The Crow Folk Read online

  Goliath was the brewery’s dray horse, a friendly giant who delivered the cart laden with a pyramid of beer barrels to the pub twice a week. He was a docile fellow, fond of apples and carrots, and frightened by all the aircraft buzzing back and forth from the aerodrome. It wasn’t uncommon for him to do a runner across a field, spilling barrels of ale as he went. Faye knew that her dad didn’t have to help coax Goliath out of a ditch. He was avoiding her. At least until he thought Faye had forgotten all mention of her mother being in cahoots with a witch.

  But if he reckoned Faye was going to let this one drop, he was dead wrong.

  Faye wolfed down her porridge, rushed through a few of her chores, then lost patience and jumped on her Pashley Model A bicycle. She had a witch to interrogate.

  * * *

  The bike’s wheels cut through the puddles from the previous night’s storm as she cycled through the village. Woodville shone glorious in the morning sun. Tudor buildings leaned over thatched cottages and cobbled streets. Red, pink, white and lilac petunias clustered in hanging baskets by every front door. Even the blemishes of wartime – sandbags on every corner, buckets of sand and water ready for fires, and windows criss-crossed with tape – felt oddly normal and comforting after last night.

  The butcher and baker were open for business and villagers queued outside their doors in an orderly fashion, ration books in hand. Faye smiled and waved at the faces she knew, which was everyone. Any other day and she would have stopped to chat, but she was on a mission this morning and Charlotte’s cottage was hidden deep in the woods, which meant a long cycle till the path petered to nothing, followed by a longer walk.

  As Faye came to the bottom of the Wode Road, she dodged a line of schoolchildren wearing gas masks, following their teacher in an air-raid drill. That’s when Faye caught sight of the white horse and cart of Doris Finch’s milk float turning off the road and heading out of the village.

  Doris lived in a cottage on the corner of Allhallows Lane. After her husband Kenny passed away, Doris had taken over his milk round. Doris was much liked in the village. She was always on time with her deliveries and had a cheerful smile, whatever the weather. The same could not have been said for Kenny, who had been snippy with his customers and his family. It would be uncharitable to suggest that Kenny’s sudden death from pneumonia two winters ago had been the best thing to happen to Doris, but it couldn’t be denied that she walked with more of a spring in her step since they buried him in Saint Irene’s.

  Her son Herbert, looking fine in his Navy uniform with his cap at a jaunty angle, was hitching a ride on the back of the cart and leafing through the sports pages of the Daily Mirror. Faye remembered the story Mr Paine had started to tell her last night, and she pedalled harder to catch up with them.

  ‘Morning, Herbert,’ she called as she weaved behind the cart. Its empty bottles clinked as it trundled down the road.

  The lad lowered his newspaper and smiled, revealing a missing tooth. ‘Faye Bright, as I live and breathe.’ It wasn’t quite the same happy-go-lucky smile he’d worn when first marching off to war last autumn, but there was still a hint of his chipper nature. He was only two years older than Faye, but he looked so grown up in his uniform. ‘How’s your old man?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s all right,’ Faye said, standing on her pedals as she coasted. ‘You got a bit of shore leave, then?’

  Herbert’s smile shrank a little. ‘Just a couple of days. I’m heading back now. Got a train to catch.’

  ‘Dad said you was on the Atlantic convoys on a big old battleship. That must be exciting.’

  Herbert’s smile remained in place, but his eyes looked down. ‘Has its moments.’

  Faye had read in the papers about the terrible battles faced by the Atlantic convoys, and Herbert had probably been in the thick of it. She got the feeling she should change the subject. ‘I was having a chinwag with Mr Paine last night,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, yeah. How is the big man?’

  ‘Tickety-boo, can’t complain. We was on ARP patrol last night and he mentioned you saw something peculiar on the train when you came here the other day.’

  ‘Oh, for—’ Herbert slapped his newspaper shut and turned to where his mother was steering the cart. ‘Mum, did you tell everyone in the bleedin’ village?’

  Doris craned her neck around. ‘Don’t blame me. You’re the one who—Oh, hello, Faye.’

  ‘Hello, Mrs Finch.’

  ‘How’s your dad?’

  ‘Tickety-boo, can’t—’

  Herbert cut through the niceties, snapping at his mother. ‘Who else have you told?’

  ‘I don’t recall, Herbert, and I wasn’t aware that it was privileged information.’

  ‘That means everyone on your round.’

  ‘Not everyone,’ Mrs Finch said, flashing Faye a cheeky grin.

  ‘Oh, wonderful. I know that look, Mother,’ Herbert said. ‘The only people who don’t know are the hard-of-hearing and the dead in their graves. Everyone’s going to think I’m off my chump.’

  ‘No, they won’t,’ Mrs Finch said. ‘You were all tuckered out after a long journey, that’s all.’

  Faye pedalled to keep up with the cart. ‘What did you see, Herbert?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t see nothing,’ he said, hiding behind his Daily Mirror.

  ‘Scarecrows,’ Mrs Finch said. ‘He saw folks dressed like scarecrows and one of them had a pumpkin on his head. Actually, no. How did you put it? Not on his head. For his head.’

  ‘Give it a rest, Mum.’

  Mrs Finch added, ‘He said this Pumpkinhead fellow smiled and waved at him as he went by.’

  ‘Mu-um.’

  ‘This pumpkin, was it like a mask? Or a funny hat?’ Faye asked.

  ‘No, a pumpkin,’ Mrs Finch asserted. ‘A right and proper pumpkin for a head.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘I’m just telling her what you told me,’ Mrs Finch insisted. ‘He was white as a sheet when I brought him home. Like he’d seen a ghost or something.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ Herbert said. ‘I was half asleep and probably dreamed it and I ain’t never telling you nothin’ ever again, Mother.’

  The milk float came to the junction at the bottom of Fish Hill and Mrs Finch steered it away from the village towards the train station in Therfield, the next town along.

  Faye pulled on her brakes, skidding to a stop at the junction. ‘Bye, Herbert, stay safe,’ she called after him. He waved back and a little of his smile returned.

  Faye gripped the handlebars of her bicycle and tingled at the thought of a walking, talking scarecrow with a pumpkin for a head. The poor lad was seeing things. For a start, pumpkins were out of season and wouldn’t be ripe till the autumn harvest. As the clip-clop of Doris’s horse faded away, another horse came cantering up the road.

  It was Goliath, being led by Mr Glover from the brewery and Faye’s father, who puffed up his chest when he saw her.

  ‘You found him, then.’ Faye lowered her bike and greeted Goliath, stroking his face. ‘Hello, big fella,’ she said, and the dray horse nodded his head in greeting. ‘Did those noisy Spitfires give you a fright? Eh? Oh dear. Mornin’, Mr Glover. Dad.’

  ‘Morning, Faye,’ Mr Glover said cheerily. He was a man as round as he was tall, topped with a flat cap and mutton chops. He took his yellow neckerchief off and dabbed his forehead. ‘Silly bugger ended up under the railway bridge. Shaking like a leaf.’

  ‘Oh, bless his soul.’ Faye gave Goliath a hug around his neck. He shook her off, embarrassed by the attention.

  ‘All right, suit yourself,’ she said, stepping back.

  ‘You done your chores?’ Faye’s dad greeted her more cautiously.

  ‘’Course.’ This was mostly true.

  ‘What you up to now?’

  ‘Out and about,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Just saw young Herbert Finch off.’

  ‘Did you hear about that?’ Mr Glover’s face broke into a grin. ‘Says he saw a man with a pum
pkin for an ’ead. How about that, eh?’

  ‘How about that indeed,’ Faye said, not taking her eyes off her dad. ‘Do you not believe in magical notions, then, Mr Glover?’

  ‘Nah, a lot of old rot. Fairy stories for little’ uns. For me, the only real magic is how a bit of hops, barley, yeast and water can become beer. There’s a miracle, right there.’

  ‘You don’t believe in witches and such?’ Faye ignored the steely glare she was getting from her father.

  ‘Er, no, course not.’ Mr Glover began to falter. He looked from Faye to Terrence and back again, sensing some unspoken hostility between father and daughter.

  ‘Did you know my mother, Mr Glover?’ Faye asked.

  Terrence said nothing, but oh-so-slightly shook his head.

  ‘Of… of course.’ Mr Glover was cautious, wondering where this line of questioning was going.

  ‘Was she a…’ Faye was ready to ask, ready to say the word, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Did she really believe her mother was a witch? That she could do magic and fly on a broomstick? It seemed so likely last night, in the woods, in the dark. But what had her mother really done? Written a book with some odd things in it. Been kind to people. Helped a bird that had been stunned. The more Faye thought about it, the more ridiculous it sounded. On the cusp of her thoughts, she could sense Mr Glover awaiting the rest of her question. She blinked herself back to the real world and adjusted her specs. ‘Was she… nice?’ Faye asked lamely.

  ‘Oh, she was lovely, your mother,’ Mr Glover said, slapping his hands on his belly. Terrence released the breath he’d been holding. ‘Kindness itself, always smiling and as wise as the day is long. And she helped my mother with her down-belows, if you know what I mean.’

  Faye didn’t exactly, but let the man continue.

  ‘Of course, there were plenty who reckoned she was some sort of witch, but I don’t believe that.’

  Four things happened in quick succession.

  Terrence looked at Mr Glover as if he would strike him dead on the spot.

  Faye’s heart skipped a beat.

  Three Spitfires thundered overhead in formation, their Merlin engines splitting the sky.

  And poor Goliath whinnied in fright, reared up and bolted down the Therfield Road.

  ‘Curse you,’ Mr Glover cried, giving chase. ‘Those things are a bleedin’ menace,’ he hollered as he dashed into the distance.

  Terrence hesitated, torn between helping Mr Glover and warning his daughter.

  ‘Tell Mr Glover,’ Faye said, ‘he should maybe stuff some cotton wool in Goliath’s ears.’ She leaned on the pedals of her bike and rode towards the wood.

  9 A TOAD, A GOAT AND A WITCH

  When the wood grew too dense, Faye left her bicycle leaning against a tree and continued on foot down the narrow woodland path. The brambles were in flower, pink and white, well on their way to becoming wild blackberries. One of Faye’s few distinct recollections of her mother was coming here to collect baskets full of them to make jam. She was four years old and she could still remember licking her sticky fingers clean and her mother doing the same. They walked home together that day, hand in sticky hand. Their last summer together. Faye’s belly twisted at the memory and the familiar flash of anger returned. How many other days like that had been stolen from her?

  If Mum had been a witch, she wasn’t like any that Faye had seen in books or at the flicks. Faye and the ringers had gone on a day trip to London to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, and in the afternoon they went to the pictures to see The Wizard of Oz. The witch in the film was bright green with a pointy nose. Faye’s mum was the colour of eggshell with freckles and had a smile that could brighten the darkest day.

  The air had grown muggy and squadrons of mozzies circled Faye as she ducked under them. The path became little more than a track and soon Faye was trudging through knee-high ferns and occasionally being slapped in the face by a branch before she found the clearing with Miss Charlotte’s cottage.

  It was a squat home, made of short logs piled crosswise and bound by cob, all hunkered under a turf roof in the depths of the wood. It didn’t want to be found.

  An axe rested by a chopping block. There was an outhouse and a herb garden. White smoke gently spiralled from the chimney and the aroma of aniseed lingered from the ground elder that grew in the shade.

  Faye stood some distance from it, making little fists and biting her lip. This was it. She would finally discover the truth about her mother. With a sniff, she marched to the cottage’s little wooden door and raised her knuckles to knock.

  ‘Go away.’

  Faye jolted at the unmistakable sound of Charlotte’s husky voice, and she looked for spyholes, wondering how the witch knew she had come.

  ‘I’m behind you, girl.’

  Faye spun to find Charlotte striding towards the cottage from the wood, a trug cradled in her arms full of mushrooms and herbs. A black and green toad sat on her shoulder like a pirate’s parrot. The toad croaked and Faye felt certain it was giving her a snooty look.

  ‘Mornin’,’ Faye said, trying to sound like she was just passing and decided to pop in. ‘Have you got a mo’?’

  ‘No.’ Charlotte marched past Faye and stepped inside the cottage, closing the door behind her. There followed the clunk of a bolt being slid into place.

  Faye stood where she was, feeling a right old lemon. She wriggled her toes in her shoes, wondering if she should just turn around and go home, but this was her morning off and she had a million other things she should be doing and she hadn’t come all this way for nothing.

  ‘Blimmin’ cheek,’ Faye muttered under her breath as she rat-a-tat-tatted on the cottage door.

  ‘Bugger off,’ Charlotte hollered from inside. This was followed by a dismissive croak from the toad.

  ‘Dad told me you knew my mum.’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘That’s more than I ever did,’ Faye said. ‘You were friends?’

  ‘I would love to reminisce,’ Charlotte said in a tone suggesting she would rather drench her body from head to toe in petrol and set herself on fire, ‘but I have urgent business to attend to. Leave me in peace, child.’

  ‘It’s just…’ Faye wondered if she should tell her everything. After all, Charlotte was probably the only person in the village who might possibly understand. ‘It’s just, I found this book, y’see. It was hidden in the cellar in a trunk with Mum’s knick-knacks. This dusty leather-bound thing, I reckoned it was maybe a ledger at first, or a Bible p’raps, but then I opened it up and right there on the first page it says Wynter’s Book of Rituals and Magic by Kathryn Wynter, which is her maiden name of course, so she must have started it before she met Dad, and she must’ve kept writing it cos it’s full of notes and sketches. There’s pictures of plants and herbs, and she invented her own bell-ringing method. And there’s all sorts of strange creatures and this stuff about magic and spells and there’s even a recipe for jam roly-poly. I mean, none of it’s real, of course. Except the jam roly-poly. But when you look at what she wrote in the book and the stuff she drew, I have to wonder if she believed in it or if she was a bit funny in the head. And if she knew you… Well, you get what I’m saying, don’t you?’

  Faye left the question hanging and cocked an ear, waiting for a reply. All she heard was the bucolic bustle of the surrounding wood. Birdsong, squirrels scurrying for nuts and the wind rustling through the leaves.

  ‘Hello?’ Faye called.

  From inside the cottage came a croak.

  Faye fumed. How rude could this woman be? Faye had come all this way for answers and she was blimming well going to get them. She shuffled around the cottage to find a high window. Trying not to step in the bed of brassicas, Faye stood on tiptoe, wiped the condensation from the window and peered through the warped glass.

  The room was murky, with a low ceiling propped up by timber beams, and on the white plaster walls there were strange markings that looked like the runes Faye had se
en in the book. Clothes had been tossed in every corner and dust twirled in the air. There was a bed with no sheets and on that bed was Charlotte. Fast asleep, quite naked, skin pale as milk, hands clasped across her breasts and with the toad resting on her belly. The toad turned its head to look straight at Faye.

  Croak.

  Faye jumped back, blushing, hand to her mouth.

  Bleat.

  Faye spun to find a white goat glaring at her.

  ‘She’s all in the nuddy!’ Faye told the goat, but the creature just lowered its head and kicked the dirt with its cloven feet. ‘Righto, fine, I know when I’m not welcome,’ she told the goat.

  The goat just stared at her with ancient intelligence.

  ‘Good,’ Faye said and marched back to her bicycle, all her determination leaving her like the air from a leaky balloon. She was a fool to have thought such things about her mother. She was an idiot for believing in magic. All she had found was a naked oddball who slept with toads and kept angry goats. Even if this magic malarkey was real, Faye was pretty sure she wanted nothing to do with it, thank you very much.

  * * *

  A yellow-striped damselfly hovered above the reeds then flickered away, startled by the breathless man grabbing a reed and yanking it from the water.

  Craddock snapped the hollow reed, blew through it to clear it, held it tight between his lips and slipped under the surface of the pond. He had seen John Wayne do this in a film once.

  Craddock took a breath through the reed and choked as his throat clogged with muck from the stem. He surfaced again and tossed it away, trying to suppress his coughing and cursing John Wayne’s name.

  There was a movement in the wood and Craddock backed further into the reeds. He froze, holding his breath as he watched the scarecrows pass as silhouettes, their heads darting from side to side as they searched for him.

  They had hunted him all night, cropping up wherever he turned, closing in and giving him nowhere to run. Craddock was strong, but even he needed to rest, and these ungodly creatures were relentless and never tired.