The Book of the Crowman (11 page)

The bed is warm and Megan is tangled tight in her clothes, blankets and furs, woven into them like a pupae in its cocoon. Scant grey light seeps around the edges of her bed-hood – a tried and tested combination of pillow and bedspread designed to prolong the night.

The scent of wood smoke is a subtle harbinger of morning by comparison to the knock and clang of Amu preparing breakfast for Apa in the kitchen. Megan wants only to close her eyes again and sleep all winter long. She would like to travel back through the weave, wake up the previous spring and somehow make that season last forever. That was a time before knowledge had made a mule of her, when magic was present but unspoken in everything she saw rather than the stone cold reality and vocation it had now become.

Sometimes the smell of eggs cooking in goose fat can overcome all world-weariness, and this is one of those times. After flailing around weakly, like an animal in a trap, Megan manages to free herself from her cosy prison and sits up on the edge of the bed. The air creeping in through every crack in the doors, windows and walls has pincers and its nipping wakes her further. She begins to recall her journey in the night country: the brave, dying child trapped in darkness until death; a girl who need do nothing to find the Crowman but wait for him in her stinking sickbed. Even so, the little girl’s illness seemed a terribly high price to pay.

Megan slips to the floor, looks under her bed and puts her hands on the box, remembering the gift the little girl gave her. She hesitates. The loss of that gift will be like a cut to a trusting, outstretched hand but she must check.

“Megan! If you want any breakfast you’d better be quick. Your father’s got an appetite this morning.”

The voice from just the other side of her door makes her jump. She hadn’t heard her mother approach.

“I’ll be right through, Amu.”

She readies herself for what she knows will be a disappointment and lifts the lid. The book rests where she left it. She peeks underneath. Nothing. She raises it up to see if somehow the paper has stuck to the leather of the back cover. It hasn’t. Megan dumps the book back into its box and mutters a small curse. Even though she knew nothing would be there, she is weakened by the truth. The girl’s gift, so powerful a symbol, so beautiful a piece of work, has not survived the journey through the weave. Now it is nothing more than a half-memory; not real in the first place and even less so now.

Something about the girl and the obvious tragedy of her tiny, painful existence touches her still. It’s as though Megan herself were once a prisoner of darkness and disease, sometime long ago, and as hard as walking the Black Feathered Path can sometimes be, she knows that this life is a beautiful reward, an existence most folk can barely imagine, such is the depth of its passion and beauty.

She can’t help but release a sigh of loss, and what little enthusiasm she has for the day ahead rushes away with her expelled breath.

“Portions are dwindling, Meg!”

“Coming, Amu.”

Her father is at the table eating with great concentration and enjoyment. A thick slice of bread, heavily buttered, with a still steaming fried egg laid on top. This he accompanies with Amu’s spiced gooseberry and apple chutney, the afterburn of which is not to Megan’s taste.

“Morning, Meg,” says her father through a mouthful.

“Morning, Apa.”

“Sleep well?”

“Not bad, I suppose. A few dreams.”

“Thought so. I heard you muttering at some strange hour.”

“Sorry, Apa.”

He leans across the table and pats her arm with real affection.

“Don’t you worry about it. We know how important it is, what you’re doing. Not just for you but for everyone hereabouts. And we’re proud of you, Meg, in case you didn’t know. Very proud indeed.”

Surely that isn’t a tear in the corner of her father’s eye.

Is it?

He’s already back into his eggs and when Megan looks at her mother, she has turned away to the stove. A few moments later a fried egg, on a thinner piece of bread with less butter, arrives in front of her. She eats it slowly and long before she finishes, her father is up and out of the door to check the fields and animal traps, pecking her mother briefly through his yolk-stained beard as he rushes to be away.

Megan thanks her mother for breakfast and takes a cup of lemon balm tea with her back into her room. She sits at her table, staring out of the window at nothing in particular. To remind herself of the work she has done, she withdraws the black box from its resting place. Placing it before her on the table, she opens it, removes the book and flicks its thick, luxurious pages. Somehow she has filled up two thirds of the volume with her neat handwriting.

It’s strange. She’s unaware of how and when she’s done all this work but there it is right in front of her. And though the Crowman somehow speaks through every page, he has not yet made a genuine appearance in the boy’s life. He is always a tantalising step ahead of Gordon. But Megan knows, if only from the dwindling number of blank pages left in the book, that the moment in which he’ll discover the Crowman is finally within Gordon’s reach.

She turns to the last page she wrote and there she stops, frozen, not breathing.

The little girl’s drawing of the Crowman is there.
Inside
the book. Not on a separate page inserted among the existing leaves but on the page following the last one she wrote.

She stares.

It is the same drawing, exact in every detail. Megan covers her mouth to stifle a small cry. She turns over the page, expecting nothing more but unable to prevent herself from checking the other side of it. There is another drawing, by the same artist.

It depicts a small mound of freshly turned soil, surrounded by tiny flowers and hidden amidst a thicket of weed and thorn. Megan knows instantly whose resting place this is. The little girl who was so alive in spite of her sickness has been dead for generations, but to Megan, who only met her for the first time a few hours ago, her sudden loss is like a kick to the solar plexus. For long moments she can’t breathe. Worse than losing the little girl is the thought that perhaps her own journey through the weave, back to that dark, dirty room, was the catalyst for the girl’s demise.

Even as she has these thoughts, Megan can see the stupidity and confusion she’s allowing to rule her mind. Both the girl and her drawing are part of the Crowman’s story now. They are in the book. And that must mean there’s some reason for it that she isn’t yet able to see.

Megan feels an absence coming over her as she tries to make sense of it all but she rebels against the feeling, knowing the weave will draw her back if she lets it. For now, she must be alert. She folds the black book shut, stows it in its box and pushes under her bed so she can prepare for her return to New Wood.

Gordon led Denise north.

Once they were on the main roads out of London there was enough foot traffic that they were almost anonymous amongst it. People arrived en masse, still believing London was the place that would save them. Greater numbers, educated by experience, were leaving. But even here among the itinerant masses, Gordon sensed the Ward’s eyes everywhere.

Humanity looked very different now. Nothing anyone wore was new. Those with the skills and the materials patched the clothes they had or made new ones out of what they’d found. People still wanted to look like they cared, though, and their clothes, no matter how shabby with dirt and wear, reflected this. Fashions developed as people travelled, sleeves long enough to cover the hands or act as gloves were popular. In their hair, many people wore strips of colour-coded cloth in remembrance of loved ones lost to disease, starvation or the violence of the Ward. Memorial ribbons were often cut from the clothes of the departed. The numbers of ribbon wearers and the variety of colours they wore spoke silently of how many had died.

A hat was a practical item, and everyone seemed to wear one these days. They kept off the dust and they kept off the rain. Battered, peakless baseball caps and sombreros bought as a joke on a holiday in a past that might never have existed. Bleached-out fedoras. Torn bobble hats. A fez. Feathers often adorned both hats and lapels. Some people wore them hanging from bands at their elbows and knees. The feathers were grey mostly, either from dead pigeons or white feathers grimed by the dirt and dust of the road.

Many of the men wore bi-colour coats or jackets, really one half of two different coats sewn together. Shoes were the greatest indicator of luck or status. Many walked barefoot. Others wore plastic bags over layers of newspaper. Gordon had learned to resole and repair his own boots with animal skin but there were few others who had the knack of it.

Like many others, Gordon wore a cowl – the simplest of head coverings – but in his case it was to disguise his head and face. The Ward turned up regularly along the roads, watching the travellers struggle under the burden of their most valuable possessions. Those were the ones who were most often stopped. The Wardsmen would rob them in plain view and either send them on their way or take them into the nearest substation. No one resisted or protested. They merely walked faster and kept their heads down.

Sometimes, mounted patrols came along the road, right through the ranks of itinerants. It was the patrols coming out of London that Gordon and Denise did their best to avoid. When they heard the sound of hooves, they would move to the edge of the thoroughfare and huddle into the thickest stream of departing traffic. Sometimes they turned and headed back into town; the mounted patrols weren’t watching the incoming tide. Once a patrol had passed, they’d rejoin the northbound streams. In this way, they made it to the M1.

Denise seemed to think that was enough of an achievement.

“My feet are killing me. Can we find somewhere to stop?”

“Not yet.”

“I can’t keep going for much longer.”

“Yes you can. Set a new target.”

“Like what?”

“Like the first service station.”

“That’s miles away.”

“The first exit, then.”

“When we get there you’ll just say we have to keep going.”

Gordon laughed.

“Yes, I probably will.”

“I’m serious. I can’t keep walking like this. If I do, I won’t be able to walk at all tomorrow.”

Gordon looked at her. She did appear to be suffering.

“Do you have blisters?”

“Yes.”

“How bad?”

“They’ve all popped. It’s really sore.”

Gordon looked around. The foot traffic had spread out and, though he hadn’t really noticed it before, many travellers were resting or sleeping on the grass verges. Further up the embankments people were relieving themselves in the cover of the roadside shrubs and bushes.

“Come on,” he said, leading her to a space at the bottom of the grass verge.

He got Denise to sit down and squatted in front of her. She winced as he unlaced her filthy battered trainers and put them beside him. The fabric of her socks, no telling when they’d last been washed, was damp with fluid from the blisters and there were several watery bloodstains. Her feet were crusted with grime and smelled bad. If he didn’t do something, she ran the risk of infection.

“How do they look?” she asked.

“Oh, not too bad.” He left her socks on. Already the Black Light was swelling at his fingertips. He shut down all but the tiniest beads of it. “I think you could do with a bit of a foot rub, though.”

“Don’t do it hard, Gordon. They really hurt.”

“Relax. I’ve done this before.”

He stroked rather than massaged her left foot, nauseous with the power of the Black Light but keeping it almost totally staunched. Her foot jerked away from him and he looked up.

“Tickles.”

“Sorry, I’ll be firmer.”

It took only seconds for the Black Light to do its work but Gordon continued with the “massage” to make it convincing. He did the same with her right foot before replacing her trainers.

“We need to get you some new footwear,” he said. “These aren’t going to last much longer. That’s probably why your feet are so sore.” He stood up. “See how you are now.”

She rose to her feet without much enthusiasm and took a couple of experimental steps.

“Wow. They feel great. What did you do?”

“Uh, acupressure.”

“Really? Where did you learn that?”

“I… read about it in a book.”

“Well, you missed your calling, Gordon. You could set up a booth right here and make a fortune. I could drum up trade for you. We’d be rich in no time.”

“Yeah. And we’d be stuck here in Brent Cross forever.”

Denise turned away from him.

“I wasn’t being serious.”

Gordon went to her and reached out but at the last moment didn’t touch her. He didn’t know where to put his hand, didn’t know how to make contact. His hand fell to his side.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We have to keep moving.”

“Yes. I know.”

She set off, her pace faster than it had been all day, real power in her footsteps. Gordon rubbed his fingers against his palms, made fists and then shook his hands out. The Black Light was gone again, leaving him a gut full of sickness. At least he’d let some of it through this time – it wouldn’t do to puke a cascade of dark, evanescent oil in public. He hurried after her, knowing she’d have enough energy to walk until nightfall; beyond if necessary. As soon as they made it into the broader countryside, he’d get them away from the road and onto the land. Then things would be easier.

Before he caught up to Denise, Gordon looked back, certain he was being watched. There was nothing untoward in the faces of the dispossessed that stumbled from the capital; nothing but the look of hopelessness and defeat they all shared. And yet, Gordon couldn’t shake the sense that someone among the travellers was following them.

Somewhere above the smoggy clouds a full moon glared down. The thick vapours cloaked and a diffused much of the light but it afforded Gordon and Denise the ability to see a few steps in front. Long before darkness fell, everyone else on the motorway had stopped walking in order to find a place for the night. Prime locations were the level ground nearest the hard shoulder, away from the open latrines that the higher verges had become.

Gordon and Denise kept walking until there was no one else travelling the motorway, their footsteps loud in the night. All around them people snored, grumbled and whispered. The fortunate ones lit camping stoves to brew tea or cook soup, but most slept without the luxury of supper or a hot drink. When all the portable fires were out and the only sounds were of exhausted travellers breathing deeply or whimpering in their sleep, Gordon began to look for a less populated place to stop.

“I’d rather keep walking and get off the motorway at first light if we don’t find anywhere safe,” he said. “It’s impossible to know who else is out here.”

Denise didn’t answer him. She just kept walking.

About an hour later, Gordon saw a break in the hard shoulder: not an exit to a road or a service station, something else. They stepped carefully between the sleeping bodies and walked away from the motorway. They were on some kind of road but Gordon couldn’t tell what it was. Soon they came to a steel gate designed to stop cars. There were signs on either side of the gate and across it. Gordon could just make out the words:

No Entry for Motorway Traffic. Motorway Maintenance Vehicles Only.

They ducked under the gate and walked on until the road widened, bringing them into a vast forecourt. Gordon could see the faint shapes of abandoned diggers, bulldozers and other road repair vehicles parked around the perimeter. Right in the centre stood a lorry. It looked relatively clean and new, as though only recently parked.

Gordon glanced around before approaching but stayed at a cautious distance while he did a complete circuit of the vehicle. The trailer was open on both sides where the curtains of plastic had been pulled back on their runners. There was nothing in the back. Leaving the driver door shut, Gordon climbed the two steps to the cab to peep inside. It, too, looked empty.

He turned to Denise who stood with her arms folded.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think it’s a bloody joke.”

“This is probably the safest, most comfortable place to sleep on the M1. Do you want me to open it?”

She didn’t answer.

“Listen, Denise, you’re exhausted. I know it looks rank but this is your best bet of a decent night’s sleep.”

When it was clear she wasn’t going to speak to him, he tried the door. It opened easily causing him to lose his balance and jump back down. No alarm went off. He stepped back and put his head inside. The air was old. No one had opened the cab for a long time and there was no one inside. He saw litter on the floor: an old paper coffee cup and an empty packet of cigarettes. Some screwed up fuel receipts. That was all.

“It looks fine,” he said. He leaned down and held out his hand. “Come up. We’ll get you comfortable and then I’ll leave you in peace.”

After a few moments Denise climbed the ladder without taking his hand and pushed past him. Above the seats there was a simple bunk. Gordon found a couple of blankets tucked into a small storage space. The cab smelled of stale cigarette smoke and the blankets smelled of sweat and diesel. But they were in better shelter now than anyone else and relatively protected too. Denise pulled the curtains across the windows but Gordon stopped her.

“You need to be able to see what’s happening out there.”

She pulled her wrist away.

“Is there anything else I can do?” he asked.

She didn’t speak.

“Alright. I’ll be nearby and I’ll keep an eye on you. Tap on the glass if you need anything. Anything. Got it?”

For a while he thought she would simply ignore him. He reached for the handle.

“Wait. Don’t go.”

“What is it?”

“Look, I’m sorry. OK?”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

He opened the door and stepped down.

“Seriously, Gordon. Don’t go yet. I have to say something.”

He let the cab door swing closed but didn’t shut it. Denise looked at him, her eyes wet by the cab’s dim interior light.

“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done even if I have trouble showing it. I’m not angry with you and I don’t hate you. It’s just that…”

“What?”

She met his eyes.

“Everything was fine before you came along. The first moment I saw you there was trouble and there’s been trouble ever since.”

“I know. I’m sorry, too, Denise. Let me get you somewhere safe and then I’ll leave you alone. I promise.”

“Oh, Gordon, that’s not what I mean. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I want to travel with you but you have to understand that I… can’t help being freaked out sometimes. Since I met you, I’ve lost everything.”

What could he say to that? No words existed. No apology was appropriate enough. In the end he said only:

“I hear what you’re telling me, Denise. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

He turned to go and this time she grabbed his arm.

“Don’t leave me alone. Please don’t ever leave me alone.”

From so far within her came all the tears she ought to have cried but never could in front of Flora, the same tears that wouldn’t come when they laid her little girl to rest.

“Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me…”

The chant went on and on, mumbled and blurted through fresh cascades of tears as the grief poured from her. The shitty past, the hopeless present, the non-existent future; her tears for all of it came rushing forth.

Some time later – it felt like hours – he lifted her into the bunk, pulled the cab door properly closed and locked them in. He crawled in beside Denise and pulled the blankets over them while she wept herself to sleep. He wanted to caress her then, to stroke her and put his hands underneath her clothes. It was fear that paralysed his hands; fear of their association causing her yet more pain, fear of losing control of his emotions, fear of trusting. He held her tight, instead, praying she wouldn’t know his thoughts through the language of touch and wondering if he could even trust himself.

The two men sat in their cramped accommodation on the top floor of the Fulham Substation. Skelton held a recently drawn map of the country in one hand. It showed the areas where the Ward was supreme and those where the Green Men controlled the population. The spread of territory was vastly in the Ward’s favour; grey now covered about seventy percent of the land.

Pike sat in a threadbare, coverless armchair staring into space; as though somehow on hold. Unable to concentrate on the map, Skelton admired him. Somewhere inside that chiselled cadaverous head, wheels and gears were in motion; the tiny engine of will which powered the huge, living automaton that was Mordaunt Pike. Whenever that fire of that will was ignited, Pike became an engine of destruction. Absently, Skelton touched himself at the groin for a moment. As soon he became aware of it, he took his hand away again.

There were other things to think about. Their change of approach had already paid some dividends. Gordon Black had been making his mischief across southwest London and now Skelton knew, almost exactly, where he was. All they had to do was maintain contact from a restrained, unobtrusive distance. The boy would lead them where they needed to go. And after that, well…

Skelton’s left eye itched – or rather the place where his left eye had been itched – giving the fingers of his right hand something better to do than dally at his crotch.

He’d used a glass eye for a few months until supplies of the lubricant which stopped it sticking to his eyelids ran out. For a while he tried cooking oil and then gave up. On a day when Gordon Black had been off the radar so long they thought they’d lost him forever, Skelton had almost thrown the eye into a canal in disgust. Then a piece of news had come in linking the boy to a flood and subsequent outbreak of typhoid.

Where the Crowman had walked; that was where they always found him. A couple of their agents within the Green Men had then been able to follow Gordon south towards London. Instead of throwing his glass eye away that day, Skelton had it set into the handle of a walking cane and gave it to Pike, whose limp had worsened steadily in the three years since their tangle with the boy.

He scratched the sunken membrane over his left socket but the itch was deeper inside than that. The eyelids had fused together over time, their lashes knitting into an ugly, spiky mesh and the lips of skin behind them melding. The muscles around the orbit were still alive, however, and the eyeless place twitched and flickered whenever Skelton was agitated or vibrated like a loose drum-skin when he was deep in thought.

Sometimes Skelton closed his good eye. With it shut, he was convinced he could still receive visual messages through the empty socket. The physical eye was gone but the energy of the eye persisted and it saw only energy. When he was calm, he could sense things about people and, very occasionally, the eye showed him where to send his men for Gordon Black. It had been almost right on a number of occasions.

Now, of course, the cat and mouse game had altered somewhat. Direct confrontations had proved costly and unsuccessful. Nor was questioning the boy of any real importance any more. What Skelton needed was to be aware of Gordon Black and his movements until the boy led them to what he’d described to Pike as “a suitable location”. This time, any confrontation – if that was what it came to – would be a very different affair. The change of tactics had angered Pike. It had come close to driving a wedge between them but Skelton knew it was the best operational decision he’d made.

“This is the prudent way to eliminate the Crowman, Pike,” he’d said on the day of the policy change.

Pike had rumbled a wordless disagreement.

“Subtlety’s the way forward, my man. And patience,” Skelton had said. “We’ll have our retribution all the same, believe me.”

“If I held his head between my palms…” Pike had demonstrated, making a vice of his hands. “…I could crush it very slowly. I’d be patient
then
, Archibald.” He’d mouthed the sounds of bone splintering and then eased off the pressure. “I’d certainly take my time.” Pike had pretended to look into the eyes of his imagined captive. “You can still think, can’t you, boy? You can still hear your own skull rupturing, eh? Good.” He’d looked up at Skelton. “I should like to watch his lights go out very slowly. I should like him to be acutely aware that I am the one who’s putting those lights out, one hairline crack at a time until his head…” Pike had slammed his palms together in a thunderclap.

Skelton had jumped a little but permitted himself a grin before saying:

“I’m sure the anticipation will make it all the more satisfying.”

And now that day might suddenly not be very far away.

Pike’s hollowed-out eyes stared forwards. There was no hint of what ideas he harboured inside that ironclad cranium. Skelton was sure the thoughts were simple enough: plans for destruction in the name of the Ward, in the name of a future for all humanity. What would their positions be in that new world? Skelton had often imagined it. Their part in the tracking of Gordon Black and the subsequent capture of the Crowman, their prevention of the end of the world; all this would be rewarded, he was certain, with even greater power than they already possessed.

Except, of course, that Skelton didn’t believe in the Crowman any more. Three years of pursuing Gordon Black, and many more spent studying the so-called prophecies of thousands of ordinary people, had taught him a few simple truths. The Crowman was nothing more than a ideological figurehead, a phantasmal icon revered by those with nothing left to hope for.

Nor did Skelton believe that the Crowman would trigger Armageddon. No, responsibility for that would remains squarely upon humanity’s shoulders. The only real significance the Crowman possessed related to the morale of the people. Without their black-feathered champion, they would be broken. They would no longer resist. All Skelton had to do was use the people’s imaginary hero against them. And he was fairly certain that he’d discovered the way to do it.

His greatest satisfaction, though, would be in seeing Gordon Black finally brought to justice for his crimes and in seeing a new world ruled by the grey hand of the Ward. Skelton had no doubt that he and Pike would be kings in that new world. They would be kings because without them the new world would not have had the chance to exist.

He leaned across to his giant companion, still lost in the dim circuitry of his own head, and placed his plump, pale hand on Pike’s bunched thigh. The massive, skull-like head turned towards him. As always there was a moment of hesitation and discomfort written in those grey and otherwise unreadable eyes. This thrilled and terrified Skelton in equal measure. While their eyes remained locked, a vast, cold palm sank onto the back of Skelton’s hand.

He stiffened at the power of Pike’s dreadful touch, his heart stuttering as it accelerated.