A familiar name in this anthology of tales from Northern Ireland - familiar because for many years I was a reader of the sf magazine Interzone. 'Bird. Spirit. Land.' begins with a quote from the late Robert Holdstock, which puts down a marker, in a way. I was expecting something 'Holdstockian', and I was not disappointed.
The story concerns Ria, a carer for Mrs Fogel, an elderly, disabled artist who avian-themed pictures are fashionable and correspondingly expensive. 'Ria had no opinions on Tilda Swinton, but she appreciated Nicolas Cage in an ironic way, and was curious as to what he saw in these wall-filling canvases of purples, blacks, silver and diamonds.
As the artist's death approaches Ria has a series of uncanny experiences that border on the mystical - and unpleasant. All are bird-themed. Mrs Fogel claims her paintings depict 'Bird Spirit Land', a strange realm of chaos and life. Starlings, in particular, are imbued with this quasi-magical power she draws upon. Ria sees a huge murmuration of starlings moving over the town like a single, vast entity.
Not long after, she steals one of the paintings as a hedge against poverty. This seals her fate, in the manner of an old-school horror story. But McDonald rings the changes with cool deftness so that Ria's fate seems not only inevitable but also somehow just. A cruel tale, perhaps, but no crueler than the average magpie. And just as clever.
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