Black Feathers

8

August 2009

Gordon’s bedroom light flicked on, banishing the dark and its skulking army of terrors. It also blinded him.

“You all right, son?”

It was his father’s voice.

“I think so.”

“You were… screaming. Really screaming.”

“Sorry, Dad.” Gordon could hear whispering in the hallway outside his door – Judith and mum. He spoke loud enough that they could all hear him. “I’m all right now. Just a nightmare.”

In the doorway, Louis turned to the others.

“He’s OK. You can go back to bed.”

After a few moments, two pairs of footsteps padded back along the upstairs passageway. Gordon heard the creak of bedsprings. Louis slipped into the room and shut the door behind him. He switched on the less glaring bedside lamp and turned out the main light before sitting on Gordon’s bed. He placed his palm on Gordon’s chest through the duvet.

“Getting a bit old for these bad dreams, aren’t you? You’ll be in double figures in a couple of months.”

“I can’t help it. I would if I could.”

“I know, son. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.” Louis sighed. “But we worry about you, you know. Mum especially.”

“Mum worries about everything.”

Louis chuckled.

“True.”

He was silent long enough for Gordon’s eyes to adjust to the brightness. His father looked tired, eroded. Gordon ground his teeth.

“How’s everything at school?”

“It’s OK.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“No one’s… making your life difficult?”

“No, Dad. It’s fine.”

“You never bring any of your friends home. You don’t get invited to any parties.”

“I’ve got a couple of friends. They’re not like best mates or anything but they’re OK. I’m just not into the stuff the other boys are into. Football. Cars. Fighting. I’d rather be outside. At the Faraway Tree or in Covey Wood. Doing stuff in the garden with you and Mum.”

Louis was quiet for such a time that Gordon started to drift back into sleep. He came to with a start when his father spoke again.

“What, Dad?”

Louis looked over at him.

“I said, your happiness is very important to us.”

Gordon put his hand out from under the duvet and placed it over his father’s.

“I am happy, Dad. Honest.”

Louis’s face changed then, the care lines deepening, crushed closer together. He looked like he was about to say something; something adult. A secret, perhaps. Late at night and sometimes on very still days when he was in the woods or watching the crows wheel and dance in the sky above the fields, Gordon felt there was such a secret, locked away in his parents’ hearts, locked away in his own.

The moment passed and Louis’s face cleared and opened.

“You know, I had some troubles when I was your age.”

“What kind of troubles?”

“Oh… it doesn’t matter what they were. Just my concerns about life, I suppose. About growing up. I used to write all my worries down in a diary. I found it helped me. I always felt better afterwards. Would you try doing that? If you knew it would help you sleep easier?”

Gordon shrugged.

“I suppose.”

“OK. Good. That’s good.”

Gordon thought the conversation was over but his dad didn’t get up.

“What were you dreaming about?” Louis asked very quietly.

Gordon wished there was some way he could pretend to be asleep but the tone of his father’s voice made it clear there was no avoiding the question.

“I don’t really remember.”

Louis’s gaze was stern.

“Try.”

Gordon took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. The image was there immediately, colossal and terrifying.

“It’s a bird. A crow. And it’s so big that its wings stretch all the way across the sky. It blocks out all the light and I know, deep down in my guts, that it’s going to be night-time forever. It’s like this crow has flown down out of space with his claws all stretched out, ready to…”

“To what?”

“I don’t know exactly. To tear a chunk out of the world. To drag the world into the darkest part of the universe. That’s it. That’s all I can remember.”

“You know that’s never going to happen, don’t you? You understand that it’s just a dream, right?”

“Course I do, Dad. I’m not thick.”

Louis’s big hand patted his chest and he smiled.

“No. Thick is one thing you’re not.”

Under his breath Louis muttered something. He usually did this if he was swearing in front of Gordon or his sisters. What he said sounded something like:

Bloody crows.

“What, Dad?”

Louis looked at him and grinned, his eyes seeming to focus elsewhere.

“Do you remember the scarecrow we made?”

Gordon shook his head.

“I don’t think so.”

“You were probably too young. About two years old, I guess. We’ve always had a problem with crows and the like around here, and that year your mum decided to make a scarecrow to keep them away. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. Anyway, we put a lot of effort into this guy. We stuffed a pair of your mum’s tights with straw for his legs and stuck them in an old pair of black trousers. She found some black boots at the tip one day and we used those for his feet. He had a big chest – a potato sack filled with more straw and over that he had an old black T-shirt. His head was a hollowed-out pumpkin with a creepy face carved into it…”

Louis paused and glanced at Gordon.

“Sorry, son. I’m not trying to give you more nightmares. I just–”

Gordon grinned now.

“I’m not frightened of a scarecrow, Dad.”

“No. No, of course not. Well anyway, his arms were made from another pair of tights and we cut holes in the ends and stuck black twigs in there to look like bony fingers. Over the top he wore a ripped black overcoat that didn’t fit me anymore and a crumpled black top hat from the charity shop in Monmouth. We even put some black feathers in his hat, like trophies I suppose, to ward off the crows. And we pushed his arms up a bit so it looked like he was clawing at the sky. We used an old bird feeder to keep him upright and put him right in the middle of the garden.”

Louis smiled as he reassembled the phantom of the scarecrow in his mind.

“Did it work?” asked Gordon.

“Did it hell. The next morning we went out and he had a crow perched on each arm and two fighting for a place on his hat. There were droppings all over his coat and the apple trees were crammed with cawing, flapping bloody corvids. It scared your sisters half to death but not the birds. Complete bloody failure.”

Louis laughed and shook his head.

“What did you do?” asked Gordon.

“I moved him up to the back wall of the garden and forgot about him. He stayed there for a year or two getting mouldy and falling apart. I think we chucked him on the bonfire in the end.”

“I feel sorry for him.”

Louis nodded.

“Yeah. I do too now that I think about it.” His father’s eyes filled with tears which didn’t quite spill. “We do our best, Gordon, your mum and I. We really do.”

“I know that, Dad. It’s oka–”

Louis held up his hand.

“No. Just listen to me for a second. Life is hard enough even at the best of times. But these aren’t the best of times right now. For anyone. I want you to know – to remember, no matter what happens in your life – that your mother and I love you very, very dearly. We’d do anything for you, Gordon. Anything at all.”

Gordon nodded. He had no idea what to say. His father stood up from the bed, weariness overtaking him once more. Gordon had never seen him look so old.

“Think you’ll sleep better now?” Louis asked.

“Yes, Dad. I think I will.”

Louis nodded.

“Great,” he said, without enthusiasm. “Goodnight, son.”

“Goodnight, Dad.”

Louis flicked the light out and moved to the door in the darkness, sure of his way. It wasn’t until the thin light of morning seeped through the curtains that Gordon finally slept.