Tirzah and the Prince of Crows

by Deborah Kay Davies

  Pastor finishes his prayer and with an effort regains his seat. Tirzah, on her damp chair, looks intently at him. He gazes across the desk at her. There is an odd look to him. Then Tirzah realises he has taken off the fine, wire-framed glasses he always wears. Without them his eyes bulge slightly and look unguarded. For a few long moments he allows the shouting men to carry on unchecked. Poor little Pastor, Tirzah thinks, seeing how slack his lips are and how his neck droops. Finally, he straightens up, repositioning his glasses on his nose, carefully fingering the curved arms to fit behind his ears. He coughs, and the men all stop talking immediately and swivel to attend to him. My dear elect ones, he says in his usual mild voice, this is a test of our wisdom, make no mistake. To arms! To arms! They look at each other before finally turning their attention to Tirzah. This young girl is in the grip of the enemy, and she doesn’t even recognise him, he announces, making a swooping movement with his arm in Tirzah’s direction so big it belongs outdoors. Such are his wiles, we well know. And such is her blindness. The men all nod. Amen, says the one who slapped his knees.

  Pastor goes on to tell the elders that they should pray again for guidance before making a judgement. We must not flinch, he urges them. Principalities and powers, that’s what we are up against here, brothers. This is a spiritual battle. Tirzah goes on waiting while they murmur together. The warm glow that has enlivened her is cooling from the feet up. Just as it reaches her knees, Pastor instructs her to go into the room the girls use for their meetings. I will come for you, child, he tells her, already bowing his head. Tirzah sees some of the elders creakily preparing to kneel as she gets up from her chair. Her damp dress and coat don’t behave in the way they usually do, and stay in a kind of bunched-up pouch that balloons out around her bottom. She tries, while walking out, to pull them down, and manages a funny little hobbled dance to the door.

  Outside in the hall, she deliberately unhunches her shoulders, only now realising she must have been holding her breath for some time. The hall looks watery. Drowned light caused by rivulets of rain wavers through the big dimpled windows either side of the front door. The air smells like the breath of a pond. There are three doors, and Tirzah can’t remember which one she should go in. Her middle is chilly now; soon the cold will reach her heart. And then what? She opens the nearest door and immediately knows it’s the wrong one. The door is heavy, and swings wide, revealing Pastor’s wife, stockinged feet up on a pouffe, eating a cream cake. On her lap she balances a cup of milky coffee. Tirzah is not pleased to see the tops of Mrs Thomas’s wiry legs where her skirt has worked its way up. Excuse me, she says, backing out. Mrs Thomas is still poised, hand holding the cake with its shining rosette of scarlet jam halfway to her open mouth, seemingly transfixed by the sight of Tirzah at the door. Before she can make a move, Tirzah has retreated and slipped into the next room.

  Tirzah walks to the window and with her fingertip begins to follow the endless raindrops as they trickle downwards, hardly knowing what she is doing. The sight of Mrs Thomas cwtched up in her cosy room, stuffing cake, has jolted her thoughts. Still tracing raindrops she goes over the scene: the half-eaten cake, the squashed shape of the pouffe, the blipping sound of the gas fire, and most of all, skinny Mrs Thomas’s sugar-rimmed mouth shaping up for another sweet bite. Why am I waiting for these people to tell me what to do? she wonders with a lonely sort of clarity, experiencing a freezing, hollow pain in her throat. But this soon gives way to something else so new that at first she doesn’t recognise it. She starts to tremble and painfully nips her tongue.

  Another, buzzing kind of heat passes through her body; never before has she felt so angry. I am an ordinary girl, and always trying to do what’s right. Then she thinks about Osian, the way he is now smaller somehow. Osian has been felled by these people. That’s how she sees it; he has been lopped at the knees. Well, I’m not going to be felled, she thinks, and without hesitation she walks out of the room, down the drowned hallway and out through the manse door. The rain has stopped and the sky is rinsed clear of colour. She stands to watch tiny birds soar and loop through the immense, glowing nothingness above the valley. Never, she thinks. Never again will she allow these old fuddy-duddies to boss her around. The air out here smells vital and bracing. Clutching the edges of her raincoat beneath her chin with one hand, Tirzah runs down the steep steps holding her scarlet umbrella, while below her the village windows and roofs wink in the wavering sunlight. She can see a red oblong, small as a toy, appearing and disappearing between the houses. I could jump on that bus, she realises. I could just leave all these people behind and go to the city. Why don’t I? But even as she thinks this, another idea flashes across her mind, brilliant as a comet, and she knows what to do next.

  All the Beasts of the Forest Do Creep Forth

  (Psalm 104:20)

  Tirzah makes her way quickly through the deserted village streets to Mr Singh’s shop, trying to conjure up a picture of the little camp in the clearing, but all she can see are dense, waiting trees. The village is closing in on her and she is impatient to be gone. There is the familiar oily smell of drying pavements rising to her nose as she rushes along. It’s as if everyone’s heard about her meeting with the elders and is shunning her. Out of the tail of her eye she imagines the whisk of a coat or the turn of a shoulder as people slip indoors. For a moment, when she gets to the shop and stands across the street, she thinks it’s closed, but a man comes out with a carrier bag, and the bell jingles. She pushes the door open and is greeted by the singed haze from the heater that Mr Singh has on all year round, and punctuating Mr Singh’s cigarette smoke, the tang of smoky bacon crisps. These smells are so ordinary and comforting that Tirzah fills her lungs several times while she looks around.

  Mr Singh gives her a nod. He is busy eating a loosely made cheese sandwich while he reads the paper. Tirzah can tell from the crunching sounds that he has put some crisps from the open packet on the counter into it. She stands by the magazines and hears the faintest of taps as flakes of grated cheese fall from the sandwich to the plate, her mouth watering. In a glass cabinet on the counter, shiny pasties and pies are kept warm by two fiercely burning light bulbs, and her stomach growls. It feels like weeks since she ate the poached eggs her mother made. Eventually she roots deep in the lining of her coat and scrapes enough money together to buy a Curly Wurly and a packet of Quavers. A group of kids from school comes in, and Tirzah hides behind the bleach and cleaning items. The children are younger than Tirzah, and remind her of how she and Biddy used to be, jostling for ages around the comics, taking their time choosing sweets. Tirzah stands behind the Omo and Brillo pads, feeling like a leper, until it’s safe to slip out.

  Leaving the village and its shrinking puddles behind, Tirzah puts the Curly Wurly in the pocket of her dress for later, even though she is already famished. Once she is over the stone wall, she opens the Quavers and eats them quickly, striding out for the open fields and the woods. It’s warm work. She shrugs her shoulders and lets both her raincoat and umbrella drop into the damp grass, but then hesitates and goes back to roll them up together. She hides the neat parcel under the broad, pimply leaves of a burdock plant and goes on. Swifts dart through the middle air, dividing and redividing the immaculate sky. The light is that mean, after-rain sort of light that usually makes her feel unhappy. She walks amongst the swaying stands of thistles, and their tough stems graze her bare arms. She can hear bees singing on each purple tassel. Tirzah is going to find Brân. She needs to see him, in his wild wigwam, with his attendant birds. This is all she can think of: Brân in his headdress, Brân in the firelight, Brân’s smooth, dark chest and eyes the colour of a shallow brook. Nothing else will do.

  Brân is not by the stream. His wigwam leans skew-whiff, and when she jumps the clear, busy water to have a closer look she sees it’s half-destroyed. Strings fringed with little furred pelts and feathers flutter from the encircling branches, and the remains of his fire are still there, but the ashes and thin bones are cold. The p
lace already has an abandoned feel. Even the stained altar is empty. Tirzah flops down to the matted undergrowth. The living weight of the forest presses upon her shoulders and unprotected neck. She is too lonely to cry, or get up and leave. Maybe I can rebuild the den, she thinks, and live here myself. But she is a home-bird, used to her little bedroom and her coverlet. She would eventually miss the bleachy-clean bathroom and her mother’s warm kitchen. She doesn’t know what to do next and can’t even force her mind to wonder where Brân is now. So she sits and waits, and soon becomes aware of the little stones huddled together in amongst the bright sorrel leaves and nameless creeping plants. Who put them there? she wonders, looking at the way they seem to nestle together. Do they know each other? She is engrossed, watching tiny insects darting amongst them, intent on their tasks. That they don’t know or care about her is bracing.

  The afternoon begins to feel stretched, and the light, without diminishing, changes, withdrawing into the brambles. She is still sitting, stiff and chilled, in a sort of dusk that seems thickest near the ground. There is a small commotion behind her, and when she looks round she sees Brân striding through the tall ferns. He is carrying a spear and has acquired a little dog. When he sees her, he stops dead still, raising the spear to his shoulder. She watches, and he comes nearer cautiously. Then he lowers his spear. Brân, she says. He scowls, as if he is trying to remember who she is, with his stiff hair fanning around his shoulders. She is calm, waiting for what Brân will do. The dog runs to her knees and sniffs her skin and hair, wiffling excitedly. Heel, shouts Brân, stamping the base of the spear on the ground. Immediately the dog wheels round and runs to stand close to him. Tirzah doesn’t move. Then she remembers the Curly Wurly and offers it. The dog barks abruptly, the sound like a series of dull explosions in the woods, and runs in circles, its scarlet tongue escaping. Brân comes close and snatches the chocolate, slipping it into a pack he’s carrying across his body. Up you get, he says, his voice gruff, and pulls her by both hands. I knew you’d turn up again. How could you know that? Tirzah asks.

  Brân leads the way, walking quickly, deeper into the woods. Soon Tirzah has the impression that these woods are in a different country, where the trees are strange, the plants and flowers only distant cousins of the plants she knows. Birds blunder through the canopy, their wings making sounds like fists punching through newspaper, but she can’t see them. Still she follows Brân and his excited dog, who vanishes and at intervals reappears ahead of them, his long ears flying up and down. When Tirzah flags, Brân stops and grasps her hand, urging her on. Eventually she is so tired that he carries her, piggy-back. Tirzah rests her head on his neck, aware of the animal smell of his hair, and falls into a trance, his angular collarbones pushing into her forearms. The woods slide past, and the glancing slaps of the head-high ferns are part of her dream.

  When she wakes she can see out through an arched, leafy doorway to where a small fire is crackling, and her ears are filled with its pops and hisses. The tickle of grassy bedding is under her. Lying in Brân’s cabin, she sees it is made of bent, freshly cut saplings. Brân has staked them to the ground in a circle and tied them together above in a bunch. She is impressed by the way he has woven thinner branches horizontally to make everything secure. This place seems much better than his first den. Sitting up, she can see Brân squatting over the flames, his features sharply leaping as he feeds twigs to the fitful yellow tongues lapping his hands. For the first time she notices how bony his knees are. His arms are too slender for his hands now; she is shocked by how thin he looks. After stumbling out to wee behind the shelter, she joins him near the fire.

  Brân divides the Curly Wurly and gives her half. Is there anything else to eat? she asks, her mouth full of the insubstantial toffee. Brân shakes his head and offers her a glass pop bottle full of water from the brook. She drinks and can taste the forest’s mulchy and plentiful heart in it. They sit, palms up, absorbing the warmth. This is a version of my Robinson Crusoe dream, Tirzah realises, wishing they had some coconuts to chew on. But we’re in Wales, where you’re lucky to get a cherry. She tells Brân how much she likes his new shelter, but she can tell he is waiting for something, his whole body tense, and soon she is waiting too. A ragged cawing, far away, snags on the silence. Brân lifts his head expectantly towards the sound. Is that your crow? Tirzah asks. Brân steps over the fire, and for an instant his eyes and mouth are blacker shapes in the softly shadowed dusk. Then he is swallowed whole and disappears.

  Tirzah crouches, licked by wavering light, and listens to a muffled flurry of huge wings and the unbearable raw squawk of the bird calling to Brân. Then there are no sounds, and their absence makes her strain to hear. But she is not worried; Brân will return, she knows. For now, it is wonderful to have escaped the village for a while. Through the treetops she can make out fragments of bright sky; it looks as if the sun is still shining, while down here they sit in a kind of gloaming. Just when the fire starts to blur and her eyelids are drooping, he is back, the crow with its spurred claws clutching his ragged shoulder. He talks, and the bird swivels, peering around at his face, its curved beak inches from Brân’s eye, as if listening. Tirzah is close enough to see the grey, bristly feathers that neatly cover the bird’s nostrils. These two understand each other in some way, she realises. The bird makes a series of short, broody sounds, looking into Brân’s face, then across at her, then back. What is he saying? Tirzah asks Brân. Now, that’d be tellin’, he answers.

  When the fire has almost died, the crow hops to the ground and waddles away. Brân gestures for her to come with him and leads her back into the shelter. They lie together on his bed space. The living, sweet-smelling branches enclose them. Brân rests his head on one elbow, and lifting Tirzah’s dress, strokes her thigh with his free hand. Soon she can make out his face in the twilight and touch the hair falling around her head like coarse grass. In a daze, she asks if the Prince of Crows told him to do this. So what if he did? he answers. The shadowed hollows of his eyes look empty, his face a mask. Tirzah pulls him down so that he crushes her breasts. The smell of him fills her throat. She feels his hand pushing inside her pants, sliding his fingers through her pubic hair, tugging it. Then his weight is along the length of her and she opens her legs; a famished need to be filled up by Brân blossoms there. He grabs her face and presses his teeth to her forehead, pushing his penis inside her. They are locked together.

  Tirzah’s body is acting in new ways; it’s as if an entirely strange person has taken her place. Instinctively she moves with Brân, loving the taut and urgent way he pushes into her, his laboured breathing. She lifts her knees and struggles to get closer, hugging him with her legs. With her hand she reaches down and fingers the place where his penis enters her like a root, thrilled by the way he stretches her as he moves. Then she falls back and relaxes, taking great care to notice all these new sensations. If the God of chapel has organised sex to be like this she will have to look at Him again, she realises, trying to reconcile the rude, earthbound struggle she and Brân are locked in with the way her mind is expanding to embrace the world. Soon she is thinking of the trillions of icy stars suspended behind the late afternoon sky, then about the homeward-flying birds calling to each other above these woods, and how the swaying trees around her lift their pliant arms to greet them. She thinks of the loamy earth beneath Brân’s den and imagines the worms and blind creatures squirming upward.

  Finally her thoughts come to rest with Brân’s crow on the roof, who listens, hearing everything, his head cocked to one side. Invisible threads connect us to the world, she thinks, her mind sparking with joy as she flies from the pressure of Brân’s stringy, labouring body and the taste of his lips, to the nest they are lying in, and on out to the shining god she saw on the mountain the day of the outreach meeting. Smoothly, laughing, she soars again from that summit to the wheeling birds in the skies, and then swoops to the countless ranks of trees that cover the earth. Tirzah is still wondering at the multitudes of people in
all the countries she will never know when her mind snaps back to Brân, who is silently getting to his feet and leaving. She listens, her bare legs trembling as they are licked by cold air, missing the weight of his body. Brân is talking outside. The mystifying Tirzah she glimpsed when she and Brân were together slips neatly back inside her, as if she had never existed. Then there is a silence broken only by the sound of restless claws clutching and hopping on the roof branches.

  The Devil … Walketh About, Seeking Whom He Might Devour

  (1 Peter 5:8)

  After Tirzah leaves Brân’s deserted camp deep in the tree-filled valley, she is not sure which path to take. But the land, even here, rises up in much the same way it did at his first campsite in the familiar woods, near the stream. She can hear the sound of flowing water lower down to her left and guesses it must run all the way through the wood. She decides she must only be four or five miles from home, and sniffs the evening air, her eyes widening to let in the failing light. She is in pain, and weak with hunger, the skin on her back scratched by the bedding in Brân’s hut, the muscles in her thighs twitching. Fluid is slowly running down between her legs. She stops to look, shocked to see blood and something else, viscous and thick, dirtying her legs. She wants to hunker down and pee, but is too jumpy, so quickly wipes her legs with a handful of ferns, aware that a fresh blurt of liquid is dripping even before she’s finished. Fighting a desire to run wildly, she makes herself wait, taking careful stock of her surroundings. Then, even though the territory is strange, she decides to climb and does not stop scrambling until the trees start to thin out.