I don't tap the Antecedent Memory as my sister does, and yet the similarities between this and her tale are clear; both shadows on the wall of Plato's cave. There is no point to me finishing it now, for the story is told. The Man-who-is-Raven, Travellers Moon, who danced this dance long before we slipped bawling into this world, is gone to Memory, his job done.
Ravens wheel over the blasted coastline. Sister Enemy Sea draws foaming claws through rubble, her ragged ice-cold hands searching the shattered cliffs. Low-tide, she clutches weakly at the boots of Man-who-is-Raven, staining the leather with her salt.
In a dream, Man-who-is-Raven was told where to go. Grandfather Raven stern over his stinking pipe, eyes sharp through thick blue smoke, thick calloused fingers caressing the warm briar bowl as his voice spills out a sonorous melody of command.
Man-who-is-Raven wakes hard, as he often does, and runs hands over his body. Once strong, he is beaten and bruised, tormented by the things in his dreams. Today there are no new wounds, only instructions. He dresses old injuries, stretches to break sleep-stiffness, and pulls on some clothes.
He does not work, not in the world of men. His hours are erratic, his health now poor. He has other things to do; his health, like his permission, is long gone.
He checks the jar, rattling the last of his money. Just enough for a map. He knows where; Grandfather was quite clear on that point.
The map flutters in the back of Man-who-is-Raven’s car. On it, in pencil, lines, arcing, arrowing, spiralling in on one section of coast. Numbers scrawled in late-night-driving hand and in other hands, not his. Broken pencil, where one of those others worked his hands wrongly.
The car door is open; salt drizzle blows in, beading on the torn seat and wetting the map. Parked on the edge of a recent landslide, the car waits, rusting patiently.
Below, at the low tide line, Man-who-is-Raven tips over jagged rocks with his scarred boots, heedless of the cold and the wet, mindful of Sister Enemy Sea. The tide is low, he has minutes before She turns and in this place, her turning shall be swift and fierce, still hungry for the place she has destroyed. He has never seen the sea before but he has been warned of her by others, those who went before him. He feels her hunger and her anger as he picks across the rubble, searching. He remembers the stories.
Raven gazed up and down the beach. It was pretty, but lifeless. There was no one about to upset, or play tricks upon. Raven sighed. He crossed his wings behind him and strutted up and down the sand, his shiny head cocked, his sharp eyes and ears alert for any unusual sight or sound. The mountains and sea, the sky now ablaze with the sun by day and the moon and stars he had placed there, it was all pretty, but lifeless. Finally Raven cried out to the empty sky with a loud exasperated cry.
And before the echoes of his cry faded from the shore, he heard a muffled squeak. He looked up and down the beach for its source and saw nothing. He strutted back and and forth, once, twice, three times and still saw nothing. Then he spied a flash of white in the sand.
There, half buried in the sand was a giant clamshell. As his shadow fell upon it, he heard another muffled squeak. Peering down into the opening between the halves of the shell, he saw it was full of tiny creatures, cowering in fear at his shadow.
Man-who-is-Raven sighs at the absurdity of it even as he spies a flash of white himself. No, he thinks, that’s just absurd. His hands dig at the blasted rock, Sister Enemy Sea rising in anger now and pushing at his arms. He cuts his hands on the shards, blood tinting the foam. And he digs. Numb from cold and bleeding ragged, he feels the hard curvature of clam-shell, and he digs.
Inside Man-who-is-Raven’s mind, one last layer of doubt peels away and crumbles, even as the landlord repossesses his home.
Sister Enemy Sea is around his waist by the time he has freed the giant clam-shell, her embrace desperate, angry. Tugging, sweating, dizzy from the effort and reeling from the mental shock, he drags the shell up the beach, onto the amputated cliff-top path, and collapses with it by the side of his car. It is some hours before he has the strength to lift it into the back of the car, and after that, he lies in the back on the tattooed map, and sleeps.
There are no dreams, only moments of horror. He knows that his home has gone; does not care. When he wakes he has new wounds, deep bruises across his abdomen, barely noticeable among the cuts he has sustained. He dabs the cuts with a tissue, grunts, and gets up.
The boot of the car is clear, only a pair of grey blankets salt-damp and threadbare. On them rests the clam-shell, filling the boot. He puts his hand on it; it is faintly warm.
He digs his fingers into the lips of the shell, brushing aside the limp weed that hangs there. Taking one half in each hand, he pulls, tugs the shell open --
Sister Enemy Sea rages blindly, raking loose rocks from the blasted place. Above her, above Man-who-is-Raven, above the rusting car and the giant clam-shell, ravens wheel.
Copyright 1999 Andrew Gates, all rights reserved