“You’re just a crappy dresser.”
“It could have been a lot worse,” the surgeon had reported, hours later. The sun had come up on Christmas morning, and they could see the world whitening outside the emergency room windows.
Cassie wondered if doctors in emergency were required to say that.
“Your partner’s going to be fine,” the doctor had continued, and Cassie thought she saw Farrow shudder. “It appears that the blade got diverted by the layers of clothing he was wearing. An inch to the left …” He shook his head. “As it is, it’s largely a flesh wound. We’ve cleaned it and double-checked it and stitched it up.”
Cassie’s ears had roared with relief.
“I resent that remark,” Harrison said, as Hong slipped a cup of coffee in front of him.
“You were saved by a hoodie,” Farrow said.
Watching the two of them talk, Cassie squeezed Ali’s hand.
After the surgeon had left, the three of them had sat in the waiting area for a long time, not saying anything. The television high in the corner of the room provided a constant running hum of news, mostly footage of Christmas celebrations from around the world.
The cop who had accompanied them in the ambulance, who had been sitting silently across from them, cleared his throat pointedly.
“Jane,” Cassie said quietly.
Farrow turned sharply at the sound of her first name.
“I think we have to go.” She cocked her head in the direction of the waiting officer.
Farrow nodded slowly, like she should be saying something.
“Can you do me a favour?” Cassie asked, and her voice shook a little.
“Is it going to get me suspended?” Farrow smiled as she asked.
“I don’t think so,” Cassie said. “I was just … Can you call my mom, please?”
Ali’s hand had been warm on her shoulder.
“So, are you gonna tell me what’s in there?” Harrison asked, pointing at the file folders on the table in front of Farrow.
She raised an eyebrow. “You know our policy about not commenting on ongoing investigations. Last I heard, you were suspended.”
Harrison nodded slowly. “There is that,” he said.
Farrow looked at him for a long moment, then broke off, shaking her head.
She opened up the top file.
“Well, first,” she started, glancing at Cassie, then looking away. “I already told Cassie. Her father was arrested last night, crossing into the US.”
“Here?”
Farrow shook her head. “In the Okanagan. As far as we can tell, he never came to the island.”
Harrison nodded. “Well, that’s something.” Cassie looked down at the table and didn’t see Harrison turn to her. “Was there a warrant?” he asked.
“There was an alert,” Farrow said slowly, carefully. “Investigators, after the fire …”
“They found pictures,” Cassie said, without looking up. “In the basement. Pictures of me. And other girls.” She squeezed Ali’s hand, struggled to steady her breath. She didn’t know how to react, what to feel.
It was over. The basement was gone.
In the silence, she realized that something had happened. Looking up, she met Harrison’s eye.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t—”
She shook her head to cut him off. “You tried,” she said. “That was more than almost anyone else ever did.”
He looked distraught, and like he wanted to speak, but no words came.
Farrow cleared her throat, moved the file to the bottom of the small pile.
“Paul James Corbett,” she said. “A.k.a. Paul Corbett. A.k.a. Brother Paul. A.k.a. Brother James.”
At the police station, they had separated Cassie and Ali, taking them into different interview rooms.
Cassie spent about forty-five minutes in the first interview, answering every question the heavy-set detective with the Italian name asked as best she could: where had she met Brother Paul, could she detail any encounters she had had with Brother Paul, what was the nature of her relationship with Brother Paul, what was the nature of her relationship with Sarah from Edmonton, what was the nature of her relationship with Laura Ensley …
“I’m just about done,” he said, and the apology in his tone seemed genuine. “I just want to ask you about one more thing.”
Reaching into a bag that had been out of sight under the edge of the table, he set a black book in front of Cassie.
“Do you recognize this?”
She had hesitated, then nodded. With the duct tape along the spine, it was unmistakable. “It was Brother Paul’s.”
“You saw him with it?”
She nodded. “Yes. He always had it with him.”
The detective picked the book off the table and opened it to the first page. “Did you ever have any idea what was in it?”
Cassie had shaken her head, and the detective had begun to read in a flat monotone. “There are only two elements, eternally opposed, irreconcilable, irreducible. Light. And the Darkness. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and the Darkness was upon the face of the deep.” He closed the book. “It goes on and on like that.”
Across the sidewalk, another crow alighted on the edge of the planter.
“Well, we interviewed Cassie and Ali early on Christmas morning, and again later in the day.” Farrow looked across the table at them, then returned to the folder. “And based on their statements we started making some calls. It turns out that Mr. Corbett had something of a secret life.”
Harrison looked at Cassie, his gaze lingering as Farrow continued.
“He appears to have been living on quite a sizable inheritance following the death of his parents in a car accident about twelve years ago.” She looked at Harrison. “And yes, we’re looking pretty closely at that.”
“I would assume.”
“We’ve started to put together his travel records from the last decade or so. It appears that he would take lengthy trips every fall. Montreal. Halifax. St. John’s. Edmonton.” Cassie flinched. “These trips seem to coincide with the disappearances of young women in each of those cities.”
She sighed heavily and closed the folder. “It appears that Mr. Corbett would travel to cities where young women were being reported missing. And he would add to that number. One or two victims at a time. Usually runaways. And he was always well gone and away before the bodies were found or any discrepancies between the killings were noticed.” Farrow looked meaningfully at Harrison.
“He called them ‘game preserves,’” Cassie said quietly. “The places that he made. The communities. They were his own private hunting reserves.”
Farrow looked toward the bar, avoiding meeting Cassie’s eye as she said, “He also … There was a book. At the crime scene.”
Cassie flinched at the memory, then nodded. “He carried that with him everywhere. He used to hold it.” She thought back to the circles at the camp, those nights next to Skylark, listening to Brother Paul talk about how they were all changing the world. “He never told us what it was. He just said that he had found all of the answers in it.”
Farrow snorted. “Egotistical—” She muttered something that might have been “prick.”
Turning back to Cassie, she leaned over the table. “It was a journal,” she said. “Of his …” Farrow nodded. “Beliefs. And his activities.”
Ali squeezed her hand as she shuddered.
Harrison cleared his throat. “And Mr. Corbett is now—” he started, changing the subject.
Farrow looked pointedly at Ali. “He’s currently recovering from injuries sustained on Christmas Eve. The reports I have indicate head trauma, a broken wrist”—Ali began to blush, and Cassie smiled at her—“and a knife wound to the back of the leg. Oh, and he’s also been charged with one count of murder, with a dozen or so others pending. And something about a charge of attempted murder?” She rais
ed her eyebrows at Harrison, who just nodded. “You want to tell me what the hell you thought you were doing?”
The question seemed to take Harrison by surprise.
“I was—”
“You went in without backup, without a side arm. You could have gotten yourself killed. You just about did get yourself killed.” Farrow’s voice broke.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t just stand back and …” He shook his head. “I knew that Wolcott hadn’t killed Laura Ensley. And when I thought back to it, I remembered something Cassie had said about Edmonton, about something Sarah had said, so I thought it might have something to do with the camp. So I figured I should …” His voice trailed off and he seemed to shrink into himself.
“You figured you should follow me,” Cassie said.
He nodded slowly.
She reached her hand across the table, and he took it.
“Thank you for that,” she said.
Farrow sighed heavily. “Don’t encourage him,” she said, in a voice of transparent bluster. “We have partners for a reason.”
“I figured I was in enough trouble already. I didn’t want to pull you down with me.”
Farrow leaned toward him. “Next time?” she said. “Pull me down with you. Deal?”
He smiled. “Deal,” he said. “Though, I kinda doubt there’s going to be a next time. As you mentioned, there is that small matter of a suspension.”
“I imagine,” Farrow said. “A bit of stupid heroics goes a long way toward clearing your name.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Anyway.” He looked around the restaurant, then down at his watch. “So what’s the story?” he asked. “Are they—”
“Ferry,” Farrow explained, before Cassie could say anything. “They’ll—”
The door swung open with a bang, smashing into the wall behind the fish tank. The bell jingled.
Cassie started to stand, her face twisting in a mix of anguish and hope. “Mom. Heather.”
Across the sidewalk, the crows watched as the girl rose to her feet, her arms widening, her face breaking into tears. They watched as she crossed the room toward the door.
They cocked their heads together, their black eyes glistening in the steel air.
Then, as one, the crows took wing, rising into the cold wind, their bodies shadows, arcing and soaring against the winter-grey sky.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
If you had told me when I started Black Feathers where I would be when I finished, what my life would be like, I wouldn’t have believed you. And yet, here I am. Life is funny that way.
It’s been a long road. Thanks are due to the many people who helped me get here.
First off, I would like to both acknowledge the support of the British Columbia Arts Council for their faith in this project and express my deepest gratitude to them.
For everyone who followed this road along with me via social media: apologies and appreciation, as appropriate.
Thanks to Martha Good, who never fails to inspire.
Thanks to Colin Holt, Lindsay Williams and Clare Hitchens for their keen eyes and valuable feedback during their early readings of this manuscript.
Thanks to Lisa Tench for her feedback and her friendship.
Thanks, always, to James Grainger, the one and only Saint Jimmy, whose unique outlook and stern vision give rise to the questions that make my books better.
Thanks, of course, to Cori Dusmann, whose support of this book in its earliest stages, and likewise of my writing career, made an incalculable difference.
And thanks to Samantha Holmes and everyone at Bolen Books—I may no longer be a bookseller, but you’re still family.
Thanks to Erik and Svetlana and everyone at Floathouse in Victoria, who help to keep me grounded and inspired by turns.
As always, deepest thanks to Chris Bucci, Martha Magor Webb, Monica Pacheco and, of course, Anne McDermid, without whom I would be … best not to think about it.
Hearty thanks to everyone at HarperCollins Canada, but especially my editor, Jennifer Lambert, who may have gotten more than she bargained for when she decided to take a chance on this book and this author, and my copy editor, Chandra Wohleber, who saved me from myself.
Always, all my heart to Lex, fifteen years old as I write this. I’m probably a so-so father, but I have a great kid, one who never fails to amaze and inspire me. To see the world through Lex’s eyes is a wonder, and I am so grateful. So, so grateful. I love you, kiddo. And you’ll always be kiddo, no matter how much taller than me you are.
And Athena.
Words fail me. Just how something so quite new can feel so timeless is one of those mysteries I am content to never try to solve. Thank you for coming into my life when you did. Thank you for everything you brought, everything you bring. Just … thank you.
About the Author
ROBERT J. WIERSEMA is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a reviewer who contributes regularly to several national newspapers. He is the bestselling author of two novels and a non-fiction book about Bruce Springsteen. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
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Advance Praise for BLACK FEATHERS
“Robert J. Wiersema’s Black Feathers is a surreal nightmare, a tragically familiar dreamscape peopled by the vulnerable runaways we see on every street corner … and the predators who stalk them, even in places of supposed safety. It is a Hunger Games for the real world, a novel that defies you to look away.”
—A. M. DELLAMONICA, author of Child of a Hidden Sea
“Black Feathers is a uniquely scary novel. It offers the fantastic horror of a twisted evil mind, but also the terrifying aspect of being young and vulnerable. In Cassie, Wiersema creates a character that you are truly concerned for, not just in the space of the events of the story, but in a human sense.”
—CRAIG FINN, The Hold Steady
“A compelling tale of horror at once classic and contemporary, supernatural and human, Black Feathers draws the reader into that dark, unsettling place between memory and invention, nightmare and waking.”
—JACQUELINE BAKER, author of The Broken Hours
Credits
COVER PHOTO: MARK FEARON/ARCANGEL IMAGES
Copyright
Black Feathers
Copyright © 2015 by Robert J. Wiersema
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPUB Edition July 2015 ISBN 9781443410540
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
FIRST EDITION
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