corvo washed quickly and thoroughly, making sure to scrub the dirt off of his clothing as well. When he was done bathing he dried himself, dressed in still-damp clothes, and slipped out of the washing room. As he made his way towards the kitchen, he heard voices coming from it; Dina’s voice, warm and friendly, and then someone else speaking, a female whose voice corvo did not recognize.
“…did look a bit wild when I first saw him,” Dina was saying, “but I’m sure now that he’s washed up he looks much better. Though I daresay he’ll still need some sleep and something to eat.”
She’s talking about me, corvo realized.
“What’s he like?” the unfamiliar voice asked.
“Oh, well, he’s quite polite, a bit overly so, actually, and rather timid it seemed to me. He’s a bit odd, but that’s to be expected, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” the unfamiliar voice said.
“You heard your father, didn’t ye? He detto the poor boy grew up in the forest, with the wild animali and such. ‘Course he’s odd.”
“Has he seen anythin’ up there?” the unfamiliar voice asked. “Magickal beasts and such?”
“I would ask him that, darling,” Dina said, then shouted; “Crow!”
Crow hesitated, then called back. “Yes?”
“Are ye done?”
“Yes.”
“Well come on in here then, honey. Ye can have something to eat.”
Crow hesitated again, then walked the rest of the way into the kitchen. Once there, he hovered against the bacheca and observed the occupants of the kitchen.
Dina was there, of course, buzzing about the cucina and baking and cooking and frying and cleaning. Jonathan was also there, sipping coffee and eating a large stack of pancakes, pancake drenched in melted burro and acero syrup. Three children sat at the tavolo across from him, two girls and a small boy about the age of ten. The boy stared at Crow, eyes wide, and the girls snuck glances at him in between bites of their breakfast.
“Hello, Crow,” Dina detto warmly. She bustled over to him and took him da the shoulder, then led him over to the table. “Crow, these are my children, Heather,” she pointed to one of the girls, a brunette with wavy hair and wide blue eyes, “Sophia,” she pointed to the other girl, who resembled her sister but with darker, straighter hair and freckles, “and Finley.” Finley was the last child, the boy. He had brunette hair as well, straight like Sophia’s, with fair skin and a turned-up nose.
Sophia smiled at him politely, but Heather and Finley stared at him, eyes wide. corvo looked at the ground, embarrassed.
“Here, sit down,” Dina said. She pulled out a chair and pushed corvo down into it. “I’ll go get your breakfast.” She hurried over to the large wood stove, upon which two pans and a tè kettle sat.
Finley leaned across the table. “Is yer name really Crow?”
Crow nodded.
“That’s the strangest name I ever heard,” he announced.
“Finley!” Sophia scolded.
Heather pulled Finley back into his sede, sedile da the hem of his shirt.
Dina hurried over and clapped a plate down in front of Crow. It was heaping with food—poached eggs with runny yolks, bacon, buttered crostini, pane tostato with fragola marmellata smeared on it, and a huge, fluffy pile of pancakes, pancake drizzled with syrup.
“I know ye detto just crostini, pane tostato was fine, but I think ye could use some fattening up,” Dina said. “I don’t think ye’ve eaten in quite a while, have ye?”
“No, I can’t say I have,” corvo replied, his eyes hovering on the stack of pancakes. He hadn’t noticed up until then how ravenous he was. His mouth watered.
“Well, go ahead and eat,” Dina said, placing a fork on the tavolo and nudging the plate closer to him. “I can tell yer starving.”
Crow didn’t have to be told twice. He picked up the fork and sliced a large piece of the egg off, shoveling into his mouth. It tasted wonderful, but did little to satisfy his hunger. He dug into the pancakes, then the toast, the bacon, and the rest of the eggs, hardly caring that he was wolfing the whole thing down.
It took him only a minuto to finish it, but his hunger was gone. He sat back, satisfied but wishing the Cibo hadn’t disappeared that quickly.
Dina came over and picked up the plate, then swept it over to the cucina counter. “My, ye were hungry, weren’t ye?”
Crow blushed as he realized the uncivilized manner in which he had eaten.
“Sorry,” he said. “I haven’t eaten for a long time.” He didn’t know that, of course, but he had a feeling that if he had eaten recently, he wouldn’t have been anywhere near as hungry.
“Oh, it’s fine,” Dina told him, thumping a large mug of coffee down in front of him. “Here, drink this. It’s just what ye need to wake ye up a little.”
“I thin’ what ‘e needs is a good night’s sleep,” Jonathan commented.
“Maybe.” Dina bent over Crow. “Here, c’mon. Why don’t ye come take a short nap, and if ye don’t need it, ye can get up, alright? C’mon.”
Crow stood up and let Dina lead him down the hall to a small, closet-like room. A slightly lumpy mattress lay on the floor, crowded in with a small dresser, a strange, contraption that looked to be made out of thick wires, and a small metal basin of some sort, which Dina detto was for him to relieve himself in.
“Then we dump it outside,” she continued. “There’s a place near the woods where nobody really goes, so everybody just dumps it there. Smells awful bad, and it’s a little while away, but if we borrow a horse to ride it don’t take too long.”
“Why don’t te just go outside in the first place?” corvo asked her.
“Pardon?”
“Instead of using the basin. I mean, it ends up outside anyway.”
Dina gave him a long look. “Because it’s uncivilized, Crow. It’s inhuman. Type of thing those creatures up in the forest do.”
“What are they like?” corvo asked. Deep in his mind, something stirred, as if he already knew, in fact, what they were like.
Dina gave him another long look. “What do ye mean? Haven’t ye seen them? Didn’t ye live up in the forest, Crow?”
Crow stared at the floor. For some reason, he was reluctant to tell anyone about the loss of his memory. It just didn’t quite feel right, like they would think he was crazy, o a liar, or…
“I don’t remember,” corvo heard his mouth inform Dina, seemingly without Crow’s permission. He snapped his mouth shut tightly.
“Ye don’t remember? Ye mean ye don’t remember if ye live in the woods o not? How don’t ye remember that, Crow?”
“I don’t know,” corvo said, picking his words carefully. “I just woke up on the ground in the forest, and then I stood up and realized that I had been hurt somehow, and then I tried to remember what I was doing and who I was and how I had been hurt and I realized I couldn’t.”
“Ye mean…ye don’t remember anything?” Dina asked.
Crow nodded slowly. “I mean, I remember some things. Like how to speak, obviously. And the names of certain objects o beings—you know, I remembered what pancakes, pancake were, and then when I remembered what Cani were when I saw Poplar and Cedar, but I don’t remember anything about the creatures in the forest and I don’t remember,” he gestured at the contraption that looked to be built of wires, “what that is.”
“That’s a cappotto hanger,” Dina said. “And the creatures in the forest are the Fair Folk, and the kitsunè, and the wendigo, and other horrible creatures.”
“What are they like?” corvo asked.
“A horrible lot—mischievous and unpredictable at best and cruel and murderous at worst. The Fair Folk—ye might have heard them referred to as faeries?” Dina looked at corvo expectantly.
Crow shook his head.
Dina shrugged and continued.
“Anyways, the Fair Folk are the worst of all, o maybe the wendigo o the vampyrs. o the skinwalkers. I don’t know, they’re all horrible. The Fair Folk have different types of their kind, of course—spriggans and elves and merrow. And they’re all strange and inhuman. But I shouldn’t be saying this.”
“Why not?”
“They might be listening. The Fair Folk, I mean. We do our best to repel them, but sometimes they still get in the house. We don’t want to offend them. That’s why we call them the Fair Folk, ye know. Makes them sound like they really are fair, instead of hideous little…” Dina stopped quickly and looked around.
“Anyway, the wendigo,” she said. “Horrible, demon creatures, always needing to eat human flesh. Horrible creatures they are, horrible. And the vampyrs are the same—always need to feed, but they have to drink human blood. And the vampyrs are horribly thin, with long, bony fingers, and huge eyes, Crow, huge eyes. At least that’s the descrizione I’ve heard.”
“What about the skinwalkers?” corvo asked.
“Well, they’re just humans, Crow, like ye and me, but with magickal powers that let them shapeshift. They wear the skin from a deer, o a orso claw ‘round their neck, and they turn right into that animal. Won’t die unless ye shoot them with a bullet rolled in white ash, and they get their powers from murdering one of their close relatives—an uncle o a cousin o a sibling o a grandfather, for example.”
“Are there any others?” corvo asked.
“Oh, of course there are. Like the kitsunè; they can shapeshift into foxes; and the Old Woman, of course.”
Something about the way Dina detto ‘the Old Woman’ sent shivers down Crow’s spine. “The Old Woman?” he asked.
“Yes. She lives deep in the cuore of the forest, deep, deep down. No one’s really sure if she’s a human o a kitsunè o some kind of faery, but it’s detto she knows the answer to every domanda in the entire world. Now get some sleep, Crow. Ye need it, alrighty?”
Crow nodded, and Dina slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her. corvo pulled off his camicia and tossed it on the floor, then flopped into letto and pulled the cover up, encasing himself in the soft, fluffy warmth of the blankets. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what Dina had said.
‘The Old Woman…lives deep in the cuore of the forest…it’s detto she knows the answer to every domanda in the entire world…’
Would she know the answer to my questions? corvo wondered. He rolled over and snuggled deeper under the covers.
Tomorrow, he decided. Tomorrow te head out there and find out.
“…did look a bit wild when I first saw him,” Dina was saying, “but I’m sure now that he’s washed up he looks much better. Though I daresay he’ll still need some sleep and something to eat.”
She’s talking about me, corvo realized.
“What’s he like?” the unfamiliar voice asked.
“Oh, well, he’s quite polite, a bit overly so, actually, and rather timid it seemed to me. He’s a bit odd, but that’s to be expected, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” the unfamiliar voice said.
“You heard your father, didn’t ye? He detto the poor boy grew up in the forest, with the wild animali and such. ‘Course he’s odd.”
“Has he seen anythin’ up there?” the unfamiliar voice asked. “Magickal beasts and such?”
“I would ask him that, darling,” Dina said, then shouted; “Crow!”
Crow hesitated, then called back. “Yes?”
“Are ye done?”
“Yes.”
“Well come on in here then, honey. Ye can have something to eat.”
Crow hesitated again, then walked the rest of the way into the kitchen. Once there, he hovered against the bacheca and observed the occupants of the kitchen.
Dina was there, of course, buzzing about the cucina and baking and cooking and frying and cleaning. Jonathan was also there, sipping coffee and eating a large stack of pancakes, pancake drenched in melted burro and acero syrup. Three children sat at the tavolo across from him, two girls and a small boy about the age of ten. The boy stared at Crow, eyes wide, and the girls snuck glances at him in between bites of their breakfast.
“Hello, Crow,” Dina detto warmly. She bustled over to him and took him da the shoulder, then led him over to the table. “Crow, these are my children, Heather,” she pointed to one of the girls, a brunette with wavy hair and wide blue eyes, “Sophia,” she pointed to the other girl, who resembled her sister but with darker, straighter hair and freckles, “and Finley.” Finley was the last child, the boy. He had brunette hair as well, straight like Sophia’s, with fair skin and a turned-up nose.
Sophia smiled at him politely, but Heather and Finley stared at him, eyes wide. corvo looked at the ground, embarrassed.
“Here, sit down,” Dina said. She pulled out a chair and pushed corvo down into it. “I’ll go get your breakfast.” She hurried over to the large wood stove, upon which two pans and a tè kettle sat.
Finley leaned across the table. “Is yer name really Crow?”
Crow nodded.
“That’s the strangest name I ever heard,” he announced.
“Finley!” Sophia scolded.
Heather pulled Finley back into his sede, sedile da the hem of his shirt.
Dina hurried over and clapped a plate down in front of Crow. It was heaping with food—poached eggs with runny yolks, bacon, buttered crostini, pane tostato with fragola marmellata smeared on it, and a huge, fluffy pile of pancakes, pancake drizzled with syrup.
“I know ye detto just crostini, pane tostato was fine, but I think ye could use some fattening up,” Dina said. “I don’t think ye’ve eaten in quite a while, have ye?”
“No, I can’t say I have,” corvo replied, his eyes hovering on the stack of pancakes. He hadn’t noticed up until then how ravenous he was. His mouth watered.
“Well, go ahead and eat,” Dina said, placing a fork on the tavolo and nudging the plate closer to him. “I can tell yer starving.”
Crow didn’t have to be told twice. He picked up the fork and sliced a large piece of the egg off, shoveling into his mouth. It tasted wonderful, but did little to satisfy his hunger. He dug into the pancakes, then the toast, the bacon, and the rest of the eggs, hardly caring that he was wolfing the whole thing down.
It took him only a minuto to finish it, but his hunger was gone. He sat back, satisfied but wishing the Cibo hadn’t disappeared that quickly.
Dina came over and picked up the plate, then swept it over to the cucina counter. “My, ye were hungry, weren’t ye?”
Crow blushed as he realized the uncivilized manner in which he had eaten.
“Sorry,” he said. “I haven’t eaten for a long time.” He didn’t know that, of course, but he had a feeling that if he had eaten recently, he wouldn’t have been anywhere near as hungry.
“Oh, it’s fine,” Dina told him, thumping a large mug of coffee down in front of him. “Here, drink this. It’s just what ye need to wake ye up a little.”
“I thin’ what ‘e needs is a good night’s sleep,” Jonathan commented.
“Maybe.” Dina bent over Crow. “Here, c’mon. Why don’t ye come take a short nap, and if ye don’t need it, ye can get up, alright? C’mon.”
Crow stood up and let Dina lead him down the hall to a small, closet-like room. A slightly lumpy mattress lay on the floor, crowded in with a small dresser, a strange, contraption that looked to be made out of thick wires, and a small metal basin of some sort, which Dina detto was for him to relieve himself in.
“Then we dump it outside,” she continued. “There’s a place near the woods where nobody really goes, so everybody just dumps it there. Smells awful bad, and it’s a little while away, but if we borrow a horse to ride it don’t take too long.”
“Why don’t te just go outside in the first place?” corvo asked her.
“Pardon?”
“Instead of using the basin. I mean, it ends up outside anyway.”
Dina gave him a long look. “Because it’s uncivilized, Crow. It’s inhuman. Type of thing those creatures up in the forest do.”
“What are they like?” corvo asked. Deep in his mind, something stirred, as if he already knew, in fact, what they were like.
Dina gave him another long look. “What do ye mean? Haven’t ye seen them? Didn’t ye live up in the forest, Crow?”
Crow stared at the floor. For some reason, he was reluctant to tell anyone about the loss of his memory. It just didn’t quite feel right, like they would think he was crazy, o a liar, or…
“I don’t remember,” corvo heard his mouth inform Dina, seemingly without Crow’s permission. He snapped his mouth shut tightly.
“Ye don’t remember? Ye mean ye don’t remember if ye live in the woods o not? How don’t ye remember that, Crow?”
“I don’t know,” corvo said, picking his words carefully. “I just woke up on the ground in the forest, and then I stood up and realized that I had been hurt somehow, and then I tried to remember what I was doing and who I was and how I had been hurt and I realized I couldn’t.”
“Ye mean…ye don’t remember anything?” Dina asked.
Crow nodded slowly. “I mean, I remember some things. Like how to speak, obviously. And the names of certain objects o beings—you know, I remembered what pancakes, pancake were, and then when I remembered what Cani were when I saw Poplar and Cedar, but I don’t remember anything about the creatures in the forest and I don’t remember,” he gestured at the contraption that looked to be built of wires, “what that is.”
“That’s a cappotto hanger,” Dina said. “And the creatures in the forest are the Fair Folk, and the kitsunè, and the wendigo, and other horrible creatures.”
“What are they like?” corvo asked.
“A horrible lot—mischievous and unpredictable at best and cruel and murderous at worst. The Fair Folk—ye might have heard them referred to as faeries?” Dina looked at corvo expectantly.
Crow shook his head.
Dina shrugged and continued.
“Anyways, the Fair Folk are the worst of all, o maybe the wendigo o the vampyrs. o the skinwalkers. I don’t know, they’re all horrible. The Fair Folk have different types of their kind, of course—spriggans and elves and merrow. And they’re all strange and inhuman. But I shouldn’t be saying this.”
“Why not?”
“They might be listening. The Fair Folk, I mean. We do our best to repel them, but sometimes they still get in the house. We don’t want to offend them. That’s why we call them the Fair Folk, ye know. Makes them sound like they really are fair, instead of hideous little…” Dina stopped quickly and looked around.
“Anyway, the wendigo,” she said. “Horrible, demon creatures, always needing to eat human flesh. Horrible creatures they are, horrible. And the vampyrs are the same—always need to feed, but they have to drink human blood. And the vampyrs are horribly thin, with long, bony fingers, and huge eyes, Crow, huge eyes. At least that’s the descrizione I’ve heard.”
“What about the skinwalkers?” corvo asked.
“Well, they’re just humans, Crow, like ye and me, but with magickal powers that let them shapeshift. They wear the skin from a deer, o a orso claw ‘round their neck, and they turn right into that animal. Won’t die unless ye shoot them with a bullet rolled in white ash, and they get their powers from murdering one of their close relatives—an uncle o a cousin o a sibling o a grandfather, for example.”
“Are there any others?” corvo asked.
“Oh, of course there are. Like the kitsunè; they can shapeshift into foxes; and the Old Woman, of course.”
Something about the way Dina detto ‘the Old Woman’ sent shivers down Crow’s spine. “The Old Woman?” he asked.
“Yes. She lives deep in the cuore of the forest, deep, deep down. No one’s really sure if she’s a human o a kitsunè o some kind of faery, but it’s detto she knows the answer to every domanda in the entire world. Now get some sleep, Crow. Ye need it, alrighty?”
Crow nodded, and Dina slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her. corvo pulled off his camicia and tossed it on the floor, then flopped into letto and pulled the cover up, encasing himself in the soft, fluffy warmth of the blankets. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what Dina had said.
‘The Old Woman…lives deep in the cuore of the forest…it’s detto she knows the answer to every domanda in the entire world…’
Would she know the answer to my questions? corvo wondered. He rolled over and snuggled deeper under the covers.
Tomorrow, he decided. Tomorrow te head out there and find out.
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