The Morning Crows
The story of being woken up by birds at 4 AM, as I promised.
There are multiple people I can blame for this, I won’t list them all, but this certainly wasn’t a single person’s crime.
Usually I wake up at 7 AM in the summer. No, I’m not an early bird, I’m more of a night owl (or phoenix, if I dare say this awful pun). I would certainly sleep more if I could. It’s because of the crows. Every single morning, from July to November, a crow sits upon the walnut tree in the neighbour’s garden (who is, I have to mention, dead, the house is abandoned), and caws, about at 7.
And so I wake up. I am used to hearing birds, that comes with living in Lower End of the World, but crows are different. Their sound wakes me up instantly.
I’ve had quite a lot of crows in my life in the last few months, they quietly crawled into my life, arriving with people who love them, cared for them, or just simply mentioned them. My father recently told me about an old friend of his who tamed a wild crow. I thought that was really cool. I thought I could do that as well, after all I live in a very crowy area. I thought witchcraft could help me with that.
Oh what a fool I was.
it cost me two days of sleep and minus 48 hours from my sanity. There is very little left of it.
I drew a few sigils on my arm, including this: http://sigilathenaeum.tumblr.com/post/159955770985/inkandsigils-i-attract-crows-requested-by. I have no idea what made the magic work, the charged sigils or simply my desire to see crows, but it worked. It worked too well.
The following morning I wake up to a familiar cawing. But it wasn’t my usual morning crow, and I wasn’t at home. I was at our summer cottage. It was 4:39 AM. And there were at least ten crows, sitting just outside the house on the trees of the surrounding forest. And they wouldn’t stop cawing for the rest of the day.
I went walking with my parents (and Cass who is randomly following me around) around the local lake. There were crows following me. Constant cawing. All day. I got used to it, but by the time night came, it very much annoyed me.
But i still enjoyed their presence.
Next morning, cawing could be heard at 5 AM. I couldn’t fall asleep again. They wouldn’t let me. So somehow I managed to exist for the rest of the day, but it wasn’t easy, that constant sound was very annoying. I went for a swim and kept my head underwater, so I couldn’t hear them. But a storm came, and I had to run home.
By the time the storm passed, the crows were all gone. The water washed away my intent and washed down the sigils drawn with markers from my skin.
Moral of the story: don’t overdo sigils. Also, don’t mess with corvids unless you actually want something from them. And be grateful to have a single bird to wake you up in the morning, do not wish for more.
