The Burning Soul

Chapter I

Gray sea, gray sky, but fire in the woods and the trees aflame. No heat, no smoke, but

still the forests burned, crowning with red and yellow and orange; a cold conflagration

with the coming of fall, and the leaves resignedly descending. There was mortality in

the air, borne on the first hint of winter breezes, the threatening chill of them, and the

animals prepared for the coming snows. The foraging had begun, the filling of bellies

for leaner times. Hunger would make the more vulnerable creatures take risks in order

to feed, and the predators would be waiting. Black spiders squatted at the corners of

their webs, not yet slumbering. There were still stray insects to be had, and further

trophies to be added to their collections of withered husks. Winter coats grew thick,

and fur began to lighten, the better to blend in against the snow. Contrails of geese

arrowed the skies like refugees fleeing a coming conflict, abandoning those forced to

stay and face what was to come.

The ravens were motionless. Many of their far-northern brethren had headed

south to escape the worst of the winter, but not these birds. They were huge yet sleek,

their eyes bright with an alien intelligence. Some on this remote road had noticed

them already, and if they had company on their walks, or in their automobiles, the

commented on the presence of the birds. Yes, it was agreed, they were larger than the

usual ravens, and perhaps, too, they brought with them a sense of discomfort, these

hunched beings, these patient, treacherous scouts. They were perched deep among the

branches of an ancient oak, an organism approaching the end of its days, its leaves

falling earlier each year, so that by the end of every September it was already bare, a

charred thing amid the flames, as though the all-consuming fire had already had its

way with it, leaving behind only the smoke smudges of long-abandoned nests. The

tree stood at the edge of a small copse that jutted slightly at this place to follow the

curvature of the road, with the oak as its farthest point. Once there were others like it,

but the men who built the road had cut them down many years before. It was now

alone of its kind, and soon it too would be gone.

But the ravens had come to it, for the ravens liked dying things.

The smaller birds fled their company, and regarded the intruders warily from

the cover of evergreen foliage. They had silenced the woods behind them. They

radiated threat: the stillness of them, their claws curled upon the branches, the

bladelike sharpness of their beaks. They were stalkers, watchers, waiting for the hunt

to begin. The ravens were so statuesque, so immobile, that they might have been

mistaken for misshapen outcroppings of the tree itself, tumorous growths upon its

bark. It was unusual to see so many together, for ravens are not social birds; a pair,

yes, but not six, not like this, not without food in sight.

Walk on, walk on. Leave them behind, but not before casting one last anxious

glance at them, for to see them was to be reminded of what it is to be pursued, to be

tracked from above while the hunters follow remorselessly. That is what ravens do;

they lead the wolves to their prey, and take a portion of the spoils as payment for their

labors. You want them to move. You want them to leave. Even the common raven

was somehow disturbing, but these were not common ravens. No, these were most

uncommon birds. Darkness was approaching, and still they waited. They might almost

have been slumbering were it not for the way the fading light caught the blackness of

their eyes, and how they captured the early moon when the clouds broke, imprisoning

its image within themselves.