Black Feathers

16

Gordon hunkered in the hedgerow until his legs ached. He heard occasional shouts from beyond the garden wall but couldn’t make out the words.

What were they doing to them?

Keeping his head down, he sprinted to the green door, skirted the wall and dived into the bushes bordering their garden. His dive was blind and reckless and he caught his right thigh on a hidden thorn of rusted barbed wire. It tore through his jeans and into his flesh. Stifling a cry of pain, he tried to free himself and the spike ripped deeper. Grimacing, he backed up, his hands punctured by blackberry thorns, and lifted his leg free. He dragged himself through tiny animal runs in the undergrowth, leaving smears of blood on the soil.

Estimating he was about halfway along the length of the garden, he turned right and pushed through towards its border. Soon he could see the trunk of a pear tree. To his left, a little nearer the house, there was a laurel bush, probably the best cover in the whole garden. He crawled into the laurel, now almost in the garden. A Wardsman would only need to part the leaves and they’d see him crouching there.

He parted his shield of foliage a fraction. From here he could see most of Hamblaen House and look along its nearest wall, past the wood pile to where Skelton and Pike had first come in. This time they’d brought three vehicles: two four-wheel drives and a small truck, all grey. The truck had three tiny square windows along its side. Windows with black-tinted glass.

No!

Leaning against its cab was another greycoat smoking a cigarette. Conflict erupted from inside the house; shouting and slamming and things being broken. Gordon put a fist to his mouth.

Then his family appeared, each with their hands cuffed behind their backs, each attended by a Wardsman. His mother came first, her face streaked with tears and marked by a red hand-print. Gordon’s rage swelled and he bit his knuckles.

I’ll kill whoever hit my mother.

Judith came next; her hair, neatly wrapped into a bun on the back of her head when they went walking, was now loose around her shoulders, tangled and messy. His father was last to leave the house. Like the others, he was handcuffed but his head hung forwards and his face was bloody. Viscous drips still spilled from his nose and he could do nothing to wipe them away. The three of them were forced into the truck with the tiny windows. A Wardsman slammed its door.

Only then did Skelton and Pike appear, accompanied by another handful of greycoats. Skelton clasped his hands behind his back and his barrel gut preceded him, wrapped though it was by what must have been a specially tailored raincoat. He was smiling. Pike followed, something disjointed about the way his long, powerful limbs moved. He removed a pair of grey gloves, each with a slick of gore on them. Turning them inside out, he placed them in a clear plastic bag which he then slipped into his pocket.

Skelton spoke with the driver of the truck, who stepped up into his cab, started his engine and drove out of the entryway. Four Wardsmen climbed into one of the four-wheel drives and followed. Skelton and Pike turned and regarded the house, words passing between them that Gordon couldn’t hear. Skelton seemed reluctant to leave, his eyes roving around the house and garden. His gaze fell right upon the laurel where Gordon cowered, right upon the parted branches. Gordon stopped breathing. Skelton looked away, still searching, but eventually he turned and, with some difficulty, pulled himself into the back seat of the remaining vehicle. Pike, too, struggled to get in the car, eventually folding himself in like a contortionist. The remaining two Wardsmen sat up front. One started the engine but for long moments the car didn’t move. Gordon had a sense that Skelton was hesitating again, perhaps realising there were places they hadn’t thoroughly investigated. After minutes that felt like hours to Gordon’s crouch-weary legs, the car crept away, out of the entry and turned right onto the country road that led to Monmouth.

Gordon waited until the sound of the engines had diminished to nothing. All was emptiness now but for the insane wind, surging around the house and streaming through the trees of their orchard, flaying the world down to its raw flesh. Gordon collapsed back into the laurel and wept.