Bad Cree

Content Warning This section includes depictions of anti-Indigenous racism and substance abuse.

Mackenzie wakes up from a disturbing nightmare. She smells pine and blood and looks down to find that she is holding a severed crow’s head in her hands. This is the third time in the last three weeks that Mackenzie has had this dream and the third time she’s woken up holding the dead bird’s head. She searches the rest of her bedroom. The crow’s head mysteriously vanishes. In the dream, Mackenzie wakes to find herself alone wearing thin pajamas in a cold, snowy forest. The wind begins to whip the trees into a frenzy, and she hears a shriek coming from a nearby trailhead. This time in the dream, she follows the trail to a clearing. There, an entire murder of crows is eating her sister, Sabrina. Sabrina looks like she’s been dead for quite some time, and there is a large hole beneath her collarbone. Through the hole, Sabrina’s heart beats. Mackenzie grabs the crow, snaps its neck, and wakes to find herself back in bed.

She showers and looks out the window. There is, as there has been for weeks, an unusually large number of crows sitting outside on the fence.