Mr. Crow smiled a vicious thin smile and then pointed to the gem on top. “What you have there is quite dangerous, you know.”

My eyes locked onto the gem. I knew it was broken, and I knew it caused others pain. Yet, to me, the staff was warm and inviting. It would never hurt me, right? Then, I remembered the forest and that feeling like my soul was being pulled out of me. Was that the staff’s doing?

“Ok, if you want it that bad... Here, take it.” I thrust the staff towards him, but he jumped back two steps. Oddly enough, his back jumps looked exactly like a crow skipping. Maybe he was more crow than man. The other crows, flapping about, were not having it. Thick pine needles fell and stabbed me from above.

Suddenly, a crow swooped and cawed. I raised my arms.

Instead of striking, the crow unfurled midway like a cloth that was folded tightly and then thrown to the wind.

I could see more clearly the transformation. How the beak retreated in his skull, how the feathers shortened and disappeared, how the wings extended and became hands, holding a dagger in each.

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He looked related to the crow-man. Perhaps a hotheaded nephew. He landed exactly between me and his leader. Standing lightly, he placed his weight on his toes. The snarl on his otherwise handsome face showed he was determined to stop me from passing.

I swallowed down the egg-sized lump that'd materialized in my throat, waiting for the moment he would pounce on me and slash me to pieces with his mean looking daggers.

But Mister Crow pulled the avenging guard back and whispered something to him.

The crow-boy nodded and retreated behind his master. He gave me one last look of disgust before changing back into a crow and joining the rest of the tree-perched crows.

“Don’t wave that thing at me.” Mr. Crow snarled before resuming a professional façade. “These are extremely toxic and body-altering when they are broken. Keep it away.”

I released the staff in alarm. Don’t tell me it’s going to turn me into another Spiderzilla! I shuddered and wrapped my arms around myself.

As the staff fell, the crow-man and his guards jumped off the table and benches in panic.

The murder of crows erupted in loud, incessant caws, flapping their wings about.

I covered my ears. They just wouldn’t stop.

The crow-man stood on the ground now but still towered over me.