Black Feathers

19

After some days of rising before dawn and making her way through increasingly chillier mornings to Mr Keeper’s roundhouse, a little of the magic goes out of Megan’s new life. Routine takes the shine off the mystery. Each morning when she arrives, Mr Keeper shows her how to pray and make offerings to the Earth Amu, to the Great Spirit, to the animals and plants and to other beings who inhabit the woods. He makes her tidy up the mess inside his roundhouse and clear away any debris from outside while he smokes and drinks tea.

Then they walk out into the meadows and grasslands or into the many wooded areas or along the rampant hedgerows where Megan never knows what creatures she might see. Sometimes Mr Keeper brings his longbow, teaching Megan to hunt. He’s able to drop a rabbit at fifty paces or more, a deer at a hundred. They never want for meat. Each day is different, though the lessons are often the same. They collect berries from the many bushes which are in fruit, some of which they eat, keeping others for his concoctions. They collect herbs and fungi which they dry above the stove in the roundhouse. Together they visit the sick in the village and Megan gets to know more of the people and learn a little about their troubles. Occasionally, she sees Sally Balston and Tom Frewin, friends she used to play with every day. Now all she can do is wave as they run to the meadow or the river to make mischief. Once or twice Mr Keeper is called to accidents and she accompanies him as he set bones, bandages sprains or rouses a woman from a faint.

In general, however, what started out as the most amazing adventure has become somewhat dull. Nor has she dreamed of the boy since the night he took her through the ruins to the dead forest and the black tree to give her his heart.

Now, as Mr Keeper rambles along a wall of hawthorn looking for something in the ditch at its root, Megan recognises the feeling she’s having. She’s bored. She follows along behind him for a while longer, trying hard to search with him, but she doesn’t even know what he’s looking for.

Finally, she says:

“Has the Crowman forgotten about me?”

Mr Keeper keeps shuffling along, bent to half his usual stature as he peers under the thorny branches and through their covering of deep red berries.

“Hm?” he says after a while.

“The Crowman. Do you think he’s forgotten about me?”

He creeps along a little farther, as though stalking unseen prey.

“The Crowman? Oh, no. He hasn’t forgotten.”

“But how do you know? He’s not doing anything. Nothing’s happening.”

Mr Keeper stops now and straightens up. He leans back to stretch and she hears his spine cracking in a dozen places. He looks at Megan.

“You’re impatient.”

There’s no point denying it. She nods.

“Well, you’re young,” says Mr Keeper. “You can’t help it.”

He bends down and continues his search. Fearing she’s lost her opportunity to make a point, Megan hurries after him.

“What I want to know is when will… it… happen?”

Mr Keeper stands up again and faces her.

“When will what happen, Megan?”

“Well… whatever it is. Whatever’s meant to happen.”

“What makes you think it isn’t happening now?”

“Now?”

“Right now. Right here as we speak.”

Megan considers.

“Because I don’t feel anything. Nothing is happening.”

Mr Keeper looks up at the sky to see where the sun is. He slips off his backpack and lets it gently down to the grass.

“Let’s sit for a while,” he says.

Once he’s descended the great height of himself to stretch out among the fronds of the meadow, Megan watches Mr Keeper run his fingers over and through the long grass, seed heads fully formed now on many stalks. He luxuriates in the contact, it seems, his eyes focussing elsewhere for long moments. Megan sits down too and waits for his absence to clear.

As the days spent with Mr Keeper have gathered behind her, she has been able to parallel his rhythms quite accurately. She knows when to stay quiet and when to volunteer help. She also knows he has episodes of removal from the moment; it isn’t just a matter of him thinking of something deeply, it’s as though his spirit leaves his body. During these episodes it is better not to interrupt him. Twice she’s done so, thinking he was merely not concentrating and twice he has “come back” prematurely and been irritable and uncommunicative for the rest of the day.

So now, as he stares through the hawthorn and caresses the grass, she merely waits, listening to the throaty call of rooks in the nearby wood and watching the breeze touching the whole meadow as gently as Mr Keeper touches a few of its living strands. Megan’s attention floats away too and she is surprised when it returns to the sight of something being offered to her.

“Here,” he says. “Have some oat loaf.”

Mr Keeper has come back before her. She takes the piece he’s holding out, a half moon of pale bread about the size of her palm. He chews slowly on the other half. After he swallows the first bite he says:

“Have you ever been to Dulas Pond?”

“I’ve been fishing there a few times with Apa.”

“There are some days when you can sit by Dulas Pond and everything is still. Winter days, usually. No insects hover over the water and no wind touches it. No kingfishers dive for food. And the land all around is quiet too, as though everything is asleep. But even though the surface of Dulas Pond is completely tranquil and undisturbed, things are going on down in the depths. All kinds of fish are feeding down there and their muck adds to the muck at the very bottom of the pond, day by day. If you took some of the slime from the bottom of Dulas Pond and put it on your pumpkin patch, you’d grow the biggest pumpkins hereabouts. That pond muck is richer than you can imagine.”

Megan chews on her piece of oat loaf, knowing that Mr Keeper will get to the point eventually.

“You’re like Dulas Pond, Megan. Nothing is happening on the surface and so you think nothing is happening beneath. But the truth is that all kinds of things you aren’t even aware of are happening way down inside you. Sooner or later, those things are going to help you bring forth great bounties – not just for you but for everyone hereabouts. Do you see what I’m telling you?”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, whether you do or you don’t, I know it’s happening. And when the time comes, many great and unexpected things will rise from the deep, deep pond that is Megan Maurice.” He pops a piece of oat loaf into his mouth, chewing it slowly. “You just have to be patient. And the best way to be patient is to do other things so that you forget what you’re waiting for.”

While she understands everything Mr Keeper is saying, Megan still doesn’t find it any easier knowing that, for now, all she can do is wait. She’s about to ask if there’s anything she can do to make “things”, whatever they might be, happen more quickly when she hears the feathery swoosh of wing-beats – so close she imagines she can feel the downdraught from them. A grey-beaked rook passes over and lands on the lifeless branch of a tree poking up from the hawthorns that have choked it to death.

Megan and Mr Keeper are silent and still as they watch the rook. It hops up and lands again, turning to the right. Then again, turning to the left. Looking almost uncomfortable, it opens and closes its wings a fraction, as if trying to fold them more neatly. Then it pushes its head forwards, extends its throat and gives three long, loud croaks, its breast enlarging and its tail feathers stiffening with effort. Then it flies, leaving the dead branch bouncing from the force of takeoff.

Mr Keeper springs up and watches its progress until it disappears from view in Covey Wood. He puts the last of his oat loaf in his mouth and pulls on his backpack. Seeing the intensity in his face, Megan jumps up too.

“We need to go for a walk, Megan,” he says through a floury mouthful. “And we need to go quickly.”

He sets off, his long legs devouring distance, and Megan is suddenly running to keep up. Finding a break in the hawthorn, Mr Keeper plunges down into the ditch, through the rambling hedge and up the other side. By the time Megan has made the same manoeuvre, Mr Keeper is thirty paces ahead and striding out for Covey Wood. She hasn’t been there since seeing the Crowman. After waiting all this time for something to happen, she suddenly finds that her legs are heavy and her feet clumsy. Keeping up with Mr Keeper, something else she’s learned how to do over the span of their days together, now seems impossible.

When she finally catches up to Mr Keeper he is standing on the threshold of Covey Wood, staring up into the trees. It began as a warm, clear day with a lazy breeze nodding the haw-berries. Now everything has changed. The sky is clogged with low cloud and the air is still and heavy. A shiver passes over Megan’s whole body and she moves close to Mr Keeper’s side.

The clouds must have come from somewhere but without a wind, how did they get here? The land all around has lost its colour and the trees of Covey Wood look black. Many have lost at least half their leaves and suddenly she remembers walking through the dead forest in the night country, led by the boy. The clouds press lower and Megan feels suddenly exhausted, all the strength in her legs sucked away into the earth. Her own small pack now feels burdensome. She wants to ask Mr Keeper what’s happening but doesn’t dare break his concentration. Soon the clouds have become an invading mist that slips down around them and into the wood, wrapping around the trees and entwining itself into their branches like vaporous serpents.

Unable to bear the stillness and silence of the moment, Megan takes a few steps towards the wood. Mr Keeper’s hand firmly holds her shoulder as she tries to pass him.

“We haven’t been given leave.”

His hand, comfortable and strong but very definite in its intent, is an anchor in these suddenly untrustworthy waters. She takes confidence from it. This is just a change of the weather. Nothing to fret about. Autumn is making its presence known, rationing the sunlight and dampening the spirit. But if that’s true, why is Mr Keeper so… vigilant? He still hasn’t taken his eyes from the higher branches of the trees, even though it’s now almost impossible to see them through the mist. What is he waiting for?

Somewhere deep in Covey Wood, so distant she might have imagined it, Megan hears a single gravelly caw. It can’t be her imagination, though, because that’s when Mr Keeper finally breaks from his own stillness and begins to walk towards the outermost trees of the wood. Leave, it appears, has now been given.

Before he reaches the trees, he turns back to her.

“You won’t need to worry about nothing happening any more, Megan.” His smile is almost sad. As though he’s recalling some kind of loss. “Whatever you do, stay close to me – the mist will get thicker.” He reaches out and plucks Megan’s magpie feather from her hair where she’s been wearing it at his bidding. “Hold this in your left hand. If we do get separated put the feather to your brow, think of me and call my name. I’ll come and find you.”

Before she can ask what is happening, he has stepped between the threshold trees and is in the wood. Already he is indistinct through the mist. Megan has no choice but to follow.

She wants to hold his hand; that’s what would make her feel safest, but she knows she can’t. Mr Keeper is not her father and she is not meant to be a little girl any more. But she is afraid. The mist is alive somehow. It presses against her, worms under her clothes until it chills her skin with its moist caress. She puts her right hand out to waft the vapour away like smoke, but the mist will not be so easily dismissed. Strands catch her fingers before tearing and melting away. What replaces the evaporated fibres is thicker, like wet, airborne web. After walking for some distance she notices that the less she thinks about the mist, the thinner it becomes and the better she can see.

Though she’s been through Covey Wood dozens of times, she doesn’t recognise where she is. One moment she’ll see a familiar landmark and then the path leads somewhere unrecognisable. Either that, or something appears that shouldn’t be there – a small pool, an area of marsh grass, an impenetrable bramble thicket or a stream. As she follows Mr Keeper she has the sense that they are being led by the mist. Accepting this, the way becomes easier. In the moments when she tries to remember the way, obstacles appear and the path becomes more difficult.

Mr Keeper stops and Megan comes up close beside him. As they wait, surrounded by the fibrous white-out, she begins to feel the mist tugging her. Mr Keeper, too, sways on his feet as the currents in the fog become stronger. The tugging is rhythmic, drawing the mist forwards and past them, releasing it and then drawing some more. Mr Keeper lowers himself to his knees, which makes him about the same height as Megan. He takes her hands in his making them seem tiny, and looks at her in the hypnotic, gently commanding way that he has.

“The time has come for us to part for a while, Megan, but you mustn’t worry. I’m never far away and you have your feather if you need to call on me. The Crowman is up ahead. He’s weaving the night country and the day world together so that you can understand your dreams. And he’s weaving the strands of time, past, present and future, so that you may travel between them.”

Megan shakes her head.

“I don’t want to go to another time.”

His smile is patient, amused.

“You won’t go anywhere you can’t return from. The Crowman wants you to see along the threads of time, backwards and forwards. He wants to tell you his story. This is what we’ve been waiting for. Your training begins in earnest today.”

Megan knows she cannot refuse. This is what she has promised to do. Not only is it her promise, she understands that this was what she was born for. To deny it now would be to discard the preciousness of her life. But it doesn’t make being left alone in the woods with the Crowman any less terrifying.

“Are you ready to live in his sign?” asks Mr Keeper.

And even though she doesn’t really know the answer yet, she says:

“I am.”

Mr Keeper places a kiss on her forehead and gently turns her away from him, turns her into the future, just a few paces away, where the Crowman now sits, knitting dreams and reality, twining time into time.

Megan takes a step forwards, deeper into the woods.