Then it re-emerged, dragging something round and silvery.
The mirror?
It was too heavy. The Crow dropped it, hopped up and yelled in her ear.
‘Throw it overboard!’
What?’
‘THROW IT OVERBOARD!’
For a second she just stared. Then, taking a breath, she knelt up in the swirling boat, picked up the mirror and threw it. It went flashing through the air, and landed with a great splash between two sharp rocks.
It sank at once.
‘What use was that?’ Tomos yelled.
Seren shook her head.
But wait!
Something was happening. Where the mirror had slashed into the water, a circle of ripples was beginning. It grew smoother and wider. She saw that the whole river was slowing and growing and changing, that it was transforming even as she watched, all the rocks submerging, all the splash and bubble smoothing out.
The waterfall’s roar slowed to a gurgle, then a sluggish splash, then nothing.
The boat was floating in the middle of a wide silver lagoon.
‘Gosh,’ Tomos said.
Seren was so breathless she couldn’t say anything. Instead she pushed wet hair out of her eyes and stared all round.
The water was serene. Silvery moonlight glittered on it. Dark woods surrounded it and beyond them the sky was purple.
A sniff from beside her. The Crow preened its feathers smugly.
‘That is amazing!’ Seren grabbed the Crow and kissed it on top of its head. ‘You saved our lives!’
The Crow spluttered and squawked. ‘Get off, you silly girl. Some of us come prepared for these things, that’s all. It’s always just as well to have a few useful items around. Of course, I make it a point to look forward and back. I…’ He stopped and narrowed his jewel-bright eyes.
Following his gaze, Seren saw, far away and as small as a pin, the blue boat. Someone was in it, but they were hopelessly far away.
‘And that’s sorted Them too!’ the Crow said with satisfaction.
‘Well, can you magic up some oars?’ Tomos asked. ‘Because we’ve lost ours and we’re not going anywhere.’
That was true.
The boat was completely still.
‘Hmmm,’ the Crow said. ‘Kek kek.’
Seren shivered.
It was quiet and creepy. The water was so wide she couldn’t see any banks, just a faint mist rising around them. But then she realised the boat had begun to move. Very silently and softly a deep current was taking them towards the setting sun.
‘We’re going somewhere now,’ the Crow said darkly. ‘Better sit back and enjoy it.’
Seren was only too glad to squeeze the water out of her clothes and push the hair from her face. Tomos checked his bag, then pulled out the Box. He peeped in at the Egg.
‘Is it all right?’
‘I think so. A bit bumped about.’
The Crow groaned. ‘For Heaven’s sake, keep it safe in case she turns me into something else. There are worse things than being a Crow. A Clockwork Spider doesn’t bear thinking about.’
The boat drifted silently and slowly. Seren sat in the prow and Tomos on the little bench for the oarsman. Neither of them spoke, and for a moment she fell into a daydream. It was so sleepy here. And the sun should have been setting, but it hung in the purple sky, as if Time had slowed right down, or didn’t exist at all.
Then, with a bump that startled Seren wide awake, the boat hit the shore.
Quickly, she jumped out.
Her boots sank into wet shingle.
She looked round.
They were in a dense forest of oaks. It looked dark and still.
‘Pull the boat right up,’ the Crow commanded. ‘And then carry me ashore. I don’t want to get my feet wet and catch a cold.’
Tomos sighed. He jumped out and helped Seren; they couldn’t drag the boat very far into the trees but it was enough. Then Seren picked up the Crow. His wiry talons dug painfully into her fingers.
‘Careful now. Put me on that log.’
She let him hop down.
He looked around in disgust. ‘Well, I haven’t a clue where we are. This journey is not turning out as it should. We might be miles from the Swan’s Garden.’
Seren said, ‘I think…’
But that was all she had time for. Because at that moment a rickety cage fell from the tree overhead and neatly captured the Crow. He gave a great squawk and fluttered against its wooden bars. ‘What the… Get me out of here! NOW!’
Seren tried to spring up but to her astonishment she was caught too. A soft mesh, delicate as cobweb had come down all over her and Tomos, trapping her arms and tangling round her legs. The more she struggled with it the worse it got.
‘Let me out!’ she yelled, and Tomos was shouting, too, but the Crow had gone strangely silent.
At last, breathless, she stopped and looked at him.
He was staring upwards. Seren followed his gaze.
The trees were not empty.
Three owls sat there.
Two were ordinary brown owls but the central one was a huge, snow-white creature with amber eyes.
The Crow drew himself up. ‘What is the meaning of this ATROCITY? I DEMAND TO KNOW…’
‘You’re under arrest,’ the white owl said. Its voice was soft and sinister.
‘Arrest?’ The Crow was astonished. ‘What for?’
‘Illegally impersonating a bird.’
‘But…’
‘Save your defence for the court.’ The owl swivelled its head right round. ‘Take them,’ it said.
With a flutter of feathers four huge eagles swooped down from the trees. One took the cage and the other three snatched up the corners of the net. Seren gave a gasp, because suddenly she was in the air, tumbled together with Tomos, being carried high above the trees.
‘What’s going on?’ he muttered in her ear.
‘I don’t know. Just hold on to the Box and the other things. Keep your ears open and your eyes on me.’
‘But if he’s been arrested…!’
Seren sighed. ‘It’s ridiculous. For being a bird! He’d hardly fool anyone. He’s more moth-eaten than ever.’
They flew so high over the trees that cloud drifted around them, then just as quickly they were descending and, as the eagles circled, Seren wriggled round so that she was lying on her stomach and could see where they were going.
‘Tomos’ she gasped. ‘Look!’
Below them was a vast ruin.
It might have once been a castle, now it was a mass of black walls and ivy-covered towers.
Roofless turrets rose against the sunset.
And everywhere there were rustles and flutters and chirps.
‘It’s full of birds!’ she whispered.
There were thousands of them! As the eagles flew down Seren saw that the bigger birds were perched high on the walls; buzzards, hawks, guillemots, storks and egrets, white in the moonlight. Below them were ranks and ranks of smaller ones. There were tits and finches, starlings and sparrows, robins and wrens and many more she couldn’t even recognise.
As she landed with a bump and rolled out of the net, their million eyes watched her.
She sat up in a vast arena of fluttering and preening.
Swallows and swifts, too nervous to perch, flitted through the twilight. Ducks and geese and ptarmigan sat comfortably on the ground. A peacock spread its gorgeous tail with a rustle. Hummingbirds darted like bright flies.
Seren put her hand down on the forest floor and then pulled it away quickly. ‘OH!’
All the ground was rough with pellets. They were made of tiny clots of crushed bones, teeth and skulls.
‘Yuk,’ Tomos said.
The three owls flew down and landed heavily. The huge Snowy Owl blinked its amber eyes. They were round as coins and fixed on her.
The small cage was delivered by the fourth eagle, and then it was lifted away and the Crow sat there.
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sp; It stared out at the parliament of birds.
‘Good heavens,’ it muttered.
But the Eagle Owl was speaking. ‘You! What is your name?’
The Crow cleared its throat. ‘First of all I demand to know under what authority we have been brought here. I demand to know how…’
‘Answer the question!’ The eagle came back and landed beside him. It had an extremely sharp beak.
The Crow was still a moment. Then it snapped, ‘My name is Mordecai Marchmain.’
‘What are you?’
‘I’m sorry…?’
‘What species?’
‘Human, of course.’
A whisper of astonishment and disgust went through the ranks of birds.
‘Then why,’ the owl asked severely, ‘are you falsely wearing the skin and feathers of our brothers? The Corvid family, to be exact.’
It flicked a wing to the left. Seren saw that part of the ruin was black with rooks and crows and ravens and jackdaws and choughs, all of them looking extremely angry.
She didn’t like this at all.
‘They are the ones who have brought this prosecution,’ the owl went on smoothly. ‘And you should be warned that it is a capital charge. You will have a chance to speak for yourself shortly. First, however, the prosecution will call its witnesses.’
The Crow was so astonished it was speechless.
The witnesses were more than ready.
A whole row of starlings whistled eagerly together. ‘We saw this being fly through the sky on wings. Lots of times. Even down a chimney.’
A swallow said sweetly, ‘I certainly heard this being say kek kek.’
A robin hopped forward. ‘I saw this being on very many occasions peck, preen and flutter. Not very expertly, though, I have to say and his feathers are a disgrace.’
A small wren with a very big voice announced, ‘I saw this creature hop on the lawn.’
A dove cooed, ‘I saw this creature scratch itself with its talons.’
The owl nodded. ‘Thank you all. This is very damning evidence. He is clearly pretending to be a bird, though I agree it is a very tatty plumage and an insult to the avian species.’
‘This is totally ridiculous,’ the Crow snapped.
‘Remove your disguise,’ the owl said.
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it was put on me by a spell.’ The Crow’s voice was acid. Its jewel-bright eye glinted. ‘I am actually on my way right now to get the spell removed and yet you have the nerve to bring me here by force and…’
‘Do you mean,’ one of the other owls asked curiously, ‘that you don’t actually want to be a bird?’
The Crow looked as though it would explode with wrath. ‘Good grief…! Why on earth would I WANT to be a bird! It’s a nightmare! All that pecking and hopping and not being able to pick things up properly! I can’t write! I can’t sit down and I can’t stand up. I haven’t had a proper bath for years. I have absolutely nothing to eat, not even worms. Goodness! A worm would be a banquet! My feathers are moth-eaten and my talons are made of wire. I HATE being a bird.’
There was a huge sensation of fluttering and whispering. If the birds had been cross before they were really angry now.
Seren glanced at Tomos. ‘He’s just making things worse.’
‘He usually does.’
‘And anyway,’ the Crow folded its wings and yelled above the uproar, ‘all the scientists tell us that birds have very little intelligence and I have PLENTY.’
Seren had never heard such an uproar.
‘We have to do something,’ Tomos hissed, ‘or they’ll peck him to bits!’
Seren nodded.
She stood up. ‘Excuse me,’ she said.
The uproar continued.
‘EXCUSE ME!’
The Snowy Owl blinked at her. Then it held up a wing.
Slowly the noise died down. All the birds stared at Seren.
‘Is that a chick?’ someone asked.
The owl glared at the Crow. ‘Is that one of your chicks?’
‘Dear me, no.’ The Crow frowned at her. ‘I just look after it. Her.’
‘It’s someone else’s, then? A cuckoo’s?’ All the birds turned and glared resentfully at a large brown bird on a branch all by itself. The cuckoo shrugged.
‘I can talk, you know,’ Seren said. ‘Look, you’ve called witnesses against him, so it’s only right that he can call some on his side. So I’m a witness. And I can tell you that he isn’t a real bird or even pretending to be, so…’
‘Have you actually seen him in human form?’ a magpie snapped.
‘Well … no, but…’
‘He’s just told you some story then. Is he usually truthful?’
Seren squirmed. ‘Well … no … that is…’ She caught the Crow’s eye. ‘But you can clearly see he isn’t real. He’s all moth-eaten. And there’s that key. Sticking out of his back. Do you see it?’
All the birds nodded.
‘Well, that winds him up. And if it isn’t wound he runs out of clockwork.’ She winked at the Crow. ‘He sort of goes to sleep.’
The Crow was staring at her.
She winked again, urgently. ‘It’s happening now. See?’
Suddenly the Crow understood. It closed its eyes, and its movements got slower and slower until it was perfectly still. Then it fell over and lay on the ground.
One of the jackdaws hopped down and walked all round it, eyeing it curiously. ‘Is it dead?’
‘No, it will come back if I wind it up.’ Seren held out her hands. ‘So that’s not like a normal bird, is it? A real bird?’
The birds murmured doubtfully.
She took a step nearer the Crow.
The ancient owl hooted for silence. It drew itself up.
‘I’m afraid your argument is not at all convincing. You don’t really know if he is human. You say yourself that he tells lies. And all birds sleep, then wake up again.’
‘But…’ Seren said.
‘We’ve heard quite enough. It’s time to take a vote. All in favour of innocent?’
Not a feather moved.
‘All in favour of guilty?’
Every wing rose with a rustle.
Seren’s eyes went wide. ‘Wait! But you can’t…!’
The owl’s voice was not so soft now. ‘The verdict of the court has been given,’ it said mercilessly. ‘Humans are not allowed to pretend to be birds and an example has to be made. This miserable creature will be taken to a secret place and pecked apart, and may…’
‘You can’t! It’s not his fault!’ Seren had lost her temper now, she shouted the words as loud as she could. ‘Anyway, the spell was put on him by a bird!’
‘Nonsense,’ the owl snapped. ‘What bird could possibly…’
Seren took a breath. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she announced, ‘it was the Midnight Swan!’
10
Down the well
Let the moonlight in your heart.
Where the secret journeys start.
There was utter silence.
The Crow opened one eye.
All the birds sat rigid, as if they dared not move.
Then the very smallest, a firecrest, piped up in a tiny voice ‘Did she say…?’
‘Shhhh,’ a thousand birds hissed at once.
And instantly, they all flew. It was deafening and terrifying, the lift-off of a million wings. Feathers and dust rained; bricks fell from the ruined towers. Seren and Tomos had to duck under the up-draught of that panicked flight, the gulls yelping and the jays screeching, all the tiny birds swirling together in terrified packs, the geese honking away in hurried V formations, the peacock stalking swiftly into the wood.
Finally, the screeching and scratching and slither faded out to a distant roar and swirl of wings high in the sky.
Silence came back.
A single feather floated slowly down.
The Crow uncurled from where it lay flat, wings over
its head. ‘Goodness.’ It sat up, and brushed dust from itself, ‘That was … er … quite an experience.’
Tomos was looking up into the sky. ‘They were so scared! When you said about the Midnight Swan, they were all terrified.’
Seren nodded.
‘It was a great plan!’
‘Yes,’ she said. Though, actually, that hadn’t been the plan. She had been going to pretend she saw a cat coming through the wood. But maybe that wouldn’t have scared them as much, she thought.
The Crow spat out dust. ‘Well, it was lucky I thought of it, then. Things could have got quite nasty…’
‘It wasn’t you.’ Tomos picked up his bag and checked the Box was secure. ‘It was Seren. And you shouldn’t keep trying to take the credit.’
The Crow waggled its head, annoyed. ‘Yes. All right.’
Seren looked around. ‘Come on. Let’s go quickly in case they come back. Towards the sunset is this way.’
There was a narrow path heading west and she hurried along it, Then, because she was so worried about the time, she ran. They had to deliver the Egg and get back for the Midsummer Ball, because the Tylwyth Teg would be there and who knew what might happen! She had visions of coming back and finding a hundred years had passed! Plas-y-Fran would be a ruin, all its roofs gone and the gables standing stark against the sky. Rain would be falling on the carpet of the grand staircase. Or maybe it would all just be magicked away like the palace in Al-Adin, far away across the sea, with Captain Jones and Lady Mair and Denzil and Sam the cat and everyone else inside it.
The Midnight Swan Page 8
