Angels were white and good, light as seed heads. Demons were dark; sinister as the ravens that pecked out lambs’ eyes.
In a way there was simplicity: every thing was black or white, no shades, no grey.

There was preparation - fairy tales with their moralities: wolves in Grandma’s clothing. But then again theoretical is ill preparation for the actuality of the harshness of this locality.

I hunkered down, knees splayed, watching chicks emerge from under Mrs Hopperty. Yellow balls of fluff cheeped around as Mother hen scratched her way down to the scattered grain. Left was a pile of broken shells, twists of matted down like pellets the barn owl sicked up along the fence line. Beaks and claws were evident on chubby hand inspection.

My own Mammy shovelled up the leavings: deformities and the putrid, unviable eggs. She buried them deep, beneath the foxes’ scent.

After weeks, when fluff morphed into feathers, combs grew quick, she’d snap the necks of emerging cockerels - slyly. And I saw - watched from the apple tree, or peeked out from behind tufts of reeds that pierced my scabby knees.
And Peter the pig - who I held close, bucket fed, scratched his chin, Mammy was there as Father slit its throat. She caught the spurts in a tilted pail, rubbed it into black puddings.

At the Lammas Fair two men would fight, duck and weave, jabbing clenched fists as crowds cheered. Yet I couldn’t hit my brother back, even when he had skelped me first. He was a raven, or a rook - a hooded crow, a changeling. I was sure.

At Michaelmas, in the early snow I lay down making angels, waving my arms up and down, opening and closing my legs. A raven flapped past bomb-shelling me in green shit.

I swear I’ll kill him.
Snuff the changeling out. But I can bide my time.
As Mammy did with the young cockerels, I’ll do it sly.