The Sparrow Eater

Chapter One

Every young boy craves the attention of his father, or craves the attention of someone they might think of as a father; they might look up to their brother, an uncle or a character from their favourite book. But not every boy has someone like this to look up to: they simply have a favourite football team and footballer, a singer, a band all in plain sight through a television screen or the pages of a magazine. Tom had none of these. He had a father, but if you knew Tom’s father you would understand why he barely deserved the name.

Tom sat in the back garden. He closed his eyes and heard distant cracks and tremors in the eaves of the trees, rooks were gathering before the sun went down; they cawed and called to one another as they hopped from one branch to another until they found a friendly perch.

The cat’s coat brushed up against the hedge, his head held up as he watched shades pass in the air above, making their way to their perches in the woods. In the cat’s mouth a mouse hung on to the last moments of its life, it lay still, its heart beating manically; upside down in the cat’s mouth, its belly faced the air where the rooks were passing by, its eyes facing down to the earth. Sensing a change of posture the mouse twitched, but the cat held on as it sauntered over to Tom, brushing itself up against Tom’s legs that were crooked up so that his knees supplied a perch for his chin. Eyes closed. Listening intently. All was silent except the bullying of the rooks in the woods and the cat’s steady purr of pride.

Vainly the cat stepped about Tom’s feet, the mouse in its jaws dead still now, Tom’s eyes blinked open as it passed in front of him, dropping it casually, one paw pressing it against the ground, the other held up as it licked and smoothed away a dab of blood.

It wasn’t his cat and he didn’t ask for these mice it kept bringing, but he took them anyway, never touching the cat in thanks or gratitude. He was unsure of the black mog and had no idea who it belonged to; he wasn’t even sure he liked it all that much, but even so it kept coming back.

Doors slammed behind him. His father was back. The door always seemed to slam. It would only be moments now; he picked up the limp mouse, still warm and wet, from the ground and stuffed it into his pocket. Sitting up he watched the cat disappear through a gap in the hedge, always the same gap he realised.

Tom’s father stood behind him, his gaze on Tom’s hand still stuffed into the pocket with the limp, wet mouse.

*

His father wasn’t happy and never seemed to be happy. The neighbours thought he must have his reasons, but none knew what they were or why the doors slammed the moment he came home and throughout the evening. Neither Mr of Mrs Ford had been over to the house since, they felt, there was little invitation there and imagined a rude greeting from Tom’s father should they ever do so. The other neighbours felt the same way, though never said so, preferring to keep their talk to themselves.

Tom’s jacket hung over the end of the banister where his father had told him to leave it: it wasn’t cold, so there was no need to have it on. Tom disagreed, but hung it there all the same, the mouse still curled in his pocket.

Doors slammed and the key turned in the lock as his father left for work. Scattered about the house, heads of deer, bodies of badgers, a fox, heron, wren, stoat, rabbit, hare, and others, looked from one wall to the other, from mantle piece to window and from shelf to doorway. Tom always made it his game to look each one in its glass eye, see the outline of himself in profile, looking back.

The badger’s teeth were bared, one of them chipped, he imagined from a scrape with its partner or maybe the fox. He summoned up scenes of fox chasing hare, but settling for the rabbit that hare led him to. All around the house the smell of the chemicals his father used had spread and seeped into the paper, the floors and cushions and even the bread, despite the fact it was in a tin bin on the kitchen counter.

Beside the bread bin his father had left out his tools and chemicals. Each time he had the chance Tom relieved the jars of tiny quantities, in order not to be missed. Moving to the shed, he took his mouse and began his surgeon’s procedures.

It was stiffer now after its sojourn in Tom’s pocket, but he applied all his little tricks to give it back some movement before removing everything that was now unnecessary and depositing it in a jar, which he sealed tight after pouring vegetable oil over the contents.

Before long the cat’s mouse seemed to have some life in him and he was able to admire his work. When he peered into the creature’s eyes it seemed to stare at him in a way his father’s things never did.

The cat nudged the shed door and Tom hid his things away. The light that greeted him was brighter than normal and he blinked back a tear, almost stumbling over the cat. It reached up clawing at his trouser leg, but Tom wouldn’t pass him the mouse. Not now.

One of the cat’s claws caught and pushed through the fabric of his jeans, scratching at his skin and Tom yelped, the cat hissed and pulled away from him, turning its back. It stayed a moment before stalking off.

Closing his eyes he listened to the wind and imagined the clouds overhead, gusting over his valley. He felt the tug and nudge of the wind’s breath and in his mind he saw a kite drifting up under the wind’s guidance.

Chapter Two

A bell rang out from the doorway. The electric bell was new, fitted after dad was given the parts by someone Tom didn’t know and hadn’t heard of before. It rang again and a shadow moved back and forth, the shape spilled from one section of frosted glass to the next. Whoever it was knew he was there, Tom could tell. Could tell from the way they hung there, a physical shadow shifting in the glass. When the face came up against the glass he pulled himself back further than he thought possible. From the top of the stairs he saw the shape linger, shift, shimmer and reach for the bell again.

Polyester fibres scratched at his skin. He lay flat against the landing carpet, his shirt had pulled itself up after he had slunk back as much as he could and now the fibres scratched and bothered his skin.

The bell rang one last time. The shadow stood waiting, before finally melting away leaving nothing but light to press against the glass.

Tom waited until the light darkened, until the sun had left the sky, before he moved. He went first to the toilet, dropped the white plastic down and stepped up to peer through the crack at the top of the window. Nothing. But now it was almost too dark for him to see anything.

He moved to the next window in the room over the dining room. Nothing. Lamps flickered on. His eyes watered from looking so hard for something that wasn’t there. The dark moved into the house, into every room and up out of the corners until every space was filled and smothered. Tom sat himself down in the corner of the room and crooked up his knees and rested his chin there. If he turned a light on now and there was someone outside, someone he couldn’t see, then they would come again and ring the electric bell. They wouldn’t give up if they came again.

He stayed there long enough for his stomach to tremble and shake at him. If he moved to the kitchen and made anything to eat they would know he was here. And would come for him. So he sat there. Counting the beats of his heart.

Finally he began to fidget. He pulled at the back of his left trainer’s heel with the toe-top of his other right trainer, pulling it down so that the cool air filled the warm space there; he repeated the action in reverse, his right trainer worrying at his left. Over and over.

Spilling into the room, the moon’s light lifted the darkness up casting new shadows. Tom turned from his corner, pulling his left trainer back onto his foot, he turned and saw a full, bright moon looking in and flooding the street outside. He moved then, ducking under windows, to the stairs and moved to the back of the house. He unlatched the sliding glass door and took a cushion from the armchair.

Sitting down he shifted the cushion until he was comfortably bedded down, he moved his weight back onto the large planter behind him: terracotta, but grey in the moon’s glow. The fern that grew there tickled at his head and Tom sunk further down to avoid its touch.

He was too late for the rooks. Everything was quiet except for the wind in the trees lifting leaves and branches about, but even this was gracefully hushed.

His father didn’t return.

*

Tom was still in the garden the next day, fallen down, no longer propped up against the planter, but tucked under its gaze on the concrete flagstone. The bell was ringing. Its electric ting picked its way along the hallway and out through the open door at the back of the house. Tom stiffened. His mouth was dry, it felt clogged. He heard sounds at the side of the house but knew no one would come that way. At the side a wooden door with a simple latch blocked the way and was bolted from this side at its top and bottom. The top of the wall it stood in had a line of dried cement with jagged shards of glass stuck there. Nothing could come over or through that way.

The bell rang again and again. From the garden he couldn’t be seen from any angle and so he stood up and listened. If he moved back to the sliding door he might be seen through the window at the front, it looked into the dining room and into the kitchen and at its edge would catch sight of the back door.

Tom realised then the sliding door was open. Had been open all night. If they did look they might see it was open. They would know. It wouldn’t do any good to hide if they saw that. They would know and he couldn’t hide from then.

He leant up against the back wall, his jumper stuck like Velcro to the bricks’ rough touch. He pulled the left heel of his trainer down. The bell rang out.

Ringing down the hall and into the garden, the sound pulled at the hairs on the back of his neck. The gap in the hedge caught Tom’s eye.

If he dropped to his knees and hugged himself down to the ground he could get to the hedge without a chance of being seen. At the gap’s edge Tom flopped to his belly and filled up the space, first his head, then shoulders then his waist and he was through, on his feet. His trainer had come off. He put it back on and tightened the sticky strap. This was his first time through the hedge, even in the wood that was here. He had always played at imagining it from his side, from the garden where he sat on the concrete step.

Closing his eyes he let his mind picture again the paths here, the dells and hidden places. Opening his eyes he saw it all. The paths he imagined were there, the crowds of nettles, and open before him, a dell that curved away, its end out of sight.

The electric bell was a distant sound now and muffled by the hedge at his back.

A thread in his jumper had pulled and tugged at a branch in the hedge. He loosened its grip and began to march into the wood.

 

Chapter Three

That evening Tom sat at the top of the landing; the chair he sat on was normally piled high with newspapers, some unread. He had moved them to the floor; some had slid over, making a very untidy collection at his feet. A small plate teetered on his knees, a ham and cheese sandwich lay at its centre. It was cut up into quarters. He used to like it that way. He always wondered why his sandwiches were cut in quarters, though he never asked.

He started with the upper left corner and then took the bottom right. Always the same pattern. Once, in the old house, he had put his plate down to answer the door, afterwards he had forgotten which was the upper and which was the lower and had made two fresh quarters, starting all over again. His father had seen him do that and watched as he finished it off. He watched Tom do lots of things after that.

Before making the sandwich Tom had opened up his old trunk and taken out the periscope he still had from the old school. Now it was balanced on the sill of the upstairs window. After he finished his sandwich he planned to take another look at the street, happy that no one could see him when he did.

Every hour on the hour Tom took a peek through the periscope. Every hour the clock in the hall chimed, signalling Tom to put his book down and take another look. But each time he did, there was nothing to see.

In the morning Tom dressed, put his good boots on, and his Mac, he made a box of sandwiches and a flask of tea and burrowed through the hedge gap.

At the bottom of the dell he left his bag with tea and sandwiches and made off in search of a perch. It wasn’t long before he found the thick branch of a yew and pulled it down, dragging it through dry earth and tearing at resting leaves and other debris, untouched before Tom’s entrance. The branch made an excellent perch for him and he took some time securing it against wobbling before sitting down and taking a sip of tea.

The sunbeams tripped through branches that edged from side to side in the breeze; beams lapped at Tom’s knees and face before hiding behind the trees’ thick stems again. The angle of their descent shifted and changed and they moved from his left cheek to his right as he sat there through the day. There was a moment, in the middle of the sun’s movement, when Tom’s breath caught and held itself, paused. A badger moved against the horizon of the dell, waddling, head down snuffling at the dry earth. It didn’t see; it didn’t even hear Tom, he sat so quietly.

*

The badger’s entrance was the only sound to break the stillness other than the branches above him. Eventually the sun gave up lapping at Tom sat there on his yew branch, and passed beyond direct view, though Tom could make out the after-effects above him and beyond the trees. Golden reds and oranges filled up the sky. His neck hurt from looking up so much. Lowering his gaze he closed his eyes.

He heard them then. In the distance. Birds. Rooks. Coming home. They didn’t settle at first, but soon enough one took up a perch, then another and another, until all were joined in unison, cawing and cracking their voices across the dell. Each one hopped and took off, finding a preferable spot to take in the assembly. When the oranges and reds deepened, they began to settle down. Occasionally one would take a look at Tom. All had seen him there, sat so quietly, attending their every move, but they ignored him for the most part until occasionally one would become too curious or incredulous that he should be there.

Tom’s sandwiches were finished and his tea gone. Some breadcrumbs remained and he shook these out. He noticed one or two take a quick look at the crusts on the ground, but they seemed offended at such an offering and didn’t look for long. Though Tom waited, none came down and eventually a thin chill usurped the quieting stillness, mist began to rise from the ground and Tom packed himself up. The cat sat on the back step as Tom passed through the gap in the hedge. Held firmly in its jaws was a new catch, brown and wet. Tom stopped, watched the cat as it squeezed down on the body, before letting it fall from its jaw. Tom looked into the cat’s eyes in that moment, looked at the cold stare then looked at the small body. It didn’t move; the cat sat up and sauntered away, moving past Tom and away through the gap in the hedge.

A sound came from the front door, the tumblers in the lock clacked and a key scraped against the metal there. The door slammed and Tom raced to the small wet body quickly stuffing it in with his flask and sandwich wrapper. He threw the bag back over the hedge, out of sight of his father. A thin trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face and the thin cold he had felt as he left the dell now rested at the back of his head.

The back door slid open and his father collected him up and brought him inside. Tom lay on the floor, too rigid to sit, his eyes locked open.

His father moved around him; put away the jars that had been left out. He filled the fireplace with balled-up newspaper and covered it with thin strips of wood. One or two larger bits of wood went on then, along with some coal. He struck a match and soon the back room warmed up, the empty quiet disappeared against the crackle of the wood and in due course Tom’s eyes closed.

 

Chapter Four

Tom’s boots were still on his feet when he woke, bone dry now after a night in front of the open fire. The lids of his eyes stuck together and there was a kind of yellow slick in their corners; between the roots of his lashes the slick had dried and flaked turning a pale yellow and white. Outside, brushing up against the clear glass of the door the cat moved about, it played sentinel at the back door, waiting. Tom washed and changed and cleaned out the cold fireplace; he opened the door where the cat waited, it followed him to the ash pit in the garden’s corner where a cloud of grey gently fell to the old embers in slooping waves.

When the cat moved to the gap in the hedge Tom remembered the bag, remembered the day before: the badger, the tea, the assembly he had sat below. It didn’t take him long to retrieve. It was damp and dirty. He emptied the contents, washed out the flask, put the wrapper from his sandwich in the bin and looked at the cold wet thing the cat had brought him. A mouse. No, not a mouse. A sparrow. He felt somehow sadder when he realised what it was. Looked at it a little longer, sighed and wrapped it in newspaper.

The sparrow lay there, covered in fading print for half the day before Tom decided to take it to the shed. He closed the door and turned the light on, it was dark today. Soon all his jars and hidden tools were out and he was at work. He cleaned it and tended it and eventually brought a semblance of life back to its broken body. It sat, by the end of the day, on a thick dry twig, about to take flight, caught forever more in that pose – the moment between the static earth and the free sky. A scratch came from the door and Tom let the cat in, it stretched itself up, its back curving in as it brought its face up towards the sparrow; leaping up, it sniffed and looked at Tom, its gaze was deep: Tom could almost hear its thoughts. The cat left then, rushing across the lawn, springing forwards and away into the hedge.

His father returned for tea that night; fish and chips from the chip shop, reheated in a pan. His father liked a lot of vinegar. There wasn’t a word passed between them and Tom cleared the plates afterwards while his father silently slipped to the study. On nights like this Tom knew to leave his father alone, knew not to speak to him. In fact he knew it was best not to bother his father at all if he could help it.

He was washing the dishes and the few things they had used when the doorbell gave a cry, ringing down the hallway. Tom heard something fall in the study, books or a box, something loud, then nothing. He stood motionless with a knife in his hands, half washed. No movement followed the sound from the study. The bell rang again and didn’t stop, in the gap in the hedge Tom saw the cat frozen still, another catch held in its mouth.

 

*

 

Tom’s father was gone the next day; Tom had slept downstairs for the second night in a row. He couldn’t remember sleeping; the light flickered its way through slits in the shades hanging down over the window beside the sink. The cat was at the shed door.

The second sparrow had a dappled breast; little dark brown spots were strewn proudly across its chest. An almost contented expression fell across Tom’s face as he took the pair of them in. The cat pushed and nudged at his legs approvingly. He decided then to take himself back down to the dell. He wanted to see the rooks again, sit in that silent nook of the earth waiting for them to spill down from the darkening skies.

He almost forgot to quarter his sandwiches, poured his tea in the flask and stuffed it into his bag. The cat was gone when he emerged from the house. He passed through the gap in one fluid movement, not even a stitch caught on the dry branches.

All was as he left it. The yew branch sat, beckoning for company, waiting for him. He sat and unwrapped his sandwiches straight away. He balanced his tea beside him on an even part of the branch and checked it didn’t tip before easing into the stillness.

An hour passed before he heard the familiar shuffle of the badger. He didn’t see it, but he heard it. It passed ahead of him, out of sight. Soon it was behind him. Sounds came from the right side and again from ahead of him. He slowed his breaths and listened. The badger was shuffling everywhere and sometimes all at once. He saw nothing, not a snout, not the black of its back or a flash of its eye.

A tail swished up and out of sight at the corner of his eye. The tail appeared again: it wasn’t the badger. Tom shifted about, moving the focus of his senses. The tea tipped and spilled into the leaves at his feet. A line of hot tea dribbled towards his perch and he stood to wipe it away and set everything all back in place. The flask lid had soil at the edges and he wiped it away. He dried the patch of tea as best he could and sat back down; he raised his legs up and tucked his knees under his chin. Dry leaves shifted then, behind him this time; they crinkled and cracked under the weight of someone’s step. Tom froze, his heart shook in his chest and his head felt tight: clamped.

“Are you waiting for the birds?”

“The rooks.” His voice was dry when it answered.

It was a girl’s voice that had asked about the rooks. Her mouth was at his ear. “Why?”

The tightness in his head shivered away and he thought. He didn’t know. “Why not?”

It wasn’t his voice, he didn’t recognise it, but it had come from his mouth. His chin was still resting on his knees. He hadn’t blinked since hearing the leaves crackle behind him.

“I’ll wait with you.” She moved from his back and sat alongside him, moving his flask cup. She licked her thumb and polished the edge of the cup, wiping the soil that had dried there away. “It won’t be long now will it.” She didn’t ask him, she stated it. She knew as well as he did, he realised immediately and moved one knee away from his chin; he let his neck twist his face around to look at her: nutty brown hair curled over her shoulders. In places scraps of leaves were stuck. She didn’t smile and neither did he. Together they waited; already in the distance the birds could be heard returning.

 

Chapter Five

Over the next seven days the cat continued to bring him regular presents and each day he went to work on the little bodies giving back the memory of motion and action to each and every one. Not all were sparrows, there was the occasional robin, or blue tit, even a blackbird with a beautiful yellow beak. Tom gave all of them a moment of life again and when he was done he looked his prize in the eye and smiled. The cat would wait and stretch itself up until it was almost twice the size in that last moment and a loud purr would thrum from deep inside.

Tom’s father didn’t come back in all that time. Occasionally the bell would ring, but Tom was ready; he had a flask of tea prepared and sandwiches in tinfoil, he would slip out through the gap and wait for the rooks to come back to court. The crusts he left behind were always gone, though not one rook would come while he sat there, and so he watched them skip and drop from one branch to the next; whenever he went down to the dell he was never alone anymore. The girl was always there an instant after he unwrapped his sandwich, poured his tea and sat down. Almost like clockwork.

They talked about so much Tom couldn’t keep track sometimes. She knew all about his father by now. There were things he never meant to tell her, but somehow his story would start to tell itself and before long another chapter would be revealed about how he and his father had come to live in their house on the edge of the wood.

On the eighth day Tom came back home to find his house a mess. There were newspapers everywhere. The cupboards were open, their contents all over the floors. Drawers were hanging on their runners, glass was smashed and tables and chairs were upended. The front door was broken, the wood at the edges splintered around the hinges.

Tom crept to his room, his belly brushing against the stiff polyester of carpet pile. He slowly poked his head into his room. The only room untouched. Outside the head of one of the deers had fallen from the wall and it eyed him as he dragged himself silently into his room and under his bed.

Tom stayed there as long as he dared. He could feel the cold breeze coming from the open doorway downstairs; the bottom of his bed was crossed by pine slats; he counted up all the stickers he had grouped there on the slat with the knots. Each sticker covered a knot and smaller stickers orbited. When he was finished he pulled his sleeping bag out from under the bed, took his duvet too, and crawled downstairs.

Tom took his things down to the dell and slept beneath the watchful eyes of the assembly above. They didn’t seem to mind; he imagined some might understand: they knew as much as the girl did after all.

The clouds had been punched away by strong winds earlier that day, the night was dark, stars winked and their light stuttered through the earth’s thick atmosphere. The cat appeared and kept him company. Its heavy body folded itself into the duvet and it purred happily, perfectly content with Tom’s change of address.

*

In the morning dew had collected on the blue nylon of the sleeping bag and his duvet was damp. The cat was gone, remnants of brown fur shed in the night left behind. The girl sat on the branch watching Tom unstick himself from his bed.

“Your father’s at the house”

“Is he?” said Tom.

“He’s trying to tidy up.”

Tom sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees; he looked down at the laces on his shoes. One had come undone. It was bright; scrunching up his eyes he looked back at the girl before looking away at the empty branches above.

“Where do you suppose they go every day?” asked Tom.

All day the two of them trudged across fields and over muddy tracks, through overgrown hedges and over broken fences. She showed him exactly where they went and together they watched them dart about across a valley full of fresh sown wheat. A river ploughed a path at the bottom, separating the fields and dividing the valley in two. Tom sat gazing across over the vision below him, at the birds laboriously picking at the trenches, twirling in the skies above. He closed his eyes and imagined the scene beside the river, the birds there, swans, swallows, heron and snipes. His father used to have a snipe, but it had been lost in the move. The girl rested her head on his shoulder, he didn’t tense, didn’t even twitch. He looked down at his shoes, the mud there and the splatters up his trousers.

Before the rooks decided to make their way back Tom pulled himself up and helped the girl who reached for his hand. At the dell his things were still gathered; before leaving he had tidied them, folding them neatly, but not so thickly that they wouldn’t dry during the day. He gathered them up and made his way back to the house.

He stood in the open doorway at the back watching a man move about his home, Tom stood there framed in the doorway for a full ten minutes before the man noticed him. The man called another from the front of the house. He spoke to him. Looked him right in the eye. Looked at his trousers, the mud, the bedding and then back at Tom.

“Your father’s in a lot of trouble.”

Tom kept his gaze, a hard knot forming at the back of his head, his fingers tingling.

“Do you know where he is?”

Tom could see from here that the front door was fixed.

“Is he back tonight?”

The other man carried on moving about.

“Tell him we were here. You’ll tell him won’t you.”

The deer’s head from upstairs was on the dining table now. Tom’s hands tightened and his eyes began to glaze, but the cat brushed his ankles and the tingling ebbed, the knot loosened and the cat purred.

“We want your dad, you realise that don’t you?”

Tom nodded. A phone rang. The man pulled the noise from his pocket and spoke into it as he moved away, his back turned on Tom and his voice spoke into the phone. Tom followed the cat to the shed stayed there, tucked into the corner.

Tom used the time to pull out his collection, put together from the cat’s offerings. He set each one out around him; they looked intently down at him, or up at him from the perches he had given them, some had heads cocked at an angle, or wings half spread and ready to take flight.

In the morning, when he woke, the collection had doubled and the cat was gone.

 

Chapter Six

Tom’s father sat in his car; the light was red and he tapped at the steering wheel counting the seconds to green. Only a few people were out and it was dark, overcast. It looked ready to pour down. A few spots had already appeared on his windscreen, rolling into a long streak.

There was nothing in his mirror and the light was still red. He could see the other side of the temporary works. There was no one that side either. Edging out, he rolled through the single lane system and towards the exit. No one stopped to watch and he accelerated. As he passed through he could see that the opposite light was red as well. Broken. His grip tightened. Both lights, red. Useless.

Behind him a neatly wrapped package rolled around and as he turned the next bend, slid from right to left and into the foot space behind the passenger seat. When he straightened up he looked down at the brown paper parcel, it looked okay, but it was just out of reach to check. In his boot the faint chink of glass crept into the quietness. Tom’s father preferred it like this. No radio; no disturbance.

It began to rain. He thought of his son and in the same instant ground his teeth. He didn’t need him; didn’t want him. But he was his. He saw his own eyes looking back at him when Tom did look back at him. In those moments neither would look away and Tom’s father would drum his fingers, or tap his foot, until the sound moved his son’s stare away. His wife wouldn’t understand why her son slept under the bed, wouldn’t understand why he would collapse: refused. It was best just to ignore it, he thought. Best not to bother. But as he thought of him his teeth made scraping sounds in the quiet of the car, the engine rattled and the glass jars chinked in the boot.

He tried, though it was hard, not to think of Tom. Tom was a mistake and had ruined everything. Tom had his ways of spoiling things, but he was his. His eyes. His own eyes set in the body of his son, like the eyes he set in the animals he preserved. Tom was like one of his creatures: something in him was frozen, but even so, it looked back and haunted him. Another bend, taken too quickly, jogged the brown paper package from behind the passenger seat over the little hump between spaces and into the gap behind Tom’s father. Reaching round he picked it up and moved it to the seat beside him. At home he would put it away in the badger's belly, or maybe the deer’s head: he hadn’t decided. Thoughts about Tom distracted him and he remembered everything he had lost thanks to his son: his wife, his life. His fingers no longer tapped the wheel, they gripped the wheel and the leather squealed under the pressure.

He parked the car away from the house, turned off the lights and watched. The door was repaired now and a new thick oak frame held the door in place. Despite the new door he sat in his car waiting for his heart to stop racing. They wouldn’t come tonight, not so soon anyway.

 

*

 

Through his periscope, Tom watched his father from the upstairs window; he was parked across the road instead of on the drive and when he came in he didn’t turn the lights on until every curtain was drawn. Tom continued to scan the street and saw the passenger seat of another car light up as someone made a phone call: he counted the seconds from the moment it lit up to the moment it died. He counted too, the minutes it took his father to call up to him.

When he came down the head of the deer had been moved and a bowl of soup sat in its place: tomato. His father knew he didn’t like tomato, but always bought it anyway. He always watched Tom eat it all. At the end, when it was finally finished, the edge of his mouth would rise as brief as a wink, his eyes would flick to the sink and Tom would clear his place: afterwards, he paid Tom no mind.

He listened to his father from the other room. He made phone calls and moved a lot of boxes around. In the quiet moments Tom pressed his ear to the wall and listened to his father. He could hear him breathe, hear him shift and fidget in his chair.

The room Tom now sat in, ear against the wall, held the badger. It watched him as he knelt at the wall listening to his father. Tom became aware of its gaze and looked back, it had been held, captured in this single moment for years now, but now Tom felt it looked at him with a fresh gaze.

The phone rang and Tom’s father hurried to the wall where it hung. Tom listened without understanding. Heard the voice of his father, angry and threatening. It didn’t scare him, those tones were familiar to him, but he took the opportunity to move to the kitchen for a glass of water. At the glass door the cat brushed against the glass, pressing flat the fur against its side. It had seen Tom and stretched up against the clear pane, caught his eyes and sat back on its haunches. Tom heard the voice of his father grow in volume and he slipped out, leaving his glass half-filled on the counter.

Together they moved to the shed. Tom took a vegetable box and carefully filled it with his creations, using old newspaper to pack the gaps he give the birds the protection they would need: a nest, he thought.

He took one last look at his father through the kitchen window and left without catching a thread, through the gap in the hedge. It was wet, the rain had passed and it was a clear night, but soon his feet were wet from the muddy water creeping into and through the thin material of his shoes. His feet were warm, even if they were wet. The cat left him in the dell, darting into the undergrowth, appearing every so often with its tail held high and listening to the air. Tom sat and watched it disappear, guessing at where it would come from next.

Although it was cold and his breath formed tiny little clouds, he didn’t feel it and sat happily, his box, and the collection hidden there, at his feet. He sat on the yew branch, just as still as he could, all night.

In the morning he watched the rooks take to the air, the mist rise from the earth and the girl as she swung among the branches.

 

Chapter Seven

Tom’s father didn’t sleep all night. The phone call the night before had disturbed him and now he was worried. Tom had disappeared, but he was happier without him in the house. He sat through the night eyeing the door. It was locked and bolted across the top. The deer’s head was as good as new sitting on the kitchen table. The phone hung silently on the wall. One edge of his thumbnail drew itself across the grain of the chair’s arm so slowly Tom’s father could count the number of grains there. His head was a knot of anger and frustration. He had done everything asked of him; begun the business with the animals, even though he hated it, had taken the packages and never asked the obvious questions. He realised then that his problems didn’t stem from the packages or the animals, but from his son. Before Tom this had all been a sort of game for him and his wife, but since Tom it had all begun to change. She had left. They never wanted children; she never wanted Tom. He remembered her complaints about his eyes: ‘just like yours’. It wasn’t his fault, but it was an accusation nonetheless.

A knock came from the door. His thumb froze and his nail pushed an impression of itself into the grains. The bell rang. He stood up from the chair, unable to sit any longer. He didn’t plan to open the door, but despite the long night to think through what he would do, he was lost. He felt like a breath lost in a gale and the sound of the doorbell filled his mind.

A crash came from behind him then; glass fell to the floor splintering into a hundred pieces and a familiar face stood in the door to the garden, his hands bloody. The man called to the door and his boots crunched against the glass, pressing the shards into the floor. The man smiled and stepped onto a larger shard of glass, it cracked and in that instant Tom’s father rushed toward him. The man’s foot lost its hold and he slipped, falling to the floor. Everything was silent. The face, once so familiar, looked back at Tom’s father without seeing: with the full force of his weight his head had struck the remnants of glass still in the frame of the doorway. Tom stopped for a moment, his fingers tingling, his heart knocking at his chest furiously.

A shout came from the door and Tom’s father ran into the garden, he pushed his way through the hedge scratching his face as he did so and emerged on the other side. On the other side he freed his sleeves from the clawing grasp of the barrier between his home and the wood. He heard a crash; shouts; boots against the garden’s flagstones: a voice called out to him and he pushed off into the wood along the thin track.

Each step took him down and each step came quicker than the last. He saw footprints in the mud. Smaller than his own. When he heard someone pushing through the hedge from where he had come he turned and slipped his hands coming up wet and soggy from the mud at his feet. Dark edges of dead leaves stuck against his palms.

The sound of boots charging down the path brought him to his feet and he plunged ahead.

*

Tom and the girl were sitting together when his father slid into view. His father stood transfixed by the two of them. Tom’s fingers tingled and his palms grew warm and he rubbed them against his trousers. His father stepped forward and the girl dropped from their seat, hiding behind Tom. His father paused then, his eyes flicking from Tom to the girl and he moved forward again. A branch swung up behind his father and he fell, his knees sinking into the ground; the man behind him, the man Tom had met, stood over him ready to swing again, but his father fell backwards from his kneeling position forcing the stranger to stumble. The girl’s nails stuck into Tom’s arms and she held on to him; his palms cooled and his fingers no longer tingled.

The crunch of a branch shook Tom then. His father stood over the man who was silent and still at his feet, his face firmly planted in the floor of the dell.

His father’s frame heaved and turned. All the hate he had for his son surged up; all the memories of everything wanted and then lost, all the disappointment and now this. He threw himself at his son and the girl spilled to the floor. His hands flew into Tom’s face and as he hit him time after time, he felt relief flood his body. He shook Tom and threw him to the ground where the girl caught him up.

Tom’s father looked at the quiet shape of his son, smiled and looked to the heavens, obscured by the arms of the trees enclosing the dell. Above him a host of rooks stood on their perches staring back at the man below them. Tom’s father stuffed his hands into his pockets, deep against the edges, feeling the stitching there. Fluff and dust stuck against his knuckles and in the fresh wet cuts. The assembly above him stood silent, sentinel. None twitched, or hopped or even shuffled on their perches. Motionless they looked down from branches up high.

Shifting his weight from one leg to the other, his feet made deep recesses in the wet, muddy ground. His shuffling became quieter and quieter; he looked from one bird to another. He saw then that there weren’t just shaggy black rooks looking back, but smaller birds too. Each bird Tom had given a frozen moment of life to was now in the trees above, alongside the rooks. His vegetable box was empty. At the girl’s insistence they had found new perches for each and every one.

The rooks began to twist their heads and look to one another, look to the birds that Tom had brought back to them, scattered now in a great spiral. Each one looking down at the scene below: sparrows, robins, blackbirds finches and others, all looked at Tom’s father with black eyes; his profile was fixed in the reflection held there, and, again, he began to shift his feet, nervously now.

Sweat sprang from his brow and the tightness returned to the back of his head. A great roar erupted from the trees as the rooks took flight and beat their way into the air. As they did so each one of Tom’s creations broke free of their perches and twisted into the air gathering together in one great mass below the branches. They moved almost as one, swinging with a broken motion and as Tom’s father’s mouth opened in wonder and fear, a scream caught on the edge of his throat, the great swarm fell like darts and shot into his open jaw, stuffing up his mouth and burrowing deep down into his gullet until each and every one, each and every feather, filled up the man beneath them.

The girl’s hands smoothed back Tom’s hair, his head held in her lap. A tear pushed its way from his eye, but her fingers caught it up. Tom’s breathing evened out and eventually he sat up, resting his weight against the girl as they looked down at his father. Tom had always known he was a bad man, a bad father and in that instant found he was the happiest he had ever been.

The girl rocked him back and forth and purred into his ear.

 

In Grandpa's Shadow

Chapter One

There are many stories throughout history of tricksters and thieves, but as history has shortened its length and pulled itself up to the present day, we hear less and less of these creatures blighting our world. Perhaps because we all have a thief inside us, or indeed a trickster – a bone, a cell or a trickster’s whisker growing wistfully on our chins. Have the thief and the trickster become so embedded in our skin, our morals, our choices that we no longer see past the reflection in the mirror looking back, accusing, in the mornings. Have we become a world of thieves?

Seth, a boy of twelve, had dark eyes that brooded in their sockets on rainy days as he sat at the window of his tower block, overlooking a sad and sorrowful city. I say ‘city’, but on this day not much of the city could be seen beyond the thick drizzle that hung over the dull grey buildings within Seth’s sight.

He heaved a sigh and fixed his stare away from the window and on to the cat lying happily on his grandma’s cushion. Its special place. It would lounge nowhere else but on this cushion, frilled and frayed at the edges, but plump and soft.

A plan began to take root in Seth’s mind. It dripped and seeped, pooling around the recesses and gaps, flooding his every thought and a thin smile took its place on his face. The cat stirred, twitched and flicked an ear, before settling back down with artful ease. Seth forgot the rain.

Next door to Seth’s grandma lived Simple Simon the snake man. Seth always hissed as he passed, loudly, sometimes through the letterbox. He had once, when young, deposited his plastic snake, the kind we’ve all seen as children, through the letter box after first dipping it in the toilet and stuffing dead mice the cat had collected, fresh that day, in between the plastic links so it seemed as though the snake, although plastic, had gobbled up a feast.

No one could believe Seth would do this to his Grandma’s neighbour and the police left none the wiser.

Simple Simon often left his door open and Seth had, on occasion crept in, taken a toilet roll from the hanger, a tea towel from the rail, and opened post from the sideboard. On each and every occasion he disposed of the items down the rubbish chute and let his thin smile spread across his face for the rest of the afternoon. On this occasion Seth crept in after something quite different.

*

Simple Simon’s snake collection was quite extensive and all manner of beasts slithered in heated tanks, languishing over hot stones, or buried beneath them, out of sight.

Seth wasn’t gone long and on his return the cat had left to stretch its legs and nibble at his grandma’s offerings. Seth put his plot in motion and sat back enjoying the devilish pleasure he foresaw from his plotting. His pleasure was soon disturbed by the flapping tin of the letterbox snapping on its tight springs, as the post fell to the floor. On the mat sat a card, an invitation, addressed to Seth. His grandma, her attention caught by the snickering slap of the letterbox came hurriedly; she caught the card from Seth’s grip and smiled brightly, her eyes twinkling. Her sister had written her finally, but she quickly realised who it was addressed to when Seth angrily snatched it back and began to read:

Dear Seth,

Your grandmother says you seem to be out of sorts and fed up with the city. I can understand why and would very much like to have you come and visit us out here, where it’s probably just as wet, but possibly a lot more fun than that grimy old city she likes so much. If you catch the last train tonight you can be with us in a couple of hours; there will be a hot roast waiting and an apple crumble sitting at the side. We look forward to seeing you,

Aunty Alice and Uncle Jim

When Seth looked up at his Grandma a curious expression filled her face. She was disappointed of course – it wasn’t for her after all. Jim and Alice were meddlers in her book, but Seth didn’t mind, not if it got him away from her and this place. She muttered under her breath and summoned a smile for his benefit and, reaching for the phone she said, “Better book this train then”. As she began to relay her information to the voice on the phone for the second time, an almighty scream, inhuman, supernatural, cried out from the living room.

Later that night his grandma sat alone in the dark while Seth sat happy and content on his train, rocking side to side. The memory of the cat between the jaws of the python hidden in that soft, plump cushion, warming the edges of his eyes and his mind as he swayed in the empty carriage. He saw again the swishing tail disappear deeper and deeper into the belly of that slithering monster, the inhuman screech becoming more and more muffled after each crunch and snap of twiggy bones, until, finally, the python sat plump and content on the hollow cushion, frilled and frayed and just a little bit bloody. Seth smiled broadly at that.

 

Chapter Two

His journey wasn't a long one in the grand scheme of things; it took a couple of hours. The whole time his broad thin smile dashed across his face; passengers stepping into the carriage stopped to share the little boy's happiness and smiled warmly back at him.

Dark clouds covered the night's sky as the train drew in at Seth's final stop. Little change from London, thought Seth. It was just as dark here at night as it was there in the day, but at least the damp chill that clawed at his bones was gone and far away.

Patiently Seth waited for a call, a cry or a hulloo from his aunt. However the longer he waited the colder his mood became and all too quickly that chill he knew so well was clawing at his ankles.

Tungsten lights winked along the road outside the station, but no neon beam came flaring round the corner to pick him up. Seth began to shiver then, and ever so slightly, he felt the littlest bit sorry for himself. He thought of his grandma and her warm flat, shielded from the cold, wet air outside. He thought guiltily of his mother and his father. He thought briefly of school even. And then his teeth chattered, clattering in his head, driving a pain deep behind his eyes and a solitary tear climbed from the corner of his eye and settled on a slow run down the course of his cheek, until it rested in the corner of his down turned lip. The salty taste hung there, unfamiliar, for a moment, before he drew it in with the tip of his tongue and pulled his sleeve across the access of his nose, a slimy line forming on his coat's cuff. At that moment the distant crunch of metal on metal came from the gearbox of his uncle's car. It swung into view, one light shining brightly ahead, the other dim and embarrassed at its ineffectiveness to light the way. Seth sprang to his feet.

His uncle's car was a mess, but it was warm and the fan blew hot gusts around his ankles and warmed through the leather of his shoes until the heat reached his toes and he had to ask his uncle to turn it down. He felt stupid then; he saw his uncle look from the corner of his eye at the boy making so many demands. Seth sunk into the seat and pulled his legs in tight, clutching his plump bag to his chest, tightly. A sudden thought of a python, bubbling inside, made him twitch and sniff.

The road dragged on and the dark clouds sat above, shielding their passage from any on looking stars.

Seth knew very little about Jim and Alice. He wasn't even sure which on was his grandma's son or daughter. Or, even if they were related at all. They had known his parents, he'd seen them once before, a long time ago now it seemed.

By now the cold had returned but his uncle made no move to turn the blower back on and Seth felt awkward about asking, so he sat there, stiffly aware of the silence in the car and looked at the radio. His uncle must have seen the look from the corner of his eye because he turned the knob and Radio 4 sprang to life. A story about the state of the world filled the air; men and women debated the faults and the dismal outlook ahead for one and all.

'Great', thought Seth. His uncle began to smile and shake his head each time a new speaker began, and, when he finally added a ‘tut’, he switched it over and Mas Que Nada began to play.

The car screeched around bends and bounced over bumps, the sound of a Spanish mambo blaring into the night.

*

Seth looked across at his uncle as covertly as he could; he was mouthing the words to the song. The car was old, a little shabby, but well-kept and tidy on the inside. A golf ball rolled around his feet; he caught it under his heel and reached to pick it up. Seeing the ball, his uncle laughed. “Something to show you Seth, you’ll like this.”

They rounded another bend and came to a stop beside a broad gate leading to a field. It was dark but his uncle shone the beams of his car out over the field to a figure standing upright. Seth felt a chill run up his spine as he saw it there, vaguely moving in the wind as draughts caught at its shirt tails. A scarecrow. “Take a good luck Seth, tell me what you see.” All he saw was a scarecrow and he told him so, but then a figure leapt the arm, followed by another and another until a whole row of crows stood, perched along the arms and Seth suddenly saw a swarm of them pecking at the ground around the scarecrow’s feet.

“Not much good, that old thing, is it?” His uncle slammed the boot of the car and came back with a golf club. Taking the ball out of Seth’s hand he set it down and lined up his shot. “Never been much good at getting ‘em in the holes, but you watch this.” He took a step, lined up his swing and let loose without any need of a practice swing like they do on the television. Seth’s eyes followed the shot, he shuffled slightly until, ‘thwack’, a crow fell to the ground and a herd of black beasts took to the air swamping the already black night with their black wings. A smile lurched to Seth’s face and he looked at his uncle smiling back at him, brightly. They both laughed.

The birds swooped overhead, but it wasn’t long until they settled again, despite their dead comrade.

Back in the car the mambo had moved on to something else: jazz. Seth liked jazz and he tapped his leg to the music and his uncle made trumpet noises through the edges of his lips until, finally, a homely cottage sprang into view from the side of the road; lit brightly from inside, smoke rose from the chimney top. The deep smile was still spread over Seth’s face as he smacked his leg to the music.

His uncle’s car rolled onto the drive. Stepping out, he looked hard and long at the thatched building in front of him, remembering all sorts of Famous Five adventures his Grandma had told him. Such a distant memory now.

 

Chapter Three

The sun was high in the sky the next day, glaring down and poking past Seth’s curtains. The curtain edge flapped gently, each time letting in a ray that winked at his face, teasing him. Eventually he made his way downstairs.

The night before his aunt had been out, so he and his uncle had sat down to some soup and a tour of the house. It was everything Seth expected from a cottage in the countryside, especially after the drilling he had from those Famous Five stories. They even had a dog instead of a cat. Seth smiled when he remembered the cat.

Breakfast served up by his aunt who greeted him with a great hug and a cup of tea: “sugar’s on the table, dear”, Seth eyed the sugar and dropped in two scoops. It wasn’t long before a plate of eggs, sausage, beans and toast was in front of him: “butter’s on the table, dear”. Seth tucked in tentatively watching the woman who kept calling him ‘dear’, her back swayed from side to side as she fussed about in their cosy kitchen. Apart from his aunt the house seemed empty: “Jim’s gone for that golf ball with the dog.” Seth choked a little at that, just as he was wondering she’d answered his question. He thought of all the witches he knew from stories – they all lived in cottages in the country, though they generally weren’t married like Aunt Alice.

Seth looked out the window as he scooped up the last of the runaway beans: “you can go meet him on the path; he’ll be on his way back now.” She didn’t even turn. Seth eyed her up and down and began an experiment. Taking the last few beans he plopped them in with the sugar. If she has eyes in the back of her head she’ll see, she’ll know. The last bean went in as she turned, looked once at his empty plate, told him he was a good boy and showed him the door.

He met his uncle on his way back. The sun was high up, not a cloud around, burnt up under its stare. Seth looked at it too long and found blurred sunspots dancing on his eyes. Jim had the golf ball and casually tossed it into the fields for the dog to fetch; it was almost mechanical: fetch, give, throw, fetch, give, throw. Jim gave the ball to Seth who recoiled at the wet slobber greasing its way through his fingers until it flopped out of his hand onto the path. The dog still looked on expectantly. Jim stopped. Seth felt stupid then so he kicked it into the bushes. The dog seemed happy with that.

Leaving the dog behind, the two carried on. Seth began to smile at the memory of the crow and he looked up at Jim about to share his admiration for the man. Howling interrupted him. It came from the bushes and sent a shiver up his back: the dog. Jim was already there, he was faster than a thought. Pulling at the dog’s hind legs, Jim pulled him clear of the rabbit snare, tight around his paw, blood dripped around the wire and Seth’s stomach tightened and thrummed.

*

The dog lay in front of the fire that night, occasionally nursing his wound with a gentle lick of his tongue, ears hung low. Seth watched him shift and shuffle as the fire spat and crackled. Large fiery tongues licked the edges of the fireplace and Seth watched both creatures lay before him: the fire and the wounded dog. Occasionally Alice would wander past, pat the dog on the head, check to see if the fire needed another log and move to the kitchen, pottering at this or that. Little faces leapt out of the flames at times and the wood became white ashen images of men and women looking from one side to another in fearful dread as they were slowly brushed down into the ashes below. Seth’s gaze greeted the ground in the end and he fell in to a deep sleep, only waking to the brush of cold air greeting his arm as he moved it, in his sleep, from under his blanket to the outside: Jim had taken him to bed and tucked him in. He could hear faint creaks and clattering as they both moved about downstairs, he securing the fire with its surround, she as she laid out plates and cups to dry on the draining board.

The next morning Seth sat at the kitchen table enjoying eggs on toast. Alice planted a cup of tea in front of him. The milk was in a jug. The sugar was next to it. He opened the top of the sugar bowl and saw the beans, dry and withered; Alice turned then and looked at him full in the face. His heart stopped, but all she said was “help yourself to all the sugar you want Seth, Jim and I don’t take any”. Did she know? From where she stood she couldn't see Seth’s beans, but she kept his gaze until he took a scoop, and a second, and plopped the top back on the bowl. She smiled broadly at him.

The dog lay on its bed, head down, ears down.

“Jim is up the top field, you can join him if you like, just there, can you see?” She pointed through the window and Seth nodded. He finished his breakfast, his tea and left dutifully heading for what he thought was the top field.

It wasn’t a warm day and he hadn't wrapped up enough, but the walk warmed him up. Over the fields around him there were little swirling pools of mist rising from the ground. He walked onwards and upwards towards what could only be described as the top field, as far as he was concerned.

His eyes were fixed to the ground as he trudged on until a mighty shout broke his stride: his name? Something whizzed past him. The hairs on his brow whispered against his forehead. Thwack! He turned on the sound, his heart twitching furiously.

 

Chapter Four

A golf ball had made a neat crater in the face of a scarecrow beside him. He had walked right up to it without realising. It stood to about his height, although it was boosted a little off the ground so peered down at him slightly. There was a button left for one eye, the other was nowhere to be seen, but the wet threads that had held it were stuck against the cloth face. With the damp morning air all about a small bead of dew had collected on the purple plastic rim of the button and hung, too small to drop to the ground, shivering against the air. How he had walked so squarely up to it without noticing he couldn’t understand, but now he studied it closely. He wanted to take its hand and help it down, fix its eye. He wanted to help it, but he didn’t know why, he had never been that sort of boy.

“Seth!” Jim’s voice cut into him and he stepped back onto the golf ball, his heel pushing it into the earth. There were several there, scattered about.

The scarecrow was Jim’s target from the look of it. Jim was concerned, like his grandma used to be at the beginning, but he soon saw that Seth was fine and they began to collect the golf balls up. Seth found the partner to the purple button-eye, wiped the mud from it and put it in his pocket. Jim saw, but he didn’t say anything.

Seth’s days went by like this for a week. He would have his breakfast, dip his spoon in the sugar bowl, which still housed his beans, and join Jim on the top field to swing at golf balls, trying to come as close to the scarecrow as they could. Seth wasn’t very good; at least Jim thought so every time he missed the scarecrow, but Seth had an aversion to hitting it and picked his own targets in the field, so, unbeknownst to Jim, Seth was gradually improving.

On the seventh night Seth felt an itching in his pyjama pocket. He tried to ignore it, but it kept him up most of the night until he dipped his hand into the pocket and found the plastic button. It was warm, but that could be because it was against his thigh, thought Seth. It stayed warm throughout the night and in the morning a drop of water had formed against the rim. He kept it with him from then on, but how it had managed to find its way into his pocket in the first place, he didn’t discover.

*

On the eight day, after the fifth or sixth ball, Seth asked Jim about the scarecrow. He didn’t know much about it. Alice had made it a long time ago; this was, after all, her childhood home. There had been several in the other fields, but they all fell down and rotted into the ground, which he didn’t report to Alice and, as they weren’t technically their fields anymore, but rented from the large farm at the bottom of the valley, he didn’t see the need. Seth learnt then that this was Jim’s field, well Alice’s as well. Well, Alice’s really, he supposed, if she grew up here. The other fields had been sold to the bottom farm and now she and Jim just rented what they needed.

Seth stayed a while once Jim was done. Jim shrugged and disappeared with the dog into the woods (its foot was much better now).

Once he was out of sight Seth went to the scarecrow for a closer look. He rummaged through pockets, tied its laces on its straw feet and held the eye up to what would have been a socket, if it were human. He felt it looked as though it sighed at that moment. A mournful sigh, the kind he had heard his grandma use when thinking about her husband, his grandpa, who he’d never known. He heard that sigh over and over as he walked back to the cottage and back to Alice who was pottering, as usual.

“I made that scarecrow years back now, Seth”.

He watched her work, and, aware he was waiting, she ploughed on. “He was the last I made, that one. All the others are fallen and rotting, Jim doesn’t like to tell me, thinks it’ll upset me, but I know anyway.”

She fidgeted a little, he thought, as she told him the story.

“That one is all made up of your grandpa’s clothes, even his button eyes.”

“Grandpa?” said Seth inching forward on his chair.

 

 

Chapter Five

Alice looked Seth in the eyes, closely, almost for the first time by the way she took him in. “He’s the reason all those fields up there now belong to the bottom farm. He was a bad lot, but your grandma loved him. Loved him more than us, she did.” Her eyes reddened, he could see, ever so slightly at that. This was the most she’d ever spoken to him. “Nasty man, used to lock me and your mother in the barn, or in a shed, used to think it was very funny. He forgot about us once! He was a malevolent soul that one, evil your mother said. I enjoyed fashioning him into that old scarecrow. That’s about the only contribution he ever made round here.”

She ended suddenly. Jim was back. The dog settled down. Seth ran his thumb over the button in his pocket. He smiled at the thought of Alice locked up in one of the sheds. They were dark and there was mud on the floors, if you were trapped in there you wouldn’t have an inch of clean space to sit down on. He wondered how long she was locked in there and he wondered again how Simon’s snake was doing. Snakes spat out the bones of things they ate after a while, he supposed the snake might, by now, have spat out a nice neat skeleton. He realised though he had heard snapping, some of the ribs must have fractured and broken. The smile that had run up his face stopped and became thoughtful: the nice neat skeleton in his mind was now a pile of broken bones and not quite so entertaining of a thought. However, he comforted himself with the fact that he had for a moment changed something in the world.

After a light lunch and a strong cup of tea, Seth wandered over to the sheds to look about: he imagined being trapped there, he even closed the door on himself, though he made sure first the bolt was free outside and not likely to sink into the clasp. The room was damp, smells of rot and straw mixed with muck from one animal or another filled the air. In the eaves old nests were now homes for black legged spiders, their homes a maze of ancient webs.

The light was minimal; the door faced north and the light he could see was dull under the door’s gap. That vacant space darkened as he concentrated on it, a thin mist filling it. Opening the door, Seth found no fog and no mist outside, just the shadow of the shed; the button was warm in his pocket. He looked back into the shed, but saw nothing now but the imagined ghosts of his aunt and mother crying in the cold and dark.

*

On the ninth day everything began as it had each and every day. Each and every day he checked the beans in the sugar, they had begun to gather mould and he had stopped taking sugar, but he didn’t think Alice had noticed. He joined Jim and hit golf balls and afterwards he gathered them up. Jim had begun to leave him to this task, pleased he had something to do while he went about his jobs. Seth wasn’t sure what it was he did but he was happy to have his time alone. On this day he noticed a great mob of crows scattered about, some sat on branch tops at the edge of the wood, others circled overhead, settling on telegraph wires temporarily before setting off again. Each and every day the mob had seemed to grow he thought then.

Once all the golf balls were in his pocket he decided to head for the top again: an idea had drifted into his mind. He hadn’t realised, but as it settled in his thoughts he had patted the shoulder of his grandpa’s scarecrow. At the brow of the hill he began to arrange himself. The birds spread their wings and took flight, others hopped from one branch to the next, but gradually part of the gang began to reclaim their residence around his grandpa’s scarecrow and the ground was thick with black winged beasts pecking at the ground.

Picking his target carefully Seth took aim and swung with all his force. A mass of feathers shot into the air as the troop of birds around his grandpa’s feet took flight. Only one was left; a body twitched on the ground. A shiver of joy sprang up Seth’s back and he beamed. A flicker of sun snuck out and seemed to share his delight.

It wasn’t long before the crows began to fly about again, restlessly, circling their favourite haunt and before long they settled once again, ignoring the state of their fallen brother as they pecked about at the ground.

Seth took aim again, this time choosing a king of a bird, large but mawkish with a dirty cowl: the ball shot furiously through the air and thumped the bird full in the chest. The sound was audible all the way at the top of the field and Seth punched the air with excitement.

By the time he ran out of balls a sweat had formed on his brow and his skin was tight around his forehead. A muddy smudge under his eye gave him an almost primitive look and his eyes shone with the enchantment of his new found distraction. It wasn’t anything on the cat, he realised that; nothing had changed, no one had seen, the only witnesses were the useless swarm of black beasts in the sky above.

None set foot on the ground by his grandpa, nor in the branches in the wood. They clung to the safety of the sky and circled looking steeply down on Seth as he collected up the balls. He collected up the bodies too and later that day began a collection in the shed, stringing them from their feet along a thin piece of cord. A nice neat collection, he thought.

 

Chapter Six

Several days went by like this. The beans became flaky and fell apart; occasionally his grandma called, but all the time his collection grew as day by day he spent more and more time with his grandpa. They made a good team: grandpa lured them in – what bird could resist perching on a man-made of straw and remnants! Seth enjoyed this sense of teamwork, a dark joy shared. He was certain his grandpa would have approved. He may have even rewarded him. He sometimes lingered by his grandpa, his hand on his shoulder and shared all the tricks he had played on his grandma, even before the cat and the snake. He told him about the time he watched a man walk into a post while looking at his watch. The time Eleanor Salisbury had found two cracked birds eggs in her gym shoes. He probably told his grandpa about flooding the girls toilets two or three times during the course of the week and he made sure to describe in detail the snapping sound the cat’s ribs had made as it sank deeper into the belly of Simple Simon’s snake and he made sure he didn’t leave out the look in his grandma’s eyes. The scarecrow seemed to enjoy these stories and Seth’s company; Seth had seen his grandpa nod and beam brightly at each trick and taunt Seth had played. He even laughed: no more sighing. From the top of the hill Seth even shouted this:

“No more sighing Grandpa!”

With a new sack full of black bodies Seth made his way back to the farm, he even skipped some of the way, but when he was closer he snuck into the disused shed and strung up his new batch of murders, ducking under each row as he did so.

Taking his tea in the kitchen he couldn’t resist smiling, openly. Alice saw him. It was the first time she could remember him smiling. She watched from the corner of her eye. She watched and began to feel cold. She saw then that the dog kept its distance from Seth. It had always been a friendly dog. She saw that the dog never looked at Seth either. In the reflection of the glass above the sink she also saw Seth pretending to take sugar from the bowl and saw him smile at what he saw there.

Seth slept soundly again that night.

*

At breakfast he ate slowly, there was a thick mizzle outside and the wood burnt in the fire with a comforting crackle. When Alice had her back to him he went through the charade of taking sugar from the bowl and took another look at his beans, only this time they weren’t there. They were gone. Alice finished the last of the pans. The last one clattering on the draining board. Sitting at the table she sipped her tea and looked into Seth’s eyes again, deeply this time and more intensely than before. He thought she looked as though she recognised him, but it was a silly thought – of course she did. Her lips pursed, “this tea’s bitter.”  Taking the top from the sugar bowl, she took a heaped scoop and dropped it into her cup, stirring slowly. Seth couldn’t look. His body was rigid, his toes numb and a fiery heat burnt at the centre of his brow.

She knew.

He felt stupid then.

How stupid. How foolish of him.

“You going up field this morning? Jim’s down bottom farm with some new stock.” She sipped her tea tenderly, each sip between a smile.

Seth realised he should say yes. He did and he left. His feet were quiet, he moved stiffly, as though he didn’t want to disturb even the air around him.

He missed three birds that morning. He hadn’t missed any before and he knew his grandpa wasn’t pleased. His grandpa looked dour in the mizzle. Disappointed. Seth couldn’t even break the silence between them with a new story. He began to tell him about the baby in the pram: he had moved it from one aisle in the supermarket to the next and hidden at the end by the magazines. This new revelation of his grandson’s cunning didn’t even raise an eyebrow. It seemed that this morning his grandpa looked straight through him.

Seth’s feet swung into motion, back to the house, his head was slumped forward and he kicked at the muddy sods as he trudged on. Even stringing up his hoard didn’t raise his spirits and he banged the door with a petulant sigh before slinking off to his room where he sat at the window seat.

Seth hadn’t been sat long at the window before he heard the side door swing shut and footsteps in the yard, they slapped at the wet ground. Alice was at the shed’s door and looking in.

Flying down the stairs Seth could think of only one thing: he had never been found out! Never. The shed door crashed against Alice’s back and she went flying in amongst the strings of corpses, scattering them to the floor, herself falling, hands outspread to break her fall. Mud and muck mixed with the blood from the skin she scraped away on her palms and darkness fell around her as the door bolted shut from the outside.

A cold glee overcame Seth. He had never been found out. Never. And he’d never done anything like this. Never. The edges of his eyes tickled, his body shook and he danced manically around the yard, his boots clipping and clopping like a pony in the wild. He had seen them. Jim had shown him some not far from the farm. Jim had smiled and laughed as the youngest skipped about its mother and this is what Seth felt he looked like. If Jim saw him now he would probably smile the same way and Seth laughed out loud at this. Imagining Jim laughing and smiling at him, all the while not knowing why he smiled so much.

 

Chapter Seven

It was evening before Jim came home. He unbolted the shed and Alice tumbled out. Her face was covered in muddy streaks and her clothes were a state. She looked like a ghost or a witch Seth thought. Jim cleaned her up as best he could and put her in the car. He was taking her to A&E to have them look at her hands and maybe give her a tetanus injection: he couldn’t remember the last time she had one.

That night it was cold: Jim had sent him to bed early, apologising for the situation, but in his haste he had forgotten to put the heating on. Seth sat shivering and sleep was evasive. When, finally, he did slip into a deep sleep he dreamt he was a crow flapping about his aunt’s head in the shed.

He woke to the sound of hushed voices and the clink and clatter of Jim and Alice arranging a quick supper before they themselves turned in. He shivered again then, and, as a shadow passed under the lip of his door he threw himself back under the covers. A careful hand opened the door, looked in and closed it again as quietly as was possible. Seth lay there wondering who it had been, Alice or Jim. He imagined it was Jim: it wouldn’t be Alice.

*

In the morning he found the kitchen empty. He made himself his tea and put on some toast. He didn’t see the dog anywhere.

Outside the weather had cleared and he could see blue sky for the first time that week. Across the yard he could see the shed door was open. The scrape of a boot made him jump as he turned. Jim stood in the doorway. Alice was behind him.

“Cup of tea sweetheart?” Jim asked.

“Two sugars” Alice replied, all the time looking at Seth. She smiled. Seth couldn’t believe it and for a moment his thoughts flew about wildly, as wildly as the corpse crows in his dreams. He had locked her in the shed. He had, hadn’t he? If so, why was she smiling so warmly? Warmer in fact than the first time he had met her.

“We’re taking a walk this morning Seth and we’d like you to join us.” There was a tone in Jim’s voice that Seth didn’t like and he knew he couldn’t refuse.

Jim and Alice took their breakfast and sipped their tea. All the time they talked: the weather, the new stock, how many pups the Chambers’ Spaniel had last week, Seth’s grandma, farming chatter – but Seth didn’t understand this. His tea was cold, but he didn’t make a fresh one. Eventually though, they finished and packed up. Wordlessly they left the cottage and marched up the path to the top field.

The sun beamed so brightly Seth had to squint as he walked behind Jim – Alice was behind him, her bag over her shoulder. The sun felt warm. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen it like this: in London probably, but he couldn’t compare it to this.

Jim marched straight up to Seth’s grandpa’s scarecrow and without hesitation levered it out of the ground. It came up without any hesitation, willingly. Jim and Alice took a good look at it and dropped it to the ground. His grandpa’s button eye was firmly between Seth’s thumb and forefinger, but it was cold, almost icy.

Alice took the bag off her shoulder and swung a rolling pin down on Seth’s head, he sunk to the ground his knees sticking in the wet earth for a moment before his weight eased him over to his side. He felt a warm wet trickle pass over his cheek and closed one eye.

Jim hoisted him up. He took off Seth's shoes and removed his shirt replacing it with the one he had arrived in and the jacket he had worn that night at the train station. Alice padded him out with straw and pulled his black woolly hat over his head. Lastly they took out a muslin sack and pulled it over his head, it was filled with dry straw and scratched his skin. His one eye could see their shapes through the material: they were standing, hands on hips admiring their work. Jim moved one hand from his hip and round Alice’s shoulder, squeezing her tight.

Seth heard them say it was a nice job as Alice applied the finishing touches: two buttons from an old cardy his grandma had given him. The needle glided in and out the muslin cloth pulling the button in tight over his eyes until he could only just see around the edges.

A wet trickle began once more to descend across his cheek.

“We’ll take grandpa up to the top now, Seth. He’s been a bad influence on you and he should be made to see how low he’s brought his only grandson. He won’t be ashamed, that man never was, but I doubt he’ll be happy with how it’s all turned out.”

As she swung about his grandpa’s head fell from its perch.

“Rotten all the way through Alice, you’ll have to make a repair.”

Seth looked round the dark corner of his new button eye and saw the head in the dark soil. His grandpa’s head: a skull, hanging onto dried flesh around the cheeks, sat in Jim’s big palm. He stuffed it back in its cloth cover and turned his back on Seth.

Alice looked once more at Seth, through him, to his core: “Eyes are just like your grandpa’s, Seth. Can’t be having that.” The rolling pin swished through the air and thumped him once more, just for good measure.

As Jim and Alice re-settled Seth’s grandpa, the crows began to gather and gradually settle at Seth’s feet, pecking and stomping at the ground. The livelier birds hopped from one shoulder to the other, excited, while others perched on elbows and wrists now tightly bound to the scarecrow’s wooden frame.