Crow and Ribbons

[Lucy Mitford]

June 2016

It was a warm summer evening. Hot even. Lucy sat in front of the open window smoking, careless that she was letting out all of the cool air conditioned air out into the evening heat. She looked out over her window box at the city rooftops, her bare legs stretched out beneath her casual playsuit. An album was on the record player---the Rolling Stones---and she had a glass of wine beside her. Her crow sat on the window box, looking at the view with her. "It would be nice if Jack were here. Have you seen him?" She looked at the crow, watching, still trying to see what she could understand.

That crow cocked its head, studying with one beady black eye a cacophony of color in the form of an impossible coat of ribbons disturb the sultry serenity of the New Haven street. It was an answer of the silent sort.

Lucy followed that cocked head curiously, until her own eyes lit on the ribbon man. He must be hot in that coat, mustn't he? Lucy lowered her stretched bare legs and leaned forward so she could shout out the window. "Hey there, mister!"

Latin hot and ever so sly, as evidenced by the grin the lanky fellow shot up to dazzling ginger beauty above. "Persinette, let down your hair," came his sing-song baritone above akimbo arms where ribbons fluttered, never settling.

Lucy laughed. "It's not long enough for that, doll." Though it was tied in a loose braid that hung over her shoulder as she leaned. "Come up and share a smoke with me."

"Unfortunate. Our time will be that much shorter," he said with stars twinkling in his eyes, before he disappeared from view. He stomped into the building and up the stairs to her floor, making a great deal of noise with no meaning except to warn, perhaps. And then, there was rapping, an insistent tapping, banging at her door!

She laughed and left the cigarette in the ashtray balancing on the window sill and then moved for the door. She tugged open the door and smiled at him. There was something different about her, something perhaps that some could sense. She was not happier or sadder, or emotionally different in anyway. But something metaphysical had begun to change in her, a change she was entirely oblivious of as she smiled at him. "Hey."

He filled the doorway despite his scarecrow limbs. His head canted so that he could study her with one eye, similar to how his brethren still at windowsill studied its surroundings. Up and down, all around, the stars whirled through gaseous clouds in the endless night of his eye. A minute carved from their Moment for such study. The next, the old Crow bulled into her apartment with an appropiate, "S'up." And a grin. Always a grin.

The ribbons were more eloquent, whispering to Lucy as they raked satin trails across her skin.

"I missed you." Honest. Her arms open to collect before he could bull too far, taking him in for a hug, diving into the pool of those whispery ribbons. Her ghost, and coincidentally, her cat, were nowhere in sight.

Pleased to find her in his embrace. Pleased to find, while spying over her shoulder, neither grumbling ghost or baleful (in his opinion!) cat. "Did you?" His arms had some heft to them, now that Summer held sway, so he kept her there, perhaps longer than seemly. Could he be blamed? Her scent intoxicated him.

"I did." She indulged him. And herself. Because she was not hugged often enough. He felt different too. Eventually she let him go though, because even she realized there was a point where unseemliness really stretched on too long. She smiled softly and looked up at him. "Is it summer now?" She moved to shut the door behind him, expecting him to make himself comfortable in her cool apartment regardless of her invitation.

"Not quite. Soon. So very, very soon." He prowled her apartment, pausing to sniff at various items. He took in the scent of a glossy magazine and the curtains before moving on to knick-knacks and doilies. "What did you miss most about me?"

While he prowled, Lucy returned to her seat beside the window, settling into the armchair, retaking her cigarette (after tapping the now excessive ash at the end), and stretching her legs out to rest on the window sill. "Your cute ass." Her smile cheeky as she brought the cigarette to her lips.

"Cute? Do you think so?" He did a canine spin, trying to look at his own backside, hidden by whirling ribbons and quite narrow.

Another little Lucy laugh, watching him. "I do." She exhaled smoke over her head. "Do you want to drink with me?" Pointing her cigarette towards the bottle of white wine sweating on the coffee table.

"No whiskey?" He stalked the bottle while squinting at it.

"That's on the counter." She pointed towards the kitchen where the outer counter had all the liquor essentially and some low ball glasses. Of course there was a bottle of whiskey there.

A brow went up above the star gaze that found the whiskey. The body made no move to retrieve it. Instead, he fell into a chair near Lucy. The hunt for his Murads began. "Now tell me, darling, what did you miss least about me?"

"Um... " Lucy did not like that question. She held her glass of wine out to him in case he wanted to share her glass. "How sometimes it feels like you know everything." She smiled at him beside her, narrowing her eyes at him.
He took the glass, making sure his fingers brushed against hers. With a grin he stuck his beaky nose into it. A sniff later, he handed it back untasted. "Do you think I know everything?" The search for cigarettes suspended due to wine and conversation.

Lucy took the wine with a still remaining narrowing of her eyes. She set it aside without drinking it either. "I do." Then a tip of her head, adjusting. "Sometimes."

"Sometimes I know everything or sometimes you believe I do?" It seemed to be an important distinction to the Crow who now sat forward, propped by his arms on his knees. Silk and satin streamers moved against the summer air breezing past the crow in the window.

"Sometimes I think you do." She brought her cigarette to her lips, then laughed out some smoke. "Do you?" She reached to shift the rest of her legs, stretching them out towards his lap.

Of course he let her feet find berth in his lap. It meant leaning back, but the action went along so well with his staring up at the ceiling, as if creation had written the answer to question up there. "All that exists, deserves to be known."

"I suppose." She reached for her glass. Lucky for her he was looking at the ceiling. Because in the moment she reached for it, her hand passed through the stem. It's a small thing. A thing that happened so quickly that it might even be a trick of the light. And over the last few days, she had gotten used to covering. Her smile barely flickered. She reached again, and this time managed to get hold of the glass, fingers solidly connecting.

His gaze turned to a study of her once more. There was no startle or shout of alarm. Nothing at all to indicate he noticed anything out of the ordinary. "Is this important to you? Would a knowledge of all things allow you to heed my council? Climb into my bed? I am not to be trusted, you know."

"I know." Lucy wasn't entirely sure how to respond to his questions. She shrugged, evasive. "It's just a sense I have about you, that's all. But it's probably just--just that you know more than me." She took a sip of her wine, tentative at first, then more, and set her glass aside.

"I am old, darling." Idly he stroked her leg from knee to ankle. His fingers warm as midday. Ribbons drifted after, cool with the promise of evening rain.

The touch was calming in an odd way. But her eyes watched his hand carefully. It might look like she was monitoring him to keep him from getting fresh. But really, she was just making sure his hand didn't pass through her leg. She seemed to be maintaining her presence though. She remembered her cigarette just in time to pull a last drag. "I'm not so young anymore either."

"Perhaps, but in this place, youth and vigor hold sway. And glamour is always free." His hand came to rest upon her shin.

She leaned to crush out her cigarette. Then she smiled, though it didn't rise to her eyes. "I still have a few years left in me, I think."

"Round and round, the wheel turns taking us all until the time comes to step off. And we all must, you know. You. Me. Everything. Dust to dust. But I would see light in your eyes. Where did it go?"

"It's still there." Wasn't it? Her smile flickered finally, uncertain. She shifted her weight in her chair, legs shifting on his lap. She looked towards the window, then back. "Have you seen Benjamin recently?" An intentional change of subject.

"Does he have it?" His grin grew teeth.

For a moment, she looked confused. Then she realized. Lucy sniffed a laugh and shook her head. "I was just wondering. I haven't been over in a little while."

"I am certain he misses you terribly." He kept grinning while pushing her legs off him. If she didn't fight him, he would stand to shake out his ribbons. "You should stop by and see his new bed."

"He has a new bed?" She didn't stop him. But moving her legs to the floor had her shifting in her arm chair, sitting up a bit taller. "What about it?"

He shrugged. "You will have to visit to see. Farewell, Lucy Mitford."

Lucy looked up at him. "You're going?" But she knew he was. Her smile returned, but softer this time, a little regretful. She didn't say farewell. He was usually gone before she got the words out.

"I will be here when you need me." He resigned himself a while ago to being her fairy godfather. He gained new wisdom in the last year or so in dealing with the mortals whose shine attracted him. He could not be the moth to flame any longer. "When you call. I will."

Her soft smile faded. He knew. The thing she did not yet wish to admit to herself. She nodded. "Alright." She looked down at her lap, thinking. Her hands rubbed over her knees. Then she nodded again. "Alright."

He tapped his finger against his nose and winked. He took a turn to the left and was...gone.