Crow Of Thorns

by Richard Mosses

  I imagine myself rising up into the air. Surely I can fly here? Opening my eyes, I'm still stuck on top of this cloud. Do I need to grow wings, flap my arms? “Why can't I fly? Everything else seems to be able to.”

  “You need to think yourself somewhere.”

  “Which is a great way of doing things if this is your first visit.”

  “How about you give it a try?” Corbie says. “Think yourself forward a few feet.”

  Moving forward is without any effort. Instead of thinking myself in flight, I just think of being at the height I wanted to go to. I pick up the knack of moving around the cloud and avoiding birds. Quite soon I feel really tired and have to supress a yawn.

  “Yeah, really takes it out of you, doesn't it?”

  What purpose is there really to this part of the spirit world? “Do these Great Spirits live here?” I'll go over there and give them a piece of my mind right now. Hopefully not literally.

  “Dude, I honestly don't know. Maybe they have their own spirit world.”

  I take that as a yes. It's not his fault. He has a job to do. I only get told what I need to know to do mine. Give it time though. Knowledge is power. “There anything here you want to show me?”

  “We can come back another time, unless you fancy going to school? We can find you some teachers. I'm just tryin to get you used to comin over and findin your way about.”

  I've more than enough to cope with from the teacher I've got, but I'll be back alright. “I'm alright for now, thanks. How do we get back down? Squirrel ride?”

  “I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you asked real nice,” Corbie says. “But it's as easy as before, just think your way back down the path you came on.”

  I speed down through the branches like a skydiver whose parachute hasn't opened. Then I crash into my body and wake up damp and sore.

  Chapter 12

  Crossing the Gardens on my morning business, I pass through the Tent City. Why weren't they there, in the Otherworld, like they were the first time? Did the different drum skin make that much of a difference? Was it just that it was my first trip? I still have the material with the eye printed in the middle. I could find another shell and have another go now I've got some practice under my belt.

  My phone rings. Kathryn. A bolt of adrenaline runs through me. Rachael kisses me. I like it. Midori kisses me. I am laughing with my kids on Christmas Day, only a few weeks ago. Kathryn asks me for a divorce. Fox blood splashes my face. My arm feels weak as I lift the phone to my ear. “Hi. Good to hear from you.”

  “Mum got in touch. Not easy when you've taken a hammer to your mobile.”

  “I had nothing to do with that. I was out of it with pneumonia.”

  “Mum said. It's hard to believe.”

  “I understand. Proof is no use when it's faith that's lost. How are Lucas and Sam?”

  “They're okay. A few days off school, it's almost a holiday. I may have said a few negative things about you in front of them.”

  “Are you back now?”

  “Mum said you wanted to move back in.”

  Do I really? That was a long time ago. Would moving back be running away from this? “That was essence of the message I left. A lot has happened since then.”

  “I don't know, Niki. Before it would have been easy to change my mind. I was still hoping you'd say that when I last saw you.”

  I sigh. “I'm becoming a shaman. Not exactly willingly. I got sick because I refused to do as they wanted.”

  “A shaman? That crap your mum was always going on about? I remember she made us put those skulls up all around the house to keep some spirits out. Didn't do anything but scare the kids.”

  “Yeah. Just like that. This is exactly what the calls were designed to do. Keep us apart. Keep me on this path. I don't know what would happen now if I did move home.”

  Kathryn's laugh is bitter. “So you're seriously telling me that you're being blackmailed by spirits? It's one thing to live in a tent instead of our home, but as excuses go that's low. You know what? Forget about it. This is inane.”

  “Inane? How many nights did I keep you awake with my so-called Night Terrors? Huh? Bet you can't even count them. We practically had to sleep apart to get any rest. They're gone, Kathryn. Completely. This is a whole new life now. I'm visiting places you wouldn't believe.”

  “I don't know what's happened to you, Nik. You should listen to yourself. You're so full of your own shit. I have to go to work. You can see the kids this weekend and next, then we're back to normal.”

  “Kathryn, c'mon. Let's talk about this –” She has gone. “Properly.”

  It doesn't matter what I want. What little I had left I didn't hold on to. It isn't the Great Spirits' fault I'm here, but they did set fire to my last bridge. I'm angry and in despair.

  After work I scour the river side looking for something to finish my drum. Another wheel or something like that. I find a large plastic tub which once contained tile grout. I'm not sure what the solid bottom will do to the sound. It could be like a snare drum and add some resonance. I don't need a skin, just beat on the bottom, but something is nagging at me to use the material I found. In my tunnel I tie the eye-skin in place and beat the drum a few times to get a feel for the sound. It is deep and louder than I expected, my head and chest fill with each beat. Even more than my fox hide bodhran the booms echo back from the tunnel. Corbie isn't here but I'm tempted to have a go at passing into the Otherworld at least. I give in and start the beat, banging the drum and dancing to my own rhythm. I'm beating and dancing for a long time. Have I forgotten something? Maybe this is a poor skin to use after all. If I doubt it then it certainly won't work. I keep on dancing and beating the drum. My shoulders ache and my calves are burning. Then evening is early morning. Darkness is turned to day. Winter turns to Summer. I hadn't taken the time to put on the coat and leather jeans. Nonetheless I am in the Otherworld.

  I climb up the stairs into the ghost of the Botanic Gardens station and walk out onto the lawn. Once again the Tent City is replaced by a series of pyramidal cocoons glowing golden in the morning sun. Why aren't they here when I use the fox hide drum? Am I in the same place at all? It looks identical, except for the webbing. Since the tents are recent, if fairly permanent, structures maybe I'd see the same where something else is being built. I can't think where though – the building trade has almost dried up. No one is moving house, so no one needs new houses. Many apartment blocks are empty shells. Once it was the rundown estates with steel over the doors and windows. Still the Riverside museum and the apartment blocks down there may be empty but they are only a few years old.

  It's a fair walk down to the Clyde, but nothing like my trip across the desert to the Underworld. I could fly, but Shanks' Pony serves me fine. I've not really left the Gardens in this World. I have a peek and see that the Salon is still a working cinema.

  Near the bottom of Byres Road I can already see the tops of some of the flats near the river. I was right. They are replicated here as towers of webbing. What kind of spider could build a block of flats? I'm intrigued and scared to find out. I didn't see any by the tents though, and they're newer than these flats.

  Maybe there's no spiders, no actual agents as such, and these objects form spontaneously out of spirit material, ectoplasm say. Like an accretion of mucus around sand forms a pearl. The longer these objects exist, the more solid their spiritual counterparts become. Conversely, when they no longer exist in the Living World, they are not reinforced and fade away, worn down by time.

  This doesn't explain how I have ended up in a version of the Otherworld in which these constructions are obvious. Is this a better reflection of the Living World? The natural drum opens a door to a natural spirit world. The artificial drum opens a door to a more constructed spirit world. Where would I end up if I used my laptop to play a digital synthetic drum rhythm? Unless I danced my socks off I suspect it would be very hard to cross over.

  I open my eyes and feel the prickly sensation on
the back of my neck that I am being watched. Rachael had gone discretely to my tent and waited there. This is different.

  “You can come out now.” I stand up, stiff and cold. I shake life back into my limbs.

  Something shuffles in the dark of the tunnel. Corbie would have no qualms coming out and pestering me. A figure emerges. Even in this poor light I can make out dark stained trousers and a padded jacket with gaffer tape over rips in the soft shell. The face is buried beneath long hair, a heavy beard and the shadow of a hood. Two eyes, though, burn. Perhaps because they're the only human thing I can see. “Who you to go ordering me about?” The voice is old. It sounds unused to being used.

  “I'm not giving orders. I just wanted to know who was lurking about. My name is Nik. What's yours?”

  “Lurking? Lurking?” he says. “This is my place. You've no right to be here. To take my spot.”

  I move slowly towards the man. Maybe he does stay here occasionally. “There was no one here when I came down. There's plenty of room. We could share.”

  “You're in my spot,” he says. “You have to go.”

  I'm not going anywhere, but I don't want to antagonise this guy. There's no one here to look after my stuff when I'm gone. The guy has material bound around his hand like a crude bandage. I can also smell him. Despite the difficulties doing so I've kept myself fairly well. This guy has a unique feral stench. Sweat mainly, but there's something else. Almost sweet, like meat that's gone off. Is his hand infected? “I'm not leaving. I'm not in your spot. Would you like some food?” I say. “I'm hungry. Fancy some noodles?”

  “You're gonna poison me. Take my things.”

  “I'll make some noodles. I'll eat some and you can eat some too, if you want. You'll see there's no poison.”

  He just watches while I boil water and add the noodles. In the weak light from the stove his skin looks tea stained. I put some food in a mess tin and put it on the ground for him. I eat some from the tin before eating from my own portion.

  The guy seems lost. He sways forward, the savoury smell drawing him in, and then he backs away as his distrust pulls him out.

  “It's going to get cold.” I point at the mess tin with my fork.

  He lurches forward. Squats down and practically empties the whole tin into his mouth. Noodles sprout from his lips like fine tentacles. To my surprise, he doesn't appear to burn his mouth. He slurps and chews.

  This guy must have been on the hard end of the economic downturn for much longer than the rest of us and been kicked so hard so often he doesn't trust anyone.

  “Stevie.” He tips up the mess tin and drains the rest. “I'm Stevie.”

  “I can make some more, if you like.”

  “No. No more poison.” His eyes beg me for more.

  I start boiling up some more water and get another pack from my tent. Stevie has settled down, sitting cross legged on the ground. Newspaper sticks out the bottom of his trousers. “What happened to your hand, Stevie?”

  He cradles it to his chest with his other hand in front.

  “It's okay. Maybe I can help. I'm training to be a shaman. A healer.”

  “Kid with a knife. Hostel. Wanted my bed and my stuff.”

  “Did someone at the hostel look at it?”

  Stevie laughs. “Kid got my bed. Didn't stay long enough.”

  “I've got a first aid kid. At least we could clean it and put a proper bandage on it.” It's not like I have any real healing skills. I doubt a trip to the Underworld is going to help heal a wound in his flesh. I wonder about his head, though. I haven't seen Corbie all day, now I think about it. Maybe he only does half-days on Wednesdays.

  Again, Stevie appears to contradict himself. He shelters his hand, even turns away slightly. But his eyes plead for help. I rummage around in my pack for my first-aid kit. I think there's even some iodine in there. I also grab a lamp. When I return to the stove Stevie's done a good job of making his own instant ramen. Glad to see he can help himself.

  When I push the button on the LED lamp bright white light stabs my eyes and casts deep shadows into the tunnel and along the platforms. Stevie looks like a rabbit caught in the beams of an oncoming truck. He shovels more noodles into his mouth, barely chewing before swallowing them down.

  I offer to look at his hand again and tentatively he lets me take his arm. I put on gloves from the kit and unwrap the t-shirt bandage. The blood is still sticky. Either the wound isn't closing or this happened only a short while ago. Cleaning away the blood I see a long wound on his palm. “You really need to get stitches. We should go to A&E.”

  “No. They'll take me in. Take my stuff.”

  “Okay. But I can't put stitches in so I'm going to use this glue.” I show him the small bottle in the first-aid box. I wash the wound and use some iodine. Stevie doesn't flinch. Pulling the skin together, I dribble a line of adhesive along it. For good measure I use the little I-shaped plasters then cover the whole wound with a large section of sticky bandage which will stay there for weeks. Stevie just stares at me the whole time.

  When I finish a few flakes of snow catch the light from the LED lamp as they fall in through the air vent onto the platforms below. They look like ultraviolet shards falling to earth. Soon more flakes tumble down onto the platforms and everything is covered in bright neon.

  I feel weary and cold. I want to offer Stevie space in my tent, but there isn't any, and I'd suffocate in such close proximity to him. Some humanitarian I am. “Do you need a sleeping bag or something?”

  “No. I have my stuff. You're in my spot.”

  “I'm not moving. You can sleep next to the tent. Might give you some shelter.” Stevie just stares at me. I shrug. “I'm going to bed.” I take the pots and go to clean them. I give everything a wash and brush my teeth. Will Stevie occupy the tent? He's so protective of his own things I doubt he'd take someone else's. Unless what's mine is his if he thinks it's in his space. No sign of Stevie when I get back, but I hear him in the tunnel.

  I put out the LED lamp and pack it away. Stevie sounds like he is shuffling about beside the tent now. Native American Medicine Men used to sleep next to their patients and extract the sickness from them. Through dreaming I guess. I'm not so worried about Stevie's hand getting infected, but I'm convinced he's not mentally well. Gut instinct as I've no real proof or qualification to say this.

  I try something. An extension of the evening's experiment. I flip open the laptop. Bathed in the cool glow of the screen, I program a fairly simple drum loop in a music application. Putting on my headphones, I hit play. The rhythm is familiar. The headphones add bass and depth. Not quite as good as either of my drums. The sound is in my ears, but not in my head or heart.

  Listening I drift off to sleep. Everything is made of fine webbing. Everything man made. My tent, the bricks, the steel beams overhead. The computer is a bright overlay of several geometric shapes, pulsing, glowing. Tiny shards dart away from the laptop into the air. Others arrive, dock, and are absorbed into the geometric matrix, changing colour and shape.

  Stevie lies beside me. His body wrapped in a fine web. I see through his flesh and bone, like a CT scan. A web is moulded to his kneecap. There are tiny webs in his mouth covering some of his teeth. He rolls in his sleep and I see a large web replacing part of his skull. I examine him more closely. I see webs shaped like pins in his hip and an area of his lower jaw is all webbed too.

  Then I see an area deep inside his brain. It's the size of a walnut and it's red.

  Corbie appears, with red laser beam eyes. Instead of thorns he is made from steel nails. He swoops out of the dark. I think he is going to land on my shoulder, but his talons tear at my face. Trying to grab him, I impale my hands on his body. I cry out in agony.

  I wake myself up.

  I've not had a dream like this in a few weeks. Maybe it isn't all over after all. I lie awake staring into the dark before I find sleep again.

  Chapter 13

  Stevie is still there in the morning, sound aslee
p. Kathryn and I rarely ended the night in the same room.

  I flinch when I see Corbie standing outside the tent, but he is his normal self.

  He cocks his head to one side, blinking. “What's wrong with you?” he says.

  “I had a dream last night. You ripped my face off.”

  “I'd be lyin if I said that the thought hadn't crossed my mind once or twice.”

  “I'm serious.” Corbie just looks at me. “Ok.”

  “Sorry I wasn't around yesterday. I hope you enjoyed your day off.”

  Should I tell him what I discovered? Knowledge is power. I don't really know if I can trust him. I'm sure he knows more than he is telling me about the Great Spirits. I don't know if he's teaching me out of service, self-interest or the goodness of his heart. On the other hand I've no one else to turn to for advice. No one outside the King of the Underworld's offices was interested in making friends.

  “I worked on my own actually. Tried an experiment. I made a completely artificial drum.”

  “How'd that work out for you?”

  “I went to another Otherworld.”

  “Sure you did,” he says.

  Who needs to lie when you won't be believed? “It was different to the one I went to with the fox skin drum.”

  “How can that be? There's only one.” Do I detect an element of doubt in Corbie's voice?

  “This one has webbing where new buildings and objects are in the Living World,” I say. I'm sure there's more to it than just that. I tried using electronic beats last night and entered a weird dream with more webbing. I could see the artificial parts of this guy.”

  “I'm sure it was just an ordinary dream.”

  “I don't think so. I had a visitor last night. He's still here.” I whisper in case he's awake. “I think he has a brain tumour.”

  “Saw it in your dream did you?” Corbie tries to pour scorn on my analysis.