Alone, her chamber seemed so eerie. Cold winds whistled through the cracks of her windows and the draperies were thrown over to break the light’s unpleasant passage. Darkness surrounded her like a blanket, so thin, it did little too warm her nights. The gusts were rising and her withered house a ruin that moaned with each gale of God’s whistle. Floors creaked and the wallpaper slithered down the wall, casting shadows of devils and serpents in the flicker of her candlelight.

Maya’s eyes danced around the outside meadows as she peered out at the once beautiful farm she had shared with her love. By the small opening in the draperies, she had nestled a chair close to the wall so that she may see.
She waited for his return--her love, that is. Once they all heard of the attack on the harbor, she knew he’d go. Jack was like that. “It’s my duty to serve my country,” he would say when she pleaded to run away with him where no one could find them. But all he did was kiss her forehead and left the morning after to volunteer. He left a letter upon the bedside table and she had never opened it. She never touched it either. To her, it was promise that if she opened it, the words wouldn’t seem true. They were in the writing of the devil, she knew.
So she sat by her window each day. Only a few months had gone by, but no letters came. Not for her, at least. The mailman would drop by and bring in her mail and she would read each name upon the envelopes. Jack McDuggery, it would say. Then she would think, Jack is not here, he is away and won’t return.
Maya wouldn’t have ever opened those letters for fear the truth of her words would come true. But to see only Stanley the Mailman come up the farm trail and not men dressed in navy blue was a relief. For those reliefs made her believe that he still lived.
Sitting in her chair—it was an ornate thing, something cheaply crafted after an Elizabethan era design: velvet cushions, cherry wood, and a trivial swirling design down the legs of the chair—Maya watched outside her window with strained, arid eyes. Her fingers played with a string, wrapping it around her finger till it turned purple and threatened to fall off, but before it could, she would switch to the next finger.
Each morning, she would wake from her bed cold and shivering and would prop a blanket, the thickest one she had which was made of sheepswool, over her pale white shoulders. She would boil some honeyed tea and bring the hot pewter cup over to the window and sip it lightly as she sat and watched out the window. On the really cold days, she would tuck her feet underneath her and sit on them for warmth. One day, though, the cold had cut through her so sharply she wanted to cry…
It was only weeks ago. She had awoken as usual, waited for her tea to boil, and when it was finished, she sat beside the window and looked out the crevasse in the thick grey-velvet draperies. Naturally, her eyes would scale along the fence-line that followed the trail that led up to the farmhouse, but this time was different. On the railing of her porch, a great big black bird sat perched, ruffling its feathers as a gust of wind collided into it, and let out a gravelly squawk once its eye beamed towards her through the window.
A chill ran up her spine and she pulled the draperies over the window. The room was dark and she held her breath. Death, she thought. That was a raven… what more of a sign am I like to get?
In the darkness of her chamber, she sipped her tea. She did not want to look out that murky-glass window ever again. In the anxiety that ebony bird had struck her with, she gulped too much and began to choke. By the time she recovered, she was out of breath and shivering. Her blanket had fallen off her shoulders and her feet were nearly frozen to the wooden planks of the floor.
“May! May! May!”
Her ears wiggled at the sound of her name. May was a nickname, though: one only Jack would call her. He’s back? She hopped from her chair and padded across the floor on her toes, numb and frozen they were. She turned the knob of the front door and put her shoulder into the heavy oak. Light greeted her and the cold clawed at her face and bare legs and arms as she gazed out and observed the farm. Instead of Jack, however, she found cold winds, empty frostbitten fields, and a dark, grey sky that foretold rain, or snow.
“May! May! May!”
As she heard her name being called again, she gave another look. Silence answered her. That and the icy gales that blew restlessly through her skin and made her once silky black hair, now straw from being unkempt, snap vigorously in the gusts. Phantom hands tugged at her nightgown like a curious and impatient child and a frown crossed her lips as she looked to her left.
Maya’s steps were slow and cautious as she heard faint grumbling and scraping. She came around a bend and huddled close to the house as she saw the raven sitting there on the porch railing across from her window. Black feathers danced around the floorboards and it squawked once it saw her. Viciously, it squawked, piercing her ears like two stones being scraped together.
Her lips tightened and her heart plummeted deep into her chest as the bird opened its blackish-blue beak and shouted, “May! May! May!”
“Go away,” she answered the bird, flicking her fingers towards it. “He’s not dead, so leave now. Jack’s not dead!”
“Dead! Dead! Dead!” She took a step back as the bird hopped closer. “Dead! Dead! Dead!” She shook her head, unable to believe it. The raven danced around in circles, proud of what it was saying. “Dead! Dead! Dead! DEAD!”
“No he’s not!” she declared and ran back inside the house. The gales were sucked away as she slammed the front door shut. Next she knew she was in a dark house as silent as a graveyard. Hot, briny tears were falling down her lightly freckled, windburnt cheeks. Her legs turned to mush and her body was too heavy to hold up anymore. Her back slid down along the door and onto the floor.
It’s not true, she thought and embraced herself. It isn’t. Jack’s alive I know it.
That raven had stayed there for three more days. Waiting for her to come outside, but she wouldn’t unless it had sprouted legs and arms, tore down her door, and plucked her from this earth.
By the fourth day after, it took to the winds and flapped its wings southward to pester some other poor woman who’s lost her husband to the war…
She sat in her chair with a cup of honeyed wine. Remembering was all she had. It was a story that made her so frail and weak-minded. As she sipped, she thought, What if that old bird was right? Could that have been Jack? Might be he was preparing her for when the soldiers came up to tell her the horrid news.
They never came, though. Not the next day, nor the next week, nor the next month. No, not a man but Stanly had walked up the old path to the farmhouse to give her the day’s mail. And she would sit on her chair under thick wool and sip a cup of honeyed tea as her eyes inspected every inch of the farm. She looked out at the clear creek in the distance, to the stone bridge across the path, to the far reaches of the woods on the horizon.
Maya could not remember the day exactly, but her eyes were strained, legs numb, and her soul was empty with loneliness. That was when her eyes turned away from the window and glanced at the envelope on the bedside table. It was the letter that Jack had written to her the night he left. She promised herself she wouldn’t touch it, but temptation outdid her and she strenuously stood up from her chair.
The wooden floors were cold and shivering, her feet numb and blue upon their surface as they creaked with each step. She stepped once, then again, and on the third step, she reached for the envelope, but once she felt the paper, she pulled her hand away as if it had been a snake that snapped at her. If I read it, all my fears may go away. My heart may rest easier, she told herself and mustered what courage she had. She opened the envelope and read. Her heart sank as her eyes glanced at each word:

Worry not, my sweet lovely bird
I must put on my wings and fly
For now, I will join a new herd
And fly into the sky so high
But when I serve my country well
I will fly back home to you, Love
Nothing will stop me, not even hell
But hell I’ll bring to warm you, Dove





The tears were falling again. She thought her eyes had dried out, but something inside splashed them with salt and water and now she was crying because of it.
She held the envelope to her heart and closed her eyes, but in her moment, her ears buzzed with a loud, thunderous clangor. Fear slapped her in the face so suddenly as her first thought was that it was an attack. The letter slipped from her fingers as she rushed to the window and pulled the draperies aside. The brightness was another slap in the face and she grimaced in rejection of the light, but through it, she saw the maker-of-noise.

A plane landed in the distant fields, its hull was blue with a white star upon it along with the word: NAVY. The engine cut off and the sound died down. She was in such shock, gaping was all she could do. But no shock could mistake the man that climbed down from the plane.
“But when I serve my country well, I will fly home to you, Love,” she recited from the poem in the letter and smiled a balmy smile.
In some distant fields, a raven was nagging some poor woman. It was squawking and cawing and beaming its great big eyes at that woman. Do not discourage though, for that old bird is a liar and a mummer.