White Crow (3 page)
Tuesday 20th July
Friday 23rd July
A
s 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.
s 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?
F
riday night and Rebecca considers her fate.
riday 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.’
Ferelith fiddles with the remote.
‘Of course, they didn’t mean to leave it in. They had to re-shoot the scene and swear Judy and everyone else to secrecy. They say that’s why she became an alcoholic, well, one reason anyway. But then when they edited the film someone put the wrong bit of film in and because it’s so hard to see no one noticed for years. By then it was too late and the rest is history.’
Ferelith punches a few buttons and skips through the scenes.
‘How do you know where it is?’ Rebecca asks.
‘My favourite film,’ Ferelith says. ‘Nearly there. Look, it’s when they meet the Tin Man and then, there, as they go dancing down the yellow brick road. Look! Look there! Did you see it?’
Rebecca isn’t sure what she’s seen and says so.
‘I’ll play it again. Can you do repeat on this thing? Yes, there. Now look.’
It’s hard to tell. There’s definitely something swinging in the painted trees of the set, as Dorothy and the Tin Man and the Scarecrow skip away. The clip repeats time and time, a dark shape hovers on a branch and then appears to drop.
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