Rebirth

In the afternoon sun the trees are all bare black skeletons in dusty gold light. Usually the village children can be found in these trees, perched on branches much too high above the ground, throwing acorns and generally terrifying the squirrels. When they are not full of children they are home to birds, whose song fills the air from late spring to early autumn.

Today they are empty of birds and children. Except for one child. William is staring up into the branches, where he had spent every summer since he was able to climb them. He is familiar with the view from the top of the trees, having always climbed the highest, several branches above his peers.

He does not speak with his peers as much, unless he wishes to call down to them from he upper branches. It is both a privilege and a punishment, climbing so high. He can see much more than the other children but always sees it alone.

Perhaps it is the thought that the birds might never return to their trees, nor the squirrels, and consequentially, the village children will abandon them indefinitely, perhaps it is simply nostalgia that makes him choose to climb the tree.

When he does he is somewhat proud to make it higher than he ever has. It is marginally cooler here too, with a slight breeze blowing.

From his vantage point he can see the stretch of field between himself and the village, the tall whistling grass, more yellow than green in the afternoon sun, the shadows of trees slanting across it. The village is a muddle of sloping silhouettes, like the outlines of mountains. It is not quite beautiful, he thinks, but the perspective from the topmost tree branches is certainly preferable to that from on the ground.

He has spent many afternoons here, alone in the top branches but not alone in the tree, imagining himself elsewhere, doing else things. He has read story books and anthologies and wonders if it is possible for something so fantastical or strange as a transmogrified frog or a golden goose to appear and change one’s entire life, and if so, why did it always happen to poor girls or princesses in disguise? He feels it is somewhat unfair but he finds no way to rectify it.

He does not have his book with him today. Instead he looks for any sign of life in the tree. There are no crows, to his surprise. But there is a nest in the lower branches of the tree, on the opposite side from where he climbed up.

It is not the egg that catches his attention. Many birds have abandoned their nests, left behind entire batches of eggs that have not hatched and never will, the chicks within them already dead. But this egg is hatching.

Before William can consider what he is doing, he is lowering himself toward the nest carefully but with considerable purpose. He has never seen an egg hatch but he thinks it must be interesting.

It takes him only a minute to each the nest and its respective branch, and by them the quivering has intensified.

It is a crow’s nest, empty save for the one quivering egg. It is shaking so forcefully that the entire branch vibrates. While this is the first egg he has ever seen hatch, William is sure it is not entirely supposed to be like this.

He thinks perhaps the nest will come apart before it hatches, and the egg will fall from the tree. Carefully, William picks it up. The egg is warm, and heavier than he expected. He slips it into his pocket where it continues to shudder as he descends the tree.

Once on the ground he removed the egg, startled to hear a sound like the crackle of frost forming on a window. Cracks form across the surface of the egg like the fissures in a broken china cup.

When it begins to chip away it is not feathers he sees, but pale white fingers, pushing outward, and an arm and the body of a girl that follows.

As more and more of her appears – a knee, an elbow – it seems to William impossible that so much of a person could exist in one place. It puts him in mind of the contortionist he once saw at the circus, who had shut herself inside a shoebox.

But this is far more impressive.

She rises shakily to her feet when she is completely without the egg. She is completely naked, without shoes or shirt or even a jacket, but she appears neither frightened nor embarrassed nor cold, though it has been days since it has been chilly enough to be cold.

William stares at her, uncomfortable and embarrassed but too shocked to look away. The contrast of her glossy black hair against her white skin is shocking, as are her swan-dark eyes, deep set in her ace. She is watching him curiously, as if he had not stumbled upon her as she hatched from an egg.

“Hello,” William says, and immediately feels as though it is the most mundane thing he could say.

But she does not seem to think it stupid. The girl cocks her head to the side but says nothing. “I’m William,” William says. “What’s your name?”

After a moment of silence, the girl answers. “I don’t have a name.”

“Everyone has a name,” says William.

“I don’t.”

“What do your parents call you?” he asks.

The girl cocks her head again. “I don’t have parents.” There is something strange about her voice. It is low and soft, like the brush of black velvet.

“I’ve never seen someone hatch from an egg,” William admits.

The girl smiles, a smile that brightens her entire face, but says nothing.

William is suddenly more aware that she is wearing nothing. His ears begin to feel rather hot. “You must be cold.” He takes off his jacket and hands it to her, then turns away as she slips it on and buttons it up.

When he turns back she looks only marginally more normal, in his tweed coat with the slightly too-large shoulders that hangs down to her knees. She is standing there, patiently, as if she expects more of him, though he is not sure what.

“Where are you going to go?” William asks her.

She looks at him as if she is looking through him, considering. “I don’t know.”

“You can come back to my house,” he says without thinking. As soon as the words are out of his mouth he has difficulty reconciling the girl with the mundane surroundings of the village. And he wonders what his mother would say about it.

The girl nods before he can retract his offer, not that he would. There is something strange about her, though he cannot say what it is. It seems to exist in the air around her as much as in her. And for reasons he cannot put into words, he wants to bring her back with him.

They set off toward the town, across the field. William wonders what she would have done is he had left her there. Would she have lived in the nest? A big as she was?

She walks by his side but he finds he keeps looking at her, as if to assure himself that she is real. He has the distinct feeling that if he does not watch her carefully enough she will vanish. She remains, and occasionally catches his eyes with her own dark ones.

It takes them the better part of a half hour to cross the field, walking at a leisurely pace, and in that time William asks her tentative questions. But she seems to have no family or relations, and to know nothing about herself. The nearer they are to the village, the more his conviction fades. Perhaps his parents will not let her stay. Perhaps they will not let William associate with the strange girl who hatched from a crow’s egg.

The girl looks toward the village, not glancing back at the tree from which they departed even once. Only once, when a crow calls out from a rooftop before taking flight, does she look toward the sky.

Text by Lucie MacAulay

Art by Claudia Hahn