Her old life is little more than a dream now. She belongs to the shore, to the sky and the wind.
It began with gathering feathers, day by day, weaving them into the worn fabric of her clothes. She wanted to be warm, and to forget herself, to give grief a shape and to fill the hole in her heart with something soft.
The wind heard her prayers, hair growing feathery, shoulders sprouting new growth to push through her tattered clothing. She no longer makes much sense to herself, but she does not care. She is bones wrapped in feathers. The wind soothes her. The sea speaks to her.
There are many possible early signs that a person may be turning into a Crow Queen. Cawing, and scavenging on the beach are especially suspicious when both occur at the same time. Sprouting feathers is highly indicative.
Sprouting remains a complex business affecting many of us in different ways. What emerges through the skin may turn into tendrils, feathery leaves or seaweed rather than actual feathers. We’ve all seen that happen enough times. People are very much like plants in that you cannot trust what happens in the early sprouting phase to indicate what will later appear.
We can now be confident that Jennifer is indeed sprouting feathers, and that she is therefore well under way to becoming a crow queen. The degree to which this process will drive her mad remains to be seen, but at present she remains very much in her wits, and only caws at other crows.
Should you see her while you are out and about, I strongly recommend giving her something shiny. Giving gifts to crow queens is said to bring good fortune. As I hope we now all understand after last summer’s events, happy crow queens make for happy islanders. Well, if not happy, at least possessed of their usual number of eyeballs.
