"Crow Girls part 2" by Laura Peregrin

Chapter Three

            Once again, it seemed as if a supernatural silence gripped the wood, thick, heavy and angry.

“I – I must have lost it at school, or something,” Henry explained lamely. “It was just a scraggy old feather, anyway. I’ll find you a new feather – a better one, one of those big blue peacock ones or something.” This offer did not seem to appease the girl at all. Her face didn’t look like a real face anymore. It looked more like some grotesque mask, a collage of blood and anger and dirt and despair. Henry felt hot, treacherous tears welling up behind his eyes.

“I need my feather back,” Katie replied quietly. “You don’t know what it means …”

“I know!” Henry yelped. Katie looked at him, her head slightly to one side. “I know when I lost the feather. It must have been this afternoon, in class, when I passed out.” He refused to say the word ‘fainted’. “I saw the white bird, but nobody else did, and it came through the window, right at me, and I felt it go through me as well.That’s when I … when it happened.”

Katie was listening to him intently now. “Which white bird?” she asked.

“The one that we saw just now. The one that you were fighting, weren’t you? I saw it in a dream, too.” The words came spilling out in a rush. “And there was a white man, too. A white man who wanted the feather. It’s his bird, isn’t it? His bird that you know all about. You keep saying I wouldn’t know or I wouldn’t understand, but you’ve never tried telling me, have you?” Henry subsided into a sulky silence.

Katie made a strange, deep cawing noise in her throat. The wounded bird looked up at her, and cawed gently. It seemed to be a reply.

“Ok, you’ll have to look away,” Katie told him. He was on the verge of saying ‘what?’ or ‘why?’, but thought better of it and turned his back.

“You can look again now.” Henry turned round. Katie was still standing there, but Cora was with her as well now, sitting on an overgrown treestump and cradling her arm. The injured bird had gone.

“You’re wondering where the magpie’s gone?” Cora asked him. Henry nodded. “It hasn’t.” She took a single irridescant feather from her hair. He hadn’t noticed it before, but as soon as she touched it, it had obviously been there all the time. “This is my feather. My sister lost her feather two nights ago, and you found it.” She tucked her own feather back into her hair.

“You can … those magpies I saw then … wow!” Henry gaped in awe at the girls. It didn’t occur to him, after the events of the last few days, to disbelieve them or to assume they were playing an elaborate joke on him. “Like werewolves, but magpies instead – that is so cool!”

“I told you we shouldn’t … “ whispered Katie. Her sister nudged her sharply in the ribs.

“We’ve never spoken to anyone about this before,” Cora continued severely. “You mustn’t tell anyone. Do you understand? It could get very dangerous.”

“Dangerous…?” Henry echoed. “You mean the white man and his bird?”

“He is that bird, just like we are our birds, and there are more like him,” Cora explained.

“More like him than like us,” Katie added gloomily.

“There are more like you though? How many? Where are they?” There seemed to be far more questions spinning inside Henry’s head than he could possibly ask.

“We don’t know,” answered Katie defensively.

“Could I be one?” Henry asked eagerly. “I’ll help you fight the white birds and everything!”

“Don’t be silly!” snapped Katie.

“Wait …” said Cora. “He’s not that silly.” Henry blushed. “He was the last person to hold your feather, after all. And he seems to be able to stand up to the doves, at least a little. Ok, so he fainted in class, but he scared off that one tonight, and he was able to run away from the first one, and that was in human form, too …” She sounded thoughtful. “You can’t be like us, though,” she added, checking the smile that was lighting up the boy’s face. “You need to be born that way, and I think you probably need to be a girl. The best you  could manage, even if you had a feather, was the kind of dream flight you had last night.”

Henry deflated a little. “Are the feathers magic?”

“We don’t know,” said Katie again. “Our mum gave them to us when we were little.”

“Was she like you, then?” Henry asked, his eagerness for a story outweighing his disappointment that he couldn’t be part of it.

“We don’t know. She’s dead,” said Cora abruptly.

 “I’m sorry,” he muttered awkwardly.

“You could help us look for Katie’s feather, though, if you wanted to,” Cora said after several minutes of glowing silence. “We’d be very grateful, wouldn’t we?” She looked at Katie, who nodded.

“Ok,” said Henry at last. “You’ll have to explain a few things, though …”

Chapter Four

Henry slumped on the living room sofa, pretending to pay attention to the Saturday morning TV. It was now two whole days since he had seen or heard from the twins. After he had given his agreement, Cora had suddenly remembered that she was injured, and both twins had made hasty excuses. They’d promised over their shoulders that they’d be in touch, soon. They had been absent from school since that night, and he had not dared to approach the somewhat subdued gaggle of girls they usually hung around with.

The TV presenter’s voice was beginning to scrape on Henry’s nerves. One more false giggle, he told himself, and it’s time for the remote.

“Henry!” His mother’s shout cut through his thoughts. He leapt from the sofa. Skidding on the carpet, he reached the hallway where his mother stood in front of the open door. “One of your teachers is here to see you. Says it’s about some special project,” his mother told him before returning to her morning soap on the kitchen TV. Henry’s enthusiasm deflated.

“Oh. Right.” Henry slouched to the door. He opened it.

“Mum!”  Henry yelled, slamming the door. It bounced open again.

“She won’t hear you,” the man in white stated calmly. “As far as she’s concerned, Mr Baker is here to talk to you about a special computing assignment. You’re having lots of fun,” he explained in the same calm tones.

“Not my idea of fun,” Henry retorted, making a break for the stairs and his room.

Henry shoved the door to and collapsed on his bed, panting. He heard the squeak of the swivel-chair in front of the computer. The white man, the dove as Cora had called him, was sitting in it as if he’d been there all morning.

“You really have no reason to run, Henry,” he said, a slight bemusement creasing his perfect pale features. “I’ll find you wherever you are.”

“Why?” Henry breathed. “I’ve not got the feather any more,” he added.

“I know,” the man replied reasonably. “ I want to talk with you, Henry. To explain things. The twins haven’t explained anything at all, have they? Yet there are things you should know, Henry.” Henry gazed at the man, letting the smooth voice wash over him. His visitor was absently twirling a strand of his long hair round one elegant finger. “You are a special boy, after all.”

Henry shook his head. Why was he even listening to this condescending rubbish? And the man’s fingers were too thin, like bones, the hair like fine snare-wire. It glistened in the sunlight.

“Are you really a dove?” The question burst out before Henry could stop it.

“You may think of me as such,” the man replied pleasantly. Henry nodded to show that he understood.

“Why must you fight with the twins?” This was the question he had most wanted to ask the twins, the most important question he could think of. He leaned forward eagerly to see what the shining man would make of it, like his dad did when he’d asked an especially unwelcome question at Parent’s Evening.

A look of inexpressible sorrow passed over the man’s face. “We wish it weren’t so,” he sighed. He turned his face away, as if to shield the boy from such sadness. “Maybe you are too young to under … No, you are ready. Let me show you something.” He waved a languid hand at the monitor’s dull screen.

It occurred to Henry that the twins had never spoken to him like this, like he was someone worth explaining things to, rather than an unavoidable nuisance. The twins had never offered him anything. In fact, they’d got him to offer to help them. And they didn’t seem to actually know that much about what they were, or what was happening to them. His new friend grinned. The screen had come to life, showing a white swirling mist that seemed to be solidifying as they watched.

“Take my hand,” he said gently, reaching out to Henry. Henry stepped forward and, with a last shudder of reluctance, grasped the stranger’s cold hand. He felt himself pulled forward, enveloped in the white coat. It smelt strange, almost too clean. This close to the man, he had subconciously expected to smell something, aftershave or skin, and the absence of scent reminded him of the unnatural silence in the woods. He tried to wriggle back. A strong hand clamped his back, preventing him from moving away, and then he felt himself go dizzy, falling into whiteness ….

He was standing on something white and hard. It was not exactly floor, and not exactly ground and, in some indefinable way, not exactly finished. Henry shivered. His white coated guide had disappeared. He looked around. There were no birds, either.

Angular buildings rose out of the whiteness on all sides, like things coming into focus. The flatness he was standing on must be a road. There were other roads, leading in all directions, but no sight or sound of cars. Some of the buildings had large plate glass windows, like shops.

He stepped onto the pavement, and peered through one of the windows. Indistinct items were arranged pleasingly on a series of shelves. It was a shop! Pleased at finding something so familiar here, he tried the door. It was locked. Perhaps it was night-time. He looked at the sky beyond the tall buildings. No sign of stars, or of the sun, or even of clouds. He wondered if it ever rained here.

It occurred to him that this must be a city. Last year, the whole class had been taken on a school trip to Newcastle. They’d stayed in a youth hostel, and visited Hadrian’s Wall and filled in museum work-sheets in pairs. On the last day they’d been allowed to wander around the city centre shops in small groups. The other boys had talked loudly about how it wasn’t half as good as the Trafford Centre, but Henry had been overawed by the size and regularity of the buildings, by all the noise and colour and stink, by the swarms of people who rushed everywhere. When they’d got back to school, they’d written about ‘The City and the Country’, so he knew all about cites.

There was something wrong with this one. There were no people. Ok, so it could be night-time, despite the light, and they were all in bed. There were no signs of people, though – no litter, no graffiti, no alarms, no music. Not even the Nurse’s office was this clean and quiet.

It occurred to Henry that a city with no-one else in it could have its advantages. There would be a library somewhere, for instance, without crowds of other boys ‘studying’ in it. There might even be – a forbidden thought flashed through Henry’s mind – a pub. He set off down a broad street that seemed to lead into the centre, determined to explore…

He had been exploring for hours now, and not a single library. No pubs, either. He would have kicked a stone or a can if one had been available. The solitude had turned into disappointment as well. He had soon noticed that there were people, in groups or occasionally alone. They were always in the distance, moving purposefully somewhere else without unnecessary noise. Mr Baker and the other teachers would have approved. Attempts to catch up with them, or shout out to them, produced no response. After the third or fourth go, when his voice echoed uncomfortably around the streets, Henry had given up in embarrassment and continued his increasingly half-hearted explorations.

After a final attempt to get into one of the shop-like buildings, he sat down heavily on one of the neat metal benches that seemed to be a frequent feature in the city. It occurred to him that he should probably be feeling frightened by now, and hungry or thirsty too. He just felt bored, and a little fed up. This whole place was a winter Sunday afternoon, without the weather. He stared at his shoelaces, and wished he had some chewing gum to stick to the dull metal seat.

When he looked up, the white man was sitting beside him. His eyes glittered, the only bright thing Henry had seen yet in the city.

“Is this your city?” Henry asked in a carefully neutral voice. The man turned to look at him, the hint of a smile on his face.

“It is everybody’s,” he whispered. “Is it not beautiful?”

Henry nodded, not wishing to offend someone who might be his only route back home. “The people – are they doves like you?” he asked.

“No, they are like you, Henry, but they have the privilege to live in cleanliness and safety. Their lives are free from doubt and confusion and want. They are happy.”

Henry watched the nearest group of them. He could not make out their expressions, but one of them, a woman in a pale dress, seemed indefinably familiar. They certainly did not look unhappy.

“These things are a right, not a privilege,” the dove continued. “Every human being has the right to live in peace. Do you deny that?” He held Henry in a stare of uncharacteristic intensity. Henry nodded again, and decided to change the subject.

“What’s in the shops?”

“Food, water and the few neccesities of life, freely available to all who might need them,” the dove answered.

“Why couldn’t I get in, then?” Henry argued.

“You, alas, are not yet a full citizen of this place but in time you, and all humanity, will come to be.” The man smiled like one of the stained-glass angels in the church where school assembly happened.

“If it’s all so good, why do we have to wait at all?” Henry whined.

“We would be glad if it were not so!” He sighed. “But there are those few fools who still oppose us. We are the Doves of Peace. It is not in our nature to fight, but we must do so on behalf of unknowing mankind. So many sacrifices we must make in the name of Peace…”

The soft voice washed through Henry’s mind, soothing and gentle, but he felt uncomfortable thinking about ‘sacrifices’, and he also had a sinking realisation about who ‘those few fools’ might be.

“You said I am not yet a citizen of this place. Perhaps I should go home?” he asked timidly, hoping he didn’t sound too eager. The man’s voice was beautiful, holding him and lifting him beyond the mundanity of his usual thoughts. When it seemed like he hadn’t heard the question, Henry felt a little thrill of relief. He could listen to this voice, like caressing hands, all day. He shuffled closer, to hear better, and felt the mild heat of the man’s body…

“Henry!” His mother was standing over him. He glared up at her. He could still feel, almost taste, the dream or whatever it was, but it was fading fast. Hearing such a familiar voice could pull it out of his reach entirely. He leapt from the bed and made to run out of the door. His mother blocked him.

“I’ve called you for lunch five times. This isn’t like you! Are you sure you’re alright?” The question was not quite sarcastic.

“I’m fine!” Henry yelled, slamming the door behind him.