Black Feathers

71

Megan looks around for somewhere to run to but the vast ring of eddying, insubstantial figures is unbroken.

She backs towards the stone block at the centre of the low-walled circle. The throng closes the noose around her swiftly, seeming to drift over the ground. As they approach she notices the strange way they are dressed: more variety than she could ever have imagined. She’d thought Shep Afon was crowded, she’d thought its inhabitants diverse, but the swirling dust-storm of wraiths around her, despite their lack of colour, are greater and more multifarious by far.

Her knapsack touches the stone pedestal and she is trapped. Glancing behind, she sees there’s a way up if she can use the many cornices as footholds. She turns her back to the throng and scrambles off the ground. Once atop the block she has an elevated view to all sides. The multitude still arrives from all directions, pouring out of every building and along every pathway. She can’t see the far perimeter of the crowd. There is no last row, no stragglers thinning out towards the back. They come from everywhere and they go on forever. Those at the front are now constricting the aperture around her as they near Megan’s miniature fortification. She removes her knapsack and empties it onto the surface of the plinth. The crowd reaches the low wall and stops.

Megan snatches up the knife and takes the handle with shaking fingers. The lake of grey figures observes her in silence. Now they are this close and no longer moving, she is able to study them. They are forlorn. Every face carries the same expression of sadness and loss, but they are expectant too. They have been waiting for a long time and now someone has come. Sensing no threat from them, Megan puts the knife back into the knapsack, hoping none of them have seen.

As one, the crowd reaches out its hands, every person imploring her for something with their upturned palms. Their faces plead. Megan doesn’t know what to do. After a few moments, every expression breaks into silent weeping and the arms are withdrawn to cover their faces. The people rock back and forth with grief.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I don’t know what you want.”

Every figure in the crowd falls to its knees. The rocking gets worse. Megan is thankful she cannot hear them – the sound of their wailing would be more than anyone could stand. The only other thing in her knapsack that has any significance now calls to her. She removes the black feather from its leather sheath and rotates it by its quill to inspect it. Even as she touches it the crowd becomes still. She looks out across their hopeful faces. She holds up the feather.

“Is this what you want? You can have it. I’ll leave it right here.”

The crowd becomes agitated again. Those in the front ranks point down into the circle Megan occupies the centre of.

“You want me to put it down there?”

The pointing becomes frantic and finally Megan leans over the edge of her pedestal and looks down. She sees the broken statue and she sees her footprints. There’s nothing else to see. She watches the pointing fingers more carefully. They are gesturing towards a particular area within the squat-walled enclosure. Megan scans the dust at the place where every finger would touch if only the people could enter the circle. Though the day is so gloomy it could be dusk and though the light is as grey as the dust it falls on, Megan sees something. A lump in the grit and grime, not far from one of her own footprints. The rest of the dust around it is uniform and level. It might be her imagination, but something seems to glint through the dirt. The crowd knows she’s seen something now and they retreat a little, their hands over their mouths in expectation and anxiety.

Megan looks at the people who make up the crowd. If they’d wanted to harm her, they would have by now. Also, it appears they are unable to come any closer than the ridiculously tiny wall around her, a wall so low a rabbit could leap over it. She puts her feet over the edge of the plinth and slides down into the small sunken amphitheatre the wall defines. She kneels beside the bump in the grime. Something does shine there. The hush of the crowd, already profound, deepens. Megan brushes away the dust. Something clean, black and pristine shines beneath her fingertips.

When she picks it up, the entire population of gauzy grey figures evaporates. Dust motes drift to the ground in the windless air.

Having retrieved and repacked her knapsack, Megan now sits on the low band of stone turning over the object in her hands.

It is a thing of power, ageless and unchanged since it was created. All about it will be destruction and decay and this alone will shine. You will know it by its purity.

A disc of black crystal the size of her palm. The crystal has been intricately carved by an expert, loving hand. The lower half depicts the roots, trunk and branches of a tree. To either side of the trunk sits a crow. One faces east, the other west. The upper half of the of the disc is entirely taken up by a black crow in flight, the underside of its wings presented to the holder of the crystal, its head looking straight up as though it is soaring to the heavens. Its wings form a protective canopy over the tree and the other two crows.

Merely holding it in her hands is a balm to Megan’s tired mind and body. The crystal speaks to her of creation and transformation, of the tendency for spirit to progress upwards. It reinforces her sense of treading the right path.

A voice, clear but distant, startles her:

“It’s time to come back, Megan.”

She looks up from the crystal. The open space here at the centre of the city is silent and deserted. She is so tired and hungry that she knows the voice must be her imagination this time. All she wants now is to be with Mr Keeper, once more under his direction and protection, but she knows she must rest before she sets off again. Heedless of the grime, she slides down until she is lying in the dust with her head on the knapsack. She holds the crystal over her heart and places her hands over it.

Just a quick nap and then–

But she is already asleep.