Black Feathers (18 page)

Recalling his story is not difficult, it lives in Megan like verse learned by heart, and when she comes to sit and write, it waits, as though the words are queuing up in her wrist. What takes the time, and what is more troublesome than she expected, is the physical act of writing with a raven feather quill.

With the responsibility of marking the story onto paper, she is nervous of making mistakes and so she writes very slowly. She can’t help but think of the ink as the Crowman’s blood, something he has given so that his story may be told. The ink takes a long time to dry, so she has taken to using one of her moon cloths to absorb the excess before it can smudge the pristine pages.

Mr Keeper has told her very little about the history of their world and almost nothing about the Crowman.

“You must see it for yourself,” he always says.

She knows a little from school, though. Perhaps eight or ten generations past, no one knows exactly when, dark times befell the land. There was sickness and war, and the Earth Amu withheld her bounties. Floods, earthquakes and diseases wiped out most of the people from that time. They called it the Black Dawn. It was in those days of scarcity and death that the Crowman returned to the land – as he had whenever the balance between folk and the Earth was lost. He walked the woodlands and fields, the hills and valleys, and no one knew if he was for the good or if he was the devil himself. That’s why they gave him other names like Scarecrow and Black Jack. Even now, no one is quite sure whether to love or fear the Crowman, but one thing is certain: everyone respects him. This, says Mr Keeper quite often, is exactly as it should be.

The feather the dark boy gave her is with her whenever she writes. Sometimes when she remembers a part of the story in which the images or events are impossible to describe, she takes the feather and lays it across her forehead for a few moments. After that, words always come. She doesn’t know the new words but she knows that they are right. Her language grows.

The writing causes her pain – in her hand predominantly, which cramps and stiffens after being held for so long in the same position. But after she has sat for some hours, the pain extends up her arm and into her shoulders and down her back. Each time this happens she knows it is time to rest. Her mother brings her glasses of cool water from the stone ewer and sometimes warm milk if it’s late in the evening, but Megan won’t touch the drinks while she is writing. She is terrified she may spill them on the book and spoil it. She always finds the cool water warm or the hot milk cold by the time she is ready to take a break.

After nightfall, she continues by candlelight, the small flames casting flickering shadows of her hand onto the wall, transforming it into a monstrous, deformed claw. She notices little of what goes on around her each time the flow of the story has resumed. Nothing stops the story except her decision to finish writing, and nothing begins it other than her sitting at her table once the ink is ground, mixed and blessed.

While she writes the first part of the story her sleep is black and dreamless and restful. She wakes early each day and begins again feeling solid and happy in her purpose. Before seeing the Crowman in Covey Wood she had begun to wonder what her life was to be about. She had begun to wonder what meaning it could possibly have, things she sometimes talked about with Sally Balston, though not always with Tom Frewin. She no longer has such questions or concerns. This lends her mind a calmness she had not known before and she senses this as another sign of childhood passing away. She does not miss it but she knows Apa and Amu do. She sees them looking at her sometimes, just a glance usually, and they always turn away when they know she has noticed the observation. The glances are sad and sometimes a little puzzled, as though her parents are wondering where their daughter has gone. If she had the time or the energy to spare, she would sit and tell them that here is Megan, the same Megan they’ve always known, only a little older inside and a little harder on the outside. She would tell them that there is more Megan now than there has ever been before, not less. And she would tell them to rejoice in that knowledge because it is a sign of things being right in the world.

But Megan has never talked to Apa and Amu in quite that way and she’s not sure she ever will.

Sometimes she thinks of her friends and her days at school. Tom and Sally have been at her side like a brother and sister for as long as she can remember. All of that seems so far away now as to have been a part of someone else’s life. The time she spends walking to Mr Keeper’s roundhouse begins long before school begins and she always returns long after school has finished. It is as though Megan’s world now and the world of Megan just a few weeks before have separated and drifted away from each other like continents separating, an ocean widening between them.

It takes three days for her to write the first part of the Crowman’s story, and as she does so she is able to distance herself from the boy at the centre of the tale. But when she is not writing, in those moments before she falls to sleep and those moments before she rises, sometimes when she takes a break to eat or drink, she feels the boy’s presence intimately, like the soul of a recently departed sibling. His story has started in troubled times and with no small amount of secret drama. Already she is terrified for the innocent child with black satin hair and polished grey eyes, the boy with the pale skin and destiny written in his very blood.

On the morning of the fourth day, it is with no small weight of fear in her guts that she walks back to Mr Keeper’s roundhouse. Soon there will be more to write in the
Book of the Crowman
.

It is to be a book of pain with sorrow in every chapter.

I seen Black Jack comin

Spreadin fire and flood

His black cloak flappin

Over bootprints o blood

I seen him bring down cities

Seen him wash away the fields

I seen him grinnin madly

While the mighty learnd to kneel

I seen Black Jack flyin

Leavin sickness in his wake

All he brings is death for us

And all he does is take

If you see Black Jack comin

Best you hide yourself away

When you see Black Jack comin

You’ve seen your final day

Graffiti on the east wall of the Ward substation, Monmouth, England, pre-Black Dawn era, author unknown

The Great Spirit is in all things, is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the Earth is our Mother. She nourishes us; that which we put into the ground, She returns to us…

Big Thunder (Bedagi), late 19th century Wabanaki Algonquin

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you might eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and from whose hills you may mine copper. You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land He has given you.

Deuteronomy 8:7–10

“He looks so thin.”

“The fever’s wasted him.”

“To look at him now, peaceful like this, he could be dead.”

“He’s not dead.”

“I know he’s not. I’m not stupid. But he looks like he could be. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.”

“What nonsense are you talking, girl?”

“You know what I mean. You know exactly.”

A pause.

“Yes. I suppose I do.”

“Think of it, if he’s who we think he is and if what people say is right, he can never die. That’s why he looks so perfect like this. Because even death won’t take him away.”

“I don’t like to hear you talk about it. And anyway, it might not be him. Probably none of the stories are true. Everyone needs hope these days. People will believe anything.”

“You’ve read the stuff he’s got. You believe in him.”

“I can’t say one way or the other.”

“You can, Dad. You
do
believe. Otherwise you wouldn’t have helped him.”

“I’d help anyone in trouble. You know that.”

“But this is risky. He’s not just anyone. If they catch us…”

“I know. I know.”

Somewhere, there was light. Rusty light. The smell of leaf mulch and wood smoke. Something cooking. Then there was hunger. And then there was thirst, unbearable thirst.

“I’ll tell you what concerns me, Brooke. What if he’s not for the good? You’ve heard the other stories. Some say there’s a dark messiah coming, a destroyer – the son of Satan or Satan himself. Maybe that’s who he is. Maybe we’re tending Black Jack.”

“It’s the Ward who put those stories out. Everyone knows that, Dad. I don’t believe it.”

“Still.”

“Even if there was such thing as Black Jack, this isn’t him. He wouldn’t be beautiful like this. He wouldn’t be just a boy.”

“This boy won’t be a boy for long.”

“That doesn’t make him the devil incarnate, Dad.”

A cool draught caressed Gordon’s face and he heard the source of it, outside somewhere: the wind easing through the leafless trees. This was no dream. His body was more comfortable than it had been for a dark aeon. But it still felt heavy, lead bones without muscles to raise them. The rusty light was daylight coming through his still-closed eyelids.

“No. I suppose it doesn’t.”

There was another pause then. Much longer this time. Gordon felt their eyes on him. Then the girl, Brooke, broke the silence.

“I think he’s awake.”

No point in pretending now.

Gordon allowed his eyes to open. It was brighter than he’d expected and he blinked and squinted, unable to see anything other than what he’d guessed so far. A man and his daughter, perhaps, neither of whose age was apparent in the blur, sat side by side a couple of feet away from him. The light came in from behind them through a triangular opening. This was not a tent but a canvas shelter slung over a cord between two trees. He was in his sleeping bag and he was naked.

He tried to say hello but his voice was a dry rasp and the noise he made was unintelligible. Only in trying to speak did he realise just how parched his mouth and throat were. His next word came out with some urgency and though it was only a harsh whisper, both the father and daughter understood.

“Water.”

It was the girl who moved first.

“Wait,” said her father.

“No. I’ll do it.”

She was beside him swiftly. With one hand she raised his head a little and with the other she let him take water from a cup. The water was warm, not long boiled, but it was nectar to his dried-out palate. He wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to help him but when she let his head back down and he tried to lift it again, he couldn’t.

Naked and helpless.

“More,” he croaked.

“You have to take little sips. And slowly. Too much of anything right now will make you worse.”

She raised his head again, letting him take a few more small swallows.

“That’s enough for the moment.”

The water made him nauseous. His stomach cramped around its tiny cargo of fluid. Nevertheless, it had given his brain a charge, and he felt more awake and aware. These people, whoever they were, had made a camp outdoors and seemed to be there on a long-term basis. Through the triangular opening at the end of the canvassed enclosure he could see a well-established fire and a heavy-looking black pot hanging over it from an improvised tripod. Steam escaped from its lid – the source of the smell of cooking. The cramps in his stomach were hunger pangs. He was so ravenous, the pain of it was making him feel sick.

At his end of the shelter a wall of woven branches had been laid against the opening. Without it, wind would have been racing through the shelter, chilling him. He was lying across the shelter and there was plenty of space for the other two, but he could see no sign of their bedding. Either there were other shelters like this in their camp or they had their own tents. He didn’t recognise the woodland outside. It certainly wasn’t Covey Wood. He tried to gauge how far he’d walked in the tunnel. Hadn’t Knowles said it was miles long? He could easily be in a part of the countryside he’d never visited before.

The man’s face was lined and creased. He carried troubles there, unable to hide them. His hair was fair and thinning. It needed to be cut. The same was true of the sparse beard that grew mainly at his chin and below his ears. They might have been living like this for a while. The man seemed kind enough, though there was a hard edge to his gaze.

Both of them were dressed for outdoor life. Their boots looked sturdy and waterproof. They wore cargo-style trousers in lightweight, breathable material and tough-looking, waterproof jackets with hoods. Each of them wore several layers beneath, judging by the bulky look of their bodies. Curiously, though, their clothes were all drab colours. Greens and browns and charcoals.

Camouflage?

Perhaps he had something in common with these people. Like him, they could be hiding. Maybe that was why they’d helped him. Their kindness made him think of his family. He had to bite the inside of his cheeks to stop himself crying.

He watched the girl slide away from him and exit the shelter. She went to the pot, lifted its lid with a metal hook and stirred whatever was cooking using a whittled branch. The branch had seen plenty of use judging by the stain on its stirring end. More aroma wafted Gordon’s way and his stomach groaned so loud that all three of them heard it. The girl and her father smiled but the man’s smile faded quickly. The girl continued to grin, catching Gordon’s eye for a moment and then looking away. He felt some other movement in his stomach at that moment, something that wasn’t hunger.

His new carers had only spoken to each other when they thought he was asleep or unconscious. Now that he was alert they kept their silence.

They don’t trust me.

He understood their reticence but he didn’t like how it felt. He mustered a little willpower and took a deep breath.

“My name is Gordon,” he said. The words came but without much force. For a moment they looked at him, frozen. While he had their attention he added, “Thank you for helping me.”

Once the words were out he felt a heaviness cover him like a blanket, and though he tried to keep his eyes open – he really wanted to talk to them and he really wanted to eat whatever it was the girl was cooking – he wasn’t able to do so. His mouth closed and his eyes closed and sleep rose up for him, dragged him down. The last thing he remembered was the girl’s voice.

“I’m glad we found him, Dad. I think it’s a sign, you know. A sign things are going to get better for us now.”

If her father replied, Gordon didn’t hear it.