White Crow

by Marcus Sedgwick

  Rumours started spreading as to what was going on in the house, and still the visitors came.

  And rumours started going around that the people who went in never came out at all.

  So one day, a small boy from the village (why is it always a small boy in these kinds of stories?) decided to try and find out what was happening, and one evening, he sneaked into the Hall through the kitchens, and hid behind a curtain in the entrance hall.

  Eventually, he fell asleep, and when he woke up it was very far into the night, and dark. He listened from behind his curtain, because right at that moment, Barrow the wizard was welcoming a new guest to the Hall.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Barrow asked the guest, and the guest, from the sound of his voice, an old man, announced that he was.

  But Barrow was not satisfied, and repeated his question, not once, but twice more.

  ‘Are you sure? Are you sure?’

  And each time the old man said he was.

  ‘Very well,’ said Barrow, ‘I have asked you three times,’ and he led the way into the depths of the house. The small boy followed unseen, and was in time to glimpse Barrow and the old man enter a small room in the very centre of the house. Barrow carried a candelabra, with five lighted candles on it. All the boy could see as the pair entered was a large chair standing in the middle of an otherwise apparently empty room, but a few minutes later Barrow left the room, without the candelabra.

  He turned and locked the door, and then disappeared along a passageway. The boy didn’t see him again that night. But it took him a long time to get up the courage to go and spy through the keyhole.

  When he did, his eyes must have opened as wide as saucers, for this is what he saw. The old man was tied to a chair by thick and strong ropes, and by the light from the candles, the boy could see that the chair was some rather strange apparatus, bolted to the floor. The candelabra stood on the floor a few feet in front of the man, otherwise, the room was empty.

  The boy waited. And waited, and waited some more, and nothing happened.

  He went back to his hiding place, and must have dozed, because he woke suddenly and rushed back to the keyhole. The man still sat there.

  Two of the candles had gone out, and the third was guttering, almost gone too.

  And the man was whispering. Whispering something over and over again, the same five words, but so quietly and quickly that the boy could not hear what he said.

  Then the third candle went out, and just a few minutes later, the fourth. The old man kept repeating the same five words, again and again and again, like an incantation of his own. And now the whispering grew louder, and the boy heard what he was saying:

  “The angel or the devil, the angel or the devil, the angel or the devil . . .”

  Then there was a long wait, a terrible, long, long wait, while the fifth candle flickered and spluttered, nearly died and came back to life, and without warning went out. The room was plunged into darkness.

  Then came a different voice.

  ‘Are you a God-fearing man?’

  That was all, and a few seconds later, there came a terrible scream, which sent the boy running from the Hall.

  Barrow had discovered the power to summon spirits, right there, in Winterfold Hall, but whether the spirit was good, an angel, or bad, a devil, depended on the person.

  If the person had led a good life, and was going to Heaven, they’d be sent an angel, to calm them and soothe them and tell them Heaven was waiting.

  But if they had sinned, then a devil would come and warn them to repent while they still could, filling their minds with the horrors of Hell.

  And if they had sinned so badly, that there was nothing they could do to redeem themselves, then the Devil would take them there and then, and drag them off, screaming all the way to Hell.

  It’s quite a horrible story.

  I love it.

  1798, 9m, 22d.

  O my folly!

  For even the greatest part of my life has been spent in the care and consideration of the bodies of other men, to the exclusion of care for mine own, and in so doing I have exacerbated the neglect of my soul.

  Lord, mend me!

  Save me!

  Before it is too late.

  1798, 9m, 23d.

  Hell is an infinite plane, for the sinners of the world are without measure. I know its roads and its byways, and they are all horror.

  Come walk with me for a time (I will give you wooden shoes to prevent the ground from burning you) and we may spend a spell with the Devil and his uncountable wicked apprentices, each one assigned to torture one damned soul for all eternity.

  With each arrival in Hell, in a crashing ball of flame that thunders to the ground like a plunging cannonball, the Lord of Darkness spawns a new demon from a vast slunky pond of evil. The thing crawls out like a babe from a blanket, but rather than suckle at its mother’s teat, it rears up at once on warty leg and cloven hoof, and leers at the soul to which it has been assigned.

  Now does eternity of pain commence, and the various crimes and misdemeanours of the victim are weighed and measured, and appropriate punishment devised.

  So here are the fornicators, penetrated forever with pokers red-hot from the furnace.

  And here are the thieves, writhing in agony on beds of thorns as snakes bite and suck at their skin, their fingers, their eyes.

  Those who lied, who inflicted the disease of untruth upon their fellow men, suffer from every disease that ever was known to man, and many that have not yet been known. Their skin falls from their bones, their eyes bleed, their hair falls from their skulls, and loud is their groaning, loud!

  The corrupt are immersed in lakes of boiling tar.

  The sorcerers have their heads twisted backwards.

  The suicides are turned into trees and are pecked at by harpies.

  The violent are piled upon each other in a pit that has no bottom, and arrows are fired at them should they try and climb thereout.

  But, O Lord, is Hell only waiting for us after death, at the moment of judgement?

  Or is it already here?

  After giving The Word today, I made my rounds of the village and I saw these three things.

  I saw Grimes the landlord weeping from the pain in his hands and his back as he heaves the barrels of beer into his cellar. His bones have weakened on him, his wife is frail and blind and can give no help, his son is dead in the war in America.

  I saw a family of bodies sickening in a single cell in the huts by the farm, for that is their whole space, each one infected with the illnesses of the other, each too hungry to move all the livelong day.

  I saw the Meadows boy kicking at a cat, fetching it a great boot up the behind, and when I called him and bid him stop, and bid him tell me why it was he did this thing, he did not answer, but ran away. As he ran I saw upon his brow and his cheek the swellings of the bruises from his father’s fist.

  Hell is upon me.

  Hell is upon us all, unseen, at every turn.

  Lord, will you not save us yet?

  Must we wait so long?

  Must we wait in vain?

  Tuesday 27th July

  The day is done, and Rebecca suddenly wants not to be sitting under a damp bridge listening to ghost stories.

  She gets up abruptly and leaves the secrecy of the arch, not bothering to ask if Ferelith is coming.

  ‘Meet me tomorrow?’ Ferelith asks.

  Rebecca doesn’t answer. Instead she asks a question of her own.

  ‘So you never told me. Do you believe in God?’

  Ferelith raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, I believe in God. But you know, the trouble is, I don’t think He believes in me. Not really.’

  Her voice is a strange mix. She’s trying to be sardonic, but Rebecca senses something frail, almost vulnerable, underneath. Just a hint. But she can see she’s not going to get a straight answer and stalks away through the tumbling vegetation of the grounds of the Hall.

  �
�Two o’clock?’ Ferelith calls after her.

  She doesn’t reply.

  Suddenly she feels very alone, and fishes in her pocket for her mobile.

  She calls Adam.

  She’s almost surprised when he answers.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It’s me,’ she says, feeling defensive already. He doesn’t say anything at first, so she goes on.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  His voice is cold. Her heart quickens.

  ‘What do I want?’ she asks, feeling anger rising inside. ‘I thought I might speak to my boyfriend, that’s all.’

  ‘Listen, Becky.’

  ‘What?’ she says, then stops herself. She makes herself speak more gently. ‘What?’

  ‘Listen. The thing is, I’m not your boyfriend. Right?’

  ‘You’re . . . what? What do you . . . ?’

  ‘Listen, just forget it, okay? I’ve got to go now, anyway.’

  Then Rebecca hears laughter, but this time, it’s just one other voice. A girl’s voice. She hears the girl speak to Adam.

  ‘Come on,’ she says.

  That’s all. But Rebecca doesn’t need to hear any more to know what’s going on.

  She hangs up, then immediately thumbs for the last dialled number. She hesitates, staring at the number. Inside her she feels the seeds of disbelief, panic, and pain. They grow.

  She’s still staring at the number as she gets back to The Street, and is surprised to see her father’s car outside the house. She shoves her mobile back in her pocket.

  Suddenly her father comes out of the house looking slightly ridiculous, wearing yellow rubber gloves and carrying a big bucket.

  On the ground beside the car she sees an array of bottles, white spirit, kitchen cleaners, and a big sponge.

  Her father is scrubbing away furiously at the side of the car and doesn’t see her coming, but when he does, his face darkens and he doesn’t say a word.

  ‘Dad,’ she says, ‘What is it?’

  He doesn’t answer, just keeps on scrubbing at the mess on the side of the car.

  Something is written there, in big red letters, bright against the white bodywork.

  It’s hard to read because someone, presumably her father, has tried to clean it off, and now he’s making even more of a mess of it with whatever cleaning fluids he can get his hands on.

  But she can read enough of it to know what it says.

  ‘Who did it?’ she asks quietly, but still he says nothing.

  He throws the sponge he’s using into the bucket, stands and kicks the side of the car.

  Three old ladies are walking by, staring at her, at the mess, at her father standing there with washing-up gloves on. They whisper something to each other and Rebecca glares till they move on.

  He kicks the side of the car again.

  ‘Dad, don’t,’ Rebecca says, but her father is not listening.

  More people are passing and looking and her father turns and strides into the house, slamming the door.

  Rebecca is left in the road, without the beginning of an idea of what to do.

  She gazes at the side of the car.

  He’s barely managed to remove any of the paint, and it’s still possible to make out what someone has scrawled across it in tall red letters.

  CHILD KILLER.

  1798, 9m, 24d.

  Today I read the Apocalypse.

  As I have read it so many times before. Is it really so that there is a false Church, a Church of falsehoods, ruled by the Lord of Lies? And is it so that this anti-Church is the object of God’s wrath and that it shall be destroyed at the day of judgement?

  And if it is, then why must we wait till doomsday?

  Why must we wait for evil to be vanquished?

  1798, 9m, 24d.

  Ate and drank, but to live, and no more. I am indeed a virtuous and devout fellow.

  1798, 9m, 25d.

  Rose early to prayer, and bowed long and low before the Lord.

  1798, 9m, 26d.

  Displayed a notable tenderness of being today, and thought me of the trumpet of God sounding to eternity.

  1798, 9m, 28d.

  O Lord. Again my wretched dwarfish self emerges like a very demon and betrays me. Last night I sinned, of the flesh. I am going straight to Hell.

  And yet though all is prepared with the good doctor Barrieux, I am hesitant to commence our great and noble work.

  I went to the Hall today and made it my purpose to speak to him upon this issue, and to question him for the thousandth time about our intentions, but when I came hence, I found that he had turned each of my arguments aside with ease, and that I found my purpose and vigour for the project renewed.

  The Lord wrote ten Commandments on tablets of stone. We will break three of them, for the least, I am sure. And yet I find I do not heed this sin, such is the power of the doctor’s argument.

  The Hall was quiet. All the workmen gone unseen in the night, just as they had arrived.

  There was nothing left to do but to commence our labours and yet there remains one unanswered conundrum, one puzzle that we must solve before we can begin.

  How are we to find souls for this undertaking of ours?

  Kindertotenlieder

  Of course, no one thinks he actually killed the girl. Well, no one sane, anyway. But how did the report put it? ‘Severe negligence on the part of Detective Inspector John Case that can only have contributed to the girl’s death.’

  The girl. No one even knows her name, not while it’s still under appeal. Of course all the newspapers and the TV people know, but until he’s had his chance to appeal they have to keep quiet about it.

  Becky’s father doesn’t have that anonymity though, and now everyone knows who he is and why he’s ‘after a quieter life’ in the countryside.

  Poor Becky.

  She and her dad didn’t come out for days after that thing with the car. They ordered lots of pizza and a van came with food from the supermarket, or that’s what they said in the pub, anyway.

  Must be tough living with something like that hanging over you. But not as tough as being the parents of the dead girl, I guess.

  You wonder how someone copes with that. I suppose if you believe in these things, you can think, little Tracey, or whatever her name is, little Tracey’s in Heaven now. And that must make you feel better.

  But supposing little Tracey was an absolute pig. I know it’s not nice to speak ill of the dead, but it’s possible, for the sake of argument, that even though she was only fifteen that she was a violent, thieving, lying, nasty piece of work. And in that case, has little Tracey gone to Heaven, or is she down below, toasting slowly on a big pitchfork while the Devil and some of his mates laugh about it all?

  But anyway, assuming little Tracey was an angel on earth, then she’s an angel now, floating on a cloud somewhere I suppose, or riding an invisible pony, and it must make her parents feel better to think that. Better to think that than to think she’s gone forever, and they can remember her, and think of her and sing songs for her. Songs for dead children.

  And if that’s where she is, then there’s even the chance that she might contact her parents, with a sign, or a haunting, or a visitation. Or even a postcard. I don’t know, but all I’m saying, is that if she did, then she’d be the white crow.

  And it only takes one.

  Friday 30th July

  The week passes like an agony for Rebecca. A slow and painful torment. Her father has shut down, barely speaks to her, drags himself out of bed and out of the door, drags himself back home again.

  He stares at the TV every evening, a fast food box or a ready meal on his lap, and a can of beer in his hand. It’s as though he’s switched off, just like that, like a light going out. Suddenly, Rebecca realises, he’s not there for her any more.

  For the first time, as she understands this, she understands too that maybe it’s not all his fault. That maybe she’s let her father down to
o, treating him as if he’s as guilty as they say he is.

  She feels desperate, switching between pity and anger on an hourly basis. Then she thinks about calling him, not even bringing herself to think his name for fear of it hurting too much. Then she realises how stupid it is to want to call someone who she can’t even bear to think of, but though she knows it’s stupid, and that it hurts, she brings Adam’s number up on her phone, and stares at it, feeling it, as though she’s twisting the knife a bit more, wondering how much it can possibly hurt.

  She stares at her phone, her thumb hovering over the call button, and somehow she manages to talk herself out of it every time.

  She stares at the ceiling of her bedroom, she stares out of her window at the sea, at the beautiful scenery and the sunshine which should make her feel happy to be alive, but which only reinforces how miserable she is. She’s kept Adam’s crucifix round her neck, but now something snaps in her and almost without looking at it she takes it off. Her hand hovers over the wastebin, but in the end she drops it into her dressing table drawer.