The Crow Folk

by Mark Stay

  ‘S’right.’

  Charlotte began sorting through the registers stacked in the trunk. The older records were parchments bound with ribbons, the more recent ones green leather books with yellowing pages. She checked the spines for dates. ‘Here,’ Charlotte said, hefting one out and placing it on a table, sending dust spiralling into the air.

  Faye opened the door wide to let more light in and peered over Charlotte’s shoulder as she leafed through the pages.

  ‘It’s all teeny-tiny, squirly-whirly writing,’ Faye said. ‘How can you make head or tail of it?’

  ‘Experience,’ Charlotte said, tossing one register back in the trunk and picking out another. ‘When you’re as old as I am… Ah, excellent.’

  ‘Found it?’

  ‘Births, marriages and deaths 1850 to 1900. Yes.’ Charlotte flipped the book open and a flurry of paper particles swirled in the air. ‘Oh, bugger.’

  ‘What?’

  Charlotte held the register open. Most of the pages had been nibbled down to the spine. Faye peered into the trunk to find a pair of mice huddled in the corner in a nest of yellow paper.

  ‘Is this your doing?’ she asked them. They shuffled back at the noise and there was a rustle as a tiny pink nose peeked out from the nest, followed by two more baby mice. Faye looked to Charlotte. ‘We should probably tell the vicar he needs a new trunk. This one’s occupied. Why… why’re you looking at me like that?’

  Charlotte was fixing Faye with narrow eyes as she propped up one arm on her elbow and tapped her lips.

  ‘You said something earlier,’ Charlotte mused. ‘Something about you knowing who she was, but it just needed shaking loose.’

  Faye wasn’t sure she liked Charlotte’s tone. ‘What’re you going to do to me?’

  ‘The human mind is a mess of stuff and nonsense. I can sweep all that away and help you find what we need.’

  ‘H-how?’

  Charlotte tapped her pipe on the edge of the washbasin, emptying ashes into its bowl. ‘I shall require a different instrument,’ she said, reaching into her pocket and bringing out a tobacco tin. Inside, dividers separated six different blends. She took a pinch of a dark brown shag and began to stuff it into her pipe.

  ‘You ain’t messing with my brain with that.’ Faye backed away and raised a warning finger.

  ‘It won’t do any harm, I promise,’ Charlotte told her through clenched teeth as she lit the pipe. ‘It will merely relax you for a short while, clear your mind.’

  ‘I might not want my mind cleared,’ Faye said, finding herself backed against the vestry wall and on the wrong side of the door.

  Charlotte’s voice was soft, seductive. ‘Do you want to find out who these crow folk are, or not?’

  ‘I do,’ Faye said as Charlotte took a drag on the pipe. ‘But will I be me again, after?’

  ‘Of course,’ Charlotte said, gently blowing smoke over Faye’s face. It had the zingy scent of oranges and Faye let it sink into her lungs.

  ‘Tell me.’ Charlotte’s voice was a seductive whisper, both close enough to make the hairs on Faye’s neck stand on end, and so far away that Faye’s mind had to stretch to find it. ‘Tell me about Suky Gabriel.’

  Faye felt all extraneous thoughts fall away like leaves off a tree in autumn. Words came easily. ‘I don’t exactly know a Suky Gabriel, but yes, yes, that’s it, I know Bertie Butterworth’s mum was a Gabriel, yes, Patricia Gabriel – God rest her soul – and her sister Shirley – she’s dead, too, but she was a grumpy old moo and no one had much time for her – Shirley had an aunt or a cousin or something who died young and who no one talked about because of some bad bit of business – illegitimate child or some such, terrible scandal, they reckon – and so anyways I think that must be our Suky and what time is it?’ Faye gasped for air as her mind began to clutter up again.

  ‘A quarter to two,’ Charlotte said, without checking her watch.

  ‘We need to go to the pub, right now,’ Faye said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘On Sundays we’re open noon till two. If we’re quick, we’ll catch him.’

  25 BERTIE BEGS FOR MERCY

  The saloon bar doors of the Green Man crashed open, revealing Faye and Charlotte in silhouette. They made a peculiar pair. Charlotte, slender in her boots and summer frock, face smudged with charcoal, and Faye in dungarees, fists bunched as she glared through her specs like a hunting dog with a scent. Her mind was still tingling after her experience with Charlotte’s tobacco. The floor tilted beneath her feet like the deck of a ship in a storm, and the light coming through the windows had a spectral glow to it. Apart from that she was fine.

  ‘Where the bloody hell have you been, young lady?’ Terrence said to Faye as he cleaned a pint glass behind the bar. ‘I’ve had a rush on.’

  Faye and Charlotte surveyed the room. There was one drinker in the pub.

  ‘Course they’ve all gone now,’ Terrence protested. ‘Lunch is over.’

  Faye ignored her dad and made for the lone drinker. Poor, unsuspecting Bertie was sitting snug in the armchair under the old photo of the hop-pickers He was enjoying a quick half of cider while reading The Beano with a frown of concentration normally reserved for the likes of War and Peace. The look on his face as the two women caught him in a pincer movement was one of bafflement and shock. He clutched The Beano to his chest for protection.

  ‘Er… hello?’ he said, eyes darting from one woman to the other, wondering what exactly he had done wrong.

  ‘What do you know about your great-great-aunt Suky?’ Faye got straight to the point, her speech only a little slurred. She could feel her mind filling up again with all kinds of day-to-day nonsense as it recovered from the effects of Charlotte’s tobacco.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your mum’s sister Shirley had an aunt – or she might have been a cousin – who died young and is buried at Saint Irene’s. What do you know about her? What did she look like?’

  Bertie’s face crinkled in confusion.

  ‘Think, Bertie, this is important,’ Faye said.

  ‘He doesn’t know,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘He must. Bertie, you remember the crow folk from the other night, right?’

  ‘The gypsies?’

  ‘They weren’t gypsies, Bertie,’ Faye said, daring to glance over at her father who was giving her one of his looks. ‘They were… dressed like scarecrows.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bertie smiled like he’d worked out a difficult sum in his head. ‘Yes, that lot. Queer bunch.’

  ‘And you remember one of them was called Suky…?’

  More crinkling. ‘Was she?’ Bertie shrugged. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘You must. She was the one who looked like a rag doll and told us she wanted Craddock.’

  Bertie slowly shook his head.

  ‘She raised up off the ground like she was hanging on a hook,’ Faye persisted, but Bertie was still blank.

  ‘She had a face made of sackcloth and buttons for eyes.’

  Bertie bit his lip. Nope.

  ‘She had a red gingham frock and a shawl on.’

  ‘Oh, that one.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She was called Suky?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I had an Aunt Suky?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes, don’t you remember?’

  Bertie scratched his head. ‘Sorry, Faye, Miss Charlotte. I’d love to help you, but Mum knew all that stuff and she took it with her when she passed away. Dad might know, but he’s out on the farm, and he’s expecting me back in a minute. I could ask him, but it weren’t no secret he didn’t much care for Mum’s side of the family, so I don’t reckon he’ll be much help, either.’ Bertie gripped his Beano tighter. ‘Please don’t be angry.’

  A dead end. Faye’s mind had all but returned to its usual overstuffed self.

  ‘Faye, floor needs sweeping and there’s glasses need cleaning,’ Terrence said.

  And they were s
o close. Faye glanced down at Bertie, still using his copy of The Beano as a shield. Oh, poor Bertie. She never meant to frighten him.

  ‘We could…’ Charlotte nudged Faye as she took the pipe from her mouth, pointing its stem in Bertie’s direction. ‘Same blend.’

  ‘What? No. He said he doesn’t know.’

  ‘He might be lying.’

  ‘Bertie don’t lie. Leave the poor lad be.’

  ‘Faye, the floor,’ Terrence said.

  ‘I’ll just slip off now, if it’s all the same to you,’ Bertie said, crouching as he ducked under and around Faye and Charlotte.

  ‘It’s not worth a try?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘Faye.’ Terrence was getting angry. ‘Faye, will you listen to me? Remember what we said this morning about keeping your head screwed on?’

  Faye ignored them all. She was looking straight ahead with a faraway expression.

  ‘Faye?’ Charlotte asked. ‘What is it?’ Charlotte followed Faye’s gaze until she saw the same thing. ‘Well, well, well…’

  ‘What?’ Bertie asked, one hand on the saloon bar door in case he had to do a runner.

  Faye stepped closer to the photo of the hop-pickers hanging above the armchair. It was an old sepia photo, faded by time with the title Hop Picking at Newton’s Farm, Summer 1890, of a group of twenty or so people gathered around a gypsy caravan and their crop of hops. Some were gypsy folk who helped with the hop picking in the summer, though most were locals of all ages, from toddlers to an old chap with a walking stick. Men stood with their arms folded, faces stern as they probably had to keep still for some time for the old camera. One held a wicker basket on his head, which must have made his arm ache. And there, at the front, was a young woman kneeling by the hops, holding a jug of water. She wore a familiar gingham frock and a shawl.

  ‘That’s her,’ Faye said. ‘That’s Suky.’

  ‘She’s been watching us all this time.’ Charlotte smiled. ‘We know who she is. Now what?’

  Faye hesitated. ‘If she’s the same Suky, if she was a living, breathing woman, then what does that make the rest of them? We need to find her and—’

  ‘FIRE!’ A cry came from outside. ‘Fire. The barn is on fire, come help!’

  26 FIRE!

  Faye and Charlotte barged past Bertie and dashed out into the street to find Ruby Tattersall calling for help, her face sweating and her bib and braces streaked with soot. Ruby was one of a dozen or so girls who had come from London to do her patriotic duty in the Women’s Land Army, helping on the local farms while the men were away fighting. Ruby stood out in Faye’s memory from all the other Land Girls because she was frightfully posh and had blotted her copybook in her first week by trying to milk a bull. Since then she had been a quick study and Harry now said he couldn’t keep the farm going without her. She had an empty wooden bucket in one hand and was frantically waving for folk to help. ‘Harry’s barn,’ she said, her voice choked from the smoke, ‘it’s on fire. We need more buckets.’

  Faye started to move but found Charlotte’s bony fingers gripping her arm.

  ‘Something’s not right,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘That barn is Harry’s livelihood.’ Faye wriggled free of her grip. Around them, villagers were hurrying after Ruby with buckets and pails. ‘Call the fire brigade and the LDV.’

  ‘Don’t go beyond the black salt,’ Charlotte warned, but Faye was already running around the back of the pub where she grabbed her window-cleaning bucket. By the time she was back in the street, Terrence already had an old wooden pail and their big saucepan and Bertie was limping after him dragging a tin bath. Charlotte had vanished. Faye hoped she was heading for the telephone box by the post office, but something made her doubt it. Someone somewhere started ringing a bell and Faye put the thought aside as she hurried up the street and past the church and the pond where the white smoke could be seen between the trees, spiralling up into the blue sky.

  * * *

  Faye arrived breathless at the barn and immediately wondered if Ruby had been exaggerating. The barn was upright, solid, still in one piece with just a bit of smoke coming out of the back. It didn’t look that bad.

  Then Faye heard the crackle of wood burning. She ran around to the front to find the doors blazing, orange flames clinging to black timber and spreading fast. The heat pressed against her face. ‘Oh, bloody heck.’ She glanced back to see half the village staring gormlessly at the smoke.

  The Local Defence Volunteers and the Air Raid Precaution wardens were the ones who had been trained to put out fires, but they were nowhere to be seen. Apart from Faye, of course, but she didn’t much fancy facing this alone.

  Poor Harry looked lost as one door fell away from the barn, landing on the grass and fanning the flames.

  Faye’s second fire in as many days. She looked to the sky, wondering if a murmuration of birds would come to the rescue like yesterday. But as the flames grew in intensity, she realised that all the birds in the world might not be able to put this out.

  ‘Form a chain,’ Faye cried, reckoning that if no one else was bothering to take charge then she had to. ‘Start at the pond and keep the water coming. Dad, you at the front. Ruby, you and Bertie get to the pond, and everyone else in between. Come on, you lot, move your arses.’ She clapped her hands and folk jolted into action. In minutes, buckets full of pond water were being passed from villager to villager, to Terrence and then to Faye, who hurled the contents onto the base of the flames where it hissed. There weren’t enough of them to stretch from the pond to the barn and folks were running back and forth with buckets, sloshing water onto the grass, and Faye was often left waiting for a bucket to come to her, and when it arrived, it was usually half empty.

  Faye’s skin prickled as the flames climbed higher. Tiles popped, the roof began to sag and beams started to bend. They were losing the fight.

  ‘More water,’ Faye hollered, the smoke catching in her throat and stinging her eyes. ‘Keep it coming.’

  Mr Paine arrived in his ARP helmet and joined Faye in geeing everyone along. A few of the uniformed Local Defence Volunteers appeared, led by Mr Marshall. They hurried into position with their now-repaired pump. As a handful of them unravelled the hose, the others joined the line and the buckets came faster and fuller now.

  Shadows swept across the grass and caught Faye’s eye. She took a moment to look up.

  Birds. Hundreds of them, more than she had ever seen, gathering high above and circling like water in a drain.

  ‘Dad, look,’ Faye cried. ‘Everyone. Up there.’

  People kept passing buckets at first, but one by one they started to look up, nudging each other, pointing into the sky as the birds swirled above, a black sheet on the breeze.

  ‘I saw this yesterday,’ Faye said. ‘The birds, they’re going to put the fire out.’

  Terrence shielded his eyes against the sun. ‘What are you on about, girl?’

  ‘You watch, they’ll circle, then come down and—’

  There was a crack of wood and the mournful groan of nails bending.

  Faye was shoved aside by her dad. ‘Look out!’ he shouted as the barn wall closest to them came crashing down, wreathed in white smoke. The displaced air threw grit and ash in their faces as they leapt clear. Faye’s specs tumbled to the ground and everything became a blur. Sweat soaked the back of her shirt and ran down her forehead and into her eyes. She scrabbled on her elbows to where her glasses had landed and wriggled them onto her nose.

  ‘Get back,’ Terrence yelled, waving people away from the fire.

  ‘No, Dad, you wait and see,’ Faye said, clambering to her feet. ‘The birds, they’ll—’

  As she spoke, the birds broke apart and scattered, flying in every direction away from the burning barn.

  ‘No, come back, come back,’ Faye called after them. Through her smudged lenses she watched as the sky emptied and the fire in the barn raged unchallenged. Nothing could stop it now. Faye staggered away from the heat, holding her da
d’s hand as they propped one another up, unable to speak until they coughed the smoke from their lungs.

  ‘Something must have scared them,’ Faye managed. ‘Something…’ Faye sensed shadows shifting in the surrounding woods.

  The crow folk were here.

  27 SUKY’S PARLEY

  The fire had been Suky’s idea.

  The others were afraid after what had happened with Craddock and their jolly brother. Flames catch quickly when you’re made of straw, but Pumpkinhead liked the idea and that was enough. He had boasted that he could put out any fire. His bluster troubled Suky for reasons she couldn’t quite fathom, but after his snapping and short temper she oh-so wanted to impress her Pumpkinhead. She put her troubling thoughts aside and volunteered to start the fire. She used the bottom of a broken bottle she found by the abbey, angling it in the sunlight to direct a beam that would set the barn alight.

  Something tickled at the back of her mind as she held the glass steady. A memory or a dream, she couldn’t be sure, but she had done this before. She had started a fire that got her a spanking and no supper for her troubles, that much she could remember.

  As soon as the flames caught, Suky hurried to safety. It had been a dry night, but it still took a while for the barn to kindle. When it did, the crow folk retreated into the wood and waited, peering out from behind the trees.

  The farmer was the first to see the black smoke and for too long he tried to put it out himself. The crow folk watched as he called on a handful of girls to help, but they were too few. He sent one into the village to raise the alarm as the flames continued to crawl and smother the barn. After some time, the people came in their droves and passed buckets along a line in a vain effort to quench the fire, but they were too late. The barn roof was already caving in and the flames licked higher. One wall came tumbling down.

  ‘Now,’ Pumpkinhead said.

  At Suky’s signal, her brothers and sisters stepped out of the wood and formed a circle around the villagers and the blazing barn. The villagers didn’t notice them at first, and it gave Suky a peculiar thrill when they dropped their buckets, nudged their neighbours and began to wail warnings to one another. They gathered into a protective group before the crackling barn.