Crow's Nest Magazine

Volume I, Spring 2010

2010-02-01T05:33:00.000-08:00

There is nothing so deceptive as the distance of a light upon a pitch-dark night, and sometimes the glimmer seemed to be far away upon the horizon and sometimes it might have been within a few yards of us.

---Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles

2009-10-25T07:29:00.000-07:00

Literature

Rebecca Huggins

Room of the Three Windows
Death Personified

Chris Castle

Kale's Sketches

Maddy Stella Fletcher
There are Monsters

Jillian Koopman
Bite Down, Hard

Amanda Curtis
Destiny's Horseman

Daniel W. Davis
The Girl Down Front

Barry Pomeroy
Buying a Half Basement

Rinas Stroman
Black Carriage

Kyle Hemmings
Box of Sky

Neil Coghlan
The Small Town Storyteller

Liz Haigh
Invisible

Matthew Hamilton
The White Lady

Richard Dyer
Sand Dollars

Wade J. McMahan
Vengeance of the Wolves

Mike Berger

The Thing
Cannibal Grapes

Annastaysia Savage

Grimalkins

Erin Fanning

Crossing the River Styx

Chris Deal

Pursuit

Trisha Wolfe
Redemption

K.S. Riggin
The Word of a Pirate

Nicole Settle
The Boat

Ally Malinenko
The House

Sara Henry
Liar, Liar

Elle Pryor
One Eye

Room of the Three Windows

2009-10-24T07:20:00.000-07:00

by Rebecca Huggins

It was not long after the flood that Padre became sick. His sickness had begun as a simple aversion to some of the meals that my mother prepared, but slowly progressed into what the people of Iguitos, Peru have referred to as the Great Sickness. When the medicinal woman, Isidora Ortega told us that there was little she could do for my father in his progressed stage of illness, our family mourned him as if his life had already been lost. Madre spent the days in sorrowful contemplation, while AbuelaAdela held her silent vigil over her bead working. My younger brother, Hernan, was too small to truly understand the sudden dark cloud that had been placed over our lives, and Tia Consuela was the only one who managed to keep a cheery, though artificial disposition during that time. Without resent, she cooked, cleaned, and maintained the household singlehandedly, allowing Madre the opportunity to mourn the loss of her husband in peace.

On the Sunday following, I was helping Tia make manjar blanco to help brighten the otherwise somber mood of the home. Hernan was busy playing in the sugar and licking his fingers happily, while I stirred the large pot of milk. Tia was bustling about, giving us orders, and sticking a chubby finger into the concoction to test it occasionally. When I was certain that Hernan was not listening, I asked Tia a question that had been bothering me as of late.

“Tia, why are we mourning Padre? He is not dead yet, and still, we act as if his spirit has passed.”

Tia Consuela made a sorrowful face and wrapped one of her strong arms around me. “No tears, Carmen. Your father was a great man, but has lived his life. Sometimes things happen we can’t control.”

We ate our manjar blanco and laughed for the first time since my father had contracted the Great Sickness.

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Kale's Sketches

2009-10-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

by Chris Castle

He turned back to his beloved blackboard. His fingers moved up and down, the chalk his conductor, or so he imagined. He was the leader the pupils; the lumps and mouths, his audience. As he finished, he tapped the board two, three times on the full stop, so that dust smoked up and around him. He turned dramatically and imagined that the puff of smoke was thick enough to conceal him, and then he would burst through it, an academic illusionist, set to dazzle. The illustrious Mr. Jenkins!

“Kale, I want you to write these lines out a hundred times before you leave your desk. I know, seeing as you practically are deaf and dumb, you won’t read the lines before we start, so I will do so for you. It says: ‘I will not sit with my head in the clouds when Mr. Jenkins is kindly trying to explain the wonders of geography.” Mr. Jenkins stopped and looked at the board, almost sprinted back to it. “And, comma, ‘especially on his last day.’”

He walked back over to the boy and stood over his desk. Such a meek child. Pasty faced, always hunched over his notebook, like a prisoner squatting over his food. Like somebody permanently about to be beaten. Oh well, best not disappoint, and he firmly cuffed the boy round the ear. He waited. He waited for the delicious sound of whimpering, or the truly magical sight of a boy’s fresh tear. But again, like everything else with the wretched thing, nothing.

“Yes, Kale, today is my last day at this useless lump of a school. Onwards and upwards. You should see it, my own work room, lush fields, food you can eat rather than the filth you find here. And between you and me,” he leaned in close to the boy’s tiny, perfect ear, “The boys want to learn. Really! And if boys want to learn, Kale, well, I’ve got so much to teach.” He stayed by the boy’s ear, breathing, then quick as a flash, he licked the boy’s inner lobe, then rose up to his original spot. Nothing. The boy was astonishing in his aloofness. Jenkins thought for a long second what he could do to garner a response from the thing. But he shook himself out of it. Too close to freedom to get involved in any more silly business, he thought.

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There are Monsters

2009-10-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

Maddy Stella Fletcher

Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

--G.K. Chesterton

Gilda knew about the monster in her closet.

She was eight, but that didn't mean that she was stupid, and Gilda had discovered that many adults believed the two were interchangeable. Gilda had mastered tying her laces years ago, could ride her bike without the training wheels, make peanut butter and banana sandwiches entirely unsupervised without spilling anything and even knew how to operate the DVD player in order to watch Dora explore something. She knew that four quarters could get her exactly twenty pixie sticks from the convenience store down the block. She was also somewhat informed of where babies came from: at least she was certain that there were no birds involved. Gilda also knew three swear words, including the really bad one her father had accidentally said in front of her that time when he had run over one of her roller skates while moving the lawn and had made her promise never to repeat in front of her mother.

It didn't take long for Gilda to realize that there was, indeed, a monster living in her closet. Lying her pale yellow bedroom, the glow-in-the-dark plastic stars staring down at her from the ceiling, Gilda would be tucked in by her parents and told to sleep tight. Gilda was always smiled as her father kissed her forehead, and made a show of closing her eyes and burrowing deeper into her pillow. She had tried, once, to tell her parents of the creature that lived amongst her jackets and sweaters, that hid amid her hung up dresses and skirts during the day, only to emerge, hulking and snarling at night, but she had only been chided and told that there was nothing to fear. Gilda thought to herself that, really, there was quite a lot of fear, but that, for her parents' sake, she would take care of it.

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Bite Down, Hard

2009-10-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

Jillian Koopman

You meet your parents at a restaurant one night for dinner. They've driven up to your college on their way to your aunt's, a christening or something, a baptism. You don't remember. It's late, 8:30 already, and you're starving. You merely smell the alcohol and you're drunk. You're so fucking lightweight it's sickening.

Your father looks darling. He wears his hair bald in the middle now, or for the past forty years. You sometimes forget important details like this. You remember when he had the mustache, or when he didn't have the mustache. You forget, even, this detail sometimes, it's so natural to you it's like whether or not he has two eyes. But you look tonight to make sure—and yes, it's there, simple as math. Black and straight and ordinary as those two little equal sign lines.

Your mother gets more beautiful each time you see her. Older too, and somehow she still manages to pull this off. You feel ugly next to her and you're the twenty-one year old, you're the one with the tight thighs, while she is in her mid-fifties. But she is all sorts of other beauty you won't credit yourself with, can't credit yourself with, like bossing around tons of people who still love you or being able to replace parts of yourself with the lives of your children. But still, she wears her earrings, she is beautiful.

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Destiny's Horseman

2009-10-19T11:13:00.000-07:00

Amanda Curtis

I served a line of very ordinary customers, who all looked as though they’re in a rush to get somewhere else. The time they spend in a grocery store is irrelevant to them, they just want to get in, buy their food, and get out. But when death wandered in, carrying his scythe, then you know there’s trouble.

“Have a good day!” I said cheerfully, waving another regular away. An elderly woman moved up next, she’s smiling and tottering, her hands shaking fiercely. “How are you?”

Death moved into my line of sight, joining the queue of customers. He had his shopping trolley at the ready. Why did he choose now, of all times? My heart pounded in my throat, announcing that something wasn’t right here. I served one last customer, when Death finally banged his goods on the counter. They ranged from a frying pan to bleach. What surprised me though wasn’t either of these items. It was the fact that he had a skeleton mask from our Halloween range.

“I said I’d meet you after work,” I said, glaring at him. My eyes swivelled over to the mask. I gripped it and swiped it through, before he could change his mind. What was he, insane? Anger flooded through me. Please tell me it wasn’t more of this blending in crap. Death nodded meekly, his bony fingers reaching for the EFTpos machine. “You take credit cards?”

I sighed. Of course we took credit cards. How could we not take credit cards, the large establishment that we were? But Death couldn’t be expected to know that, and in all honesty, I didn’t know why I gave him the time of day.

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The Girl Down Front

2009-10-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

Daniel W. Davis

She sat in the second row, first seat on the left-hand isle. She held her shoulders straight, every day, for all fifty minutes of the period. She was there when Patrick arrived, and she stayed when he left. Her outfit changed, though he noticed a certain rotation: green sweatshirt on Mondays, blue on Tuesdays, gray on Wednesdays, gold on Thursdays, and dark pink on Fridays. One Wednesday she wore a red sweatshirt, and he thought about it for the rest of the day, dreamed about it when he went to sleep that night. He expected a change the next day; but there she was, fifth period, in a gold sweatshirt. His heart sank a little, but the red sweatshirt stayed with him.

It was traditional in study hall for the teacher to call out the names of the students. Mr. Spitz was atypical however, and took attendance by reading his sheet. He called out names whenever a student raised their hand, but the girl down front never did. She never seemed to move, and Patrick wondered if she was reading a book. Some romance novel, something fantastical where the hero gets the girl (or vice versa) and the bad guy gets his comeuppance.

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Buying a Half Basement

2009-10-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

Barry Pomeroy

Sam knew the protocol of buying a new house. He knew that you had to walk thoughtfully around the premises with the realty agent, knock carefully on pipes and make contemplative noises at window sashes and door frames. Sam also knew, although he couldn't bring himself to do it, that he had to look into the basement.

The basement is the bones of the house, realty people would tell him. You need to know more about the foundation than you do the paint. For Sam, the bone talk was creepy, and basements were off limits. He had made up his mind not to buy a house with a basement, preferring instead the solid concrete three foot slabs that underlay bungalows, but the housing market in Winnipeg was such that he was left with no choice. That is why Sam was knocking on exposed pipes in the bathroom and running the faucets, avoiding the inevitable.

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Black Carriage

2009-10-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

by Rinas Stroman

It was a foggy, rainy night when the black carriage rumbled into the streets. As it turned the corner, an abnormal figure stood in its way. Unmoving like a statue and taller than average, the figure's eyes appeared soulless and devoid of humanity. The two horses whined, stopping abruptly so as not to strike the figure in their path. Slowly, the man approached the carriage.

“I’d advise you stop right there,” mumbled a deep, manic voice from inside the carriage, “Any trifle attempts at my life will only ensure the death of your beloved wife.”

At this, the figure stopped, considered. He sunk to the ground, hands fumbling in the darkness. “…It…it’s not true, is it?” he bellowed. “The Cystiane…it can’t be powerful enough to destroy the world?”

“Why yes, my gray colored friend…this is powerful enough to destroy ten worlds, much less this one!” Thunder flashed through the skies. “However, if the composition is what I believe it is, the effects of the pill will be reversed, thus becoming an antidote that will turn you back into your true form!”

“But…what about my wife?”

“She will take the last Cystiane as well…assuming the pill does what needs to be done…” The carriage door flew open. A pill, smaller still than an insect, lay bare on the ground, soaked by the rain. The figure appeared much weaker now, as he gazed up and into the carriage.

“This is goodbye," the man within the carriage said, "I can only hope the one above is beside you."

Instantly the black carriage vanished. Lightning flashed across the darkened sky, followed by great, roaring thunder.

The man regarded the pill, now completely drenched with rain. He picked it up and swallowed it. And then he screamed. His body twisted and turned unnaturally, the bones beneath his skin protruding grotesquely. The rain seemed to weep for the figure, falling at an abnormal rate.

A loud, cawing sound screamed to the sky...and a raven flew amidst the rain…

© 2010 Rinas Stroman. All rights reserved.
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About the Author

Inspired by many works from American books to Japanese Manga, Rinas can't go a day without writing a fiction piece for everyone to read. His works have been featured at Moon Drenched Fables. He's writing a serial, Outland Hunter, at outlandhunter.xanga.com.

Box of Sky

2009-10-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

Kyle Hemmings

I held my breath. The limbs of the pinyon pines stiffened. Behind closed lids, I saw the scrublands, the austere blueness of the sky, the fig trees past ridges. They all spoke a language I could only begin to understand. I opened my eyes and everything could turn into a miracle: sand into water, blasphemous tongues into instruments of worship. You just have to believe strongly enough.

I was one of five orphans of the Gran Quivira Mission, raised on hard bread and long penances. Now that I’d reached manhood, it was time to leave.

Frey Hernando, before he died, had made an arrangement. Arguing with a man of God would only leave me weary. And who was I to argue against whatever dictums, dogmas were handed down from a mountain? Frey Hernando had chosen a girl I never met for me to marry. I was to take a simple path to find her.

I could tell by the length of shadows that it was time. Within the stone walls of the San Buenaventura Church, I was to meet Padre Francesco. Walking lightly along the flagstone floors, I eyed the roof, the corbels and vigas, the beams strong enough to hold heaven, until I found the Padre kneeling in silent prayer.

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The Small Town Storyteller

2009-10-14T19:50:00.000-07:00

by Neil Coghlan

Professor Graham Higgins pushed on through the crowds. Though his new shoes were pinching his feet, he still had a few more book stalls to look at and the market here in the ancient heart of Salisbury would be closing in about fifteen minutes. The winter sun had already dipped below the imposing walls of the Town Hall and the bargain hunters and early Christmas shoppers scampered around in a darkening gloom.

Graham worked in nearby Bristol University and taught a handful of courses centering on Late Middle Age and Renaissance Era Britain and Europe. He loved perusing the book stalls in this haphazardly-organized open-air market in the hope of unearthing some dog-eared treasure on sale for a handful of coins. He liked to compare it to literary gold panning and had a shelf full of nuggets at home to affirm to its potential successes.

He knew most of the sellers here by name and greeted them jovially as he passed along the row of low tables.

“Evening, Bill. Anything new?” he would say to one.

“It’s a cold one today, Alison. Any new stock in?” he would inquire of another.

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Invisible

2009-10-13T20:15:00.000-07:00

Liz Haigh

I had a slow life, a lonely life, no life, until I died. My life began the day I died.

I thought it was supposed to be after you died you became invisible but for me it seemed to be the other way around. When I was alive most of the time nobody noticed me at all, it was like I wasn’t there. My life was passing by without any note and not passing quickly either but
painfully slow. In the end the slowness and the insignificance of it all got to me, I decided to try and speed things up a bit.

Then I died. Overnight everything changed, and sped up significantly. Suddenly everyone was really interested in everything about me. The police were fascinated in the most intricate details of how I died and how I spent the last days of my life.

If you’d told me while I was alive that one day scores of pretty girls would bring me flowers, I would never have believed you but that’s exactly what happened when I died. They laid them under the sycamore tree right in the centre of the campus, which was where the ‘incident’
happened. Some even shed a few tears while others wrote me sweet little notes on cards which they attached to the flowers.

Of course all this was nothing to what Lara did. I’d fancied her from the first day of term when she wore that tight pink sweater. We never really hit it off while I was alive. I tried to strike up a conversation with her a few times but while I was always on the slow side she was always fast and in a hurry to be somewhere. I’d started to think she didn’t like me at all. But when I died she was heartbroken, she even cried publicly. The local TV station came to do a report on my death.
Lara managed to get herself in front centre of the camera. As the tears rolled down her blushing cheeks she told the world what a sweet boy I was and how she’d miss me terribly.

She didn’t stop there either; she started a collection for a stone to be laid under the sycamore tree as a permanent memorial to me. Yes me, Mr Slow. She asked loads of students for a contribution, even all the fit, sporty boys, who never seemed to notice me while I was a live. They all smiled sweetly at Lara as they passed her the change in their pockets.

Those first four weeks after my death were a real crazy rush. Now everything’s slowed down again. The flowers under my tree are all dead, just a few rotten stems and withered bits of card remain. Lara hasn’t gotten around to getting my stone laid yet, she’s been busy with her exams and stuff. I don’t mind, I can wait. It just so happens I can wait forever.

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About the Author

Liz Haigh lives in Cheshire in the UK. She works at a university library which is her dream job because she loves books. She has had work published in The Legendary, Foundling Review, Blink, Bewildering Stories, Delivered and other places.

Death Personified

2009-10-12T15:42:00.000-07:00

by Rebecca Huggins

Above the darkening moon doth rest,

By Morpheus’ wings thy soul’s bequest,

To stir a mourner’s crêpe[1] veil,

A waning flame of hope prevailed.

And in thy yonder parlour sleeps,

An aging corpse of languid feats.

Doth hinder do your secrets rest?

Upon thy bloody, sodden chest!

Yet in the midnight hour dawns,

A morning hastened by cloaked Thanatos[2].

[1] French version of the Anglicized “Crape” or material of particularly crisp or crimped appearance that is woven from silk, wool, or polyester fabric of a gauzy texture.

[2] In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the daemon personification of Death. The Greek poet, Hesiod, established in his Theogony that Thánatos is a son of Nyx (Night) and Erebos (Darkness) and twin of Hypnos (Sleep).

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rebecca Huggins is a graduate from East Tennessee State University where she received her master's degree in education, and is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Black Lantern Publishing and its imprints, Broomstick Books and Crow's Nest Magazine. She holds a literature degree in English from King College. When she isn't writing, reading, or editing, she's spending time with her husband, two dogs and cat, watching movies and listening to Swedish rock bands.

The White Lady

2009-10-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

by Matthew Hamilton

E. J. disappeared 4 years ago. He was last seen walking through the rice fields, going home after work. It was forbidden to walk through the rice fields at night, but E. J. would always shrug off the stories of ghosts and witches lurking in the darkness and searching for unwary souls. “Don’t talk nonsense,” he would tell his friends and parents. “I’ve been walking through the rice fields at night for the past three months and I haven’t seen a thing. I’ll be fine. Besides, cutting through the fields cuts my trip in half.

There was only one person in the small town of Gonzaga who agreed with E. J. and that was Sir Erning, a local restaurant and resort owner. Even E. J.’s parents believed in ghosts and when E. J. was a child, they often told him stories about the white lady that lived near the mouth of the river and that every night she would visit the rice fields and collect snails and snakes to supplement her dish of disobedient children.

E. J. helped Sir Erning out every day after school, busing tables, sweeping floors, and whatever else Sir Erning needed him to do. The money he earned would help support his father who was crippled due to a boating accident. Doctors said he would never walk again. And in a town like Gonzaga, where fishing was a main source of livelihood, it put E.J.’s mother, who worked as an elementary school teacher, in a difficult situation, her salary being only 4,000 pesos per month.

E. J.’s younger brother and sister, John, 5 and Joan, 7, were too young to work. Relatives in town helped out some, but they had families of their own and could only provide some food—rice and a few vegetables mostly. Life in Gonzaga was hard on everyone.

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Crow's Nest Magazine

Volume I, Spring 2010

Table of Contents

Room of the Three Windows

Kale's Sketches

There are Monsters

Bite Down, Hard

Destiny's Horseman

The Girl Down Front

Buying a Half Basement

Black Carriage

Box of Sky

The Small Town Storyteller

Invisible

Death Personified

The White Lady