by Robin Jarvis
‘What is it?’ Lauren said. 'The woman in the shop called it a crow doll,’ Sheila replied, not minding the girl's obvious aversion to it. ‘Only had a few left—I was very lucky to get this one.’
‘You were robbed. It looks homemade and it's hideous and creepy.’
Sheila turned the cloth figure over in her hands and inspected the workmanship. ‘Actually she hardly wanted anything for it,’ she declared. ‘I was rather embarrassed, in case she thought we didn't have much money.’
‘What does “Hlökk” mean?’
‘I didn't ask. Maybe it's foreign for doll, or crow.’
Lauren gave a slight shudder. ‘Well, I hope you're not going to put that thing any place where a guest might see it,’ she said. ‘Probably give them bad dreams.’
‘How funny,’ Sheila murmured.
‘What is?’
‘That you should mention sleep. You see, it's not only decorative but it's stuffed full of herbs. That woman said it would help my insomnia, she told me to hang it above the bed.’
Lauren grimaced again. It was truly horrible, and those tiny shining beads seemed to be staring at her. ‘Rather you than me,’ she muttered turning away to look out of the window.
‘Quite frankly, I'd do anything to help me get a decent night's sleep,’ Sheila said, giving the beak a playful pinch. ‘Besides, it doesn't look too bad. I think it's rather cute—pretty even, in a macabre kind of way.’
In the fields beyond the Humphries’ Bed and Breakfast, a number of genuine crows were circling in the darkening sky and Lauren watched them with a growing sense of unease.
‘I've never liked crows,’ she whispered, staring out of the window at the ugly black birds wheeling above, their harsh, croaking voices faint through the glass. ‘They're vile birds, more like vultures.’
Sheila arched her plucked eyebrows. Guy's daughter could be most odd at times. Lifting the doll to her nose she gave it a tentative sniff, then rose and walked to the door.
‘I'll just go hang this upstairs then,’ she said, stifling a yawn.
But Lauren was not listening. ‘What do you call a group of crows?’ she asked herself. ‘I ought to know this. It's not a flock, it's something weird like a mob or—a gang. No wait a minute, it's a... oh, I can't remember.’
Sheila opened the door to the hall, but before climbing the stairs, she turned, and with the doll swinging in her grasp, said, ‘It's a murder of crows, Lorrie, dear.’
Chapter 7 - In the Shadow of the Enemy
‘Blood and sand!’ Brian Chapman grunted as he thrust the saw blade through the soft rind of a slender branch.
Perched upon a high step-ladder, the caretaker of The Wyrd Museum could not believe what he was doing. Already the floor of The Separate Collection was covered in fallen twigs and leaves, and there were still two more walls to be pruned, but he was having serious difficulty in coming to terms with it all.
Upon the ground, playing amidst the fallen foliage, Neil's brother Josh crawled into a den of dry, crackling leaves and made noises like fierce animals in the jungle.
He loved his new home and didn't miss the old house in Ealing at all. Of course, he still yearned for his mother and asked about her, but today there had been so much to do that he hadn't thought of her once.
Before he had attempted to tackle the panels, Brian Chapman had boarded up the shattered windows, cleared away the broken cabinets and carefully sorted the scattered exhibits into various boxes. Josh had enjoyed that part of the morning, for he had played with shrunken heads and the skeletons of frogs, and gleefully kicked an enormous leathery globe about the room like a football, until his father caught him and put the object out of his reach.
Now the four-year-old crouched in his leafy cave listening to the rhythmic bite of the saw.
Suddenly, the sound of urgent footsteps entered the room and the boy cautiously peeked through the roof of his den to see who it was.
Into The Separate Collection came Miss Ursula Webster and Josh regarded her with displeasure. That camel-faced old woman had been unkind to him when he first arrived at the museum and he didn't want her to find him now.
Returning below the leaves he lay upon the floorboards and waited for her to go away again.
Overhead the sawing ceased as Brian looked down, but the elderly woman didn't even glance up at him. She hastened to the far end of the room, where he had stowed the exhibits and began to hunt through every box.
‘Miss Webster?’ Brian began hesitantly. ‘Are you looking for something?’
Ignoring him, she continued to rummage and search.
‘Where are they?’ she hissed under her breath. ‘They must be here! They must!’
Into a chest crammed with fragments of broken sculpture, the old woman probed, her tapering fingers trawling through chipped marble limbs and noseless plaster busts.
‘He cannot have returned so soon,’ she attempted to reassure herself. ‘We are not ready, the child is not prepared! Have I endured these endless years only to be confounded at the last? Why did I not act sooner?’
Pouncing upon another box, she feverishly spilled its contents over the floor and rooted through them like a wild, scavenging animal.
From his high vantage point, Brian stared down at her foraging form and decided that it might be best if he kept out of the way. Miss Ursula was obviously upset and her tongue was sharper than the teeth of his saw. He scratched his head uncertainly.
‘Where are you?’ her growling voice shouted into the boxes, until suddenly she stiffened and threw back her head to give a great, glad shout as, from a large chest, she pulled a black, scraggy bundle.
Overcome with relief, Miss Ursula triumphantly brandished the object above her head for an instant, then inspected it closely.
Here was the stuffed remains of the second raven and her shrewd, sparkling eyes examined every aspect of the poorly preserved bird.
It was a sorry looking specimen, so badly damaged it was almost comical. Many feathers had fallen from the dried, flaking skin and upon the top of its head the creature was completely bald. Both eyes were shrivelled, sunken sockets and the lower part of the beak was hanging loosely upon a shred of papery flesh, so that when Miss Ursula turned the creature over in her hands it wagged up and down, making the bird appear to laugh silently.
Lifting the tattered effigy to her ear, the old woman shook it gently until, within the fragile skull, she could hear something rattling. A thankful smile spread across Miss Ursula's thin face.
‘There now, Memory,’ she whispered, giving the black beak a scornful tap. ‘You certainly won't be going anywhere. How gratifying to find you still dead and inert. In life you were a vicious, spiteful imp—a vindictive little spy enslaved to a deceitful master.’
Holding the raven away from her, she squinted at it through half-closed lashes. ‘I find you much more pleasing embalmed and shrivelled like this,’ she remarked with a definite nod.
‘Since the blood ceased to pulse in your veins, you and your brother have become useful to me. Now you are a pair of pickled gauges, my two fine barometers, sitting out the ages—waiting to tell me when...’
The old woman's voice failed and she glanced uncertainly into the chest once more.
‘And yet,’ she muttered, ‘where is your brother? Where is Thought?’
Clasping the stuffed bird to her breast, she whirled about and stared up at Brian Chapman. ‘Where is it?’ she demanded forcefully. ‘What happened to the other raven?’
Neil's father gave a nervous cough. ‘I'm sorry, Miss Webster,’ he began. ‘That's the only one I found. There wasn't another.’
‘You lie!’ she stormed accusingly. ‘What have you done? Did you give it to the infant to play with? I know he skulks within the fallen boughs. Did he in his savagery destroy the bird or has the brat lost it? Don't stand there dithering, you incompetent oaf, answer me! I command you!’
Brian pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘There was only one stuffed raven,’ he
replied emphatically. ‘It was on the floor with everything else. If there had been another one I would have seen it. I'm sorry, but there you are.’
Miss Ursula cast him a withering glance, but she had known all along that he was telling the truth and a hideous chill crept down her spine. Closing her bluish, translucent eyelids, she cradled the raven in her hands and her expression became set and grim.
‘Then Edith was right,’ she breathed in a mortified whisper. ‘Thought has indeed escaped from the museum. His master has returned to assail us once more.'
She let the stuffed raven fall from her grasp and gazed dejectedly at the jumbled remains of The Separate Collection.
‘None of this will avail me now,’ she murmured.
‘Against Him these defences are trifling. A barrier of broken threads and frayed strands, nothing more. We are helpless—our protection lacking. What are we... what am I to do?’
Clasping her hands together, she paced towards the boarded windows, her elegant brows twitching and knotting as the situation bore down upon her.
‘The time is now come,’ she eventually said aloud, as if announcing it for the rest of the museum to hear. ‘One of the ravens has awakened—a sure signal that the enemy of old walks this land once more.’
Her cryptic words echoed about the panelled room and it seemed to Brian that the electric lights became dim. He was not an imaginative person but even to his drudging, doubtful mind it was as if the building had responded and was now troubled and brooding.
‘We must forget our fears,’ Miss Ursula continued in a tone similar to a parent speaking to a fretful child. ‘One of the most trusted of the Captain's messengers has been called back from death. Why he has failed to rekindle Memory I do not know. I can only hazard that his powers are not as strong as he believed them to be. Either that or...’
Miss Ursula's face fell and when she next spoke her voice was filled with dread. ‘Either that, or he has spent it elsewhere,’ she uttered slowly. ‘Has he exhausted himself to bring his other, more deadly servants back into the world? If that is so, then our peril is even greater. We cannot indulge ourselves any longer, for the first time Urdr will break her vow. The device which I refused to shelter long ago must be brought here straight away. Without it we are lost.’
The difficult decision made, she assumed a frozen dignity and strode purposefully towards the doorway, too absorbed in her turbulent thoughts to even glance at Brian Chapman.
From within his den of leaves, Josh watched her depart and pulled a rude face. Above him, upon the step-ladder, his father resumed his pruning.
‘A madhouse,’ Brian Chapman muttered to himself. ‘That's what this place is—a blinkin’ nut-hutch!’
*
‘Thought and Memory!’ Miss Veronica declared when Miss Ursula returned to the Webster's apartment.
Miss Ursula stared at her in wonder.
‘Thought and Memory,’ Miss Veronica repeated.
Her sister regarded her warily. ‘Is that all you remember of them, Veronica?’ she asked softly.
The white-faced figure in the armchair gave a wistful sigh before turning back to stare out of the rain streaked window. ‘Both gone now,’ she murmured. ‘Both dead and gone, no more sweet messages—no more.’
Curled up in a gloomy corner, her walnut features buried in a shapeless cushion, Miss Celandine suddenly sat bolt upright.
‘It wasn't me, Ursula!’ she denied vehemently. ‘It was the girl! It's all her fault! She made Veronica remember. She did, she did!’
Miss Ursula gazed at her coldly, before turning to look at Edie.
The child had been drawing squiggles with her fingers in the thick ash that lay heaped in the hearth and Miss Ursula placed her hands lightly upon her shoulders.
‘The hour has come when perhaps we must remember,’ she said flatly. ‘Edith was quite correct. Last night Thought's mortal remains were indeed renewed. He has flown from the collection and the end I have long feared has arrived sooner than I had guessed or planned. We have been idle and complacent whilst our old adversary has not.’
‘The ice giants?’ Edie cried excitedly. ‘Is it them?’
At this Miss Celandine rocked back and hooted with laughter.
‘Celandine!’ Miss Ursula scolded. ‘Behave yourself, or else I shall send you out of the room!’
The old woman in the faded red velvet clapped her mouth shut and sullenly folded her arms. 'Ice giants!’ she said in a grumbling whisper. ‘The silly girl doesn't know anything. What would the ravens have to do with them?’
‘Enough, Celandine!’ Miss Ursula snapped. 'I will not tolerate you in this ridiculous humour. Do you not understand? We are in the shadow of the enemy, the power we resisted long ago has arisen once more, but now we are defenceless.’
Miss Celandine pressed her lips together tightly, in case they said something else to offend her sister, but she glowered at Edie all the same.
‘Come, Edith,’ Miss Ursula began, taking the child's hand and sitting her down. ‘Only you can aid us in this. Your first labour has come sooner than expected. If you fail in this then we are all doomed. All our hope and fortune reside now in you alone.’
Squirming in her seat, jealous of all the attention Miss Ursula was paying to the child, Miss Celandine could bottle her voice up no longer.
‘But what can she do?’ she blurted. ‘It isn't fair, Ursula—it isn't, it isn't! I want to be important too. I do, I do!’
‘Silence!’ Miss Ursula demanded sternly. ‘This is a task beyond even us, Celandine. You, Veronica, myself—we are bound wholly to the museum. Away from its cloistering walls we are even weaker than we are now. It is Nirinel from which we draw our strength, you know that.’
Miss Celandine huffed with dejection and hugged the cushion sulkily.
‘If you hadn't broken the loom and if the well wasn't dry, we'd be as strong as ever we were,’ she mumbled.
‘Those things are gone forever,’ Miss Ursula said crossly. ‘We must seek to protect ourselves as best we may. Only one path is open to us now. Edith must retrieve the one dread item which can save us—that alone can stave off the approaching attack.’
The child grinned. ‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked.
Fingering the strings of jet beads about her throat, Miss Ursula stared keenly at her. ‘Many years ago,’ she explained, ‘a most perilous device was interred far from here for safety's sake. It was a mighty, magical thing, far too dangerous to keep within the confines of my museum.
‘The Separate Collection was originally intended to be a sanctuary. A refuge where the forces too treacherous to remain in the world outside could be safely deposited and forgotten. Yet this one, singular device was different. Even I fear this object and when it arrived in this land from far over the seas I refused to accept it here.’
Bowing her head, so that the piled white curls flopped forward shaking loose a fine drizzle of dust which floated on to her lap, the old woman passed a hand over her eyes and clicked her tongue in self-condemnation.
‘I perceive now that I was mistaken,’ she confided. ‘If this device had been stowed here from the first, there would be no need of haste now and we would be secure. Yet need there is and you, Edith, must venture out to fetch this terrible thing. But do not worry child, you shall not go alone. Should this modern age bewilder your young head I have decided that a guide will accompany you upon the journey.’
‘Who?’ Edie asked.
‘One in whom I have complete trust. There are still in this world some of the old race—those learned in the history of the former time. Fragmented remnants descended from the spoils of Askar are they. Distant heirs of those who once dwelt in our mother's realm. They know their proud lineage and at the commencement of every year they congregate in the yard below to pay a tribute of flowers—decorating the fountain in memory of what was.
‘Over the years I have seen the numbers dwindle. Ever they seek for a sign from us and always they depart unanswer
ed. But now it is time for me to speak. Amongst those folk, there is one man in whom the blood of Askar runs almost pure. It is he who will go with you Edith, and now sisters we must summon him.’
Miss Celandine cooed in delight and dragged her chair across the room to join them.
‘Goody, goody!’ she trilled. ‘I always enjoy it so, I really do.’
Miss Ursula turned to the figure sitting by the window. Miss Veronica was staring fixedly ahead and her sister called to her in a surprisingly warm and tender voice.
‘Veronica—we need your assistance.’
The painted face blinked impassively then moodily looked away.
‘You know we cannot do this without your help, Veronica.’
‘Oh, don't be a meanie!’ Miss Celandine moaned. ‘You're so stingy all of a sudden, Veronica. Please join in—I want to see, I want to go.’
The wizened Miss Veronica pursed her vermilion lips, then gave a begrudging nod and Miss Celandine bounded over to help her from the chair.
‘I can manage,’ Miss Veronica said defiantly, doggedly gripping the handle of her walking cane and taking a few hobbling steps forward. Her face frowning beneath the flour, she eased herself down again and lay the cane across her knees.
‘Draw the curtains Edith, dear,’ Miss Ursula prompted, rising to turn the armchair around to face the centre of the room and pushing it closer to the others.
Intrigued, Edie ran across to the window.
‘We are ready,’ Miss Ursula announced, waiting for Edie to sit beside her once more. ‘You may begin, Veronica.’
Edie watched in fascination as Miss Veronica lifted the cane and held it out towards her sisters.
‘Reach out, Edith,’ Miss Ursula told her gravely. ‘Touch it lightly with your fingertips.’
