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Chapter Ninety-Seven

CARMINE

As a raven, I am free of the disorder that’s killing my human body, but not immortal. If I stayed in this shape, I would die. The stake stays in my heart because I am, and always will be, aware of it. It hurts, but in this form, constant pain is just another fact of life. It’s not personal.

The mind of a raven knows the difference between individuals of all species. It knows where food is, who delivers it, and who has played tricks on it. Ravens hold grudges. Raven hearts have room for obsession.

In my raven form, love is held in the larger mind, and my human fixation drives me to follow the cab as it becomes just one in a sea of yellow carbon-copies.

I have forgotten where she’s headed, since the context of relationships is gone, but I don’t lose the cab.

I will never lose it. The intersection is a box of lemon Tic Tacs, but I only follow the one she’s inside. It will never be like another.

Now I know the place. It is where the trees end. I have been here. The energies of my last visit remain.

I wait on the ledge outside her window. The curtains are drawn, but there’s a slit between. A blue bag rests on the bed. Lights go on and off from the other side of the door. The sun drops lower. I stand guard.

She isn’t here. Where is she? I can sense her.

Where-where-where

Off the ledge. Into the sky. I’m hungry, but it’s nothing compared to the unquenched thirst for her.

I fly around the building and see light.

I land on a railing. She’s on the other side of the window.

The barrier between the railing and the glass stops me when I am man-shaped.

But when I have wings, it only slows me.

In this form, it is not a wall of refusal, but a curtain.

Landing on the back of a patio chair, I see her inside, sitting on the couch. There are others with her, but they don’t have a place in my memory. The way they touch her does not hurt me.

My obsession remembers clearly. In the older place, on the other side of a water desert, I watched her through a window. She went inside the heart of the snare-setter. I recognize the tendrils of attention and the intention to make change. I will never forget them in any form.

They are here now, in this new place. Not from her into someone, but reversed.

To her. Into her. Penetrating.

It’s happening to her. Not me, but…

She is being opened.

She does not cry.

I want to squirm.

She is not hurt.

But something is happening to me.