Black Feathers

69

When Gordon placed his hands on her dusty head, the little red-headed girl, limp with crush-wounds, went rigid. The woman and the small crowd recoiled. Whatever had used his hands as conduits was gone in the same instant. On the ground, the little girl coughed and a puff of dust escaped her lips. Then she retched, her lungs and throat clogged with concrete and brick particles. The woman’s hands went to her mouth. Her head cocked to one side as though she now saw the little girl for the first time. Her face creased into a tight mask of weeping and shock. She didn’t seem to quite believe what had happened – in much the way she couldn’t believe the girl had been dead in the first place. Before she could recover herself, Gordon took water from his pack and offered it to the girl, who sipped and spat the gritty muck from her mouth before sipping and swallowing the rest.

Gordon stood up. Instinct told him he needed to move away fast. The crows rose up as one, hundreds of them calling and flapping, blurring the air. He felt the downdraught from their wings and it pushed him away from the woman and the little girl. He turned and walked through the small clot of onlookers. They parted for him to pass. Some of them watched the woman who now held the little girl so tightly in her arms, the woman who now wept tears of joy and didn’t care how or why the little girl had been returned to her, only that she had been restored. Others watched the murder of crows, rising in apparent chaos, their knowing caws a kind of tribute, a kind of celebration.

Gordon was already making progress towards what he hoped was the centre of the town. All along his path were strewn the sleek black feathers of crows – dropped in recognition? Dropped in respect? He didn’t know. Every few paces he knelt to gather a few up – soon there were more than he’d ever collected before. He filled his pockets with them.

Somewhere behind, the woman had regained herself enough to stand up and shout, “Thank you… Oh, thank you…” between each fresh spasm of tears.

“You’re welcome,” he whispered.

Though he was already far away, he still heard her voice when it dropped in volume and she said, in embarrassed tones, to those who stood around her:

“I don’t even know his name.”

What Gordon had done was beginning to sink into the minds of the already traumatised survivors.

“If he helped her, he can help us,” one of them said.

They spilled away from the site of the miracle and saw Gordon making good speed along the avenue formed by partially razed houses and shops. One of the men ran after him.

“Hey! Wait!”

Gordon looked back at the small crowd in the street. He broke into a trot.

Someone else shouted:

“Come back! Please!”

Gordon looked to the sky for guidance but the crows, wheeling above in such vast numbers only moments before, were gone. The sky was grey with cloud and the smoke pennants raised over a thousand ruins. Behind him, some of the people were running to catch up with him. Most of them were desperate but some of them were angry. His trot became a sprint, dodging cracks in the road and leaping piles of debris.

The trail of feathers disappeared.

Ahead Megan sees several of the largest buildings the city boasts towering up into the sky – wrists with the hands torn away. Among them other structures large enough to hold most of Beckby village within them have been reduced to jagged, spilled walls and jutting, rusted bones. Between these structures, the wide open spaces beckon to Megan. The farther she can be from the buildings, the better.

The ground underfoot softens. She kneels to touch the earth. Beneath the debris and dust, there is soil. Glancing around she sees stumps, some in rows, some scattered. There were trees here once. And grassland. All dead now. Dead forever. The land here is so damaged, she can sense no life in it at all. It may never regenerate. Yet, to know she has found something beneath all the destruction, something that once lived, is such a comfort that she is finally able to weep much of the fear and tension away.

When she is done, she brushes the dust from her fingers and stands, calmer now. Her eyes are drawn to something at the centre of the broad space, something circular. She approaches the structure cautiously. It is a low wall, about knee-high and, unlike everything else, it appears undamaged. At the centre of the circle is a large block. What once stood upon it, an effigy of some kind, lies smashed within the perimeter of the low wall. She places one foot over the wall, testing the ground on the other side with a gentle prod of her boot. It seems safe enough.

She steps over.

She’s so used to it now, Megan almost ignores the movement that once again shudders in the periphery of her vision. When she does take a moment to glance, indistinct shapes are moving towards her from every direction. Grey figures swirling like the dust of the smashed and blasted buildings. They have form, though, these shapes. A form she recognises despite the strangeness of their appearance. They are people. Thousands upon thousands of people.

They make no sound.