Fairy tales for Grown Ups

Once there was a woman who was really a crow, or perhaps a jackdaw.  She knew where you hid your gold rings, your freshly baked bread.  Darkling, darling, darkwing.  On bad days, she was all beak: sharp and full of worms.  What of avian games?  The balancing of sticks and sliding down on slick branches?  If she lost all her blue-black feathers, would she be trapped in human form? Her bones remain, simultaneously hollow and heavy.  There is a story hidden in her joints and tendons, one of flight and lodestone and shiny red berries.

 She will never be content to carry your messages.