Free Crow Country by Kate Constable Page B

Jimmy shook his head. ‘You understand it? Maybe you can explain it all to me some time.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘You know, Sadie, this isn’t my country. I wasn’t born here; this isn’t my land. My country is way down south by the sea. I don’t belong in this place. I don’t reckon I’ll ever see my country again. But I know a special place when I see it. There’s a special place in that valley. I know it. The people who belong to that place, they’re not here to protect it, so I got to do it. You understand that? That’s what I got to do. He builds that dam, drowns that place, I don’t know what might happen. Bad things. I don’t know what. I been trying to tell him, but he won’t listen. Even your dad don’t understand. Gerry Mortlock never going to listen.’
    â€˜It’s not your fault,’ said Sadie. ‘You’ve done your best.’
    â€˜Law’s the Law,’ said Jimmy. ‘Law’s broken, we all suffer. I gotta do something.’
    Sadie bit her lip. ‘If I can help,’ she said. ‘If you can think of anything—’
    â€˜Too late for that, Sadie, I reckon.’ Jimmy nodded toward the door. ‘You go in. Your mum’ll be wanting you.’
    Sadie glanced back at the house and then back to Jimmy. But he was gone.
    Sadie was alone in the darkness, the washing basin cold in her fingers; the stars prickling icy overhead in the vault of the sky; a wild cawing in her ears, and a bright light dazzling her eyes . . .
    She was on her hands and knees in the road, blinded by car headlights.
    â€˜You bloody little idiot!’ someone shouted. ‘I could have killed you!’
    Sadie scrambled to her feet, waved her gloves at the car in a dumbstruck apology, and staggered off into the night. She told herself that it was fright at being nearly run over that made her legs wobble.
    But a sick feeling of dread churned in her stomach, a foreboding that something terrible was going to happen. Blinded by the car’s lights, Sadie stretched out her hands in the soupy dark, as if she could grope from one fistful of shadow to the next. The night thrummed with rustlings and scamperings and the slow whir of insects, but she couldn’t see.

S adie dreamed.
    In the dream, she walked across an endless plain. It was night. The ground beneath her feet was swallowed in darkness, but the sky that arched over her shimmered with innumerable stars. She walked, stumbling over stones, toward the sound of weeping.
    A crow, larger and blacker than any crow she’d ever seen, lifted his head as she approached, as if he had been waiting for her. Tears etched a terrible silver trail from each of his bright eyes. He didn’t speak but gazed at her from a grief so deep there were no words.
    She wanted to comfort him, but she didn’t know how. In her dream, she clumsily reached an arm across the crow’s neck. But as she tried to embrace him, he shivered and dissolved, evaporating beneath her touch, and her arm plunged into nothingness, through dark as soft as feathers. There was only the sorrow-struck cry, waa-aah . . . waa-aah . . .  that echoed across the earth, inside her head, vibrating through her bones, and she trembled awake in her own bed.
    On Saturday, she didn’t go with David and Ellie to watch the Magpies lose to St Arnaud. Ellie didn’t try to persuade her to come; her mum seemed more than happy to seize the chance of some time alone with David to finish making up after their argument.
    Sadie finished her homework in record time and slouched around the house feeling bored. She thought about visiting the stones, but her dream had made her uneasy. She was worried that the crows might be angry that she’d shown their place to Lachie; maybe it was best to stay away.
    After a day of boredom, she eagerly agreed to go to the pub for dinner.
    Ellie caught her in the bathroom. ‘I think