“Would it be weird if I took this home?”

He’s holding a dead raven in his hands, mostly skeletal remains that still have some flesh and feathers clutching to it.

And he wants to know if it’d be weird?

She blinks. “Yes, yes it would be, you absolute freak.”

He frowns down at the body, but not in any way she approves of. It’s less “I’ve learned my lesson” and more “surely not everyone would agree with that sentiment.”

Now it’s his turn to blink, right before he shrugs and places the carcass in his handkerchief, gently wrapping the bird as though it were something precious, and not, you know, a dead, disgusting bird corpse.

“You’re such a freak,” she says, rolling her eyes and turning around. She doesn’t wait for him, simply walks as fast as she can down the path home. “Dad is going to be so mad at you.”

“Only if he finds out,” he says behind her, and she can feel his stupid glare on the back of her head. “You better not tattle.”

“When have I ever. Besides, he’s going to find out anyway. You think he won’t notice a dead bird in your room?”

He doesn’t have an answer for her, so he just pouts beside her, having caught up by now, and wipes his nose with the back of his hand. He reaches for her hand and she snatches it away just in time.

“Gross!” she shrieks, pulling her hand to her chest. “Don’t touch me after you touched that thing!”

He frowns at her. “Mom said we need to hold hands when it’s like this,” he says, meaning the fog that covers their feet. It comes and goes, and this particular morning it’s only getting thicker.

“You don’t have to do everything mom says you know.”

“Do too.”

“Nuh uh.”

“Do too!”

She shoves him and he trips over the stone path, falling onto his knees. She freezes, not meaning to hurt him but also not certain if he’ll hit her back if she tries to help him up, when she sees the bag on his back begin to move.

“Rude!”

Well that voice hadn’t come from either of them.

“What. Was,” she gulps, pointing at her brother’s back, “that?”

An explosion of movement comes from the bag, and in a burst of movement the handkerchief bag comes undone and the skeletal remains of the bird fly out. It lands on her brother’s shoulder and turns to her. It doesn’t have any eyes, but she can feel its judgmental stare as if it did.

“Rude!” it repeats, and she can only drop her jaw open. “Rude!”

Her brother gasps in delight, clapping his hands without sound and looking like he just got an extra present on Christmas. “It talks!”

“Talks? It’s alive!” she yells back, pointing at the thing.

It squawks and snaps its beak, and she whips her hand away from it, though it’s still not close enough to bite.

“Great,” she says, “now we have two freaks in the family.”

“Three,” he says confidently, reaching into his pocket and feeding the skeleton raven something, possibly a raisin. The bird makes a curious noise, takes the food, then spits it out pleasantly. “You’re forgetting to count yourself.”

She groans aloud, clenching her fists at her side and begging something to take her stupid freak brother somewhere far away. Neither her brother nor the bird give her any attention.

She reaches out and grabs her brother’s hand, then begins the faithful march back to the house.

“Now try hiding that from dad.”