by Jacob Grey
“Down here,” hissed a voice. “I’m waiting for you.”
Caw broke through the last of the webs and descended the stairs. Spiders scuttled by his feet, huddling aside as if making way for him. He felt as though he was walking into a cave. The ground floor was adorned in spiders’ webs, casting everything in an eerie white glow.
The webs twitched and he caught a glimpse of the White Widow, moving quickly up a wall in the dining room. She moved in jerks, her arms and legs almost a blur. For a moment, she stopped hanging upside down from the ceiling, defying gravity. Then she scurried down the far wall and came to rest beside the fireplace. Her head rotated towards him.
“Home sweet home,” she said, her voice a deathly rattle. “Do you like what I’ve done with the place?”
“What are we doing here?” said Caw.
“Why not here?” said the White Widow. “This is where it was always meant to end, the night I came for you.”
The pain of Caw’s earliest memory flashed brightly in his heart. The Spinning Man had killed his parents in this very room. He would have killed Caw too, if Elizabeth Carmichael hadn’t pushed her only son from the upstairs window, entrusting him to the crows.
The White Widow raised a fist and Caw saw the white spider running across her knuckles.
“He tells me you’ve tasted the truth,” she said. “How was it?”
“What do you want?” retorted Caw.
“To make you realise how worthless you are,” said the White Widow. “To make you pay for the crimes of the crows. To take everything from you.” She used a long nail to scratch her face thoughtfully. “Your allies, your home, your powers – you’ve lost them all. Your friends in the park are dying as we speak.”
Caw swallowed. “And Lydia?”
The White Widow laughed, a hollow cold sound, but suddenly it became a choking scream. The spider feral collapsed on to the carpet, jerking and retching. Her bloodshot eyes bulged. Then, with a groan, a swirl of white smoke spewed out of her lips.
The creature writhed in front of Caw, legs twitching. The smoke began to coalesce into a shape at her side. She turned to him, and in her straining, agonised face, Caw saw a glimpse of his old friend. Then with a final heave, she collapsed.
“Selina!” he cried.
When a voice spoke again, it came not from the girl, but from the smoke.
A man’s voice.
His voice.
And with each syllable, Selina moaned as if the words themselves added to her pain.
“I take her life and live again,” intoned the Spinning Man.
The white swirls billowed away from Selina’s body, forming a ghost-like figure. With every second it grew more solid, until the last tendrils of smoke drifted from Selina’s open lips.
All around the room, the spiders crowded closer, as though they were drawing power from their master’s return. Caw felt his strength leave him and he fell at Selina’s side, the Crow’s Beak hanging limply in his hand. He tried to cradle her head, but it was a dead weight. Her eyes were open and vacant. She wasn’t breathing.
“Selina …” he said, his fingers searching for a pulse.
Nothing.
“It is done,” said the Spinning Man.
Caw turned to see his enemy, horribly real once more. Horribly alive. It was the first time he’d ever seen the tall, black figure in the real world, and his body seemed to suck the light from the room. The Spinning Man’s face was as white as snow; his eyes solid black, like wells of oil.
Filled with a sudden surge of rage, Caw dived at him. He swung the Crow’s Beak, but the Spinning Man caught Caw by the wrist. His nails were sharp black talons. Immediately Caw’s hand went numb and a cold stab of pain spread up his arm.
The Spinning Man smiled, revealing teeth filed to points. He rose above Caw, pushing the boy to his knees. “Look at me, Jack. Look me in the eyes.”
The Spinning Man reached across and plucked the sword, almost gently, from Caw’s grasp. Caw knew in that brief instant what was coming next.
“No!” he cried.
The blade stabbed down in a flash, and Caw felt it bite deep into his shoulder, then pain like nothing he’d ever experienced. He stared in horror at the black metal piercing his clothing and his flesh. Agony seared through his muscles. He tried to breathe, but the air wouldn’t come. An iciness began to flood across his body.
“You’re dying, Jack,” said the Spinning Man. “Just like your wretched mother.”
Caw tried to stand, but the pain was too great.
The Spinning Man’s face drew closer, and Caw saw his own reflection in the black orbs of his enemy’s eyes. At last, the Spinning Man tugged the Crow’s Beak free, spattering the carpet with blood. Caw collapsed to the ground.
Darkness crowded the edges of Caw’s vision. The Spinning Man dropped the Crow’s Beak on the carpet and Caw reached out, desperately fumbling for the hilt. Although he closed his fingers round it, he couldn’t lift the blade. His strength was ebbing away, the pain beginning to subside as he lost his grip on consciousness. He tried to fight, to stay awake, but all the warmth had evaporated from his limbs. His eyes longed to close, to welcome death. He fought to suck air into his lungs.
His eyelids fluttered open and he saw the Crow’s Beak, red with his blood.
Breathe.
The legs of the Spinning Man.
Breathe.
The empty fireplace.
Breathe.
Selina’s dead face.
Breathe!
If only he could reach out. If only he could touch her …
Then there were no more breaths to take.
hite light, brighter than bright, utterly blinding.
Overwhelming cold, deep in his bones.
Caw blinked and blinked, trying to see.
He still couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t feel anything at all.
But he tasted something – crystals of ice on his tongue.
Then he lifted his head and saw a carpet of whiteness stretching all the way to the horizon.
Snow?
Caw flexed his fingers, pushing himself up. He was still holding the Crow’s Beak. He knelt in the snow as flakes spun around him in the eddies of a gusting breeze. He looked down at his body. There were no wounds – his clothes weren’t even ripped.
For a split second, Caw felt a surge of relief. Then crushing panic, because he knew this place and what it meant.
Caw was in the Land of the Dead.
He had been here once before, but not like this. Not when he was actually—
“Caw!” called a distant, wind-smothered voice.
He turned in the direction of the voice, sliding the blade into its sheath. About fifty metres away was a forest, the branches drooping with the weight of snow. Someone was watching him from among the trees. He squinted through the drifting snow. It was a girl with black hair and black clothes. She reached out and her voice carried on the breeze.
“Caw!”
It was Selina.
Caw struggled towards her, sinking up to his knees in snow with every step as his breath burned in his chest. He tried to ignore what it meant that they were both here, in this land.
By the time he reached the trees, Selina was gone.
He peered into the forest and saw another movement, several metres away.
“Selina, come back!” he shouted.
“I’m trying,” she called out, sounding desperate and afraid. “Caw, what is this place?”
He crunched across the ground, but each time he reached the point where she’d been standing, Selina slipped further into the forest’s depths.
“Selina!” he cried, as she vanished out of sight.
Caw strode on. Above him the branches creaked eerily, and his breath formed clouds in the air. The snow glowed almost blue in the dusk.
At last he saw Selina once more. She was standing in the middle of a snow-carpeted clearing, hugging herself and shivering. She looked so …
alive. Just a normal girl.
“Caw, where are we?” she said.
Caw paused, worried that if he moved closer she would simply vanish again. “It’s all right,” he said, trying to sound confident. “I’m with you now.”
She smiled thinly. “You didn’t answer my question. What is this place?”
He couldn’t hide the truth from her. “This is the Land of the Dead,” he said.
Her smile vanished. “You mean we’re … both of us …”
Caw nodded. “I’m sorry, Selina. I tried to save you.”
He took a step towards her, and this time she didn’t move.
“I saw it all, Caw,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “I felt it all, but I couldn’t stop him. I was losing myself, bit by bit.” Her lips trembled and she sniffed, looking at the ground. “There was nothing I could do.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Caw.
“No, it’s yours!” called a voice.
Selina gasped and Caw spun round. On the other side of the clearing stood a figure dressed entirely in black.
For a moment Caw thought it was the Spinning Man.
But no. It was Black Corvus.
“Jack,” he said. His eyes glittered coldly.
Selina stepped back, nearer to Caw.
Caw saw clumps of snow falling from the trees opposite. White crows had emerged from the pale sky and settled on the branches. There were hundreds of them.
But none landed on the branches above Caw. It was as if they had stopped at an invisible barrier right above Black Corvus.
Help us, Caw willed.
The crows stared at him with a cold malice, and Caw remembered, with a stab of pain, that these were not his crows any more.
“Who’s that?” asked Selina.
“Yes, do introduce us,” said Black Corvus.
Caw shouldn’t have been surprised to find his ancestor here. Quaker had once told him that all spirits lingered for a time in the Land of the Dead. Most faded away eventually, but those with a strong connection to the living world could sometimes cling on forever.
“This is Black Corvus,” said Caw. “He’s a murderer, a liar, and a coward.”
“Oh, great,” muttered Selina.
“And the most powerful feral who ever lived,” said Corvus.
“Even better,” said Selina.
“And with the help of the Crow’s Beak, I will live again,” said Corvus. “Give it to me, Caw.”
Caw’s hand dropped to his sword. And then he remembered – how he had escaped this place before. He unsheathed the Crow’s Beak.
“Come closer,” he whispered to Selina.
Selina eyed the blade nervously. “What are you going to do?”
Caw held the sword out and then took a deep breath. With a deliberate swipe, he sliced at the air in front of them.
There was no resistance. No flash of light. No tear in the fabric of the snow-filled air. Caw tried again, with the same effect.
“Only the crow talker can wield the Crow’s Beak,” said Corvus. “Hand it over, boy.”
“Never,” Caw replied.
Black Corvus’s face darkened with anger. Above him, the white crows ruffled their feathers.
“I’m the only one who can face the Spinning Man, Jack – you know that. You’ve failed already.”
“I beat him before,” said Caw.
Corvus shook his head. “No, you let him back in. And look what that has achieved.”
“Don’t give it to him,” said Selina.
“Keep out of this, girl,” said Corvus. His mouth twisted as he lifted his hands. “This is your last chance, Caw.”
Caw did not reply.
“Very well,” said Corvus.
He dropped his hands and the crows took off from the branches, sweeping towards Caw like white darts.
Caw shoved Selina aside and she landed with a thump.
Then the crows hit him.
Caw was slammed into the snow and he dropped the Crow’s Beak. He attempted to cover his face as hundreds of birds tore at his skin with their beaks. Caw tried to roll, but they kept on landing across his body. He cried out, “Stop!” But he could hardly hear his own voice above the shrieks of the angry birds.
Then their weight was gone as they lifted away in a single mass.
Caw rolled over, plunging his bleeding hands into the snow to numb the pain.
Selina knelt at his side. “Are you OK?” she said.
Caw shook his head. As he had rolled, Caw had seen that Black Corvus was holding the Crow’s Beak.
The white crows were settling on the branches once more.
Corvus smiled as he inspected the blade. “It’s been too long,” he said.
Caw staggered to his feet. He couldn’t let it happen. He had to stop Black Corvus.
Somehow.
In his desperation, Caw found strength. He ran at Black Corvus, kicking up the snow with clumsy strides. Corvus grinned, sidestepped nimbly and slashed with the blade. Caw fell headlong as his blood spattered on the snow. A split second later, he felt pain sear through his leg. A deep gash shone red above his knee.
“Stop wasting my time!” shouted Corvus, wiping the blade against his sleeve. “You’re just a boy. A weakling!”
Caw tried to stand, but Corvus planted a foot on his chest, knocking him back into the snow. As he lay there, Caw saw the murder of white crows looking down. Pitiless. But, for some reason, his eyes were drawn to one in particular. It was the way it perched; the angle of its head.
“Screech?” he whispered.
The crow blinked.
“They’re not listening,” said Corvus. “You have to bend them to your will. You have to show them your power. If they don’t fear you, no one will.”
“I don’t want them to fear me,” said Caw, pushing himself up. “I don’t want to be a murderer like you!”
Caw noticed that Selina was moving closer to Corvus. One of the crows made a clicking sound and Corvus spun to face the girl.
“Keep your distance,” he commanded as he stabbed the air with the sword.
Selina backed off.
Then Corvus raised the sword in both hands and brought it down in an arc. There was a sudden flash of light and a tear opened in mid-air, revealing a black void.
A passage back to the Land of the Living.
Caw felt hundreds of crows’ eyes on him.
Please, he begged. In the name of all crows, don’t let this happen.
Caw looked again for the one he’d thought was Screech, but couldn’t see him. His whole body was freezing. He tried to stand, but fell forwards as his leg gave way. His hands left bloody prints in the snow. As Corvus began to walk towards the opening, Caw gripped his ankle.
“Still fighting, boy?” said Corvus, looking down. “Why?”
Selina seized her chance, smashing into Black Corvus. He stumbled back from the black portal and fell down with a shout of rage. But he was up again in a flash, dusting the snow off his clothes, anger burning in his eyes.
He nodded to the sky. “Finish him.”
The birds began to stretch their wings, but an eerily wild crow squawk suddenly stilled them. The crows turned their heads together as a single bird landed in the centre of the clearing, next to Selina.
Even with his feathers a ghostly white, Caw knew it was Screech.
“I told you to kill him,” Black Corvus growled at the crows.
Again, the crows stirred, as if ruffled by the breeze. One took off, sailing over Caw’s head. But instead of attacking the boy, it landed alongside Screech.
Caw swallowed. It was Milky, the white-feathered, blind crow he’d grown up with. There was no mistaking the wisdom of his stony stare.
Caw felt a rush of warmth in his blood. He looked at the crows then at Black Corvus, who was frowning.
“They’re not listening to you, Corvus,” he said.
A strange power was building in the pit of Caw’s stomach, like a fire taking hold. As h
is eyes swept over the snow-white crows, it grew, as if each bird was adding wood to the flames.
Corvus breathed sharply through his nose. He pointed the Crow’s Beak into the trees. “Kill the boy! Kill them both – now!”
Selina reached down and Caw grasped her hand. Her fingers wrapped round his, and her strength surged through him too.
The crows remained where they were.
“Fine. I’ll do it myself,” snarled Black Corvus.
Caw saw his fearsome ancestor approaching, brandishing the Crow’s Beak. He stood up, using his body to shield Selina.
Black Corvus lunged with the sword. Without thinking, Caw gripped it between his hands. As Corvus bore down with his weight, Caw resisted and the blade cut into his palms.
“That’s the spirit!” said Corvus, gritting his teeth. “A shame it’s come much too late.”
The blade sliced through Caw’s hands as it pressed closer to his chest. Pain screamed through his body. With every last drop of strength, he begged the crows to come.
Silently, the white flock swooped down from the branches. The air pressure seemed to subtly change.
Corvus suddenly swallowed and staggered back. “What the …?” he mumbled.
The first white crow thumped into his shoulder. Then two more swooped low, talons outstretched as they dug into his thigh. Black Corvus cried out in surprise. Another swept past his face and he flung his hands up with a yell, dropping the Crow’s Beak. Caw saw blood rushing through his ancestor’s fingers. Corvus stumbled blindly towards the trees as countless crows dive-bombed him, smashing into his body. He fell over and began to crawl, but the crows knocked him flat. Several landed on his body, scratching and stabbing. Black Corvus curled into a ball as they tore at his clothes. Caw saw more blood seeping through the ripped leather of Corvus’s gloves as he tried to bat his attackers away.
“Stop!” Caw cried.
But the crows couldn’t hear. Or if they could, they weren’t listening.
Black Corvus’s cries turned to moans and his attempts to protect himself became weaker. Then he wasn’t fighting at all. At last, the crows resettled on the branches above them. The snow around Corvus’s motionless body was stained red. And the dark portal shimmering in the air had vanished.
