Clamour and Mischief

Description

A clamour of rooks. A mischief of magpies. A storytelling of crows.
All the corvids - rooks and ravens, jays and jackdaws, crows and magpies - have the best collective nouns: from tidings and titterings, bands and trains, to a parliament, a party, and an unkindness.
Clamour and Mischief is a veritable storytelling of adventures featuring corvidae, the bird family known for its intelligence, cunning and connection with folklore and urban legends.
Our storytellers come from around the world and include award-winning and shortlisted writers, as well as fledgling authors in their professional debut.
Herein are 16 striking stories imbued with the humour, darkness, wisdom and magic of the birds which inspired them. Take them as a jest, a guide, or a warning - but don't, whatever you do, ignore them!
Clamour and Mischief is enacted by:

Raymond Gates, GV Pearce, Eugen Bacon, Geneve Flynn, Alex Marchant, Jack Fennell, Lee Murray, RJK Lee, Dannye Chase, Narrelle M. Harris, R.D. White, Katya de Becerra, Jason Franks, George Ivanoff, Tamara M Bailey, Gabiann Marin.

Sujets

• Anthologies
• Collections
• Detective
• Mystery
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Clan Destine Press
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781922904188
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Clan Destine Press in 2022 PO Box 121, Bittern, Victoria 3918 Australia
Anthology Copyright © Clan Destine Press 2022
Story Copyright © Individual Authors 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including internet searchengines and retailers, electronic or mechanical, photocopying (except under the provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-In-Publication data: Editor: Narrelle M. Harris CLAMOUR AND MISCHIEF
ISBN: 978-1-922904-16-4(hardback) ISBN: 978-1-922904-17-4(paperback) ISBN: 978-1-922904-18-8 (eBook)
Cover Design by © altocello (Andrea L Farley) & Willsin Rowe Design & Typesetting by Clan Destine Press
www.clandestinepress.net


For Lindy, who always believes in me.



CONTENTS
Introduction - Narrelle M. Harris
Once Upon a Midnight - Raymond Gates
All That Glitters - GV Pearce
Sleuthing for a Cause - Eugen Bacon
The Past is Not a Present - Geneve Flynn
Watchers - Alex Marchant
The Song of Crows - Jack Fennell
Kūpara and Tekoteko - Lee Murray
Build Another Nest for Phantom Feathers - R J K Lee
Branwen and the Three Ravens - Dannye Chase
Seven for a Secret - Narrelle M Harris
The Girl and the Crow - R D White
The Jackdaw-Maiden - Katya de Becerra
The Language of Birds - Jason Franks
Murder of Crows - George Ivanoff
The Devil’s Teeth - Tamara Bailey
Quoth the Raven - Gabiann Marin
About the Authors


Introduction
The fascination with corvids sneaks up on you. Maybe it starts with an alarming and unfeasible number of blackbirds baked in a pie, or a legend that without her Tower ravens, England will fall.
One for sorrow.
Later, during your early, voracious reading, you thrill to Edgar Allan Poe’s raven of doom, and even young, the loss echoing in that maddeningly abstract Nevermore lives with you.
Two for mirth
The corvids gather. Crows and ravens, jackdaws and jays.
Crows and their cousins pop up in Narnia, part of its first council. While devouring the works of Diana Wynne Jones, there they are in the Eight Days of Luke , when one-eyed “Mr Wedding ” sets a talking raven to spy on the orphan David, leading you down a rabbit hole of Norse mythology and Odin’s messenger-familiars, Huginn and Munnin.
They flutter up in folktales and mythologies. As a word-nerd you savour the peculiar logics of collective nouns, like murders and parliaments and unkindnesses. This clamour of rooks and mischief of magpies all seem a long way from the laconic black Australian birds whose kah kah kah is redolent of the rural Aussie accent.
Three for a funeral; Four for a birth
In a childhood, teenhood, adulthood of reading, there they always are. Shakespeare – the Upstart Crow himself – gives us harbingers of doom ( The raven himself is hoarse /That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan ) and portents of darkness and betrayal (O it comes o’er my memory, /As doth the raven o’er the infected house, /Boding to all ).
The raven and the crow are the witch’s familiar, cruel, witty and sly. Some see the future with three eyes while others form riddles – why is a raven like a writing desk?
Five for silver; six for gold
And before you know it, they’re everywhere, even when you’re not looking. In stories and folklore, but also out in the real world, perplexing and delighting scientists (and sometimes outsmarting them).
They play with see-saws and with plastic lids, tobogganing down snowy rooftops. They mock dogs by pulling their tails. They use tools to find food or to investigate their environment. They recognise individual humans – as friends and as foes.
Seven for a secret that’s never been told
Of course we fall in love with them; with the idea of them. Such curious and clever birds, the corvids. So complex and unpredictable.
How very like us they are.
Eight for a heaven; nine for a hell
The sixteen stories in this anthology come from a collective “storytelling of crows” – from multiple award winners to emerging new talents. Their stories are full of clamour and mischief, as well as darkness and light, reflecting corvids in many moods. These wonderful, skilful authors explore corvids as they inhabit folklore, literature, the wild, our minds and hearts, and even our memes.
And ten for the Devil himself.
I hope you like these pranksters and portents, devils and champions: these marvellous, wicked, funny, dangerous, clever, noble, kind and cutting corvids. For me, to paraphrase the Upstart Crow himself, age cannot wither them, nor custom stale their infinite variety.
I hope you find this true for you as well.
Narrelle M Harris Commissioning Editor May 2022
Editor’s note :
Usually, foreign words are italicised, but in some stories, the words not in English aren’t “foreign” in their own context. Where some words are considered local (Maori terms in New Zealand, for example) they are not italicised.
Otherwise, for consistency, Australian spelling is used throughout.


Once Upon a Midnight
Raymond Gates
T here’s never a good time to be struck by a car. However, when it’s the middle of a moonless winter’s night, during a thundering downpour, accompanied by howling wind that finds its way into the very marrow of your bones, it’s about as bad a time as it can ever be. Thus was the predicament a young raven named Nevermore found himself in.
Food at this time of year food was scarce. Nevermore and some of his ilk had learned to stay close to the roadside, where the combination of frequent traffic and unwary critters sometimes collided. It was a game of patience and a highly competitive one at that, so it served one’s best interests to remain close to the action.
Though others had flown away from the approaching storm, Nevermore had been reluctant to surrender his position. He’d been tucked away on a branch of a large oak close to the road, as asleep as a hungry belly and soaked plumage would allow. In an instant, there was a blinding flash, then a terrible crack like a gunshot and he was falling. His wings immediately unfurled, however the wild wind and torrential rain made flight impossible. All he could do was slow his descent to the hard, unforgiving road below.
The fall left him dazed, but otherwise unharmed. This section of road sat behind a small rise, so when the world suddenly lit up as if two small suns had risen from nowhere, Nevermore knew it was already too late. Yet instinct took over and he half-hopped, half-fluttered towards the road’s edge. Everything disappeared in a wash of yellowish light. He beat his wings as hard as he could and made a final lunge to escape his impending doom.
He almost made it.
The car’s chrome bumper clipped him as it sped past, sending Nevermore whirling across the road and into the ditch beyond. Two red globes faded into the night as darkness engulfed him.
Nevermore awoke on his back being pelted by stinging droplets from the sky. He rolled over and cried out as pain shot through his frame. He braced himself and attempted to stretch his wings. They were heavy from the thick mud that coated his feathers. The right was stiff but working. The left hurt and would not extend fully.
He looked around, saw he was still in the ditch by the side of the road. He knew he had to get out of here. The storm would not last forever, and when it eased an injured bird was easy prey for whatever predators might be around.
Nevermore jumped and fluttered his way up the embankment. The rain was clearing the mud off his wings; however, in turn it made them soggy and not much more use than to give him a little more height with each leap. He scrabbled with his claws to pull himself up on the sodden slope. After much struggle, he finally reached the top, exhausted. He couldn’t stop though – to stop was to die. He also couldn’t fly, not like this. He had to find shelter. Somewhere to hole up until he dried off and his wing felt better.
The rain was slowing, allowing him to see a little further in the darkness. Ahead of him was a large structure. A house perhaps? He moved towards it. Yes, it was a house. He could see a light shining through one of the windows. Nevermore had not had any positive experiences with humans in the past; he avoided them as much as possible. However, in his current predicament he didn’t have much choice. He trotted in the direction of the light, sure to check all sides for anything that might be looking for a quick meal.
He reached the threshold of the structure, all stone, upon which the rain drummed a moderato tempo. A large, oak door stood before him. Light shone through the crack beneath it, though it was too thin to allow him to see under it. The wind was picking up, the cool air chilling his damp body. Nevermore puffed up his chest and approached the door. He braced himself, and then tapped his beak against the wood.
There was nothing. No response. No sound from within. Just the flickering light under the door to indicate the house was anything more than just a shell.
Nevermore rapped against the door once more, as hard as he dared. He felt each jolt through his injured wing and had to stop after only a few strikes. He hoped it was enough.
This time there was something. Some noise. A voice? It was hard to tell over the rain. He strained his ears to listen. The noise repeated itself. Definitely the voice of a man, but soft and distant. There was no sound of movement, but someone was in there. Someone had to be in there. If he could just get their attention.
Nevermore moved around to the side of