Jack of Ravens

16

They cut down Lucia’s body in the bitter cold, beneath hard grey clouds that promised more snow. Church tried to keep in his head the image of Lucia sitting amongst the standing stones after they had left Rome, telling him not to mourn for her when she died. But faced with the harsh reality of her limp body and cold skin, and the unnecessary circumstances of her death, it was difficult not to turn towards dark thoughts.

Will remained cold-faced, all emotions locked tightly within. Church knew the spy had started to feel deeply for Lucia, and there was nothing Church could say to ease his pain. He couldn’t even sustain anger for the ignorant villagers, manipulated into a brutal, false reading of their religion.

‘We should bury her,’ Church said.

‘The ground will be like iron,’ Will said. ‘Besides, these illiterate, superstitious peasants would never let her rest in peace if they knew the location of her grave.’

‘What, then? Cremation?’

They were interrupted by a woman’s cry from a nearby house. Tom investigated, and after a moment beckoned Church to follow while Will stood guard over Lucia’s body, though all the villagers had long since hidden themselves away.

The house smelled of woodsmoke and dried herbs. Tom led Church upstairs to a bedroom where a woman sobbed quietly. On the bed, her skin as white as the snow outside, was a girl of around seventeen. She was heavily pregnant and appeared to be sleeping though her breath was thready.

‘She’s dying,’ Tom whispered to Church. ‘She hasn’t woken for days. She had a fever, then slipped into unconsciousness. The birth has started and the mother knows the baby will die, too.’ Tom indicated the woman in the corner who was trying to compose herself.

‘What am I supposed to do about it?’ Church said sharply, but his bitterness at Lucia’s death drained away when he looked at the girl. Life was harsh, and in the absence of proper medical care, death remained close to every community. All the love and hope and dreams and art and music counted for nothing in the face of it. Where was the meaning in that, any rhyme or reason to Existence?

‘My Alice suffers because we allowed the witch into our village. God is punishing us,’ the woman said.

‘No,’ Church said. ‘That “witch” was a woman like you, like your daughter, with the same feelings, the same thoughts. What kind of God would want to bring pain or death into her life?’

Tom caught Church’s arm, but the woman was already crying. Church knew she needed some way to make sense of her impending loss; everyone did. It was so senseless.

As he watched over the pale girl, his thoughts flashed back to Carn Euny and the dawn celebration for Ailidh’s stillborn child. Eighteen hundred years separated the two girls, yet their concerns were the same. Hope and sadness; humanity in essence.

Before Church could say something to ease the woman’s grief, a powerful wind crashed against the tiny window and they all jumped. A snowstorm had come out of nowhere with an unnatural ferocity. Through the window, Myddle was gone. There was only a wall of white, as if the house was floating in a non-place. Flakes were already compacting to blanket the glass.

Church and Tom exchanged a brief look of unease before hurrying outside. So intense was the storm it was near-impossible to pick the right direction. Everywhere was white, and they were blinded by the snow driven into their faces by the bitter wind. For five minutes, they wandered around calling for Will, though they had left him only a stone’s throw from the door.

And then the snowstorm abated as suddenly and mysteriously as it had begun. The wind dropped in the blink of an eye; the final flakes drifted to the ground.

A snow-covered mound lay where Will and Lucia’s body had been. Church and Tom brushed the snow away and dragged Will to his feet. He was dazed, barely conscious, frozen to the bone and shivering. Lucia’s body was nowhere to be seen.

‘What happened to her, Will?’ Church asked.

Will tried to reclaim his thoughts. ‘I saw … dark eyes …’ was all he could manage.

Tom indicated a set of cloven hoofprints leading away from them.

‘An animal?’ Church said.

‘That walks on two legs?’

Church and Tom helped Will back to the house to recover in front of the fire. Before they could talk further, the woman stumbled down the stairs, wailing hysterically. ‘My Alice! My Alice!’ When they had finally calmed her, they learned that the pregnant girl had disappeared from her bed. The woman had looked to the window, and when she looked back the girl was gone.

‘I’m going after Lucia and the girl,’ Church said as he pulled his cloak tightly around him.

‘Is that wise?’ Tom said. ‘The suddenness of the snowstorm, the hoofprints — it speaks to me of wild, dark magic.’

‘I can’t abandon them, Tom.’

The Rhymer nodded. ‘Then take care. I fear what awaits you.’

The hoofprints led Church to the main street and then out of the village. Beyond the houses, they left the road and crossed the fields. Shivering, Church struggled through the thick snow until he came to Myddlewood, where Lucia had spent a night of wonder and mystery only hours earlier. The hoofprints continued straight into the heart of the wood.

Church hesitated on the boundary and stared into the desolate trees. Nothing moved. There was no breeze, no sound. He drew his sword and entered the dark world.

The strange, still atmosphere blanketed the edge of the wood, swollen with anticipation, like the moment before someone speaks. Church was ready for an attack from any direction, but he could not sense any impending threat.

As he progressed further into the wood, the claustrophobic atmosphere slowly dissipated, and with it went the snow as the temperature gradually increased. Eventually it felt like a balmy spring day. Snowdrops and then bluebells carpeted the floor of the wood, illuminated by shafts of sunlight, and birdsong filled the air. Words from an uplifting song sprang to mind: ‘The day is full of birds’. Soon he stood amidst summer in the heart of winter.

Cautiously, he sheathed his sword. A rabbit hopped out from behind a tree and approached him without fear. It sniffed his boots and then looked up at him. He felt a frisson as he stared into its eyes: an unnerving intelligence lay there. As it lazily hopped away, the wood gradually came alive: a fox slipped amongst green ferns, mice and voles, more rabbits, birds landing so close it was as if he was not there. The same gleam of consciousness lay in all their eyes.

An abiding sense of peace came over Church, and then a sense of wonder that made him feel as if he was on the brink of something profound. The sound of a child’s voice startled him and he broke into a run.

In a grotto formed by the gnarled roots of ancient trees and filled with woodland flowers sat Alice, now pink with life, her blonde hair gleaming. She was laughing in amazement, and her eyes sparkled when she saw Church.

‘Look,’ she said with delight. ‘I have a baby now.’

She pulled her newborn from the folds of her nightgown. It looked at Church with big, dark eyes, and in them Church saw everything for which he hoped, but had never dared believe possible.

Not enough time had passed for Alice to have delivered the child herself, and yet there it was, apparently healthy and filled with life. Alice too had recovered from her near-death state with unbelievable speed.

‘Who delivered your baby, Alice?’ Church said, as he moved towards the answer himself.

‘Oh, ’twas wonderful. I remember it all,’ the girl said. ‘There was no pain, only a beautiful light and the scent of roses.’

Church looked around the glade. The wildlife was everywhere, all looking towards him with the same fierce personality, one mind behind a hundred eyes. He could sense it, too, breathing with a deep peace in the trees, the ferns, the flowers, the rocks, the soil.

‘It was a woman, a beautiful woman,’ Alice continued dreamily. ‘Long, dark hair that had stars sparkling in it, and dark eyes, and a smile that made me safe. I could feel her love. She delivered me from the dark and the cold and brought me to life.’

The last vestiges of Church’s sadness dissipated. Once again he was with Lucia, sitting amongst the stones on a balmy night, and this time her words did resonate with him. Do not mourn for me, for I will travel into the heart of the mystery.

Alice rocked her baby gently. ‘She was not alone. There was a man waiting for her amongst the trees … a handsome man. I think she loved him.’

Church had no idea exactly what had taken place there, but he was certain of the result. In death, Lucia’s adventure continued, and now her innate goodness permeated everything. She had moved on from the grief and the suffering and found her oasis of peace. He hoped Myddlewood would be a good home for her.

‘Goodbye, Lucia,’ he said softly, and he felt as if he was answered, though it may have been just the breeze amongst the trees.

Church helped Alice to her feet, and then wrapped her and her baby in his cloak before picking them both up and carrying them. As they left the wood, Alice’s face took on a strange cast. ‘There was something else … something I couldn’t see … I remember … dark eyes, and laughter …’

Her words echoed what Will had said when Lucia’s body had been stolen. There was a hidden hand at play here, and Church was unsure of what it might be, whether good or evil.

Back at the village, Alice’s mother was hysterical with joy. The other villagers gathered round in amazement, proclaiming a miracle. Church considered telling them who had really delivered new life to their community, but knew they would not believe him. Even Will registered quiet disbelief when Church tried to explain what he had experienced in Myddlewood. The spy thought Church was merely trying to ease his grief, and thanked him for his kindness. In the end, Church accepted that only by being there and experiencing first hand could such a thing be believed; perhaps that was the heart of mystery.

‘This is a hard world, filled with shadows,’ Will said grimly as they followed the trail north from the village.

‘It’s designed to make us think that,’ Church said, ‘but the light’s there. You just have to look hard to find it.’

They rode on through the cold without food or drink, but for a brief while Church felt that no misery could touch him again.