The Owl Killers

by Karen Mailand

  I struggled painfully to my feet. If Gwenith was right and they intended to use the corpse in some dark rite, it must be somewhere close by. Then I saw them. Four masked Owl Masters stood in the doorway of the church, beneath the carved Black Anu, blocking the entrance to St. Michael’s, as if they were guarding something. They had put the body in the church. Maybe the rest of the Owl Masters were inside, already committing their foul deeds upon the corpse. Perhaps they were performing their rites upon the very altar itself.

  I ran round the circle of dancers towards the church door where the Owl Masters stood guard. The flames of the Samhain fire glinted red on the bronze beaks of their masks and on the drawn short-swords in their hands.

  “Out of my way!” I tried to push past them, but two of the blades flashed upwards and were at my throat before I could take a step.

  “How dare you threaten me; I am your priest. I could have you flogged for this.”

  But the Owl Masters didn’t move. Deep behind the masks I glimpsed the flicker of eyes watching me.

  “What is going on in the church? This is the house of God. If you violate a sacred building, God will smite you down and damn you for all eternity.”

  I fumbled for the cross about my neck and held it up in front of their faces. “I command you in the name of…”

  I sensed someone behind me and in the same instant saw one of the Owl Masters gesture with his sword. I half turned, but too late to prevent myself being seized on either side by powerful hands and dragged towards the dancers.

  “How dare you lay hands on a priest! I will have you arrested for this.”

  But the men only laughed. They knew the threat was an empty one. They had my arms pinioned behind my back. How could I punish them when I couldn’t even identify them, for they were both dressed in white shrouds, their faces concealed behind grinning wooden masks and hair of straw.

  “You must join the dance, Father,” one of them said. “Else the dead will think you don’t welcome them.”

  “Let me go,” I yelled, struggling to get out of their grip, but it was no use. I found myself pushed and pulled round the circle with the other dancers. A priest’s strength is no match for burly villagers, strong as oxen from years of labouring in the fields.

  Ducking under the upraised dancers’ arms, an Owl Master entered the ring and strode across to the fire in the centre. He was holding a straw figure in his arms, about the size of a child. The straw figure was more than large enough to contain the corpse of little Oliver. They meant to destroy it, burn it to ashes. And without a body what hope was there of resurrection for the boy on the Day of Judgement?

  “No! No!” I screamed. “Not an innocent child.”

  The Owl Master turned his head in my direction, raising the straw figure high in his arms, as if delibrately taunting me, then he tossed the effigy into the flames. The straw smouldered and burst into flames. An unpleasant, pungent stench began to mingle with the wood smoke, heavy and soporific. But it was not the smell of flesh. Some herb or leaves must have been stuffed inside the straw figure, something that was sending up clouds of dense smoke.

  I felt light-headed, almost dizzy. I found that I had ceased to struggle. I no longer had the will to do so. The beat of the drum grew louder, until it seemed to be coming from inside my head. I found my feet obeying its rhythm, stamping with all the other feet; it was impossible to do otherwise.

  Shapes moved between the dancers and the fire. They were insubstantial at first, so blurred that I thought what I could see were our own shadows, but they couldn’t be. Across the far side of the circle I could see the shadows of the dancers on the ground, cast by the firelight, but the shadows were behind the dancers and moving with them. We were circling like the sun, towards the right, but whatever was in the centre of our ring was moving in the opposite direction, against the sun. I shook my head, trying desperately to draw in the night air and clear my brain, but my thoughts only became more fuddled. Then the shapes began to solidify.

  They were not shadows moving in the circle. They were people. Barefoot girls with thick ropes about their necks were dancing with ancient men, whose beards hung grey to their gnarled feet. Old women with cobweb veils moved stiffly beside pale young men with bloodstained shirts. Old crones, their twisted nails gleaming yellow as old bones in the moonlight, grasped the hands of children with sunken black hollows where their eyes should have been. They lifted their hands as they circled the fire, and all their fingers were webbed. More and more of them joined the circle, rising up from the ground, slipping out from between the branches of the yew trees, slithering from between the cracks in the stone tombs. The dead of Ulewic were being called back.

  The flames of the fire rose higher, red and yellow snakes striking at the stars. The drum beat quickened. The stamping grew louder. We were circling faster and faster, until the faces of the dancers opposite were a blur of mouths and eyes. I clung to the hands that were holding me in the dance. My fingers were locked rigid; I could not let go.

  There was a huge bang and a flash of blinding light. The circle broke. Men were falling and stumbling, knocking into one another. For a moment I was blinded; the flash was seared onto my eyeballs. Then the villagers began pointing up at the round tower of the church. Blinking hard, I gazed upwards too.

  One of the Owl Masters was standing on the flat roof of the tower, silhouetted black against the moon and stars. His long cloak swirled out about him in the breeze. He stretched out his hands over the churchyard, holding what looked like a rolled piece of white cloth. He raised the bundle in his hands, high above his head.

  “Through blood we renew our strength. Through death we renew our life. Through destruction we renew creation. Through fire we make all things fertile.”

  “Through fire we make all things fertile,” the villagers echoed in the churchyard below.

  On the top of the tower the Owl Master’s cloak billowed up behind like wings. “I call upon Cernunnos to give him spirit. Triple Goddess, Blodeuwedd the virgin, Anu the mother, Morrigu the hag, I call upon you to give him substance. Taranis lord of destruction, Yandil lord of darkness, Rantipole lord of rage, I call upon you to awaken the Owlman! Awaken the Owlman! Awaken the Owlman! Ka!”

  The Owl Master let the pale cloth he was holding unfurl in the wind. I could just make out two vertical lines, written on it in crimson, on which were many horizontal slashes and marks. Above the lines a circle was divided into four, and below the lines, a triple spiral. I could make no sense of what I saw. I heard people crying out in fear. I thought it was the marks on the cloth that they were afraid of. Then with mounting horror, I realised it was not the bloodred marks; it was what they were inscribed upon. That was not a cloth the Owl Master held in his hands, but a flayed skin, a human skin, the size and shape of a small child.

  I’d scarcely had time to register what I was seeing when a new cry went up from the crowd of villagers. A trickle of smoke was coming from the church door. For a moment I thought they’d set the church on fire, but then I realised it was not coming from the inside of the church itself. Smoke was writhing out from the gaping cunt of the old hag carved above the door.

  At first the smoke was white but as more and more poured out in a steady stream it began to turn black. Now it was taking shape-the head of a monstrous bird, then huge wings as wide as the church tower. The thing rose in the night air, hovering above the church. Even as we watched, it was swelling, becoming denser and darker, blotting out the stars.

  The villagers, standing mesmerised, now began to scream and flee. Everywhere men scrambled to get out of the churchyard, throwing themselves over the walls, not caring where they landed or how, in a frenzy to get as far away from the demon as they could. As if their screams had broken the spell which had transfixed me to the spot, I found myself stumbling and running towards the gate.

  I did not look back.

  november

  souling day

  third and last day of samhain. the day on wh
ich christians collected alms to pay for prayers for the souls of the dead in purgatory.

  pisspuddle

  pUT ONE FOOT STRAIGHT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER,” that’s what the tumbler’s girl said at the May Fair. “Feel your toes touching your heels, then you don’t have to look down. You mustn’t ever look down, ’cause that’s what makes you fall.”

  I got to the end of the trestle without falling off, but then I had to turn. That’s the really hard bit. It looked easy when she did it. She put her leg straight out, then sort of swivelled.

  “Stare real hard at yon tree,” she said, “then you’ll not slip. Stare at one spot. Don’t ever take your eyes off it.”

  I swung my leg, wobbled, and crashed onto the ground.

  “God’s blood, what ever are you up to this time, lass?” Mam stood over me, hands on hips, her mouth wrinkled tight like a pig’s arsehole. Her mouth always pinched up like that when she was going to clout me.

  I quickly began to bawl, rubbing my leg and rolling around. I was good at that. Mam could never tell if I was really crying or not.

  “She’s practising to be a tumbler, aren’t you, Pisspuddle?” William grinned.

  “Are you hurt, lass? Where? Show me.” Mam bent down. “Tumblers indeed! Whatever put that nonsense in your head?”

  “Isn’t nonsense. I’ll do it, you’ll see. When the tumblers come for the next May Fair, they’re going to take me with them. They said they would if I practised and could walk the pole. I’ll go all over, fairs and castles and the like. The tumbler’s girl said they toss you real gold coins at the castles. And I’ll be eating suckling pig every day, twice sometimes.”

  Behind me, William snorted with laughter.

  “You just wait, fat-arse,” I told him. “One day I’ll be rich and you’ll be starving hungry and you’ll come to me begging for food and I’ll not even give you a bone to suck.”

  “It’s you who won’t have a bone to suck, lass. A bed in a ditch and a kick for your supper is all they’ll give you.” Mam pulled me to my feet, feeling my arms and legs. “And what do you think happens to little girls when they’re too big to be tossed on poles? Turned out to thieving and begging, or worse. End on the gallows, every one of them. Just look at the state of you! Muck from head to toe. How’s your leg? Can you walk?”

  William pushed his face close to mine and whispered, “Do you know where the tumblers get their suckling pigs, Pisspuddle?”

  “Don’t call me that. Mam, tell him not to call me that.”

  “I’m bigger than you, so I can call you anything I want. And I’ll tell you where the tumblers get their suckling pig. They wait for a dark night when the little girls are fast asleep, then they creep up and cut their throats from ear to ear.” He sliced his grubby finger across my throat. “Then they chop them up and stuff them in pickle barrels. That’s their suckling pigs, silly little pisspuddles like you. But don’t worry, they’ll fatten you up first, you’re so skinny, your arse wouldn’t fill a pasty.” He poked me sharply over and over, going for all the soft places.

  “Make him stop, Mam! My leg hurts.” I tried to limp away.

  “I thought it was the other leg that was hurt,” William smirked.

  “Why you little…” Mam aimed a swipe at my head, but I dodged out of reach. “You just wait till I get hold of you, I’ll give you hurt.”

  I darted round the corner of the cottage and smashed straight into Lettice’s belly. She staggered back and I tried to dodge round her, but she grabbed me by the back of my neck and marched me back to Mam.

  “Have you heard, dear?” Lettice said.

  “What?” Mam asked, grabbing hold of my arm.

  “Two maids from the Manor, attacked in the churchyard last night. Ran screaming all the way home. Scarcely escaped with their lives, so they say.”

  Mam’s eyes were wide. “Do they know who it was attacked them?”

  “Now you’re asking, my dear. It’s not so much a question of who but what.”

  Lettice looked fearfully round as if who or what might be behind her. She moved closer. “A great bird, taller than Blacksmith John, swooped right down on them from the church tower just as they were setting out for the Manor.”

  “A bird?” Mam whispered.

  “You’re hurting me, Mam!” I wailed. She still had a tight hold of my arm and her fingers were digging into me. Everyone ignored me. “Mam!”

  “When I say a bird, I mean he had the head and wings of a bird all right, an owl, with a beak big enough to sever a maid’s leg and great black talons instead of feet, but he had the body and private parts of a man. And when I say privates of a man,” she raised her eyebrows, “it was more like a stallion, so I’ve heard.”

  Mam gasped. “So, it’s true then. I heard what happened on All Hallows’ Eve, but the men were in their cups. Sow-drunk most of them by the way they went roaring through the village. Most of them couldn’t get out of their beds the next day, never mind talk any sense. But if the Owlman himself has been seen…”

  Lettice crossed herself. “My old grandam used to tell me tales of him that her mam had taught her. Not just bairns he took, but full grown men, ripped the flesh off them and ate them alive. Devoured their souls too. He terrorised the whole village for more than a year last time he flew, until the cunning women cast him into a sleep. But that was nigh on a hundred years ago, maybe more. I never thought he’d fly again, not in my lifetime.”

  “God save us…” Mam squashed me tightly against her leg.

  “Amen to that, for there’s not a cunning woman left in these parts, save old Gwenith. God grant that her grandam taught her the words to bind the demon, else there’ll be no stopping him this time nor them that wakened him.”

  She crossed herself again. “You heard about poor Aldith’s little Oliver, of course you have, who hasn’t? Still not a sign of the little lad’s body. The dear woman’s beside herself. In and out of her cottage every day I am, to comfort the dear soul, fair wearing myself out with it. But at the end of the day what can you say to her? They’re dark arts indeed that take the body of an innocent boy for their work.” Lettice inched closer to Mam. “You want to keep those bairns close by, my dear.”

  Mam whirled me round to face her. “You two inside now and stay there. From now on neither of you sets foot outside the door till the sun’s full up and I want you indoors before the Vespers bell. You hear me?”

  “But, Mam,” William groaned.

  “Now inside, both of you, and no more arguments.”

  Mam landed a stinging slap on my backside and pushed me towards the door. It wasn’t fair. I hadn’t said a word. William was the one who was arguing.

  William kicked the doorpost as he passed, but he daren’t say anything to Mam. He threw himself down next to the fire.

  “Stupid lasses. I’d not have run away screaming from the Owlman. I want to see him. She needn’t think I’m going to stay in.”

  “Me neither.” I tried to look as sulky as him and kicked the nearest stool. It tumbled over, scattering a bowl of beans which Mam had left on top. They trickled into the thick layer of rushes on the earth floor. Mam would kill me! Why did she have to put them there? I scrambled to pick up the tiny beans, but every time I grabbed one bean, it made more of the others disappear.

  “You’re going to get a really good skelping this time, when Mam sees that,” William grinned, deliberately scattering them even more with his foot.

  My stomach somersaulted. I could still feel Mam’s hand across my backside from the slap. I crept to the door. I could slip out while she’d still got her back to it, gabbing to fat Lettice.

  “Listen, did you hear that?” William said, rushing to the window.

  “What?”

  “Wings, great big wings swooping down. Look! Quick, did you see it, that black shadow? I wouldn’t give much for anyone’s chances out there alone.”

  Lettice had said it was a bird bigger than John with an owl’s head and great big talons. Only the day b
efore, I’d seen a falcon swooping down on a vole. It had perched, with one foot pinning down the little body, ripping out the fur with its hooked beak and tearing at the entrails until its beak was all red with blood. I shivered. What could a bird as big as a blacksmith do?

  father ulfrid

  i STARTED VIOLENTLY as I emerged from the latrine. I hadn’t heard the boy creep into my yard. Alan’s son, William, was leaning against the doorpost, chewing a twig and idly scuffing his bare toes in the dirt. He grinned when he saw he’d startled me.

  “If you’ve a message you should knock on the door,” I snapped. I was the parish priest, for God’s sake. Did they think they could just wander in and out of my house, as if I was a common serf?

  “Did,” he said without removing the twig. “You never answered.”

  “That means I wasn’t to be disturbed.”

  People had been banging on my door all day, especially that old gossip Lettice, but I couldn’t face anyone. I still felt sick when I thought about All Hallows’ night and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  I’d made excuses to myself. That straw effigy they burned on the fire had been stuffed with henbane. I’d recognised the foul lingering stench in the embers of the fire the next morning. Henbane befuddles anyone who breathes the smoke and sends them into a stupor. It’s been known to drive men mad. I’d been drugged, robbed of my senses, so how could I have fought that demon?

  But deep down I knew that, drugged or sober, I would not have had the guts to stand against that monster. Even when I was confronting old Gwenith, I had not been able to summon up the holy words to protect myself from her, and witch though she undoubtedly was, she was a mere mortal.

  William was still watching me with a grin on his face. Had the brat heard that I’d run away and come to gloat?