The Crowmaster

by Barry Hutchison

  ‘Oh, it’s a mobile phone mast?’ I asked, remembering the phone Mum had given me. I still needed to plug it in and charge it up.

  ‘It is indeed. Went up about a year and a half ago. Big complaints about it. Lot of fuss.’

  I watched her cross back to the table and put the plates on it. She sat on her chair and picked up a fork and knife. ‘Well, come on then,’ she urged. ‘Before it gets cold.’

  Marion had fetched another chair from somewhere and placed it across from hers. Its wooden legs squeaked on the floor when I pulled it out from below the table. I sat down and stared at my plate. Chunks of meat sat on it, still attached to spindly white bones. They were stacked up into a kind of pyramid, and surrounded by a dark liquid. Mushrooms, carrots and transparent slices of onion all added substance to the already thick gravy. It looked good. It smelled great.

  But all it reminded me of was Toto.

  ‘It’s lamb casserole,’ Marion explained, noticing my hesitation. ‘I use lamb chops on the bone. Adds to the flavour.’

  I felt my mouth filling up with saliva again and had to swallow back another retch. Marion had one of the lamb chops in her hand, and was stripping it with her teeth. I looked away, but heard the meat tear as she bit down.

  ‘Eat up,’ she said, between mouthfuls. ‘How do you expect to fight him if you don’t keep your strength up?’

  I looked across at her. ‘Fight who?’

  ‘This bully you told me about.’

  ‘Bully?’

  ‘The one you’re hiding up here from.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, remembering the lie, ‘him.’

  I picked up a fork and pronged a mushroom. It tasted good, but squelched unpleasantly as I chewed it. I got through it, though, and my hunger gradually took over from the sick feeling in my stomach. I picked my way through the veg, but couldn’t face tackling the meat.

  ‘Come across Toto when you were out?’ asked Marion, as I skewered three chunks of carrot and a slice of onion.

  ‘No,’ I said, before quickly cramming the forkful into my mouth.

  ‘Oh well, he’ll turn up soon enough,’ she smiled, although I could see she was concerned. ‘When he’s hungry, most probably.’

  I nodded, but didn’t say anything. I should have told her what had happened the second I’d come through the door, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I hadn’t known her long, but I was sure she would be heartbroken about the dog. From what I could tell he was her only real companion out here. With him gone she would be utterly alone.

  ‘He knows where he’s got it easy,’ Marion continued. ‘Never stays away for long. It’s like they say in the film, I suppose. “There’s no place like home”.’

  ‘What film?’ I asked.

  Marion leaned back in her chair a little and blinked several times rapidly. ‘You mean you don’t know?’

  I shook my head. ‘Should I?’

  ‘It’s The Wizard of Oz, of course!’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Never seen it.’

  ‘What, never?’

  I shrugged. ‘Don’t think so.’

  Marion looked shocked, but excited at the same time, as if she’d just won the lottery without even buying a ticket. She got up from the table, scraped the remains of her dinner into a little red dog bowl, then placed her plate in the sink. When she turned back to me, a broad smile was spread across her face.

  ‘When you’re finished come through to the living room,’ she said. ‘Do I have a treat in store for you!’

  The old VCR gave a whirr and a clunk when Marion stopped the tape. She adjusted herself in her armchair so she was facing across to the couch where I was sitting, enjoying the warmth of the fire burning in the hearth.

  ‘Well?’ she breathed. ‘What did you think?’

  ‘It was all right,’ I said, as enthusiastically as I could manage.

  ‘All right?’

  ‘No, I mean, it was good, yeah.’

  ‘Who was your favourite character?’ she asked, her eyes sparkling even more than usual.

  I paused for a moment, trying to remember anything of what I’d just seen. Marion had been really excited about showing me the film, but I found it a bit boring. I also had the all-too-vivid memories of a dead fat man and a dead dog gnawing away at my brain, so I hadn’t really been paying all that much attention.

  ‘The flying monkey guys were quite cool,’ I said, recalling one of the few moments I’d actually been following what was happening on the small television screen.

  Marion rolled her eyes and chuckled. ‘Might have known you’d go for them,’ she said. ‘Typical boy. I like Scarecrow, myself. I still hide behind the cushion when I see him catch fire. Just can’t bear to watch it.’

  ‘I wondered why you were doing that,’ I told her.

  Marion got up from her chair and ejected the video. She carefully slipped it back into its faded case and returned it to a shelf above the old television. ‘I must say, it’s nice to have someone to watch it with,’ she said. ‘Toto just doesn’t appreciate it at all.’

  A flicker of concern crossed her face and she glanced towards the window. Like those in the kitchen, it had wooden shutters instead of curtains. They were open now, revealing nothing but darkness beyond the glass. ‘I hope he’s all right,’ she said. ‘He’s never normally gone for this long.’

  I gently cleared my throat. ‘Marion,’ I began. ‘Toto’s…’

  When I didn’t continue she said, ‘Toto’s what?’

  ‘Probably just wandering,’ I replied, faking a smile. ‘He’ll come back when he’s hungry. You said so yourself.’

  Her expression remained the same for a few seconds, before finally melting into a smile. ‘He does like to go exploring,’ she said. ‘He’ll come back when he’s hungry.’

  My lie of a smile stayed fixed on my face, but I couldn’t hold her gaze any longer. I turned away, searching for a way to change the subject.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked, spotting a large wooden box like a treasure chest over by the corner of the room.

  ‘That, young man,’ she said, her blue eyes shimmering with excitement, ‘is my dressing-up box!’

  I looked at her. ‘You have a dressing-up box?’

  ‘It’s from when I was a girl,’ she said, laughing. ‘Of course I don’t use it now.’

  I pretended to wipe sweat from my brow. ‘Phew.’

  ‘Although,’ she said, almost skipping over to the chest, ‘what’s say we have a little look inside?’

  ‘Um, well, yeah, I suppose,’ I said, ‘but it’s getting quite late.’

  ‘Oh, come on, it’s been years since I looked in here,’ she said, taking hold of a handle on the side of the chest and dragging it into the middle of the room. ‘A quick peek, that’s all. What harm could it possibly do?’

  Chapter Eight

  DRESSING UP

  I’ve never thought of myself as “cool”. If anything, I’m the exact polar opposite of cool. I’ve been called a lot of names in school. Geek. Dweeb. Dork. Nerd. I’ve been called them all, mostly by the same three boys.

  But not “cool”. No one’s ever called me that.

  And there, kneeling on the floor beside a fifty-one-year-old woman as she rummaged around in a box full of fancy-dress outfits, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more uncool in my life.

  ‘Look at this! I’d forgotten about this one!’ Marion chirped. She pulled out a crumpled pile of green material and looked at it as if it were carved from solid gold.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, trying to get into the spirit of things, but failing miserably. It had been a long, horrible day and I’d barely slept the night before. I didn’t want to look at costumes, I wanted to go to bed.

  ‘It’s a frog,’ she said, with a tone that suggested I’d have to be an idiot not to realise what the scraps of cloth were meant to be. ‘It’s Mr Froggy.’

  ‘So it is.’

  Marion folded the costume neatly and sat it to one side. ‘What else have we got
in here?’ she wondered, digging deeper down into the pile.

  The frog outfit was the fourth one she’d pulled out. Or maybe it was the fifth. I couldn’t say for sure. My ability to count had deserted me twenty minutes ago when she’d opened the chest. So had my will to live. This was torture.

  ‘I used to fit in this fairy outfit,’ she announced, holding up a pink leotard with cardboard wings attached. She was looking at the outfit, but her eyes seemed to stare through it. ‘The fun I used to have,’ she said quietly. ‘Long time ago. Long time.’

  It was one of those moments when I didn’t know whether to speak or not. She was lost in a memory, probably back as a fairy, dancing around this same house. I wondered how many years ago it had been.

  ‘But listen to me,’ she said, shoving the costume carelessly back into the trunk, ‘rattling on about childish things.’ She picked up some of the other outfits and began cramming them forcefully back inside the box. Her face was tinged with red, as if she was embarrassed at the way she had drifted off. ‘You don’t want to be sat here with me doing this. You’ll be wanting your bed.’

  I thought of the single chair beneath the kitchen table, and of the bowl of food set out for the dog that would never be coming home.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m enjoying it.’

  She hesitated with a bundle of clothes halfway to the box. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s good. It’s interesting. Show me them all.’

  ‘You sure?’ Marion asked. ‘There’s quite a lot of them.’

  I leaned over and peered inside the box properly. It was full to the top with the outfits. ‘So there are,’ I said, smiling too broadly. ‘Must be fifty of them in there.’

  ‘Probably more. You sure you want to see them all?’

  I nodded, the plastic grin still stuck to my face. ‘Yep,’ I squeaked.

  This was going to be a very long night.

  ‘That’s them all,’ Marion said. Her head and shoulders were inside the costume chest, giving her voice a booming, echoing quality. ‘Just odds and sods left.’

  ‘Aww, that’s a shame,’ I said, fighting the urge to jump up and run around the room cheering.

  ‘No, wait, I tell a lie. Here’s one.’

  I bit my fist. ‘Yay!’

  ‘Oh, now I remember this,’ she said, holding up an orangey-brown jumpsuit with a furry hood. ‘It’s the lion.’

  ‘It’s a lion,’ I agreed, trying to appear interested.

  ‘No, it’s the lion. The cowardly lion, from the film.’ ‘What film?’

  She nudged me on the arm, almost making me topple over. ‘Were you even watching it?’ she asked. Her eyes were narrowed, but she was fighting back a smile. ‘The Wizard of Oz.’

  ‘Oh, right, yes,’ I stumbled. ‘Um… I liked the flying monkeys.’

  She rolled her eyes and chuckled. ‘Boys!’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, although I wasn’t quite sure why.

  She waved her hand, dismissing the apology. ‘At least you pretended to watch it. That’s good enough for me.’ Her eyes went from the costume to me and back again. Finally she said, ‘Actually, yes, you do owe me an apology. You need to make it up to me.’

  I frowned. ‘Um… what?’

  ‘Put this on,’ she said, passing me the lion outfit. ‘See what it looks like.’

  I stared down at the tatty orange bundle in my hands. It was made out of a stretchy material, like a thick pair of women’s tights. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Come on, it’ll be fun,’ she urged. Marion was keeping her face straight, but her eyes twinkled mischievously, like she could burst out laughing at any minute. ‘Been forty years since I saw anyone wearing that outfit. Go put it on. Just for a minute.’

  My mouth flapped open and closed as I searched for excuses. ‘It’ll be too small. It won’t fit.’

  ‘My friend used to wear it. He was about your size.’

  ‘But it’s… I mean, you can’t… It’s not…’ Unable to find an end to any of those sentences, I decided just to surrender to my fate. ‘OK,’ I sighed, standing up. ‘But only for a minute. And no laughing.’

  Marion pretended to scratch her nose, but I could tell she was really just covering the smile that had spread across her face. ‘Come on,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘As if I would!’

  Ten minutes later I stood outside the living room, adjusting the costume. Putting it on hadn’t been the nicest experience. The whole thing smelled of damp and mould, and just as I’d expected, it was way too small. And because it was a one-piece outfit, this was causing me some problems.

  For one thing, the sleeves were far too short, coming to a stop halfway along my forearms, but that wasn’t the big issue. The real problem lay in the legs.

  The legs were exactly like tights in that they had feet at the bottom. This was fine – they stretched to allow my own feet in – but the legs were much shorter than my own. This meant that the crotch of the outfit hung down somewhere around my knees, and I’d had to contort my entire body to get the top part of the outfit up over my shoulders.

  Now it was on, the stretched material was trying to snap back together. It pulled down on my shoulders, turning me into a sort of deformed hunchback figure. A deformed hunchback figure dressed as the lion from The Wizard of Oz.

  Pulling the furry hood up over my head, I sighed and stepped into the living room. How the hell did I find myself in these situations?

  ‘Ta-daa!’ I said, holding out my arms as I entered the room, only to find nobody there. The costumes were still piled on the floor and the chest was still open, but there was no sign of Marion.

  I returned to the hall, noticing how silent the house was. Suddenly the forty-year-old fancy-dress costume I was wearing wasn’t the only thing making me uncomfortable.

  ‘Marion?’ I said. No reply. I tried again, louder. ‘Marion?’ Again nothing.

  Creeping across the hall I pushed open the door to the kitchen, half expecting to find a flock of birds in there. Instead I found an empty room, with the back door standing wide open.

  ‘Marion, you there?’ I called, edging towards the open door. Clouds of cold air rolled in through the gap, making me shake and shiver like… well, like a cowardly lion.

  As I drew nearer the door I saw her. She was standing just outside the house, looking out into the darkness. A full bowl of dog food was clutched in her hands.

  ‘There you are,’ I said, stepping out to join her and immediately wishing I hadn’t. The cold was biting and my current attire was hardly designed for warmth. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Still no sign of him,’ she said. ‘I’m really starting to get worried now.’

  I didn’t speak. I couldn’t tell her the truth. Not now. Not after leaving it so long.

  ‘He’ll be fine.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ she said, pulling her cardigan tightly around her neck. ‘It doesn’t feel right. Something’s wrong. Something’s happened.’

  She spent another few moments scanning the darkness, before finally turning to face me. Her expression went from sad to surprised to delighted in under a second.

  ‘Oh my goodness. You look—’

  ‘Like an idiot?’

  ‘Well, it’s not quite the word I’d have chosen,’ she grinned. ‘But maybe it is a little bit on the neat side. Joe couldn’t have been as tall as you, after all.’

  ‘Joe?’ I asked, through chattering teeth.

  ‘The old friend of mine I mentioned.’ She gestured with the dog bowl towards the door. ‘Now get inside before you freeze.’

  I gratefully rushed back inside, not stopping until I was in the living room, where the fire crackling in the hearth quickly began to warm me up. Marion arrived a few moments after me, Toto’s bowl no longer in her hands.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘where’s that camera?’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’

  ‘Kidding,’ she laughed. ‘I think you’ve been tortured quite enough for one night.’


  I smiled, relieved. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Besides, you’re here for ages yet. Plenty more costumes for you to try on.’ She caught my expression and gave another laugh. ‘I’m joking. You have to stop taking me so seriously.’ Her eyes went to the stash of clothes on the floor as she remembered something. ‘Although, come to think about it…’

  I stood there by the fire, hunched over in my badly fitting lion costume, watching her rummage through the outfits. Silently, I gave thanks that Ameena wasn’t around to pass comment.

  ‘I’ve got Dorothy’s dress and the Tin Man’s hat,’ Marion announced, holding up a blue and white checked outfit and a metal funnel. ‘I’m sure I used to have the full set, but one’s missing. That’s a shame.’ She held the items higher. ‘Fancy either of these?’

  ‘I’ll pass, thanks,’ I said.

  She nodded and smiled. ‘Fair enough.’ Her bones creaked as she got to her feet. ‘Now, it’s high time you were in bed.’

  I looked at the clock and was shocked to see the hands had crept past midnight. Too late to phone Mum now. ‘Suppose so,’ I agreed. I hovered awkwardly near the door for a few moments, then said, ‘Night, then.’

  ‘Goodnight, Kyle,’ Marion said. ‘And thank you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For being good company. I haven’t had such a laugh in a long time.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. I didn’t think I’d been that funny. ‘No problem. I mean, good. I enjoyed it too,’ I continued, and I wasn’t lying.

  Marion sat down in her armchair and gazed into the fire. I moved to leave, but hesitated again just inside the doorway. ‘It must get lonely out here,’ I said. ‘All on your own.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m not on my own,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got Toto.’

  Ouch. I quickly changed tack. ‘But, I mean, isn’t there anyone else? What about your friend. Joe, did you say his name was? What happened to him?’

  Marion adjusted herself in her chair. ‘We… drifted apart. Haven’t seen him in decades,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Still, these things happen. Friendships come and go.’