Sometimes River talked to Marty, her final human friend, as she walked east up the steep trail behind her house.
“You’d hate what they did to the stream,” River told Marty. “They paved over the part we daylighted and now they’re building townhouses. Can you believe it? Townhouses, here!”
Marty — as stubborn a ghost as she had been a friend — never answered.
Sometimes when River stepped out her door and looked west, she swore she could see Marty waiting for her, solid in teal rain boots regardless of weather. River waved, even though she knew Marty couldn’t wave back.
River and Marty had talked about everything on the way up that long hill — until the cancer got Marty shortly after they celebrated her 82nd birthday. Now it was just River walking, River talking to a ghost.
After Marty, River didn’t try to make new friends.
Young friends talked loudly, as if River were deaf. She wasn’t deaf. The young ones reminded River of their names as if she were demented. She was not. Young ones were careful to only talk about things they thought River was interested in, like their kids or some TV cooking competition. River was interested in astronomy and anarchism and philology and the pre-Columbian indigenous history of the land she lived on; that hadn’t changed when River turned 80.
Friends River’s own age were no better. Even if they didn’t die on her, they were deaf and demented. River got tired of hearing about their grandkids and their TV shows. River got tired of shouting at them and reminding them of her name.
So now River chose to walk alone.
There was always something new to explore in River’s half-wild neighborhood. Downhill, where the river met the ocean, otters sunned themselves on the rows of upended canoes awaiting summer’s tourists. Uphill, the doe River named Tulip, the one with the wound where some long-ago hunter had hit her in the flank, paraded this year’s fawn in front of River. Deep under the canopy of evergreens, a murder of hefty crows hurled good-natured insults at River as she walked through their winter roost.
The deeper River got into her 80s, the more desperately eager she was to breathe every fog-laden breath, touch every scarred bark on every tree, note where a big branch had been torn off by last week’s storm. River always squatted down to check on the sequoia seedlings she had planted, noting their growth, her knees’ protest when she stood up reminding her she’d probably be dead before the seedlings were taller than her.
River felt rich with experience and greedy for more. If only she could have another 20 years, or 30 or 40. She picked up stones from the stream she crossed further up the hill and placed them in circles around her sequoias, practicing a magic she didn’t believe in.
Today, in the meantime, River was alive. On every day when she wasn’t going to die, River was happy with her everyday miracles, free from the baggage of humanity. On lazy days when River skipped her walk, she created her own miracles.
* * *
The little house River had bought at the beginning of her geezerhood came with a shy acre. Half of it was tall trees even older than River. The other half, near her house, was cleared land. River had turned the stupid lawn into a rich buffet of clover and corn and crabapples for the deer and squirrels and birds. The critters knew they were safe with her. River knew they did not mind her watching them through the wavy old glass in her windows.
River had invited the birds first with a few haphazard feeders on the second floor deck. River thought it would be nice to have birds for company while she sipped her coffee at the wobbly metal picnic table. She pictured friendly chirping and graceful flight.
Instead she got Harley Davidson, the harsh-voiced Steller’s jay who demanded more and more peanuts as more and more jays joined him. Soon River was buying peanuts in 20-pound bags, the picnic table was downstairs on the shrinking lawn, and the feeders had taken over the deck, along with planters full of late-blooming pineapple sage for the hummingbirds.
Harley Davidson and his jay friends were first, but not the only visitors. Sweetly gossipy red-winged blackbirds soon joined the impossibly huge crows and the ridiculously patterned towhees. River ordered 50-pound bags of sunflower seeds and cases of suet cakes. Bright goldfinches and flickers and juncos and raspberry-colored finches and red-headed, houndstooth-tailcoated woodpeckers and handsome orange thrushes and squabbling starlings gobbled it all.
Only occasionally did a kestrel or sharp-shinned hawk perch on the peak of the roof and swoop down on an unsuspecting customer at River’s buffet. River grieved, but did not begrudge the raptors their appetite.
Next, Queen Liz, a relentlessly fertile old sow raccoon, led a procession of trash pandas up the posts and onto River’s deck. After a few deliciously successful raids by the raccoons on the peanuts intended for jays and crows, River began to put out dishes of dog food for them.
Queen Liz caught on quickly. She and her kits pressed their hands and faces against the window just before dawn and just after sunset. River obediently filled a dish and handed it to the family. Within a few weeks, all the raccoons in the neighborhood — mostly descendants of Liz, River figured — put River on their route. Sometimes River had to put out two separate dishes to prevent growling generations of raccoons from fighting each other to seize the choicest morsels first.
River tried to attract the local Roosevelt elk herd to her haven by planting aspen and dogwood, but no luck. Even when thinned by hunting season, the herd numbered at least a dozen. River’s human neighbors lived too close to suit the herd.
* * *
Only the boldest neighbor children came near River or her house — visits she suspected were prompted by dares. River sometimes contrived to pose spookily in the upstairs window facing the house across the street where the youngest kids lived: I have earned my eccentricity.
Many nights, River sat in her easy chair facing her reflection in the black windows and chuckled at the wildlife looking back at her: Here lives an old lady who dresses in bright, clashing colors and talks to ghosts and birds. And talk she did.
“Time for you to bring me presents now,” River would say to Harley Davidson. “You are a crow. You’re supposed to bring me shiny things in return for my gifts to you.”
Harley replied with a head toss, a strut, and a leap into the air to flap away, as if to say, Make me.
“Just stay alive,” River whispered to the impudent crow. “That’s all I want from you really.”
And “I won’t hurt you, silly girl,” River cooed to Queen Liz when the ragged raccoon stood up, forepaws outstretched, if River got too close to the kits. “I’m your guardian servant factotum, my friend. Nothing will happen to you on my watch.”
Liz would deflate as if in response. River would tut-tut at her, “Now you bring me some treats. It’s your turn, lady. A cutting from your roses, say. A casserole. Something.” Liz seemed to pause in her chewing to sneer.
River was tempted to pat Liz’s head. She wasn’t like the other raccoons. She was the oldest, a survivor, and she was the smartest and she knew just how to get what she wanted from humans.
* * *
River hated fall mornings. That was when hunters would wake her up shooting at sunrise. River forgave the weekday hunters, who were probably local and genuinely respected their kills and fed the meat to their family. But most of the gunfire happened on weekend mornings. That meant rich people from over the mountain who pursued recreation by killing the geese and ducks who shared the docks with the otters. Or they might be taking down one of the elk. Or it could be Tulip, her flank-wounded friend, or even old Liz, too blind to see which human was approaching. River even worried about the safety of the mama bear who trashed the neighborhood garbage cans and sometimes the not-so-feral cats.
More and more hunters disturbed River’s sleep, yet it did not seem to diminish the numbers of River’s visitors. More and more refugees showed up at River’s sanctuary.
The latest town council election had replaced several seats. The new council repped for the timber company that owned the land uphill from the town. The company always logged the tops of the hills bald, replanted the land, and sprayed the clearcut with chemicals to discourage undergrowth — but now without opposition. The chemicals killed what small prey were left for the predators who hadn’t already lost habitat during the clearcut, along with fish and birds and snakes and toads and squirrels. Both predators and prey fled downhill into the remaining trees and into the town itself. Hungry mountain lions and coyotes finished off the local pets and worked their way down the menu to the sluggish, half-hibernating raccoons and the young deer and the elk yearlings.
River couldn’t blame the predators for being hungry. They owned this town before it was a human town. Nevertheless, she fortified her sanctuary with motion-sensitive lights to discourage the cats. She put out opened jars of vinegar that the coyotes hated to smell. It worked, at least enough so that River didn’t find so many leftovers of their meals on her walks.
The flashing lights and peculiar smells didn’t exactly ruin River’s reputation as a witch among the local children — or their parents. That was fine with River.
River rarely spoke to other humans as she headed into the downhill part of her 80s. Her long-ago therapist would say she was isolating. Accurate enough, River supposed, but it had been decades since she saw that as something wrong with her that needed fixing.
Besides, she wasn’t truly isolated. She had all the company she wanted and needed. Her companions nowadays did die on her — even sooner than her geezer human friends — but they had boundaries. They respected River’s boundaries. And these friends never told her the same story twice.
These friends were more than enough for River, and they showed River she was still important, a creature of great value. Every time a new flock of goldfinches or a wary raccoon boar or fawn showed up in River’s sanctuary, she felt buoyant and immortal. The weekend hunters with their fresh gear, still creased from the store, would not take that away from her.
When a glossy raven, bigger even than the king-size crows she normally fed, parked its thick torso on the porch railing, River was elated. It did not seem inclined to move. It shifted left and right, from foot to foot, but kept its perch as she approached. It stared at River, croaking approvingly when she refilled the peanut feeder.
“I think I’ll call you Poe,” River said to the raven, which was regarding her tilt-headed, no more than two feet away. “I’m River. A pleasure to meet you, Poe.”
And Poe croaked, “Hello.”
And River opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn’t decide what to say.
Poe rattled, “Good morning.”
“You’re not wrong,” River replied, and then she laughed like she hadn’t since Marty died.
“You are River,” Poe said.
“I am. How are you talking to me? Are you talking to me? Am I finally losing it?”
“You are fine. All ravens can talk, fool. We do not talk to humans. Generally.”
“Why not?”
“Seriously?”
“Stupid question. Right. But why talk to me?”
“You are not stupid. And I think you might be why I am here. Partly.”
“But how?”
“How did I get here, you mean?”
“Yes. I guess so. Yes! How?”
“My daughter, who I taught many things although I was a shitty mom, turned me into a raven. She unlocked a forbidden room, which was inevitable, because she is a master thief and there is nothing so tempting to a thief as a forbidden room, and…”
“You were human?”
“On the other side of the other door to the forbidden room, yes. I was human. I was bad at it, but I was human.”
“So you came through the forbidden room after she turned you into a raven.”
“My transformation was the price she paid for her trespass.”
“I see. I am sad that…”
“Do not be sad, fool. I like being a raven. I think I am going to be much better at being a raven than I was at being a human.”
“Well, then, good I guess. But I’m happy you’re here and help yourself to peanuts anytime and I’m thrilled to be talking to a raven who can talk to me, but still: Why me?”
“It is my task to grant your greatest desire. Just one. Not three wishes, that never works out well for anyone. Just one. And no, do not say anything yet. Do not speak. Go to sleep tonight and dream a dream. Dream that your greatest desire has come true. When you wake up, it will be so.”
“But what if I have a nightmare? What if I can’t sleep or don’t dream?”
“You humans like to make up things to worry about.”
“That is true. OK then. I’m going to leave a breakfast of peanuts in the feeder for you before I go to bed, just in case. No matter what happens, thank you.”
Poe let out a decidedly not-human grumble-squawk, leaped off the railing, and swooped across the driveway into the copse of crabapple trees. River could hear her croaking from farther and farther away. A cold rain had started, but River stayed on the deck and breathed in the sanctuary’s sounds and sights and smells until she was drenched.
Then she went to bed.
* * *
River rolled over in bed, opening one eye enough to notice the sky was light. She rolled over in bed and did not groan. Her back felt strong. Her knees and elbows did not hurt. She could see two spiders in detail above her on the high ceiling. Her heart yelled at her brain to dress and go for a walk right away because she could not hear any rain falling.
River sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She stood up. She stretched. She took a deep breath, then another.
Nothing hurt.
She did not feel like climbing back under the covers for another hour.
Nothing. Hurt.
Wait a minute.
Wait. A. Minute.
River remembered last night.
River, not bothering to pull on her sweats over her boxers and tank top, ran to the mirror in the bathroom.
River’s face was smooth. Her lips were full. Her eyebrows where red, not silver. Her hair was auburn, not silver. Her breasts were the famous globes her lovers had adored touching. Her belly was sleek and touchable. Her neck was tight, not stringy. And River could see. River could see everything clearly without pressing her face close to it. River could smell.
River.
Could.
Smell.
The cat box downstairs, one day overdue for a cleaning. The oranges in the bowl on the kitchen counter. The savor of old floorboards above the furnace.
But what about —
River threw the door open and — Petrichor. Pine. Grass clippings. Wet soil.
Everything. Everything was here.
River was here.
River was young. River didn’t have to think about how much she could hurry up and do before she died. River didn’t have to make plans for how her hungry wild friends would get along after she was gone. She was here. She would be here.
She was young.
River was young.
“Poe!” River shouted.
She looked up. An especially large raven, high above her, drifted in a lazy circle. The big bird barely dipped her wing in acknowledgement.
“Peanuts!” Poe yelled, then croaked and croaked and croaked.
Poe did not stop croaking until River, young River, overfilled the tray with so many peanuts they spilled onto the deck.
Poe stood in the middle of the tray and ate peanut after peanut while crows and jays scolded and River laughed.
“You scoundrel,” River said. “Shame on you. And thank you.” “You fool. Ravens can’t talk,” Poe said, then flew away.
L (just L) Swartz intrepidly chronicles fairy tale apostates, arrogant dragons, and shapeshifting ex-lovers. L shares life on the North Coast of Oregon with 1 nonbinary badass partner of 23 years, 3 crime cats, 1 sweet dog, and 1 loud parrot, while feeding every corvid and raccoon in Tillamook County.
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