Free Newford Stories by Charles De Lint Page B

own.
    “Don’t dawdle,” the one on her right
said.
    Jilly looked back at the buffalo man.
    “Go on,” he said.
    She shook her head. “Don’t be silly.”
    For some reason that made the crow girls
giggle.
    “There’s no reason you can’t come too,” she
said. She turned to look at the crow girls. “There isn’t, is
there?”
    “Well…” one of them said.
    “I suppose not.
    “The door’s closed,” the buffalo man told
them. “I can feel it inside, shut tight.”
    “Your door’s closed,” one of the girls
agreed.
    “But hers is still open.”
    Still he hesitated. Jilly pulled away from
the crow girls and walked over to him.
    “Half the trick to living large,” she said,
“is the living part.”
    He let her take him by the hand and walk him
back to where the crow girls waited. Holding hands, with one of the
spiky-haired girls on either side of them, they walked toward the
mouth of the alleyway. But before they could get halfway there…
     
    * * *
     
    Jilly blinked and opened her eyes to a ring
of concerned faces.
    “We did it, we did it, we did it!” the crow
girls cried.
    They jumped up from Jilly’s side and danced
around in a circle, banging into furniture, stepping on toes and
generally raising more of a hullabaloo than would seem possible for
two such small figures. It lasted only a moment before Lucius put a
hand on each of their shoulders and held them firmly in place.
    “And very clever you were, too,” he said as
they squirmed in his grip. “We’re most grateful.”
    Jilly turned to look at the man lying next
to her on the sofa.
    “How are you feeling?” she asked.
    His gaze made a slow survey of the room,
taking in the Kelledys, the professor, Lucius and the wriggling
crow girls.
    “Confused,” he said finally. “But in a good
way.”
    The two of them sat up.
    “So you’ll stay?” Jilly asked. “You’ll see
it through this time?”
    “You’re giving me a choice?”
    Jilly grinned. “Not likely.”
     
    - 8 -
     
    Long after midnight, the Kelledys sat in
their living room looking out at the dark expanse of their lawn.
The crows were still roosting in the oaks, quiet now except for the
odd rustle of feathers or a soft, querulous croak. Lucius and the
crow girls had gone back down the street to the Rookery, but not
before the two girls had happily consumed more cookies, chocolates
and soda pop than seemed humanly possible. But then, they weren’t
human, they were corbae. The professor and Jilly had returned to
their respective homes as well, leaving only a preoccupied buffalo
man who’d finally fallen asleep in one of the extra rooms
upstairs.
    “Only a few more days until Christmas,”
Cerin said.
    “Mmm.”
    “And still no snow.”
    “Mmm.”
    “I’m thinking of adopting the crow
girls.”
    Meran gave him a sharp look.
    He smiled. “Just seeing if you were paying
attention. What were you thinking of?”
    “If there’s a word for a thing because it
happens, or if it happens because there’s a word for it.”
    “I’m not sure I’m following you.”
    Meran shrugged. “Life, death. Good, bad.
Kind, cruel. What was the world like before we had language?”
    “Mercurial, I’d think. Like the crow girls.
One thing would flow into another. Nothing would have been really
separate from anything else because everything would have been made
up of pieces of everything else.”
    “It’s like that now.”
    Cerin nodded. “Except we don’t think of it
that way. We have the words to say this is one thing, this is
another.”
    “So we’ve lost…what? A kind of harmony?”
    “Perhaps. But we gained free will.”
    Meran sighed. “Why did we have to give up
the one to gain the other?”
    “I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess it’s
because we need to be individuals. Without our differences, without
our needing to communicate with one another, we’d lose our ability
to create art, to love, to dream…”
    “To hate. To destroy.”
    “But most of us strive