Ruby and Rebecka: Installment One

New here? Ruby and Rebecka is a serialized novel. This is my creative project for the foreseeable furture. Creativity comes in all forms. Writing is one of mine. 

XO

Iva

 New installments arrive every two weeks.

Chapter One~Part One

When they soared past the silent stars and the singing galaxies, skirting around black holes, Hope reached hard for Inez's hand, for somehow they had hands or they imagined they did, and when she caught hold of it, it wasn't like holding onto a hand of a human but more like she was now plugged into a great socket and images of Inez's heart poured into her heart. Great gusts of birds, herons, egrets, swallows, hawks, an owl, and a weaving amongst all the birds the cawroboree of crows. Oh. The bird people. She felt Inez cackle, she called them bird people. And the trees were tree people and river people. And then something else, a sadness woven with anger. Hope tried to snatch her hand back to remove herself from the dark current of sadness but it was too late. They were joined.

Inez crooned to the crows.

Sing Hope, sing for the crows.

But Hope turned her head away from the raucous birds into the larger song of all that is.

They're speaking it.

Listen to them.

I don't care for them.

And Inez wheezed through her nose.

And then she reached out an amorphous hand, and plucked a crow from the black cluster of feathers whirling through space alongside them.

What on earth? Hope said.

She needs a friend, Inez said.

Well why can't her friend be a sweet bird like a hummingbird or a canary?

Because Becka's friend is a crow, Inez said.

Crows are smart. Crows are misunderstood.

Does that make you uncomfortable even out here without bodies?

Well, no, Hope said.

Inez cackled through the celestial roar.

Well maybe a little.

That's what I mean to say, Inez said.

And together they tumbled on their long flight back to earth.

Hope, do you remember that time I took the girls deep into the marsh and taught them about the birds? I don't remember why you didn't come with us.

Oh I don't know Inez, I reckon I was busy with some committee or something. Now I see what you were getting after. I was all caught up with the social thing. I didn't think it was important.

Yes mam. You thought I was a bit ignorant.

I'm sorry about that Inez.

Well we had a murmuration of crows in the back yard that like to drive you crazy.

Oh yes. Those crows. And then squeezed Inez's hand. That was right about the time all the trouble started.

It was before the trouble, Inez squeezed back.

And now… the crows are here again?

A cawroboree of crows, yes mam. They do seem to follow our Becka around her life. She's always misunderstanding the message though.

As they flew through space like two old birds from that vantage point where they were omniscient and formless they could see inside of Becka's heart and where she wasn't progressing.

Member the crows Inez?

Yes mam.

And wouldn't it be good if she remembered the crows?

Can we send her a bird?

No mam, how many times I got to tell you I can't send her nothing. That is out of my hands. But those crows sure seem bent by them own selves to tell her something. Why don't you ask them?

The dreams came every night now that old Nomad had arrived. At first the dream had been a vague crow hopping along the movie screen in her mind but now it had become some sort of bionic super crow. This dream crow was giant and beady eyed letting out a long plaintive caw filling the whole screen inside her head. It turned and looked at her and then flew into her face causing Becka to shoot right up in bed and shout into the night. Shoo! Get on out of here.

Then she would sit panting and blinking with sweat beading down her face and between her breasts, so it seemed like her whole body was sobbing. Every single night for two weeks now. She swatted at the air. The sheets twisted about her legs. King lay next to her breathing through his lips in a little put putting snore. King would roll over and grab her t-shirt and fling his hot arm across her lap and grunt. She felt like a ghost in her own life. And those crows, inside her head, and in her yard, and the oak tree, and now even in Bertha, her grandmother's old chevy, were taunting her.

They never should have bought a house with all these crows congregating just outside the kitchen window, surely, they were bad luck, she thought. Sometimes the crows were so thick that the sky seemed dark and strange as if no light could filter through the clusters of their glossy black feathers.

Honey when you get to feeling blue… you got to fly… This is a Chevy Nomad… she will fly us all around the country without ever leaving the ground. That's what Granny used to say. And Inez would chime in from the back seat. Sometimes the only answer is just to leave the men folk behind. They don't mean no harm but they can steal your dreams right from under you.

Becka rubbed the yellow dish glove across her forehead. A pang squeezed behind her heart. "I miss y'all," she whispered.

"Becka… Becka… Good Lord are you deaf? Can you bring me some more coffee?"

"What?"

King made that little sound with his mouth, like his snoring but now he was awake, sitting at the kitchen table. She sighed.

"Girl, what is the matter with you? Coffee. While you're standing over there can you bring me some coffee?"

She snatched up the carafe and marched over to the table. He stared at her. "Well, here's your coffee. What are you lookin at me like that for?"

He settled his phone on the table, pushed back in his chair and folded his hands across his belly. "It's that darn car out there. That's what's going on. I think we ought to just go ahead and sell that old car. You are never going to get it fixed. It's an eyesore. Probably just needs to go to the junk yard and ever since that piece of junk landed in our driveway you have been acting like a crazy person." His voice boomed authoritatively around the kitchen. "So I will call the junk yard today."

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"Ronald King, I mean exactly what that word means. No, I won't sell her. In fact I'm taking her for a drive today."

She said this like she'd had this plan all along.

King snickered. "Well if you can get that rust bucket out of the driveway."

"Hmph." Becka turned and walked back to the sink. She plunged her hands into the soapy water.

"Good Lord Becka, why are you doing the dishes by hand? The dishwasher is right there."

She didn't answer. She wiped her sudsy hand across her forehead. And felt a little surge of delight. "I'm the one cooking the food and doin the dishes so I can do it anyway I please," she said.

King kept right on talking. "If you don't want to sell that thing then what's your plan? You gonna drive straight back to the past like Back to the Future or something? If that piece of junk will even make it out of the yard."

And then he laughed like he'd made a joke. "I don't understand why you are all bent out of shape about some old car your crazy grandmother used to drive you around in. As far as I can tell you didn't even like her."

Becka slammed a plate onto the counter. "Don't talk about my Granny like that." Her face felt all splotched and hot. "That car is valuable, and she is mine, and she used to take us all around the countryside. Besides, she got driven here all the way from South Carolina, so she must drive ok." She looked out the window down on the old car. She filled her cheeks up with air so she wouldn't have to feel all that regret pushing at her heart.

Ruby and Rebecka continues in two weeks.