Tirzah and the Prince of Crows

by Deborah Kay Davies

  Foxes Have Holes, and Birds of the Air Have Nests

  (Luke 9:58)

  After school the next day, Tirzah has the house to herself. She is tidying her room, trying to be a good girl, and thinking about how strange things are now. The only glimpse she’s had of Osian, apart from chapel, is of him slowly cycling through the streets, delivering groceries for his father. She tried a wave at first, but he seemed to ignore her, so she gave up. And there has been no sign of Brân for weeks. Tirzah’s mind has been snagged on so many spiky, uncomfortable things she has not even thought of him. The musings about his private parts don’t count, she tells herself. And it’s strange, there was a time when she couldn’t help bumping into him; he’d be hanging around outside the Co-op, his followers kicking a half-deflated football, or she’d see them running behind him round the streets, playing some complicated game that usually involved dares of some sort. If a window was smashed, sure enough, Brân would be the one everyone blamed. He was banned from most of the shops on the main street because he’d always nick stuff, passing it to his followers, who’d dart, quick as minnows, out of the shop door and away, stuffing their pockets with sweets or bread rolls or apples, whatever was easy to filch. Maybe they’ve disbanded, she thinks.

  But then how would Brân manage? His little boys are the only thing between him and complete loneliness, she realises, remembering how he’d been, lassoing the boys’ attention with the promise of sweets outside the Co-op when she first met him. The little children are still in school, but she hasn’t bumped into them outside the shops on the weekend like she used to. Suddenly she recalls seeing him when he was much younger, squatting on the kerb outside a house at the far end of the village. He was with a shabby girl who had a pickled onion in one hand and an Oxo cube in the other. The messy-mouthed girl sat huddled over her snack, wincing happily as she alternately licked the onion and nibbled the brown cube. Just below her knees she had the maroon, angry-looking bands of skin you get from wearing nothing but wellies every day. Brân had been chewing on a piece of bread covered with what looked like dripping. The memory shocks her so much she has to stop folding clothes and close her eyes for a moment. So that was Brân. Never allowed in the house. And that was his little sister.

  It seems to Tirzah that Brân is the loneliest of all the people she knows. I should find him, she decides. Maybe I can help him in some way. It’s difficult to know how, though. Brân needs a whole new life with a new set of parents and a fresh, pink heart, because she fears his is already beginning to shrivel like a bitter walnut. At chapel they are always being told that Jesus is powerful enough for anything. Certainly He should be able to give some of these things to Brân, but somehow she can’t see Brân wanting Jesus to sort him out. Jesus, with his shimmering blue and white robes, his loose waves of strawberry blond hair and outspread, ladylike hands, would be a bit useless trying to befriend Brân. I believe in Him, she thinks, and even I have trouble imagining Jesus would be all that interested in the stupid things I do. I suspect that if Jesus didn’t know me from chapel, He’d never give me a second glance. Still, after she’s made herself some toast with butter and a smear of Bovril, and is back in her room, she sends an arrow prayer up for Brân, just in case.

  The silent house settles around Tirzah. Her mother is leading the afternoon Dorcas meeting and Dada is still at work. Does her father do sums all day? Once, when she was little, she and her mother had popped into the foundry where he was the book-keeper to give him his sandwiches. She recalls the heat and overwhelming, nose-singeing fumes. Her chest had reverberated with the brutal noise of machines. For ages afterwards she’d pictured the foundry as a sort of hell, gobs of molten metal spraying around and tongues of flame lapping the doors of the furnaces. And under it all a deep, persistent, earth-shaking boom that terrified her. Poor Dada, she’d thought. How can he stand it every day? Now, eating her toast she thinks about Derry. He must be at his mysterious factory job too. Lying on her bed, she has to admit something to herself: she would like to see Brân. In her thoughts he is swirled around by tall trees and roaring flames. Each time she pictures him on the mountain, with his hair blown into savage tufts and his rain-hued eyes looking down at her, she’s filled with strange thoughts. But honestly, she tells herself, I think Brân is horrible. She remembers him bashing Osian with a burning stick, and how he smelt when she was close to him that day. He needs a good bath. She doesn’t even want to think about the state of his underwear.

  She gets up, scattering crumbs, and goes down to the kitchen to make herself a drink, glad that Jesus isn’t sitting at the table watching her. She tops an inch of orange squash with tap water, aware that He is able to read her innermost thoughts anyway. For the first time in her life she actually wishes that the Son of God would get lost. Brân is a very handsome boy, and that’s the truth, she thinks, climbing the stairs again. Am I supposed to pretend he isn’t? She picks up her old biology book and thumbs through, but can’t stop the brown, lean face of Brân swimming between her eyes and the illustrated pages on asexual reproduction. I’m glad I’m not an amoeba, she thinks, imagining herself touching Brân’s narrow waist, and how it would be to rest her cheek against his chest. She hears someone calling her name. For one scared moment she thinks it is Jesus, but then realises her mother’s at the foot of the stairs telling her to come down.

  At the kitchen table, Tirzah’s father rolls out an extra-long prayer as the food gets cold. Tirzah peers through her laced fingers and can tell, even though her eyes are tightly closed, that her mother is impatient for the prayer to end. But her father is carried away. He’s finished with thanking the Lord for the blessings laid out before them and is pleading with Him to step in and sort Derry out. Bring him low, Father, he shouts. Crush him. Show him Thy terrible wrath. Turn him from his heathen ways. Tirzah’s mother stays quiet. She doesn’t want to prolong the prayer by responding in any way. Tirzah looks down at her cooling lamb chop and chips. She would hate to see Derry crushed; he’s certainly no saint, but he’s not that bad either. And somehow she likes that someone from the normal world is around. Finally, it’s over, and they can eat. Now then, her father says, vigorously shaking the bottle of HP sauce, what have you two been up to? Tirzah keeps silent. She’s thinking about how her father always seems to be shaking something.

  Her mother starts telling him about the knitted squares the ladies are making, and how they will be sewn together and turned into little blankets for the children in Africa. That is good work, Mair, he states, his fork jabbing in her direction. I am moved to prayer again just thinking about you dear women toiling away. Not now, Gwyll, she says, patting the table. Eat up, please. And you? he asks, looking at Tirzah. I was reading, she answers, looking at her chips and stiff little chop. Nothing wrong with a bit of reading, he says. Depending on whether it’s edifying or not, of course. Now eat up. She takes hold of her cutlery, but gets no further. I’m not hungry, she says. Can I leave the table? You may be a big girl these days, her father tells her, chewing a large mouthful of his chip butty, but you will sit there until all that plate of good victuals is eaten. He dips a last corner of bread into the HP sauce spread around his plate rim. Think about how blessed you are. They leave Tirzah at the table with her untouched food, and take their cups of tea into the living room.

  Tirzah spends time looking for Brân around the village. She does not have so much as a sighting. It’s another mystery; where does Brân go all day? Has he really left home to live rough? On Saturday she decides to search the woods where she and Biddy saw him worshipping at his altar. Before she leaves she scans the pantry shelves and snatches a jar of Bovril to take him, pushing it into her pocket. She’s pleased with herself; he can always boil stream water and make himself a tasty drink with it. Under a sullen sky the sounds of the village fade quickly as Tirzah crosses the fields. The sheep barely raise their heads when she passes. They look so bored, she thinks. And I don’t blame them. Grass all the day long, and maybe a thistle if they’re lucky
.

  Soon the woods rear up and Tirzah picks her way through the brambles, tearing her skirt even though she’d bunched it up in one hand. Inside, the trees drip on to the undergrowth, making small, musical tinkling sounds. Now and then a heavy wet plonk lands on Tirzah’s head, making her start as if someone’s pinched her bottom. She stops to look up through the treetops; it is important she should locate the sky. The light is strange, and the torn scraps she can make out above the trees each time she strains to see are turning from a grubby pink to something more like glowing orange as the afternoon wears on. This isn’t a normal sky, she thinks. It’s like sunset would be on the last evening of the world. Somehow, this makes her more serious about her search.

  Down the broad, steep incline she climbs, trying not to slip, trampling the glossy, sword-like leaves and frilled blossoms of the bluebell carpets. The bulbous jar of Bovril bangs her leg rhythmically. Silence lies on every damp, green surface. Tirzah was planning to call out for Brân, but now it would be unthinkable to make a sound. She is suddenly so nervous her tongue is wedged between her teeth. Invisible threads touch her eyelids as she walks. With each step forward she feels a growing sense that this is a bad idea. Below, near the stream, she sees a dense wigwam of branches and a thin drift of smoke rising. Her heart judders painfully. Is this where Brân is living? she wonders, suddenly struggling to put one foot in front of the other. Tirzah stands, waiting for Brân to appear. She knows the silent minutes are sliding forward all around the world, but in this wood there is the feeling of one immense intake of breath, where nothing moves, nothing happens. Then she hears a prolonged sound of coughing. A pair of crows are disturbed by the noise. Squawking and flapping their tattered wings, they make off, rising through the upper beech canopy. Tirzah stirs, watching them, and when she looks back towards the wigwam, there is Brân, knee deep in the undergrowth, a tall crown of iridescent feathers and ferns on his head, and daubs of something dark on his face. Tirzah begins to walk shakily forward; he is beckoning to her.

  I Will Kindle a Fire in the Forest Thereof

  (Jeremiah 21:14)

  It’s difficult for Tirzah to understand, but slowly she realises that a whole night has passed and another day begun since she was last in her bed. Someone’s tucked her in so tightly she can’t raise her shoulders. She looks around. The room is just the same. All her things are in place. On her desk are piles of revision notes and a rusty apple core; in the wardrobe she knows her row of clothes hang, waiting for her to give them shape; her empty shoes stand side by side under the chair. But I don’t feel the same, she thinks, struggling to free her arms and hold them up. And I don’t know why. Her nightdress sleeves fall back and she sees cuts and bruises on her skin, but can’t remember how she came by them. There are crescent moons of dirt under her fingernails. She lets her arms fall to the plump coverlet. Why doesn’t someone come to check on me? she wonders, suddenly hit by a longing for her mother. She closes her eyes, soon fast asleep again.

  When she wakes it is dark, and a feeble light from the bulb on the landing shines in through the glass panel above her door. She hears footsteps climbing the stairs. Recognising her mother’s step, Tirzah covers her head with the bedclothes. Now she is afraid to see anybody. The door opens and she listens as her mother moves around, closing the curtains and straightening things, finally coming to sit on the side of the bed, squashing Tirzah’s thigh. Slowly she pulls the bedclothes away from Tirzah’s face. They look at each other. Tirzah can see her mother’s trembling lower lip and tear-filled eyes. She has a balled-up lace hankie in one fist. What’s wrong, Mam? Tirzah asks, shocked. How can you ask me that? her mother says, moving slightly away from Tirzah. I’ve heard it all now. You are going to hell in a handcart, and you don’t even seem to care.

  But, Tirzah stammers, sitting up, what is happening then? I’m frightened, Mam. So you should be, her mother answers, her expression softening for a moment. You will be the death of us, child. She strokes Tirzah’s hair away from her face. Don’t you know where you’ve been? Coming home as black as the road. A whole night away. A whole night! What were you doing? Stumbling in like a ghost on Sunday morning. Us up all night worrying. Out searching, your father was. All on his own. He’s been in his study since the early hours, interceding for you. Not even a wink of sleep. Tirzah tries to think, but all she can bring to mind are her feet slipping on the bluebells’ shining leaf-blades and the sound of crows spiralling up to a bronze sky. She can’t separate her dreams from her memories.

  Honestly, Mama, she says, I don’t know what came over me to stay out like that. Her mother stands and makes a shrugging movement with her shoulders, lifting her palms as if to receive a large parcel. Well, well, I never thought I’d see the day a member of my own family would behave like any old person, she announces. Tirzah frowns at her. You’re right, Mama, she says, half to herself. I must have done something bad to be gone so long. I wish someone would tell me. Her mother sniffs into her damp hankie. Wishing never did anybody any good, she replies. As I know full well. She moves to the door. It’s best I leave you to ponder, she adds, hand on the doorknob. You have brought shame on us all. Tomorrow, after dinner, you are called before the elders. We had to tell Pastor in the end, of course. She closes the door gently.

  Alone, Tirzah puts her head in her hands and forces herself to remember. Her brain is beating loud and painful in her ears, working hard to think. She is so weak even sitting up in bed is asking too much. For a while it is impossible to organise her thoughts. She feels small and irrelevant as a lost shoe. A mist swims before her eyes and she can’t shift it. Gradually, she can make out flashes of sharp little scenes, but before she can understand what they mean, mist covers them again. Concentrate, Tirzah, she tells herself, knocking her temple with a fist. Suddenly Brân’s feathered headdress and painted face loom out at her. It’s to do with Brân, she thinks. I bet all this is to do with him. Then, as if this thought has tripped a switch, she begins to recall what happened from the moment she saw Brân across the stream.

  Brân had beckoned her to come to him, and she’d jumped across the brook, weightless as one airy filament of a dandelion clock. Next she was outside his wooden den, and he was pointing to the crows perched like sharp-eyed guards high up in the trees. The rasping sound of his voice calling them fills her quiet bedroom. She can almost smell the smoky fire and broken ferns. Brân’s cry is a sound so full of something beyond any noise she has ever heard in the village that she cannot grasp its real meaning, but there, in those woods, the crows understood and swooped down to settle nearer, cawing an answer. Brân paced the beaten earth, raising and lowering his arms, lifting his voice to the coppery sky while the crows croaked.

  Tirzah had trouble filling her lungs and emptying them; it was all so sad and strange. Brân! she called, and her voice sounded sharp enough to rip a hole in the leafy world around them. Brân, I’ve been searching everywhere for you this past week. He turned, and looked surprised to see her again. Brân, she repeated and went close to him, shaking his naked arm. Don’t you know me? He made a quieting movement with his dirty hand and then raised it to point again, this time to the apex of his wigwam. Tirzah looked and saw a bold bird, dark as a sloe berry, its wings outspread like ink-dipped, tattered banners. He is my prince now, Brân said, eyes hectic with excitement. In their shifting grey depths Tirzah could see herself and Brân, and nothing else.

  Then she was inside the wooden hut. Ferns were deep and damp on the floor, and old feathers filled the gaps between the branches. He is an old devil, really, Brân told her. He’s the boyo who rules the wood and the valley and the country hereabouts. This place is even named after him. He squints at her, head to one side. I have been given this knowledge. But you can only know these things if you have eyes to see, he whispered, scaring her. Tirzah squatted and filled her lungs with the smell of everything. No, Brân, a bird can’t be a king, she’d said, unsure if this was true. How can you believe that? And no one should worship the Devil, li
ke you said you were. She felt desperate to make herself clear. He can’t love you, Brân, she’d said. He is the Great Deceiver. Satan wants your downfall, and that’s the truth. But Brân was not listening. I have fallen, he states calmly. And I don’t want to get back up. But anyway, out by here there are as many gods as you want. Piles of ’em. You just have to pick one for yourself.

  As he talked, Brân was fiddling with something in his lap. Tirzah shuffled nearer and saw a creature, maybe a vole, struggling in his hands. Please let it go, Brân, she said, her voice wobbling. But Brân had snapped the squeaking thing’s neck. She crawled outside after him and watched as he lifted the animal up to the dark bird on the roof, then threw it down. Tirzah heard a feathered rush and saw the bird plunge, grab the vole in its scaly claws and, labouring to gain height, slowly disappear. Now everything will be fine and dandy tonight, Brân said. It’ll be tidy, just you see. Tirzah looked at the trees standing in patient ranks around her and the bulky canopy above. The sky was a dusky violet streaked with crimson and, higher up, all pricked over with silver pinpoints. I have to go, she’d said. My mam and dad will be worried. But already it was too dark, and Brân was back inside his hut, feeding the fire.

  And now here she is, in serious trouble, hungry and chilly under her coverlet. A pang of guilt empties her chest when she thinks about her terrified parents, and she is forced to gulp in air. How could she have thought for one moment that it was a good idea to sleep out in the woods? She remembers waking up in Brân’s wigwam and running home in the thinnest, earliest part of the dawn. Really, she hadn’t been away so many hours. But the picture of Dada searching the streets, not wanting to let anyone know, and her mother, praying alone in the kitchen, makes her sob silently into her pillow until she falls asleep.