AN at the end of the story.
Oh my mama, she's been falling, falling down for quite some time – Anthony and the Johnsons, rapture
When she comes back from Paris there are black feathers on her doormat.
Miranda wants to be angry, but she is too tired and it is the middle of the night. She'll reprimand the girls tomorrow about dragging foreign animals into the house. She prepares for bed quickly and falls into a deep and dreamless sleep, unaware of the big black bird that watches her from the top of her dressoir.
'Morning' Crow says, when Miranda wakes up.
Miranda opens her eyes and sees a big bird on her windowsill. She stares at the bird. It's a piercing glance that shows contempt and disbelief at the localization of the sound coming from the bird.
Without leaving the crow out of her sight she picks up her phone, calls Emily and orders pest control. 'For birds,' she adds.
The crow rolls his eyes. 'That's what I thought' he rasps. 'I heard you are a stubborn one.'
'Moooom!' Is the unitary sound that she hears when her girls throw their arms around her neck.
'You're back!'
'How was Paris?'
'Did you bring us presents?'
They chatter happily while they nestle themselves at her sides on the bed. She hugs them in return and tells them 'oh my darling Bobbseys, mommy missed you.' She kisses the top of their heads and smells their unique but familiar scent. They ask her about Paris, and she asks them about their days at their father. Then she asks, gently, 'sweeties, what did I tell you about bringing animals other than Patricia into the house?'
They look at her in confusion. Like they do not understand what she is getting at. It is then she realizes that her girls have yet to take notice of the bird across the room. The crow grins a lazy smile with his beak. 'Try your best honey,' he says. 'Let them believe you've gone mad, it will only make this more interesting.'
Miranda closes her eyes. 'Let's go make breakfast darlings', she murmurs. They cheer, the confusing question forgotten and with a daughter at each side she walks to the kitchen. The bird doesn't follow.
When she comes back the doors of her closet are open and an outfit is laid out across at her bedside. She tells herself she laid it out yesterday in preparation for work. She showers, picks a different outfit and heads to the office. She refuses to see the bird.
When she comes home, late, Stephen has called about the lawyer he has taken on. That he is going to challenge their prenup. She has not expected anything different. But she drinks a copious amount of scotch and rages internally.
'You could say hello to me.' She hears from behind her. When she turns around the crow – bigger than regular crows definitely – looks at her with an expectant expression.
She ignores it and takes another swig.
'Say hello to me properly.' He demands.
They stare at each other in silence. Her children are in bed, no one will know she talks to an empty room.
'You are a hallucination.'
'That's not a reason to not greet someone' Crow replies.
Miranda's expression tells that she very much thinks it is.
'People greet Gods all the time.' Crow adds. He looks entirely too self-righteous.
Then Crow shakes his wings, flaps them open and hits one of the photo frames on the mantelpiece. It's one of them at a fundraising evening for children with dyslexia. Her daughters insisted on going with her, and they look buzzing with excitement while she only smiles coolly, Stephen at the largest possible distance without seeming like they are estranged. It is the perfect depicture of her marriage. In the background there are two blurry figures. If you look at it closely you can see they are a redhead and a brunette. The frame doesn't fall from the mantelpiece, it just collapses forward onto the wood. Still she can hear the glass burst. Crow takes off and flies towards her. Circles around her.
'Say hi to me properly' Crow demands, his feathers smell rotten and one of his claws leaves small scratches between her neck, shoulder and collarbone. 'Say hi to me properly.' He breathes in her ear.
She doesn't answer him. She stands still until with one firm mow she hits him and walks out of the room.
Crow decides that it counts as acknowledgement.
The press gets air of the divorce, and all the rags are dragging her through the mud again. She doesn't care until a picture appears of a mock up cover for Runway with Jaqueline's name on it. The story that appears with it does not only accuse her of being an uptight, frigid bitch but also adds that it would have been good for her if she had lost all during Paris.
She drinks halve a bottle to drain the effects.
'We could talk about it,' Crow suggests.
Miranda ignores him while she folds the article. She leans back in the chair and wishes she was still married. She wishes she could turn back time to before Paris. She wishes she wasn't alone.
'I'm with you' Crow coos.
'You are not real' Miranda coolly responds.
'But I am the truth' he gets back.
When she goes to bed her matrass has been plucked open at the edges. The filling comes out at several places. Scratches in threefold have ripped open the cover fabric. There are feathers everywhere.
'Have you come here to kill me?' Miranda asks.
'Often I'm depicted as the one that kills, but never actively. I lure people into death, which is a passive act compared to – for example – clawing your eyeballs out. Which I could do too, but that would be of no use to me. Luring is more elegant, and sophisticated. It requires a plan and assessment of the other's weaknesses. Although usually I lure children who have far less suspicions towards me.'
'Do not touch my children.' It is a low threat coming from Miranda's throat. Crow is delighted by this display of possessiveness. He is never been the one that does not try the boundaries.
'I can't. They are not as far gone as you are. The only good thing you've done so far I think. Albeit it would have been nice to have a whole family to myself,' the crow muses.
'Fuck you.' Miranda mutters above her scotch.
'You are wasting your English heritage, you could curse far more originally.' Crow replies.
'Why are you here?' All her Blackberry photos are printed and lying across her home office. Some of them are torn. It looks suspiciously like something pointy picked at them. Something like a beak.
'Believe it or not, I am here to help you. Or to keep you company, at least. You have a nice house.'
'I can hardly imagine a scenario in which I am in need of a big vandalizing bird.' Miranda answers.
'Not everyone looks beyond what they want or need.' Crow taunts. Miranda looks furiously at the bird. Crow only smiles.
When she walks into her bedroom there is a nest on the top of her nightstand. Dirt is hanging onto little twigs and leaves are on her carpet.
'I thought it was time for something a little more permanent. The light falls just right over there. I've had far worse.' Crow shakes up his feathers.
'You will not stay here.' Miranda says.
Crow smiles. 'Once, I stayed at an old man's place. He had come here all the way from Poland but never truly rooted on British soil.'
Miranda looks at him with wide eyes.
'Always fed me pearkugel though. His place was dirty all over; once he was not fast enough to be in time for the lavatory. You can't imagine how pungent the smell of urine really is.'
Miranda's pale skin gets even whiter.
'No one ever visited him, but everyday a serving of pearkugel appeared. Mysteriously but appreciated. We shared and I stayed until he passed away.' Crow looks at her with his head a little to the side. 'No this is a far better nest. Warm, dry, just the right height. Far better.'
Miranda walks out of her bedroom. She sleeps on one of the couches in her study that night.
Her lawyer calls, telling her Stephen denies adultery even though there are pictures. It is going to get ugly, he breaks to her. Stephen doesn't want the shortest way out, she realizes. He wants her to suffer. He wants her to feel screwed over, as a repay for every time she had left him alone waiting for her. When she ends the call her notepad is full of black scratches. Black scratches with on the foreground a female figure. Dark brown hair, size four, fidgeting hands. But where the face should be, to marble eyes and a beak grin at her. It's the face of a crow with a beak wide open as if it asks for food. She rips the paper from her pad and tears it to pieces.
Crow defecates all over the book. 'These pages are worthless, more worthless than your job. You only like them because the colour reminds you of someone.'
Miranda clenches her jaw. She knows by now paying attention to his insults only makes it worse.
'What should the colour be then?' Miranda rolls her eyes in an attempt to gain the upper hand.
'Black. Obviously.'
The next day no one mentions the smudges on pages 145-154. Miranda thinks everyone just assumes it is another way of the ice queen to tell she is not happy with the spread. As they should.
The girls are in the other room playing some game or other on the Wii. Miranda thinks of a time, not that long ago, where she had to reassure her Bobbseys that there were no monsters waiting outside their rooms, that no wild wolves could enter the house. Now she talks to a crow, one that no one else can see.
'Are you done breaking your head over my existential instability?' Crow asks.
Miranda pinches the bridge of her nose.
'I will tell you a story,' Crow looks amused. 'There used to be a woman, with two small sheep. Both of them very loyal. One day, the woman said: there will be a match, about which one of you will run the furthest. The one who wins, wins my love. Both of the sheep ran, one forward and one backwards. When the woman declares the match to have ended, there is only one sheep left that she can see. So she says: the other sheep has won because it is so far away it is out of my sight. Then she kills herself out of desperation and heartbreak.' Crow rasps as he laughs about his own story.
Miranda tries to keep her calm. She feels like vomiting.
They have family dinner on Sunday. The girls chatter away lightheartedly about school and friends. They have been blooming since Stephens's absence.
Miranda herself picks absentmindedly into her broccoli. From the four plates hers is the only one left with food on it. The girls giggle while teasing her that she 'has to finish her veggies before getting dessert'.
'I think there is a certain balance with this number', Crow smirks.
Miranda stabs so hard at the broccoli it rolls of her plate. The girls tense up. She tries to smile and says 'well more ice cream for you then, girls. You know where to get the bowls.' and luckily her darlings relax again. It looks like the bird won't leave for another while.
She comes home and gets a frantic call from the new Emily that Marc Jacobs has arrived and whether... her assistant doesn't dare to ask where she is. 'Bore someone else with your questions.' she tells her and hangs up. When Miranda looks at her schedule she sees that everything has been switched around. There are gaps and unorganized clusters of meetings. It's like someone deliberately decided to give her the most inconvenient agenda. The log register tells her the last adaptations are under the initials of CR. Miranda can't even bother to try to remember her second assistants name. She goes back to Elias Clarke, cuts the meeting short with Marc and fires her new second assistant. It's the 7th since Paris.
She comes home and her bath is full of water.
'Your girls were trying to get their hair styled. They read in your magazine it goes faster when your hair is wet. Cassidy went first, but accidentally dropped the straightener into the water while she was in it. Caroline tried to safe her and dragged her to her bed. Unfortunately it was too late.' Crow says.
'Or: Your girls were trying to get their hair styled. They read in your magazine it goes faster when your hair is wet. Caroline went first but threw the straightener at Cassidy when she was in the water. It burned her face and they tried to put bandages on it in their room but it didn't work. They both passed out of panic and pain. You can choose.' Crow gleefully tells her.
Miranda runs as fast as she can to her daughters rooms. Her phone in her hand ready to call 911. When she storms in her girls are soundly asleep. Their wet hair smells freshly washed and their skin glows in the pale light that comes from the hallway. They are both unscathed and breathing gently.
'Why are you doing this?' Miranda all but screams at Crow.
'I believe in the therapeutic method.' Crow answers.
She comes home and there are several plates lying on the ground. Crow picks one up with his beak, caws and drops the plate. It splashes apart against the marble tiles.
'Those are my mother's plates,' Miranda rages.
Crow shrugs, another plate is dropped. 'You never liked your mother.'
'You don't know anything about my mother.'
Crow cackles and caws in a high pitched voice "Women are not good for you Miriam. We'll find you a proper man. Gregory, your father's boss has a son who is studying to be a lawyer."
Miranda's face pales.
"You will not leave town Miriam. We gave everything up for you, and this is how you show your gratitude?"
Crow drops another plate.
"You… you slut! Is he even Jewish? You will keep it, I'll tell you. And you will marry that boy." Crows voice gets higher and higher pitched, until Miranda can only hear her mother's voice. With blind fury she grabs a plate and throws it at the bird. It misses and it hits the kitchen wall. She grabs another one, and another one. The bird is too fast and she hits her counter, the cupboards, her table, the walls, the stove, until she hears a worried 'Miss Miranda, Miss Miranda.' She stops, ironically, with the last plate in her hand. Cara is looking at her with a worried and shocked expression. 'Oh miss Miranda.'
Miranda looks around herself, while Cara carefully grabs the plate out of her hands. There are pieces of plates everywhere. There is damage to the walls and her cupboards. Her mother's voice is gone.
'Here, let me take care of this miss Miranda. Don't worry about this mess. I will clean it up right away, just sit down on the couch and don't worry about it at all.' Cara looks at her with pity.
I didn't do it, she wants to say. But she just closes her eyes. The bird is gone, no surprise there.
Runway loses, narrowly, to Elle on the Winter-Issue-Award. Miranda claps like the amicable loser she is, with her fangs spread and her claws out.
'The spread would have been better in blue,' She sneers at Crow when gets home.
'I am not the one who questioned myself,' Crow answers. He is cleaning his wings on her chair. He looks smug, and has pooped in places Miranda can't notice. On top of her bathroom cabinet for example.
Miranda almost explodes with rage. 'Why. Are. You. Here?' She demands.
'That is not the same question as what do you have to do to get me away.' Crow responds.
'Then tell me what to do!'
'Get me the newest Harry Potter.' Crow laughs abundantly at his own joke.
She comes home, all her flower arrangements are replaced with dead ones. She flees the house.
'What makes you come here?' Andrea asks. It is an unknown coffee corner. Miranda does not know where it is. Miranda does not know where she is.
A crow occupies my home, Miranda wants to say. Things break without me wanting them to break, she wants to say. My girls are no longer safe because of my mental condition, she wants to say. 'Coffee' she croaks.
Andy thinks Miranda looks awful. She thinks Miranda is gorgeous but there are dark circles underneath her eyes and the woman has lost weight beyond a healthy line. 'Can I sit with you?' she asks. Miranda looks at her like she is not sure.
'Just coffee' she reassures.
Miranda looks at her like she is not real.
She comes home. Her Bill Blass pants from last season are ripped.
'Please,' she begs, 'Please go away.'
'Now why would I do that?' Crow answers.
'Because I don't want you here' Miranda answers. 'Because I need to-'
Crow blinks his marble eyes.
'I need to-'
Silence
Then Miranda cries.
Crow puts a wing around her until he gets smaller and smaller. She cries and Crow shrinks in size. She falls asleep.
They stand in front of Miranda's door. She looks at Andrea, who gazes back gently. She wishes she could say: the feathers are not intentional. She wants to apologize for the things that will undoubtly be broken once she opens the door.
'Andrea, my home…' She starts. But Andy moves her hand over Miranda's, the one that is holding the keys, and says 'It is okay Miranda, I know things are different now.'
It's not what Miranda means at all. But Andrea's touch grounds her.
She takes a deep breath, and opens the door.
The girls meet them when they enter the house. They are nice. When Miranda is washing up they corner Andy immediately. 'Where have you been?'
'There's been an extra plate for months' the girls say. 'We assume she's been waiting for you.'
'So what took you so long?'
'Eh,' Andy stutters 'I guess I had to sort out things first, for a while at least.'
'Right,' they roll their eyes. Adults, their glances say, we'll never be like that. Andy just smiles at them, and takes a seat at the table. Dinner tastes good.
They lay in Miranda's bed. Andrea is asleep. Her lungs go slowly in a steady rhythm up and down. Miranda looks at her. She looks at her with her hand on Andrea's naked sternum, and lets it glide slowly downwards to her stomach. Andrea's chest maintains the same raise and fall. Her skin is soft. Miranda looks at her and thinks 'you're soft'. Soft like feathers. It is then, that she realizes Crow has gone. She falls asleep.
So this story was inspired by Max Porter's Grief is the Thing with Feathers. It's about a crow who stays with a family until their grief turns into healing. I thought it was interesting to blur the boundaries between what Miranda might do out of grief and what Crow does. Does she break the things in her own house, does Crow really breaks them or are they perhaps not broken at all but just Miranda perceiving it that way because she is in a bad place.
I own neither of these original works.