Balance

His hands, flapping around uselessly on the way down the cliff face, grasped nothing but air. Finally, he perceived a sickening crack -- a sound that appeared to come from all around him, yet from deep inside -- as bone collided with age-old rock. The last neuron impulses, which flashed through Jim D. Brick's dying brain formed a single thought: Why them -- what did I ever do to them?! 

Heidi Brick used a template to draw another few maple leaves onto pages of orange, brown, and red-colored construction paper before she handed them to her kids, 8-year-old Mandy and her 5-year-old, Sammie, who then cut them out and added "veins" with a marker, the way she had shown them earlier. The boy placed a finished leaf onto the growing pile on the end of the kitchen table, but it slipped off and sailed toward the floor. It didn't make it all the way, though, because Sunshine, the cat, had just waited for such an opportunity and pounced on it, before it hit the ground, snagging it with a paw, maneuvering it to his mouth, and throwing it back into the air to play-attack it again. The kids giggled at him, as did Heidi. She took a deep breath, enjoying the subtle scent of a pumpkin spice soy candle burning at a safe distance over by the window. She was truly grateful her husband had decided to go hunting this weekend, although she hated his desire to kill innocent animals for sport. When she had first met him, he had just begun working as a veterinarian and his care for pets of all kinds and sizes had hit a soft spot with her. When he had decided to get a hunting tag that first fall after their wedding, she had hoped it was just a brief bout of needing to prove his manliness among his friends, just tagging along, sharing beers, and firing a few bullets. However, he promptly presented her with the bloody, lifeless, gutted, body of a deer, demanding from her to find a butcher the next day to process the venison, which, upon return, she then was to cook for him and have the antlers separated, cleaned, and preserved, as well. At that point, while taken aback with his request, she rationalized, at least, he didn't kill the formerly majestic stag just for the fun of it, and the meat would stretch their food budget a little further. But it didn't stop there. He'd be out hunting almost every weekend throughout hunting season, every year thereafter. Apparently, he didn't always bring home his kills, either. Maybe he had grown tired of her complaints about it, she thought for a while until he started posting pictures on Facebook, depicting him with less common and bigger prey he had shot and killed, a proud smile on his face. They quickly surpassed the number of happy family pictures he had shared the first couple of years after they had met and after the kids had been born. 

Eventually, a few weeks after these hunting trips, he brought home taxidermied trophy kills, which he then displayed in his large study. She hated having to clean the room, feeling uneasy at the blank stares of the lifeless glass eyes of dead animals. The characteristic smell emanating from them was even worse, but Jim didn't even seem to notice. Who knew, maybe he even enjoyed it -- the thought alone disgusted her. Sometimes, she wondered if he had taken on the same stench of death and decay, or if it was simply the way her libido had faded, as a result of only receiving affection when he wanted to have his needs met and her checking out mentally while allowing him to use her body however he saw fit, for the little bit of peace afterward. 

A slight shudder ran down her spine and she quickly brought her thoughts back to reality and the only thing that mattered, anymore -- her children. 

Fall crafts with the kids were one of her favorite mom-and-offspring activities of the year. Only a couple more weeks before Halloween, or Samhain, as she preferred to refer to her favorite pagan holiday. When the Christian belief system, in which she had been brought up failed her, trying to uphold her traditional role as an obedient wife, even in face of her husband's moody, and sometimes even abusive behavior, to hold and love her husband, no matter what, she began finding solace in a different, much older religion. Her spirituality brought her closer to nature and whatever higher power lay in it. Whenever her husband brought home more ghastly proof of his morbid obsession, she'd pray for the animal, ask for forgiveness, make an offering, and smudge the home with white sage, as soon as he went out or back to work. In recent weeks, she had sought advice online, how she might free herself of her husband. She meant him no harm, but by now, she realized he wouldn't let her leave without severe repercussions. She had to do something. 

Tonight, a Saturday, with the moon in the waning phase, she'd prepared a small wax figure with a tiny makeshift wax rifle, using some of her husband's hair, some herbs and spices meant to banish negativity, and a little piece of tissue that held a drop of blood from when Jim had cut himself shaving. A sewing needle allowed her to carve a tiny sigil into the figurine, symbolizing banishment. 

She lit an herb and essential oil-dressed, black, candle her Internet friend had sent her specifically for this purpose. 

"Mom, can I have some juice, please?", her older one interrupted her thoughts. 

"Sure, honey", she got up from her chair, leaving the figurine on the table, as she walked to the cupboard to retrieve a glass and then got some apple juice from the fridge, her back turned. 

"No, Sammie, put it down!"

There was an odd little rap, and then, an "Oopsie, sorry, mommy!"

Heidi turned around to find the little wax figure on the ground, broken into two pieces, in front of her 5-year-old. 

"Oh no, Sammie..."

"Mom, I told him to put it back!"

"I know, Mandy..."

"I'm sorry it broke, mommy; can we fix it?" Sammie mumbled, looking at his feet with a frown, clearly feeling bad for his mistake. 

"I don't know, Sammie, I guess we can try... Why did you pick it up?"

"It looks like daddy. Daddy's never here. And now I broke him..." Tears started streaming from his eyes. 

"Oh come here baby", she kneeled and took him into her arms. "It's okay; it's just a silly little puppet."

Looking over her boy's shoulder, her eyes were drawn to her black candle and then the one by the window. They both flickered simultaneously, and for a moment, the light from both must have hit the paper leaves on the table just right, because, from her peripheral vision, the faint shadows on the wall and ceiling looked like a flock of birds, all flapping their wings... or something like that. She got an odd sensation in the pit of her stomach. It passed as quickly as it had come on, and she suddenly felt lighter, almost euphoric...

Heidi picked up the pieces of the broken wax figurine and tossed them in the trash. She could try this again another time. 

"Let's clean up, wash up, and get you guys into your pajamas." 

There was no good reason why James Donald Brick, Jim for short, had chosen to follow the majestic Canadian Lynx back to her hiding spot, where -- unbeknownst to him -- the queen had temporarily stashed her cubs; and even less reason to kill her, leaving her offspring to fend for themselves and probably die soon, without their mother to care for them. Likewise, it would seem that Jim, a veterinarian by profession, would be anything BUT an avid trophy hunter. However, here he was after a long day of no luck, the sun already low in the sky, the Lynx's flank in his sight, the crosshairs right above her heart, his finger on the trigger of his rifle. In the split-second between Jim squeezing the trigger and the bullet cutting through the air, before piercing the thick fur coat, penetrating skin and muscle, and entering the beating heart, the eyes of predator and prey met. Then, the medium-sized cat collapsed; the life, which had just filled the feline's characteristically yellow eyes, quickly fading, and she was gone -- just like that. Jim smirked, all proud of his accomplishment. This cat would make a great challenge for his taxidermist. Perhaps, for a little extra money, he could stuff the whole cat, this time, rather than performing the steps necessary for the morbid art of life-like preservation on just the head. Jim walked up to the lifeless, muscular body, got down on one knee next to her, propping her front paws and head upon the other, and took a quick selfie with his smartphone, so he could provide proof of his hunterly prowess to his friends, later on. Then, he used water from a bottle to rinse off some of the blood from the bullet wound and patted it dry with a cloth, before it had a chance to dry and ruin the pelt. He wrapped the carcass in a small tarp and lifted the lynx over his pack and onto his shoulders to carry it down from the mountain to where he had parked his pick up truck. Looking at the sun that was now even lower in the Western sky he swore at having gotten farther away from his vehicle than he had initially planned. He didn't want to have to spend the night on the mountain, as it would get pretty damn cold this time of year, not to mention he wasn't the only predator out here. The approaching dark and carrying an extra 45 or so pounds of meat and the smell of blood from a dead animal would put him at a disadvantage. He was neither planning on baiting nor facing an entire pack of wolves or coyotes by himself...

It was getting late in the day and Heidi wanted to get a little fresh air before her husband was due to return around nightfall. The sun was slowly setting, painting the sky in all kinds of hues from subtle blues, lavender, and pinks to bright peach, red, and fiery orange. "Ca-caw, ca-caw, caw, caw", a crow called from the left. From the Southwest at sunset, she thought, recalling what she had learned about crow augury, the wisdom of the language of the crows... The crows were messengers, inhabiting the space between the worlds of the living and those beyond. "Your wishes shall be fulfilled", they said. 

Can it be, she thought to herself, my burdens will be lifted? 

The vet turned trophy hunter really wasn't having too good a day. First, he walked too far up the mountain, and now it appeared he had gotten turned around somewhere and ended up next to a cliff looking over a ravine. He decided to take a short break to rest and re-hydrate. He let the carcass carefully slip off his shoulders onto the rock ledge where he stood, took out his canteen to drink some water, and then walked over to a tree to take a leak. He sighed deeply as he relieved himself. He heard a high pitched noise near his right ear, followed by an itchy sensation on his sweaty neck, and smacked it with his flat hand to kill the pesky mosquito, which had declared Jim dinner. Then, he shook off, zipped up, and turned around to go back to the spot where he had dropped the cat. A crow greeted him from a thorny bush, "Ca-caw", hopping onto another branch and then, on top of the lynx carcass, coming to a stop on the deceased feline's skull, where the tarp had slid off. 

"HEY!" Jim shouted at the bird, walking toward it, waving his arms, trying to shoo the black scavenger away from his kill. The crow didn't seem to mind, flapped his wings briefly, and gave another "Caw" before it nonchalantly dipped it's sharp beak into the dead lynx's right eye socket before Jim could reach it. 

"Get away you little bastard!" he stepped toward the crow and took a swipe at the black bird, which finally scared it off. "Stupid bird!" he shouted and covered the skull with the tarp again. 

Okay, at least, he was on high enough ground to hopefully find another way off the mountain. Jim carefully walked up to the cliff's edge to take a closer look. 

"What's this?" There was an elongated fissure in the rock face to his side, maybe three or four feet horizontally, and a foot and a half gap, if measured from top to the bottom. "Perhaps a cave?" He leaned over, a bit farther toward one side of the cliff, to get a better look. But then he saw something moving in there. Dark, the color of ancient, aged, leather. He saw what seemed like thousands of tiny pin-size reflections of the setting sun in the cavity, as dusk fell. He took a step backward trying to dodge the swarm of bats on their way out. And then, so did he. 

Jim had not come home that night. Heidi called the police when he didn't show up for lunch the next day. The authorities found her husband's truck, but searched for him for a couple of weeks, without luck, before they gave up. 

Weeks later, his remains were found down in a ravine by some hikers. According to the coroner, the cause of death had been numerous fractures from the fall, including a broken back. Heidi was asked to identify Jim's body. She found out that there was some guano on the clothing, and oddly enough, some dried black wax, despite the absence of candles or anything of the sort. The police didn't have any good explanation for any of this. Of course, guano meant bats, although it was only one piece of the puzzle. 

They finally figured out the approximate place Jim had fallen from. They found his backpack near a cliff, not too far from the skull and scattered bones of a lynx, poorly covered by a tarp. Most of the meat had been removed by scavengers. When Heidi received the news and was informed of the circumstances, she asked to see pictures of the place where Jim's backpack had been found. On the lynx's skull rested a black crow feather. Death, she thought to herself. Nature had finally restored balance. No one saw the corners of her mouth lift slightly. 

Ad the left the building, she heard a "Ca-Caw" from behind her. Spiritual wisdom. "Thank you", she whispered. The crow flew off toward the West and ca-cawed once more. Heidi looked at her watch. 11 am. I wonder where my journey will lead next? She only knew one thing -- it would be better, no matter what.