The Crowfield Demon

by Pat Walsh

  Brother Gabriel made an odd little whimpering sound and crossed himself several times. “We must pray for a miracle,” he said in a quavering voice, “that God will stop our tower from collapsing.”

  “Then He’d better send St. Michael down with a bucket of mortar and some strong timbers,” the mason said, “though I don’t think even the archangel himself could do anything to stop it falling now.”

  William followed the monks and the mason out of the church. The prior turned to Brother Gabriel. “Go and tell all of the brethren to come to the chapter house immediately.”

  “I’ll let Sir Robert know what’s happening here,” Master Guillaume said. He nodded to William. “Make yourself useful, boy, and fetch my pony.”

  William led the mason’s pony to the gatehouse, where Master Guillaume was waiting for him.

  “Tell the prior to send word when the tower comes down, boy,” the mason said as he settled himself in the saddle, then settled his bag in front of him. With a flick of the pony’s reins, he set off through the gateway at a smart trot. “And remember to stay out of the church!” he called over his shoulder.

  William closed the gate and pushed the bolt home. He stood with his back against the timbers, a cold knot of dread in his stomach. It didn’t seem possible that the massive stone tower could fall down, but the mason seemed quite certain that it would.

  Something unholy was stirring in the abbey, William thought, something that seemed intent on destroying it. Shadlok and the hob had sensed its presence, and the forest fays were running away from it. Even the Dark King was reluctant to come anywhere near the abbey.

  The image of the crow-headed angel painted on the chapel ceiling slid into William’s mind and he shivered. He had the overwhelming feeling that it had been painted as a warning. The question was, what was it warning them against?

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Shortly before dinner, William carried a pail of water to Brother Snail’s workshop. The monk was busy in the vegetable garden with Peter. He gave William a wave as he walked by.

  The hob was dozing by the fire and woke with a start when William opened the hut door. He yawned loudly and sat up.

  “It’s good to see you working so hard,” William said with a grin.

  “I was helping the snail brother until the simple one turned up,” the hob said. He took something from around his neck and held it out to William. It was a white stone with a hole through it, threaded onto a length of red wool. “This is for you. It’s a holey stone and it’s powerfully magic,” the hob explained. “It lets you see through glamour. The king will not be able to disguise himself if you look at him through this.”

  William set the pail on the floor and took the hob’s gift. He held it up to one eye. To his astonishment, instead of the walls of the hut, he could see woodland. There was frost on the ground and the trees were bare, their branches a pattern of dark bones against the pale blue sky. William caught a fleeting glimpse of people, as pale as wisps of mist in the sunlight, walking between the trees, and he thought he heard the rhythmic thump of a drum. Startled, he dropped the stone. The hob grabbed it and held it out to him again.

  William looked at the stone in the hob’s leathery little paw and felt reluctant to touch it. “I saw people,” he said uneasily, “in a wood.”

  “If you look through a holey stone, sometimes you can see the fay world beyond this one,” the hob said, “and sometimes you see things in this world that have long gone.”

  “Which world did I see?” William asked.

  The hob thought about this for a moment. “I don’t know.”

  William took the stone and peered cautiously through the hole again. This time all he saw was the far wall of the hut. “The wood’s gone,” he said in surprise.

  “Holey stone magic comes and goes,” the hob said. “Keep it with you, and the magic will be there when you need it.”

  William pulled the woollen loop over his head and tucked the stone inside his undershirt. It was cold against his skin, and he touched it tentatively. Perhaps it would be better to let the holey stone keep its secrets to itself.

  “I have to get back to the kitchen to help serve up the dinner,” William said. “Thank you for the stone.”

  The hob regarded him thoughtfully for a couple of moments. “Don’t be frightened of the magic,” he said. “Use it wisely and it will not harm you.”

  William had seen enough of magic these last few months to be cautious of it. The thought of actually using it made him feel very apprehensive.

  The hob settled himself beside the fire again, curling his tail around his body and closing his eyes. “What has the one-eyed brother man made for dinner today?” he called sleepily as William reached the door.

  “A delicious thick pease pottage with bread warm from the oven and sweetmeats of honey and ground almonds to follow.”

  The hob opened an eye. “He has?”

  “No,” William said with a sigh. “It’s the last of yesterday’s vegetable pottage with a few extra leeks and a handful of barley thrown in. And no sweetmeats.”

  The hob made a disgusted noise and closed his eyes again. “Then you need not bother hurrying back.”

  William walked back through the vegetable garden. Brother Snail had gone back to the abbey to wash his hands before none, the service before dinner. Peter was turning the wet, muddy earth with his shovel, preparing the ground for the spring planting. He smiled at William as he passed by and gave a small wave.

  William reached the garden gate and glanced up at the church tower. He put a hand to the stone around his neck and had an unsettling thought. What would he see if he looked at the church through the holey stone? Would it show him what was lurking inside? He glanced over his shoulder at Peter, but the lay brother was busy with his digging and had his back to him. William pushed open the gate and walked through the monks’ graveyard, around to the north side of the church. He stared up at the cracked wall and slowly pulled the stone from beneath his shirt, then hesitated, wondering whether he really should be doing this. If the abbey is in danger, he told himself, we need to know what we’re up against. He took a deep breath, closed one eye, and peered through the hole.

  At first all he could see was darkness, but as he watched, a light wavered into view. The abbey walls had gone. The light picked out the deeply cragged bark of an oak tree. He moved the stone to see more of the scene before him. The light was coming from a burning brand of wood, wrapped around with rags, carried by a woman with long gray hair. She was old, but her deeply lined face was fierce and her eyes wide and dark. In spite of the cold, her skinny arms were bare. Gold bracelets on her wrists gleamed in the torchlight, and there was a glint of gold at her throat. Other figures, indistinct in the darkness, followed her as she slowly walked around the oak tree. Hanging from a low branch of the tree was a dark shape that glistened wetly in the flaring light. To his horror, William realized it was the remains of a deer, its throat slashed. Broken ribs bristled from a dark hole in its chest, and a bloody bowl on the ground held the animal’s heart.

  With a yell, William let go of the stone and stumbled backward. He tripped on a hummock and went sprawling across the waterlogged grass. Cold water soaked the back of his hose and tunic, and he struggled quickly to his feet, his whole body shaking with terror. He stared around, but there was no trace left of what he had just seen. He quickly pushed the stone down the neck of his undershirt and hurried, slipping and stumbling, back around the end wall of the church.

  When he reached the path through the garden, he slowed his pace. Gradually his breathing steadied, and he thought about what he had just witnessed. He was sure the deer had been a sacrifice, and a memory stirred at the back of his mind. The hob had once told him about a tree called the Hunter’s Oak, growing in a sacred grove, where many years ago people had made offerings to some now-forgotten god. Was that what he had just seen, William wondered, a ghostly shadow of what had once existed where the abbey now
stood? Last winter, Shadlok had said Dame Alys’s ancestors were the guardians of a sacred grove in Foxwist Wood. Were Dame Alys’s grove and the trees around the Hunter’s Oak one and the same thing?

  Like the fragments of a broken pot, the pieces slowly started to fit together. Was that why Dame Alys hated the monks? Because they had cut down the trees and built their abbey on ground that had been sacred to her ancestors?

  Shadlok had seemed sure the woman had not turned her back on the old ways. What if he was right? Fear uncoiled inside William’s mind as the full implication of what he had just seen hit him: What if Dame Alys’s god was the evil presence in the church?

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  Shortly after dawn on Friday morning, William took the handcart to the woodshed and piled it with logs to take to the kitchen and to Brother Snail’s workshop. After that, the prior wanted him to help Shadlok in the new orchard. The prospect of a day spent out in the breezy March sunshine lifted his spirits, and he whistled softly as he pushed the handcart along the path.

  The hob helped William stack the cut logs and kindling in the small woodshed beside the workshop.

  “You can come with me, if you like,” William said. “I’ll be working in the new orchard with Shadlok today.”

  The hob’s face brightened. “Will you bring your flute?”

  “I suppose I could,” William said with a quick grin. He should be far enough from the abbey to play it without being heard.

  “I will fetch it,” the hob said, his eyes alight with excitement.

  William took the handcart back to the yard. The hob was waiting for him when he reached the orchard. The flute in its leather bag hung from a fence post nearby.

  Shadlok had cleared the ground of scrub and weeds and had chopped up the remains of a large old birch tree that had blown down in a winter storm. He had dug around the roots, cutting them up and unearthing them as he went. There was a huge pile of branches in the middle of the cleared patch, and a stack of logs by the sheep-pasture fence. William saw the fay over by the hazel coppice and called out to him as he climbed over the fence. “Prior Ardo sent me to help you.”

  Shadlok had taken off his tunic, rolled up the sleeves of his white linen undershirt, and tied back his hair with a strip of leather. The work was back-breaking, but in spite of that, he hadn’t so much as broken a sweat. His face with its fine mesh of scars was as pale as ever, and his shirt as fresh as if it had been newly washed and spread on the grass to dry in the sunshine.

  “The monk thinks I need your help, does he?” He glanced around the bare ground of the new orchard pointedly.

  The color rose to William’s cheeks. Shadlok didn’t need anyone’s help. “There must be something I can do?”

  Shadlok nodded toward the pile of branches. “They have to be burned. After that, you can take the cut logs to the woodshed.”

  “I will fetch the tinderbox from the snail brother’s hut,” the hob offered.

  “And some dry kindling,” William said.

  The hob scurried off, leaving William to build a bonfire. Some of the wood was still green and would smoke, but the westerly breeze would carry it across the pasture and away from the abbey.

  The morning passed quickly. William stacked branches and tree roots into a huge pile and pushed handfuls of kindling into gaps around the base. It took a while to coax the sparks to catch, but at last the wood crackled and spat and flames waved like yellow rags between the branches. The hob ran around in excitement, gathering up stray bits of wood and throwing them onto the fire. He capered in and out of the billowing smoke, wheezing and coughing. A piece of burning wood fell from the bonfire and caught him on his tail, singeing his fur. He hurriedly patted at the burnt patch, then ran off to find more branches.

  “Brother Walter is enjoying himself.” William grinned as he watched the hob’s antics.

  “The creature should be tied to a fence post before he does himself some real harm,” Shadlok said, but there was the ghost of a smile on his lips.

  When dinner was over and the monks were safely out of earshot in the church, William played his flute for Shadlok and the hob. He had been practicing a carol that Shadlok had taught him and was feeling quite pleased with himself.

  “That was an improvement,” Shadlok said, nodding. “You no longer sound like a scalded cat.”

  William glared at him. “Thank you.”

  The fay’s light blue eyes gleamed with amusement. “Again. And this time, try and play the notes in the order I taught you.”

  William lifted the flute to his lips. In spite of Shadlok’s faint praise, he knew the fay was pleased with his progress. He was an able pupil, and Shadlok was a good teacher.

  William began again. The now familiar tune was lively and quick, the kind he remembered people dancing to on the green back home in Iwele. Step, stamp, step, stamp to the right, then one step to the left and stamp again, over and over, the dancers moving in a circle, hands linked, breathless and laughing, and trying to keep up as the tune got faster and faster.

  There were no dancers today, just the sharp-eyed fay and the hob, who was sitting on an upturned pail and keeping time with the music by hitting its side with a stick. The hob’s small face was creased into a wide grin, and his ears twitched. His tail flicked from side to side, the tuft on the end brushing across the ground.

  Shadlok nodded when William reached the end of the tune. “Better. Your timing is good and you played only two wrong notes. But that is enough for today. The monks will be finished in the church soon.”

  William nodded. These smuggled minutes were all too short, but he could not risk the prior finding out what he was doing. He cleaned his flute and returned it to its leather bag.

  “More music tomorrow?” the hob asked hopefully.

  William smiled down at him. “Perhaps.”

  The hob looked pleased. “That’s good. I will hide your flute in the snail brother’s hut until then.”

  After the hob had gone, William showed Shadlok the holey stone. “The hob gave me this.”

  “A seeing stone,” Shadlok said. “Have you used it yet?”

  William nodded. “I saw something over by the church yesterday.”

  He had the fay’s full attention now. “Oh?”

  “I saw the body of a deer hanging from an oak tree, and an old woman with gold bracelets.”

  Shadlok’s face was set and tense. He said nothing, waiting instead for William to continue.

  “I think I saw the sacred grove that grew here before the monks came,” William went on. “I think the old woman was Dame Alys’s ancestor.”

  Shadlok’s jaw tightened. His pale eyes were troubled. It was a while before he spoke. “I should have guessed . . .”

  “Guessed what?” William asked.

  “Do you remember the bird-headed creature you saw in Dame Alys’s hut last winter, and what I told you at the time?”

  “You said that it was once an angel,” William said. He paused as the fay’s words came back to him in full. “You said it was evil and that the angel we found last winter had come to hunt it down.”

  “I believe it is one of the Fallen, banished from the Creator’s side at the dawn of the world,” the fay said softly. “For whatever reason, it came to the forest, and the people who lived here worshipped it as a god. But it did not leave this place or fade away when the monks came and cut down the trees. I believe it is still here.”

  William stared at Shadlok in growing horror. That’s what was in the church? A fallen angel? The image of the crow-headed angel in St. Christopher’s chapel slid into William’s mind, and his heart began to beat uncomfortably fast. Had it been painted as a warning? If it had, then this wasn’t the first time its presence had been felt since the abbey had been built.

  “Someone else knew about the angel,” William said. He told the fay about the figure painted on the chapel ceiling.

  Shadlok’s expression was grim as he listened.

  Will
iam remembered the fox blood on the causeway and the bundle of oak twigs, and he shivered. “I think . . . Dame Alys might still be worshipping it.” He quickly told Shadlok what he had found by the abbey gates and how he had seen Dame Alys in Weforde, coming from the forest and carrying a bloodstained sack; he was certain now the dark stains had been blood. And if he’d looked inside that sack, he was sure he’d have found the body of a fox.

  “She must be making blood sacrifices to help the angel become strong again,” Shadlok said.

  William looked at the church, looming over the abbey and fields like a huge gray beast. “If the angel is in the church, then why did I see it in Dame Alys’s house?” he asked.

  “What you saw was merely a shadow of the creature, an echo,” Shadlok said, “not the angel itself. If she is sacrificing animals to it, then some part of it is being drawn to her.”

  “But why is the angel stirring now?” William asked. “What does it want?”

  “That,” Shadlok said grimly, turning back to his work, “is something I fear we will soon be finding out.”

  William and Shadlok worked on until the daylight began to fade. The bell for compline had been rung long since, and the monks were in the cloister, having their bedtime drinks. William carried the shovels and rake back to the tool shed, then hauled water from the well to wash his face and hands. He took his time, not wanting to run into Brother Martin in the kitchen. When at last he went indoors, the kitchen was cold and dark. A scant few embers glowed on the hearth, and William knelt beside them, shivering inside his damp and muddy clothes, coaxing them back to life with a few branches from the wood basket.

  A small supper had been left on the table for him. There was a piece of bread and a shriveled apple and half a cup of small beer: not nearly enough food to fill his belly after a hard day’s work in the garden, but better than nothing. He sat by the hearth to eat it. He warmed the beer with a hot poker and sipped it slowly.

  Later, as he huddled on his mattress, wrapped in his blanket, he tried hard not to think about the fallen angel. It was one thing talking to Shadlok about it out in the full light of day, but now, when darkness seemed to ooze from the stone walls and prowl around his bed, he felt very alone and defenseless. He pulled the blanket up to his ears and wished the hob was with him, fidgeting and snoring, a warm and solid little presence.