Crow Dark Dawn

At dusk she walked the streets, trying to find the harbour, each narrow alleyway threading to another, the basements lewd with bawdiness and the gutters sluiced with liquor. Then silent cobbles and no sound of strife or laughter till her eye was drawn to an upper window where sat a young girl weeping. Fenya hurried on, but before long she saw another, in another house, another window, but as if the same girl sat there in a green flowing dress, calling wordlessly for help till her voice seemed to follow round every shadowy corner. The same girl in the same dress, the same cry from house after house, again and again. “When the mizzle mist seeps through the city, that brings them out. The Mizzle Wrecks – holding out their hands like begging bowls and telling tales such as you’ve never heard before – like a shiver slipping out from their lips. Them tales get into your blood,” Grob continued, his own voice husky and low. “And the tales are strong potions - be careful how you use them, or they will take your dreams and twist them all about and soon they will slip away to be lost in the Mizzle itself. When the grey light comes at dusk, nothing is real...” All day long she painted pictures of dancers in a village wearing bright robes streaked with scarlet and saffron, their faces hidden by masks shaped like owls. As each picture was finished she hung it on the wall till the room itself seemed to be dancing. And then Tamarind lay on her bed and watched the colours swirl and imagined that she was back in the village again, just as she had been when she was a girl.

In a city of wind-swept wharfs and winding alleyways, the haunting memory of a far-off village lingers on in the fable of a mysterious flower which bursts into flames, but never burns.Crow Dark Dawn interweaves the stories of Morrow, Ghresselle, Fenya and Binnory: vulnerable, complex and cunning, surviving in a liminal city of wind-swept wharfs and winding alleyways, stagnant canals and cold dank cellars - drawing on folklore and myth to create a distinctive dream-like atmosphere. Morrow: abandoned by Lummenmilk, his mother. He is brought up by Grob, the wizened old ratcatcher, who teaches Morrow his trade. Ghresselle: an old woman losing touch with reality, who wanders the city in search of her dead husband and a brother she never had, but who she believes is drowned. Fenya and Arrak: two street urchins, filching fruit and pickings from the market and the docks. Binnory: a young woman who arrives from the country, but quickly becomes entangled with the pickpockets and tricksters she meets on the streets. Longing and loneliness, hunger and disease live cheek by jowl with dancing and revelry, fiddle-playing and puppetry - and the haunting memory of a far-off village, lingering on in the mythic tale of a flower which bursts into flames, but never burns. DAVID GREYGOOSE dw dot windowsproject AT btinternet dot com