Odin's Murder

Ethan is silent, looking from Julian to me with raised eyebrows. He folds his arms over his chest, leans his back against the wall.

“We can prove it,” I say, hoping my face isn’t red.

Julian nods, reaches for his laptop bag, slides out the spiral notebook from the flap pocket. He ignores my less than subtle head shake, and says, “Show them last March.”

“Oh.” I swallow down my relief. “That one was kind of neat.” I rummage in my purse for the little sketchbook, rifling through the pages to a quick drawing of a black bird, sitting on the wrist of a woman. A heavy ring wraps one of her fingers, with a gem in a setting shaped like an eye. She holds a feather.

Julian reads alo

ud. “March fourth. We aren’t the crow this time, we are behind the weird woman, watching as she plucks a feather out of the sky. She has a ring with a yellow stone. She calls the bird to her, but the feather belongs to another crow, not that one.”

“I take it you don’t discuss them until you document them?” Ethan asks. He is still, staring at my drawing, and I look away before he raises his eyes.

“Yeah.” Julian says. “It’s the only way to prove that we’re not making it up.”

“Every night?” Faye asks again.

“No,” I say. “Just occasionally, but the theme is always the same.”

Faye leans forward, wraps her sweater tighter. “Birds.”

“Yeah. Crows. Ravens. They’re black and sometimes I am the bird and other times I’m watching the bird. Or birds. There can be more than one, sometimes a whole flock or whatever.”

“A murder,” Ethan says. “A flock of crows is called a murder.”

Julian rolls his eyes. “Thanks, Einstein. Everyone knows that. So, yeah, Memory has been obsessed with crows since birth.”

“It’s not an obsession, Jules.”

He grabs my wrist and flips it over. “Explain that.”

“It’s a tattoo.” I snatch my arm back, covering the ink with my hand. “One of several.”

“What does it say?” Faye asks.

I offer her my arm. “Alis Volat Propriis.”

“She flies with her own wings.”

We all turn as one to face Ethan. Julian says it first. “You know Latin?”

“I had to take a language in school, like everyone else.” He shrugs. “The teacher was hot. But big deal. You have dreams about crows and a vague tattoo. I’d hardly call that a conspiracy theory or a cosmic disturbance.”

“Call it what you like, but there has to be a reason Sonja lives in a monument to the same thing that has haunted me for years.” The mood ring is pale green at the moment. I turn it to the inside of my hand, and curl my fingers into my palm.

“What about you?” Ethan eyeballs Julian, like he’s looking for tattoos, or signs of a disease.

“We’re twins. If she’s obsessed, I have little choice.” My brother shrugs his shoulders.

“He dreams about them, too,” I say, defensive.

“Okay, so maybe the program knew you were into this and the same with Sonja. I mean that’s kind of cool right? That they would try to encourage your interests,” Faye says. Her voice is artificial and sweet. “My writing sample in the application had a rune translation that mentioned crows.”

“Dr. Anders told me he assigned the subject to the group after he saw a drawing in my portfolio. But he didn’t mention Julian at all. Or you, or Sonja.” I say.

“This has to mean something,” Faye insists. “All of us together on this project. There’s a connection somehow.”

Ethan exhales a long, dubious sigh. “It’s all just a coincidence.”