Why I slip a raven’s feather in every romance book I read
There was this raven that used to come to our primary school. Stole gold stars and pushpins, snapped the nibs off our 2Bs, before Mr. Tomkins said can’t keep the stationary in jars, children, need boxes with clip-down lids, need to keep the windows only ever slightly ajar.
The raven had been spotted at the supermarket thieving baubles from the Christmas tree; even found out where Bess the cleaner lived. Smashed its beak through her medicine cabinet and took her temazepam.
We played a game in the playground where one of us was Squawker and the other kids were Kids and we’d run and squeal until Squawker floored them, foot-clawed their chest, pecked out their innards.
I huddled close to Dave Mills who’d confectioned a sword out of branches and barbed wire and he whispered I’ll protect you!, and no man has said that to me since, and this should be a good thing seeing as what became of Dave Mills according to my nan who phoned me on my way to Doncaster for a job interview and said did you see what that farmer lad did? Awful, just awful.
The raven never visited us in the playground. Perhaps it fancied the stillness of a classroom after everyone’s left, apart from me and Bess, and I’m writing this letter about love. I’d bought some coloured paper with my nan’s pocket money; the inky cyan of an ocean we’d learned about, the same cyan Dave Mills had in his eyes.
I write about a farm; about milky baby skin and kisses in cut grass.
There might have been a short shadow at the window, but I didn’t bother turning around to look, too concentrated I was on looping the paper in two, four, and slipping it in Dave Mills’ drawer. I made flapping motions all the way to the door and cawed outside, looking right, looking left for my lift home.
I often picture the raven prising that window open the next day, whilst all of us are mouthing we praise you lamb of God and there’s Dave Mills sliding out the piece of paper and he’s about to see my heart up close.
But my letter flew with the raven that snitched it from his fingers; before Bess had clobbered the creature with her hoover the following week because Mr. Tomkins had endorsed it; before I’d found a feather and kept it as a bookmark; before I’d held love tight inside me for a day, a week, half a year, only to find it had switched flight paths at secondary school, meaning there was no more Dave Mills and me, no church bells or cake cut, no wobbling babies for Nan to coo at.
I often picture Dave Mills’ cyan eyes, wonder whether they’re reading something, whether he ever looks up from his book and thinks about what he did to those people; the jigsaw of limbs on his land he tied with string and punctured blue.
Kik Lodge writes short fiction in France where she lives with a menagerie of kids, cats and rats. Her work has featured in The Moth, Tiny Molecules, The Cabinet of Heed, Milk Candy Review, Reflex Fiction, Ellipsis Zine, Splonk, Bending Genres, Janus Literary and Litro. She is currently exploring the character of Grannylou, in all her glorious forms. Erratic tweets @KikLodge
