“Collected.”
“What?”
“They said they’d ‘collect’ us.”
Neither of them spoke for a few moments.
“What do you think they want to find out?” asked Judith.
“I don’t know. And I don’t know why we have to go in there to answer their questions. Why couldn’t they have asked us there and then?”
“Probably because Dad would have got his shotgun,” said Judith, grinning.
“He wasn’t far off it. But then all the anger just went out of him. He looked frightened, Jude. I’ve never seen him like that before.”
Judith looked away. Not too far from the tree was the edge of Covey Wood and beyond that an expanse of field where no crops had grown for two years. Even now the field’s surface was exposed and stony. Barely a weed would take hold in it, so spent was the soil. The wind had dried the top layer of the earth and whenever it wasn’t raining, the wind lifted the soil and blew it away as brown ghosts shrieking across the land, as brown dust devils rising up in madness. Beyond these dead patches of land, dark mountains rose against the vengeful October sky.
“Angela’s coming home,” she said eventually.
“How come? I thought she had a job down there while she studies.”
“She’s coming home for good.”
“But why? She hasn’t finished. She won’t get her degree.”
“No. Probably not.”
Judith leaned forwards and took her brother’s hands in hers.
“I asked Mum and Dad to let me tell you.” Tears swelled in her eyes. “She’s sick, Gordon. The campus doctors don’t know what it is and she can’t get any tests done to find out more. She’s too unwell to attend lectures. All she can do is come home.”
“Why can’t they just find out what’s wrong with her and give her the right kind of medicine?”
“No one can get those kinds of tests any more unless it’s part of an epidemic. There’s no money for the hospitals now. You’d be lucky to get treatment for a broken arm.”
“Well Dad can pay, then. He can get her to see a private doctor.”
Judith looked away.
“Dad doesn’t have that kind of money any more, Gordon. All we have is the house and the garden and the animals. And that’s a lot more than most people.”
Gordon now looked out across the barren fields. He spoke with the voice of a little boy.
“Everything’s changed, hasn’t it?”
Judith didn’t answer. She scooted towards him and wrapped him into her breast. She held him that way while they listened to the wood around them, listened to the trees trying to resist the power of the wind. From time to time, in other parts of the wood, they heard a splintering snap as more branches lost the battle. Something flashed down past them, fast on the air. It settled into the dry leaves and acorns covering the ground. Judith sat back and pointed.
“Look there.”
“Where?”
“Just there. A white feather.”
“So what?”
“Finding a white feather is a sign you’ve been blessed by an angel.”
Gordon sat back.
“Really? Is that true?”
“I believe it.”
He almost smiled.
“Maybe that means Angela will be OK,” he said. “Maybe it’s a blessing for her.”
Judith nodded, happy for a moment in spite of everything.
“Jude?”
Gordon couldn’t keep the tension from his voice.
“What is it?”
“What do black feathers mean?”
She shrugged.
“Black feathers? I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
His grey eyes focussed in the distance.
“Those are the only ones I ever see.”
Judith hopped off the fallen bough and snatched up the white feather before the wind could whip it away again.
“Not anymore,” she said, poking it into the breast pocket of his coat. She gave him a small kiss. Standing back she smiled and cocked her head, looking at him in a way he didn’t understand. She turned, kicking through the oak leaves as she walked away.
“We should go back,” she said. “You know how Mum worries when you stay out too long.”
Gordon slid off the log, landing evenly on both feet.
“She’s never like that with you,” he said.
“You’re the youngest. They both worry about you the most.”
They walked home in silence, Judith leading the way and Gordon losing himself in the landscape and the motion of the elements. Judith hadn’t been able to answer his question about feathers. Her reticence on the matter made him think the worst; if white was a blessing then black must be a curse. Once he’d formed the idea, it was hard to think of anything else.
By the time they reached the door in the back wall of the garden, Gordon had made up his mind to sit down and talk to his mother properly about the crows and their feathers, ask her what she really thought it all meant. When Judith stepped through the door, having shouldered it to get it open, she froze, preventing Gordon from following her.
“What is it, Jude?”
“Go back.”
“Why?”
She didn’t turn to him but whispered as loudly as she could.
“The Ward. They’re here. They’ve seen me.”
She stepped through into the garden, turning to Gordon as she pushed the old door closed.
“They don’t know you’re here, Gordon. You should hide.”
Her eyes spoke more than her words. Whatever she had seen in the garden had terrified her. Enough to tell him to get away. The door was almost closed now, her eyes were preparing to lie to whoever was approaching. She smiled first, though, wiping tears away and making herself look normal, like a girl coming home from a walk on her own.
“Run, Gordon!” she whispered. And as the gate closed, a softer breath passed through:
“I love you.”
Not knowing why, Gordon did as he was told. The nearest cover was the hedges of the abandoned bridleway. In thirty paces he was there, making himself tiny beyond a wall of blackthorn and looking back through the tangle of barbed branches. The old green door with its rusted hinges was still closed but he could hear voices: angry shouts and demands indistinct on the wind. Then the door was wrenched open and two men came out, one with his hand clamped around Judith’s wrist. Gordon shrank and tried to be still but his body betrayed him, his heart beating so loud and hard he could hear nothing else. His whole body shook. The men were dressed in the same grey raincoats, double breasted and tied at the waist with smart, stiff belts. They both wore the same grey, brimmed hats. But these were not Skelton and Pike; to Gordon they seemed like lesser versions, not sheriffs but foot soldiers.
“Where is he?” shouted the one holding his sister.
Gordon’s fear turned to rage. He wanted to rush back and tear the man’s hands from her, beat him with fists and feet and then drag Judith to safety. It was his duty to Judith, the one who’d always had the greatest love and care for him, more than his own mother. Yet rage wasn’t enough and he already knew it. He wasn’t strong enough to free her and his actions would only make things worse. In the moment when he might have rushed the two Wardsmen, he faltered. His fear returned, turning his limbs to lead.
I’m only a boy. I don’t stand a chance.
He was too frightened to make good on what he knew to be right. That made him a coward, didn’t it?
One of the men was demanding answers from his sister, yanking and shaking her by the arm.
“I’ve already told you,” said Judith. “I haven’t seen him since I went out. He’s probably hiding in the attic.”
“The attic?” said the other man.
“That’s where he usually goes when he’s frightened. You lot turning up like this has probably scared him half to death.”
The two men pushed Judith back through the door. Gordon saw her looking his way but she cou
ldn’t see him. The green door was forced shut. He allowed himself a small grin; the attic? That was a brilliant lie. He had hidden in the attic once after an argument with his father but that was years ago. The smile dropped away fast.
The Ward had turned up a week early.
16
Gordon hunkered in the hedgerow until his legs ached. He heard occasional shouts from beyond the garden wall but couldn’t make out the words.
What were they doing to them?
Keeping his head down, he sprinted to the green door, skirted the wall and dived into the bushes bordering their garden. His dive was blind and reckless and he caught his right thigh on a hidden thorn of rusted barbed wire. It tore through his jeans and into his flesh. Stifling a cry of pain, he tried to free himself and the spike ripped deeper. Grimacing, he backed up, his hands punctured by blackberry thorns, and lifted his leg free. He dragged himself through tiny animal runs in the undergrowth, leaving smears of blood on the soil.
Estimating he was about halfway along the length of the garden, he turned right and pushed through towards its border. Soon he could see the trunk of a pear tree. To his left, a little nearer the house, there was a laurel bush, probably the best cover in the whole garden. He crawled into the laurel, now almost in the garden. A Wardsman would only need to part the leaves and they’d see him crouching there.
He parted his shield of foliage a fraction. From here he could see most of Hamblaen House and look along its nearest wall, past the wood pile to where Skelton and Pike had first come in. This time they’d brought three vehicles: two four-wheel drives and a small truck, all grey. The truck had three tiny square windows along its side. Windows with black-tinted glass.
No!
Leaning against its cab was another greycoat smoking a cigarette. Conflict erupted from inside the house; shouting and slamming and things being broken. Gordon put a fist to his mouth.
Then his family appeared, each with their hands cuffed behind their backs, each attended by a Wardsman. His mother came first, her face streaked with tears and marked by a red hand-print. Gordon’s rage swelled and he bit his knuckles.
I’ll kill whoever hit my mother.
Judith came next; her hair, neatly wrapped into a bun on the back of her head when they went walking, was now loose around her shoulders, tangled and messy. His father was last to leave the house. Like the others, he was handcuffed but his head hung forwards and his face was bloody. Viscous drips still spilled from his nose and he could do nothing to wipe them away. The three of them were forced into the truck with the tiny windows. A Wardsman slammed its door.
Only then did Skelton and Pike appear, accompanied by another handful of greycoats. Skelton clasped his hands behind his back and his barrel gut preceded him, wrapped though it was by what must have been a specially tailored raincoat. He was smiling. Pike followed, something disjointed about the way his long, powerful limbs moved. He removed a pair of grey gloves, each with a slick of gore on them. Turning them inside out, he placed them in a clear plastic bag which he then slipped into his pocket.
Skelton spoke with the driver of the truck, who stepped up into his cab, started his engine and drove out of the entryway. Four Wardsmen climbed into one of the four-wheel drives and followed. Skelton and Pike turned and regarded the house, words passing between them that Gordon couldn’t hear. Skelton seemed reluctant to leave, his eyes roving around the house and garden. His gaze fell right upon the laurel where Gordon cowered, right upon the parted branches. Gordon stopped breathing. Skelton looked away, still searching, but eventually he turned and, with some difficulty, pulled himself into the back seat of the remaining vehicle. Pike, too, struggled to get in the car, eventually folding himself in like a contortionist. The remaining two Wardsmen sat up front. One started the engine but for long moments the car didn’t move. Gordon had a sense that Skelton was hesitating again, perhaps realising there were places they hadn’t thoroughly investigated. After minutes that felt like hours to Gordon’s crouch-weary legs, the car crept away, out of the entry and turned right onto the country road that led to Monmouth.
Gordon waited until the sound of the engines had diminished to nothing. All was emptiness now but for the insane wind, surging around the house and streaming through the trees of their orchard, flaying the world down to its raw flesh. Gordon collapsed back into the laurel and wept.
17
Gordon hid for hours in the cover of the laurel bush. He couldn’t erase the image of Judith’s face as she shut the garden door on him, that change from fear and fierce love to a mask of nonchalance, the blinking and brushing away of sudden tears just before she was grabbed. Compared to that, his actions were those of a coward. They’d taken his family and all he’d done was hide in a bush.
I could have done something, he thought. I should have tried to stop them.
Gordon wanted to go into the house more than anything in the world, but wasn’t it possible that they’d left a man or two inside to wait for him? If they thought he was still out here somewhere, didn’t it make perfect sense that he would return? Gradually, an idea formed and, tired of hiding, tired of hating himself, but mostly very hungry, Gordon moved from his hiding place.
Beneath the laurel there was good clearance between the soil and the lowest branches and he made use of this by crawling on his stomach. The laurel brought him to within a few feet of the tarpaulin-covered wood pile which, if he stayed low, would shield him from anyone looking out of a window, even upstairs.
His pulse rising, he peered out from under the foliage. The house had an air of stillness about it. He scanned every window visible from his leafy hide and saw no movement, no watchful eyes. He checked what he could see of the corners of the back terrace. If there was anyone out there they were hidden and still.
He slipped out from under the laurel and slithered to the wood pile. There he gathered himself into a crouch and waited. No sounds came from the house. No one came out. He peeped around the edge of the tarpaulin. He was a few steps from the back terrace now. He looked up and checked the windows again.
Nothing.
A sprint of a few seconds took Gordon to the back wall of the house. Pain and stiffness around the cut in his right thigh slowed him down. Even pressed flat against the bricks he was exposed. He couldn’t stay there. He was suddenly convinced there’d been a Wardsman patrolling all day.
Before he could progress, he had to put his mind at rest on one issue. Wincing as he dropped to a crouch again, Gordon crawled on hands and knees over the stone walkway which hugged the walls of Hamblaen House. He passed under the first living room window. Fear pressing down on him, he continued his crawl under the second living room window. When he had passed beneath it without event, he proceeded to the front corner of the house and stood up, once again laying his back to the wall and palming the bricks as though on a ledge. He gave his heart and breathing a few seconds to settle and then, as slowly as he could, and ready to pull back at any moment, he peered around the corner. More and more of the tiny driveway in front of their house came into view and the more he saw, the more his hopes rose. Finally, he was looking along the front edge of the house to the porch and it was clear.
He rested his head back against the wall and relaxed for a moment. It was no guarantee there wasn’t someone waiting for him inside, but the absence of vehicles gave him a tiny reserve of confidence.
The windows at the front of the house were longer and lower, and getting past them unseen would be very difficult. Not only that, the entire area outside the front door was gravelled, making silent progress impossible. Gordon retraced his route, returning under the living room windows and placing himself once more against the back wall of the house. He wanted to peep over the sills of the windows, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d known all along that returning to the house was a risk but, now that he had to make the play, he was seizing up again, stiffening with fear.
That’s not going to happen. Not this time.
C
rawling again, he crossed the back terrace under the windows until he reached the recessed area which led to the back door. He glanced around the corner, terrified by the recklessness of the move. There was no one there. The door was closed.
He crept towards it. There was a single, small pane of glass in it – like water frozen the moment after a pebble has been dropped into it. He peeped through into the hallway but the view was distorted. He thought he could see something at the bottom of the stairs. Whatever it was, it didn’t move. He looked for a long time, trying to work out what it might be. The shoe of a man sitting out of sight on the third step? A man smoking, waiting? Gordon took a deep breath and put his fingers to the iron curl of the door handle. He pushed it down. Inside the mechanism, tiny springs creaked.
Then he was pushing the door open a millimetre at a time. Pushing it open and stepping inside.
The house did smell of smoke and this was enough to stop Gordon on the threshold, with the door still open. With each lengthening of the moment, his resolve leaked away. He had to close the door and either stay or leave. The wind wasn’t helping his cause; the noise of its whooshing passage through the trees had entered with him. If anyone was here, they’d have heard it already. But leaving would only put him back where he’d started.
He wanted an escape route but he couldn’t leave the door open.
What if the wind slams it? he thought.
A cold draught felt somewhere else in the house might be enough to give him away. He pushed the door closed behind him, gently shouldered it tight to the jamb and cringed when it loudly clicked shut.
He edged along the hall, pulse thudding.
The thing at the bottom of the stairs was Judith’s coat, lying where it had been dropped or thrown. They hadn’t even let her take something warm. Surges of anger accompanied his pangs of fear.
Ahead and to his left was the living room door, open as always. It was level with the bottom of the stairs and Gordon was able to peep up through the banisters and see that there was no Wardsman lying in wait. Reaching the doorway he forced his breathing to slow and craned his neck around the corner. The living room was empty. One of the wooden chairs beside the baize card table had been knocked over and the glass panel of the drinks cabinet had been smashed.
Black Feathers Page 10
