I look at Raven and see something in his eyes. It takes me a moment to realize what it is, where I’ve seen it before. The crow girls had that same look when they calmly told Raven to kill them so that they could go bring Joe back from the dead. It’s the look of one living entirely in the Now. Not the Now of Zen philosophy, but a Now that precludes any memory of the past or consideration of the future.

There are people who consider the cousins to be spirits—guiding spirits. They say that we live outside of time, that the past, present, and future are all happening at once for us. Maybe that’s true for some, but it’s not for me. It might have taken humans to give time the forward motion it seems to have, but I’ve bought totally into it and the days pile up into years in my memory.

But Raven . . .

He’s more like the crow girls than maybe he’d admit. Chloë said the crow girls avoid any consideration of their true nature, but I think they truly don’t remember. Not unless someone, or some incident makes them. Then they can be fierce. Then they have power.

And Raven’s like that, too. He doesn’t avoid his past or the mantle of his history. Most of the time, he simply doesn’t remember it.

Why didn’t he continue to seek out Mira’s murderer?

Because he’d forget to.

Why doesn’t he mend the flaws in this world he’s made?

Because he forgets to.

I don’t doubt the truth of what he said. To truly mend everything, the world would have to go into the pot and be pulled out again so that everything could start over.

But unless he’s reminded of it, I doubt he even considers it.

It’s why he withdraws from the world. He doesn’t remember.

When I think of how Chloë looks out for him, I realize that her solicitousness is born not simply of her affection for him, but also of necessity.

I turn to look ahead through the trees and sure enough, there she is, a large black raven perched on the low-slung bough of a spruce, preening her wing feathers while she waits for us to be done here.

I turn back to Raven. For a moment he doesn’t see me, then his gaze, dark and old, focuses in on me.

“What will you do now?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I really don’t know. I’d say go home, but I don’t really have a home. I haven’t had one since Mira died.”

“You’re always welcome at the Rookery.”

“Even after what I did today?”

“I don’t agree with what you did,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing to do.”

“You seemed so angry.”