Read Night Birds, The for Free Online Page B

nearly broke her. But for now he was the talespinner, the one who took them on journeys to visit places and characters long since passed from this place and time.
     
    He would recite stories during these trips, especially Der Marchen der Bruders Grimm , a book of fairy tales he carried with him from the Old Country. Passed down from his own father, the stories were in part responsible for awakening his interest in local lore. He wanted to do for this new country what the Grimm brothers had done for his old one. Terrible things happened in these stories, but they were about knowledge as well. His favorites featured the night birds, der nacht vogel , birds that led humans out of sorrow. It was these birds that foretold Snow White’s awakening from the coffin of crystal, these birds who guided the prince to Sleeping Beauty, who gave solace to poor Aschen putel , Cinderella. He liked to begin these stories with a question. “Have I told you the story of the three ravens?” he would say, while the mare trotted over the red-packed roads of Missouri clay. The girl would shake her head. He had told them that story many times, but she never tired of it. It began as they all did: “In the time of dwarves and mermaids, when plants and animals shared a common destiny with humans, and a common tongue, stones cried out, and the ravens spoke in prophecy.”
     

In this time there lived a soldier in a far off land who was frugal and saved his coins for a time of need. His friends were not so prudent. They envied his small fortune and plotted how to steal it. One night they convinced him to abandon his post and come away with them in the woods. The owls and night birds saw this and followed after the men. The soldier heard their keening cries, but did not turn back. Deep in the woods the men fell upon him and stole all that he had. They were not content to take his gold only. They gouged out his eyes with dirty fingers and left him tied to a gallows to starve. When he awakened, the blinded soldier believed he was tied to a cross and prayed for mercy.
     

    Her father liked to pause in mid-story. He would cluck to the mare and pull back on the reins, slowing her to a trot. He might look out at the thick woods around them—a place he called the hexenwald after the black forest, where the seelenrauber , the stealer of souls, was said to dwell in the shape of a wolf—as if searching for a missing thread of story. If Caleb was along, he would call out, “Go on Pa. Tell us the rest. How does it end?” But the girl only waited and watched the woods from her seat in the phaeton. “Are you sure I have not told you this story?” he asked her. She shook her head, smiling.
     
That night three ravens descended, talking amongst themselves. Oh if only men knew what we know,” each crow sang. They spoke of a dew that fell from heaven and allowed the blind to see again. Of a sick princess who could only be healed with the ashes of a toad from the pond. Of a village where the well had gone dry. The soldier listened and his face was upturned when the dew rained late in the dark. He was healed and broke his bonds to go abroad in the world, bringing ashes for healing and finding water for the village. The king rewarded him with his daughter’s hand in marriage and the soldier settled into a life of ease. Later in his life, after all he had suffered, the very thieves who betrayed him found him once more. The soldier forgave them, telling them that what they meant for evil, heaven had turned to good. He told them of the prophesying birds. The thieves traveled to the gallows hoping to be enriched. There was a rush of wings, but when the ravens returned that night they descended in rage. The thieves were pecked to death and their bodies left to rot in the rain.
     
    The stories fascinated the girl. In her own life, too, mothers died and fathers remarried. And sometimes the wicked were punished. She pictured that soldier beneath the gallows and filled in