I was forgotten in this town and moreover this world. It had been this way for almost ten years, though I appeared to be thirty at most.
A gust of wind brushed against my face, reminding me that I was in my human form. Everything felt different when I was a crow, the wind biting instead of a whisper. It carried me to places in minutes that would take hours in this clunky human body. I perched anywhere I liked. People didn’t hunt crows anymore. We weren’t pests to be shooed away by scarecrows. Ourcawsdidn’t cause people to cover their ears.
From what I could see on the internet, some people liked crows now. Made friends with them. Presented offerings.
Before Whispering Grove became a haven for others, I was revered. There were festivals honoring me, asking for my blessings on their crops. Making sure I was appeased so I didn’t dole out punishment.
Now, they had spring festivals and human holidays. I couldn’t remember the last year of the Crow Festival. Sometimes my memories melded together. My youth felt like a blur of time, like a dream.
The wind pushed at me once again, signaling something in the distance. Someone was on my lands. Of course, since others moved in, my lands had been sold off piece by piece for myown survival in this new world where paper and coins bought everything, but I still maintained a home and an orchard, though be it small.
The house beside mine, in the distance, had a for sale sign on it. I wondered who would move in.
A noise caught my attention. Tires on gravel. I walked to the side of my home and peered out over the land that was between my house and the old, abandoned homestead to see a truck pulling up the driveway. Inside was a human.
Get a better look. From up high.
No surprise those words came from my crow. He always wanted me to shift. There had been a span of time, after I realized my prominence in this community was dying, that I stayed in my crow form, unwilling to be on two legs. The last trinket I received was a coin, left by a child. The next year, that family moved away. I kept my distance from the townspeople. Had my groceries delivered once a month. I hunted and scavenged in my crow form. I’d never been one to feast on carrion, as some of my kin were. My crow preferred berries and small rodents. Barns were a prime hunting ground for him, and there were some all around us. The surrounding counties were still farming communities. Thriving ones.
Even without the blessing of the Crow King.
It took a great force to change from my human to my crow, which was why I stayed in that form for a long time when I did choose to shift. But today, my wings needed to spread…so I could be nosey. This person could be my new neighbor, after all.
I pushed through the shift, not an easy task. Human bones cracking and condensing into hollow bird bones took a huge amount of energy from me. Feathers, black, turquoise, and deep plum, forced their way through what was once hair follicles.
Crow shifters didn’t understand the physiology of shifting from a big human to a small bird, and I gave up trying a longtime ago. I chalked the whole process up to paranormal magic. And once I accepted that I might not ever know, things became a lot easier.
Once my transition was complete, I flew up into the sky, making several circles of the surrounding acreage before settling on the top of the chimney of the forgotten farmhouse. It was once a bustling peach farm. Come the end of August, the air was filled with the sweet, luscious scent of peaches for miles and miles. But the parents got older, the children grew up and left, and the upkeep of the orchard became too much for the aging human couple.
The peaches, the year after they left, fell to the ground. No one to pick them—to save them from rotting.
The trees remained. They gave fruit no matter what, evolving in a survival state. But the numbers were sparse after a long time of no pruning, not enough water, and scarce nutrients.
I looked down at the human who had exited the truck. He walked over to several peach trees, ran his hand over the bark, and peered up at the branches. They were pitiful by any standards and I expected the human, like many others before him who had viewed the property, to turn on his heels and walk away.
He was tall and lean, and instantly I was attracted. Huh. Perhaps I had been away from others for too long. That had to be it. I wasn’t instantly attracted to anyone.
I flew to a nearby post, one that had once held a line for clothes to be dried on. Was he…was this human crying? He turned and the orange-lit sky caught him in just a way. I saw the tears welling in his eyes.
Was he crying over the tree?
“I’ll make this better.” He swore an oath to the place, it seemed. “It may take some time, but I’ll make it better.”
I was in awe. He was broken up by a forgotten farm? I hoped he was the one who purchased this place, brought it back to life.
My crow was already thinking of the shiny things he could bring him.
The human made his way to the house and stopped short of climbing the stairs. Something had caught his attention. He bent down and plucked an object out of the dirt.
“Oh, a shiny charm. I’ll take that as a good luck sign.”
A smile rose on his face, and my tiny crow chest warmed at the sight. If I saw him again, I would leave another shiny thing, make him smile again.
Then maybe he would stay.
Chapter Four
Joshua
