White Crow (5 page)

I spent a few days at home, but I didn’t feel like talking to the others. I kept myself to myself. There were times when I needed them but since I turned sixteen I don’t need them any more.

It had been fun with Rebecca, but I didn’t want to push it. She seemed to me to be very shy, which is odd for someone so beautiful. And I . . . well, I’m me, so I thought I would leave her alone for a while.

But I began to grow itchy again, and so by Monday evening I decided to go out.

I walked down the lane from the house, hugging the shade by the high brick wall, because it had been a really hot afternoon, and the sun still shone fiercely, though it was gone six.

I walked along The Street, and as I passed The Mansion I slowed my pace, and risked glancing at the house from the corner of my eye. Maybe someone moved inside, maybe not, but I walked on, past the pub, and up into the woods by the snaking path, to the Lover’s Seat. A walk I must have made a thousand times or more in my life, my life in Winterfold.

I waited.

It was even hotter at the Seat, if possible, for although the cool sea lay in front of me, there was not a breath of wind. The sea lay like a glassy pool, and even the waves breaking on the beach seemed without energy in the heat. It was what a sailor would have called a dead calm, and surrounded by the wall of trees and bushes, it was really, really hot.

I waited, but actually I didn’t have long to wait.

I knew she was there behind me; I heard the rustle in the bushes, too big for a walker’s dog, and I heard the rustle stop suddenly as she must have seen I was there.

I waited, and when she came like a timid deer into the Lover’s Seat, I turned, pretending to be surprised.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Sorry. I didn’t know . . .’

She paused, expecting me to say something, looking for an excuse to back out again. I wasn’t going to give her one.

‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘It’s a free country. I’m not doing anything anyway. Sit down.’

I patted the grass beside me and she came over.

She sat further away than necessary, as if she was scared of me, so I tried to make her feel better.

‘How are you finding Winterfold, then?’

She shrugged. It was just one of many little gestures she had that somehow made her even more beautiful.

‘Quiet. It’s really quiet here,’ she said, and laughed, quickly and briefly.

I smiled.

‘That’s about it.’

I looked out to sea.

‘But you know, once upon a time…’

‘Are you going to tell me a story?’ she said, seriously.

‘Yes, I guess I am,’ I said. I started again. ‘Once upon a time, this was the biggest town for a hundred miles around.’

‘That’s not possible.’

‘It’s true. You can read all about it in the museum if you like. Of course, it was quite a long time ago.’

‘How long?’ Rebecca asked, tilting her head on one side, so her hair hung across one eye. Another one of those mannerisms.

‘About eight hundred years, give or take. It was a big town, with thousands of people, dozens of streets, hundreds of houses, about ten churches.’

‘So what happened to it?’

‘The sea’s been eating away at the coast here for centuries. It started with a big storm in 1218; the harbour flooded over into the town and by the next day half the town had gone. It’s been much slower since then, but still it goes on, bit by bit. Even in my lifetime. I’ve seen three houses lost, abandoned to the sea, and then fall over the cliff bit by bit.’

‘That’s incredible.’

‘It’s great,’ I said. ‘I love it. The current rate of collapse is two metres a year, on average. Sometimes more, sometimes less.’

‘How do you know all this stuff?’ Rebecca asked.

It wasn’t really worth answering that; I find it boring to explain, so I gave her an answer that suited me.

‘I just remember stuff easily.’

That was the best way of putting it. Before she could speak again, I had an idea.

‘Listen, it will be dusk soon, but there’s still time. I could take you to the church. Then you’ll really get an idea of what’s happening in Winterfold.’

She hesitated for a moment, but only a moment. I wondered what was happening in her head. What she was thinking, what she was thinking about me.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘That would be good.’

‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Actually, evening’s the best time to visit the church.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘You’ll see.’

‘I didn’t even know there was a church here.’

‘Like I said, there were lots. There’s only one left now, and it’s on the other side of these woods, further along the cliff. You’ll love it.’

I stood up and put my hands out to pull Rebecca up from where she sat.

She saw me holding out my hands. She stood up by herself, but she smiled.

She was happy enough.

‘Come on then. Show me the church.’

So we went, by the snaking path through the woods that clung to the edge of the cliff, through the trees, each tree waiting for its time to come, the time when it would meet the advancing sea, and fall into the water with a tumble of root and branch.

T
he two girls make their way through the thickets of this scrubby wood - a twenty-minute walk, but only fifty strides wide, with farmland to the right and the cliff to the left, as they head south along the coast.

More than once, Ferelith stops and points.

‘Look! See that way, there. That path used to go somewhere, and now it just falls off the edge. Into the sea. Splosh!’

Ferelith chats about this and that, explaining the history of the village, like a textbook, Rebecca thinks. Ferelith is certainly unusual, and intelligent. Maybe very intelligent. Rebecca wonders about the DVD, and whether she should ask straight out if Ferelith put it in their house. She decides not to.

Again Ferelith stops.

‘I want to show you something,’ she says, pushing off the path and into the undergrowth once more. ‘Come on!’

Rebecca watches her go, and then pushes in after her. The branches snap back, whipping her cheeks.

‘Ow!’ she cries, but Ferelith doesn’t stop, head down, fighting a couple of brambles that have hooked her.

She drops onto her hands and knees and Rebecca drops beside her.

‘Ow!’ she says again.

‘Yes,’ says Ferelith, ‘but look.’

In front of them is a gravestone. Just one, overgrown by weeds, covered in moss. Behind it through the trees lurks the bright and sunny cliff edge, maybe three metres away.

‘This is the luckiest man in Winterfold. Well, in this churchyard anyway.’

‘What churchyard?’ Rebecca asks, feeling slow. ‘It’s just weeds and bushes.’

‘It is now, but this was the churchyard of St James’s. It’s not the one we’re going to look at. That one’s still standing. All that’s left of St James’s is this one gravestone. All the rest have fallen into the sea. So this is the luckiest man in the churchyard. Look, you can just see his name.’

Ferelith traces her pointed fingertip across the letters, hard to read through the lichen, but still legible.

‘Robert Eyatt, Departed this earth, July 30th 1752.’

‘That’s in four days’ time,’ Rebecca says.

Ferelith nods.

‘This year, maybe next. No more than three, and he’ll be in the sea too.’

‘That’s creepy,’ Rebecca says, but even as she says it, she finds it fascinating too.

‘I think it’s fun,’ Ferelith says, sensing Rebecca’s interest. ‘After a big storm, I run along the beach in the morning and see what I can find.’

‘Find?’

‘From the graves. I’ve found some amazing things over the years. I can show you sometime, if you like.’

‘Thanks,’ says Rebecca, but her voice is empty. Is this what she finds unsettling about Ferelith? Some foreshadowing in her, some foreshadowing of death?

‘Come on,’ Ferelith says, getting back to her feet. ‘This is the only grave of St James’s left, but there are still loads at St Mary’s. It’s getting dark, we should hurry.’

 

They retrace their haphazard route through the undergrowth to the relative ease of the path. In another few minutes they come to the end of the wood. The path turns inland and joins the main footpath that the dog walkers use, and runs parallel to the cliff for a short while. Then it stops, and turns up a slight rise.

Here, Ferelith ducks underneath some yellow tape strung across the path, preventing access to the churchyard. It’s the sort of tape police put around a crime scene; she’s seen her father with it, but this is not a crime scene. The tape has some writing on it, but in the dark she can’t make it out.

Dusk has fallen, and the sun is out of sight beneath the horizon now. Still, there’s enough light for Rebecca to see the shape of a large church rearing from the ground.

‘This is St Mary’s,’ Ferelith says, ‘and it’s the best church in the world.’

Rebecca doubts that. When she was little her parents took her to lots of places: Moscow, Venice, Chartres. So she’s seen some amazing churches and cathedrals and been equally amazed and bored by them all.

‘Really?’ she says, not that interested. They’re standing in the churchyard, and there are indeed plenty more graves around them. Ferelith glides away in the gathering darkness towards the front west door of the church.

‘Oh, you wait!’ she cries, and as Rebecca follows, Ferelith grabs the huge iron handle, and wrestles with it.

‘It’ll be locked,’ Rebecca calls.

‘No point,’ Ferelith says.

‘Why not?’

Ferelith has the door moving now, and puts her insubstantial weight behind it, leaning with her shoulder to get it open. The door swings wide as Rebecca catches up with her.

‘That’s why,’ says Ferelith.

‘Oh,’ says Rebecca, unable to find anything smarter to say.

She’s looking through the door, but she’s not looking into the church, instead, she’s looking through it.

She’s looking through it, because the church has no back. She can see the nave, the aisles, there are even pews between the columns, and there’s a roof to the columns, but the whole eastern end of the church is missing.

What she’s looking at is the last glow of light from the sunset, the dusky sky, some wisps of cloud, and an evening star.

Where the pulpit should be, the moon hangs low in the sky, as if rising out of the sea like a bathing goddess.

‘Oh,’ Rebecca says again.

‘I told you,’ Ferelith says, and laughs. ‘The end fell away about five years ago. It’s been pretty stable since then, but they’ve stopped having services in here. Which I think is a shame. Because . . .’

She runs down the aisle, dancing like a ballerina, and before Rebecca can guess what she’s going to do, leaps onto the altar.

‘Because I think it’s better now!’ she cries.

‘You shouldn’t do that!’ Rebecca calls, running to stand by the altar on which Ferelith is now dancing to some unheard tune.

‘Why not?’ she calls.

‘Because it’s . . . wrong,’ Rebecca says, aware of how pointless that sounds.

Ferelith stops dancing. She puts her hands on her hips and looks down at Rebecca.

‘Before this church closed for business, four old ladies and a dog made up the whole congregation. I really don’t think it’s much missed. The eastern end of the church is the sacred end, the end that looks towards the Holy Land. But the eastern end is gone, and now it looks towards something truly magnificent! The sea! This church is a temple to the sea!’

Rebecca shakes her head.

‘You’re crazy,’ she says, but Ferelith’s mood is too infectious.

‘Look!’ Ferelith says. ‘Isn’t it amazing? You look that way and the stained glass is still there.You look that way, and it’s just sky and sea.’

Rebecca looks at the windows, and in the dusk she makes out a scene from the Easter story. Ferelith notices.

‘It’s horrible, isn’t it?’

She sounds subdued all of a sudden. Her smile has gone.

‘What?’ Rebecca asks.

‘That story. How they crucify him. It’s gruesome. Don’t you think?’

‘I suppose so. I’ve never looked at it like that. When I think of Easter I think of eggs and bunnies and chocolate and . . .’

‘Yes, but what’s Easter all about? A dead guy on a cross.’

‘Maybe.’

‘You know what the really sad thing is?’ Ferelith asks.

She stands on the altar as if she’s preaching.

‘What?’

‘Well,’ she says. ‘He died on the Friday, and rose from the dead on the Sunday, right?’

‘So? What’s so sad about that?’

‘Well,’ says Ferelith. ‘He missed nearly all the bank holiday weekend.’

She starts giggling again, and tilts her head to the night sky.

‘Come on, come up and join me,’ she says, and Rebecca can’t resist any more.

Rebecca reaches out and Ferelith pulls her onto the ancient stone table, and they both begin to dance.

‘What are you dancing to?’ Rebecca asks.

‘None of your business!’ Ferelith says with mock outrage. ‘What about you?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Rebecca says, ‘but you know, this is totally wrong. It might not even be safe.’

‘Do you care?’ Ferelith asks, not breaking step.

Rebecca can’t even see the edge of the cliff now. There’s a gaping hole where the sanctuary should be, and very, very near, she can hear the sound of the waves breaking at the foot of the cliffs.

Suddenly Ferelith grabs Rebecca round the waist, a hand on each hip, and keeps dancing. Rebecca doesn’t stop her, and lets her touch her, though she doesn’t touch back. Not yet. Ferelith holds her gaze for a long time, before asking her question again.

‘Well,’ she says. ‘Do you care?’