab her, she's pulled into a memory from three years before with her Mother in Winnipeg before they have to flee to Saskatchewan after being spotted by some disturbing crows. Aurora realizes that her life in Cooper's Corners has been a lie, as her mother has erased her memory...

<<- Back to Chapter One.

The Dream King's Daughter - Chapter Two: The Murder of Crows

Aurora burst into the kitchen and set the coffee carafe aside with a sloshing clatter. "What just happened out there?"

Silence descended in the kitchen, so far as it could. Polk and Matron stared at Aurora over the sounds of running water and sizzling bacon.

Polk glanced from Aurora to Matron, then back. His mouth quirked up. "Oh, wait, is this a game? Let me guess: you served coffee to a lot of customers? What do I win?"

"Quiet, Polk," said Matron. To Aurora, she said, "what are you talking about, dearie?"

Aurora spluttered. They had to know! They'd run out of the kitchen to help her when--

No, wait, they hadn't. They're still here. They haven't moved from their posts.

She gripped a countertop, suddenly dizzy. "This is... just... weird."

Polk reached out, but stopped about a foot away. "What is? What happened?"

"I mean," Aurora gabbled, "I fall on the floor, and suddenly I'm not on the floor. And the new customer who came in suddenly isn't--"

"Whoa, whoa," said Polk. "Wait: what new customer?"

Aurora looked up at him, eyes wide and cheeks pale. The pieces of the picture came together. She'd waited on a new customer, and suddenly, he wasn't there. Nor was his truck. She remembered collapsing, and suddenly, she hadn't. She remembered Polk and Matron rushing to her rescue, and suddenly, they weren't.

Which meant the new customer and his truck and me collapsing didn't happen.  I'm hallucinating.  I'm sleeping walking. I'm crazy. Take your pick.

And with Polk and Matron's eyes on her, full of concern, she knew this was not a decision she wanted to make in front of them.

"Um... yeah. Never mind." She picked up the carafe again. "When's the next order up?"

#

The diner was deserted by 8 p.m., and Aurora, Polk and Matron took that time to clean up the place early. Aurora worked away, wiped down the tables, hauled the garbage out back, all on automatic. Her mind was full of dreams, and the childhood memories they had unlocked. Luckily, she could think and wield a dishcloth at the same time.

They were out the door only five minutes after closing time. Polk and Matron paid only passing attention to the red-gold sunset painting the landscape. They'd seen the scenery every day of their lives. The long shadows rippling over the wheat tops, like holes opening and closing in the golden field.

Aurora stood breathing the cooling air. Then she remembered the crows and scanned the tops of the tassels, listening for the beat of wings. Only the breeze whispered in her ears.

She pursed her lips. Were those part of the dream as well? When exactly had the dream started?

A screen door creaked open, leading to the apartment over-top the diner the three shared. Polk poked his head out. "Hey, Blond--" He grinned at her look. "You coming in or what?"

Well, why not ask him?

"Come here," she said, with a jerk of her head.

He crouched behind the protection of the screen door. "I said I was sorry about the Blondie joke."

"No, you didn't," said Aurora. "But I'm not going to hit you. I just want to ask you something."

He stepped out from behind the screen door and crept forward, arms raised. Aurora folded her arms impatiently, and he dropped his hands to his sides. "What about?"

"About the break we took this afternoon?" She watched his expression. "I threw that stone--"

He chortled. "Yeah, and you hit two crows? That was so cool!"

So, that hadn't been part of the dream. Somehow, that's not comforting. "What did I do, after?"

"What, other than cheer?"

"I didn't cheer!"

He flashed her his lopsided grin. "Why are you asking me, then?"

She slugged him.

He staggered back, clutching his shoulder. "You said you weren't going to hit me!"

"Not about the Blondie joke. Be serious, for once! I know the question's silly, but I need an answer! What did I do next?"

"You... Matron called us in. Said the Hobsons' order was up. You went into the diner."

"Did I say anything?"

"Not a thing. I thought you were angry or something."

She looked away. "I see."

"Were you?"

"Was I what?"

"Angry at me? You just clammed up and walked off without a word."

She gave him a tight smile. "Nah -- I don't know, Polk, I'm just having a weird day."

He nodded slowly. "Well, don't have too many of those, okay? I'm supposed to be the moody one, around here. I can't handle any competition."

She laughed. "Yeah, okay."

He nodded over his shoulder. "C'mon! Matron's loading up the next season of Corner Gas."

Aurora followed Polk up the stairs to Matron's apartment. There, she and Polk sprawled next to Matron on the battered, fluffy couch and they watched their downloaded show on Matron's battered, wall-mounted widescreen. Popcorn rattled in the microwave. An hour later, Matron turned off the television and hauled herself off the couch, grimacing as her legs protested. "Bedtime, Aurora. I'll straighten up."

Aurora nodded. No argument about staying up later, as Polk slept on the couch. She levered herself up and gave Matron a brief kiss on the cheek. "G'night!"

Polk grabbed a set of blankets from behind the couch and flopped down, wrapping his cocoon around himself in record time. "'Night," was his muffled response. Aurora and Matron went to their respective bedrooms. Aurora sat by her battered wooden desk, finishing off her algebra assignment for correspondence school.

At 11:00 p.m., she eased into bed, washed, brushed and wearing a long t-shirt. She pulled the covers to her chest and fluffed up the pillows behind her, and then lay back and stared at the ceiling.

How could I have forgotten my mother?

Two conflicting sets of memories bumped their shopping carts in the aisles of her mind. She remembered growing up with her mother, and she remembered having no parents at all. She remembered going to a real school in St. Boniface, picnics on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, and she remembered living in Cooper's Corners, in northern (actually, west-central; 'northern' had been her assessment as a resident of Winnipeg) Saskatchewan, all her life, coming to Aunt Matron as a young orphan, playing with the village kids, being homeschooled and gradually taking over the waitressing duty until she grew into her life of wiping counters and serving coffee all day, every day.

And as she reached back in her mind, the memories of Manitoba flooded her. Summer barbecues. Homework. Roger, the school bully.

She shuddered. Okay, it was a mixed bag, but the tumble of revealed memories told her what was real and what was fake. She'd had a mother. She also had an aunt Matron, and three years of experience living in Cooper's Corners, waiting tables, babysitting Britney. But somehow she'd been made to think that there was no one else but Aunt Matron. And as she finally remembered the trip that had taken her from Winnipeg to this place, she had a pretty good idea of who had done this to her.

Confusing the picture was the crow man, and the cloud of crows that had filled her vision when she had looked him in the eye. What was up with that? Had she dreamed it all while she was sleepwalking?

Part of her mind spoke up. No, it said. Something attacked me. When that black truck arrived, something -- possibly the crow man -- pulled me into a dream and tried to grab me. And I reacted by ducking back into a deeper dream, about the day before I came here, breaking the hypnosis that kept me here.

But how could I do that without anybody noticing? I don't sleepwalk. I don't even sleep, remember?

Tomorrow, she thought, I'm going into that diner with my eyes open.

Aurora grabbed the first book off her bedside table, The Kite Runner, found her place, and began reading.

She finished the book by midnight, set it down, and picked up the next book on her pile, A Thousand Splendid Suns. She adjusted her pillows around her and started in

At 1:00 p.m., she left her bedroom to go pee. Returning to her room, she took up Terry Pratchett's Small Gods and started to read. At 2:30 p.m., she set that book aside and turned out the light. She lay in bed and stared at the ceiling.

At 3:00 a.m., she caught the time off the low-light display of her tablet and stared up at the ceiling again.

Her teachers were convinced that she was a fast reader; instead, she simply had more time to read. But in the end, there was only so much you could read at one time. If you didn't want to wake up the house around you, you ended up staring up at the ceiling, waiting for the sun to rise. And that's when the darkest thoughts started to materialize if you weren't careful.

"Maybe I'm dead," she muttered aloud. And why not? Now that she remembered, it was practically a medical diagnosis...

#

"So, Aurora," said Dr. Zane. "You're in perfect health. Is there anything else?"

"Yeah." Aurora couldn't suppress the urge to look around to make sure they were alone, even though the doctor's office was half the size of her bedroom. She leaned close. "I can't sleep."

The doctor frowned. "You're having trouble sleeping?"

She nodded.

"How long has this been going on?"

She looked into his eyes.

"And the Nobel prize in medicine," the M.C. shouts, "for his contributions to medical science: Dr. Myron Zane!"

Dr. Zane approaches the podium, carried on the shoulders of his colleagues. The audience chants "Zane! Zane! Zane!"

"Thank you!" he shouts to the cheering masses. "I owe it all to--"

Instead of "the past four months", Aurora said, "A while."

"Everything good at school?"

She stopped herself from rolling her eyes. He'd ask that about a hangnail. "Fine."

He blinked. "Everything good at home?"

"It's fine!"

"Your bed uncomfortable?"

She shook her head.

"Something worrying you?"

Other than the fact that I don't sleep and that I look into people's dreams whenever I look them in the eye? "No."

He leaned back in his chair. "Many people have trouble getting to sleep, Aurora. You're probably putting too much pressure on yourself. It's a bit of a catch-22. I can get you information on some relaxation exercises you can try as you go to bed..."

He droned on. Aurora stared at his steepled fingers. This is going nowhere. But how can it go anywhere when I haven't told him the true extent of the problem?

It had started slowly. In the days after that first alarming bleed and those deeply embarrassing conversations about maxi-pads and tampons, Aurora tossed and turned at night.

She didn't think there was anything unusual about that. In the stress of those days, of course she'd have trouble getting to sleep. And she wasn't tired when she woke up in the morning. At school, when her teacher droned on and some of the students nodded off, she just got restless instead. So, it didn't alarm her much to see her bedside clock display 1:00, 3:00, 5:00 and 7:00 each night.

Until the night when she didn't sleep at all.

And the night after that.

Okay, maybe hel'll jump at a chance to make a medical case history out of me. If he figures out what's wrong with me, then he deserves a Nobel Prize. This isn't normal.

"Look, I can't sleep," she cut in. "I don't sleep. I stay up all night staring at the ceiling. I haven't slept for, like..." She caught herself again, then forced the words from her mouth. "Four months. Straight."

Dr. Zane had leaned forward as she said this, his brow furrowing, but now he sat back, his face clearing like the end of a storm. "Oh, you're worrying too much!"

Her voice rose. "I already said I'm not! There's something wrong with me. Test me!"

"Aurora, I don't need to examine you to know that you're sleeping," said Dr. Zane. "If you went more than ten days without sleep, you'd be dead. You're sleeping. You just don't remember sleeping. Now, about those relaxation exercises..."

She slumped back in her seat. Maybe I dream about the clock showing me 3:00 a.m. Maybe I dream of listening to the BBC World Service because I've heard all the other podcasts several times. Or maybe I'm dead and haven't realized it yet.

Funny, though. I would have thought the dead got lots of sleep.

#

Aurora blinked back the memory and closed her eyes.

You've done this before. Just close your eyes and take deep, slow breaths. Cleansing air in. Stressed air out. Let the day's jumbled thoughts slip beneath the waters of silence, if not sleep.

The clock display flipped to 3:20 a.m.

After two hours of deep breathing and thoughtful silence, courtesy Dr. Zane, Aurora looked over at her clock radio and saw the display flip to 5:25. Outside her window, she saw the first glimmer of dawn. The drapes twisted in a cool breeze and brought the smell of rain. Somewhere, with the sound of distant rolling kegs, thunder rumbled.

Aurora rolled out of her bed and padded to the bathroom. In front of the mirror, she dragged a comb through her bed-matted hair and stared at her reflection. Other than some troublesome pimples, and that little snub nose she hated, the face staring back at her was that of a typical, mildly pretty teenage girl. She didn't even have rings under her eyes.

"Not bad for a dead girl," she muttered.

I'm not dead, am I? I'm just weird. A great medical mystery. I'd spend the rest of my life in sleep laboratories if I could get any doctor to believe, for one second, that I've been wide awake, now, for three years and count--

Aurora froze with her hand halfway to the knob of her bedroom door.

I did sleep. In the car, when Mom played that tape on me. It was the first time I can recall sleeping since I got my period.

Her hand fell to her side.

"Mom, what did you do to me?"

And why?

#

In the diner, Aurora got the coffee ready and laid out the cutlery. In the kitchen, Matron turned on the toasting machine -- a ludicrous device that could toast bread for a restaurant four times the diner's size and eight times the diner's clientele -- and the diner filled with the smell of roasting crumbs. Matron turned on the grill and scraped it down.

Aurora watched as the dawn fought to brighten against a line of dark clouds along the horizon. As she worked, she caught flashes of lightning out of the corner of her eye. Moments later, the sound of distant thunder rolled across the fields.

A thunderstorm. Was that good for the crops this time of year? Her country-girl self wouldn't have needed to ask, but her real self hadn't a clue.

Gravel crunched outside as the first pick-up pulled up. The door jangled. Ike Henderson slid into the booth seat. "Hey, Aurora."

"Hello, Mr. Henderson," said Aurora. "You by yourself?"

Ike nodded. "Molly and Britney will be along for dinner, but I got work to do."

"Farm work?"

"What do you think?" He grinned at her.

Aurora winced. It had sounded lame, but she couldn't think of anything else to say. The memories of her city girl upbringing had robbed her of country small talk. She poured him a cup of coffee and set the mug in front of him. As he nodded his thanks, their eyes met.

Ike drives his tractor, turning the black soil over. The field behind the plow turns to straight, long furrows. The ground sprouts green, then yellow, as the stalks rise up. He glances behind him, and smiles.

On the horizon, a thunderstorm rumbles. Somewhere, a crow caws.

As she snapped out of the dream, the crow's caw echoing in her ears, Mr. Henderson turned to look at the cloudy horizon beyond the window. "Odd storm, coming in from the east like that," he said. "It's like it's rolling in backwards."

She frowned at him. "What do you mean?" But there was another crunch of gravel outside and a car door slammed.

The storm brewed as the day drew on, and people came and left. The clouds turned into mountain peaks under the noonday sun. Aurora couldn't stop herself from taking quick glances at it as she polished the table tops or served up the meals through lunch.

After two there were no more tables to polish, no more cutlery to rearrange. The diner was empty. Polk and Matron came out of the kitchen. Polk grabbed some ketchup bottles to be refilled while Matron flipped between the TV channels, looking for news.

Aurora flipped the towel over her shoulder and sat down at the counter near them. "Slow day," she said.

Polk shrugged. "It happens. Sometimes people decide to make their own lunches. Shocking, I know. It should be banned--"

From her stool, Aurora kicked him in the shin.

"Ow!" He whined theatrically. "Matron!"

"Now, now," said Matron, giving up and leaving the TV muted on some trashy reality show. "None of that." She plopped down a deck of cards.

"No, thanks," said Aurora. "I've got a book to read." She turned towards the diner's exit.

The door jangled as she stepped outside. The gravel crunched underfoot.

Outside, halfway to the door to the apartment, Aurora stopped. She did a slow turn, scanning the whole flat landscape and listening hard to the sounds around her. The sun baked the back of her neck.

No cars passed on the roadway outside the diner. No kids shouted on the rusting playground swings on the corner. Starlings chirped from the tassels, but Cooper's Corners' houses stood silent.

What am I doing here? We're out in the middle of nowhere. Mom had objected to that, when she'd called Matron, and I can see why. You'd think that if you were going to hide someone, it would be among other people. But here, in this driveway, with only the sounds of nature for company, I could imagine that all of the people had gone, and that me, Polk and Matron were the only humans left alive -- alive and alone, facing... what?

From the eastern horizon came the sound of distant thunder. Aurora shivered in the midsummer heat.

She went into the back apartment and grabbed her book from the bedside table. Then, as she left her bedroom, she paused beside Matron's bedroom door. She'd promised herself that she'd get Matron's secret out of her, but now that she stood on the threshold of violating the woman's privacy, Aurora hesitated.

This is the woman who has cared for me all my life -- okay, the past three years. She wasn't one to show much affection, but she wasn't all bristles and snide, either. She'd encouraged me to go to the country social when I was sure it would do nothing but leave me holding up a wall. But I'd had fun, with Polk. No, Matron wasn't Mom, but she'd been... okay.

And I intend to repay this by snooping around her bedroom?

But then again, people had gone snooping through my memories, hadn't they? And Matron had to be in on that.

Aurora twisted the doorknob with more vigour than she'd intended. The door swung open and she had to catch it before it banged against the wall.

The bedroom was as neat as the rest of Matron's house and restaurant. White curtains were drawn against the window. The bed was made with white sheets and hospital corners. The closet door was closed, and the dresser was bare, save for a handheld mirror. A single shelf held a dozen cookbooks. Beneath it on the floor was a wooden chest.

It was neat. Sensible. Just like Matron. But Aurora frowned. It was more than sensible: it was without personality. This was a room withholding comment its occupant.

Except for the wooden chest. It looked like a toy chest that might hold dress-up clothes. Aurora came forward for a closer look. It was unlocked. She opened the lid and peered in.

The box was full of old, childish junk. Aurora pulled out a raggedy doll, a bundle of ancient lolly-pops, a couple of building blocks, and a large book. What were these, keepsakes? It's like an emergency kit for someone who'd rescued children.

The book had no title. It was thick, and had a picture of mountains on the cover. She opened it.

"Sally flies over mountains. She reaches down and touches a peak. The snow crumbles on her fingertips..."

Aurora flipped through the pages, caught images dark and light, but nothing that interested her. She put the book back in the chest and closed the lid, disappointed. It had been a fruitless search, and now Matron and Polk were going to be wondering where she was. She hurried downstairs.

Back in the diner, she sat at the counter, seats away from Matron and Polk. She kept her nose in her book, turning pages only when she remembered to, and thought of her next move.

On the horizon, a sun-bleached farmhouse disappeared behind a veil of rain.

At four, Matron stood up from the card game. "Let's get ready for dinner hour."

Before long, the gravel outside scrunched and the shop bell jangled as the usual crowd trickled in. Britney bolted through the door, followed by her mother. She ran up to Aurora, flung her arms around Aurora's legs and gave her a big hug before rushing to her seat. Aurora watched her go with a raised eyebrow, but she smiled.

The Hobsons arrived a few minutes later, followed by the Pankiws, then the farmhands from the fields. Soon the place was chattering, and Aurora was working the tables. Hamburgers and fries. A Hungry Man (four eggs, four bacon, four sausages, ham and a coronary). Some of Matron's pot pie. Aurora carried the plates to their tables as the orders arrived.

When there was nothing left for Aurora to do but refill the coffee, she jabbed the buttons on the remote. The regulars liked to ignore the six o'clock news while they ate their meals, but she couldn't find a signal. She gave up when she spied Britney finishing the last of her burger and pushing the tomato to the side of her plate with the end of her knife, eyes narrowing in disdain. Aurora then began tallying orders on the cash register and delivering them one by one to the tables.

"So, how was everything?" Aurora asked the Hobsons as she scribbled on her notepad. She ripped off the slip and held it out. Then she stared a long moment, wondering why she was holding a bill out to an empty booth.

She looked to her left, then her right. The Hobsons should have been in front of her, but they weren't, and they weren't at any of the other tables either.

Aurora crumpled the bill and darted for the kitchen. Matron looked up as she burst in.

"The Hobsons!" said Aurora. "They skipped out without paying!"

"What are you talking about?" said Matron.

"What do you mean, what am I talking about?" Aurora waved her arms. "Hobson family. They had one roast beef and one eggs benedict plus a whole lot of coffee and two slices of pie. $29.95, not including taxes and tip! I wrote up their bill, but they left before I could hand it to them!" Then she realized that Matron was frowning at her, rather than at the news. "What?"

"I never made up an order for eggs benedict," said Matron.

Aurora gawped at her. "But... I took their order!"

Matron shrugged and turned back to the grill. "Well, if you did, you didn't hand it to me. Maybe that's why they left without paying."

"But I served them! You cooked it up!" Aurora stared at Matron. "You've got to remember!"

Matron clucked her tongue. "You're imagining things, girl. I know what I served up to my customers today, and eggs Benedict wasn't on that list. Maybe you were remembering yesterday? Maybe one of yesterday's bills got mixed up in your hands?"

Aurora bit her lip. Then she took a deep breath. "Yeah," she said. "Must be."

She turned on her heel and strode out of the kitchen.

Outside, distant thunder rolled over the sounds of dinner. Aurora looked up and down the diner. Save for the Hobsons, everybody else was here. Ike Henderson got up from the table, stretched, and ambled to the washroom.

"Hey, Aurora!" shouted Jake, a gawky farmhand sitting with his friends in a booth.

Without thinking, Aurora looked at him. Their eyes met.

The bikini is very, very small, and Aurora is very, very... bouncy, as she races down the sand, giggling and...

Aurora gave him a look that could melt cast iron. "What?" she bellowed, making the diners around her jump.

The farmhand went pale. His friends at his table started to snicker. He gulped and held up an empty glass. "Um... more water... please?"

The sky darkens. There is a flash of lightning.

Aurora looked away, ashamed of herself. It's not like he could control his dreams, or know that she wanted him to. She didn't need to strike him down with lightning, tempting though that was. "Sure," she muttered, and went behind the counter.

As she pulled a glass from the rack and filled it from the tap, she frowned. The thunder and lightning hadn't been hers. It was a part of Jake's dream. Thunder and lightning on the beach? Why would the storm invade his dream like that?

And why does 'invade' sound so right?

She jumped as the water overflowed the glass and ran over her hand. She shut off the tap, poured a little out, then marched over to Jake's table and plunked the glass in front of him. "Thanks," he said. Then she looked up.

The booth was empty.

Aurora stepped back, tripped on her feet and fell, catching herself on the stools by the counter.

The diner silenced. She felt nearly a dozen pairs of eyes stare at her, and her cheeks reddened. She pushed herself back to her feet. "It's okay," she said. "I'm okay."

But it wasn't okay. The ripple of conversation was quieter than it had been a couple of minutes ago. She was seeing more empty vinyl where there should have been people. There'd been no sound of the bell on the doorjamb jingling, she was sure of it. No one had left the restaurant in the last ten minutes, and yet the noise level had gone steadily down.

At the far end of the diner, Aurora saw Mr. Radwanski pull his wallet from his pocket. She grabbed up his bill. Keeping him in sight as she walked up to him, she looked down at the last moment to total his bill. She tore off the slip. "So, was everything okay?"

She stared at an empty booth.

"Aurora? Are you okay?"

The diners were staring at her again. The remains of them, anyway. And in the kitchen, Matron's grill sizzled like nothing was wrong. Thunder rumbled.

She tried to slow her thumping heart. Failed. This was getting worse.

Then her eyes shot back to Mrs. Henderson and Britney. What was wrong with this picture? Then she remembered. Mr. Henderson still hadn't come back from the bathroom.

Ignoring the looks of the remaining customers, Aurora barged into the men's room. At the urinal, Polk yelped and zipped himself up. "Hey!"

There was only one sink, one urinal and one stall with a toilet. Aurora crouched and peered beneath the barrier. There were no feet in front of the toilet. "Where's Mr. Henderson?"

Polk cast the damp towels into the waste bin. "What are you talking about?"

She straightened up. "Ike Henderson! You know who he is, don't you?"

"Of course I do!" He frowned at her. "Aurora, what's going on?"

"Did he come in here?"

"No."

"What?" Aurora scanned the walls for hidden doorways, hatches. "He came in here! I saw him go in here! Didn't you see him?" She turned this way and that in the middle of the small room. "Mr. Henderson! Where are you?"

Polk caught her by the shoulders and held on as she struggled. "Calm down!"

She slapped his hands away. "Don't you tell me to calm down! Either Ike Henderson was here and he disappeared, or I'm losing my mind! So, which is it, huh?"

"Um..." He swallowed. "Which do you want it to be?"

She turned away with an exasperated yowl and burst out of the washroom...

...into an empty diner.

The grill was silent. Behind her, the door to the empty men's room swung on its hinges.

The jangling of the bell caught her attention and Aurora looked at the door. Mrs. Henderson held it open for her daughter. They were leaving. Alone. The last customers of the night. The door swung shut behind them.

Aurora charged the length of the diner. "Mrs. Henderson! Wait!"

She ran out the door and looked around wildly. In the dying light of the sun, she saw a young girl standing with her doll in the middle of the road.

"Britney!" Aurora cried. The girl turned, her doll hanging by her side. Aurora ran onto the road and pulled Britney to the shoulder.

Aurora knelt in front of Britney and looked her in the eye.

Britney swings in Aurora's arms, twirling around the wheat stalks, laughing. Mr. Scaly is safely locked inside his pet carrier. The sun shines and the birds sing.

The sky darkens.

Over Aurora's shoulder, clouds appear, solidifying into a thousand black shapes, flapping closer.

Aurora blinked. Britney stared back, lost but strangely calm.

"He's coming for you," said the girl.

"What?!" Aurora shook the strange vision out of her head. "What were you doing out here?" She tried to keep the edge out of her voice. "You can't just stand in the middle of the road like that. What would your parents think?"

Britney blinked. "Not here," she said distantly. "Mom. Dad. Not here."

Aurora swallowed. This is getting worse. Scratch that. It had passed worse and was well on its way to catastrophic. "Come inside, Britney. C'mon, let's get some ice cream."

Britney looked up at her with wide eyes. "Chock-lit?"

Aurora smiled. "Of course."

She turned towards the diner and felt Britney's hand slip from her fingers. Aurora turned. She was alone on the gravel driveway. Around her, the wind sighed in the grain.

"Britney?" she shouted. "Britney!"

Britney's doll lay sprawled on the gravel. Aurora picked it up and clasped it to her shoulder. Thunder rumbled.

Aurora turned. The clouds were almost upon her.

She drew breath for a scream, but the words caught in her throat as a crow cawed. Aurora's gaze shot round and then she saw it, perched atop the power pole where the gravel drive met the wheat field. One crow for sorrow, she thought.

"Aaa! Aaa!" said the crow, a sound like a rusty gate. Then, "Aaa! Roa! Raa!"

Aurora blinked.

The crow stretched its wings and kicked off its perch, coasting down into the wheat field and perching on a seeder. It tucked its wings in and looked back at her, focusing on her with one eye, then the other. It cawed again: "Aaa! Roa! Raa!"

Aurora shouted. "Who are you? What do you want? What did you do to all the people?"

"Aaa! Roa! Raa!"

"I know who I am! Tell me something I don't know!"

"He! ... He!" the crow cawed. Then, "He! ... Comes!"

Movement caught her eye, and she looked up at the billowing clouds. Crows were flying in from every direction, hovering in the air in front of her, forming like a cloud of starlings, then like smoke. As Aurora watched, the cloud pulled itself into shape. She could make out the beginnings of a head, two arms, hands outstretched in a gesture like longing--

"Aurora! Wake up!" Matron shouted.

Aurora whirled around and stared down the barrel of a browning rifle. She hit the muddy dirt as Matron fired over her head. The crows scattered, crying murder--

--and Aurora snapped awake, gasping and dripping.

Matron pulled her up with one hand, the other holding her rifle.

"Oh, thank God," gasped Aurora. "It was only a dream."

"Yup," said Matron, looking pale. "You're awake. And now you need to run."

"What?" She blinked. "Since when do you own a rifle?" Wait a minute, what was the rifle still doing here? Wasn't it part of the dream?

"Look around you, girl!"

Aurora turned and immediately wished she hadn't. The billowing, twisting grey clouds were still there. They had turned black and feathery, and they were descending. Shingles were blowing off the houses in Cooper's Corners. Somewhere, a window smashed.

"Where is everybody?" Aurora yelled.

"They're sheltering," Matron shouted. "Waiting for the storm to pass, but it won't. Not while you're here." She drew back the pump of the rifle, a classic click-click. Then she came closer and looked Aurora in the eye. "You know, don't you? Don't try to deny it, girl, I can see it in your eyes. After all the trouble your mom went through to put you to sleep, you woke up. I thought you might. You were always a stubborn child."

So many things that she wanted to say crowded into Aurora's mouth that she spluttered.

Matron hefted the weapon onto her shoulder. "Well, maybe it's for the best. He's coming for you. It's best you be wide awake when you run."

"Run?! Run from who? Who's coming for me?"

"No time!"

"But where will I go?"

"Go to Saskatoon." Matron shoved a piece of paper at her, along with a set of car keys. "I've written down the address. I can't keep you safe anymore, so you need to get back to her."

"Back to who? What are you talking about?" Aurora wanted to scream and cry and shake Matron to make her explain.

"No more questions!" Matron yelled over the rising rumble of the wind and the cry of crows. "Just go! Go now! You can't let him take you, girl! It will be disaster if he does!"

Aurora looked up at the spiralling clouds again. She froze.

"Run, you idiot!" Matron yelled. "Run!"

Aurora ran, mud squelching and gravel crunching. Matron's battered brown Chevy came into view. Slipping and skidding, she caught herself with one hand on the car roof and fumbled with the door handle. It was unlocked and opened suddenly, knocking her hand, sending the keys to the gravel. Aurora twisted to pick them up, and fell over into a puddle.

The light went out of the sky.

Aurora grabbed the keys, dove into the car and slammed the door. The car shook in the buffeting winds. Without thinking, she pulled on her seat belt and checked the rear-view mirror. She cried out.

The crows descended on Matron like a funnel cloud. Matron brought up her rifle and sighted along the barrel.

Aurora turned the key in the ignition. The station wagon sputtered to life and she danced on the clutch. Gears creaked as she shoved it into first. Wheels spinning, gravel spraying, she manhandled the car onto the road. Second gear and the car picked up speed. Third gear. Go.

Behind her, she heard the rifle blast, and the murder of crows.

Forward to Chapter Three ->>

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