A STORYTELLING OF RAVENS

by R. H. Dixon

  He jerked forward and gripped the edge of the couch; an unexpectedly quick movement that marked some indignation. His knuckles turned white. ‘A project of mine? What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Callie had never made or seen Thurston angry before. His forehead had creased into several deep lines and his attractive mouth had tightened to a cruel sneer. She wasn’t the type to shy away from an argument, but right now Torbin Thurston exuded a dangerousness that made her throat constrict with apprehension. His show of defensiveness was understandable, if he was indeed who he said he was, she supposed, but there was something about the way his eyes blazed that greatly unsettled her. She looked down at the mug in her lap and began to feed its ceramic smoothness round and round in her hands, aware that the cabin was throbbing all around them as though it had a heartbeat of its own. She wondered if anyone else could hear it or if it was just in her head. She imagined the oppressive darkness in the tower above them rolling and turning in rage, churning up dormant sleeping things that couldn’t see, yet saw everything. And suddenly she felt like everyone and everything was waiting for her to reply. Even the trees in Whispering Woods and the birds in the ash tree. She shrugged and tried to look offhand, again meeting the intensity of Thurston’s glare. ‘I dunno, I was thinking maybe an experimental film,’ she said. ‘You know, cameras recording us off the cuff, that sort of thing.’

  Thurston shook his head and laughed at the suggestion and all sense of danger passed, just like that. His eyes were normal again. He smoothed a hand over his lightly stubbled jawline. ‘If there are any cameras I can assure you they’ve got nothing to do with me, sweetheart. Not my style.’ He shuffled further forward, so he was sitting on the lip of the couch’s cushion and looked to the lake beyond the window. To no one in particular, he said, ‘Where is this place?’

  It was Smiler who answered. ‘Whispering Woods.’ He flicked ash onto the hearth behind him and was regarding Thurston with an aloofness that didn’t seem befitting of him.

  ‘But of course you knew that already,’ Pollyanna said.

  ‘Jesus, kid, not this again.’ Thurston rocked forward and hoisted himself to his feet. He stood still. The pain of having moved had tightened his expression. ‘I’d hoped you and Uncle Dean were a bad dream.’ He took a step forward and his left leg buckled beneath him. As he collapsed to the floor his shoulder hit the edge of the coffee table and there was a bone-splintering crunch. Callie leapt from the armchair and went to him. Wrapping an arm around his torso, she helped him back to the couch.

  ‘Came over all dizzy,’ he said, by way of explanation. He clutched at his chest, seemingly unfazed by the hit to his shoulder.

  ‘You need to take it easy.’ Callie sat next to him, so close their legs touched. Then she rested her hand on his thigh; a bold gesture that seemed to raise no eyebrows except her own. ‘Can you remember what happened yet?’ Her hand felt like a brick, awkward and heavy, on the end of her arm. She wanted to move it but couldn’t.

  ‘I dunno,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I was having a quiet night in. At home. Alone. I was watching a film when Betsy started barking at the front door. There was no one there when I opened it, so I did a scan of the CCTV out front. I even checked the back but couldn’t see anyone anywhere. Betsy kept on barking though, so I put my shoes on and went outside and…and that’s all I can remember.’ He raised a hand to his head where his fair hair was matted around a thick line of black, hardened blood that ran about six inches long, around four inches up from his ear. He winced when his fingers touched it. ‘Some bastard must have hit me over the head.’

  A round of slow clapping made everyone look to the window. Pollyanna was sneering and her black eyes held all the intensity of dark matter. ‘You’re very good at this kind of thing,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Thurston lowered his hand from his head and gave Callie a sideways glance.

  Callie slid her hand away from his thigh.

  ‘Acting,’ Pollyanna said, wheeling closer. ‘Faking stuff.’

  Thurston sighed and rolled his eyes back to show his impatience. ‘Are we seriously going to do the whole Uncle Dean thing again?’

  ‘What did you do to Aunt Roxanne and Sarah Jane?’ Pollyanna demanded to know. ‘Did you kill them like in that story you told us? The one with Old Mally Murgatroyd.’

  ‘Who’s Old Mally Murgatroyd?’ Callie looked between Thurston and Pollyanna before settling her gaze on Smiler, who she was pleased to see looked just as clueless as she felt.

  Thurston’s jaw worked tightly. ‘Fucked if I know!’

  ‘It was very clever with the eye,’ Pollyanna said. ‘You had me fooled. I thought you were actually blind. You pretended you were a sergeant in Afghanistan too. But it was lies. All of it.’

  Thurston breathed heavily and his eyes presented danger again. ‘I’ve had enough of your shit, kid.’ His voice was a low, warning growl. ‘So just back off and shut the fuck up.’

  Callie touched his thigh again, a gesture that was meant to calm him, but he didn’t seem to notice. The room was throbbing again, antagonised by his anger.

  ‘Just leave it, Poll,’ Smiler said, fidgeting on the hearth and looking nervous, as though analysing his responsibilities and contemplating what he was meant to do if the argument got out of hand.

  ‘Why?’ Pollyanna said. ‘Whose side are you on?’

  ‘I’m just sick of all the arguing.’ He slid his tenth cigarette from the packet of Superkings at his side and gripped it between his lips without making eye contact with her. ‘It’s just, I don’t care if he’s a film producer, your long-lost uncle or frigging, I dunno, Jesus reincarnate, I’d just like us all to work together to find a way out of this.’

  ‘You don’t believe me.’ Pollyanna flinched as though he’d struck her. Her voice was now low, having lost its edge of fiery belligerence to hurt disappointment in a slip of a moment. ‘You don’t believe that he’s the one who brought me here, do you?’

  Smiler closed his eyes, his face a maelstrom of desperate unhappiness. He took his time lighting his cigarette, but his lack of immediate response was enough to make Pollyanna flee from the room. Moments later her bedroom door slammed shut.

  ‘Shit,’ Smiler hissed, slamming his palm against the hearth tiles. He got to his feet, a graceless effort made worse by underpants wedged between his arse cheeks, and flicked the unsmoked cigarette into the wood burner. ‘I’d better go and talk to her.’

  ‘Hey, wait.’ Thurston pointed a loose handed finger at him as he passed by the couch. ‘Aren’t you that kid, the one off that programme? Only Me? Joey Whatshisface.’

  ‘Miles Golden.’

  Thurston’s eyes became wide at the confirmation. ‘What the hell happened to you? Pressure of fame get too much?’

  Callie jabbed him in the arm with her elbow, but Smiler didn’t seem to care what Thurston thought. He wandered off towards Pollyanna’s room without another word, his head held low.

  ‘That was bloody rude,’ Callie said.

  Thurston raised his eyebrows, looking somewhat surprised by the reprimand.

  Callie shook her head. What was the point?

  Outside the day was fine. A post-storm stillness hung in the air like the aftermath of some personal tragedy. The ravens chattered in the ash tree, their deep caws provoking thoughts of graveyards and death and overall sombreness.

  ‘How are you feeling anyway?’ Callie said.

  ‘Like I had a run-in with Lennox Lewis.’

  ‘Looks like you put up a fair fight.’ She eyed his busted knuckles.

  He flexed his hands and made a noise, halfway between a laugh and a grunt.

  ‘Hey, I’m sorry for being weird with you before,’ Callie said. ‘Yesterday was a crazy day and I just don’t know who I can trust anymore. I suppose I got a bit paranoid.’

  Thurston smiled in forgiveness. Whenever he smiled his eyes narrowed to a squint, making him look somewhat un
trustworthy. Unscrupulous even. Callie had noticed this since the first time they’d met, but had always thought he was intriguing enough to take a risk on. Yet now, as quiet amusement shaped his eyes and mouth, she was no longer sure.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. Then adding fuel to her doubts, he winked.

  ‘Where hurts most?’ she asked, unsure whether to be pleased or offended by his cockiness. ‘Your head?’

  ‘Funnily enough my chest feels ten times worse. Like someone stabbed me with a hot poker.’

  ‘Want me to take a look?’

  ‘Yeah, okay.’ Thurston kept his eyes fixed on hers and began to unbutton his shirt. Some deep remembrance stirred within Callie. Of a certain way he’d looked at her before. Of teasing or longing, she couldn’t tell.

  ‘Freya will know something’s up,’ he told her. ‘When she goes over to my house and sees I’m not there she’ll realise something happened.’

  ‘Then when she rings me and I’m not around…’

  ‘She’ll call the police.’ Thurston’s fingers halted on the fourth button down and his gaze dropped to Callie’s mouth. She squirmed. He had the ability to make her feel incredibly foolish. His eyes were definitely mocking, she decided, and she wondered how she had ever considered him a friend. Well, that was an exaggeration. She hadn’t. Not really. He was her friend’s boyfriend, which made him a friend by association, that was all. He was someone she felt awkward around because he highlighted an aspect of herself that she’d rather ignore. She licked her teeth self-consciously and nodded. ‘Let’s hope so.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ His fingers started moving again and his eyes were back on hers.

  When his shirt flapped open, revealing his bare chest, Callie clamped a hand to her mouth and gasped. Thurston, surprised by her reaction, looked down. He jerked backwards in shock and cried, ‘What the fuck’s that?’

  A large gash beneath his left pectoral had been crudely sewn together with thick, black twine. The edges of the wound were red and puckered, and a general swelling of the area signified potential infection.

  ‘Who would do this to me, Cal?’ he said, gripping her arm. ‘Who would fucking do this?’

  But Callie had no answers. Nor any words.

  12

  Callie tried calming Thurston, stroking and soothing him with her hands and her voice. For her efforts, at least he wasn’t shouting anymore. But he trembled in some catatonic state of shock. All the initial commotion had brought Smiler dashing back to the lounge. He stood in the doorway watching, horrified. Not daring to come closer.

  ‘Are there more blankets anywhere?’ Callie asked, noticing him there.

  Smiler nodded and pointed to a wooden chest by the fire, but made no attempt to fetch one. He seemed so young all of a sudden, rendered useless in the unfolding crisis. His stooped demeanour signified a complete lack of confidence and assertiveness, so Callie couldn’t stir irritation enough to feel mad at him. She left Thurston and went to the chest to get a blanket herself. They were all scratchy and smelled of mothballs and camphor wood. None of them pleasant. But it couldn’t be helped. She chose a particularly large grey one and laid it on top of Thurston after buttoning his shirt up to keep the wool fibres off his wound; the wound she had no idea what to do with. It was like a macabre statement, inherently worse than the one she was left with: DEAD TO ME.

  While Smiler continued to linger in the doorway like a remnant of the cabin’s past, Callie sat with Thurston for a while longer. Eventually she squeezed his arm and said, ‘Don’t move from here. I’m going to go out and get help.’

  ‘No.’ His hands came out from beneath the blanket and he pawed her arms. ‘Don’t go.’

  In any other scenario Callie might have been flattered that Torbin Thurston, successful film producer and owner of Blue Bolt Productions, wanted her to stay with him. But she couldn’t feel flattered. Only fearful. Because whoever had sliced his chest open, it seemed they were making some bold but unclear threat that couldn’t be ignored, which in turn made her wonder what was to come next. If Smiler and Pollyanna had been at the cabin for some time now, as they said, then it seemed that things were suddenly happening quick and fast. Coming to some terrible, revelatory head perhaps. She took Thurston’s hand in hers and clasped it. ‘I have to,’ she insisted. Already she worried that his constant shaking might be some feverishness brought about by the onset of infection and not just shock. She needed to fetch a doctor or an ambulance, as well as the police.

  A shadow swooped across the room. A fleeting flash of greyness. Callie’s attention was drawn to the window. A raven had settled on the sill. Watching. Its eyes showed an unsettling intellect and she thought, perhaps, it might even be gloating over some exclusive knowledge.

  Do you know who did this to Thurston? She wondered. Did you see?

  The bird began to flap its wings against the window, as if in answer, and it jabbed at the glass with its beak, creating a ruckus surely meant to intimidate. Another raven arrived and attacked the window with just as much aggression as the first. Both birds were huge, frightening in their display of unprovoked frenzy.

  Thurston lifted his head from the cushion to look. ‘What are they doing?’

  Callie looked at Smiler for an answer, but he was staring at the ravens with such horror she could tell their behaviour wasn’t a normal occurrence. She jumped up and dashed to the window. ‘Get away!’ she cried, slamming the pane with her palm. ‘Go!’

  The ravens regarded her coolly for a moment then took to the air, croaking their annoyance. When they were mere specks in the sky and their caws could no longer be heard, the lounge became weighted with a sentient quiet. As though the cabin was listening. Waiting.

  But for what?

  ‘I have to get dressed,’ Callie said, feeling a sense of urgency, as well as an upwelling of survival instinct that strengthened her nerve.

  But for how long?

  She went upstairs and Smiler, who had been reduced to a frightened man-child and who looked like he’d need instruction for whatever was to happen next, followed. She’d much rather he had stayed downstairs with Thurston, but allowed him to accompany her to the red and white room.

  ‘I’m worried about him,’ she said, pushing the door inwards. Hinges creaked; a long mournful sound that would be even more terrible at night, she thought. Inside the room the air was cold and unfriendly. Callie rubbed gooseflesh on her arms to flatten it, but it was stubborn enough to stay.

  ‘Who did that to him?’ Smiler stayed in the doorway, pulling on his bottom lip with restless fingers.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ she said. ‘No idea at all.’

  The double bed was red-sleek and still as indeterminably offensive as it had been the first time she’d seen it. She gave it a wide berth and moved to the window, picking up a blue checked shirt from a pile on the floor. ‘We have to leave,’ she said. ‘We have to go and get help.’

  ‘I understand what you’re saying,’ Smiler said, clearing his throat. ‘And I’ll go with you wherever you want to go. It’s just, I can guarantee that we won’t find any help.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because there is none.’

  ‘I can’t believe that.’ Callie started to unbutton the men’s shirt and looked out of the window at Whispering Woods. The morning sun made the wooded area no less ominous. Spiky branches reached up as if to puncture the sky and a gossamer layer of grey mist lay low amongst the undergrowth.

  ‘I’m on your side.’ Smiler’s voice was bereft of any spirit, as were his eyes. Callie could see he wasn’t far from some emotional breaking point. ‘I want to leave as much as you do.’

  In that moment she didn’t doubt it. She puffed her cheeks and sighed. ‘I hope so. I really do.’

  ‘It’s true. And since I’m being honest, I may as well tell you that I’m pleased you’re here. I know it sounds selfish, and maybe it is, but you’ve given me a sliver of hope. Just by being here. You�
�re probably the best chance I have of getting out.’

  ‘Wow. Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ Callie said, unable to hide her sarcasm. ‘But who do you think I am? A bloody miracle worker?’

  ‘I hope so.’ Smiler sounded strained. He was on the brink of some emotional overload that was about to spill over. ‘I might not be physically wounded like Thurston, but I need your help as well.’

  ‘Okay.’ Callie felt she had little choice but to take the lead. To play mother. After all, she was in the best shape physically and mentally. It was down to her. No pressure then. ‘We’ll work it out.’ By no means was she convinced by her own assertion. She just needed to sound proactive for his sake – and her own.

  Smiler continued to frown and began picking at the flaky paint on the doorframe. Callie could tell that something else was bugging him. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’ Then seemed to think better of it. ‘It’s just, er, I dunno, I’m not too sure about Thurston.’

  Callie was surprised by his awkward admission, though not terribly so. ‘What about him?’

  ‘I dunno.’ Smiler scrutinised a piece of paint he’d peeled off the doorframe a little too much, as though it was actually interesting, and Callie expected it was to avoid looking at her. ‘I know Pollyanna must be mistaken about everything she’s said about him being Uncle Dean and whatnot, I mean he’s your friend, you know him better than any of us. But there’s something else, something I can’t put my finger on. I…I don’t know. There’s something about him.’

  Isn’t there just.

  ‘Listen, leave Thurston for me to worry about,’ Callie said, attempting to reassure him with a smile that felt empty. ‘Now give me five minutes to get dressed, then we’ll get going, okay?’

  He turned to leave but quickly turned back, his eyes glimmering with an idea. ‘Oh hey, what size shoe are you?’