The Crow Folk Read online

  ‘Didn’t see her this morning,’ Bertie said.

  ‘That’s not like her,’ Faye said. ‘She’s usually front row on a Sunday, first with a few pennies in the collection box.’

  ‘Maybe she’s poorly?’ Bertie ventured. ‘She had a hell of a fright.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Faye said as she saw Milly and Betty skipping off with their fathers and mothers. Normal girls with normal parents off to their normal homes. ‘Bertie, if I ask you an honest question, will you give us an honest answer?’

  ‘I’ll do my best. Is it about Spitfires, Hurricanes, tanks or bombers? I, well, I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but I’m becoming something of an expert. Did you know—’

  ‘Do you think I’m off my rocker?’

  Bertie’s nostrils became so big she could see his brain. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘You took your precious time answering.’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t mean any disrespect, Faye. You said some funny things yesterday. Funny ha-ha and funny peculiar. I’m still your friend, though.’

  Over Bertie’s shoulder, Faye spotted Miss Charlotte crossing the road from Perry Lane, returning from wherever she’d been with an empty wheelbarrow.

  ‘What about her?’ Faye asked.

  ‘Miss Charlotte?’ Bertie lowered his voice. ‘Oh, I’m not sure there’s even a rocker that she was ever on in the first place. She’s a wise soul, but not like normal folk. She scares me a bit, truth be told.’

  Faye almost told Bertie about finding Miss Charlotte in the altogether with a toad on her belly, but if he was as sketchy on the birds and the bees as he made out, then she wasn’t sure he was ready for the image of a naked witch in the depths of the woods.

  ‘There’s me dad,’ Bertie said, waving goodbye. ‘Must rush.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Faye said, hot on the trail of Miss Charlotte – for exactly two steps before she found her father blocking her way.

  ‘And where the bleedin’ heck did you go, young lady?’

  21 WHEN I’M CLEANING WINDOWS

  Dad grumbled all the way home. ‘What am I supposed to tell people, eh? When you go dashing out of the church in front of everyone like that?’

  ‘Tell ’em I’ve got me monthlies.’ Faye gave him a wicked grin as they headed along the Wode Road to the pub.

  ‘Will you keep it down?’ Faye’s father was less squeamish than most men about periods; he had been her only parent through the puberty years, after all. Even so, to speak of it at any volume louder than a shameful whisper behind closed doors after dark with the curtains closed was more than he could take. ‘Tell me the truth. What were you playing at?’

  ‘I thought…’ Faye trailed off, kicking at a stone as they walked. ‘I thought I saw something.’

  ‘Saw what? Have you been looking at your mother’s book again? It’ll only fill your head with nonsense. I told you to put it away.’

  ‘I did, I swear. It’s under lock and key, but that don’t stop strange stuff from happening.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘What do you remember about last night?’ Faye was careful not to give her dad too many details. ‘With Mrs Teach?’

  Terrence opened his mouth, frowned, then closed it again. ‘Well, er…’

  ‘You don’t remember, do you?’

  ‘I do, I do. It’s just a bit fuzzy is all. What… what did happen?’

  Faye considered telling him, but the thought of explaining that a straw version of Ernie Teach had invaded the poor woman’s home and was torn apart by her was exhausting enough. ‘Nothing. It don’t matter. I’m jumpin’ at shadows. Being daft. I keep seeing stuff that probably ain’t there and it’s driving me mad. I’ll stop it. I promise.’

  ‘I warned you about this, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you did, Dad. Consequences of apparent loopiness, you called it.’

  ‘You’re not loopy,’ Terrence said as they came to a stop under the Green Man sign. He sorted through his keys to open the door. ‘You’re just like your mother. You’ve got an imagination. You notice stuff other people don’t. The trick is to keep it to yourself.’

  ‘I will,’ Faye told him. ‘Cross me heart and all that. No more flights of fancy. I shall keep me head screwed on and me feet on the ground.’

  ‘Good,’ Terrence said, unlocking the pub door. ‘Now get up that ladder and wash those windows.’

  * * *

  After a cuppa and a spot of jam on bread, Faye changed back into her dungarees and clambered to the top of a ladder to wash the pub windows. Every now and then her thoughts drifted back to last night and Mrs Teach’s promises of answers at elevenses on Monday. Was that an appointment Faye would keep? Or would it be simpler just to put all this nonsense behind her? There was a war on. Enough to worry about as it was without strange fancies pecking at her brain. There was a calm simplicity in applying suds to glass. A pleasant satisfaction in getting them squeaky clean. It was tempting. An ordinary life where she could still be useful. Bread and jam and church on Sunday.

  Faye caught sight of Charlotte Southill again. Dressed in gumboots and a summer frock, pushing a wheelbarrow with two grey sacks up Perry Lane, a shortcut that folk took through the village when they didn’t want to be seen.

  ‘Just what the hell are you up to, then?’ Faye muttered to herself. The quiet life had its allure, of course, but Faye’s curiosity fed something in her that she couldn’t get elsewhere.

  Faye tried to put Charlotte out of her mind, but twice more that afternoon she spied her going back and forth. Bags full when coming from her cottage, bags empty when returning from the edge of the village. Faye finished cleaning the last window, hurried down the ladder, poured her suds down the drain and got on her bicycle in pursuit. She couldn’t help herself.

  Faye lost her at the top of the lane and ended up doing almost an entire circuit of Woodville. It was by the duck pond that she first noticed a line of black dust. She wondered if it was something dangerous, like gunpowder, so she dabbed her finger in and gave the stuff a sniff. Coal dust, ashes from a bonfire and another ingredient she couldn’t quite pin down. She followed the line of dust and was astonished to find it circled the entire village. Faye was almost back where she’d started by the duck pond when she turned down the Wode Road and found Charlotte. She was inside the wall of Saint Irene’s graveyard, carefully pouring the dusty contents of one of her sacks in a thin line that ran parallel with the old stone wall. Once the first sack was empty, Charlotte tossed it back in the wheelbarrow and wiped her brow, leaving a charcoal smudge on her forehead. The gumboots were a bit dress-down compared to Charlotte’s usual get-up, but her white hair was tied back in a neat bun and her scarlet lipstick was red as a poppy.

  Faye watched as Charlotte reached into a patchwork pocket sewn onto her frock, took out a hip flask, had a quick swig, then started with the next sack.

  ‘Morning, Miss Charlotte.’ Faye parked the bike and sauntered over like she always took a cycle through the church graveyard. ‘Lovely day, ain’t it?’

  ‘I know you’ve been watching me, girl,’ Charlotte said, not looking up from her work. ‘You would make a terrible spy. What do you want? I’m busy. And no tedious questions about your mother.’

  Charlotte’s rudeness made Faye blush, but she reckoned that meant the gloves were off. ‘What the blinking flip are you doing, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Mind you asking. Go away.’

  ‘I have every right to be here. As much right as you and your wheelbarrow and them sacks of whatever that is,’ Faye said. ‘And your goat ain’t here to spook me.’

  ‘He’s not my goat.’

  ‘I’ll ask again: what are you up to?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Is this about them scarecrows?’

  Charlotte said nothing and continued to shake her bag, backing away from Faye. The black powder poured out, glistening when it caught the light.

  �
��Coal dust?’ Faye asked, matching Charlotte step-for-step. ‘Ashes? What you been burning?’

  ‘Good grief, you’re like a little child,’ Charlotte muttered. ‘Leave me in peace.’

  ‘One of the scarecrows came back last night,’ Faye said.

  Charlotte didn’t look up but made a noise at the back of her throat that suggested Faye wasn’t telling her anything new. This was the first time Faye had mentioned scarecrows to anyone and not immediately been ridiculed. She was so used to getting the cold shoulder that she wasn’t entirely sure what to do next.

  ‘A proper living and breathing scarecrow,’ Faye persevered, waiting for Charlotte to call her a fool. ‘That’s what they are, aren’t they?’

  ‘So it would seem,’ Charlotte replied, and Faye wanted to clap her hands in delight.

  She restrained herself and angled her head to catch Charlotte’s eye. ‘I reckon it was Ernie Teach.’

  ‘Ernie Teach is dead.’

  ‘Then someone needs to tell him as it didn’t stop him last night.’ Faye adjusted her specs, then put her hands on her hips. ‘Ain’t no doubt in my mind the scarecrow that woke up half the village last night was definitely Ernie Teach.’

  Charlotte stopped shaking the bag. ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘He went straight for Mrs Teach’s house and he called her Philomena,’ Faye said, getting more excited. It was such a relief to share this with someone who didn’t just stare at her like she was a cow dancing the jitterbug. ‘No one was ever allowed to call her that except him, and how would some scarecrow know her name, anyway? I don’t know how a dead fella like Ernie Teach gets inside the body of a dusty old scarecrow, but considering all the peculiar goings-on we’ve had here these last few days, it makes as much sense as—’

  ‘Be quiet.’ Charlotte dropped the bag, raised her fingers to her lips and Faye shut up.

  Faye waited for the ridicule, to be told that she was a silly little girl, but Charlotte wasn’t looking at her, rather at something behind her.

  ‘It’s perfectly safe.’ Charlotte’s voice was gentle.

  Faye turned to face the trees on the other side of the church wall.

  Her heart began to thump as a shadow peered out from behind an oak.

  ‘You can show yourself,’ Charlotte said. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

  The figure shuffled from behind the tree. It wore a black cloth sack on its head made to look like a blackbird, complete with an orange beak.

  A scarecrow.

  22 BLACK SALT BURNS

  Faye was rooted to the spot. It was one thing to convince everyone else that these scarecrows were real, but to be so close to one in broad daylight brought its own special kind of fear. Its blackbird head didn’t help Faye’s nerves much, either. It kept twitching and darting from side to side. It was unnatural. Inhuman. Straw given life.

  ‘Come closer.’ Charlotte beckoned the blackbird scarecrow towards the wall. Faye watched as it hesitated, as if expecting some kind of trap. ‘I promise, I won’t hurt you,’ Charlotte said gently, as if speaking to a child. The scarecrow shuffled nearer to the wall. ‘Stop.’ Charlotte pointed to the long trail of black dust on her side of the wall. ‘See that?’

  The blackbird scarecrow peered where she was pointing.

  ‘Black salt,’ she said, waving it closer. ‘Come. Hop over. Careful now.’

  The blackbird scarecrow did as it was told.

  ‘That’s it. Don’t cross the line, not yet,’ Charlotte told him, then added, ‘Your kind may not cross this. I have protected the village, do you understand?’

  The blackbird scarecrow stared at her with little sign of comprehension.

  ‘A demonstration, perhaps,’ Charlotte said. ‘Come forward, just a little, yes, that’s it. A little bit more… a little bit more…’

  The blackbird scarecrow inched its slippered feet across the line. Faye watched them blacken. A small spiral of white smoke puffed up from each foot like the first wisps of a bonfire. The blackbird scarecrow quickly drew its feet back.

  ‘You see?’ Charlotte glared at it, her voice harder. ‘Cross this and you will burn. All of you. Go away and do not come back. Understand?’

  The blackbird scarecrow looked up at Charlotte. It had crossed stitches arranged in squares for eyes and it did not appear to be breathing.

  ‘Go and tell your master,’ Charlotte said. ‘He will know what this means, and if he’s half as clever as he thinks he is, he will stay away.’

  The scarecrow remained where it was.

  ‘Maybe… maybe it don’t speak English?’ Faye found her voice, though she was still breathless and awed.

  Charlotte shot Faye a silencing glare, then raised her chin, closed her eyes and muttered under her breath. Faye couldn’t make out the words, but there was something in their rhythm that reminded her of the rituals in her mother’s book.

  Light flashed, leaving streaks of green and purple on Faye’s retinas. Heat brushed her cheeks as a section of the black salt burst into flame.

  ‘Go. Shoo!’ Charlotte jolted forwards and the blackbird scarecrow vaulted back over the wall and fled like a startled child. It ran in zigzags between the trees before vanishing from sight. Charlotte muttered more words and the flames guttered into white smoke.

  Faye was half blind and giddy. If her mind wasn’t playing tricks, she had just seen an actual witch do some actual magic. ‘What’s… what’s black salt?’ she asked, half afraid to know the answer.

  ‘Two parts salt, one part coal dust and ash,’ Charlotte said, picking up her black bag. ‘I’ve had to burn a lot of coal and wood to create the ash I need to protect the whole village.’

  ‘From the scarecrows?’

  ‘It’s not the scarecrows that worry me,’ Charlotte said as she replaced the burned black salt with a fresh line.

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘That doesn’t concern you.’

  ‘There’s something worse than scary-arse crow people that have heads like blackbirds and pumpkins? And you’re telling me I shouldn’t be concerned? Pardon me, but I think I have a right to know.’

  ‘If you knew half the things I know, you would never leave your house of a morning.’

  ‘And that’s supposed to reassure me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I wouldn’t understand. Fine, but you’re a witch, aren’t you? A proper witch that can do spells and stuff. That was magic just then, weren’t it?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know,’ Charlotte said with a sneer. ‘Your mother was the same. All smiles and innocence.’

  ‘My mum? So my mum was definitely a—’

  ‘I said no tedious questions about your mother.’

  ‘You started it.’

  ‘Do me a favour and stop meddling in things you don’t understand, little girl.’

  ‘I’m seventeen.’

  ‘Yet you act like a child, prodding, poking, breaking, whining. For all I know you started this mess… or her.’

  Charlotte nodded towards the church. Faye spun to find Mrs Teach moving between the stones with a small bouquet of blue and pink hydrangeas clutched to her breast.

  Charlotte and Faye ducked down and hid behind a gravestone.

  ‘I reckon she’s a witch, too,’ Faye said in an excited rush. ‘She took that scarecrow last night and reached into its stuffing and—’

  ‘What scarecrow last night?’

  ‘Weren’t you listening to a word I said? Ernie Teach came back as a scarecrow last night and Mrs Teach pulled all its stuffing out.’ Faye wondered if this might be the most ridiculous thing she had ever said, and she waited for Charlotte to pour scorn on her, but it didn’t come.

  ‘That two-faced cow.’ Charlotte’s voice dropped to a shocked whisper. ‘She lied to me, right to my face.’

  ‘About what? Is she a witch like you? Does she—?’

  Charlotte pressed a finger to Faye’s lips to silence her.

  They watched, unseen, as
the widow found her husband’s gravestone and placed the flowers on the ground. She stood in silence for a moment, covering her eyes with her hand, her body trembling with sobs.

  Faye removed Charlotte’s finger from her lips. ‘This ain’t right. Spying on a widow’s grief.’

  ‘Her grief is half the problem,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘Don’t be so cruel. It’s normal for people to cry when their loved ones die.’

  ‘Yes, we cry, we grieve, we move on. Not her, though, not Mrs Teach. Oh no, she always has to get her own way, whatever the cost.’

  Mrs Teach let out another sob and blew her nose on a white hankie.

  Faye flushed with shame. She wanted to look away but couldn’t. Mercifully, Mrs Teach hurried back home, wiping the tears from her eyes.

  Faye didn’t speak till she was sure she was gone. ‘Are you saying that Mrs Teach brought her Ernie back from the dead as a scarecrow?’

  ‘No one has that power,’ Charlotte said, sounding only half certain of it. She stood and Faye followed as they made their way through the stones to Ernie’s grave, where the hydrangeas lay. It was one of many stones, but the words were freshly carved and the pain of grief still raw. Everyone in the village had gone to Ernie’s funeral.

  ‘Then who – or what – was inside that scarecrow?’ Faye asked. ‘Where did all these crow people come from?’

  Faye looked at the other stones, some hundreds of years old, and wondered about the lives of those who had lived and died here, and there she saw something that made the hairs on her neck tingle.

  ‘Miss Charlotte,’ she said, her words barely a whisper. ‘Miss Charlotte, look.’ Faye hurried to a stone behind Ernie’s, one faded and covered in moss, but the words were still legible:

  Susannah Gabriel

  Born 1868, died 1890 in God’s Grace

  Our ‘Suky’

  23 JUMBLY THOUGHTS

  The crow folk danced as a latticework of wispy clouds drifted across the sun and the air grew chill. Suky sat alone, away from the dancing. She did not feel the cold as she used to. She did not feel it at all. Old thoughts pressed at her mind. Did she ever feel the cold? The warmth of an embrace? One question came to her over and over. She had tried to ignore it in all her happiness and freedom, but it would not go away, and it was a question she knew she could not answer.