One Crow Alone (27 page)

He saw that her boots were indeed upon the wrong foot and that her clothes were inside out and he whispered with his barky voice through his frosted beard and the breath curled up like mist.

“Crow Alone: there is no Mountain of Glass, nor any houses built from gingerbread, nor princes lost for you to save. There is just this endless forest and, I tell you, that is all you need to understand.”

And he prodded at her with his great finger and she awoke at last.

 

35

The very first traces of daylight tinged the last silver-brown leaves still clinging to the baring branches. It was cold, with the fresh metallic smell of snow in the air, and the pony too was frightened so far from home. It flung its head up at any noise with ears pricked forward. Magda did not know which direction she should take. So she let it find its own way, for it certainly was going somewhere.

Alice, so exhausted, bumped against Magda's encircling arms. And Magda felt that it was happening now. Ivan was with her. The two halves of him. Two beating hearts. But it would not be real until it was out.

She was very afraid. There was fear on every side of her. Behind and beside. Within and without.

The pain was coming in waves now, unbearable pain that she had not imagined. She let out great cries and could bear no longer to be up on the pony.

The pain washed over her and filled every last inch of her head. There was nowhere left for the pain to go except out in her cries, and she dropped the reins, one hand holding her hard, swollen stomach.

The baby is coming.

“Alice. We have to stop.”

And Alice said, “Can we go home now?”

The contractions came again.

“Get off, Alice!”

Alice did not know what to make of this new, hard voice. She began to cry. Magda grabbed the little arm and pulled Alice off the pony, dangling her roughly onto the ground, and then she fell forward on the pony's neck, contorted with another spasm. She grabbed the mane and let herself slide down to the earth and turned and fell on her hands and knees in the frosted bracken at the side of the path.

“What's wrong?” Alice cried.

“The baby's coming, Alice. Tie the pony up.”

She was so thirsty, and tired. Wanted to close her eyes and rest. But the pains would not let her.

In the recess of her consciousness, she could hear the trickling of water.

“Alice, find some water. I can—hear it.”

“I'm scared—”

Magda raised her head and saw that Alice was frightened by her. “Come here.” She stroked the girl's face. “I'm sorry. It is very painful, Alice. Please try and find some water for me.”

Alice did what she was told. She left the path. The trees were thick with twiggy branches. Her young eyes darted from tree trunk to tree trunk.

Alice, don't go too far.

She could hear Magda calling, back from the path. Down on the banks of a hollow, a small spring gushed from the rocks, melting the snow where it pooled.

And then she saw the fence. High, but made from wire and pine branches with dead brown needles and bits of wood and metal all green and gray and foreboding.

And behind it, down in the dank hollow among the trees, was a house. The house was mean-looking: boarded at every window, with a patched roof, and piles of logs, and a long, low animal shed. The ground around the house was turned to earth with the last of the kale sticking up in neat rows. By the walls were all sorts of bits of metal junk. Smoke drifted out of the chimney, thin and acrid. And Alice came slipping down the bank and some other creature whinnied from the long, low shed and a dog barked and she ran toward the house without any fear.

“She needs water!” she called loudly.

A dog barked again.

There was a pulling back of bolts.

A tall man with reddish hair appeared at the door with a gun in his hands.

We have seen him before, caught glimpses of him hiding at the dark edges of the forest.

But when he saw the child out on the snow he laid the gun against the wall and came running across the patch of ground and unlocked his gate. He heard what the child said then followed her footprints in the snow. When he pushed aside the branches at the edge of the path, he recognized Callum Gourty's young stallion. There was a woman too, wild in pain but frightened seeing him standing there. He saw too that the little girl was right about what was coming.

“Who are you?” the man said, crouching down.

“Magda. From Rathged Farm.”

He helped her up. “What happened?”

“Men came. Killed Bran and Anwen. And the dog. I saw the blood—”

“And Callum. What about Callum Gourty?”

“Gone to Barmouth.” Magda doubled over again. “With Bethan.”

“It has started then,” said the man almost to himself. But he did not mean Magda. She looked up, grasping her belly. “Come on.” He looped her arm over his shoulder. “You're safe now. It isn't far.”

*   *   *

The man brought Magda into his warm, dark house. There was just one candle burning on a table. Alice watched silently. He helped Magda up the stairs to a low-ceilinged room where there was a bed.

She let out more cries. So he went immediately to the kitchen. He poured water from the kettle into a wide tin bowl, took a knife, and came back up the stairs.

He took up a position at the end of the bed and without a word he prepared what he thought he must prepare because he had done this before.

“Will it be all right?” Magda gasped.

“Don't worry,” the man said. He handed her a cup of water. “I've done it before. You've come far enough. You've got to push now.”

She stared with wide-open eyes and gulped at the water.

The man looked at her straight.

“Just push.”

The door creaked open. And the small boy came into the room.

“Keep out,” said the man without looking over his shoulder. “Get the girl to the fire and pour her some milk and neither of you bother me until I say. You hear me?”

The little boy went downstairs and did as he was told. Alice drank from her mug of milk. The little boy stared at her as the shouts came muffled through the floorboards.

“Are you gonna be my sister?”

Alice glanced over her milk at him.

This time there was a tiny cry from the room above.

The children looked up.

And then another.

After some time there were heavy footfalls on the stairs and they heard the man open the front door and throw the bowl of bloody water out onto the snow.

He came back into the kitchen and looked at the children.

“You can go up if you like. There are two babies. You won't see that again, I reckon.” He went to the stove and poured some milk into a pan and heated it gently.

“It's winter now, isn't it?” Alice said. “All the snow.”

“Yes. But the summer will come again.”

She stared at him. “Can I go home?”

He didn't answer.

“Is Magda died?”

“No.”

“Are the babies from her tummy died?”

He lifted Alice from the floor and carried her up to the small room. The stairs were narrow and crooked and he came onto the small landing before the low wooden door.

The man lifted the latch and pushed it open. The little boy had come up too and looked sheepish from behind his father's legs.

“See,” said the man, putting Alice down on the floor. “They are just sleeping. Twins.”

And they were, two tiny sleeping babies at Magda's breast. Life that had fallen to earth. Resting there.
The half that Ivan had left.

Alice tottered across the floor and peered up over the mattress. “What are their names?”

“I'm not sure yet,” said Magda. “You'll have to help me think of some, won't you?”

Sucking at her fingers, Alice climbed up onto the covers of the bed, and from that place of safety she looked at the strange boy and the man standing tall by the door.

“I'm Robin Blake,” said the man. He grasped the boy's thin shoulders and pushed him forward.

“And this is my boy. Willo.”

Robin Blake.
Magda looked at them standing there. This was the man she had seen leading his pony through the trees. The man who had left the hareskins. The man Callum Gourty had talked about. “
He's likable enough and, even if he doesn't say much, when he does it's worth hearing … Likes to keep himself to himself—
”

Callum Gourty had been here before.

And there was no strange smell to the house.

She noticed that now. No strange smell at all. Something she thought she knew.

Something like home.

 

 

Mary was quiet. She could see the wind-whipped sea casting frothing gray fingers up and out over the black rocks down on the beach below.

Up and out like it always did, and it always had done, and it always would.

Willo got up and put his arm around her shoulders—which was rare enough—and she leaned into it. “I haven't got a heart for much more,” she whispered.

“Well, the baby's sleeping,” Willo said. “All anyone needs is a bit of rope to cling to.”

Mary looked up at the side of his face and saw his eyes were glassy. “I didn't get it all right—about your da and everything. Or Magda. I know I had to make some bits up.”

“Don't matter. It was a good Tell. We haven't got anything except old stories for remembering things by, and things ain't turned out too bad either. Always need some kind of happy ending. You done it well. Cos we know Magda been happy enough with my dad in the end.”

The baby fluttered its hand.

“You really think so?”

“Yes, Mary,” Willo said. “I really do.”

 

 

And Crow, who had watched and waited and pried at keyholes all this time, shuffled its wings and moved about its roost and, closing its eyes, Crow went to sleep at last.

 

It was

After all

Only a crow.

 

Note

Chapter 25

1
“She's right thin, Granny—”

 

Thanks to:

Natalia Valentinovna Generalova, for her uncompromising stance on life;

Julia Churchill, my agent;

Emma Young, my editor;

Tim, for patience;

Gordon, for his critical eye;

and Lauren Ace and Teleri Dyer for the Welsh translation.

Macmillan UK wishes to thank Liz Cope.

 

A FEIWEL AND
FRIENDS
BOOK

An Imprint of Macmillan

 

ONE CROW ALONE.
Copyright © 2013 by S. D. Crockett. All rights reserved. For information, address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

 

ISBN: 978-1-250-02425-1 (hardcover) / 978-1-4668-4844-3 (ebook)

 

Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto

 

First Edition: 2013

 

eISBN 9781466848443

 

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