Black Feathers

4

The cottage door shuts and Megan hears the sound of her parents’ footsteps receding over the dusty track through the village. Down in the direction of the Usky River most likely, where they’ve always loved to walk and where, they sometimes tell her, she was created in the third quarter of the moon during the snows of February.

Mr Keeper is smiling as if he knows all these thoughts of hers.

“You’ve been to Covey Wood today,” he says. “I can smell its soil on you. And you still echo with the chatter of the oaks.”

“The oaks talk?”

“Oh, yes. Constantly. You’ll hear them one day, I’m sure.”

Megan’s eyes widen.

“I think I’d like that.”

“Well, sometimes you get to wishing they’d shut up, but it’s great at first.”

Mr Keeper is smiling and the lines beside his eyes have deepened into kindly cracks and his teeth are showing, much whiter and straighter than any she has seen, and it doesn’t seem to matter anymore that she can’t tell the difference between the tan and the dirt on his forehead.

“It’s OK to tell me what happened out there, Megan. I have a sense that whatever it was is very important. That’s why I’ve come to see you. But I don’t want you to tell me a single word of it, not a breath, unless you can promise me faithfully right now that you won’t leave a single detail out of your story. Can you do that, Megan?”

Megan nods.

“I need you to swear it, little thing. I need you to swear it on the body of the Earth Amu.”

She doesn’t hesitate.

“I swear it on the body of the Earth Amu, Mr Keeper. I will tell you everything.”

His smile lines concertina even more and she suddenly realises that Mr Keeper is ancient. In spite of his height and his strong back and the speed at which he marches, Mr Keeper is a very old man indeed.

And Megan, careful to begin at the beginning and end only at the end, tells this very old man her story, without missing out a single detail.

“It started a couple of moons back. In the night country I dreamed about a boy. He was beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone like him in the day world, so I knew he was special. He was standing next to my bed looking down, and even though there was only moonlight to see by, I saw his face more clearly than I see yours right now by the light of Apa sun. His skin was as pale and smooth as the stones in the river. His eyes were grey as moon dust – I don’t know why I say that but I know it’s true – and they shone just as bright as the moon itself. His hair, well, I’ve never seen anything like that either, Mr Keeper. Black as Tor Caves on a winter’s midnight. So black it was blue. And it shone too. His skin, his eyes, his hair; lit up my dream like purest starshine. He made me feel a little strange. I suddenly thought maybe not all boys are only good for wrestling and playing ball and hunting. Maybe there’s other things they’re here for. He made my chest fill up with something, like I had something to give away to him – to everyone – but whatever it was, it was stuck there for the moment, with no way to come out. I looked down at myself and I’d grown lovely soft mams as big as my amu’s and I had hair on myself just like my amu. I felt lovely, Mr Keeper. It was the boy who brought them to me, so they only existed in the night country at first, but now…” She glances down shyly at the obviousness of her chest, “Well, they’re real. They’re coming. I shall be a woman soon enough.”

Megan is crying. She doesn’t know why. She’s smiling too. Nothing makes any sense. But Mr Keeper doesn’t say a word. He merely nods, and the nod says he understands everything she’s telling him. Understands it better than she can now or perhaps ever will. She wipes away the tears with a knuckle and continues:

“Then, just this evening past, the boy brought me another night country gift. It was a feather, quite long and thin and straight, but shimmering blue-green in the moonlight. It was the tail feather of a magpie. He touched it to my forehead and suddenly I wasn’t in my bed any more. Just for a moment – and I thank the Great Spirit that’s all it was – I saw a man bound to a twisted old black tree, a tree long dead, I reckoned. The man was suffering a great torment at the hands of his captors. It was so terrible, what they were doing to him, that the moment the boy took the feather away, I forgot it. All I know is that they intended to kill this man and they wanted him to suffer. They wanted his death to be so awful it would be a lesson to us all.

“When the boy took the feather from my forehead, I was weeping. He gathered up my tears with the tip of the feather and flung them out of the window. The next thing I knew, my tears were sparkling in the night sky with a thousand other stars.”

Megan shakes her head as she remembers.

“He was a bearer of gifts, that boy.”

She puts a hand to her chest.

“And then he left. I couldn’t bear to see him go so I got up and followed him. He was too quick, though. He flew. Somehow, the night gave him wings. By the time I was out of the front door, he was gone. I was so sad. And then I looked down and there on the track outside the door was the magpie feather. It was pointing out of the village, in the direction of Covey Wood. I made a promise to myself in the night country, then. I promised I would follow the boy to Covey Wood. Then I went back to bed.

“Come the morning, I’d forgotten all about the beautiful boy and his gifts and even my promise. You know how the night country is.”

Mr Keeper’s eyes gaze deeply into hers. He seemed to lose himself for a moment.

“Oh, yes, little thing. I know how it can be. I know it very well.”

“When we’d cleared up the breakfast and Apa had gone to the fields, I decided to go for a walk. I found myself wandering to the meadow and saying hello to some of the animals. And then I walked around the high cornfield to the borders of Covey Wood. I remember thinking how dark it looked inside and how the wind flapped the leaves of the cornstalks ever so gently. The day felt lazy outside of the wood. But the breeze didn’t seem to penetrate the trees, so inside the wood all was silent and still. I was frightened to go in there.”

“But you went in nonetheless, little thing.”

“I did. I know I had a choice. I could have turned around right then and headed down to the river to skim stones and paddle my feet in the pools. But I had this feeling in my chest, Mr Keeper, like it was full up to burst. I didn’t understand it at all. But I had a sense I’d find the answer in Covey Wood. Seems silly now, that does.”

“There’s nothing silly about it,” says Mr Keeper. “It was the night country breaking through into the day. It wanted you to return to the darkness even in the light. It wanted you to enter shadow. And, more than that, it wanted you to keep your promise. When you speak, little thing, the world listens. The Great Spirit, the Earth Amu and every other living thing hears your voice. Never forget that.”

He takes a pouch from one of the many pockets in his boilasuit and a pipe from the top of his sack. He fills the pipe with a moist-looking herb and lights it with a burning stick from the stove fire. Once he has resumed his position on the stool and blown a few puffs of strange-smelling smoke at Megan – deliberately, she thinks – he says:

“What was your decision?”

“I walked towards the wood and the nearer I got, the more puzzled I was by the shadows in there. Or the light. It’s difficult to explain. Inside the wood, it was a different day to the day it was outside. The wood was… charmed somehow. But it was dangerous too.”

Megan sighs.

“I’m trying not to miss anything out, but it’s hard to describe.”

Mr Keeper blows a big smoke ring and pops three smaller ones through it before they all unravel.

“You’re doing fine, little thing. I can tell you’re keeping your promise, so don’t worry. Once it’s all out and we’ve talked about it, you’ll feel better. You’ll feel clearer. Right now it’s all still muddy, isn’t it?”

“Muddy. Yes, it is.”

Megan stands up and fetches water from the ewer. Even now she stands on the threshold of the forest and does not want to enter. Mr Keeper is patient. She offers him water but he declines with only a tiny shake of his matted head. Megan resumes her place on the chair and continues.

“The air inside the wood wasn’t cool like I’d imagined it would be. It was warm, as though the sun had made an oven of it. It was a lovely feeling to be so… embraced. Entering the wood was like being welcomed into the arms of strangers in a distant land. It’s funny, Mr Keeper. I’ve been in Covey Wood a hundred times but I’ve never felt like that before.”

Megan takes a sip of water and replays the events, making certain that this part, most of all, is as accurate as she can possibly make it.

“Time felt strange. Falling leaves took forever to touch the ground, then moments later, I’d notice the sun had shifted. I found a fallen tree. The roots were exposed and the way they met the trunk made a natural place to sit. All I wanted to do was watch the magic of the wood in comfort for as long as the spell lasted. I climbed up and it became my throne. I sat like a princess surveying the territory that might one day be hers.

“Everything the sun touched lit up from inside and suddenly it was brighter in the wood than it had been under a clear sky. It doesn’t seem possible now. The leaves of the oak trees glowed and where the shafts of sun touched the ground, those places were like pools of molten gold. I was tempted to dip a toe, but everything felt so fragile I stayed as still as possible. I didn’t want to break the spell.

“My body felt strange too. The fullness in my chest was only part of it. The crown of my head was fizzing like a pint of ale and warmth spread down from there all the way to… well, all the way down. Everything was tingling, and then a buzz started. I thought it was a swarm of bees coming through the wood but the buzz was inside me. All the way through me. And the buzz got harder and stronger and I got scared it might do something to me – hurt me somehow.

“The moment I got frightened, some of the light went out of the wood and the buzzing went away. The whole thing was a trick to get me alone and far away from the village. Far enough that I’d be easy prey for that… man. That… thing.”

Mr Keeper taps out the used herbs from the bowl of his pipe into his hand and places them into one of the many pockets of his boilasuit. Megan frowns at him.

“Ash can be sacred too,” he says, as if that is some kind of explanation. “Now do tell, little thing. Tell me about this man. This thing that you saw. Leave nothing out, mind, or you’ll be breaking your very important and significant promise.”

“I’ve told you. I won’t break my promise. Otherwise I wouldn’t have made it in the first place.”

Mr Keeper nods. Almost a bow. She finds, to her surprise, that she is happy to have pleased this man who, until a short time ago, had been no more than an odd character in the village. Not a stranger exactly but an unknown force. And he is powerful, she realises now that he is sitting so close to her. She also realises that much of his power comes from his ability to hide it from people. Now, Megan feels quite sure, he is allowing her to see what he’s really like. It makes her feel special.

“So. Tell me what you saw and then we’ll know, won’t we, little thing? We’ll know how we must proceed.”

That’s the first time in all of this – since the dreams, since the walk, since seeing what she saw and even since being alone with Mr Keeper – that she’s felt all this has some inevitability about it. Things have been set in motion and now she must deal with the outcomes. What they might be she can’t imagine, isn’t sure she even wants to. From inside her a tiny voice says, This is what it means to grow up.

She doesn’t really know if it’s her voice but she knows it’s true. No wonder she’s afraid. She had no inkling when she woke up this morning that she would be taking her first steps into womanhood before the day was out. Her tone is suitably affected by the possibility.

“A cloud must have passed over the sun because the wood turned dark. The heat went out of the day. But I didn’t even have time to shiver before that cloud passed and the sun was back, pouring into the wood through every crack in the canopy. But it was different afterwards. Things weren’t on fire from the inside any more. Nothing glinted. Everything magical had fled. All that remained with me was the swollen feeling behind my breastbone, and that was just uncomfortable.

“And then he… it… appeared.

“He arrived like a player stepping from the wings of a stage. And for a few moments I wasn’t frightened. I just watched him. He could have been a fool or a character in a comedy.

“He was there for me. That much was clear. He faced me, took off his tall, flat-topped hat and bowed my way. Bowed very low he did, as though mocking my thoughts of being a princess. I thought I was in my own little world but I wasn’t. Not at all. I suddenly felt like it was his world I’d stumbled into, made myself at home in, elevated myself in. I was embarrassed and I was angry.

“He stood in a patch of brightness, a shaft of sunlight just for him. And the more I looked and the more I realised what I was seeing, the more my anger and embarrassment turned to fear.

“It was a man. At least, I thought it was to begin with. He was tall and thin with a proud chest. He wore black from head to foot: the black hat, of course, and about his shoulders a coat of black plumes which dropped to below his knees. The coat was open, though, and I could see his tight black trousers over his slender legs. The bottoms of his trousers splayed out over his boots, making them seem huge. At his cuffs, too, sprouted sleek black feathers and the sun, gone cold somehow, caught them and twinkled there like quartz on velvet. The feathers obscured his hands. His black hair was long and silky, like it was wet. And his face…”

Megan puts a hand over her mouth as she remembers.

“I imagined all this, didn’t I, Mr Keeper? I fell asleep on the fallen tree and dreamed it.”

Mr Keeper is silent for a time. Perhaps Mr Keeper will stand up now, heave his pack onto his shoulders and leave, having satisfied himself that Megan had nothing important to tell him. That Megan – “little thing” – isn’t ready to grow up yet. That was what this is about, isn’t it? Her growing up? Her not acting like a little girl any more?

When he speaks, he is kindly.

“You’d every reason to be afraid. You can’t see such a thing and not be. But fear is only a sign of something else, a marker on a path. You mustn’t let it rule you. You mustn’t let it push you off course. Finish your story. Take your time.”

Megan meets Mr Keeper’s gaze and holds it for the first time since he entered her family’s cottage.

“It wasn’t the face of a man. I don’t know what it was. I saw so much in his expression that his features weren’t clear. He was full of sadness and rage and knowledge. He was kind and compassionate and mysterious. But how could he be a man? One moment his face was human, the next it was animal – a bird face, with a beak and sleek feathers and all. And his coat extended behind him as though it was his tail feathers and he stooped forwards a little and took a few steps towards me and he looked for all the world like…”

She weeps the words into her hands. She knows what she’s said but she hopes Mr Keeper hasn’t heard her. He hasn’t.

“Be clear, little thing. What face did he show you?”

Megan sits up straight and takes a deep breath. She doesn’t hide her tears from Mr Keeper any more.

“He was a crow. A huge black crow, and somehow he’d made me think he was a man. He tricked me, didn’t he, Mr Keeper? The devil’s come to our village and he’s tempted me into the woods. It’s Black Jack out there, isn’t it? Come to take my soul? Come to take me away from everything I’ve ever loved. Why? Why me? I swear I’ve never done anything wrong, Mr Keeper, I swear it to you. You know I keep my word and I tell you it’s true.”

Megan is babbling. She stands up from her chair in utter dismay and looks around, but she knows there’s no place you can hide from the devil. When he comes calling, it’s your time and that’s the end of it.

Mr Keeper is smiling. If she didn’t know better she’d say it was scorn he wore there, hanging between those hateful wrinkles.

“Black Jack comes for my soul and you think it’s funny,” she shouts, and then she’s weeping again. “Great Spirit, what am I going to do?”

“What you saw today was the Crowman. Black Jack, the Scarecrow – they’re his guises too, little thing, but he showed you his black feathers. He’s come to give you a message. I think it’s time we went and found your parents. But don’t you fret. This has been a good day. Not just for you but for the whole village. It’s not often we get a visit from the Crowman.”

Mr Keeper stands up.

“Come on, little thing. We must find your apa and amu and tell them the news. There’s much to do.”