"The first thing I learned about Ma-Maw was that she always knew how to take care of the crows. It was just something I knew about her, something that was always there in my memory. Ma-Maw existed and the crows existed and Ma-Maw was always better than the crows.
If they had taught chemistry rather than Christianity in Ma-Maw's school days, she would have been top of her class. She knew religion well enough, and never failed to remind me that my sins were born into me from those no-good parents of mine. She could call me a bastard unflinchingly, knowing that nobody could punish her for speaking the truth. Sometimes, I think she even enjoyed it; I offered her a chance to be holier than someone else and be cruel about it. If chemistry was her best subject, then malice was second place.
Ma-Maw hated crows. She more than hated them. They were the embodiment of Satan himself, trying to steal away the literal fruits of her labor. I said before that she had an affinity for chemistry and cruelty, and she could mix them up in a terrifying concoction. She called it her "special juice," full of substances found underneath the kitchen sink and in the bathroom cupboard. I tried to recreate it when I was little, and I didn't know if the acid burns or the whipping I received later hurt worse.
The special juice would be prepared in a large wash basin—she said it was the one she was bathed in when she was my age—on the back porch, away from spying neighbors. Next, she would take old clothes that belonged to my great-granddaddy and soak them in the substance. The clothes would be placed on a scarecrow, an ugly man made of straw and rope. Ma-Maw always dressed him up in his Sunday best, because he had a job better than the Reverend. The Scarecrow—and I swear I heard her call him Johnny—got to protect her beloved crops.
I think she believed with all her black heart that the fruits of the spirit were literal fruits. Whenever Reverend would read a passage about trees or fruits or seeds, and there were so many of them, her eyes would well up because she thought of her precious garden. Or maybe she just needed a hobby to hold on to. She had some strange fetish for flora, and anything that dared to threaten her beloved was doomed to die.
The crows were doomed to die.
When the scarecrow was thoroughly covered in Ma-Maw's special juice, the crows would come. Something strange happened whenever the fumes hit their nostrils. They were attracted to the scent, coming in small flocks at a time. Yet, when they got near enough to become fully inebriated with the substance, they turned vicious, rabid. Black feathers littered the ground around the garden as the crows tore each other to pieces midair. Ma-Maw and I gathered the carnage together. We tossed them in her compost pile, which she affectionately nicknamed Sheol. In time, they would become part of her garden again, spread out as fertilizer.
I'm not sure exactly why or how I ended up in the decrepit barn behind our house, though I was probably fleeing the other children and their name calling. Ma-Maw found me there crying one dreadful Sunday afternoon and decided to teach me how to be a man. She was furious that I had changed out of my church clothes and then left the house to play, but I think she was angrier that I let myself fall victim. Was I not her great-grandson? Was I not artful in the ways of vengeance, taught by the master? Was I not her fellow Crow-Slayer, Mad Chemist, and Sheol-Digger?
Of course, I was a bastard child, and it might have been my parents' sins to blame.
She stripped me naked in the barn and took my clothes back inside. When she returned, she had gloves on her hands, and she carried a wet bundle of fabric, my Sunday suit. I knew from the scent exactly what liquids she had doused it in. I knew that my skin would be discolored and burning the next morning, and exactly what lie I would tell my teacher gave me my mysterious rash. I knew the pain I was about to endure, and exactly what Scripture she would quote when I asked her to stop.
However, I didn't expect her to open the barn doors.
Just as soon as light poured in from the heavens, blackness filled it in. It seemed the whole barn was full of them, that there was no light left, that the entire sky had become a single, black feather. They flooded my vision and then my skin, with their pecking and clawing. These birds sought out flesh, not fruit, and began their feast. I felt as though the skin was peeled off my entire body by the ravenous creatures. Lastly, more tangible than the blindness or the scars, was their screams. They sang their siren song, ca-cawed their cacophony, murdered my ears with the sound. Even when the last, bloody bird died and the last, black-and-red feather hit the ground, I heard it. The screaming never ended. It sunk into my open wounds and became part of me. It was then that I realized it came out of me.
Yes, Ma-Maw knew how to handle the crows. She knew how to handle little boys, too. Bastard children are an awful lot like scarecrows. They scream and they watch, they scream and they watch, they see so much death, and then they go back to silence, where they came from. Ma-Maw taught me a lot about how to be a scarecrow. You have to scream, scream until the crows scream with you.
And you know what?
When my Ma-Maw saw her own blood on my not-so-little-boy's hands, saw what a great scarecrow I grew up to be, saw her own life reflected in the red pools beneath her, she screamed like the crows, even when I tossed her into Sheol where she belongs."
"Mr. Crane," Dr. Leland stated dryly, pushing her glasses up her nose, "save the horror stories for your release. Maybe then you can make a tidy profit as a writer."
In a very uncharacteristic way, Jonathon Crane smiled. He looked beyond Dr. Leland's disapproving glance, to the shivering, fearful guards outside their room who had heard his tale. He could almost hear their internal screams as they pondered the weight of his words, or perhaps remembered a past run-in with his fear toxin. Even deep into Dr. Leland, she was screaming, too. And even deeper, so was he.