by Alan Garner
‘No.’
‘Colin. You’re not your ordinary anorak routine twitcher with binoculars round your neck and a notebook in your hand. And you don’t collect train numbers on Crewe station. You’ve published; and published damned well, from what I’ve read about you. So why do you get spooked when it comes to crows?’
‘Co-authored,’ said Colin. ‘Mainly the raptors, especially kestrel, Falco tinnunculus, commonly windhover. Its usual prey is the smaller mammals, such as mice and voles; even young rabbits. I did not write the chapter on the Corvidae.’
‘Why not?’
‘Meg. Please.’
‘Go there. Tell me. Now’s your chance. The stone’s on your side.’
‘Please. I can’t.’
‘You can. Come on, chuckles. What’s up with crows?’
‘And witches. I can’t tell them apart. Fact from metaphor. They’re every part alike the same to me.’
‘Really? I did wonder what all that was about.’
‘What all what was about?’
‘I was wondering whether you’d say without being shoved.’
‘Say what?’
‘Eric said that before you went in to see him you’d caused quite a stramash in the waiting area when you shouted at a small kid and his granny.’
‘Oh, that.’
‘Oh, yes, that. What got into you?’
‘She was reading a story to him,’ said Colin. ‘About a boy going to a witch’s house. And I had a flashback. I couldn’t help it.’
‘Was it a flashback of something that happened or of a dream?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can’t you remember? Can’t you tell the difference?’
‘Usually I can. But this was so clear. So vivid. It felt that it had happened. Happened to me. Once.’
‘Is it a retrieved flashback from before you were thirteen?’
‘It must be.’
‘Can you see it now?’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Do I have to?’
‘It matters, Colin. It matters a lot. I don’t mock witches.’
‘I’m in a room in a big house. I don’t remember how I’ve come to be here. Crows are perched on the windowsills outside. And there’s a witch, she’s standing over me. I know she’s a witch. She’s all in black, with a cord round her waist. I’m lying on the floor. I can’t move.’
‘Does she look like me?’ said Meg.
‘—No. She’s older. Fatter and older.’
‘You hesitated.’
‘Only because you asked. Though sometimes you do have that look about you. When you scare me.’
‘Go on,’ said Meg.
‘She has a wide mouth, thin lips, and her head is sitting on her shoulders as if she hasn’t got a neck, and her eyes are close together. Her legs are thin, too. She looks like a crow: a big fat crow. And she goes out of the room and locks the door. I’m alone, and the crows are watching me. But I know she’ll be back. She’s said she’ll eat me. And I’ve wet myself. And it’s all going to happen again to the boy at the doctor’s. I’ve got to save him. I’ve got to stop the story.’
‘Is that why the flashback’s so clear?’
‘I’ve had it before. All my life since the flashbacks began. It’s the worst of them. Sometimes I dream it and wake and it’s still there and I have to go on watching it.’
‘How does it end?’
‘It just ends. Until the next time, when it starts all over again. But the crows are real. They peck on the windows and the door of the Bergli in the night. I hear them, though I don’t see them.’
‘At night?’ said Meg. ‘You’ll tell me if I’m wrong, but crows aren’t nocturnal.’
‘They’re not,’ said Colin. ‘But these are. They must be. That’s why I’m terrified of crows. It’s selective ornithophobia. I love birds; but these are different. They’re witches. They know.’
‘There’s more, isn’t there?’ said Meg. ‘Come on. Now. It’s now, Colin. I don’t want to have to crank you up to this pitch again.’
Colin stared at the profile of the stone. He shook. Meg was still.
‘Help me.’
Meg was still.
‘Help me.’
‘The stone, Colin. The stone.’
‘Yes. All right. No.’
‘The stone.’
‘Yes.’
He clenched his fists on either side of his face and shut his eyes.
‘I’m at school. Walking. By myself. On a path. Through the fields. By a wood.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirteen years ten months and six days.’
‘Go on.’
‘There’s something fluttering. In the grass. I go to look. It’s a crow. A carrion crow. Corvus corone corone. Caught in a mess of barbed wire. I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave it. I’ll have to touch it. I’ve got to touch it. I’ve got to touch the witch. Pick it up. I reach down. Its feathers and scales. I try to free it. It pecks me. Makes me bleed. I try again. It’s tangled in the wire. I get it free. It’s broken a leg and a wing. I don’t know what to do. There’s no one else. Just me. It’s in pain. I can’t save it. I have to kill it. I must. It’s the only thing. But I don’t know how. Wring its neck. That’s quickest. Kindest. I don’t want to hurt it. I don’t want it to suffer. I want to help. It’s still a bird. I must help; even when it’s a witch. It’s still a bird. I must help the bird. I try. But I can’t. I can’t do it properly. I don’t know how. It croaks. It cries. I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough. And I’m bleeding. Red. Blood. I hold it by the throat with both hands. I hold it out. In front of me. I squeeze. I’ve got to choke it. Strangle it. It flaps its wing and claws my wrists with its leg. It’s looking at me. Its eye. It’s looking. I’m squeezing. As hard as I can. My arms hurt. I can’t feel my hands. It flaps its wing. It’s clawing. I don’t let go. I can’t. I’m crying. Its eyelid half closes. And opens. I mustn’t let go. Not now. The lid closes. Opens. Half closes. Opens. It’s looking at me. Closes. The claws stop. The wing flaps. I hold. Tight. Tight as I can. The body’s jerking. I walk back to school. Holding. The crow’s still. I’ve killed the bird. Have I killed the witch? Have I? Have I? Teachers see me. They’re shouting. They throw the bird away. Won’t let me bury it. I’m—’ He opened his eyes.
‘OK, Colin. Rest, love.’
‘No! That’s the start. Only the start. Ever since. They’ve known. The crows have known. They know what I did. They know it was me. They know. They wait.’
‘Shut your eyes again,’ said Meg. ‘Is the crow still hurting?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I want to stop it.’
‘Stop what?’
‘Stop the hurt.’
‘How are you going to do that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You’re a big boy now. Squeeze harder.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Try.’
‘How?’
‘First of all,’ said Meg, ‘you must stop blaming yourself. The crows do not know. They really do not. You only think they do. They are not waiting. They do not come to you at night. You want them to. So that you can go on hurting as well.’
‘Meg. Please. No. Please.’
‘Look again, Colin. You’re holding the crow. What’s the worst part?’
‘I can’t look.’
‘You can. Look. What’s the worst? The very worst.’
‘It’s flapping. It’s dead. But it’s flapping. The feathers are alive. The bird isn’t.’
‘Worse than that.’
‘Its eye.’
‘Worse than that.’
‘The lid. Half closing and opening.’
‘Worse than that.’
‘Nothing.’
‘Look closer.’
‘No. I can’t.’
‘Look closer, Colin.’
‘Meg.’
‘Closer, Co
lin. Closer.’
‘What’s happening?’
‘Look. Go to where it hurts most and say what it says to you.’
‘—Black.’
‘Yes?’
‘Black. Shining. Eye.’
‘Tell me again.’
‘Black. Shining. Eye.’
‘Tell me again.’
‘Black. Shining—No. Shining. Shining. Ink! Black ink!’
‘Go to the ink and say what it says to you.’
‘Ink.’
‘Tell me again.’
‘Ink. Black ink. Shining. Ink.’
‘Tell me again.’
‘Black. Shining. Ink—No! Not ink! Water! Black shining water! A river! I can’t swim! I’ll drown! A cave! No! Shining! Shining sky! Stars! No! Galaxies! I see galaxies! Galaxies! More! More than—More! I see! I see! Wonders!’
Colin opened his eyes. ‘Meg! Oh, Meg!’
‘Where is the crow now?’
‘It’s gone. It’s not there. It’s not there.’
‘And the other crows?’
‘Not any. Gone. All gone. All.’
‘Not gone,’ said Meg. ‘Free. Not hurting. That crow is not hurting. It knows, Colin. It knows you were trying to help. And you? What do you want to do now?’
‘Get back to my work. There’s so much to be done. So much.’ Colin began to cry. ‘So much. The wonders.’
‘And that’s how you start to squeeze,’ said Meg, and reached round his back to give him the box of tissues. ‘But it’s only the start. You’ve healed the crow. Now you can pass on.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Colin.
‘You’ve begun; but that’s all. You have to end. Else you can forget your wonders.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The Grail Question. That’s for you to ask; and to find the answer; not me.’
‘“Only the start.” You’re kind. But please not yet. I have to think about it.’
‘Kind? Me kind? You dimmock. You dithering dimmock. You’re all the same. Every one of you. Each time. It’s there before you, in clear. But you won’t see. You say you want help, but as soon as it really bites you try to chicken out. You’ll “have to think about it”. I can live with that. But don’t think you can call the shots. And don’t you ever, ever doorstep me again, pal; not even with stone axes. I’m not here to be switched on at a whim.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘This time, “sorry” is needed,’ said Meg. There was a knock. ‘Come in, Bert. We’re through.’
Bert put his head round the door. ‘Let’s be having you. I’ve stuck your bike in the boot.’
Colin sat and did not speak. Bert was silent. They came to the turn to the wood. Bert stopped on the road. ‘You’ll do at this,’ he said. ‘I’ll not can go with you no further.’
‘Yes,’ said Colin. He lifted his bicycle from the back of the taxi. ‘Thanks.’
‘Eh. Youth.’
‘Yes?’
‘Thee think on, and then.’
Bert drove away.
He slept, and turned, calling to the beasts in Ludcruck. They answered him, the beasts and the cranes, and he was not afraid to hear their singing.
Colin heard the sound of an engine in the quarry and looked out of the window. It was Meg in her black leathers. She stopped at the hut, took off her helmet and gauntlets and shook her hair.
Colin opened the door.
‘Hi, Colin. How are you doing?’
‘Better,’ he said. ‘Better, I think. Why are you here, Meg?’
‘I want a word with you. On your own midden.’
‘You’re angry over yesterday,’ said Colin.
‘Who? Me? I’m never angry. I tell it how it is; that’s all I can.’
‘And I did something to vex Bert. I don’t know what it was.’
‘Bert’s not vexed,’ said Meg.
‘He was very short with me.’
‘He was not.’
‘You don’t know what he said.’
‘We’re both in there rooting for you, Colin, you twerp. And now you’re on a roll at last you’ve got to see it through. Now. Not tomorrow. Not when you’ve “had a think”. Now. You must go for it. And stuff the crows.’
‘But you could have phoned.’
‘I was afraid you’d do a runner. Can I come in?’
‘Please,’ said Colin. ‘But what’s it about?’
Meg pulled the bike up on its rest and lifted a file from a pannier. They went inside.
‘Do sit down,’ said Colin. ‘May I have your jacket? It’s warm in here.’
‘No thanks. We’re not stopping.’ Meg put the file on the table and took out a clipboard. She did not sit.
‘I want to check on a few things first,’ she said. ‘It’s about your brain scan. When I asked you whether you’d ever been struck by lightning you overreacted. You said, and I quote, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. Promise I didn’t. How can you tell? You weren’t there. Why don’t you go away? Leave me alone.” So I did. And I have done. But, now you’ve had time to let it soak in, is there anything you want to say about that?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing at all? Think.’
‘I can’t.’ He wiped his palms on a handkerchief. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘Why are your hands sweating?’
‘I don’t know. I’m scared.’
‘Mm,’ said Meg. ‘Now then. The other day I called up your earliest medical records. I should have done that first off; obviously. As should the others. Fool that I was and am. You could sue me for negligence, and win.’
‘But I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that, Meg.’
‘You’re too generous.’
‘But I wouldn’t.’
‘And ingenuous.’
‘I wouldn’t, Meg.’
‘Anyway, clear as clear, in black and white, there you are, aged twelve, being treated for cardiopulmonary arrest, which had more or less righted itself by the time you reached hospital, though your pulse rate was low and your extremities were mottled. These also resolved over several hours. There’s a query marginal note: lightning. Oh, Meg Massey. You ought to be struck off. How dim and stupid can you be not to come up with that from the start? Does it help you?’
‘No.’
‘I think you’re playing silly sods again, Colin. Anyhow, that’s when I had a rush of brains to the head. I went to the library and trawled through the local papers after that date. Have a look at this.’
She handed him a copied sheet. Colin took it, and read.
LOCAL BOY’S MIRACLE ESCAPE
Youth Cheats Death on Edge Thanks to Walkers
Double Tragedy Narrowly Averted
He glanced at a photograph of rocks and handed the sheet back. ‘No. You read it.’
‘As you like,’ said Meg. ‘“On Wednesday last week, twelve-year-old Colin Whisterfield, of Highmost Redmanhey Farm, Hocker Lane, Over Alderley, had a miraculous escape when he was hit by lightning in a freak thunderstorm near Stormy Point. He was found unconscious by two walkers on a ledge by the Iron Gates rocks on Saddlebole. They summoned help, and young Colin was stretchered to a waiting ambulance on Stormy Point and rushed to Macclesfield Hospital, where after three days of observation and tests he was declared fit to go home. One of the walkers, who does not wish to be named, said that he and a companion were on Stormy Point, admiring the views, when they saw a small black cloud form over Saddlebole. Before they could take shelter from what they thought would be a storm, there was a sudden flash of lightning, accompanied by a clap of thunder, and the cloud vanished. They proceeded to Saddlebole to look and were shocked to find young Colin lying on the ledge in front of the rocks. He and the rocks were wet, but astonishingly the trees and the path around were bone dry. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it in all my life,’ said the other walker, who also does not wish to be named. ‘I thought the lad was gone. He was such a dreadful colour.’
‘“The prompt ac
tion by the medics almost certainly narrowly averted a double tragedy for Hocker Lane. During the night of 21st November last year, as reported in these pages, Colin’s twin sister”—and they do mention her name—“disappeared from Highmost Redmanhey Farm together with a horse that had been tethered in the stable. The horse was discovered safe next morning on an island on Redesmere, but despite frantic efforts by the police, using sniffer dogs, and an inch by inch search of the mere by frogmen, with local volunteers combing the surrounding rhododendron woods, no trace of the young girl was ever found. On both occasions Mr and Mrs Gowther Mossock, the boy’s guardians, who farm Highmost Redmanhey, were too upset to comment about the events.”’
Colin turned his head aside.
‘I wonder why witnesses never want to be identified,’ said Meg. ‘I bet these two were having it off in the bracken.’
Colin looked back at the photograph of the rocks. He was trembling.
‘So it did happen, Colin. And it was you. And it could explain the anomaly in the brain scan. Has that helped?’
‘Not really.’
‘Well, it’s helped me. It makes the episodic memory and isolated retrograde amnesia credible. The hypothetical hyperthymesia’s still the Joker in the pack, but there are other sporadic anomalous claims in the literature concerning the after-effects of lightning strike in humans. One man said it brought on satyriasis, which didn’t please his wife; another blamed it for priapism; but I don’t think we need go there. A woman in Illinois said she had become psychic after being struck in bed, and that her powers were used by police agencies in locating missing persons. You takes your pick. But one published report caught my eye: a case of alleged significant increase in intelligence on psychological testing after prolonged cardiac arrest in a paediatric patient. If there’s anything in that, it could explain a lot. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Colin.
‘So why are you still sweating?’ said Meg.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’d like to go and have a look at Saddlebole,’ said Meg. ‘Will you take me there?’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘No,’ said Colin. ‘I’d rather not.’
‘I did say please.’
‘Why? Why do you want to go?’
‘A hunch. Mainly you. When we went for that walk the night I came here you obviously shied away from showing me when I asked what it was.’
