Free Black Bird by Michel Basilieres

lay inside. During the night the scratching and shuffling could be heard throughout the ward, and occasionally a low, quick cawing, like laughter.

    Overnight began one of those snowstorms that visit Montreal several times each winter, and that people elsewhere find hard to credit. The clouds had rolled in without warning, against all predictions, but brought no lessening of the cold. The wind toppled trees, radio towers and headstones on Mount Royal and then swept down along Park Avenue, its natural conduit, and passed the Desouche house so quickly that it blew the hallway and bedroom doors closed. By morning it was clear the city was already paralyzed; the radio was announcing that all schools were closed, advising people to stay home, and pulling out weather data and statistics designed to amaze and awe their listeners:
not since; surpassing even; in contrast to
.
    By noon the wind was gone but the falling snow had not diminished. The Desouches happily opened the windows again to let in some cool air. It was impossible to see anything but an ever-changing, ever mobile, ever white expanse of snow drifting down to the street. Cars, mailboxes, even the other houses across the way were only vague outlines against the blank landscape. Vehicles large and small lay abandoned at odd angles in the street; trails where brave or desperate people had waded, waist-deep, were smoothing over and filling in; the iron finials of the Desouches’ fence, poking blackly out of the drift, seemed to slowly sink and disappear.
    Aline opened the kitchen window. She watched loose flakes of snow tumble inside and drift in the breeze, melting quickly on the sill. She closed the birdcage door, wondering where Grace had gone. She listened toan unearthly silence; the snow insulated any noise, and anyway there was no traffic or sound of neighbours, who were all locked in their houses. There was not much sound inside her own house either. Jean-Baptiste was back in his room as usual; Uncle was probably, and thankfully, in his with his dog; Mother was dazedly staring out the living-room window, perhaps thinking of Angus, perhaps waiting for another visit from her friends; Father was in the basement, but he wasn’t digging. Aline had never known real silence here; almost suddenly, she realized how empty the house felt: Marie, Grandfather and Grace were all gone.
    She was upset by what had happened to Grandfather not so much because she still cared for him—although it had proven to her surprise that she did—but because she was unused to any kind of violence happening in her world. Now here was the second act which had impinged on her personal life, after Angus’s sad end. And she was shocked that Grace could have been capable of it, even in desperation. Naturally, she assumed Grace had acted in self-defence. She was neither surprised nor disappointed that Grandfather had attacked the crow; it was hard for her now to be disappointed with a man who had proven so low after appearing so elevated. But at the same time it was hard for her not to worry over his injuries, which were after all considerable. They had left him in the hospital with his whole head wrapped up in bandages to hold the wound closed, and red gashes on his face and neck where claws and wing tips had done their less severe but still evident damage.
    Grandfather had quite rudely suggested that her vocal prayers were not only useless but annoying to himself, the patient. But she had prayed anyway, that some good might come of such a dark event; though she had done so only later, at home and in silence.
    Now, in silence, she took out a cookbook and absently leafed through its pages, looking for a recipe to match the few ingredients she had on hand.
    In one respect Grandfather had been lucky: he’d arrived at the hospital before the blizzard. By the evening the police were asking for the public’s help and commandeering snowmobiles for emergencies and sleds to be towed behind them. It was