The Book of the Crowman (13 page)

Megan makes no sounds when she returns to the clearing, her footsteps as silent as Mr Keeper’s when he hunts. This human wild-thing that she knows herself to be is the most incredible form of life. It is close to divine in its abilities because not only does it move through this land, it shapes the land as it goes. It can form the world around for good or ill merely by passing through. If its thoughts are wrong, if it is disrespectful or even simply ignorant, it creates destruction at every turn. And yet, with the mind and body attuned to the landscape and the rhythms of the earth, this human wild-thing can enhance creation, give rise to more beauty, elicit the sacred in all things and live in moment to moment rapture. The line between the two states is so very fine, it is like silk from the tiniest spider. One side of this line leads to destruction in all things, the other to exponential abundance.

Megan steps into the clearing, shy of the sudden space and lack of cover, skittish as a fawn. She recovers quickly, finding the hunter within herself. This clearing is a place where she belongs. She walks with bold, purposeful steps towards the door of the roundhouse, ready to take her position as guardian of this space for the night, to play the role of Mr Keeper for as long as is necessary.

When she is only a few steps away from the roundhouse door, her mind full of the little details of the evening ahead, she hears something behind her.

She stops walking but does not turn.

Her awareness flings itself out behind her as she senses the space. Something else is here with her in the clearing. She knows this even though there is nothing to see or hear or smell that is any different from just a few moments ago. Something
breathes
behind her; something powerful and primal.

The moment she begins to think about what it might be, her new sensitivity locks up and she is left as weak and humanly ordinary as she has ever been.

All she can do is turn. Slowly. Very, very slowly.

Before she is even halfway around her peripheral vision is picking up everything it needs to know about this thing that now shares the clearing with her. A dark shape, low to the ground, muscles bunched and quivering under thick black fur. For just a moment she considers not turning any further and continuing to walk, pretending the thing isn’t there. Just as swiftly she adjusts her thinking. To turn her back on a creature like this is no better than suicide.

She has heard of these beasts, everyone has. But no one ever sees them. Megan faces the thing fully and meets its pale green eyes. The cat is enormous and stands less than six good paces away; a bound or two for the animal if it decides to pounce. Its presence is overpowering. Waves of strength and streamlined aggression expand from it. Its spirit fills the clearing, obliterating any presence Megan might have felt she had. Its face is so broad and the jaws so well-muscled it looks almost bearlike. Long silky whiskers poke downward from either side of its mouth and its small ears are angled towards her.

It is sensing her, appraising her. And Megan knows what it perceives: tender, easy meat.

Its eyes lock with hers, mesmeric and intelligent. All the strength and power she felt only moments before drain into the earth and her legs begin to quake out of her control. Even though she has urinated only a few moments earlier, she now has the strong urge to do it again. So strong, she isn’t sure she’ll be able to stop herself. She tries to swallow and can’t. Her heart gallops loud and fast, her breath catching high in her chest.

She hears a low rumble and it takes several seconds for her to realise it’s a growl eliciting from deep inside the creature’s chest. The growl gets louder, the threat in it enough to make her want to run and never stop but Megan knows that to run is to die. Her body screams its desire for flight; her mind reins it back. The huge black cat opens its jaws and the growl becomes a roar. Megan takes a faltering step backward. The cat advances one stealthy pace and that single, oily motion shortens the space between them. Their auras mingle in the piny evening air.

Lost for a moment in the spell of its green eyes, Megan remembers her windswept journey with Carissa, a journey that brought them to this very clearing, the ground slick with fresh blood. A whimper rises in her throat and she stifles it with a clenched fist to her mouth.

The cat advances again but now Megan locks up, her body overloaded with fear. The cat’s mouth draws back from its long white teeth. Its ears flatten against its head and it hisses. The hiss ends in a screech as its mouth opens to reveal the full terror contained in those jaws. Megan sees the tightening and rippling at its shoulders and haunches; it retreats towards the ground momentarily and then it leaps straight for her.

As the black cat glides towards her through the silent air of the clearing, she sees its talons extend from the coal-dark moss of its paws. Each claw is as big as one of her fingers. Its mouth is stretched wide in a roar and in readiness for the bite which she hopes will end her life. She prays not to be alive when the creature tears off chunks of her flesh, chews it and swallows it.

Great Spirit, spare me that…

Her knees collapse easily as she dives low, making her bid for a few more seconds of existence. She hears its claws cutting the air, smells its foul breath and feels the heat of it like steam. The cat passes right over her as she hits the dirt with her hands clasped over the back of her neck. Its landing is almost totally silent but she hears its breath huff out as its weight reconnects with the earth. She waits for the searing of its claws and the finality of its bite. Nothing happens. She rolls over quietly.

The cat has ignored her. It paws at the door of the roundhouse, trying to claw it open, a softer growl now coming from its throat. Its tail flicks and snaps from side to side in irritation. Finally, a couple of claws snag a decent grip on the soft wood of the door. The cat tears it from its housing, sniffs the threshold cautiously and then disappears inside as though into a cave.

Any moment now the cat will come out of Mr Keeper’s roundhouse and realise what it’s missing. She could run. Now, if she is quiet, she might make it back to the village and raise the alarm. The men would come out and drive the beast away. She rolls into a crouch, ready to spring up and pad away as silently as she can.

The cat’s head appears at the door, rising and falling with its rapid shallow breathing. Its regards her calmly and then it is gone again, back inside. It’s only now that Megan notices the blood trail. She looks back in the direction from which it came; the gory traces extend to the edge of the clearing. Does this animal know Mr Keeper? Perhaps it knows it can come here to have its wound treated. It wouldn’t be the first time Mr Keeper had taken in an injured wild animal and nursed it back to health with herbs and poultices.

With Mr Keeper still absent, the responsibility for this creature falls to her. She knows he would want her to step into his shoes and help the animal if she’s able. After all, healing is a major aspect of her training.

Can I really treat a wounded black panther without getting myself killed?

Megan has no answer for this.

Nor does she have any choice now about her actions. To run away would be to end her training and step off the Black Feathered Path forever.

She edges towards the doorway of the roundhouse, unable to see inside. The light is seeping away fast with the approaching dusk. At the entry, she hesitates. There’s a huge presence within. She can smell it and she can feel it. Listening hard she can hear the gentle rumble of purring. Perhaps it’s this sound which encourages her to enter. She picks up the door, and leans it as best she can into the space it has been ripped from. It takes time for eyes to adjust to the gloom within. Some of the failing daylight enters through the wind-eye and the stove throws out a few flickers of orange through the crack in its door, but even after her eyes become accustomed to the darkness, the roundhouse seems to be empty.

She moves as quietly and carefully as she can towards the stove in the centre of the murky space. Once there, she scans the inner walls. There’s nothing to see. Nor does anything appear to have been disturbed. There’s only one place the animal can be: the place she has never seen.

At the far side of the roundhouse is the blanket strung across the low ceiling, making a fragile, flat inner wall. This is the private area where Mr Keeper sleeps and as he has never shown her the tiny space, she has known never to enter it. Now, though, things are very different. She hopes that when she explains all this to Mr Keeper, he will understand and judge her fairly.

She moves towards the curtain, quietly at first but then, not wanting to startle the hurt creature, she lets her feet rustle on the matting to telegraph her approach. Even now she is fearful that the cat will erupt from behind the flimsy blanket, knock her down and tear out her throat. This is enough to make her freeze as her hand reaches for the edge of the grimy fabric. She sees that her fingers are trembling.

Unable to breathe or swallow, her heart fat in her chest and her neck throbbing with the beat of it, she watches, detached, as her hand pulls the thick veil to one side. The form lying on the matting is not an animal but a man, a naked man. His whole body shakes. His thin limbs are tightly muscled and sinewy. His pale and dirt-spattered ribcage expands and contracts as he labours to breathe. The skin at his knees and elbows is wrinkled and leathery. His hair is long and matted; leaves and tiny twigs are caught up in it. His lively green eyes watch her but he either cannot or will not speak. Along his flank is a deep-looking cut and many other parts of his body are scored or scratched. Thorns are embedded in his hands and feet.

Megan begins to breathe again. She takes a couple of folded blankets from beside the bed mat, opens them and covers his shivering form. She rushes from behind the blanket, grabs the black kettle and puts water on the stove to boil. She lights several tallow candles and by their glow collects the herbs and other medicaments she thinks she will need, along with strips of clean cloth which she will use as bandages. She pulls the blanket to one side, exposing the man to the light and places everything she has collected beside him.

When the water has boiled, she pours some into a wooden bowl and takes it to the man’s side. With suddenly very steady hands, she begins to wash and tend Mr Keeper’s wounds.

Working as fast as he was able, Gordon made and set his traps first. Snares were easy enough; he carried those with him everywhere he went. All he needed were pegs to secure them, fashioned in moments from fallen branches. For his river traps, he needed to cut some new wood. Twigs of hazel were the best for weaving into an oval shaped cage. As bait he placed inside the cage a dead crow that he’d discovered beneath the trees, its feathers sleek and oily black, its body warm and pliant, as though it had fallen in response to his need. He hoped the slow-moving water in the bend of the river he’d chosen would prove fruitful. When everything was in position, a good distance from where he planned for them to spend the night, he returned to Denise.

She’d fallen asleep sitting up against a tree. Her mouth hung open, such was the depth of her slumber. Without any consciousness to animate her face, Denise looked many years older than her age. Sitting there like that, her breaths coming long and slow, her jaw slack, he could imagine her dead. Everyone was tired of this world except him, it seemed. How many people lay down at night praying not to wake up, he wondered? It happened on the motorway everyday. Come the dawn, there were always figures who didn’t rise from their narrow resting places by the side of the worn and shattered highway. He hoped Denise would have a reason to keep waking up in the mornings even though her child was dead. There was nothing wrong with this world that people hadn’t done to it. It could have been such a beautiful place.

Gordon left Denise to sleep and looked elsewhere in the small wood for what he needed. Thin branches of ash, longer poles of hazel, the pliant yet strong ends of birch boughs. All this meant taking living wood and Gordon spent time with each tree he chose, touching the bark with his palm, asking for forgiveness, explaining his need.

Removing his lock knife, he tested the blade and found it dulled. He sat beneath a healthy, many-limbed hazel tree, where his boots had already crunched and crushed dozens of spent and rotten nutshells. He took a whetstone from his pocket, spat on it and began to work it against the blade. Its once-convex profile had become a sickle shape. This constant sharpening and use, Gordon knew, was shortening the blade’s life but that didn’t seem to matter. The knife had extended his life more times and in more ways than Gordon could reckon. The whetstone was a gently rounded pebble about the size of his palm. He'd taken it from the River Usk while the Palmers had sheltered him. In comparison to the blade, there was barely any wear at all on the stone. He loved how it warmed up to his touch, returning to his pocket charged with heat each time he finished honing his blade. He replaced the pebble now, smiling a little at the comfort of that warmth beside his thigh.

Removing his boots and socks, Gordon placed them near the river so he could enjoy the kiss of the land on his bare soles. When he returned, he began to strip the wood he needed from each tree, laying out poles by type, length and thickness.

Near Denise he cleared a space of leaf litter and fallen twigs, cutting away any brambles and nettles before building the shelter. When the structure was complete, he slung a lightweight olive green flysheet over it and tied the edges into the framework. If he’d been alone he would have slept rough and open to the elements. He’d done it hundreds of times and found it renewing in ways he couldn’t easily explain. But he couldn’t expect Denise to live like that; not after she’d been used to sleeping indoors, and not if he wanted her to travel with him even a few paces farther.

He stood back and walked around the outside of the shelter one last time checking everything was secure and watertight. This was as good as it was going to get without better equipment. Inside he laid many layers of birch fronds on top of each other until they were springy enough to sit or lie on. Once they lay down to sleep, the air trapped beneath them would warm up, keeping them insulated. With everything double-checked, he watched Denise for a few moments to make sure she was alright. She still breathed. She still slept. He realised how hard he’d pushed her over the last couple of days.

For a while he scanned the area around them, stretching out with his senses. Even though he could see no evidence of it, he still had the suspicion that someone knew exactly where they were. But that had to be paranoia this time, didn’t it? He was absolutely certain that no one had followed them from the M1. Either way, all he wanted was to keep moving but with Denise here, it would be difficult to keep their momentum going. As the light began to fade, Gordon moved silently away, barefooted and stealthy, loving the wildness that leapt in him at the touch of the earth.

The bounty was modest but Gordon knew it would be good eating.

He took his catch back to camp, resetting his traps and snares before leaving. What he couldn’t use – the guts and offal – he buried beside the trees whose branches he’d cut to make their shelter. The rest he laid by the river. Only one of his catches was dead; the rest of them still struggled. A plastic bag that had been caught in the branches of a bramble secured the living prey for long enough that he could start a fire.

It was the crackles of wood burning that woke Denise. In the dim light of evening, she looked wide-eyed and spooked.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“I don’t know exactly. A few hours.”

She looked around.

“You’ve made… an igloo.”

“It’s a bender. Well, sort of.”

“What’s a bender?”

“It’s the nearest thing to a hotel we’re going to find out here.”

This seemed to satisfy her. For a moment.

“Why is that bag moving around?”

“That’s dinner.”

“Dinner’s… alive?”

“It’s best eaten fresh.”

“I’m not eating anything that’s still trying to get away.”

Gordon laughed.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to cook it first.”

“What are we having, anyway?”

“Poor man’s surf and turf, I guess.”

“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

Gordon added more wood to the fire, building it into a glowing pyramid. Sparks flared upwards and winked out.

“Well, it’s going to take a while yet because we need a really hot bed of ash but we’re going to eat char-grilled crayfish and rabbit.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“That actually sounds quite nice.”

“You have no idea.”

What little warmth there’d been during the day was sucked away quickly with the disappearance of the sun. Gordon and Denise sat close to the fire which was now a heap of coals, glowing almost white in places. Their knees burned if they got too near but the warmer the fronts of their bodies became, the colder their backs felt. From time to time they faced away from the fire to warm their stiffening spines.

The filleted rabbit spat and sizzled on skewers of hazel resting over the fire. When the meat was blackening Gordon dropped the crayfish into the fire where they hissed, their carapaces turning apple red in seconds. When they were done, he placed them on the grass to cool and handed Denise a skewer of rabbit. He showed her how to break open the crayfish shells to get at the red and white flesh within. All was quiet while they ate but for the succulent sounds of chewing and murmurs of appreciation.

“Oh my God, Gordon,” said Denise, licking her fingers. “This is the best meal I’ve had in years.”

Gordon grinned.

“There’s nothing like wild food. It keeps you strong.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re so fit.”

“It could be. I was puny when I first left home. After living close to the land for a few months I started to…”

“What?”

“
Fill up
, somehow. It’s hard to explain. Just being out here now makes me feel alive and energised. If the Ward were coming after us, I could run all night and still take them on in the morning.”

“God, I hope that won’t happen.”

“It won’t. They’re not around right now.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. We’ll be safe here for tonight. Maybe a couple of nights if you need to rest up.”

Gordon looked at the pile of shells beside Denise.

“You finished?”

“I’m stuffed, thanks. It was lovely.”

“Told you.”

Gordon gathered up the remains and walked into the darkness amid the trees to bury them. When he came back Denise was gone from beside the fire. He frowned for a moment until he heard a rustle from inside the shelter. Checking around the edge of the fire, he kicked in a couple of stray coals and squatted beside it for a while.

In a silent prayer he thanked the land for its bounty and the trees for their wood. He thanked the animals for their flesh. Feeling the intimate touch of the night on his back and smelling smoke and soil and the damp air off the river, he gave thanks for that thing he so often felt was a curse: his life. In the quiet and dark, he found contentment for a brief spell. Why it came to him in that particular moment in that particular place, he had no idea, but he wasn’t so hurt and jaded that he couldn’t accept the gift. The feeling he had as he ducked down to enter the shelter was unfamiliar and he could not help but be wary of it. Happiness was a fleeting, dangerous thing.

Gordon used their bags to cover the entry. They had one sleeping bag and a couple of blankets. They unzipped and spread out the sleeping bag as a mattress, wrapped their coats around themselves and placed the blankets over the top. Even so it was cold and the air beside the river was laden with moisture. There was no option but to press close together for warmth. Gordon lay on his right side, turning his back to Denise and pushing close to her. She put her arm over his chest and pulled herself in. He could feel her shivering.

“You OK?” he whispered.

“Yeah. Apart from freezing my tits off.”

Gordon chuckled.

“It’s not funny. I’ve never slept anywhere as cold as this.”

“This is as cold as it’s going to get tonight. Now that we’re in here, the shelter will preserve our body heat. If you don’t move around too much, the insulation underneath us will warm up too. In a couple of hours it’ll be toasty.”

“Toasty.”

“Right.”

After a while her trembling stopped and her grip on him loosened. Her breathing slowed and levelled. Only then did Gordon allow himself to slide towards sleep’s cliff edge.

And fall.

He dreamed of the girl who’d come to visit Flora’s grave. She of that past time when the world was youthful and bounteous, unscarred by humanity’s avarice and lack of respect. The girl was dressed in her simple, unflattering clothes and she lay in the bright sunshine on the grassy banks of a river.

Gordon longed for the world she lived in. He could see the connection between the girl and the land, how deeply she loved and understood it, how her life and the lives of those around her kept the land healthy. So different from how it was in his time, where the people, separated and lost to the land, were the cause of all the its sickness. To live in her world, to live his life with her in that benevolent sunshine by that peaceful river and to be in her arms each day, to touch her face and smell her hair, the yearning was enough to make him weep.

The scene remained unchanged though, the girl on her back, warm in the sunlight, the river sighing by, its water so clear he could see each rounded stone and pebble, follow each flash of a darting fish between the rippling reeds. Gordon felt the warmth from that sun and because the vision was not taken away from him, he relaxed and allowed himself to observe.

Something permitted Gordon to approach more closely. He floated nearby, wanting to touch the ground of this other world with his bare feet and know its power but unable to manifest there fully enough to do so. Instead he watched the girl’s face tighten to some dreamed concern. If anything, that extra expression, the wrinkling of her skin, made her even more beautiful and real. She was not some perfect creature untouched by the cares of life, she was a living girl – a woman, really –with her own challenges to face.

He drifted closer.

The heat of the day was pleasant but intense. The sleeping girl had begun to sweat, the seeping at her hairline and temples darkening the blonde to brown. Something about this wet hair changed Gordon’s fascination with her from an appreciation of beauty to a physical need.

Before lying down on the river bank, she had loosened her rustic attire to allow her skin to breathe in the rising heat. She’d opened the simple ties of her smock at the neck and beyond. His urge to see her breasts revealed shamed him at first until he realised that this was his function as an animal. He was built to desire a woman in this way and, he assumed, the stronger this natural desire was, the more likely it was that he and the woman would produce strong healthy children. Before he could be too taken with the idea of her uncovered breasts, he saw the scar which occupied the flat territory directly between them. A white ridge of tissue, healed after branding. A pale, shiny lump of skin that would never be erased during her earthly time. It was in the shape of a crow’s foot.

The tanned skin of her chest rose and fell in gentle rhythm. Hypnotised, he stared at the mark for a long time, knowing this dream was not merely his wish for companionship and escape. There was some real and actual connection between him and this girl, some strand or fibre that bound them together through time, to which they both clung. He wanted to stay here forever. Even if she never woke up and never spoke to him again, just to watch her breathe, here in this pastoral, sun-drenched bliss. It was a simple need, made wounding and terrible by its impossibility.

He scanned her face. In her sleep she reminded him of someone. The lines of concern deepened, squeezing more expression from what should have been her young, smooth face. Pain and death. In an instant he knew who she resembled: an older, robust and healthy Flora. She could have been Flora’s older sister if she hadn’t come from a time so long before. Yes, take away the crookedness of Flora’s limbs, the swelling of the joints, let the sun ripen and fill her face and grow her straight and tall and this could be the young woman she might have become.

He watched, imbuing himself with an indelible memory of this unattainable creature. She was a true woman of the land, the human female to his human male. An animal woman, woven into the fabric and mind of the earth.

The sweat beaded on her forehead and ran back past her temples, staining more darkness into her sun-honeyed hair. Gordon felt the heat from the sun drumming into his back. He began to sweat too. The girl’s hands moved and he started back, terrified of being caught watching her; standing so closely by, so lustfully. If she woke, she would scream to find a ragged man like him standing there, tainted as he was by the darkness of his own dying, broken world.

But she did not wake. Her hands went to her tunic, drawing it open so she could breathe more easily. Her fingers worked the ties of a simple, rough blouse below, parting more of them until a broad stretch of skin was exposed from her throat to below her navel. With slow, soporific movements, she found the ties at her skirt and unwrapped it from her legs. Her hands fell to her sides in the soft, lustrous grass and Gordon stared, no longer breathing, at her partially revealed body. Though smooth, her entire body was sheened with a down of the softest, finest peach fluff. How exquisite it would be to touch the velvet of her skin.

Somehow, he moved closer to her, knelt at her side, impelling his dream body by will alone. His stomach trembled with longing and the beat of his erection was hot and deep like the touch of the sun. Her groin was covered by cotton undershorts the colour of risen cream but the rest of her legs were bare. He was unable to swallow as he studied them. Her muscles were strong and well-used, her knees prettily scarred by dozens of childhood scrapes and falls. Despite the musculature of her legs, they were slender, containing the power of the deer to run and leap. This girl – no, this woman – she was fast and strong but as the curves of her belly and the kindness of her fingers proclaimed, she was gentle and yielding. Still unrevealed, yet more visible than before, he could see the mounded flesh of her breasts to either side of the keloid crow’s foot. His hands were drawn to them, his mouth to hers. Unable to stop himself he leaned over her. Before his lips touched hers, before his hands slipped under her open, parted blouse, he closed his eyes.

The world turned to darkness.

The world grew cold and turned over.

He lay on his back now. Warm lips met his in this darkness. Cool, insistent fingers drew his hands upwards and pressed his palms against heavy, tender softness. A weight settled on his thighs. The cool fingers, frantic now, forced down his trousers. His own fingers explored the body above him, touched its face, its long hair. He stroked its neck and followed the outlines of its shoulders, slipped under the arms and along the slim flanks to its spreading hips, hips that pinned him to the ground. Everywhere he touched he found naked skin. Soon, he too was denuded and anticipation crackled in every part of him.

Her lips returned to find his. Her breasts flattened and spread against his chest. She settled back and in one single, succulent movement, engulfed him.

Gordon cried out, wild and ecstatic. He reached a sensation beyond which there was nothing more and his body released, casting itself into the body of this woman. He howled and she howled with him and he was glad to be this animal, to know his humanity through this new language of flesh. He crushed her to him, and she clung like ivy to a ruin. Head rushing, groin pulsing, Gordon died a little.

He was awake. He knew where he was now. The cold touch of reality and the cold touch of the air were daggers to his senses, glory to his skin. He held Denise tight, glad he didn’t know the name of the girl in his dreams, the name he would have screamed. Denise stroked his hair and the feathers woven there. He could not see her eyes and he was glad she could not see his. The love they shared was meant for others but had no others to go to.

Touching her naked skin raised gooseflesh beneath his fingers. She held him tighter. Gordon hardened again. They did not sleep until dawn.