The Owl Killers

november

third and last day of samhain. the day on which christians collected alms to pay for prayers for the souls of the dead in purgatory.

pUT ONE FOOT STRAIGHT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER,” that’s what the tumbler’s girl said at the May Fair. “Feel your toes touching your heels, then you don’t have to look down. You mustn’t ever look down, ’cause that’s what makes you fall.”

I got to the end of the trestle without falling off, but then I had to turn. That’s the really hard bit. It looked easy when she did it. She put her leg straight out, then sort of swivelled.

“Stare real hard at yon tree,” she said, “then you’ll not slip. Stare at one spot. Don’t ever take your eyes off it.”

I swung my leg, wobbled, and crashed onto the ground.

“God’s blood, what ever are you up to this time, lass?” Mam stood over me, hands on hips, her mouth wrinkled tight like a pig’s arsehole. Her mouth always pinched up like that when she was going to clout me.

I quickly began to bawl, rubbing my leg and rolling around. I was good at that. Mam could never tell if I was really crying or not.

“She’s practising to be a tumbler, aren’t you, Pisspuddle?” William grinned.

“Are you hurt, lass? Where? Show me.” Mam bent down. “Tumblers indeed! Whatever put that nonsense in your head?”

“Isn’t nonsense. I’ll do it, you’ll see. When the tumblers come for the next May Fair, they’re going to take me with them. They said they would if I practised and could walk the pole. I’ll go all over, fairs and castles and the like. The tumbler’s girl said they toss you real gold coins at the castles. And I’ll be eating suckling pig every day, twice sometimes.”

Behind me, William snorted with laughter.

“You just wait, fat-arse,” I told him. “One day I’ll be rich and you’ll be starving hungry and you’ll come to me begging for food and I’ll not even give you a bone to suck.”

“It’s you who won’t have a bone to suck, lass. A bed in a ditch and a kick for your supper is all they’ll give you.” Mam pulled me to my feet, feeling my arms and legs. “And what do you think happens to little girls when they’re too big to be tossed on poles? Turned out to thieving and begging, or worse. End on the gallows, every one of them. Just look at the state of you! Muck from head to toe. How’s your leg? Can you walk?”

William pushed his face close to mine and whispered, “Do you know where the tumblers get their suckling pigs, Pisspuddle?”

“Don’t call me that. Mam, tell him not to call me that.”

“I’m bigger than you, so I can call you anything I want. And I’ll tell you where the tumblers get their suckling pig. They wait for a dark night when the little girls are fast asleep, then they creep up and cut their throats from ear to ear.” He sliced his grubby finger across my throat. “Then they chop them up and stuff them in pickle barrels. That’s their suckling pigs, silly little pisspuddles like you. But don’t worry, they’ll fatten you up first, you’re so skinny, your arse wouldn’t fill a pasty.” He poked me sharply over and over, going for all the soft places.

“Make him stop, Mam! My leg hurts.” I tried to limp away.

“I thought it was the other leg that was hurt,” William smirked.

“Why you little…” Mam aimed a swipe at my head, but I dodged out of reach. “You just wait till I get hold of you, I’ll give you hurt.”

I darted round the corner of the cottage and smashed straight into Lettice’s belly. She staggered back and I tried to dodge round her, but she grabbed me by the back of my neck and marched me back to Mam.

“Have you heard, dear?” Lettice said.

“What?” Mam asked, grabbing hold of my arm.

“Two maids from the Manor, attacked in the churchyard last night. Ran screaming all the way home. Scarcely escaped with their lives, so they say.”

Mam’s eyes were wide. “Do they know who it was attacked them?”

“Now you’re asking, my dear. It’s not so much a question of who but what.”

Lettice looked fearfully round as if who or what might be behind her. She moved closer. “A great bird, taller than Blacksmith John, swooped right down on them from the church tower just as they were setting out for the Manor.”

“A bird?” Mam whispered.

“You’re hurting me, Mam!” I wailed. She still had a tight hold of my arm and her fingers were digging into me. Everyone ignored me. “Mam!”

“When I say a bird, I mean he had the head and wings of a bird all right, an owl, with a beak big enough to sever a maid’s leg and great black talons instead of feet, but he had the body and private parts of a man. And when I say privates of a man,” she raised her eyebrows, “it was more like a stallion, so I’ve heard.”

Mam gasped. “So, it’s true then. I heard what happened on All Hallows’ Eve, but the men were in their cups. Sow-drunk most of them by the way they went roaring through the village. Most of them couldn’t get out of their beds the next day, never mind talk any sense. But if the Owlman himself has been seen…”

Lettice crossed herself. “My old grandam used to tell me tales of him that her mam had taught her. Not just bairns he took, but full grown men, ripped the flesh off them and ate them alive. Devoured their souls too. He terrorised the whole village for more than a year last time he flew, until the cunning women cast him into a sleep. But that was nigh on a hundred years ago, maybe more. I never thought he’d fly again, not in my lifetime.”

“God save us…” Mam squashed me tightly against her leg.

“Amen to that, for there’s not a cunning woman left in these parts, save old Gwenith. God grant that her grandam taught her the words to bind the demon, else there’ll be no stopping him this time nor them that wakened him.”

She crossed herself again. “You heard about poor Aldith’s little Oliver, of course you have, who hasn’t? Still not a sign of the little lad’s body. The dear woman’s beside herself. In and out of her cottage every day I am, to comfort the dear soul, fair wearing myself out with it. But at the end of the day what can you say to her? They’re dark arts indeed that take the body of an innocent boy for their work.” Lettice inched closer to Mam. “You want to keep those bairns close by, my dear.”

Mam whirled me round to face her. “You two inside now and stay there. From now on neither of you sets foot outside the door till the sun’s full up and I want you indoors before the Vespers bell. You hear me?”

“But, Mam,” William groaned.

“Now inside, both of you, and no more arguments.”

Mam landed a stinging slap on my backside and pushed me towards the door. It wasn’t fair. I hadn’t said a word. William was the one who was arguing.

William kicked the doorpost as he passed, but he daren’t say anything to Mam. He threw himself down next to the fire.

“Stupid lasses. I’d not have run away screaming from the Owlman. I want to see him. She needn’t think I’m going to stay in.”

“Me neither.” I tried to look as sulky as him and kicked the nearest stool. It tumbled over, scattering a bowl of beans which Mam had left on top. They trickled into the thick layer of rushes on the earth floor. Mam would kill me! Why did she have to put them there? I scrambled to pick up the tiny beans, but every time I grabbed one bean, it made more of the others disappear.

“You’re going to get a really good skelping this time, when Mam sees that,” William grinned, deliberately scattering them even more with his foot.

My stomach somersaulted. I could still feel Mam’s hand across my backside from the slap. I crept to the door. I could slip out while she’d still got her back to it, gabbing to fat Lettice.

“Listen, did you hear that?” William said, rushing to the window.

“What?”

“Wings, great big wings swooping down. Look! Quick, did you see it, that black shadow? I wouldn’t give much for anyone’s chances out there alone.”

Lettice had said it was a bird bigger than John with an owl’s head and great big talons. Only the day before, I’d seen a falcon swooping down on a vole. It had perched, with one foot pinning down the little body, ripping out the fur with its hooked beak and tearing at the entrails until its beak was all red with blood. I shivered. What could a bird as big as a blacksmith do?