White Crow

by Marcus Sedgwick

  Words drift into her head, images from books. For some reason she’s thinking of Treasure Island, but she knows why; she’s found the best pirate’s look-out point that ever was. Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson. Then music. She’s thinking about the cliffs and a song about bluebirds, but not even realising she’s got two different songs mixed up, the song in her head is Dorothy’s from The Wizard of Oz.

  She remembers the production at little school, smiling, remembering the blue gingham dress that she wore, and wonders if she can still hit those first two notes, a whole octave apart.

  ‘Some-where.’

  She falters, stops, and tries again, louder this time, and hits it perfectly.

  ‘Some - Where.’

  And before she can utter another note, the line is finished by a voice behind her.

  ‘Over the rainbow, bluebirds fly . . .’

  Her heart racing, Rebecca spins round, catching her heel on a rabbit hole.

  She falls, and knowing the cliff is at her back, her hands flail wildly, grasping for the ground.

  She ends up on her side, winded, her head hanging into thin clear space.

  She looks up into the eyes of the strangest-looking girl she’s ever seen.

  The strange girl says a strange word.

  ‘Ferelith.’

  Rebecca faints.

  Four Sea Interludes - I

  I left school when I was fourteen.

  I left because there was nothing else that anyone could teach me. I know this sounds like I’m boasting, but it’s just the truth. It was on the day that I found myself explaining Game Theory to my maths teacher that I knew there was no point being there any longer.

  I got up from my seat, ignoring all the names and the insults from the others.

  ‘Ferelith!’ my teacher yelled. ‘Sit down!’

  I didn’t.

  I walked out of the classroom, straight out of the school gates, and down to the bypass, and I put my thumb out until a truck stopped and I hitch-hiked all the way home.

  When I got home I expected a lecture about how dangerous it was to hitch-hike, but my father had other things on his mind.

  That was the day I realised that if there is a God in the sky then he’s vindictive and cruel, because I arrived home to find my mother being taken away in an ambulance. There actually were men in white coats. It’s really funny if you think about it.

  But I tried not to.

  I visited Mother a few weeks later, but the trip to the home that she had been sent to upset me so much that my father never took me again. Anyway, he lost interest after a couple of months, not just in her but in me too, so that was that and when he went away I was left on my own.

  So instead I made Winterfold my own, my own place, and I continued my education, in two ways. First, I used the internet, because I couldn’t afford the bus into town to go to the library, and anyway the library is really old and the books on the shelves there are dying.

  Secondly, I continued my education in a more important way, through the observation of everyone around me, because nothing is more important to learn in life than the interaction of a human being with another human being.

  And that’s what I did for a few years, and it suited me fine. Winterfold was the perfect place for my strange life. Claustrophobic. I lived a life of confinement while I bided my time. Maybe it’s not how everyone lives, but I don’t mind about that.

  I think I was waiting, though I didn’t know what I was waiting for. I think, though, that I knew I was waiting not for something, but for someone.

  So when I heard there was a new girl in the village, I went to find her and I found her in the Lover’s Seat.

  I watched her for a few moments, and decided she was as beautiful as they’d said in the pub. She had her back to me, so I hadn’t seen her face yet, just her winding red hair. I tried to think of what colour it was; burnt caramel, sunset corn, honey beer, and then I thought I sounded like the dumb names they give paint in the big DIY place in town. So I stopped that.

  She was singing! From my favourite film. I only needed two notes to recognise it, and so I joined in, but I think I scared her, which was stupid of me.

  She turned as she fell, and I rushed to her.

  I leaned over her and I think she must have thought that she’d fallen right over the cliff, because her eyes rolled back in her head and closed.

  I couldn’t pick her up, but I managed to pull her back away from the edge, and then I sat with her, as she lay on the grass.

  I didn’t look at her straightaway, I’m not sure why. Maybe she was too beautiful, too dazzling? No, that’s dumb. Maybe I just wanted to draw it out, discovering her face, I mean. So I looked and saw the softness of her skin, which as far as I could see was utterly perfect.

  That was enough for now, and so I sat with her till she woke up, my hand resting on her hair as she breathed lightly, watching the sunlight on the sea.

  1798, 8m, 19d.

  For the space of nigh a whole fourteen-night the Lord saw fit to visit upon me a sore and tiresome succession of bodily evils, which kept me abed until yesterday around Vesper.

  Today being the Lord’s day, I performed my duties, now, God-to-praise, mercifully freed of my sicknesses. I confess that even as I performed these duties with my ever-firm intent, I was mindful that we might find a new parishioner among us. I was thwarted however, for though I cast an eye across the whole of my dwindling congregation, I could see no one that befitted the description of the new French doctor.

  Indeed, I recognised every solitary sore-ridden face of my cursed flock, God save them. Each and every one a sinner, I am sure, but that is not for me to judge, but for Him.

  And so, I blessed them all, and sent them scurrying back into the August sun with visions of Hell snapping at their behinds.

  My labours for the Glory of God being at an end, I decided that it was indeed something of a slight on the part of the doctor not to come to the Lord’s house on a Sunday, and so I ventured to make a visit myself to the Hall, and introduce myself and the village to our newcomer.

  Tuesday 20th July

  As Rebecca comes to, she’s dimly aware of a presence close by her, but when she opens her eyes, there’s no one. At least, not at first.

  She sits up and sees the girl there, standing by the cliff edge, looking down at the beach. The girl turns and smiles.

  On second sight, she is still strange-looking; there’s something elfin about her. Everything ends in points; her nose, her eyes, her chin, her lips, her fingers, the spikes of her long tresses of black hair.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she says.

  Rebecca’s still too muggy to think clearly.

  ‘You were singing,’ Ferelith remembers.

  Rebecca gets to her feet gingerly.

  ‘Careful. It was the shock.You don’t want to get light-headed again.’

  ‘Why are you standing so near the edge?’ Rebecca asks.

  ‘Same reason as you,’ Ferelith says. ‘It’s irresistible, somehow, isn’t it? To stand on the edge. Don’t you think so?’

  Rebecca listens to the curious way Ferelith speaks. Somehow old-fashioned and posh, but not posh-sounding.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Ferelith. I told you that. But maybe you didn’t hear because . . . You know, because.’

  She gestures at the spot where Rebecca’s sixteen years nearly ended.

  Ferelith smiles. Rebecca notices more pointyness about her; her teeth, not quite a vampire’s, but not far short. Already Rebecca feels there’s something odd about this girl, though she wouldn’t be able to put it into words. More than odd. Something darker than that, maybe.

  ‘I saved your life!’ Ferelith exclaims, dramatically, like a line from a bad film.

  Rebecca doesn’t smile.

  ‘Why were you singing?’

  ‘I’d better be going,’ Rebecca says, not looking at Ferelith, more upset now by the embarrassment than the fact she could have
been killed.

  ‘Why? Where is there to go?’

  Rebecca stops short. The girl has put her finger on something that she can’t disagree with.

  ‘That’s a strange name,’ she says.

  ‘Ferelith? Why do you think so?’

  ‘Well, not strange, then. But I haven’t heard it before.’

  Ferelith nods. ‘Uncommon. That’s what you meant to say. It means “stone bringer”. It’s Greek.’

  Rebecca frowns.

  ‘Your name means to tie or to bind. It’s Hebrew.’

  Rebecca frowns some more, and Ferelith moves away from the edge now.

  ‘How do you know my name?’ she asks.

  Ferelith doesn’t seem to feel the need to answer this.

  ‘I like your crucifix,’ she says instead. ‘Who gave it to you?’

  ‘How do you know anyone gave it to me?’ Rebecca asks, but again Ferelith changes the subject.

  ‘Why were you singing that? Dorothy?’

  Rebecca shrugs.

  ‘It popped into my head. That’s all.’

  ‘Do you know it almost got cut from the film? The most famous song in it, and they nearly left it out. Can you imagine that?’

  Rebecca doesn’t know what to say, finding the whole conversation too convoluted to understand.

  ‘It’s my favourite film. Is it yours? Or do you just like singing?’

  ‘I played Dorothy at school,’ Rebecca says before she knows what she’s doing.

  ‘You’re the policeman’s daughter, aren’t you?’

  Rebecca stiffens, wondering what the girl knows.

  ‘You’re his daughter, aren’t you? I suppose you’ve just come here for the summer. That’s okay. Lots of people do that. Do you like it here? There’s not much to do.’

  ‘Not much? You can say that twice.’

  Rebecca smiles.

  ‘That wasn’t so hard,’ Ferelith says, and before Rebecca can ask what she means, adds, ‘Yes. Very little to do. But I could show you some things, some places, if you like. We could be friends.’

  She takes a couple of steps towards Rebecca, who stiffens again.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she says carefully. ‘Thanks. Thanks for seeing I was okay.’

  She turns, pushes through the bushes, and walks quickly back towards the village.

  On the way back up The Street, she passes the pub. She looks at the sign, and where there was an angel, there is now a devil.

  Another handsome figure, he’s holding a black pitchfork, the tips of which are glowing red, the same colour as his skin. Though he’s only visible from the waist up, the end of his forked tail curls behind him, and the fires of Hell rage all around. And unlike the angel Rebecca saw earlier, gazing up to the heavens, the devil is staring right at her, grinning.

  Leering.

  Now, Rebecca reads properly the name of the pub painted on the front wall, large black ornate letters on the creamy white brick, and she understands. The sign has one picture on one side, and a different one on the other.

  The Angel and The Devil.

  1798, 8m, 23d.

  I am afraid.

  O Lord! Look down on this, my Evening, and mend it, before Sunset comes forever.

  1798, 8m, 24d.

  I must record that I received a visitor this morning. As the sun shone fair on the Rectory gates, I spied a figure approaching, and at once knew it to be Dr Barrieux.

  My hands trembled as I, finding Martha absent, opened the door to my home. He waited but briefly and yet would only stand two feet inside, and then invited me to dine at the Hall on the eve of the Lord’s day, being the morrow.

  1798, 8m, 25d.

  God!

  What I found there, at the Hall!

  I cannot set it down tonight. I will take a bottle to my bed and that and God will aid my sleep, I pray.

  1798, 8m, 26d.

  God abandoned me in the short hours of the night, and I was sent a series of visions of Hell.

  Who can measure this place?

  It is infinite. The sky is brooding and red, the ground is hot, and sharp, and cuts the soles of the feet. The air is rent with the cries of the sinful as they receive their punishment, a flaming wind blows upon all sides causing madness, as of dogs.

  What vast unnameable horrors are found!

  I saw them all.

  The sinners each tortured for all eternity according to their crime.

  The lustful are cast upon spits and roasted on the fires of their former passions, and yea, are whipped by devils with the faces of dogs and the legs of the horse. They whip the lustful ones with leather thongs made of their own skin.

  On another mountainside, are the gluttonous. Here they swim among the slurry from their own greed, forever drowning.

  There lie the blasphemers, among piles of dry and dusty stones, each forced to eat the rock of truth they denied in life. They choke and gag as their teeth splinter and blood wells from their gums in never-ending streams.

  I awoke from my torments in the dark morning, and slept no more.

  Such are the visions of Hell.

  But what then, is Heaven? How does the celestial realm appear? Why, Lord, is it so much harder to bring to sight than the other place?

  Friday 23rd July

  Friday night and Rebecca considers her fate.

  Should she re-read the stupid novel she finished this morning, or watch The Wizard of Oz, for some reason the only DVD in the house.

  Her father’s gone out. She doesn’t know where. It seems he’s out when she’s in and she’s out when he’s in, a carefully orchestrated avoidance.

  She’s texted a few people back in Greenwich, but had no replies, which makes her feel like ancient history. She’s texted Adam, as if everything is okay between them, telling him a little about Winterfold, a little about Ferelith, but he hasn’t replied either. She’s miles away from home, with all the freedom in the world, but nothing to do. Not even anyone else to do nothing with.

  As she thinks that, the girl, Ferelith, pops into her head. She tries to pin down what she found so strange about her, but can’t. It’s more than the way she looks, though, she knows that. More than her thin pale skin and pixie eyes. It’s something about what’s inside, but Rebecca can’t tell what that is yet.

  Idly, she gets off the sofa and picks up the case for the DVD, her face burning as she remembers being caught singing.

  She wonders what the film is doing there. Her father won’t have bought it, even he knows enough about her to know she’s too old for that kind of stuff now. Maybe the people who own the house left it.

  She wonders how long her dad will stay in this cottage, what will happen when they go back home, whether they’ll have to run away again.

  She stops herself, checking that she did actually think of it as running away. But what else would you call it?

  The light in the cottage is failing as dusk falls, but rather than put a lamp on, she takes the DVD case to the window to read the label, and then promptly drops it as she sees a face outside pressed up against the glass.

  Ferelith.

  Her face disappears. A moment later there’s a knock at the door.

  Rebecca is halfway across the room when the door opens and Ferelith walks in.

  ‘I came to see how you are,’ she says brightly. ‘After the other day. I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care.’

  ‘You can’t just come in here,’ Rebecca says.

  ‘Why not?’ says Ferelith, but more like she’s wondering aloud, than asking Rebecca. She makes an observation: ‘Alone tonight.’

  ‘Yes, so?’ Rebecca snaps.

  ‘Just wondering. No one likes being on their own, do they?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Rebecca says, admitting to herself that she’d been looking forward to wallowing in her misery for a whole evening.

  ‘Well, you say that, but . . .’ Ferelith shrugs. ‘Suit yourself.’

  ‘I think you should go now,’ Rebecca says, trying to
sound calm. Ferelith sees the DVD on the floor and picks it up.

  ‘Do you want to see a Munchkin commit suicide?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, do you want to see a Munchkin hang himself? Really. It’s a thing that happened on the set when they were filming. It’s hidden away in the background but if you know where to look . . . There’s stuff about it on the internet.’

  Rebecca looks hard at Ferelith, trying to see into her and failing, though she senses that Ferelith can see straight through her.

  ‘Are you trying to make fun of me?’ is all she can think to say.

  Ferelith smiles.

  ‘No. The Munchkins were a bad lot, always drinking on set, and so on, and then on the other hand, they were really badly treated by the studio, and then one of them decided to protest against the shoot by pretending to hang himself in the trees in the background. Only he messed it up and did it for real.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘No. You can look on the net if you don’t believe me. Better yet, I’ll show you.’

  She bends down to the DVD player, and grins up at Rebecca.

  ‘Want to see?’

  Rebecca suddenly laughs.

  ‘Yeah. Why not? Show me a suicidal Munchkin.’