The Crow Folk Page 7

  ‘Scarecrows,’ he said, catching his breath. ‘Loads of the bloody things.’

  12 MARCH OF THE CROW FOLK

  Faye was about to ask her dad if he was gone in the head when she saw a movement behind him. Saint Irene’s Church stood at the very top of the Wode Road, and figures flitted between the gravestones, dancing and spinning as they came prancing out of the shadows. Faye tried to count. They wouldn’t keep still, but she reckoned there might be twenty or so of them. Some clapped, some struck sticks together, one squeezed a battered old accordion and another honked a horn as they twirled and whirled their way down the street.

  All except one. A man with a pumpkin on his noggin marched at their head, striking a cowbell.

  Faye’s heart thumped in her ears as he came closer. Herbert’s pumpkin man was real, and he was here, and he had brought all his scarecrows with him. The pumpkin was no mask, no funny hat – it was his actual, proper head. He was taller than the others, a good seven feet from top to toe, and Faye wondered if he was on stilts or if those skinny legs were all real, too.

  ‘Bit early for the harvest festival, ain’t it?’ Terrence said out of the corner of his mouth as he hurried to Faye’s side. ‘Maybe it’s the circus?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s the circus, Dad,’ Faye said, her mouth dry. She noticed the scarecrows were all wet up to their knees like they had just waded through a pond.

  The scarecrows fanned out around the pumpkin-headed man, leaping between the villagers who stood their ground like they all knew the rules of this odd schoolyard game. A few clapped along with uncertain smiles, but most were hesitant, waiting to see what would happen next. Faye thought about what Mrs Teach had just told her. People only see what they want to see.

  The scarecrows were mostly stuffed with straw and had sackcloth heads. Some of the heads were shaped like a blackbird’s, with yellow and orange beaks. One had an old leather football for a head; another had a smiley sunflower face with yellow petals sewn on. Another looked like a tin man, with a dustbin for a body, paint pots for his legs and buckets for arms.

  Pumpkinhead brought the parade to a stop by the Great War memorial cross, and he towered over all around him as he strode up its steps. He raised his arms. The racket stopped and the scarecrows flopped to the ground with a flump, with the exception of the tin man who sounded like a crash in a Heinz factory.

  All were prostrate before him, lifeless as rag dolls.

  ‘People of Woodville,’ Pumpkinhead said, his jagged, carved mouth moving in a way Faye could not fathom. ‘Let it be known the crow folk are no longer yours to do with as you will. We are free.’

  The villagers looked at one another in wonderment. Faye gripped the handlebars of her bicycle. An ancient part of her brain was politely suggesting she might want to get away as fast as possible, but she was as fascinated by these strange newcomers as the rest of the village. All the folk around her had bemused smiles on their faces, apparently happy for the distraction and no doubt wondering if there might be a puppet show and some juggling.

  All but one.

  Faye caught sight of Mrs Teach, skulking in the butcher’s doorway and glaring straight at the pumpkin fellow like he was the Devil himself.

  ‘Those costumes are pretty natty, aren’t they?’ Terrence whispered in Faye’s ear. ‘Clever masks. Like something from the flicks.’ Then he spotted what was in the basket on her bicycle. ‘Oh, you remembered the bacon. Good girl.’

  Faye squinted to get a better look at Pumpkinhead. If that was a mask he was wearing, then it was beyond her reckoning how it worked. His triangle eyes shifted, his brow furrowed and his smile widened as he reached out to the scarecrows lying on the floor like corpses.

  ‘Sister Suky,’ he said, slowly raising his hand. ‘Speak.’ Faye felt her ears pop and one of the scarecrows in a shawl and a red gingham dress slowly rose from the ground like a puppet on strings. Her knees did not bend and her arms were all floppy. When she reached her full height, she shuddered into life and hopped forwards. How did she do that? A few villagers clapped in appreciation of the trick.

  Suky clasped her hands before her, turning to address them all. Her wooden neck creaked like a squeaky door. ‘We seek one of yous lot,’ Suky said. ‘A poacher, if you please.’

  The villagers shared furtive looks.

  ‘He struck me across the face and turned my neck right around, he did,’ Suky continued, ‘and he went and maimed two of our siblings. He burned our jolly brother and worse.’

  ‘Craddock?’ Faye spoke to her dad out of the side of her mouth, but at that very moment the world fell silent and a breeze carried her whisper all around the village into everyone’s ears.

  The gasps of disapproval from Faye’s fellow villagers made her blush with shame. No one liked a snitch, after all.

  ‘That… that came out louder than I wanted.’ Faye bit her lip. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Yes.’ Pumpkinhead stalked down the steps of the memorial towards Faye. He made her want to cry out and duck behind her father, but she stood her ground. ‘Craddock,’ he said, extending his gloved hand to her. ‘That’s him. Give him to us.’

  ‘He ain’t exactly mine to give,’ Faye said, trying hard not to let her voice tremble. ‘But if I see him, I’ll let him know you was asking after him. I like your mask, by the way. Did you make it yourself? How does it work?’

  ‘Tell me,’ Pumpkinhead said, ignoring her questions and asking one of his own, ‘do you suffer witches in this village?’

  Faye’s cheeks blushed hot and condensation began to cloud her specs. ‘Who,’ she managed, once she got her composure back, ‘are you calling a witch?’

  ‘Yeah, y’cheeky sauce,’ Terrence said, jabbing a thumb back up the road. ‘If you can’t be polite, clear off.’

  ‘I merely ask,’ Pumpkinhead began, raising his head as if catching a scent, ‘as there is magic in the air.’

  Faye flushed giddy at all this talk of magic and witches, and she thought of her mother’s book and then tried not to think of her mother’s book, just in case this pumpkin chap could read thoughts.

  ‘This place reeks of it.’ Pumpkinhead smiled. ‘Yes, in the air, in the streets, in the trees, in the homes – and in you, Faye Bright.’

  ‘How… how do you know my name?’ Faye asked, breathless at the thought that this creature could see into her very mind.

  ‘It’s on your ration book,’ Terrence said, snapping up Faye’s junior ration book tucked in with the bacon in her basket. Her name was written in block capitals in thick pen on the front. Terrence handed it to her and she stuffed it in a pocket. The pub landlord squared his shoulders as he faced Pumpkinhead. ‘I suggest you be on your way, sunshine. We’ll see what we can do regarding Mr Craddock.’

  Suky stepped between Terrence and Pumpkinhead. ‘Sunrise, tomorrowday,’ she said, addressing the whole village in a loud and clear voice. ‘We’ll sees you at the abbey.’

  ‘Do not disappoint us,’ Pumpkinhead added in an overly cheery voice, then raised his arms. ‘Brothers and Sisters.’

  The scarecrows rose as Suky had, limbs slack and boneless.

  They hung there for a heartbeat.

  Then, as one, they all dashed wildly about the villagers, waving their arms and shaking their heads, hooting and howling like monkeys. Villagers scurried for cover, terrified, screaming.

  Faye dropped her bicycle and held her father tight, watching as Pumpkinhead loped back up the street, striding confidently through all the chaos, stopping only to doff his hat to Mrs Teach who was still half in, half out the butcher’s. To her credit, Mrs Teach raised her chin and folded her arms, fearless and defiant. Pumpkinhead grinned, then joined his fellow scarecrows as they disappeared down side streets, their cries echoing. And then they were gone, a chill silence all they left behind.

  Faye turned to her dad. ‘What the blinking flip just happened?’

  13 THE MOCKERY OF BIRDS

  The journey back to Therfield Abbey was playful for the cr
ow folk. They danced and sang as they moved through the wood with Pumpkinhead striking his cowbell to keep time.

  Suky spun and danced with the others, happy simply not to be tied to a cross in the middle of a field. Back then, she could only stare and wonder at what lay within the wood that looked so dark and distant. Now it was a revelation to her. She could sense the heartbeats of shrews as they scurried through the undergrowth, the flutter of wings above and all around. She spotted chaffinches nesting in the fork of a tree, feeding their chicks with wriggling grubs.

  All the birds sang to her, swirling above the forest canopy in time with the music. Suky twirled and they twirled with her; Suky raised her arms and they spiralled upwards; Suky splayed her fingers wide and they dispersed like leaves on a breeze, then came together again, matching her every move.

  ‘Do you see that, my Pumpkinhead?’ Suky called as she skipped through the wood. ‘Ain’t I clever?’

  ‘Do not consort with the birds, sister Suky,’ Pumpkinhead said, stopping his rhythm on the cowbell. ‘They are an enemy of the scarecrow.’

  ‘But, my Pumpkinhead, that was when we was scaring them off the churned-up fields for men with farms,’ Suky said, whirling around him. ‘We ain’t their slaves no more, like you said, so why not be chums with the birds? We should—’

  Pumpkinhead gently took her wrist, bringing her dance to an end. ‘Do not consort with the birds,’ he repeated, his zigzag smile in place, though his eyes had never looked blacker. ‘Do you understand me, sister?’

  ‘I… I do, my Pumpkinhead,’ Suky said, glancing up to see the birds flutter away into the trees. ‘I’m ever so sorry, I am. Honest.’

  ‘Nothing to be sorry for.’ Pumpkinhead stroked her sackcloth face, then called to the others. ‘Brothers and sisters, cease your revels.’ The crow folk gathered around Pumpkinhead. ‘Closer still, siblings, come closer so you can hear me. Good, good, as close as you can. Everyone join hands. That’s it. Good.’

  Suky took the hand of a scarecrow sporting a straw hat, and she felt Pumpkinhead’s gloved hand slip around her own. The thrill sent a shiver through her. All the crow folk were joined as one.

  ‘Listen, my siblings,’ Pumpkinhead said, his voice hushed as he glanced up to where a row of sparrows peered at them from the abbey’s teetering stone cloisters. ‘Do you hear the taunting of the birds? Their cawing and hooting and tweeting. How often have they mocked us in the past?’

  Suky was about to object when she found the others all nodding in agreement.

  ‘What if I told you that we, together, could silence them?’ As Pumpkinhead spoke, he squeezed Suky’s hand tighter and she began to feel peculiar. Lighter. Floaty. Her vision wavered like water in a pond. ‘Listen, brothers and sisters, listen to my words, we as one are stronger, we as one are more powerful, we as one will…’

  Pumpkinhead’s voice became muffled. Suky’s world went dark and she did not know where she ended and Pumpkinhead began.

  * * *

  Suky was rising high above the ruins of the abbey, the world tilting below her. She was a bird! They all were, her brothers and sisters and Pumpkinhead. They were one and they flew together, carried on the wings of the birds, hitching a ride in their minds, soaring and swooping like a child’s dream.

  And that’s when they saw him.

  Craddock. Exhausted, staggering as he splashed along the riverbank. He was heading towards the abbey. He was coming to them and it would only be a matter of time before they had him. Suky felt a sting of angry satisfaction that wasn’t her own. And then she sensed something else. Another presence with them. One bigger than Pumpkinhead. Bigger than the birds. A wise mind, not as old as Pumpkinhead, but perhaps as powerful. It rang in Suky’s ears like a bell. It frightened Pumpkinhead and Suky felt his fear bleed into her, cold and stiff. His anger made her giddy, and as he lashed out she could feel countless tiny hearts stopping, and her world went dark.

  14 THE HEART OF THE VILLAGE

  Woodville had a perfectly good village hall. Rebuilt after a fire in 1932, it served as a venue for village council business, the Woodville Amateur Dramatics Society, wedding receptions and children’s parties. It had electric throughout, parking spaces for two motor cars and even one of those fancy indoor lavvies. For the big emergencies, though, the good villagers of Woodville knew there was only one place they could gather for a rational debate.

  The Green Man pub was the real heart of the village and most of Woodville’s residents had squeezed themselves inside to harrumph and rhubarb about the bizarre events they had just witnessed. It was the noon-till-two lunchtime session and the pub hadn’t been this busy since New Year’s Eve. Faye held the fort at the bar while Terrence popped down to the cellar to change a couple of barrels.

  ‘Travelling folk, I reckon. Passing through,’ Bertie Butterworth said and got a flutter of uhms and aahs in vague agreement from the gathered throng. He had dried out since this morning’s little adventure in the river.

  ‘Do not disappoint us, they said.’ Faye folded her arms. ‘That sounds like a threat to me, and we don’t take kindly to threats, do we, folks?’ This got a rousing chorus of Yuuuurrrsss from the Local Defence Volunteers, who had also dried out. They could only recall a slight altercation between Mr Marshall and Mr Baxter when asked how this morning’s training had gone. Bertie was the same. Faye brought it up when he ordered his pint and he scrunched his nose and frowned, half remembering that something odd happened, though he wasn’t quite sure what. Why was she the only one who remembered the way the starlings put out the fire? Faye could understand the older men forgetting. At the forefront of their minds were Dunkirk and the war. They had been champing at the bit for a scrap since the retreat, and if they couldn’t fight Nazis, then a bunch of strangers dressed like scarecrows making threats would do for the time being, thank you very much. But Bertie should have remembered.

  ‘Ignore ’em,’ Bertie said, a voice of reason. He got a few boos from his LDV comrades. ‘Why pick a fight? They’ll be gone soon enough.’

  ‘I don’t think they’re going anywhere, Bertie.’ Faye fixed him with a slightly miffed stare and the boy wavered, slurping his cider, unsure why she was suddenly so cross with him. ‘And I don’t think they’re travellers,’ Faye continued, wanting to scream that they were clearly scarecrows, but also remembering what Mrs Teach had told her about folk only seeing and hearing what they wanted to. She caught Mrs Teach’s eye. The older woman was watching her from the end of the bar where she nursed a sherry. ‘And that name. Suky. I’m sure I’ve heard it before. Anyone here know a Suky?’ The villagers all looked to one another and in moments the pub was hosting a shrugging contest. ‘They called themselves crow folk. What does that mean?’ More shrugs.

  ‘A circus, I reckon,’ Terrence said as he emerged from the cellar. ‘I almost ran off with the circus when I was a lad, y’know?’

  ‘The circus?’ Faye squinted at her dad through her specs. ‘Since when?’

  ‘They came here when I was a little older than you. Had a bit of a fling with a woman who could put her ankles right behind her ears—’

  ‘Dad!’

  There was a splutter as Bertie choked on his cider, followed by a raucous jeer from the men in the bar. Mrs Teach, who had been uncharacteristically silent since the departure of the crow folk, raised an appreciative eyebrow and sipped at her sherry.

  Faye raised her voice. ‘Can we get back to the subject: a marauding band of scarecrows just demanded we hand over poor Mr Craddock.’

  ‘Gypsy folk, Faye,’ Terrence said with a stern voice. ‘It ain’t nice to call ’em scarecrows.’

  ‘Poor Mr Craddock?’ Mrs Teach spluttered, breaking her silence. ‘Let me tell you, young lady, he’s not poor, and he doesn’t deserve our sympathy. He is a brute. A cruel brute. He’s a proper scoundrel, and there isn’t a person here who’s not had an unpleasant altercation with the man.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Miss Burgess said. ‘When my Matilda was sick, he said I
should wring her neck and be done with her.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Terrence said as the rest of the pub gasped along in disgust. ‘Hang on, who’s Matilda?’

  ‘One of my chickens.’

  ‘He kicked my Mr Tinkles,’ Miss Gordon cried. ‘Called him a flea-bitten moggy.’ This got some murmurs of sympathy, though there were few in attendance who hadn’t been gifted something short, brown and smelly by Miss Gordon’s cat.

  ‘He started a salacious rumour,’ Mr Hodgson began, and the pub’s patrons held their breath in anticipation of the punchline, ‘about my knees.’

  ‘He let the tyres down on my brand-new Austin hearse,’ Mr Loaf, the usually jolly funeral director, declared. ‘Said it was in his way, so quite what he hoped to achieve by making sure it couldn’t move, I don’t know. Delayed old Mr Gregg’s funeral by an hour. Most distressing.’

  ‘I once saw him tip over Kenny Finch’s milk cart in an argument about clotted cream,’ Mr Paine said, idly sucking on a humbug. ‘Two miserable sods at each other. Hate to say it, but that was quite enjoyable to observe, actually.’

  ‘He was always mocking my Ernie’s height,’ Mrs Teach said, a faraway look in her eyes. ‘Shorty, titch, half-pint. Every time he saw my Ernie there was a new insult, but my Ernie took it all in his stride and with a smile. I can assure you that while my Ernie may have been lacking stature, he was a big, big man.’

  No one knew quite where to look. They had heard the rumours about Ernie, too.

  ‘Another sherry, Mrs Teach?’ Terrence offered.

  Mrs Teach slid her glass to him.

  ‘I like to think the best of folks,’ Bertie said from behind the dregs of his cider, ‘but if being a miserable bugger was an Olympic sport, then Mr Craddock would get gold, silver and bronze.’

  ‘And he was going to thump me one last night, but that’s no reason we should hand over one of our neighbours to these…’ Faye looked over to her dad, ‘Gypsies.’