Black Feathers (6 page)

August 2009

Gordon’s bedroom light flicked on, banishing the dark and its skulking army of terrors. It also blinded him.

“You all right, son?”

It was his father’s voice.

“I think so.”

“You were… screaming. Really screaming.”

“Sorry, Dad.” Gordon could hear whispering in the hallway outside his door – Judith and mum. He spoke loud enough that they could all hear him. “I’m all right now. Just a nightmare.”

In the doorway, Louis turned to the others.

“He’s OK. You can go back to bed.”

After a few moments, two pairs of footsteps padded back along the upstairs passageway. Gordon heard the creak of bedsprings. Louis slipped into the room and shut the door behind him. He switched on the less glaring bedside lamp and turned out the main light before sitting on Gordon’s bed. He placed his palm on Gordon’s chest through the duvet.

“Getting a bit old for these bad dreams, aren’t you? You’ll be in double figures in a couple of months.”

“I can’t help it. I would if I could.”

“I know, son. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.” Louis sighed. “But we worry about you, you know. Mum especially.”

“Mum worries about everything.”

Louis chuckled.

“True.”

He was silent long enough for Gordon’s eyes to adjust to the brightness. His father looked tired, eroded. Gordon ground his teeth.

“How’s everything at school?”

“It’s OK.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“No one’s… making your life difficult?”

“No, Dad. It’s fine.”

“You never bring any of your friends home. You don’t get invited to any parties.”

“I’ve got a couple of friends. They’re not like best mates or anything but they’re OK. I’m just not into the stuff the other boys are into. Football. Cars. Fighting. I’d rather be outside. At the Faraway Tree or in Covey Wood. Doing stuff in the garden with you and Mum.”

Louis was quiet for such a time that Gordon started to drift back into sleep. He came to with a start when his father spoke again.

“What, Dad?”

Louis looked over at him.

“I said, your happiness is very important to us.”

Gordon put his hand out from under the duvet and placed it over his father’s.

“I am happy, Dad. Honest.”

Louis’s face changed then, the care lines deepening, crushed closer together. He looked like he was about to say something; something adult. A secret, perhaps. Late at night and sometimes on very still days when he was in the woods or watching the crows wheel and dance in the sky above the fields, Gordon felt there was such a secret, locked away in his parents’ hearts, locked away in his own.

The moment passed and Louis’s face cleared and opened.

“You know, I had some troubles when I was your age.”

“What kind of troubles?”

“Oh… it doesn’t matter what they were. Just my concerns about life, I suppose. About growing up. I used to write all my worries down in a diary. I found it helped me. I always felt better afterwards. Would you try doing that? If you knew it would help you sleep easier?”

Gordon shrugged.

“I suppose.”

“OK. Good. That’s good.”

Gordon thought the conversation was over but his dad didn’t get up.

“What were you dreaming about?” Louis asked very quietly.

Gordon wished there was some way he could pretend to be asleep but the tone of his father’s voice made it clear there was no avoiding the question.

“I don’t really remember.”

Louis’s gaze was stern.

“Try.”

Gordon took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. The image was there immediately, colossal and terrifying.

“It’s a bird. A crow. And it’s so big that its wings stretch all the way across the sky. It blocks out all the light and I know, deep down in my guts, that it’s going to be night-time forever. It’s like this crow has flown down out of space with his claws all stretched out, ready to…”

“To what?”

“I don’t know exactly. To tear a chunk out of the world. To drag the world into the darkest part of the universe. That’s it. That’s all I can remember.”

“You know that’s never going to happen, don’t you? You understand that it’s just a dream, right?”

“Course I do, Dad. I’m not thick.”

Louis’s big hand patted his chest and he smiled.

“No. Thick is one thing you’re not.”

Under his breath Louis muttered something. He usually did this if he was swearing in front of Gordon or his sisters. What he said sounded something like:

Bloody crows.

“What, Dad?”

Louis looked at him and grinned, his eyes seeming to focus elsewhere.

“Do you remember the scarecrow we made?”

Gordon shook his head.

“I don’t think so.”

“You were probably too young. About two years old, I guess. We’ve always had a problem with crows and the like around here, and that year your mum decided to make a scarecrow to keep them away. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. Anyway, we put a lot of effort into this guy. We stuffed a pair of your mum’s tights with straw for his legs and stuck them in an old pair of black trousers. She found some black boots at the tip one day and we used those for his feet. He had a big chest – a potato sack filled with more straw and over that he had an old black T-shirt. His head was a hollowed-out pumpkin with a creepy face carved into it…”

Louis paused and glanced at Gordon.

“Sorry, son. I’m not trying to give you more nightmares. I just–”

Gordon grinned now.

“I’m not frightened of a scarecrow, Dad.”

“No. No, of course not. Well anyway, his arms were made from another pair of tights and we cut holes in the ends and stuck black twigs in there to look like bony fingers. Over the top he wore a ripped black overcoat that didn’t fit me anymore and a crumpled black top hat from the charity shop in Monmouth. We even put some black feathers in his hat, like trophies I suppose, to ward off the crows. And we pushed his arms up a bit so it looked like he was clawing at the sky. We used an old bird feeder to keep him upright and put him right in the middle of the garden.”

Louis smiled as he reassembled the phantom of the scarecrow in his mind.

“Did it work?” asked Gordon.

“Did it hell. The next morning we went out and he had a crow perched on each arm and two fighting for a place on his hat. There were droppings all over his coat and the apple trees were crammed with cawing, flapping bloody corvids. It scared your sisters half to death but not the birds. Complete bloody failure.”

Louis laughed and shook his head.

“What did you do?” asked Gordon.

“I moved him up to the back wall of the garden and forgot about him. He stayed there for a year or two getting mouldy and falling apart. I think we chucked him on the bonfire in the end.”

“I feel sorry for him.”

Louis nodded.

“Yeah. I do too now that I think about it.” His father’s eyes filled with tears which didn’t quite spill. “We do our best, Gordon, your mum and I. We really do.”

“I know that, Dad. It’s oka–”

Louis held up his hand.

“No. Just listen to me for a second. Life is hard enough even at the best of times. But these aren’t the best of times right now. For anyone. I want you to know – to remember, no matter what happens in your life – that your mother and I love you very, very dearly. We’d do anything for you, Gordon. Anything at all.”

Gordon nodded. He had no idea what to say. His father stood up from the bed, weariness overtaking him once more. Gordon had never seen him look so old.

“Think you’ll sleep better now?” Louis asked.

“Yes, Dad. I think I will.”

Louis nodded.

“Great,” he said, without enthusiasm. “Goodnight, son.”

“Goodnight, Dad.”

Louis flicked the light out and moved to the door in the darkness, sure of his way. It wasn’t until the thin light of morning seeped through the curtains that Gordon finally slept.

June 21st ’13

My eyes only

When I woke up I thought I’d pissed myself. But the dampness was everywhere and I realised it was sweat. Then I remembered the dream. Replaying it, it felt like the first time I’ve had this dream but while I’m dreaming it, it’s all so familiar. As though I’ve seen it a thousand times. Like I’ve lived it a thousand times.

There’s a dead tree. Its branches are like blackened arm bones and blackened finger bones reaching up into the sky. The trunk of the tree twists up from the ground, its black bark spiralling as though the wood is contracted and taut. There’s a bend in the trunk like an old man’s back, the sky crushing it. Among the topmost of its dead branches sit three watchful crows. One faces north, another south. The third looks up into the sky. The sun is behind the tree, just above the horizon. Terrible pain or total ecstasy seems to hinge on whether the sun is rising or setting.

I hear people’s voices, some crying as if they’ve lost everything in the world. Others weep more softly but the wound that caused their tears seems deeper. I hear the tramping of feet. Not marching but the sound of people on the move. The road they travel is treacherous – behind the black tree I can see the snipped ribbon of tarmac stretching away over the low hills. In many places, the road is broken by huge cracks in the earth. There’s a smell too, like overcooked steak. Smoke blows across the landscape. The crows caw, flap and settle, ever vigilant.

At the foot of the tree there is a single feather. The feather is long and thin, black at first glance. Then I’m holding the feather in my hand and it has a shimmer of deep blue-green. In the tree there’s a rattled cackle and I look up to see a magpie bobbing its head and flicking up its tail in a lower branch.

That’s all I can remember. Why would that make me soak the sheets with sweat?

Megan walks in almost total darkness along the track through the village. She wears lambswool underwear her mother has made beneath her roughest outdoor clothes. Over that she has wrapped a thick woollen blanket which doubles as a winter coat. She has never been up at this hour before and, with October’s days running short, it is chilly before the sun rises. Despite all her layers she is cold inside and shivers as she hurries along. Dawn is still some time away as she reaches the edge of the village and leaves the main track. She hopes she has allowed enough time to reach Mr Keeper’s place before the sun clears the horizon.

Amu and Apa have always been early risers, up at first light. Apa to go and work in the fields and Amu to make sure he has a good breakfast before he leaves. Both of them stand outside the back door each morning. They drop flour and barley onto the soil and make their prayers of thanks and ask for strong crops, a good harvest and peace between all creatures. Megan has always spent those few extra minutes in bed because children are not expected to pray formally until the time of their coming of age. Of course, the children are encouraged to talk to the Great Spirit in their own way and also to be thankful to and respectful of the Earth Amu. Maybe that was her parents’ reason for allowing her to go to Mr Keeper in the end, knowing it was for the good of all and not just for her or them. But consent did not come easily.

“It’s not the Crowman that worries me, Fulton,” her mother had said the day after their talk by the river. “It’s that Mr Keeper. How can we trust him?”

“What do you mean, trust him? What are you suggesting?”

“You know right well. What if he… hurts her?”

This had made her father angry. Whenever his voice dropped to a whisper following a venomous silence both Megan and her mother knew it was time to give ground.

“I’m disappointed in you today, Heather Maurice. I won’t allow such words to be spoken in this house. If we can’t trust our Keeper, we can’t trust anyone or anything. You know that. Everything would fall apart like it did before. The seeds of another Black Dawn will not take root here. Do you understand me, woman?”

Her mother had nodded, weeping silently.

“The issue is, can we all live with the changes this will bring? Megan, you’re going to leave childhood behind in a flurry of dust. That’ll crack my heart a little, even if it doesn’t yours. It will set you apart. Even from your friends. And if Mr Keeper decides you’re not the one he’s been waiting for, he’ll set you free again to be neither one thing nor another. That’s no life for anyone.”

Amu’s tears flowed ever more freely as Apa spoke.

“I’m sorry, Fulton,” said her mother. “It’s my fear for her that makes me say such things. I know Mr Keeper is a good man. I do trust him. I just can’t bear the thought… can’t bear the idea that…”

Megan had never seen Amu so upset. Her own tears came in response.

“…we’re losing our little girl. Our beautiful little Megan.”

Both Megan and her mother broke down then and clung to each other.

Fulton Maurice, tested to the edge of his own emotions at the sight of it, went in search of baccy and papers. It was a very rare thing that he smoked unless the occasion was special. He rolled a fat, crooked fag and lit it with an ember from the stove before returning to his wife and daughter.

“Listen to me, both of you. It’s right to be upset and it’s right to be a little frit. But we’re not losing Megan if she goes. She’s moving into a new phase, that’s all. That was always going to happen. Maybe, if this is really what she wants to do, maybe she couldn’t be in better hands.” The smoke made his eyes water and he coughed, grimacing at the neglected, over-dry baccy. “Let it settle for now. It’ll seem different tomorrow and then we can talk again.”

And they had talked about it every day, with much the same intensity, until the night before when Apa, who had deflected all Amu’s concerns and objections as they came up and who had needed to buy another ounce of baccy, said:

“I think we’ve made our feelings plain. Megan, you know we love you and hold you precious, more precious than anything else in our lives. Because of that we only want to see you happy and walking the right road. That’s all any parents want for their children. But I think Amu and I have realised that Mr Keeper is right. This is your decision to make and whatever you decide, we’ll stand by you. We’ll do our best to help you see it through.”

He rolled a slim, neat fag and lit it, blowing smoke with no small amount of satisfaction.

“So, it’s up to you. Tomorrow you can have a lie in like you always do or you can rise while it’s still night and walk that night road out to Mr Keeper’s place. What do you want to do?”

Megan smiles now as she remembers that moment and pulls her woollen wrap tighter around her shoulders to pass through New Wood without catching her clothes on the pines. A lot of tears have been shed over the course of seven days. She even saw Apa cry once. But each night she dreamed of a small boy with moon-silver skin, tar-black hair and eyes of polished granite. A boy who held out his hand to her. A boy who always smiled.

New Wood is dense with trees, and despite her attempts to shrink, the branches of the pines snag and catch at her along the narrow path. The chill here is different. It breathes all around her and the silence is muffled by a frosty mist and a hundred thousand green needles absorbing all sound. The ground is soft and peaty beneath her brown leather boots and her way is defined more by touch than by sight in the darkness. And then, quite unexpectedly, the trees end and the path opens out. Above is a circle of lightening sky in which the stars still observe her. She can smell smoke on the air and up ahead, near the opposite edge of the clearing, she can see a large, squat shadow from which a flicker of light escapes. This is the source of the smoke and possibly the source of the stillness in New Wood.

She has reached Mr Keeper’s roundhouse.