“How can I know for sure,” I ask, “that I’m a real person?” “You can chop off your head,” the crow answers. “A real person will die with his head cut off, but a ghost will not.” “But what if I cut off my head and die? I’ll be no more.” The crow laughs, the sound grating and unpleasant to listen to. Two more crows fly down, holding in their beaks antique bronze mirrors. Using the little moonlight that leaks through the leaves, I finally see myself in the mirrors: small face, dark hair, thin neck. I lift the hair off the back of my neck, and in the double reflections of the mirrors, I see a
...more
