corvus – Page 4 – Mary C Simmons … Art and Word

Corvus Rising – Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Homecoming

Charlie watched Jayzu string a rope between two trees and tie the ends to the trunks. He unfolded and shook out a large plastic sheet and draped it over the rope and hammered some sticks into the edges, pinning it to the ground.

Jayzu stood up and said, “That will keep the rain off me while I build myself a more permanent structure.” He took a bedroll out of his pack and threw it under his tent. After he set up a small stove on one of the nearly flat rocks strewn about, he put a pot on it and filled it with water. Charlie swooped down from the trees above, landing deftly on a flat rock near Alfredo’s chair.

“Tea time?” he asked.

Jayzu laughed. “No. I just like to get everything set up.”

Charlie looked around the camp, at the tent, the bag of water hanging in the tree. “For what?”

“For later, I guess. This evening maybe. Or tomorrow.”

“I see,” Charlie said. “So you are moving in, or just staying the night?”

“At least the night,” Jayzu said as he sat back in his chair. “I want to clean out the chapel and after that, maybe find a place to build myself a home.”

Charlie had been delighted when Jayzu asked permission to establish his residence on the island. He and the priest had become fast friends, and he missed him when he was gone.

Jayzu reached into his backpack and pulled out a small bundle. “I found this under Bruthamax’s bones when I moved them,” he said. “It was too dark in the chapel to look at it, so I stuffed it in here. I forgot about it until today.”

He unwrapped the bundle, and a small black orb tumbled out. He placed it in a sunny spot on a rock near Charlie’s feet. “It seems to be some sort of trinket, carved from a very dense black wood, as far as I can tell. It was all caked with dirt when I found it, and I did not see the carving until I cleaned it. To me, it looks like a hand clasping a wing.”

Charlie leaned down and took a closer look. “Charlotte had something very similar,” he said.

“Really?” Jayzu said. “Charlotte had one of these?”

“She did,” Charlie said. “She wore it all the time before they took her away. I’ve wondered where it went ever since.”

Guilt stabbed Charlie from the depths of his memory … he had tried to get it once, Charlotte’s orb, in violation of the one corvid law against stealing. He broke into a house to get this orb, but he had not expected the little girl to be there. He had no idea who she was, but her terror still haunted his dreams from time to time.

Jayzu held the orb up. The sun reflected off the glossy black surface. “Does it have something to do with the Patua’, I wonder.”

“Yes,” Charlie said. “The orbs are apparently ceremonial devices made by the Patua’ long ago, but we do not know what they used them for.”

A few young crows suddenly materialized in Jayzu’s camp. They snooped around his tent and food box until Charlie shouted, “Hey! Gertrude! Ethel! JohnLeo! All of you! Be off!”

The crows reluctantly flew away, and Charlie said, “We have no laws against stealing food out in the countryside, Jayzu. A word to the wise.”

Alfredo woke up under his tent and smiled at the racket from the forest outside. The din of hundreds of birds greeting each other had been building since the stars had winked out in the pale dawn sky. Ah, Cadeña-l’jadia! May I never leave you.

After a quick breakfast and a cup of instant coffee, he grabbed the tools he had brought with him and headed for the chapel. The Captain had raised an amused eyebrow as he approached the boat the day before, armed with a rake, a shovel, and his camping gear.

“It’s a losing battle you’ll be fightin’ there, Padre,” he had said, “trying to tame that forest.”

“Just cleaning out the chapel,” Alfredo had grunted a reply as he heaved his burdens onto the boat.

He left his tools outside and went into the chapel and said a brief prayer. Bless my efforts in this humble chapel, oh Lord. And bless Minnie Braun, that is, Gabriella, for her generous contribution. She did not want anyone to know she was Henry Braun’s wife, she had told him. “Everyone and their dog will be after me for money.”

She had floored him, handing him a thick stack of twenty-dollar bills. “For the chapel,” she had said.

He cut away some of the green vines that had nearly enveloped the chapel and raked all the dead leaves, twigs, and branches from the interior to the outside. With a wet rag, he cleaned over a hundred years of dirt off the kneeler in the middle of the floor.

His fingers found a small hasp on the edge of the armrest. He pulled it, and the top of the armrest flipped open. “Well, what is this?” he said. A thin volume, a prayer book perhaps, lay inside the compartment. He removed it and opened the cracked leather cover, revealing a handwritten script scrawled upon a coarse paper.

He gingerly leafed through a few pages, but it was too dark to read the spidery handwriting. He wrapped the booklet in his shirt, left the chapel and went back to his camp. He sat in one of his chairs and unwrapped it carefully. The cover was not of leather as he had earlier thought, but bark that had been hammered flat and sanded smooth. The cracks were filled with some sort of resin. Was it sap? Fascinated by the age and author of the small journal, Alfredo’s hands shook as he gently turned the page.

Maxmillian Wilder, Cadeña-l’jadia, 1863

The swim from Ledford to this island nearly ended my life. Though I had studied all the maps, and I knew where the deepest parts of the channel were located, I had gained not even a hint at the treachery below the surface. I am a strong swimmer, yet I was unprepared for the unpredictable and deadly undercurrents that lurked below this otherwise placid river.

As soon as I approached within a hundred yards of the island, the river sucked me below the surface and whipped me around like a rag. I was tossed and rolled every which way, and each time my head rose above the water, I gasped for air in the spray, coughing as the river dunked me again and again. Just as I was about to expire from lack of oxygen, the river released me. I sprang to the surface amid a rush of bubbles into a patch of miraculously calm water, where I floated on my back and rested while my lungs gratefully filled with air.

After catching my breath, I swam toward the island again. And again. Though maddeningly close, it remained inaccessible; the river made sure of that. Time after time, I tried to swim to the bank, but the river flung me back to the same pool of calm water. I exhausted myself trying to power my way through the obstreperous river until I finally gave up fighting. I rolled over on my back, put my machete on my chest and pointed my feet downstream. I turned myself over to the river’s flow. Sooner or later, I would either land on the island’s banks or drown.

I floated on my back with my eyes closed, and I lost all sense of time and direction. I was quite unaware when the river gently dumped me on the island’s bank, face up. When I finally opened my eyes, a very large blue-eyed crow stood over me in the sand, beholding me with great concern.

“You live and breathe!” the crow said. “Grawky, Wayfarer! The name is Hozey–after my grandpappy, Hozey the Great. He was an Architect, you know–revolutionized the nest as we know it, he did. Great crow, Old Hozey. Proud to bear his name, I am.”

The bird stretched a wing toward me, as if to shake my hand. I thought I was hallucinating, perhaps even dead. But I held my hand up in greeting, and the bird brushed his feather tips against my fingertips.

“That is certainly good news, Hozey,” I said. “Though I reckon I feel half dead.” I sat up and felt as if I had been beaten in a boxing match. “The river was not gentle with me.”

“The river is not gentle,” Hozey said. “Still, you made it. That certainly speaks for itself. The river spat you upon the bank days ago. Looked like dead meat, you did. It was all we could do to keep the buzzards off you. Creepy, that circling thing they do.” Hozey shivered, looking up as if he expected to see a vulture overhead.

“How long have I been here?” I asked. “It seemed only a few moments ago I was floating on the river.” The memory of nearly drowning was strangely close, and though I was sure I had made landfall only minutes ago, my skin and hair were completely dry. I was also thirsty and very hungry.

“Nope. Three days,” Hozey said, holding up a wing with three feathers protruding past the rest. “Three. You slept right here under the sun and stars. We kept you alive, we did. We dribbled water into your mouth from the river so you did not die of dehydration or get chapped lips. We shaded you from the sun so your skin would not get burnt to a crisp. One of us stayed right here with you, watching over you the whole time.”

“Thank you very much,” I said. “And thank heavens I was not eaten by a buzzard, though I imagine there are worse ways to decompose. I am Brother Maxmillian Wilder, by the way, but I do not know who I am named after. Perhaps no one. I am just a simple Jesuit monk looking for solitude.”

“We know who you are, Bruthamax,” Hozey said. “And, just so you know, you are not alone here, no sirreebob. No other humans, mind you, the river sees to that. But there are a few hundred crows, my family mostly. And a few ravens, they really like it here—no humans.”

“That is why I came here,” I said.

“Not that you will be lacking a body to talk to,” Hozey said. “We crows will yack your ears off if you let us. But not the ravens, no sirreebob. Like pulling teeth to get them to talk.”

Hozey led me into the forest to a spring where I drank until I thought my belly would burst. But it made my hunger pangs recede for a while.

Hozey took me all over the island, to places I would not have been able to go unguided. There is a great boulder chasm, beyond which is a landscape so pitted and pockmarked, it is nearly uninhabitable. One day Hozey and I will build a bridge across it.

I stayed on the solid ground on the upriver end of the island for my first year, living on nuts and berries and the abundant fish from the river. And I prayed—my whole life comprises one continuous prayer to the glory of God.

I have spent many hours talking with Hozey, and we have become close friends. He and his family helped me build a chapel above the rocky point at the island’s upper end.

A few people have tried to reach the island, either by boat or by swimming, but none has been successful. Sometimes they ride by in boats, and I shout “Glory to God Almighty!” to them. A few wave back, but most just stare as if I am a madman. I must appear that way to them with my unshaven head, bark clothing, and crow-feather cloak.

But there were too many eyes trying to peer into my solitude, and Hozey told me the lower end of the island is much more secluded. He guided me there, far from the riverbanks through the most hostile lands full of dark pools, over which clouds of mosquitoes reign, and dense foliage that is near impossible to navigate through. Every other step, I sank knee-deep into sticky black mud.

Deep within the interior of this small island lies a paradise, where I have built a proper home in a giant black gum tree.

“Excellent, Bruthamax,” Hozey said at my choice of tree. “Nice big branches. You can build yourself a platform right across those bottom ones–in the Hozey way of course. ‘Only three bearing points,’ that is what Hozey the Great would say. ‘Four is unstable,’ he always said. ‘You will get unwanted rocking in the nest.’ That crow really knew how to build. It was just in his bones, I reckon.”

We spent about two months working from dawn till twilight, with Hozey’s help, to build my one-room house up in this tree. It has all that I need, although I have wished somehow a stove would wash up on the shore! Every day after breakfast, I walk through the forest to the chapel. Every morning, I pray and give thanks to the Almighty for the incredible bounty of this island, and especially for my friend Hozey.

Alfredo turned the page, but the story did not continue. The next few pages were filled with doodles—outlandish plants with labels written in a fanciful text he could not decipher. He closed the journal and ran his hand across the cracked cover. Brother Maxmillian’s first year. I wonder if there is another journal somewhere.

The chapel restoration involved cleaning and removing dead vines from the roof; Alfredo wanted to keep it as simple as it was when Bruthamax built it. “The chapel managed to survive over a hundred years of weathering,” he had said to Charlie when finished. “There is nothing more I need to do.”

With the chapel restoration complete, Alfredo turned his attention to building a small cottage for himself. He found a perfect site near the chapel, downhill from one of the island’s many springs. “I want to build a cistern,” he said to Charlie, “like the one Bruthamax built.”

He hired a helper through an ad in the local free newspaper, The Crow. There was only one response, Sam Howard, who hailed himself as a sculptor as well as a carpenter, plumber, and electrician.

What a stroke of luck to find Sam! A jack-of-all-trades, and he’s Patua’! Alfredo found out from Sugarbabe, who whispered, “He’s one of y’all, y’know,” when he had escorted Sam to the island for the first time. Sam blushed to his ear tips.

“No worries, Sam!” Alfredo assured him. “You are among friends here.”

The Captain glared at his crow and said, “Sugarbabe, you are a blabbermouth for sure.”

Alfredo and Sam hopped off the Captain’s boat, and as they walked through the forest toward the site he had chosen to build his cottage, he greeted the corvids, returning their calls and encouraged Sam to do likewise.

“You are among friends here, Sam,” he said. “Especially with me.”

Sam nodded and waved as the crows and magpies yelled, but he did not utter a sound.

“The chapel is this way,” Alfredo said, and he gestured with his head.

Sam nodded again and plodded along next to Alfredo. They walked in silence until they arrived at the chapel. Alfredo opened the door, and they stepped inside. “I want my cottage to look like this,” he said. “More or less. Closed to the elements, except for light.”

“Wow!” Sam said, as he grinned and looked around. “You really cleaned this place up!”

Alfredo’s eyebrows rose up into his forehead and he said, “You have been here before?”

Sam’s smile vanished. He wandered over to the kneeler and ran his hand along the smooth wood. “Once,” he said. “Years ago.”

“Really?” Alfredo said. “You and the Captain both.” So, that is three of us since Maxmillian. Why do the corvids insist I am the first?

Sam scavenged as much of the construction materials as he could from landfills, roadside debris, and junkyards. Whatever couldn’t be had from his various recycling sources, Alfredo purchased with the cash Minnie Braun, aka Gabriella, had given him to restore the chapel. She would not object, he was certain. But he never told her.

Alfredo purchased several RV batteries to provide what little power he needed. When one battery was spent, he would hook up a spare and take the dead one in to Ledford and have it charged.

Sam constructed a composting toilet out of materials he found or traded, and enclosed it within a small structure a short way downhill from the cottage, matching the upside-down bird’s nest construction. He installed a narrow wooden door with a moon-shaped hole that opened to a scenic landscape of tall trees, medium-sized trees, bushes, flowers, and a few gray rocks poking through the tall green grass that grew wherever it could.

“Well, it ain’t the toidy at the Waldorf,” Sam had said, grinning. “But the view is better.”

One of the ladies at St. Sophia’s had recently remodeled her kitchen and gave Alfredo a used but still functional stainless-steel sink. “Boy, howdy,” Sam said, pushing his hat back and scratching his head. “It’s hard to not covet that sink, Padre. I’m doing a piece called ‘Everything but the kitchen sink,’ though in truth, it oughta be called ‘Nothing but the kitchen sink.’ This one’s a beauty. I must have it!”

“Take it!” Alfredo said with a chuckle. “It is too large for my tiny kitchen.”

“Thanks,” Sam said. “I’ll find you another one.”

Alfredo made a sketch of the gravity-fed water system at the Treehouse, and said, “I have modeled it after the one Bruthamax, that is, Maxmillian Wilder built.. One day perhaps I can take you to see it.”

Sam understood the sketches well enough and built a similar arrangement that captured and moved spring water into a small cistern buried upslope from the cottage. A hand pump delivered water to the sink. “You can let your kitchen and bath water drain out into your, uh, yard,” he said. “That is, out into the forest. It won’t hurt the trees or plants.”

Alfredo collected his sparse possessions from the rectory at St Sophia’s and moved into his new cottage on Cadeña-l’jadia. He felt at home for the first time in his life. He loved waking up to the sound of the birds and stepping outside into a forest. Every morning, he walked to the old chapel for the Liturgy of the Hours, and on Saturday evenings, he said the Mass. Without a human congregation, he found it difficult to stay within the confines of the traditional celebrant/respondent verbiage set forth by the Second Vatican Council.

Whenever he needed to leave, one of the island’s hundreds of friendly crows flew out over the river and summoned the Captain. Mondays and Wednesdays, the Captain took him to the boat landing on the east side of the river; from there, he pedaled his bike to the university. On Fridays and Sundays, the Captain ferried him to the other side of the river and let him off at the Waterfront; from there, Alfredo walked to St. Sophia’s.

“Life is good,” he said to the Captain as he ferried him back to the island, so beautiful in the late afternoon. The hermit’s chapel glowed warmly amid the sun-drenched tops of the tallest trees and seemed to float above shades of green leaves and shadows.

He loved coming home most of all. He loved cooking in his tiny kitchen, at the small but completely adequate wood stove. He loved dining at the small table Sam had scavenged at a thrift store. And he loved looking out upon the sensuous lushness all around him.

Alfredo ate a quick supper at his cottage and strode up the path to the chapel. He clasped his hands at the kneeler, and said a prayer thanking the Almighty for his life, for his good friends, and for the abundance of Cadeña-l’jadia. Even after praying, he felt impoverished; his gratitude could not fill the growing hole in his heart. Ever since Charlie had told him about his Patua’ friend Charlotte who lived in such unspeakable solitude, he felt a strange sense of shame at his good fortune.

He re-assumed the praying position, bowed his head, and shut his eyes. I am fine, Lord, thanks to the bounty you shower upon me. But I have much, while Charlotte suffers and is in need of your care. Please, Lord, may you rain your glory down upon her and ease her burden of loneliness.

He left the chapel and spotted Charlie at the rocky point below, picking apart the carcass of some poor creature that had washed up on the rocks. He walked down to the customary place where he and the crow often sat and talked.

Charlie looked up and called out, “Jayzu!” and flapped up to the rock next to him.

“Everyone’s talking about the new sanctuary,” he said and cleaned his beak on the rock.

Alfredo’s eyebrows went up. “Already? How? We haven’t even started it yet.”

“The news beaked out pretty fast after the Council meeting,” Charlie said.

“I guess so!” Alfredo said, laughing. “So what is the general opinion?”

“Oh, generally positive, I reckon. But a few negative nellies claim it’ll bring in a whole influx of foreigners wanting to immigrate here. But that’s ridiculous.”

Alfredo picked a blade of long grass growing out of the sand at the base of the log he sat on. “I just hope it is enough,” He wove the blade through his fingers.

“Enough for what?” Charlie asked. “You can’t please everyone, Jayzu.”

He tore the grass into several pieces, letting them fall to the ground at his feet.

“Enough to keep Cadeña-l’jadia out of Henry Braun’s hands.”

“And if it isn’t?” Charlie asked.

“I do not know,” Alfredo sighed. “Then it is in God’s hands, perhaps.”

“As Charlotte has been in your deity’s hands all these years?” Charlie asked.

Shocked at the crow’s blunt statement, Alfredo started to protest. But he is right. Are my prayers merely a statement of my passing the buck on to God?

“Yes,” he said with a sigh. “Just like that, I am afraid.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, put his fingertips together and stared at the ground. An ant struggled with a pebble ten times its size. He felt suddenly tired.

“Though the Order turned his offer down, Henry still plots against Cadeña-l’jadia,” he said, gazing out over the water. “I do not know how he will strike, but strike he will.”

The gleaming white roof of the newly restored chapel, visible from both sides of the city, stirred up some new stories about the old ghost of the island’s legendary hermit. “Brother Maxmillian has been reincarnated!” some people cried, until it became known that another Jesuit, Father Alfredo Manzi, had taken up residence on Wilder Island, and it was he who roamed its banks.

When Alfredo arrived at St. Sophia’s with the week’s supply of Communion wafers, people who used to just wave and smile at him, if anything, now wanted to touch his jacket or his shoe. His fall courses at the university had already filled up. “And it is only May!” he complained to Russ in his office before his Avian Biology class. “The last thing I want is to be a celebrity,” he said.

“Oh well.” Russ poured Alfredo a cup of coffee from his thermos and handed it across the desk to him. “That is the unintended consequence of your semi-hermitage on a island famous for hermits. People will make you into a legend before you know it, and you can go about your business again.”

Alfredo took the coffee and wandered toward the window. “I don’t want to be a legend. I just want to be a simple priest and scientist.” He leaned against the wall and took a sip of coffee.

Russ looked skeptically at him. “That’s the thing about legends, Alfredo. You don’t really get that choice. You’re either a legend in your own mind or in everyone else’s.”

Alfredo laughed. “But there is the third option. No legend.”

“Real legends don’t have that choice.” Russ sat back in his swivel chair and put one foot up on his desk. “But look at it this way. It’s job security, man! The university hired you as an adjunct, meaning they can jettison you anytime they want. But they won’t if your classes are popular. As they obviously are, if the crowds are ‘flocking’ to you already.” He grinned devilishly. “Instant tenure, maybe. And you wouldn’t have to publish! I know you don’t like writing papers.”

Alfredo looked out the window. “I do like writing papers, Russ. I am just not ready to write up anything on the corvid language. And I love teaching. I enjoy the rare opportunity to interact on a meaningful level with people and maybe teach them a little science at the same time.” He looked back at Russ. “I have no human companionship on the island. Nor at St. Sophia’s, really. People do not look at me as a friend but as some kind of spiritual leader or therapist.”

Russ’s chair squeaked as he pulled his foot off his desk and crossed his legs. He poured himself another cup of coffee and offered the thermos to Alfredo.

“Why did you become a priest?”

Alfredo declined with a wave of one hand. “My mother sent me to a Jesuit boarding school when I was a young lad. And I guess I never left.” He looked at his watch. “Speaking of my classes, it is time for me to go teach one.”

Russ shook his head as Alfredo left his office, wondering what motivated the man. He complains about his success and won’t write up what will make him famous. What does he want?

http://www.amazon.com/Corvus-Rising-Book-Patua-Heresy/dp/0991224515

Corvus Rising – Chapter 4

Queen of the Night

“Oh my God!” Jade said. She stood at the sliding glass door in their living room, shaking her head and pointing to something in the backyard. Her hand covered her mouth in shock. “They know.”

“Who knows?” Russ asked. “And what do they know?” He looked over the newspaper at her from the couch.

“Oh my God,” she said again, shaking her head. “They found me.”

“Who found you?” Russ put the newspaper down, got up, and joined her at the window. “What is it, honey?”

Dozens of crows perched on their back wall, the little fence around the garden, and the backs of the chairs on the patio. Five dipped their beaks in the birdbath. Many more flew back and forth among the trees in the woods behind the house.

“Wow!” Russ said. “There must be a hundred of them! I wonder what’s so interesting about our yard.”

“They know,” Jade said.

“Know what?”

“They know I have this.” She patted the medallion through her shirt. “They know it’s in here.” Her voice rose slightly with each word. “It’s a token of some weird brotherhood of crows and humans! That’s why they broke in and tried to steal it! They came back for it. They know where it is.”

“Oh, please, Jade,” Russ said, rolling his eyes. “How would these crows know what’s under your shirt? I didn’t tell them. That only leaves Willow B.”

The cat looked up from his favorite chair. “Mrrr?” He blinked sleepily, licked his left paw twice, and put his head back down.

“And he says he didn’t tell anyone anything,” Russ said with a big grin. “They know nothing about you, Jade. They’re crows. They’re just looking for food, probably.”

The crows stared directly at her. “Right,” she said, backing away from the window. “Where’s the food? We don’t even keep a garbage can out there. They’ve never come into our yard before, not like this. And standing around the birdbath? Hmmm?”

“Hmmm, what?” Russ said irritably. He turned away from the window and looked at her with a frown. “They’re birds, Jade. Birds go to birdbaths to drink and bathe. That’s why we put it there.”

“Don’t you get it?” she said, her eyebrows crunched together. “I dreamed that a birdbath sailed through our window, and crows flew inside, and now they’re standing on our birdbath.”

“And you think they somehow picked it up and heaved it through our window?” Russ said. He looked heavenward with his arms outstretched and shook his head. “It was a dream, Jade! Must you let it rule your life? And mine?”

“Okay, fine,” she said with a long-suffering sigh. “You don’t get it. Follow me.”

She led him down the hall to her studio, stopping and turning toward a painting on the wall. “This was my first official painting. That is, the first one that ever got a frame. I called it High Five.”

Five crows danced around the top of a birdbath, beaks open, laughing and brushing one another’s wingtips above their heads. The blue-black feathers flashed iridescent red, green, and yellow, like tiny lights that appeared for a moment and quickly winked out, only to wink back on in another location.

“I’ve always loved this painting,” Russ said. “You have so much talent. How old were you when you painted this? Before or after you dreamed they broke into your bedroom?”

“I was in fifth grade,” Jade said. “Ten, I guess. These five crows came every day to the birdbath in Chloe and Smitty’s yard. They had a very playful and silly side to them.”

She remembered having fun with crows once. Before the nightmares started. Then it was crows on the road in front of Chloe and Smitty’s house, pecking at something. They looked up occasionally, pieces of white fur dropping from bloody beaks. Her cat, Blitzen.

She shivered. “But they eat dead things.”

“We eat dead things,” Russ said. He raised his eyebrows.

“Not off the road!” Jade said, wrinkling her nose.

“What difference does that make?” he asked. “Other than Miss Manners advises against it and we don’t need small rocks in our stomachs to digest our food?” He put his arm around her. “It’s only the food chain, dear. Crows eat road kill. They eat French fries and doughnuts and everything edible that we drop into the landscape. They ate a good many of the corpses during the bubonic plagues. The world would be a stinkier place indeed without our corvid friends.”

“That’s supposed to make me like them more?” Jade asked, frowning. “I wish they would go roost in someone else’s yard.”

Russ held up the painting of the five crows. “But you liked them once. And there they were, in your yard. Like they were your friends.”

“I didn’t have any friends,” Jade insisted. “Just Abby. Chloe and Smitty lived out in the country. But there were always a bunch of crows everywhere.” She shrugged. “I guess I played with them some. Once.”

Russ placed the painting back down on the chair. He looked at his watch and said, “I gotta go, hon. Field trip this afternoon. I’m going to Wilder Island!”

“Lucky you!” Jade said. “I think.”

She accompanied him down the hall and into the kitchen. Glancing out the sliding glass door to the backyard, she was surprised that the crows were gone. But a single black feather lay on the step. She opened the sliding door, reached down, and picked it up.

“Look at this,” she said as she handed it to Russ.

“Looks like a tail feather,” Russ said matter-of-factly and handed it back. He slung his pack over his shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll be home by six-thirty.”

Jade took the feather to the studio and wondered how Russ knew so much. His family moved frequently, he had told her once. And he dealt with the constant uprooting and having to leave friends by burying himself in books. He read everything, he said.

He still does. That’s why he’s such a Mr. Know-It-All.

Jade had the same best friend, Abby Mahoney, from first grade all the way through high school. She wondered how Russ survived his childhood without a best friend. How did he learn to be so warm and affectionate? He was very fun to be with and as gentle a soul as she’d ever met, other than her foster father, Smitty, maybe.

Russ was different from all the boys she knew in high school and college. He never came on to her. Not until that night in the Arizona desert when he completely swept her off her feet. She fell into a safety net of mutual affection he had built with his gentlemanly ways. Such a sweet courtship! Jade smiled at the memory. And their honeymoon the cave paintings in southern France could not have been more fabulous.

She sighed, remembering how it was Russ who’d convinced her to start painting again, and helped her turn their spare bedroom into a studio. Now she had a one-woman show coming up in Ledford’s only avant-garde gallery. And she needed more paintings. She flopped down into a chair and examined the crow feather. “For something that seems so black, there are sure a lot of colors,” she said as Willow B jumped into her lap. He sniffed the feather delicately before settling down for a nap.

The afternoon flowed by unnoticed as Jade meticulously painted the feather from the vantage point of a tiny creature walking up its central spine. A fabric of pigmented threads and gossamer film formed an oblique grid of tiny prisms that filtered and split light into transparent layers of color. Close up, thousands of tiny windows scattered the colors of the rainbow into a mosaic pattern of rectangles. From across the room, a black feather arced gracefully upward in a motion suggesting imminent flight.

Russ sat at his desk in the biology department, re-examining the tiny blue flower from Wilder Island that Alfredo had given him. It was an orchid, he thought, but it was hard to tell in its dried, squished state. And part of it had crumbled away. He was eager to find one living and undamaged. As soon as Alfredo’s Avian Anatomy class was over, they were heading to Wilder Island for an afternoon of scientific discovery. He had been looking forward to this day for weeks.

He put the dried flower back in a small plastic box and closed the lid. He walked over to his window and gazed out, his hands in his pockets. Bright and beckoning in the morning sun, Wilder Island called out to him, promising riches beyond his imagination.

I just know I’m going to discover a new orchid there. Jadum wilderii. He had always known that one day he would find a new and exotically beautiful flower and name it after his beloved yet eccentric wife. Jadum wilderii.

The white roof of the little chapel on Wilder Island glowed bright white and stark against the dark greens and shadows in which the chapel nestled. Russ fantasized it was a gigantic white flower—the Selenicereus grandiflorus. More beautiful than any flower, my Queen of the Night. I fell in love with her the day I met her.

Jade was a freshman, and he was a senior. From the first moment, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was so beautiful, though a bit thin—she got carried away with painting sometimes and forgot to eat. He took advantage of her need and happily took her out for a bite whenever he could. She was kind of spacey sometimes but always full of fun and very, very sweet. She never gave him any sign that she would welcome a romantic advance from him, so he never made one. He spent his last year in college secretly in love with her.

When he told her he had gotten into grad school in Arizona, he thought she seemed happy for him, but there were no long, lingering looks when he left. They parted, and he wondered ever after what would’ve happened if he had taken her in his arms and kissed her passionately. “Spilled milk under the bridge,” he had told himself. “Let it go. She’s married to some lucky guy by now.” But he could not forget her.

Out of the blue and in a weak moment of nostalgia, he sent Jade a postcard from Tucson. Joy of all joys, she called him a few days later. “As luck would have it,” she said, “I’ll be in Tucson in a couple weeks. Chloe and Smitty bought me a place in a workshop there. It’s about making paint from the colored rocks in the landscape. Pretty cool, no? I’ll be there for a few days. Want to get together?”

As luck would have it.

But was it luck? Was it just fate that brought him and Jade together finally? What is fate or simple obedience to the laws of the universe amid an infinite sea of variables? Opportunity. That’s all it is. There is no Almighty Oz that controls our lives. No horoscope, no tea leaves. It’s all about luck and opportunity. You seize it or you don’t. Still, he felt that somehow in the grand order of the universe, he and Jade were meant to be.

He remembered the day like it was yesterday. He had driven to the airport and waited for her outside the gate. He recognized her instantly as she walked through the turnstile; she looked just the way he had remembered. Blonde, beautiful, and green eyes, really green eyes. He stepped forward, and she smiled. Oh, those eyes he had lost himself in years before just about devoured him again. They embraced quickly; she looked up at him, and he was history.

“What are you doing in southern Arizona, Russ?” she had asked him later, when they were seated in the dining room of her hotel. “Forgive me, but isn’t this a desert? Seems like an odd place for a botanist. There’s more dirt here than plants!”

“Au contraire, Mademoiselle,” Russ said, waving his margarita at her. “Yonder desert teems with life. Granted, there’s less of it here than in the Midwest, due to the scarcity of water, but the desert is surprisingly diverse in its flora.”

Their food arrived, and Russ waited to continue while the waiter served them and bustled around filling water glasses. He hurried away only after he was satisfied their needs were filled.

“But really,” he continued, “I’m here in Tucson because of its proximity to an area where the Selenicereus grandiflorus grows, the subject of my ridiculously intricate, yet fascinating, doctorate. Commonly known as the ‘Queen of the Night,’ the Selenicereus grandiflorus is a night-blooming cactus. Its flower is large and gorgeous, so someone started calling it an orchid a long time ago. But really, it’s a cactus.”

Russ stopped, blushed, and said, “Sorry for the diatribe. I can get pretty carried away sometimes.” He attacked his steak.

“No. Really, Russ,” Jade said, “I’m interested. Especially in a man who loves flowers! I like hearing about the scientific aspects of Mother Nature’s jewels.”

No wonder he was crazy about her. “Well, thanks,” he said. “Most people find it boring. But the Selenicereus grandiflorus flower is incredible. It blooms only once a year—at night. And it only lasts for just that one night.”

“Very romantic!” Jade said. “I’d love to see it, the Selenicus grandiflorius, in bloom.”

He smiled at her attempt to pronounce the Selenicereus grandiflorus.

Cute and beautiful!

After dinner, they sipped coffee outside on a wood deck cantilevered over a rock garden. The view was spectacular. The multi-story office buildings of downtown Tucson cast an impressive silhouette against the setting sun. The mountains to the east reflected the day’s end in shades of watermelon and indigo in air so clear, you could almost see forever.

He took her for a ride in the desert, silently thanking the fates for arranging a full moon and a clear night. He stopped the car, cut the engine, and got out. He walked around to her side and opened the door. “At your request, my lady, right this way to the Selenicereus grandiflorus in bloom. It’s not far.”

They walked a short distance and stopped. He waited till she saw it—a large white flower, reflecting the silvery light of the moon and stars. Jade took a few steps and gasped.

And then he kissed her.

After that weekend, Russ spent a small fortune flying them both back and forth for visits, but he considered the money well spent, and their time together precious. He loved her paintings and was wildly enthusiastic about her talent. “You should paint some more,” he kept telling her.

“I know,” she almost always said. “I want to, but somehow I can’t.” She looked so sad, and he didn’t know what else to do, so he just took her in his arms and hugged her.

On his last visit, he took her out for dinner. Afterward, they went for a walk, and he asked her to marry him. “I love you, Jade. I’ve never loved anyone but you. And I want to stop this flying back and forth all the time. I hate it when you’re not with me. Marry me?”

And she did! Life is strange.

Alfredo stuck his head into Russ’s office and said, “You ready?”

Russ nodded and grabbed his backpack before heading out the door. They left the Biology Department together and walked to the parking lot behind the building. Russ drove them to the city boat landing, where a strange boat seemed to be waiting for them. He followed Alfredo aboard, admiring the artistry of the wrought-iron work.

“This is my friend Russ, the Captain,” Alfredo said.

“Pleased to meet you, Captain,” Russ said, shaking the man’s hand. He looked up at the branches and leaves that formed a canopy over the boat. “Nice work.”

“Thank’ee,” the Captain said with a nod.

He pushed off with a long oar, the tattoos on his arm coming to life as fish leaped over roiling waves, and birds flew in and out of the trees overhead. A large crow sat perched on the railing next to the captain, gazing across the water as he rowed.

“You heard someone has offered to buy Wilder Island?” Alfredo said. “Henry Braun is his name.”

“Yes,” Russ said. “It’s been in the papers. He wants to build some kind of casino resort. You Jesuits will turn him down, right?”

“I think so,” Alfredo said. “In any case, I plan to do everything I can to convince my Order that the island is worth keeping.”

“Be a cold day in hell,” the Captain grunted as he steered, “before the crows’ll let that happen.”

The crow perched on the railing looked up at the captain, squawking loudly as if it had an opinion to share. The Captain nodded and said, “No way, Jose!”

A barge blew its whistle as it took the right-of-way, and the shrill noise temporarily drowned out any conversation.

Russ gazed ahead at the mysterious island, inhaling deeply, filling his senses with the cool, moist river breeze. The island held his destiny, he was sure of it, beckoning and compelling him forward. Jadum wilderii. I know you are there.

“I’d give my left nu—” he said, turning to Alfredo, “ah, that is my left foot to discover a new flower, say an orchid. The papers I could write! Tenure for sure!”

“I suspect so!” Alfredo said, grinning. “That is why I want to show you the island, Russ. I am also hopeful we can turn it into a research station, where we can study the native birds and plants.”

The Captain rowed into the inlet, and Russ looked up at several black birds circling above. “Crows or ravens?”

Alfredo looked up and said, “Ravens. You can tell by the wedge-shaped tail.”

The Captain left the two men on the bank. “Back at sunset,” he said and shoved his boat back into the river.

Alfredo pointed toward a vague path. “This way, Russ.”

Immediately lost to its many wonders, Russ darted off the path and into the forest, calling out the names of plants and trees as if greeting old friends. “Ah, my lovely myrtle!” he said, plucking a leaf and holding it to his nose.

He stopped at a group of black ash trees. “Forgive me,” he said sheepishly as Alfredo caught up with him. “But these ash trees—at least I think they’re ash—are very unusual, to say the least. Look at the leaf! It’s the right shape, but it’s sure an odd color.” He pulled a leaf off and examined it closely. “Almost blue-green.” He put the leaf carefully in his notebook.

Alfredo conducted Russ through the forest, through stands of black spruce and white cedar, as well as balsam fir, dwarf alder, dogwood, and willow. Hundreds of birds flew among the trees, all calling out at once.

“It’s hard to imagine a big city not a mile away,” Russ said. “I can’t hear it at all.”

“Nor can you hear our feet crunching through the undergrowth,” Alfredo said, “with all that racket up there!”

“I’m sorry.” Russ cupped a hand behind his ear. “I didn’t catch that.”

“If you think this is loud,” Alfredo raised his voice, above the din, “you must come and hear them in the spring. You cannot hear yourself think.”

“Wouldn’t you love to live here?” Russ said loudly. “I’d listen to this noise all day long, as opposed to the sounds of tires screeching, sirens, and planes landing and taking off.”

I pray to the Almighty daily,” Alfredo said, “that one day I will make this island my home.”

Russ stopped to admire a cluster of willows growing along a tiny stream with a variety of different species of rushes lining the edges. “Wow!” he said, dropping to his knees. “Will ya look at that? I believe it’s white Lady’s Slipper, a rare find indeed.”

“As I have been telling you,” Alfredo said, “the island flora is extraordinary, Russ. There are many unusual plants, especially on the lower island, though I have not had the time to compare them to known species. Not exactly my expertise. But that is why I asked you here.”

Russ took his camera out of his pack and took several pictures before making a quick sketch of the flower. After writing a few notes he snapped his notebook shut and stood up.

A noisy group of crows flew overhead, and the two men looked up. “One of the crow families that live on the island,” Alfredo said. “Mother and father, three young ones, out for a fly.”

“They do that?” Russ asked. “Take the kids out? They don’t just toss them from the nest as soon as they have feathers and can fly?”

“Heavens, no!” Alfredo said. “Quite the opposite. The fledglings stay in the nest until they are several months old. The older brothers and sisters often hang around even longer and help care for the new generation of fledglings.”

“Seriously?” Russ asked. “Extended crow families?”

“Yes,” Alfredo replied. “The corvid even take care of their old ones, bringing them food when they cannot get it for themselves.”

“Very kind,” Russ said. “I had no idea. I guess I should read your papers.”

“No worries!” Alfredo said with a grin. “I have not read any of yours either!” Both men laughed. “But perhaps we should, Russ. If we are going to be doing research on the same island.”

They continued to walk, and Alfredo watched Russ’s excitement grew. “There’s years worth of research here! Things I’ve never seen before, not even in botany books. I’m completely awe-smacked, to use my wife’s favorite term.”

“To my knowledge, there is no where on Earth like this island,” Alfredo said. “But wait until you see the orchids! The lower half of the island is very boggy with many springs that disappear underground and reappear elsewhere. Orchids evidently love that climate. Next time, we will go down there, though we will need to start earlier and pack lunch. And mosquito repellent!”

“I can’t wait!” Russ said. “There are a few rare orchids in this state; it’s a good bet one or two may be on this island. I’d love to find out what lives in these mosquito-infested bogs!”

“Perhaps even discover a new species, eh?” Alfredo said with a wink. “But yes, swampy and mosquito-infested, this island is all that. All yours, this mighty yet miniature kingdom.”

“A research area in my own backyard,” Russ said. “What a score! I was getting nervous about my tenure review next year, and about having the requisite number of publications. Imagine if I discover a new species!”

A group of crows swooped in low over the two men, cawing loudly. Much to Russ’s surprise, Alfredo raised an arm and called out a greeting, and the crows returned the salutation.

“Nice!” Russ said. “I’ve never known anyone who learned crow calls. You’re quite good! If I wasn’t standing here watching, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between you and them.”

Alfredo smiled and said, “That was not really a call, per se. We tend to think of birdcalls as mating calls, but really most are not.”

“So then,” Russ said, stopping and turning his head toward Alfredo. “What was it?”

Alfredo shrugged and said, “Hello.” He watched Russ’s reaction carefully. No astonishment, just curiosity.

“Say it again, this hello,” Russ said, looking at Alfredo intently.

“Grawky!” Alfredo said. “Grawky. The ‘gr’ sound begins in the throat. A guttural sort of growl almost as if you’re clearing your throat and hacking up a feather. Grawky!”

Russ laughed and said “Grawky!” a few times until Alfredo nodded and said, “You got it! Grawky!”

“Thanks, man!” Russ said. “Grawky! I love it. It sounds so crow-ish! Grawky!”

“Grawky!” A call came down from the trees overhead. Russ laughed like a child and said, “Was that a crow or a raven? Or can you tell?”

“That was a crow,” Alfredo said. “Ravens make much deeper, more guttural sounds.” He looked up at the sky. “We should head back to the inlet. The Captain will be arriving soon.”

“So,” Russ said, as they backtracked through the forest, “how many other words do you know?”

Alfredo walked a few steps before answering. How much should I tell him? He seems eager to know and not at all put off. He took a deep breath and said, “The corvid language is composed of sentences, or phrases, rather than words. I used to think their language in terms of sounds is less varied than ours, due to anatomical differences, but that is not so. Corvid language is no less intricate than ours.”

Russ stopped and took a bottle of water from the side pocket of his pack. Alfredo waited while he took a long drink and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Well, then I guess my question should have been: how many sentences do you know?”

“That is hard to answer as well,” said Alfredo as he propped a boot up on a rock and retied the lace. “As I said, the corvid language is quite complex. I have only a rudimentary understanding of it.”

He flinched a little at his lie. I have as great an understanding of the corvid language as I do of English. But he was not yet ready for Russ to find out about the secret he had guarded so carefully since he was a child. Not yet.

“This is great stuff, Alfredo!” Russ said. “You are writing a paper, aren’t you? I bet the department would find you a full-time faculty position.”

“I have only just begun to scratch the surface,” Alfredo said, shaking his head. “And I do not want a full-time faculty position. I am happy with my life the way it is.”

“For God’s sake, man!” Russ said, stopping and staring at Alfredo. “You need to publish! You’d have instant tenure at any university in the world. You’d be famous for-freaking-ever!”

“I do not want to be famous,” Alfredo said, staring back. “My life is perfect. I am connected to a scholarly institution and the most marvelous field laboratory—this island. I have a cathedral when I desire human companionship. One day perhaps I will write about the corvid language. But not yet.”

The birds were far less noisy than they had been earlier; the leaves and twigs crackled under their feet. Leaves fluttered on their branches, adding a soft percussive rhythm to the song of the wind. The captain was waiting as they arrived at the inlet, and as they pulled away from the island, Russ said, “Thanks, Alfredo. This was fantastic! I can’t wait to come back!”

“He does what?” Jade asked, her eyebrows arched in shocked suspicion. “Alfredo Manzi talks to crows?”

Russ shoveled a forkful of pasta into his mouth, dripping spaghetti sauce onto the table. “Um, hmm,” he said. “I’m serious. He’s translated some of their calls into English.”

Jade speared a chunk of avocado and said, “You actually heard him talking to crows? You didn’t perchance accidentally eat some loco weed on the island, did you?”

“No!” Russ laughed. “There are plenty of crazy-looking plants, though. But I did hear him speak to a small group of crows.”

Jade giggled behind her napkin. “Did they answer?”

Russ popped a piece of garlic bread into his mouth. After chewing it, he said, “Yes. They did. I was pretty shocked at first, but there’s no reason why we can’t learn the language of other species. He taught me how to say hello.” Russ put his fork down and drank a sip of water. “Grawky!” he said. “Grawky!”

Jade tried to repeat the crow’s greeting, much to Russ’s amusement. “The sound comes from down in the throat,” he explained. “Alfredo says the crows have vocal chords of sorts way down deep in their throats. He says the crow’s language is quite complex and may have as many words as any human language.”

Jade shook her head and waved her fork at him. “That’s just too hard to believe, Russ. How can crows talk to humans?” She rose from the table, took their plates to the sink, and returned with an apple pie.

He shrugged. “I can’t explain the anatomy and physiology of it. I’m a plant man.” He drank the last sip of his water and put the glass on the table, centered it precisely within one of the circle patterns on the tablecloth. He watched Jade cut the pie in half, quarters, eighths.

“But it’s not all that crazy,” he said. “Just because we can’t understand the other animals doesn’t mean they haven’t developed a complex language.”

Jade put a piece of pie in front of him. “Whip?” she asked, with the nozzle of the whipped cream can poised over his plate.

Russ nodded and said, “The unbelievable thing is that he won’t publish.”

https://www.amazon.com/Corvus-Rising-Book-Patua-Heresy/dp/0991224515

Corvus Rising – Chapter 3

The Treehouse

“Imagine my surprise finding you in Ledford!” Father Provincial Thomas Majewski said to Alfredo over the phone. “It’s good to hear your voice after all these years!”

Alfredo was on duty at St. Sophia’s, preparing for his shift in the confessional. When the phone rang, he had assumed it would be one of the parishioners wanting absolution over the phone. Thank the Good Lord Almighty, it was the head of the entire Jesuit operation in North America instead!

Majewski’s voice took Alfredo back to his graduate school days and his unfriendly committee. Except for Dr. Thomas, as the students had called Majewski. He was always available and certainly had a more open mind than the other committee members.

“Likewise, Thomas!” Alfredo agreed. “But I’m surprised to hear from you. To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?”

“Well,” Majewski’s baritone voice boomed, “I don’t much believe in synchronicities, but it seems as if this Wilder Island has become the focus of all my attention lately!”

Alfredo looked out the window at the island in the afternoon sun, wishing he were there. He imagined even God would prefer the whispering breezes and his exuberant creation to the cold walls of the cathedral, and the laments of rich, lonely women.

“Mine too!” Alfredo laughed. “I can see it out my window as we speak.”

“Tell me about this island, Alfredo,” Majewski said. “We’ve gotten an offer from a gentleman named Henry Braun, right there in Ledford, for several million dollars.”

Alfredo’s blood went cold. No! You cannot sell it! “For what purpose?” he said, hoping his voice did not betray his fear. “There is nothing there, really. It is not considered habitable by humans.” Except by me.

“The letter didn’t say what he wanted it for,” Majewski said. “Development, presumably.”

“He cannot be serious!” Alfredo cried. He doodled on the pad in front of him, drawing the word “No!” in three-dimensional block letters.

“He is,” Majewski said. “He calls my office daily, waiting for an answer. But calm down, Alfredo. He annoys the hell out of me. I’m inclined to turn him down for that alone.”

“That is good to hear,” Alfredo said, drawing a dollar sign on the pad. “The island is quite small and very difficult to get to. Where the undergrowth is not completely impassable, it is very boggy and full of mosquitoes.”

“So you’ve been there?” Majewski asked. “I was hoping to get you to do some investigating for us. Is it really haunted?”

Alfredo laughed and said, “No, not at all. There are many crows–an unusually large number, in fact. But nothing sinister, nothing magical. In fact, I am heading over there this morning, among other things to bury Maxmillian Wilder’s remains. He was an old hermit that lived on the island for many years and built a remarkable little chapel.”

“What else do you know about Maxmillian Wilder?” Majewski asked. “He was one of ours, you know. A Jesuit.”

“Was he?” Alfredo said. He drew a skull on the desk pad. “I assumed he had taken holy orders, but he was one of us?”

He frowned, wondering if Charlie knew that. He seemed to know everything else about Brother Maxmillian Wilder. Bruthamax.

“Yes, he was a Jesuit, according to some letters and legal documents I accidentally found. But there’s no mention of a Maxmillian Wilder in our records anywhere.”

“None?” Alfredo was taken aback. “Why would the Jesuits expunge one of their own?”

“We don’t,” Majewski said. “We keep records on everyone, even the de-frocked.”

Alfredo finished hearing confession, and changed from priestly garb into jeans, a T-shirt, and hiking boots. He left his apartment at the rectory at St. Sophia’s and headed for the Waterfront. From the top of the stone steps, he saw the Captain and his floating forest of a boat seemingly waiting for him.

“Here you are again, just when I need you,” he said as he climbed aboard. “Do you have a sixth sense, Captain? Or is it always a coincidence that you are here whenever I need you?”

“I travel the river from sunup to sundown,” the Captain said, “looking for those who are looking for a ride.”

“Hahaha!” Sugarbabe screeched and flapped her wings on her perch next to the Captain. “No way, Jayzu! A little birdie told him! Me! Me! Me!” She danced around on her perch.

The Captain grinned, and tried to cuff the crow with the back of his hand, but she leaped off her perch screeching with laughter.

“Can’t get away with much with this old blabber-mouth around!” he said as he pushed his boat away from the dock.

“But no one knew I wanted to go to the island today,” Alfredo said, thinking back on his morning. “Am I being spied upon?” he asked Sugarbabe.

“I know nothing,” she said, burying her beak in her wingpit.

“Now that’s a ding-dang lie, Sugarbabe!” the Captain said as he pushed the boat away from the dock. “You know everything that’s to know all up and down this river. And on Cadeña-l’jadia!” He turned to Alfredo, winked, and then looked back at the bird. “Nothing gets by you!”

Sugarbabe pulled her head out and preened her breast feathers flat. “I know nothing about no spying,” she insisted.

Alfredo laughed and said, “I suppose I do not mind being spied upon by crows, Sugarbabe. I had no idea I was that interesting.”

“Oh,” Sugarbabe said, “you’re that interesting all right. You’re Bruthamax’s kin! That’s why Charlie sent the magpies to follow you around, so they could tell him—” She suddenly stopped and glanced at the Captain. “Oops,” she said. A moment later, she leaped into the sky and flew off.

The Captain threw his head back and laughed. “She never can keep a secret, that one!”

Alfredo smiled and then he frowned. “Why am I being spied upon by crows?”

The Captain shrugged. “They’ve got their reasons, I reckon.”

He looked away suddenly, and Alfredo wondered if the Captain knew more about him than he let on. He felt somewhat disappointed that his new friend Charlie had watched him through the eyes of magpies. Why did he not visit himself if I am that important?

“But how did you know I would need a ride over to the island this morning?” Alfredo asked.

“Coincidence,” the Captain shrugged, his eyes straight ahead. “I reckon.”

The island’s dark green forest loomed larger as they approached, and Alfredo felt his heart lighten. The Captain brought the boat to a halt on the shore at the inlet, and he leaped out. He offered to pay for the ride, but the Captain pushed his floating forest away from the dock tipping his hat saying, “G’day, Padre. Be back at sunset.”

After waving good-bye to the Captain, Alfredo made his way to the old chapel. He opened the door and entered the patchwork of sunshine and shadows. Illuminated by several shafts of sunlight through the bird’s-nest roof, Maxmillian’s bones gleamed garishly white in the dim interior.

The skeleton was remarkably intact, considering it had been stripped clean of all soft tissue long ago by both vertebrate and invertebrate creatures on the island. He picked up the skull, and something dropped to the dirt. He dusted it off on his shirt and peered curiously at it: a large wooden bead of some sort. Or perhaps stone; it was rather heavy for its size. But the light in the chapel was too dim to examine it further. He put it in his backpack and continued with his task.

He carefully placed each of Brother Maxmillian’s bones into a burlap sack and took it outside to a place just below the chapel, above the rocky point of the island’s headlands. After he dug a hole, he placed the sack of bones into it and filled it with dirt. He took the small white cross he had fashioned from wood in the handyman’s shop, upon which he had carved M. W., and pushed it into the dirt.

Charlie the blue-eyed crow flew in low and landed on a flat rock next to the grave.

“Hello, my friend,” Alfredo greeted him, wondering again how much this crow knew about him. “I have buried Bruthamax’s bones.”

“I can see that,” Charlie replied. “Why? They were not a health hazard, were they?”

“No,” Alfredo said. “It is a human tradition to bury our dead. It honors them, we think.”

“In that case,” Charlie said, “may I join you in honoring Bruthamax? He was held in high esteem among us crows, you know, and we take any opportunity we can to revere his memory.”

“Of course,” Alfredo said.

Suddenly dozens of crows materialized from the trees around the chapel, startling Alfredo. The crows dropped to the ground, surrounded Brother Wilder’s grave, and bowed their heads. He was extremely touched by their reverence, and he bowed his head with them. In the language of the crows, he prayed, “Dear Lord Almighty, please receive our Brother Maxmillian Wilder, that is, Bruthamax, into your infinite peace. In his name, may you bless this island of crows and keep it safe from all harm.”

“Amen,” Charlie said, flapping his wings.

The other crows all flapped wings and shouted elegies to their hero: “The memory of Bruthamax lives in our hearts forever!” “Bruthamax! Where for art thou?”

“I had no idea,” Alfredo said, “that after all these years Bruthamax is held in such high regard by so many birds. He has been dead for decades.”

The birds wandered around murmuring more epitaphs to one another. A few picked flowers and laid them gently in front of the small cross.

“Bruthamax is legendary to just about every corvid family in North America,” Charlie said. “Word flew out from Cadeña-l’jadia as soon as he died. Church bells everywhere rang out the news, even the bells at St. Sophia’s.”

“The bell-ringers were all Patua’?” Alfredo asked.

“Humans didn’t ring the bells,” Charlie said. “Crows did. They hung on the ropes by beak and claw until there were enough of them to pull it down. News of his passing spread by wing and beak after that. Thousands of ravens and crows, along with many jays and magpies from the entire river region, flew to the island for the Grand Funeral Roosting. Never in modern times has a human been so honored by us.”

“One man meant so much to so many birds,” Alfredo said. “Yet he was unknown among humans.”

“Yep,” Charlie said. “Sometimes that’s just the way it is.”

Gradually the crows dissolved back into the trees and sky, leaving Alfredo and Charlie standing next to the little wooden cross. “I brought lunch today, Charlie,” Alfredo said. “I was hoping to bribe you into taking me down to Bruthamax’s tree house.”

“I can definitely be bribed,” Charlie said.

The two walked side by side down to the flat gray rocks above the riverbank. Alfredo took a hero sandwich from his backpack, unwrapped it, cut it in half, and put one piece on a small flat rock for the crow. Charlie knocked the top bun off his sandwich and beaked a chunk of ham. He tossed it in the air, catching and swallowing it in one motion.

Within a few minutes, the sandwich was gone, both halves, though Charlie left most of the bun. “Someone’ll eat it,” he said, cleaning his beak in the sand.

“The Jesuits have discovered they own the island,” Alfredo said as he stuffed the paper wrappings into his pack.

“No one owns Cadeña-l’jadia,” Charlie said sharply. “You can’t own anything you cannot carry in your two claws—or in your case, hands.”

“Someone offered them a lot of money,” Alfredo said with some discomfort. No use mincing words. “They want me to provide them with more information so they can assess the island’s value.”

“Val-yooo!” a mockingbird sang from the trees nearby. “Val-yoooo!” the call echoed through the trees.

“Value,” Charlie said, his head tipped thoughtfully. “Now there’s a word that means something completely different to humans than it does to me.”

“Or me,” Alfredo said. “But I worry that whoever made this offer wants to develop the island. They may want to cut the trees down and build houses. Or worse.”

Alfredo imagined the lush forest all around him gone, replaced by some human nonsense—a shopping center or amusement park, perhaps?

“In that case,” Charlie said, “it only matters if you Jesuits aren’t planning the same thing.”

“Probably not,” Alfredo said. He picked up a small smooth stone and tossed it back and forth between his hands. “The island has a Jesuit-built chapel on it. It is more likely the Order will want to preserve it than have it torn down. I will do whatever I can to discourage them from selling.”

“Cadeña-l’jadia owns itself,” Charlie said. “Best you humans remember that.” He unfurled his wings as he hopped off the rock and into the sky. “Shall we head down to the Treehouse?”

They traveled through the dense forest toward the Treehouse, the human on foot, the crow by wing. Hundreds of birds whizzed by—crows, magpies, jays, mockingbirds, and an assortment of other birds too small to identify. Many of them called out as they passed: “Greetings, Jayzu!” “Yahoo, Jayz-ZOOO!” “Grawky, Jayzu!”

He greeted them all back with a wave of his hand. “Grawky! Grawky!”

They came to the precipice Alfredo had encountered on his first visit to the island. “I have been here before, Charlie. I do not think I can get across this,” Alfredo said as he looked over the edge at the sheer drop. “It is not too far down, but I am afraid I would either impale myself on the trees or smash up on the rocks.”

“Follow me!” Charlie called out over his shoulder. “There’s a bridge over this way.”

Alfredo plowed his way through the thick undergrowth and found the crow perched atop a wooden post at the beginning of a swaying footbridge. “This bridge has been here over a hundred years,” Charlie said. “Bruthamax built it.”

The bridge seemed amazingly sturdy; though it had neither been used nor repaired in decades, it had not deteriorated. Charlie hopped down from his perch and started walking across the bridge. “Come on, Jayzu!” he said.

“Do you think it will hold me?” Alfredo asked as he yanked hard on the thick vine ropes.

Charlie leaped off the bridge and said, “I don’t know, Jayzu, but it is the only way across the Boulders for the two-legged.”

“Here I come,” Alfredo said as he stepped onto the bridge. “Lord, please keep me in one piece.” The old bridge swayed wildly from side to side as he crossed, but it held fast. He stepped onto a platform in the old tree on the other side of the boulder ravine and looked back at the bridge with admiration. “Bruthamax was quite the engineer.”

“With a little help from his friends,” Charlie said. “My ancestor Hozey the Younger and many other crows.”

Alfredo imagined a scene of crows flying to and fro, carrying lengths of vine in their beaks across the Boulders to Bruthamax, who strung them through flat pieces of wood.

“That is even more amazing, Charlie,” he said. “Humans and crows working together. Mighty impressive.” He stepped off the platform onto short stubby branches that spiraled down the trunk all the way to the ground.

“This is marvelous!” Alfredo said on his way down. “A perfect natural spiral staircase—the steps grow right out of the trunk.” He looked upward and shook his head. “While the branches above the platform provide a canopy of shade.”

“Bruthamax had a way with the trees,” Charlie said. “He had his own orchard near the tree house.”

“Really?” Alfredo said, his dark eyebrows arching. “An orchard?”

“That’s right,” Charlie said. “And a pond, and a smokehouse.”

He pointed a wing and said as he leapt into the air, “The Treehouse is this way! Follow me, Jayzu! And watch out. There are many wet places down there.”

Alfredo looked back. The bridge had completely disappeared, and the dense forest closed in all around. “Good thing I have you to guide me, Charlie,” he said. “I have no idea how to get back.”

For a while, the ground was firm and dry, and he walked easily through the forest. His path became more difficult as the ground grew soft and wet with spongy bogs and dark pools. He stumbled on tree roots and an occasional rock hidden in the undergrowth. Overhead, the trees were hung with moss and vines, and hundreds of birds of many colors flew through the trees, all singing out at once.

Surprised and delighted at the plethora of flowers and vines that decorated the trees, Alfredo walked in wonder through tiny glens of miniature blue and yellow flowers that peeked up through the grasses. Star-shaped lilies of bright pink sprang from clumps of green spears amid an abundance of red and orange fan-shaped flowers he could not identify.

Charlie glided easily through the branches and trunks, helping Alfredo pick his way along the ground below. “Jayzu!” he called out, “Stop! You’re heading into a bog. Go back!”

Alfredo tried to stop his forward momentum, but he tripped over a tree root and slid into a small pool of watery black mud. “Too late!” he said, pulling his mud-covered boot out of a shallow pool that he mistook for solid ground covered by tiny plants.

He tried to keep a better eye on Charlie after that, but the calls of many birds distracted his attention, and he found it difficult not to look up into the forest canopy. He was sure there was more than one birdcall he’d never heard before.

He waved at the swamp sparrows who trilled as he passed, and he called out a greeting to the chattering magpies. Underneath the birdcalls, crickets and other insects performed their own unique vignettes that somehow merged with all the other voices into an energetic song of life on a summer afternoon.

With so many birds flying among the trees, Alfredo lost track of which one was Charlie. He stopped and called out, “Where are you, Charlie? I cannot see you.”

“Charlie?” a mockingbird mocked, “I cannot see you!”

“Charlie!” a raven rasped, “where are you?”

“Char-lee!” a red-winged blackbird trilled. “Char-lee, Charleee!”

“Up here, Jayzu!” Charlie called, “Right above you. The Treehouse is straight ahead.”

“As the crow flies,” grumbled Alfredo as he slogged through a shallow mud bog, trying to follow Charlie. He stopped next to an unexpected human-built structure, a hut constructed of small, rough-hewn wood planks. “What is this?” he asked.

Charlie landed on the roof. “Either Bruthamax’s smoke house or his crapper,” he said. “I could never tell which from which.”

“Looks like the crapper,” Alfredo said, noting the wood box with a hole cut through the top. “He had a smoke house, too?”

“Yep,” Charlie said. “It got struck by lightning a few years back and burnt to the ground. But I didn’t know it was the smokehouse, till now.”

They continued on their way, and within a few minutes, Alfredo stood before a towering, black gum tree. “Bruthamax’s Treehouse!” Charlie said.

Alfredo looked up, but saw nothing but a gnarly tangle of living and dead vines. “Where?” he asked, making his way around the massive, ivy-encased trunk. He craned his neck, squinting his eyes, hoping to discern a human-built structure.

“Up here,” Charlie said, looking down at him. “The way up for the two-legged is around the other side.”

He disappeared into the leaves, and Alfredo walked around the tree whose huge trunk was nearly encased in a variety of vines. Charlie dropped to the ground at the base of a graceful spiral of ivy and Virginia creeper that disappeared above into the great tree’s interior. “Bruthamax climbed these stairs up to the Treehouse,” Charlie said, gesturing upward with his beak.

“What stairs?” Alfredo wondered. He unshouldered his pack and pulled out a machete he had borrowed from the gardener’s shed at St. Sophia’s. Hacking through a hundred years of vinage was no small task, but the effort revealed a series of wooden steps, stacked one upon the next, winding around a central axis and disappearing into the darkness above.

He tested the bottom step. It seemed sturdy enough, and he wound his way up, hacking the thick growth of vines from the steps. He continued chopping away until his machete cut through to a wooden deck made of smooth, straight tree branches lashed together by living and dead vines. He cut away the last of the vines and heaved himself onto the deck.

A crude railing of smooth, undulating lengths of whitewashed branches attached to posts enclosed the small deck, evidently a favorite perch for a multitude of birds. “Bruthamax slept outside on this bench in the summertime,” Charlie said, pointing to a vine-encased bench.

“That looks more like a sofa!” Alfredo said and sat down. Over the years, vines had poured over the railing and formed a back.

Vines hung down from the tree branches in a curtain of green leaves, through which Alfredo finally saw it: Bruthamax’s Treehouse. He pushed through the hanging vines and stood before a small edifice, encrusted with tendrils of ropey gray.

Leaves rustled slightly in the branches overhead, and a voice called out, “That’s too far, JoEd! Come back where I can see you!”

A crow dropped onto the deck, and Charlie said, “Jayzu, meet my wife, Rika.”

“I am at my wit’s end with that son of yours,” Rika said irritably as she extended her wing in greeting. “Grawky, Jayzu! It is good to finally make your acquaintance. My husband speaks very highly of you.”

“Grawky, Rika!” Alfredo said, blushing under her compliment as he brushed his hand across her outstretched wing.

Suddenly she whipped around and shouted, “JoEd! You come back here this instant!” But the little crow did not heed her. She turned around and said to Charlie, “Husband, please fetch back your son before he finds some breeze to blow away on!”

As Charlie took off, Rika said to Alfredo, “I swear by the Great Orb, Jayzu, it is harder with them out of the nest. They can do more, but at least when they were little, the nest kept them from wandering off or getting into trouble.”

As she spoke, four young crows tumbled down onto the deck. “Oh!” Rika said. “And here’s the rest of our family, Jayzu. Kreegans, say hello to Jayzu.”

“Grawky, Jayzu,” the four little crows said in unison, bowing low with their wings straight out over the deck. Alfredo got down on his knees to crow level, grinning at their squeaky young voices. He brushed their little wingtips with his hand, greeting each one in turn.

Charlie came back with JoEd in tow, nudging him into compliance. Even as the two crows landed on the deck, JoEd tried to break free of his parents’ dominion, but Rika caught him by a tail feather and dragged him back. “JoEd, don’t make me clip your wings,” Rika scolded. Turning to Charlie, she said, “Husband, please try to talk some sense into your son!”

“Aw, Weebs!” JoEd complained. “You never let me have any fun. There’s a whole world out there beyond this boring old tree.”

“Listen to your mother, JoEd,” Charlie said. “And say grawky to Jayzu.”

“Grawky, Jayzu!” JoEd said obediently and brushed his wing against Alfredo’s outstretched hand. “My zazu talks about you all the time.”

“Well, JoEd,” Alfredo laughed, “my new friend Charlie, your zazu, has told me all about you! I understand you have already learned to fly.”

“Yes, Jayzu,” JoEd said, puffing up with pride. “I’m an early bird, just like my zazu. And I am going to be a Keeper someday, too. I’ve already been chosen!”

Alfredo watched Rika jump up and dash off to keep JoEd’s siblings from falling off the deck; they were playing King on the Mountain on the deck railing.

“Come, kreegans,” she said to the fledglings. “Back up to the nest!” She scooped them up with her wings and pushed them up into the branches. With a great deal of fluttering and flapping, the little ones made it back to the nest. “JoEd!” Rika called down. “Please come and look after the others.”

“Ah, Weebs!” JoEd said, but obediently he flew up to the nest.

Alfredo turned toward the Treehouse. “A work of art,” he said. “Just like the chapel.”

Years of ivy-growth had almost completely covered the Treehouse, in an ordered chaos of interlocking branches that held one another in place

“Where is the door?” he asked. “These vines have obliterated it. Do you mind if I cut away some of them?”

“Be my guest,” Charlie said. “That stuff grows like weeds.”

Alfredo cut until he uncovered the wooden handle of the door and hacked at the vines until the door appeared.

“That door has been shut for hundreds of corvid generations,” Charlie said. “Ever since our beloved Bruthamax moved up to the chapel in his last days.”

Alfredo yanked on the handle, and the door creaked opened on its wooden hinges. Darkness and scents of mold and dust greeted his senses. He fished a couple of candles from his pack, lit one, and stepped into the Treehouse, and held it up. The trunk of the huge gum tree rose up through the floor and disappeared in the tangled branches of the Hozey-style roof. The walls comprised a solid mass of branches and vines so thick no daylight could penetrate.

Decades of leaves, twigs, and dirt littered the floor and the sparse furnishings: a small rustic table and a bench under a broken window, and a long narrow bed. A stovepipe chimney had collapsed into a crude fireplace.

Charlie and Rika walked across the threshold and into the Treehouse. “Oh, Husband!” Rika said. “Is it not a privilege to stand in the domicile of the great Bruthamax? To think he sat on that bench! Ate at that table!”

“Evidently Bruthamax constructed the walls in the Hozey way as well as the roof,” Alfredo said as he held his candle aloft. “And over the years, the spaces completely filled in with these vines.” He held his candle up as high as he could and gazed upward. Same as the roof.”

“What’s good for the roof is good for the walls, I reckon,” Charlie said.

Alfredo melted the end of the other candle and stuck it to a table constructed of a single driftwood plank on three legs.

“How did Bruthamax build this by himself, I wonder,” he said as he lit the candle from the one in his hand.

“He didn’t,” Charlie said from the doorway. “Hozey the Younger and his family helped him. Just like the chapel and the bridge.”

“They say Bruthamax slept right here,” Charlie said, walking over to a shallow box on legs constructed of split tree trunks.

Bruthamax’s bed had been built up against the wall of the Treehouse, following its contours. “Nothing beats leaves for warmth and cushioning, you know,” Rika said as she surveyed the bed full of tree debris and dirt. “Except perhaps feathers.”

Alfredo laughed and said, “Yes, feathers are best!”

“As the family history goes,” Charlie said, “Bruthamax made a winter cloak out of bird feathers. Crows, mostly, as we are the largest bird family on Cadeña-l’jadia. We, that is my ancestors, they all donated feathers, and Bruthamax sewed them together into a giant cloak that covered him from head to foot. Slept under it too, as the account goes.”

“That must be where the stories come from,” Alfredo said, imagining what the city folk saw. “They say a giant crow used to walk the shores of the island at night, fishing from the river.”

“That would be Bruthamax,” Rika said, nodding. “In his crow feather cloak.”

“It could be made quite livable,” Alfredo said, considering the possibility. “A bit of cleaning, really, is all the place needs.”

“The glass is cracked,” Rika said, pointing a wing toward the broken window above the table.

“And a little window repair,” Alfredo said. “I wonder where Bruthamax got the piece of glass? And that piece of stovepipe? Surely they did not float here on the river!”

They stepped back out onto the deck. Charlie and Rika’s kreegans perched on the railing, all eyes upon Jayzu. “JoEd!” Rika called up to the nest. “What are these kreegans doing down here?” She flew up into the branches. “Don’t tell me that little judavoid has flown off again!”

Charlie flew out of the tree after his son, and Alfredo sat down on the bench. The young crows jumped from the railing into his lap, onto his shoulders and his head where they played King on the Mountain. One fell off his lap and onto the deck, where he discovered Jayzu’s shoelaces. Another pecked at Jayzu’s watch, saying, “Sparkly!”

Alfredo laughed and captured the young crows in his hands, one at a time, put them on their backs, and tickled them under their wings as they laughed and kicked their little feet. “All right, kreegans!” he said after everyone had been tickled at least once. He stood up, scattering the crows to the bench and deck. “It is time for Uncle Jayzu to go home.”

“King on the Mountain!” shouted one of the kreegans as he leapt up to the railing. His siblings flew to the challenge, ready to unseat him and claim the top rail.

Alfredo said good-bye to Rika and spiraled himself down to the ground on the Bruthamax’s stairway. As he walked below the Treehouse, he stumbled on a rock buried in dirt and leaves, and fell forward with a shout as he tumbled through rotten wooden planks into a shallow pit. Unharmed, he stood up and brushed the dirt from his hands.

He stood in a circular hole about five feet deep, lined with flat gray blocks of limestone. Near the top of the pit, a short length of a rusty steel pipe protruded through the stone. “A cistern!” Alfredo said in amazement.

Charlie looked down from the Treehouse railing. “What’s a cistern?”

Alfredo leaped out of the pit and started uncovering the ring of gray rocks at the top. “It is a place to gather and store water,” he said. “People collect rainwater in barrels and cisterns near their houses so they do not have to haul it. Water is quite heavy.”

He looked up at the underside of the Treehouse. “But this one did not collect rain water. I bet this pipes water from a stream or a spring nearby.” He kicked aside the dirt and leaves covering the pipe and followed it a short distance uphill, to a pond fed by a small, trickling stream.

“This must’ve been Bruthamax’s water source,” Alfredo said, pointing to the other end of the pipe. “It must have gotten clogged up over the years.” He dropped to his knees and took a drink from the clear pool, sweet and cold.

He stood up, surveying the old hermit’s water works. It would not take much to get the cistern filled again. But not today. “I must head back,” he said to Charlie. “The Captain will be arriving at the inlet to pick me up shortly.”

Under Charlie’s winged guidance, he walked back to the inlet, where the Captain and Sugarbabe awaited him. The Captain rowed in silence, and Alfredo watched the green island recede, hoping one day he would never leave. He imagined sleeping on the deck of the Treehouse, with everything he needed at hand’s reach. Perhaps Charlie and Rika would not mind.

Alfredo could not stop thinking about the cistern underneath the tree house, wondering how Bruthamax could have built it by himself. He could imagine digging a hole that large, but with what? And the cement to grout in the limestone bricks? Where did that come from? Where did he get the iron pipe? Surely not from Hozey!

Clearly Bruthamax had a human helper, someone like the Captain perhaps? To bring him supplies and help with the heavy work … but then why do the crows say he never spoke to a human after he came to the island?

He returned to the Treehouse a few days later, with Charlie again leading him through the bogs and dark forest. He brought a small, plastic tarp, a shovel, and a bucket and cleaned the dirt and leaves out of the cistern. Even the bottom had been lined with limestone bricks, and grouted with cement.

After he unclogged the pipe at the small pool, it sucked water in with a loud slurping noise. He ran back, hearing the sound of water falling as a stream poured into the cistern.

“This will take days to fill,” he said as he and Charlie watched. He pulled a few branches across the top of the cistern and covered them with the tarp. He placed a few large rocks around the edge of the tarp to hold it down. “That should keep dirt and animals out, until I can build a more permanent cover.”

He spent the night on the deck of the Treehouse, gazing at the stars up through the leaves. Corvus, the constellation of the raven, looked down upon him from high in the southern sky. He fell asleep long after midnight and slept soundly all through the night, until the kreegans dropped down on his chest just before dawn.

William Luther handed Father Superior Thomas Majewski a cup of coffee, saying, “The Times and the morning mail are on your desk, Father.”

“Thank you, William,” Majewski said, and he strode into his office. Moments after he sat down, Snowbell leaped into his lap. He stroked her back and scowled in distaste at the letter from an attorney on the top of his mail pile.

He reached for the Times, spreading the newspaper open over the dreaded mail. He read every page, including the Fashion and Real Estate sections. The Travel section sang like a siren. New Zealand! Amsterdam! London! Even a trip to New Jersey would beat having to deal with the matter on the top of his mail.

Majewski folded the newspaper carefully when he finished and added it to the stack next to the fireplace. “All right, my Snowbell,” he said, “stop this procrastinating and get to work, you hear me?” He scratched the cat under her chin and then rifled through the mail.

The large envelope from Alfredo Manzi seized his attention. “That was quick—was it not, my queen?” he said as he tore it open. “I asked Manzi to send me a report on that island only a week ago.” He settled back into his chair and pulled out the report. “Did he discover the talking crows?”

He read the note from Alfredo, stuck on the first page:

Thomas-
Here is my report on Wilder Island as you requested, including photographs…..AM

Majewski peeled the note off and scanned the report. Two miles long, one mile wide … mostly wetlands … dense swampy forest … not enough trees for commercial logging … no farming … no mining …

He leaned back in his chair, took his glasses off and chewed the end of one of the ear rails. No mention of talking crows. Of course not! They’re not real. They never were. He shamed himself for even thinking otherwise. They were always just a feature of Brother Maxmillian’s insanity.

The same feature of Stella’s insanity? Before her face materialized out of his memory, he leaned forward, put his glasses back on, and continued reading:

I have enclosed photos of the extraordinary little chapel that I told you about. There are no nails anywhere; everything was attached with living and dead vines that have since dried and hardened.

Majewski spread the photos on his desk and picked up the image of the chapel. “It looks like a bird’s nest!” he said to Snowbell, who woke up suddenly to clean a paw. “That’s at least interesting from an historical perspective, is it not? Perhaps the Order should restore that chapel. And the icons—our brother certainly had a gift—maybe I should take them to the Museum of Jesuit History.”

He read the last paragraph of Manzi’s report:

I have found Brother Wilder’s residence on the opposite end of the island as the chapel. He lived in a tree house of the same general construction as the old chapel, except a bit more weatherproof. Like the chapel, it is extraordinary. I have enclosed a couple of photographs.

Majewski smiled at the photograph of the tree house. Manzi was right. It’s absolutely enchanting, as if wood elves live inside. He rotated the photograph 180 degrees. Definitely a bird’s nest.

He pushed the intercom button on his phone.

“Yes, Father.”

“William, check my calendar and clear four days where I don’t have appointments that can’t be moved. Then book me a flight to Ledford. Yes, William. I’m going to Wilder Island.”

“As you wish, Father.”

https://www.amazon.com/Corvus-Rising-Book-Patua-Heresy/dp/0991224515