Crow Feathers

Page 2
Everything happened so quickly she hardly felt any fear of landing. Rather, she knew she was falling, and was more concerned that she would be in great trouble when she was discovered. She would make a terrible noise, she knew, and the whole family would be alerted and would come find her and she would be punished. The feather around her neck came out from under her shirt, and instead of plummeting Ysabelle glided to the ground, landing on her feet a considerable distance from the inn. She glanced back at the building to make sure that no one had seen this brief flight. No one had.

She knew she must return quickly, before her absence was noticed, but it felt so wonderful to be out of the inn, to be outdoors, free. The call of a crow caught her wandering mind, and Ysabelle watched three of the large black birds flying toward her. Ysabelle walked forward, almost instinctively, yearning to be among them. They landed on a fallen tree, and as Ysabelle drew near she thought she recognized the middle crow as that first crow who had dropped the feather she wore about her neck. The one, she noticed now, with human eyes.

"Corax," she thought, though she had never before heard the word. She assumed it was the crow's name.

Girl and crow stared at each other for a long time, gazes locked, until at last Ysabelle looked away. Once the contact was broken, the three crows spread their wings. Ysabelle silently thanked Corax as they lifted into the air and flew back into the forest. She watched them until they disappeared over the horizon, then tucked the feather back under her dress and hurried back to the inn.

Ysabelle began to weave the strands of feathers together, at night, working silently by the scant moonlight that came through her window while everyone else was asleep, and soon she had formed a cloak from the feathers.

As she grew older and came into her monthly courses, as her breasts began to develop and swell and hair to grow between her legs, Galen began looking for any excuse to tell her to lift her skirts and bend over to be switched. He never touched her, at least not often, when his hand "accidentally" hit her instead of the switch, but as the blow was much less painful than the willow she didn't mind.

Ysabelle knew she was switched often simply because Galen enjoyed looking at her naked and exposed. She felt unclean after every such incident, and thought often about running away; but where could she go to? A young girl, alone, without family or means, she would be raped or worse if she left; at least here she was fed and clothed, if also overworked and beaten. It could be so much worse...

It could be so much better, too, Ysabelle told herself.

One afternoon, after a particularly severe beating by Galen, she took the cloak of feathers she kept hidden under the eaves and walked out into the woods. She walked away from the inn, and as she walked, crows began to follow overhead, first one, then two, four, seven... By the time she could no longer see the inn at all, if she had looked back over her shoulder, which she did not, there was a cloud of nearly thirty crows circling above her head.