The birds flew around the farm house, and Malary began to worry about the future. Thankfully they were only sparrows. Her father had been sick lately and she had been taking care of him, but he seemed to be on the mend. She walked back into the house to fix him lunch.

Jerry was laying down on the couch recovering from a bought with the flue that had really taken it out of him. He looked over at his daughter in the kitchen fixing him some chicken soup, his favorite, and it reminded him of his late wife Mary. He smiled at Malary dancing around in the kitchen and said “You look so much like your mother right now,” Malary smiled and said “I’m not that pretty dad”, and laughed.

Bringing the soup over with some crackers she set the soup on a tray in front of her dad and said “I hope it is as good as mom’s was.”, Jerry smiled, took a taste, and smiled. “It is even better.” Malary pecked him on the cheek and went back into the kitchen.

Cleaning up after her father didn’t bother her at all, and in fact she thought she owed it to him after all he had done for her. He had paid for her college and supported her when she graduate as she looked for a job. He helped her with bills when she struggled, he was her hero and now it was time for her to take care of him.

“Did you see any birds outside when you went out on the porch?” her father asked, “Yeah, but only sparrows they were gathered around the house catching bugs in the air.” Jerry smiled and said, “Good I’m not ready to go just yet.” and laughed.

Through the evening the two of them watched television and played board games until it was time to go to bed. “Do you want to stay on the couch, or do you need help to get up to the bedroom?”, “No I’m good. I’ll just sleep down here tonight and finish watch Matlock.”. Malary gave her father a kiss on the forehead like you would a child and headed up to go to bed.

When she got up to her bedroom and she got ready for bed. Once she had finished in the bathroom she walked over to window to take one final look, and that is when she heard it. She froze in the spot, and not only heard one, but what sounded like a flock of crows. She fell to her knees and began to pray and looking out the window. This can’t be happening tonight, and why are there so many? she thought to herself.

The crows were the bringers of death. They would pull your soul out of you. Everyone knew this was the nature of things, and there was no way to escape them. The thing that scared her the most was that there seemed to be more than one which meant there would be more than one death tonight, but who. She ran downstairs to check on her dad. He was laying on the couch watching tv. He turned around to look at her and smiled. She smiled back and went back upstairs to get some sleep. Tomorrow she would talk to the elders to see what they thought, maybe they weren’t crows.

The next morning Malary got up to the sun shining through the window. She got herself ready and went downstairs to make breakfast for her dad. When she got downstairs he was sitting at the table drinking coffee and reading the paper. “Good morning sleep head.” he said. She smiled, grabbed herself a cup of coffee and started making eggs and bacon for breakfast.

Malary sat down and said “Dad I’m going to talk to the elders today to ask them about what sounded like a flock of craws last night. We need to discuss this as a community because this can’t be good.” Jerry just smiled. She was kind of worried because he didn’t seem to be bothered at all by this development. Their whole belief in life and death revolved around the crows. “What are you smiling about?” she asked.

“I have to confess something darling.”, “What is it?” she asked. At that point he became restless in his chair and finally said in a low voice “I’m the one that called the crows. I’ve always been the one to call the crows. This town needed cleansing, and there needed to be a change.”. Malary’s face was full of shock and asked why. “The bad people in town needed to be removed, so I called the crows to cleanse the town.”

After that day they never saw a crow again until it was time for Jerry to pass on, the day the last of the crows showed up in town to take a life.