The Raven’s Knot

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Inwardly groaning, Lauren poured herself a glass of orange and sat down.

Sheila was a pleasant-looking woman in her late thirties. Although not blessed with any natural beauty, she knew how to make the best of her appearance so that she seemed more attractive than she actually was. Her bobbed, auburn hair was highlighted with tints of red and about her soft, grey eyes her lashes were lightly brushed with blue mascara.

Lauren had never been able to work out why she disliked her so much. Sheila had never tried to take the place of her real mother and the girl understood that Guy, her father, needed to have someone other than herself in his life. Yet the very first time Lauren met Sheila, she knew she could never warm to this meticulous, slightly bossy person.

She was certain that moving away from London had been entirely Sheila’s idea and this was another factor against her. Sometimes Lauren wondered what her stepmother was trying to run away from.

Sheila lowered her eyes. ‘You’re not happy here, are you dear?’ she murmured regretfully. ‘You haven’t made a single friend in all this time.’

Taken aback by the directness of the question, Lauren gulped her orange juice.

‘Not really,’ she found herself saying.

‘Not even at the sixth form college?’

The girl gave a vague shrug. ‘S’pose not. Everyone there knows each other from school, they’re all right – I’m just not bothered.’

‘Perhaps if you were to make more of an effort? Do something about yourself? You haven’t touched the make-up I bought you for Christmas.’

Lauren gritted her teeth and changed the subject.

‘Sheila,’ she began. ‘What do you know about Tommy?’

The woman sniffed, ‘Tommy who, dear?’

‘Dunno his second name, I think the locals just call him Tommy.’

‘Lauren, we’re locals too now don’t forget. Oh, do you mean that funny old tramp? He’s round the twist apparently. I always walk on the opposite side of the road if I see him. Last week he followed me, grinning like a baboon and talking to himself. I had to nip inside a shop to be rid of him.’

‘Where does he live?’

Sheila coughed in astonishment. ‘How should I know? Honestly, Lorrie, you do ask the strangest things. In some hostel I suppose, either that or with the rest of the winos.’

‘Tommy’s not a wino,’ Lauren said defensively. ‘He’s just a sad old man. He ought to be properly looked after. Hasn’t he any family?’

But Sheila’s attention was now given over to a package lying upon the table. Made of dark-blue paper, with silver stars and circles printed upon it she proceeded to open the parcel with a curious look of pride on her face.

‘I’m sure I don’t know or care,’ she mumbled distractedly. ‘I’ve had my fill of losers. Now, what do you think of this, Lorrie? I bought it in one of those crystal shops on the high street.’

From the blue, outer wrappings she brought out a mass of violet tissue paper which she carefully unfolded, sheet by sheet.

‘You’ll never dream how little I paid,’ she blithely continued. ‘I wasn’t sure at first, but that woman with the dangly earrings in there persuaded me in the end. Now, what do you think?’

Having arrived at the centre of the tissue, Sheila gazed at her purchase for a moment and held it up for Lauren to see.

The girl stared at the object in her stepmother’s hands and wrinkled her nose.

There, with a shred of violet paper still clinging to one of its legs was the most outlandish doll that Lauren had ever seen.

Made entirely from scraps of patterned cloth, it was a naive representation of a creature that was half crow, half woman. A tiny straw hat sat upon its black bird-like head, and in the shadow of the brim there sparkled two shiny beads, sewn either side of a long, yellow beak.

Around the neck, the bizarre effigy wore a checked red and orange scarf and, poking from the sleeves and the hem of a padded gingham dress to form spiky hands and feet, was an assortment of painted twigs. Around the doll’s stomach there was a plain calico apron, the pockets of which were stuffed with dried leaves and on to this creamy fabric, above a row of diverse buttons, in bold black thread was embroidered the word ‘HLÖKK’.

‘What is it?’ Lauren said.

‘The woman in the shop called it a crow doll,’ Sheila replied, not minding the girl’s obvious aversion to it. ‘Only had a few left – I was very lucky to get this one.’

‘You were robbed. It looks homemade and it’s hideous and creepy.’

Sheila turned the cloth figure over in her hands and inspected the workmanship. ‘Actually she hardly wanted anything for it,’ she declared. ‘I was rather embarrassed, in case she thought we didn’t have much money.’

‘What does “Hlökk” mean?’

‘I didn’t ask. Maybe it’s foreign for doll, or crow.’

Lauren gave a slight shudder. ‘Well, I hope you’re not going to put that thing any place where a guest might see it,’ she said. ‘Probably give them bad dreams.’

‘How funny,’ Sheila murmured.

‘What is?’

‘That you should mention sleep. You see, it’s not only decorative but it’s stuffed full of herbs. That woman said it would help my insomnia, she told me to hang it above the bed.’

Lauren grimaced again. It was truly horrible, and those tiny shining beads seemed to be staring at her. ‘Rather you than me,’ she muttered turning away to look out of the window.

‘Quite frankly, I’d do anything to help me get a decent night’s sleep,’ Sheila said, giving the beak a playful pinch. ‘Besides, it doesn’t look too bad. I think it’s rather cute – pretty even, in a macabre kind of way.’

In the fields beyond the Humphries’ Bed and Breakfast, a number of genuine crows were circling in the darkening sky and Lauren watched them with a growing sense of unease.

‘I’ve never liked crows,’ she whispered, staring out of the window at the ugly black birds wheeling above, their harsh, croaking voices faint through the glass. ‘They’re vile birds, more like vultures.’

Sheila arched her plucked eyebrows. Guy’s daughter could be most odd at times. Lifting the doll to her nose she gave it a tentative sniff, then rose and walked to the door.

‘I’ll just go to hang this upstairs then,’ she said, stifling a yawn.

But Lauren was not listening. ‘What do you call a group of crows?’ she asked herself. ‘I ought to know this. It’s not a flock, it’s something weird like a mob or – a gang. No wait a minute, it’s a... oh, I can’t remember.’

Sheila opened the door to the hall, but before climbing the stairs, she turned, and with the doll swinging in her grasp, said, ‘It’s a murder of crows, Lorrie, dear.’

‘Blood and sand!’ Brian Chapman grunted as he thrust the saw blade through the soft rind of a slender branch.

Perched upon the high step-ladder, the caretaker of The Wyrd Museum could not believe what he was doing. Already the floor of The Separate Collection was covered in fallen twigs and leaves, and there were still two more walls to be pruned, but he was having serious difficulty in coming to terms with it all.

Upon the ground, playing amidst the fallen foliage, Neil’s brother Josh crawled into a den of dry, crackling leaves and made noises like fierce animals in the jungle.

He loved his new home and didn’t miss the old house in Ealing at all. Of course, he still yearned for his mother and asked about her, but today there had been so much to do that he hadn’t thought of her once.

Before he had attempted to tackle the panels, Brian Chapman had boarded up the shattered windows, cleared away the broken cabinets and carefully sorted the scattered exhibits into various boxes. Josh had enjoyed that part of the morning, for he had played with shrunken heads and the skeletons of frogs, and gleefully kicked an enormous leathery globe about the room like a football, until his father caught him and put the object out of his reach.

Now the four-year-old crouched in his leafy cave listening to the rhythmic bite of the saw.

Suddenly, the sound of urgent footsteps entered the room and the boy cautiously peeked through the roof of his den to see who it was.

Into The Separate Collection came Miss Ursula Webster and Josh regarded her with displeasure. That camel-faced old woman had been unkind to him when he first arrived at the museum and he didn’t want her to find him now.

Returning below the leaves he lay upon the floorboards and waited for her to go away again.

Overhead the sawing ceased as Brian looked down, but the elderly woman didn’t even glance up at him. She hastened to the far end of the room, where he had stowed the exhibits and began to hunt through every box.

‘Miss Webster?’ Brian began hesitantly. ‘Are you looking for something?’

Ignoring him, she continued to rummage and search.

‘Where are they?’ she hissed under her breath. ‘They must be here! They must!’

Into a chest crammed with fragments of broken sculpture, the old woman probed, her tapering fingers trawling through chipped marble limbs and noseless plaster busts.

‘He cannot have returned so soon,’ she attempted to reassure herself. ‘We are not ready, the child is not prepared! Have I endured these endless years only to be confounded at the last? Why did I not act sooner?’

Pouncing upon another box, she feverishly spilled its contents over the floor and rooted through them like a wild, scavenging animal.

From his high vantage point, Brian stared down at her foraging form and decided that it might be best if he kept out of the way. Miss Ursula was obviously upset and her tongue was sharper than the teeth of his saw. He scratched his head uncertainly.

‘Where are you?’ her growling voice shouted into the boxes, until suddenly she stiffened and threw back her head to give a great, glad shout as, from a large chest, she pulled a black, scraggy bundle.

Overcome with relief, Miss Ursula triumphantly brandished the object above her head for an instant, then inspected it closely.

Here was the stuffed remains of the second raven and her shrewd, sparkling eyes examined every aspect of the poorly preserved bird.

It was a sorry looking specimen, so badly damaged it was almost comical. Many feathers had fallen from the dried, flaking skin and upon the top of its head the creature was completely bald. Both eyes were shrivelled, sunken sockets and the lower part of the beak was hanging loosely upon a shred of papery flesh, so that when Miss Ursula turned the creature over in her hands it wagged up and down, making the bird appear to laugh silently.

Lifting the tattered effigy to her ear, the old woman shook it gently until, within the fragile skull, she could hear something rattling. A thankful smile spread across Miss Ursula’s thin face.

‘There now, Memory,’ she whispered, giving the black beak a scornful tap. ‘You certainly won’t be going anywhere. How gratifying to find you still dead and inert. In life you were a vicious, spiteful imp – a vindictive little spy enslaved to a deceitful master.’

Holding the raven away from her, she squinted at it through half-closed lashes. ‘I find you much more pleasing embalmed and shrivelled like this,’ she remarked with a definite nod.

‘Since the blood ceased to pulse in your veins, you and your brother have become useful to me. Now you are a pair of pickled gauges, my two fine barometers, sitting out the ages – waiting to tell me when...’

The old woman’s voice failed and she glanced uncertainly into the chest once more.

‘And yet,’ she muttered, ‘where is your brother? Where is Thought?’

Clasping the stuffed bird to her breast, she whirled about and stared up at Brian Chapman. ‘Where is it?’ she demanded forcefully. ‘What happened to the other raven?’