Black Feathers (23 page)

“He shouldn’t be hard to spot, then.”

Brooke took his sarcasm as a joke and giggled.

“Seriously, Brooke. Someone who looks like that is going to be hiding, not walking around in plain view. Especially if he knows the Ward are after him.”

“What makes you think they are?”

“I think they’re scared of him. They believe he has power and that if he uses it, their own power will be destroyed. I think they want to kill him before he has too much influence.”

Brooke was about to say more on this when they both heard the shuffle of footsteps over the leafy ground. Brooke busied herself around the cook pot before John Palmer came into view. Gordon placed his pack inside the shelter, pretending to rearrange things inside until John Palmer had time to notice he was nowhere near Brooke. Then he crawled back out. The man’s eyes were bloodshot and the skin around them was rubbed and red.

He pretended joviality.

“What’s for dinner then? Coq au vin? Paella? Steak and chips?”

“Anything you want, Dad,” said Brooke. “With chocolate ice cream for dessert.”

Rather than making him smile, her words brought new cracks to the man’s face. Gordon took out his lock knife and began to sharpen it so that he didn’t have to watch.

Megan collapses to her knees but her weight carries her forwards.

She puts out her hands but still lands on her face in the long grass. Once there, she can’t push herself back up. She only has the strength to roll onto her side, stranded. Soon Mr Keeper is kneeling beside her. She feels him loosening her pack straps and freeing her arms. He helps her to sit up, and as she looks into his benevolent, slightly amused face, she is hit by a wave of dizziness and nausea.

Mr Keeper grips her shoulders.

“Breathe, Megan. Long, deep, slow. It will pass.”

She does what he tells her. A few moments later her head has cleared and she feels a little better. But her weakness persists.

“I can barely hold myself up,” she says.

“It was a long absence. You’re not used to it. You haven’t eaten since he came for you.”

“When was that?”

“Last night. You could probably do with some breakfast.”

He hands her a water skin, cuts her bread and cheese. Megan is suddenly ravenous, and even though the bread tastes a bit dry, she relishes the effort and reward of chewing it. She washes each mouthful down with water.

“Steady, you’ll make yourself sick.”

With some effort she slows her rate of attack. She glances in the direction they’ve come from, not recognising the landscape.

“Did I disappear?”

“No.”

“But didn’t you see me leave the shelter? He took my hand and we…”

She smiles to remember it.

“You didn’t go anywhere. At least, your body didn’t. You sat there staring for a while. When it was time to sleep, I made you lie down. In the morning, I woke you up and got you out of the shelter. You stood there while I made some tea and ate some food. Then I packed everything up, helped you put your pack on and we left. We’ve been walking ever since.”

“I can’t remember any of that.”

“That’s because you weren’t there, Megan. You were with the Crowman. Do you remember where he took you?”

“Oh, yes! I remember everything. Everything he showed me. How it looked. How it felt. Every detail. He said I’d always remember it. For the book. He said that was my gift.”

“And what did he show you, Megan?”

“He showed me more about the life of the boy, Gordon Black. Much more. I feel like I’ve been away for days. Weeks even.”

“Time spent in his story seems much longer than time in our own world.” Mr Keeper squats and brings out his smoking gear. With practised fingers and in no hurry at all, he loads the pipe bowl with tobacco and lights it with a match. After a few puffs, he settles into a cross-legged position. “Tell me, Megan, if you can, what is it like to be shown these things?”

Megan doesn’t hesitate in giving her description.

“They come to me like living visions, and are full of things I’ve never seen before and do not understand. And yet, now that I have the feather, I have words for everything I see. But there’s a feeling that comes with all of this, a feeling I don’t understand. It’s as though someone else has seen the story before me. Many, many times. Is that possible?”

“It’s more than possible. It’s true. Many have seen before you and many more will see after you. The Crowman will make certain of that.”

“There’s something else. The boy – Gordon – he’s so… alone. And such terrible things have happened to him. Is it because of me somehow, Mr Keeper? Am I doing these things to him? I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t think I can bear to see him hurt again. And the visions, well, sometimes it’s like I
am
Gordon Black. Like I’m right there with him,
inside
him. I feel his pain and his loneliness. I feel his powerlessness. I don’t know if I have the strength to keep doing that. He’s afraid and I’m afraid for him. I have this feeling something terrible is going to happen to him. I don’t want it to be because of me. And I don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Mr Keeper reaches across and takes her hand.

“It’s not you creating this, Megan. It comes through you. Your function is to allow it to pass, commit it to memory and record it. Do not involve yourself in it or you may distort it. That alone would be grounds for me to end your training. You must do nothing other than be as open to what comes as the river banks are to the river.”

Mr Keeper smokes, journeying far away himself for the briefest moment.

“All you need to realise is that Gordon Black’s story has already happened. You must merely rediscover it. That is what it means to walk the Black Feathered Path. You have the strength to be with him as he makes his journey. If you didn’t, you couldn’t have come this far. The Crowman knows you, Megan. He knows what you’re capable of.” Mr Keeper squeezes her hand while he puffs on his pipe. “I know too. You’re going to be a Keeper one day, Megan. One of the best we’ve ever seen. In the meantime, I will help you and protect you in every way I can. If we each do what we were born to do, if we keep to our truths, all will be well. You have the strength to do this. I know it in my heart.”

Megan sits quietly. She doesn’t feel strong or powerful, but the boy’s presence lingers now, like a familiar scent in an empty room. She cannot help but love him a little, having felt his pain and known the depth of his sorrow and loss. He seems far too young to have lived so much tribulation. Megan’s life has been slow and comfortable. It has been safe and happy. At least until she met the Crowman. Gordon’s life has been overshadowed by the dark form of his destiny. His agonies can only increase, the responsibilities he carries become greater and heavier.

As if reading her thoughts, Mr Keeper says:

“Your part in all this is just as important as his, Megan. Without you to tell his story, the boy suffers for nothing. He labours in vain. What you do keeps Gordon Black alive.”

She nods without conviction.

Exhausted as she is by the return to her body, it’s hard to give too much thought to any of this. She watches Mr Keeper smoking his pipe and that becomes a simple, pleasurable focus. As the old man’s eyes begin to stare somewhere in the far distance, something occurs to her.

“Is that where you go?”

It takes a moment for him to return, even though his own absence has only just begun. This is the first time she’s ever interrupted him intentionally, and she is frightened now that she has angered him. But when he is once more within the boundaries of his own body, Mr Keeper is smiling.

“Sometimes.”

He inspects his pipe bowl and sees that it is spent. He knocks the ash into his hand and it disappears into a pocket. He puts the pipe away.

“At first, Megan, your journey was the one I made. The only one. But once that journey was complete, I began to make journeys to other places and times. For other reasons. Occasionally, I travel just because I can. We mustn’t be working all the time, you know…”

“And when you go, you’re not here anymore?”

“Part of me is rooted. The rest of me flies.”

“Will I ever get used to it? I feel so heavy now. So tired.”

“You’ll recover more quickly each time you return. This was a long absence, Megan. It’s no wonder you’re worn out. Here, eat some more bread and cheese. Take a little more water too, if you can.”

Mr Keeper holds out these things to her, but Megan has gone away for a moment:

She sees a broken road. She sees a barren hill. At its crest is a blackened, twisted tree. Three crows sit in the tree. The sun is setting, angry and bloody over the scarred, sickened land. This is…

There is bread and cheese in her hands. A water skin, beside her.

“What do you see, Megan?”

She shakes her head.

“Tell me.”

She draws breath deeply.

“I know this from somewhere. Or maybe he’s seen it… or will.” She puts down the food and drinks a few sips from the skin, gasping because her throat is so dry and the water opens it like a torrent through a rut. “Wait. I’ve seen this. It’s from
his
night country.” She looks at Mr Keeper and her eyes fill with tears. “He has nightmares. The most terrible nightmares.”

Mr Keeper nods but not without compassion.

“Your world and his world are woven now. You may walk in his night country and he, perhaps, may walk in yours. Do not let it deter you from your discovery, Megan. See his story. Bring it back. Write it down. That is all you are for now, a conduit for the boy’s life. Transmitting it is all you must do – all you can do until the story is told.”

Megan, suddenly grim-faced, feels a tiny surge of pride. She has her place in the world. She has her purpose. How many can say that? She will do as she has promised to do. She will bring back the boy’s story for the good of the world.

It was a long and fruitless morning. All the snares were empty, and Gordon and John Palmer saw no game for a couple of hours. When they finally came upon a group of rabbits playing near a warren in a steep bank, John Palmer insisted on taking the shot with his air rifle. He missed a simple kill and the rest of the rabbits scattered into the many entrances of their home. The man laid his forehead against the rifle stock, and Gordon thought he would cry again, this time in plain view. It wasn’t that they needed the food – the stocks of cured meat were plentiful – it was the weight of John Palmer’s powerlessness settling heavier on his shoulders. At least, that was what Gordon supposed. The man was on the run with more fear of what was behind him than hope for what the future might hold. Gordon tried to feel some sympathy for him, and couldn’t. John Palmer’s coldness in the face of what had happened to his home and family worried him. The man’s pain was greater than his own, the crimes committed against him more brutal. Their shared misfortunes ought to have brought them closer, but John Palmer was still suspicious of him and that kept them apart.

But when he got right down to it, there was something about Brooke’s father that Gordon just didn’t like. He couldn’t specify what it was, he only knew it was true. His instinct told him to be wary.

For the first time in many days, they returned to camp empty-handed. John Palmer led the way. Suddenly careless of being spotted he took the direct route, foregoing the river bank and walking straight towards the area of forest where their camp was hidden behind a screen of trees. Gordon sensed John Palmer’s failure to provide seething within him and turning to anger, anger that would soon come his way.

“You’ve done a lot for me, Mr Palmer. I could have died in that tunnel if you hadn’t found me when you did.”

John Palmer muttered something gruff that Gordon couldn’t decipher. A verbal waving-away of his own kindness? An oath of regret that he’d ever set eyes on Gordon Black? It didn’t much matter now.

“I’m going to move on tomorrow,” continued Gordon. “I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t grateful for your help. I really am. I hope you and Brooke find a” – he was going to say “safe” and was glad he didn’t – “good place to live soon.”

John Palmer took a few more steps and then stopped. He turned and looked down at Gordon.

“You’re going off on your own?”

“Yes.”

“But where are going to go? How will you survive? This is a dangerous country now. Everything’s scarce. Even food and water.”

Gordon looked around at the land. A grey blanket of sky stretched to every horizon. To the west the landscape rose into high, purplish hills. Everywhere else there was woodland and fen, smaller hills and the valleys between. Plenty of places to travel quietly. Plenty of cover for him and for the animals he would stalk. Plenty of water in the swollen streams and rivers. The land called to him, and suddenly this man John Palmer and his sad story were a weight that Gordon wished to cast off and leave far behind. The land called to him to enter it deeply and lose himself there. We will make you strong, the trees seemed to say. I will feed you, said the voice of the Earth. All over the sky, crows and jackdaws and rooks and magpies were suddenly on the wing. Not a call from any of them, not a swoop or a dive, a mere hanging upon the air in anticipation. We are your dreams, they seemed to say.

Follow us.

“Did you hear what I said?”

John Palmer seemed insulted by Gordon’s confidence.

“I’m going to find the Crowman,” said Gordon. “Do you know anything about him?”

At the mention of the name, John Palmer resumed his walk, opening a gap between them. Gordon caught up easily, his legs stronger now than they’d ever been before.

“Anything at all would be helpful. What you’ve heard about him. Where he’s been seen. Anything.”

John Palmer wouldn’t look at him.

“This is nonsense.”

“If you don’t know anything, it’s OK. I only wondered. I have so little to go on, you see. Just rumours, really.”

John Palmer tried to walk faster, but Gordon paced him without effort, his gait casual against the grown man’s hasty trot. Brooke’s father seemed not to notice the host of corvids dotting the sky in every direction. He saw nothing but the ground right in front of him. Gordon knew he’d get no answer. The man was too closed off. Even if he knew something, he wasn’t going to share. He was too afraid of everything.

Gordon stopped walking and watched John Palmer stalking away across the uneven ground, walking so fast he almost tripped every few paces. This was the condition of John Palmer’s mind. Trying to escape everything: the past, the truth, himself. Gordon let him pursue his folly and slowed to enjoy the last part of the walk back to camp. The beech forest was slate grey and silent away across the fields.

When John Palmer broke into a run fifty yards ahead of him, Gordon knew it wasn’t an attempt to avoid the truth. He’d seen something among those quiet, leafless giants.