Black Feathers (13 page)

She wants to hold his hand; that’s what would make her feel safest, but she knows she can’t. Mr Keeper is not her father and she is not meant to be a little girl any more. But she is afraid. The mist is alive somehow. It presses against her, worms under her clothes until it chills her skin with its moist caress. She puts her right hand out to waft the vapour away like smoke, but the mist will not be so easily dismissed. Strands catch her fingers before tearing and melting away. What replaces the evaporated fibres is thicker, like wet, airborne web. After walking for some distance she notices that the less she thinks about the mist, the thinner it becomes and the better she can see.

Though she’s been through Covey Wood dozens of times, she doesn’t recognise where she is. One moment she’ll see a familiar landmark and then the path leads somewhere unrecognisable. Either that, or something appears that shouldn’t be there – a small pool, an area of marsh grass, an impenetrable bramble thicket or a stream. As she follows Mr Keeper she has the sense that they are being led by the mist. Accepting this, the way becomes easier. In the moments when she tries to remember the way, obstacles appear and the path becomes more difficult.

Mr Keeper stops and Megan comes up close beside him. As they wait, surrounded by the fibrous white-out, she begins to feel the mist tugging her. Mr Keeper, too, sways on his feet as the currents in the fog become stronger. The tugging is rhythmic, drawing the mist forwards and past them, releasing it and then drawing some more. Mr Keeper lowers himself to his knees, which makes him about the same height as Megan. He takes her hands in his making them seem tiny, and looks at her in the hypnotic, gently commanding way that he has.

“The time has come for us to part for a while, Megan, but you mustn’t worry. I’m never far away and you have your feather if you need to call on me. The Crowman is up ahead. He’s weaving the night country and the day world together so that you can understand your dreams. And he’s weaving the strands of time, past, present and future, so that you may travel between them.”

Megan shakes her head.

“I don’t want to go to another time.”

His smile is patient, amused.

“You won’t go anywhere you can’t return from. The Crowman wants you to see along the threads of time, backwards and forwards. He wants to tell you his story. This is what we’ve been waiting for. Your training begins in earnest today.”

Megan knows she cannot refuse. This is what she has promised to do. Not only is it her promise, she understands that this was what she was born for. To deny it now would be to discard the preciousness of her life. But it doesn’t make being left alone in the woods with the Crowman any less terrifying.

“Are you ready to live in his sign?” asks Mr Keeper.

And even though she doesn’t really know the answer yet, she says:

“I am.”

Mr Keeper places a kiss on her forehead and gently turns her away from him, turns her into the future, just a few paces away, where the Crowman now sits, knitting dreams and reality, twining time into time.

Megan takes a step forwards, deeper into the woods.

Gordon kept all his clothes on in his sleeping bag. Even his boots. He thought it was unlikely that the Ward would pursue him at night, but if they had an idea of where he was, he supposed they might. Sleep did not come easily. After an hour of fidgeting and shifting, he sat up and wrote an entry in his black journal by torchlight.

One thing he’d overlooked was a mat to lie his sleeping bag on. He counted the cost in broken sleep. But even if he’d been lying in a warm comfortable bed in an expensive campervan with a safely locked door, he knew he would not have been free of the constant pecking of anxiety.

Within the partial hours where he did find rest, dreams awaited him.

He is running. Behind him are all the powers of the Ward. They come in four-wheel drives, on foot, on horseback, even in tanks and armoured cars. Everything about them is grey, even their mounts; their uniforms are suited to their mode of chase. Those on horseback wear riot gear with visored helmets. Those in tanks wear battle dress; the drivers and runners wear their long, double-breasted raincoats, buttoned and belted as always. Archibald Skelton and Mordaunt Pike lead the charge on foot, displaying superhuman speed and holding their pistols aloft.

Gordon is slow because he still wears his rucksack, because he is running through muddy ruts in cropless, barren fields. The soil is so spent from intense farming that it too is grey. The Ward close in and the first bullets sing past him. Gordon’s footsteps get slower, the ground sucks at him. Tears of frustration soak his face.

In a last-chance bid to widen the gap between him and his pursuers, he drops his rucksack. The effect is instant and miraculous. His body is now the very wind itself and he surges forwards, power rising up in him from the earth. His feet barely touch the mud.

He chances a look behind.

Diesel engines grumble to a scream, horses accelerate from trot to canter to gallop, the tanks and armoured cars howl and tear at the dead earth, finding purchase and charging forwards. Skelton and Pike’s feet become a blur. Once again the Ward close in. Tank shells explode to left and right, knocking the breath from him and sealing his ears with concussion. Bullets bite the dirt at his feet.

Gordon leaps, forwards and upwards, reaching for the sky. An updraught takes him, wind smoothes the tears from his face and he spreads his arms wide. He takes flight and rises fast. Looking down he sees the Wardsmen lose the fire of the chase and come to a stop. None can follow him now. As he sees this, he also sees that his legs are now tucked under sleek black belly feathers. His feet are black claws. Looking from side to side he sees his arms are outstretched wings, his wingtips spread like black razorblades. Minor adjustments of his feathers cause him to turn and dive or rise and roll. He is free and soaring up to the heavens, lifting through the clouds which have blocked out the sun for so long.

Above them there is only golden light from a sun so bright he can’t look at it. This light descends from a sky of pure deep blue. Below him now is a land of brilliant white cloud, smooth and pure. He soars, knowing his blackness is beautiful against the white, against the light. Below him he can see his shadow speeding across the surface of the new landscape, keeping pace with every swoop or ascent.

Diving back towards the clouds to touch his own shadow, he flies through the cotton-candy clouds, their mist condensing on his beak and breast feathers. Something hits him and he lurches downwards. He tries to regain his lift by spreading his wings but they are restricted. A mesh has snared him. The Ward have fired their nets up into the sky and caught him. Now, he falls rolling over and over without any control.

Far below, the ground widens and gives up the details of itself like a map and then like an aerial photograph and finally he is hurtling earthwards at terminal velocity. He sees an army of Wardsmen waiting for him and blacks out just before he hits the earth.

Gordon woke to the sound of his own voice still crying out into the darkness. His bed was hard and jagged beneath him and it took a while for him to remember where he was. Anything was better than falling out of the sky into the hands of the Ward. At least out here in his tent he was still at liberty. At least he still had a chance to stay that way.

He rubbed his face. The light was returning. If they were coming for him, they wouldn’t be far away. Feeling bruised all over from sleeping on the rough ground he sat up, unzipped his sleeping bag and stowed it. Within a few minutes he’d taken down his tent and everything else was packed away. He hoisted his rucksack, switched on his torch and entered the tunnel.

Ten paces inside, all traces of ordinary flora were gone. Grass and weeds could not survive the darkness and so he walked now upon bare, well-packed earth. His footsteps were muffled but they echoed away from him into the tunnel’s endless snake-belly. He shone his torch left and right, above and ahead. In the cracks between the bricks grew some kind of damp rot which flaked like white scabs. In other cracks between the ground and the first course of brickwork, fungi grew in incestuous clumps. The air grew thick and tainted. He tasted wet dust on his tongue. The idea that trains had once thundered through this darkness unnerved him a little, even though he knew he was in no danger now. The tunnel’s silence seemed to hold no memory of such powerful vibrations. Although he and Judith had explored the tunnel and even hidden in it before, neither of them had ever walked this far in. Gordon found it hard to keep moving. What if the tunnel collapsed, crushing or trapping him? Two forces fluxed in the darkness: one, like hungry black gravity, sucked him deeper. The other, his fear, and the menacing darkness, repelled him. He willed himself on.

When he thought he’d walked far enough, he dropped his pack and took out everything he didn’t need for his return to the house, before putting it back on, almost empty. His torch lit the way back to the tunnel’s mouth and from there he climbed up the grassy bank on his right so that he could get to the other side of the hedge. That way he could take the same route home without walking along the bridleway itself.

If the Ward were searching for him, he’d see them before they saw him.

From the hedge at the beginning of the bridleway where he’d hidden the day before, the house and garden looked clear. But he watched for a long time before daring to cross the open ground between the hawthorn and the back wall of the garden. It was impossible to open the green door quietly but he did his best, edging and forcing it a few millimetres at a time until there was enough space to squeeze through. Leaving it open was risky, but he weighed it up before moving on. If there was someone in the house right now, he might need to get away quickly. If there was no one there he could close the door again when he left and all would appear undisturbed. He left it open and moved towards the house, far more boldly than he’d done the previous day.

Nothing moved inside – at least, nothing he could see through the windows. Limping slightly, he used the trees for cover instead of crawling. When he’d reached the tree nearest the back terrace he had a better view of the windows on the ground floor and he took his time, now, checking each one for movement or anything out of place. When he was satisfied, he checked the front of the house. There were still no vehicles. Once again he entered the house through the unlocked back door and went in search of supplies.

He was upstairs in the bathroom changing the dressing on his cut when he heard the approach of a diesel engine. It came quickly up the country road, pulled into the entry and ground to a halt on the gravel. Gordon heard the handbrake ratcheted and two doors slammed. He froze. Part of him refused to believe his bad luck; the rest of him slipped into shock. No matter how fast he moved, there would be no getting out of the house. The front door opened and closed as he tied off his bandage and replaced the first-aid kit in the bathroom cabinet.

The house was old and its floorboards creaked but Gordon knew its foibles well. He already recognised one voice: the castrato tones of Sheriff Archibald Skelton. Shifting his weight stealthily from foot to foot, Gordon listened.

As he navigated the upstairs hallway, he heard Skelton say:

“He’ll be back today. I guarantee it. All we have to do is wait.”

Sheriff Mordaunt Pike made some low growl of agreement. Gordon swallowed and kept moving.

“They’re not merely protecting him out of love, you know, Pike. They know about him – the parents for certain.”

Footfalls moved along the downstairs hallway, deeper into the house.

“The younger sister is interesting, don’t you think?” asked Skelton.

If Pike answered, Gordon couldn’t hear what he said.

“Utterly loyal,” continued Skelton. “And yet, I don’t think she really knows anything about it. She may suspect, I suppose, but that’s about it. She couldn’t help us even if she wanted to.”

Creaking on the stairs made Gordon’s heart somersault in his chest. He’d expected them to search the downstairs first. There was only one place he had time to get to. He made it to the threshold of his bedroom and crossed on tiptoe to the closet.

“Now, the sick one… she might make this easy for us. It’s obvious she envies the boy. We could use her to bring him in.”

Pike rumbled a response that Gordon couldn’t make out. So they had Angela too? When had that happened? Skelton was in his parents’ bedroom. Gordon could hear him flinging items aside as he searched for something. Gordon stepped into the closet and stood to one side, pulling his winter clothes towards himself to hide behind.

Skelton’s voice carried:

“It must be here somewhere, Pike. Our boys just didn’t look carefully enough yesterday. Enjoying themselves too much, no doubt. Find the book and we find the boy. Find the boy and all this is over before it starts.”

This time there was no answer from Pike. Gordon heard Skelton step back into the upstairs hallway.

“Pike? Do you hear me, man?”

Pike didn’t answer. Gordon felt something in the silence. He heard a second set of footsteps on the stairs. Slow. Methodical. A tall, heavy man in no hurry, approaching relentlessly.

What is it? What’s wrong?

Gordon’s sweat chilled as the answer came to him. He’d left his rucksack in the kitchen. He imagined the giant holding it up to his partner.

“Ah,” said Skelton, his tone oily with satisfaction. “That does put a brighter perspective on things, doesn’t it?”

The sound of boots on worn carpet and loose floorboards came closer.

“Master Black,” said the voice outside his bedroom.

From Gordon’s place in the dark closet, Skelton’s voice was that of a woman with a hoarse throat.

“We’re so pleased you’ve come back. Your family is very worried about you.”

The voice approached no closer. It sounded as though Skelton had turned away – towards the bathroom.

“They miss you, you know. Judith…
Jude
… is especially concerned for your welfare.”

The motherly voice returned, coming closer than before. Skelton had to be in his room now. All Gordon had left was a tiny element of surprise; if he burst from the closet now, there was a chance he could duck past them and away down the stairs. He readied himself but he couldn’t make the move. The possibility of escape slipped farther away with each beat of his heart and each extra moment spent thinking instead of acting.

“We’ve promised them we’ll bring you back. Bring you back safe and sound.”

The voice came from outside the closet door. Gordon shook, his stomach clenched. As he reached into his coat pocket and found what nestled there, the closet door was flung wide and the hanging clothes were swept away.

The sudden brightness defined the shadow of Skelton’s giant accomplice, Sheriff Mordaunt Pike. Huge hands came for him out of the light and took his shoulders. It was like being lifted by a crane. He found himself looking straight into the death mask of Pike’s face, its hollows and angles grim, its eyes lit only by the excitement of Gordon’s capture. Pike’s breath was tobacco smoke, whisky and rot. Behind him, smiling like a wide-mouthed frog, stood Skelton. The fat little man shook his head with a grin.

“So, this is the herald of the dark messiah, the boy we must all fear. There must be some mistake, Pike. He’s nothing but a weedy stripling. A frightened, crying child.”

Pike’s mouth spread into a robotic grin exposing broken, infected teeth. The smile switched off after a second, as though its power had been cut.

“Still,” said Skelton, “I suppose we’d better take him in. Bring him to the car.”

Skelton led the way out of the bedroom and back towards the stairs. As though Gordon weighed no more than a walking stick, Pike transferred him under his arm. Gordon remained passive for a few seconds while his right hand worked frantically in his coat pocket. Halfway along the upstairs passage, his hand came free of his coat and he drove his father’s lock knife through Pike’s grey raincoat, towards his groin.

The knife was sharp and it slipped easily through the waterproof material. It cut through something meaty, before it struck bone and stopped. Pike stopped too and looked down to see Gordon pull his weapon free. He dropped the boy, as though discovering his walking stick was a snake. From where Gordon landed on the hallway floor, he had a moment in which to look up and see pain register in Pike’s expression, hate rising in his eyes along with–

Pike screamed, a powerful but hollow sound, like a blast from a broken organ pipe. Everything about him was motorised and emotionless.

He’s not human, thought Gordon.

The huge man’s hands went to his wound and blood welled through his raincoat. Gordon could now see it was not Pike’s manhood he’d damaged but something to the right. There was no way to tell if this was enough to stop the man from coming after him.

Gordon scrambled to his feet and charged at Skelton. The frog man was only now seeing what he’d done to Pike. At the top of the stairs Skelton crouched a little, spreading his arms wide to catch the boy or drive him back towards Pike.

Gordon didn’t stop. He didn’t turn. He rushed straight at Skelton, who seemed delighted that it was going to be so easy until he saw the flash of Gordon’s weapon coming at him like a right hook. Even then he didn’t raise a hand to protect himself. Gordon’s blade pecked hard at his face.

For a moment, a tiny moment within the arc of the blade’s onslaught, Gordon could see that Skelton believed he’d missed. His facial muscles were beginning to pull into a grin when steel sunk into the left side of his nose, above its bridge. Gordon withdrew the knife, watching pain register and blood pour forth. Skelton fell to his knees, raising his hands to the left side of his face. When he took them away, his cupped hands full of blood, he looked only through his right eye. The other was squeezed shut.

Gordon could see why. He’d sliced through Skelton’s left eye, driving the point of the blade across into Skelton’s nose. Now the man was trying to keep the ruptured contents behind his tightly closed eyelid. It did no good. Vitreous fluid leaked freely from the socket, mingling with his blood.

I should have stabbed forwards. He’d be dying if I had.

He should have, but he hadn’t. Neither Pike nor Skelton was dead. Their screams – one like the wail of a steam whistle, the other like a woman robbed in the street – were testament to that. And before he’d reached the bottom of the stairs Gordon heard the mechanical giant snorting and stomping down after him.

“Get him, Pike,” shrieked Skelton. “Bring him back to me. Then we’ll teach him how to use a knife
properly
.”

Gordon sprinted up the passage to the back door, raced out and slammed it behind him. Suddenly weightless with triumph, he flew across the back garden, knowing Pike still wasn’t out of the back door. He reached the green door thanking God he’d left it open and tore away up the bridleway, his knife still slick and dripping.