Burnt Snow

by Van Badham

  A crow. The crow. In the half-light of that shadowy room it was so black I couldn’t even see its eyes, but I knew it was staring at me.

  Caah-caah-caah! it cried, lunging its head forward, its wings outstretched and flapping above its head.

  I tore at the door handle and thrust myself out of the room and into the storm of smaller birds. I whipped my bag over my face and held it there with one arm to protect my eyes from the beaks and claws as I pressed in the direction of the stairs.

  I staggered forward a couple of steps, thrashing blindly with my free hand to beat the birds away. I expected my back to be torn by the giant crow’s talons any second – I was almost longing for its sharp beak to stab into my shoulder and end the chase. I hit at the air in front of me, anticipating beaks to pierce the flesh of my palms or set upon my shoulders, but instead I hit only empty space.

  The crows were still in the corridor – I could hear them screeching, fluttering, hovering; my skin felt the echoes of their movement in the air – but they weren’t touching me. ‘Help!’ I cried into the material of my bag. ‘Help! Help me!’

  Then it occurred to me – there was a sound I couldn’t hear.

  The screaming had stopped.

  My heart thudded – I tore the bag from my face to see what was happening.

  I saw crows.

  No scraps of hands now. No faces, no glimpses of uniform or even drops of blood. It was a solid, hovering mass of crows, thick as a forest. They were to my left and my right; they shook in the air above my head, flapping, cackling … but keeping their distance. It was as if I moved with a force field around me they couldn’t – or wouldn’t – penetrate.

  I stopped moving. Crows hovered around the ceiling, and my eye caught a flash of green in front of me. The wall of crows thinned and parted. I heard hissing. There was someone else in the hallway whom the crows were letting through.

  The space around me opened up and Ashley Ventwood emerged from the feathered mass.

  ‘You either have a death wish or you are very, very dumb,’ she said, glaring. Her thin black eyebrows pointed like furious arrows.

  Ashley extended her arm and the giant crow surged from the throng and landed on it with practised grace.

  47

  ‘I – I don’t understand,’ I mumbled. Although they gave us space, the formation of birds around us was like a fluttering cage. The crow on Ashley’s arm let out a baleful Caah! Ashley nuzzled it, like a kitten. This was the Ashley from the first week of school, but worse – not only could I see the ancient lines around her eyes, but around her pale mouth too, and her hands were gnarled with thin skin and thick blue veins. Her eyes were the colour of scorched coal. Of all the frightening things in the corridor, Ashley’s aged face frightened me the most.

  Her voice was withering. ‘You really should listen to me,’ she said. ‘I’m the only one who’ll tell you the truth.’

  ‘What’s wrong with your face?’ I screamed. ‘Why won’t the crows attack?’ Sweat trickled behind my ear.

  ‘I’m angry with you,’ she said. She nodded towards the bird on her arm. ‘Half of me thinks he should fly out the window and leave you to learn your lesson with his friends.’ Her tone hardened and her eyes flashed. ‘I’ve warned you before: that boy was put beyond the reach of the Befanii a long time ago. You’d have to walk into hell to uncoat him.’

  I was so frightened tears ran over my cheeks. Still, the birds hovered. ‘You go on with this crap, Ashley!’

  Ashley leaned in. ‘Start facing facts, little sister,’ she crackled. ‘Your mother might want to pretend that it’s all suburban serial drama but she’s covered you in magic since the day you were born. You’re one of us – you may want to fight it and deny it and pretend it isn’t happening, but you know what it means. That boy has been marked. If you go near him again it will get a lot worse than backyard fires and a few birds. I won’t be able to protect you and when a Finder comes – and they will come, they will read these signs – they will have you, and him, and your entire family burned.’

  In the background, at the other end of the hallway, the hissing I’d heard minutes earlier began to grow louder. The crows agitated.

  ‘Are they gassing?’ I cried. ‘To get rid of the birds – are they going to poison them with – with – with—’

  The crow on Ashley’s arm flew to her shoulder and she gripped my wrist. Her shrivelled skin felt like gristle. I startled. ‘Look,’ she said, lifting her branded hand in front of my eyes, crushing my bones in her grip. ‘That’s some fancy Finder pyrography. Look at it!’ I tried to look at her hand but the hissing was louder and I was sure I could see grains of white mist coming through the wall of the crows. ‘Next time you feel like sneaking off and pretending you and Brody are regular teenage kids,’ she said, her gnarled lips centimetres from my ear, ‘I want you to remember that the Finders will stick burning metal into Brody’s face.’

  Behind the crows I could hear someone yelling – a male voice. There was definitely white mist coming through the crows now. They flapped faster, harder, whipping the air in panic.

  ‘What do we do?’ I said to Ashley.

  Ashley lifted the bird from her shoulder. ‘Tus amigos deberían irse ahora,’ she told it. With an upward toss of Ashley’s hand, the crow launched into the air.

  The bird cawed and hovered for some seconds before flying through the birds in the direction of the stairwell. As it flew, so did the others – en masse. I lost sight of the giant crow in the streaming river of crows that followed it. A cacophony of flapping wings drowned the sound of everything else and as they surged forward I covered my eyes and ears with my hands. Wing feathers and substances I didn’t want to think about fell from the birds as they shot down the stairwell and disappeared.

  When the roaring had faded, and the flapping had given way to silence, I opened my eyes.

  The carpet was a mess of crow detritus as well as scraps of paper, dropped pens and other items students had lost or scattered in the confusion. The hissing had stopped, but as I looked up I could see what its source had been.

  Brody was halfway down the corridor, holding in his hand a fire extinguisher that had left a trail of white foam and spray behind it. There was a nasty cut on his check and his clothes looked like they’d been ripped by inhuman hands.

  Brody dropped the fire extinguisher on the floor and started walking towards me. He ignored Ashley.

  I watched every move he made as he came closer; I knew the landscape of his chest now, I knew the weight of his arms, the angles of his cheeks. Every part of me yearned to run across the room and throw myself at him so that he could sweep me from the floor and stroke my hair until the nightmare ended and we woke up together, alone.

  But I didn’t move, and Ashley Ventwood was staring at me, blinking seventeen-year-old eyes as if nothing had happened.

  I reached out to wipe the blood from Brody’s face – but I pulled my hand back.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said, taking my shoulders in his hands. Blood from the cut on his face dribbled down his cheek.

  I inhaled that Brody smell I loved so much, and for a second I imagined we were back in the book room, feeling our way through one another’s clothes.

  A step backwards took me out of his grasp.

  ‘Please don’t touch me,’ I stammered. And turned away.

  48

  Nikki didn’t want to get into the car.

  ‘No way, nuh-uh, I don’t think I can,’ she said to Fran. ‘That was totally whack.’

  ‘We’re all freaked out, Niks,’ said Kylie.

  ‘But we promise there aren’t any birds in Fran’s car,’ said Michelle, frowning.

  There was an odd stand-off taking place in the school car park. It involved me, Michelle and Kylie who were yearning to shop in Shellharbour as an escape from the events of the afternoon; Nikki, who couldn’t decide what she wanted; and Fran, who wanted to be told what to do.

  Everyone looked rough. Belinda had an
nounced that she and Garth were going to her house to ‘de-stress’ and had already left. Fran told me she had to rinse bird poo out of her hair. What I wanted to rinse out, I couldn’t; there was no way I could even pretend to myself I had not seen Ashley Ventwood’s face age like a baked apple, or heard her chat in Spanish to a bird.

  Ryan, Matt, Steve and Rob stood near the school gate. I could tell from their impatient postures that they didn’t care how the situation with the car was resolved, as long as it was. Activities for their afternoon, I could see without being told, were conditional on Ryan – and hence conditional on Nikki. All I wanted was to touch something as normal as a plastic shopping bag and forget today had ever happened.

  ‘Nikki, just get in the car,’ said Kylie.

  ‘I don’t know what people want me to do,’ said Fran, looking around the group.

  ‘We want to go shopping,’ said Michelle. ‘If you don’t want to drive us, please give us a lift to my dad’s work and I’ll borrow his car.’

  ‘Fran, don’t move. Niks, if you want to get away from crows, I’ve heard there are absolutely none in Shellharbour Square,’ said Kylie.

  ‘Okay, maybe,’ said Nikki, walking towards the car. She got to the car door and I saw Ryan, near the gate, visibly relax. She opened the door and he put his bag on his back. Then she hesitated. Then she flung both hands over her mouth and screamed into them. Ryan dropped his bag on the ground and threw his hands in the air.

  ‘No – no, there’s something bad there,’ Nikki said through her fingers. ‘At Shellharbour.’

  Kylie’s eyes rolled, but Michelle was soothing. ‘It was freaky for everyone. We are all freaked out. Soph was trapped in the corridor with the crows, Ashley Ventwood and Brody Meine.’

  ‘Something dark,’ continued Nikki, turning towards me. Her fingers were still at her mouth. To the girls she said, ‘Nuh – I think I need to just go home and lie down for a bit and maybe pray.’

  There was a pause. She stared at me.

  ‘Okay then!’ barked Kylie, ripping open the door that Nikki had just closed. ‘We’ll go shopping, you’ll lie down with Ryan and a set of rosary beads, we’ll see you at school tomorrow and Fran, get in the car.’

  Shocked, Fran scurried into the driver’s seat, and Kylie, whom I’d never seen so assertive, gestured for Michelle to get in the passenger door.

  Michelle slid into the back seat behind Fran. Nikki was still staring at me.

  I tried the Michelle trick of making my voice as soothing as possible. ‘Nikki, if you need anything, you can call us.’

  Ryan was already walking over to Nikki and had his hand on her shoulder as I turned to climb into the car.

  Nikki broke from him and stepped forward. ‘Sophie—’

  ‘What?’

  Her sombre expression made her eyes look huge and her mouth very small. ‘There is some bad-ass paranormal la-la going down since you got here, Morgan,’ she said in a voice only I was meant to hear. ‘If you’re responsible for it, you have to stop now.’

  An empty second passed. I smiled weakly and climbed into the car.

  49

  ‘God, she is really annoying me.’

  We were on the freeway, sailing north towards Shellharbour. Everything had been quiet in the car since we had left the school. Kylie, you could hear from her voice, had not yet stopped frowning.

  Paranormal la-la.

  Paranormal la-la.

  ‘Does she think she’s the only person in the school who freaked out today?’ Kylie continued. ‘Little drama queen – “Look at me, look at me, my crisis is so much bigger than yours.” ’

  ‘I am so looking forward to doing something as normal as shop,’ said Michelle, leaning her head against the car window.

  ‘I think Nikki wants to run back to church this afternoon to get more holy water,’ said Fran. ‘Did you see her with that stuff?’

  ‘She’d need a lake of it to solve the problems of Yarrindi High,’ grunted Kylie. ‘Don’t think her not coming is about the birds – it’s about her and Ryan wanting to go over to his house and fool around while his mum’s away. If his mum’s not back tomorrow I reckon the sleepover won’t happen.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll all have to join in on your plans, Frannie,’ said Michelle. Her voice was light but I could see the smile on her face was fake.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Fran. ‘A whole night with my family? How many conversations about the milk yield do you want to hear?’

  Michelle sat up. ‘It’s a family thing?’

  ‘Yeah, just a dinner. We’re going out, though. Don’t know where. Down the coast.’

  I could see Fran’s reflection in the driver-side mirror and the self-satisfied smile she gave revealed her story was a practised lie. Today, I was too exhausted to take umbrage at her deception. Instead, I replayed the scene with Brody in the corridor. The one where he touched me, and I told him not to and walked out of the building with my back to him.

  I thought of the birds …

  … Ashley Ventwood’s face.

  The car continued in silence.

  ‘I mean,’ said Fran after a few minutes, ‘the stuff with the crows was whack. It was really frightening. Everyone else was frightened, right?’

  ‘They did evacuate the school,’ said Kylie.

  ‘What’s the time?’ asked Michelle.

  ‘Quarter to four,’ said Kylie.

  ‘We can listen to the news in fifteen minutes. See if they talk about it.’

  The group mumbled assent, and the car drove past dairy farm after dairy farm. Fran didn’t handle the curves in the road as well as my mother did and my stomach slid.

  ‘I’m just glad no one got seriously hurt,’ said Kylie.

  ‘Brody Meine’s face got cut,’ I said. I could still see it in my head.

  ‘He’s had a lot worse,’ said Michelle. ‘Besides, the teachers were onto everyone quickly. It’s amazing you didn’t get scratched, Soph.’

  ‘How’d you get stranded in that corridor, Soph?’ asked Fran.

  Because Brody and I got distracted making out. ‘I had to get a book from the History book room,’ I said. Before Kylie could interrogate this I added, ‘Is it time?’ and nodded towards the radio.

  ‘A few minutes,’ said Michelle.

  ‘We’ll put it on anyway,’ said Kylie. ‘You’ve had a shocker of a day, Soph.’

  I stared out the window, wanting to think about nothing. Kylie took a few attempts to find the local radio station, but perseverance paid off and we were tuned in by the time the news came on. The newsreader said that a murder of migratory crows had been disturbed from their flight pattern by residual smoke from the fire on Saturday night, the birds’ navigation becoming confused. There had been no serious injuries.

  There is some bad-ass paranormal la-la going down since you got here, Morgan, Nikki said.

  Yes, there was.

  But I wasn’t letting myself think about that.

  50

  Finally, we arrived at Shellharbour Square. While we were still in the mall car park, we all pulled out our shopping outfits. ‘They’ve got a real issue with lurking teenagers in this place,’ Kylie said, wriggling out of her school shirt into a pastel pink tee. ‘A couple of years ago, Soph, they were pumping Bing Crosby through the sound system to make young people go away.’ Genuine laughter was heard in Fran’s little red Corolla. Limbs and pieces of clothing were flying everywhere.

  I got my jeans on and a beige T-shirt that was patterned with gold and yellow butterflies.

  ‘What are you doing with your hair?’ Michelle asked me, tying a black bandana around her throat, fifties-style.

  ‘I like it when you have the side pony,’ said Fran.

  ‘Here,’ said Michelle, and handed me a mirror.

  ‘I might plait it,’ I said. When I pulled my hair away from my throat, I jumped in my seat at what I saw reflected in the mirror.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Michelle.

  ‘I don’t have
enough detail around the neck of this shirt to put my hair up,’ I flubbed, snapping the mirror shut. ‘I didn’t bring any jewellery and look a bit plain.’

  ‘You totally need to start wearing more makeup,’ said Fran.

  ‘Take this,’ Michelle said, loosening her bandana and handing it to me.

  I tied the scarf around my throat, making sure that it covered the small red lovebite on my neck that had been left behind by Brody Meine.

  51

  The mall could have been any one of the malls I’d visited back in Sydney, but to the girls it was some kind of retail holy city. After a school day that had ended with the fire brigade and emergency wildlife service running around, it was a relief to be delighted by plastic jewellery for five dollars a piece, and teen stores selling silky dress shorts that matched, like, everything Michelle already owned.

  I actually started to relax, distracting myself with things as un-freaky as slurping Boost juice and watching arguments between Kylie and Fran about whether it was acceptable to even go into K-Mart, let alone shop there. Kylie, ever practical, won the argument, though it was Fran who led the purchases there, insisting that I invest in some black eyeliner, shadow and a thicker mascara.

  With bags of stuff we probably didn’t need accumulating around our wrists, Fran dragged us into the female toilets to ‘get to work’ on my eyes and to apply her own new makeup as well. This was the kind of activity I’d never engaged in with Lauren or Sue and I felt guilty for enjoying it. ‘Your secret’s out, sexy bitch,’ Fran said to me when she looked up from her new lipstick to see me glancing at myself in the mirror. I laughed.

  From a lingerie store, I got a super-cute pair of cherry-patterned white pyjamas that would equip me for tomorrow night, and together we talked clothes and more clothes and more clothes.

  When we were eating cheap Chinese meals in the food court, Kylie got a text message.

  ‘Nikki,’ she snorted, ‘and guess where she is?’