What the Raven Saw Read online

  ‘It appeals not?’ said the pigeon. ‘Might I recommend –’

  ‘Stop,’ said the raven. ‘You disgust me.’

  ‘Maybe I’ve just caught you on an auspicious occasion.’

  ‘No,’ said the raven, ‘you won’t catch me anywhere.’

  ‘It goes without saying,’ began the pigeon.

  ‘Then don’t say it.’

  ‘Silence is golden, but shouting is –’

  ‘Kraaa!’ snapped the raven, and his eyes flashed.

  ‘Woohoo,’ said the pigeon. ‘Who took Snappy Tom for his breakfast this morning?’

  ‘Snappy Tom is cat food,’ the raven hissed through gritted beak. ‘Clearly, I’m a bird.’

  ‘Undoubtedly, sir,’ agreed the pigeon.

  ‘Cats eat birds,’ said the raven.

  ‘Perhaps you just need a hug,’ said the pigeon, missing the point entirely. ‘A hug is a feast for the soul.’

  ‘And how would you know?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t want to say anything, but I was quite the ladies’ bird in my time.’ The pigeon tipped his ridiculous bobbing head at what he mistakenly thought was a rakish angle. ‘I had the best coos in the entire park. Like this – coooo, coooo, coooo – and they would come flying, every Tom, Mick and Larry. Except the female versions – heheheheheh, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I really am going to throw up,’ said the raven.

  ‘I would be eternally grateful if you could proceed in the act of projection over by the mausoleum,’ the pigeon said. ‘Uncle Pigeon is particularly inclined towards a smooth consistency, with about 25 per cent chunks.’

  But the raven heard no more because a north-easterly breeze was pricking at the ends of his wings and he took advantage of it to make his getaway. He was revolted to the tips of his claws.

  Before he’d even caught sight of the cherry tree he heard the buzzing of bees. It was a steady drone, not yet built to its full crescendo, as the day was still early and relatively cool.

  The cherry tree was a thing of beauty. It had always appealed to the raven’s sense of aesthetic ideal. It was just now flowering, thousands of tiny pink and white blooms blossoming from the rich, lustrous branches of dark wood. They were heavy with the weight of the flowers and they draped, elegant and expansive, down to the soft green grass, which was already canopied with fallen petals.

  If the raven was a tree he would be something a bit more grand and mythical – maybe an elm. But should he ever need his equivalent in the female form, she would surely be a cherry tree. Beautiful, but strong and refined. The blush to his cheek.

  Now for the honey. The raven wanted so badly to be able to sing like Father Cadman – he was almost consumed by it. He wanted to have a singing voice worthy of the church and its hymns, a voice that would get him instant respect. In fact, his voice was the only thing about himself that really needed work, and he was determined to make it perfect. So if it was honey he needed, then honey he would get.

  The raven sought for an opening among the snowy boughs. He traced the gentle hum of the buzzing to a well-disguised hollow at the back of the tree. Once he’d positioned himself on a nearby branch, he scoped it out with many curious arrangements of his head.

  The whole world took on a pink glow underneath the weeping branches of the tree. The blossoms whispered over the raven’s back until he’d inched his way closer to the buzzing entrance. A few bees drifted out drowsily, settling nearby or floating away on other business. Mostly they ignored him.

  Encouraged, the raven hopped a little closer. His head was full of honey and the beautiful voice that was one step closer to being his. He stuck his face into the hollow.

  And then he felt a sharp, bitter little blow as one of the bees stung him on the eye.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘Kraaaa!’ said the raven. ‘What is the meaning of this?’

  The only answer was another sharp little jab, underneath his hackles. Startled, the raven backed out of the hollow, ran into a particularly springy branch of cherry blossom and was thrust forward again, half-falling, half-sprawling back into the droning gap.

  This time the noise of the bees was more insistent, heavier. A small cloud of them swarmed up around the raven.

  Now, the raven was no coward by any means, but he knew when a battle was lost. Not only his reputation but his appearance was at stake here, and that was definitely worth preserving. A few bees buzzed around his head as he once again retreated, fighting for space to expand his wings. He snapped at them, his wickedly curved beak making short work of those who intended to do the same to him.

  One bee tried to launch an attack on his bill. He nipped it away, almost missing because now his eye was swelling up where the bee had stung it and his sense of direction was all confused.

  He fanned his wings, scattering pink and white flowers like confetti. Sharp little tweaks on the underside of his wings let the raven know a few bees had found an easy target. But they couldn’t find their way past his dense, carefully groomed feathers or the shaggy thickness of his throat hackles – which just went to show how right he was about meticulous grooming methods. If he had just been some raggeldy-taggeldy crow with his feathers sticking up everywhere, or worse, falling out from lack of hygiene, then he certainly wouldn’t be flying away now with so little damage.

  ‘Prruk-prruk-prruk,’ defied the raven as he flew away from the cherry tree. He must not let the bees think they had gotten the best of him. He must not let them think a few pesky stings could tarnish his general splendour.

  Except they did hurt, a little, and were rather annoying. His wing was itching already and he could feel his eye swelling at a rather alarming rate, so much so that the raven couldn’t get his bearings and only hoped he was headed in the right direction.

  He wasn’t. He almost flew straight into the pigeon.

  ‘Oh, there you are!’ the pigeon said. ‘Not to put too fine a point on it, but I thought you’d given me the slip!’

  ‘I did,’ said the raven, through strained beak. A lone bee buzzed around his head and he lashed out at it.

  ‘What’s that?’ said the pigeon. He looked at the raven, inching in far too close for comfort.

  Oh, the stench of him.

  But the pigeon only peered closer. ‘Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,’ he said. ‘Or should I say, “eye”.’ He sniggered at his own supposed cleverness. ‘Someone really nipped you in the bud.’

  ‘Get-out-of-my-face,’ said the raven.

  ‘By all means I would, but someone’s got to it first.’

  The raven caught sight of the belltower with his one good eye and directed his course towards it.

  ‘Your future prospects don’t look good,’ called the pigeon after him. ‘That is, if you could look. But you can’t.’

  The raven had never felt so embarrassed in all his life. To be made the butt of a pigeon’s joke; it was absolutely ruinous. He might never live it down. The weatherhen would be at him for weeks with her snide titters.

  He managed to catch the end of a tailwind, which was just enough to make a seamless getaway. The pigeon, with his piddly little paddle-wings, had no hope of keeping up.

  ‘Well,’ the pigeon shouted, ‘I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Eyes, get it? Oh, you probably don’t. Because you’ve only got one!’ And he almost fell out of the sky laughing.

  The raven’s wing was really itching now. He circled round the far end of the church and flew in through an open window, hopping his way up through the interior of the belltower ruins until he’d reached his den. It wasn’t the easiest route, but it was far better than having to fly past the weatherhen in this state.

  Once he was home safe the raven brought out the stolen pocket mirror. He’d certainly looked better – feathers askew, right wing clumsy where the stings prevented it from settling into its usual place at his side. And his eye! What a mess. A puffy mound with only the very bottom rim of his clear, blue-grey ey
e being visible.

  And all because Father Cadman had encouraged him right into a honey-trap.

  The raven couldn’t help thinking unkind thoughts about the priest. Surely Father Cadman must have known the bees were there. Perhaps he was getting worried by the raven’s singing and was trying to jeopardise his career.

  No. He must not think like that. Not about Father Cadman. The priest was his familiar, was his ally in a world full of imbeciles. He wouldn’t do that. It must have been an honest mistake.

  But the resentment lingered. The raven could taste it, a stubborn little bubble lodged firmly in his throat.

  The raven used his clever, nimble claws to pinch the sting from his eye. That took care of the itch, but it did nothing to abate his wretched appearance. Sighing, he nestled his head under his wing and fished around until he drew out the stings there, and then he got the last one just to the right of his chest.

  He felt better, once he was rid of all those nasty remnants from those little pests. But his swollen eye was a bother. The raven had church in fifteen minutes and he could not go looking like this.

  He rummaged about in his treasure pile until he found what he was looking for – a scrap of leather he’d once ripped from some lady’s purse when she’d been having a nap on the lawn. It was studded with tiny diamantes and it had been, at the time, the raven’s score of the week.

  He fiddled about with it now until, care of his claws and beak and some expert navigating of his neck, the scrap of leather hung over his right eye at an angle most becoming. He secured it with the leather strap of the purse, around the top and bottom of his beak, and fixed it into place with a dab of gum residue.

  Pleased with himself, the raven considered his reflection once more in the mirror. He tried out a few poses, and each angle was better than the last. A quick smoothing of his feathers and he was almost back to his old self. Actually, it was very nearly an improvement.

  The scrap of leather, now his eyepatch, was a deep chestnut colour, with navy blue stitching that set off the indigo sheen of his plumage. Two diamantes dazzled at the very top corners; the raven tilted his head so they caught the light. There had never been a more daring and debonair raven. He looked like a classy pirate. In fact, he could just about put parrots out of business.

  ‘Shove that, you stupid bees,’ he said. And then, with some difficulty, he turned from his reflection and headed off to church.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The raven swooped up out of the belltower and over the roof of the church, flying in long, lazy circles to cover up the fact that he still wasn’t able to steer straight courtesy of the damage suffered to his wing. Unfortunately that took him straight past the weatherhen.

  She was facing the other way, towards town, but as soon as the raven got close enough she swung around once, twice, at dizzying speeds. She obviously meant to get his attention, but the raven pretended it hadn’t worked.

  ‘Kree-Kree-Kree,’ she said. Her tone was very high and appreciative.

  The raven knew what a dashing figure he must have cut with his new eyepatch – obviously it was irresistible to a flirt like her. He puffed out his chest. ‘I know,’ he said, with a world-weary air. ‘Don’t make a big deal of it.’

  ‘Kree-Kree-Kreeeee!’ she said, and spun faster.

  ‘It’s not for your benefit,’ the raven was quick to say, although he couldn’t help but feel pleased. He did a couple of quick upward spirals, the better to show off the glint of the diamantes. The weatherhen spun so fast the raven was sure she would fall from her perch.

  ‘Keep it under the speed limit,’ he said, and flew away. He could already hear the entrance procession and didn’t want to miss one minute.

  He usually got into the church through one of the lower windows inside the tumbledown belltower. Father Cadman had told him the parish committee had been trying to petition to have it demolished for years, but they never got much farther than that. Many parishioners thought of it fondly and held out for the hope that one day it would be restored to its former glory.

  The raven hoped not. He liked the crooked, cracked, winding stairwell – it was perfect for his daily exercises. He liked the open, arched windows, because he could sit there unobserved and survey his whole churchyard. He passed many afternoons spying on those who he thought looked to be of unsavoury character. And he liked the slaters and the centipedes that wriggled about in the cool, dark corners. They tasted almost as good as the earwigs on the roof.

  But the belltower had sentimental value, too – it was his home. He could watch the late afternoon sun shine through the few windows that stubbornly held onto their panes of stained glass. Everything became soft then, as though it had been washed with a rainbow.

  And the ancient bell that lay slumped in one corner, covered with overgrown bramble and guinea flower – that was his. When he tapped against it with his beak it made the perfect sound to accompany his singing. Noise would echo back at him, resonant and sorrowful, from the deepest recesses of the bell, and the raven would hear something of the past, of the ravens that had been before him. He could feel their lonely spirits calling back, bewildered by the strange bronzed world they’d fallen into.

  Sometimes they were the only company he had.

  Once inside the belltower, the raven made his way down to the old church entrance. It was no longer used, having long ago been declared unsafe. A new main entrance had been built at the side of the church, and the old one was now used as a storage space for junk, especially old furniture the church committee didn’t have the heart to throw out. The raven had a soft spot for the ancient, dust-ridden organ. There were several parts missing, but he still tinkered around with it occasionally. It had a tendency to sound more out of tune than himself.

  Not that he would ever admit to being out of tune.

  The raven slipped through the gap in the wall where the poor box used to be. Now he was out into the main church. Already it was filled with people standing and singing. He flew up to his regular position at the back of the church, to watch over proceedings. He had a favourite crossbeam, etched with the grooves of his claws, where he had got carried away with some of the more upbeat hymns.

  No one could see him up here, although he could see everyone else. It was also the perfect position to receive the full effect of the choir. All the sound seemed to amplify up into his corner until the raven felt as though he was in the middle of it, part of it, or at least the subject of the song.

  Today Father Cadman was leading a hymn acapella style, his voice higher than usual, with a touch of lyrical tenor. Every beam in the church trembled with the power of his voice. A chorus of small children sang under him, echoing the words with their sweet, clear voices.

  Father Cadman sang:

  There’s a weakened spirit

  Watching round you still

  And he tries to tempt you

  To all harm and ill

  And the children sang after him:

  But ye must not hear him

  Though ’tis hard for you

  To resist the evil

  And the good to do.

  The effect was ethereal; a feeling of reverent content filtered through the pews. The raven bobbed his head in pleasure and tried to do just what the song said – push away all the ugly little feelings he’d been having towards Father Cadman over the bee incident. Despite his injured pride, he didn’t want to think lowly of Father Cadman. It was almost like thinking lowly of himself. And the raven would never do that.

  He glanced around the church as the priest and the children sang on. A small figure sat almost directly below him, sitting all hunched up as if she couldn’t make her body small enough.

  It was that girl, Mackenzie Trebuchet.

  What a horrible, sullen look she wore, what an insolent expression. And all for nothing as well, because the raven saw that despite her general attitude of hating the world, her lip trembled and slow, silvery tears ran down her face. From time to time she would look ne
xt to her, as if expecting someone to be there, and when no one clearly was she scowled further, hunched herself tighter and swiped at the tears on her cheeks.

  Nasty, impish little thing. But his gaze kept being drawn back to her. And he found, as he sat and watched the girl sitting alone with all her misery, that he felt a little bit sorry for her. He saw quite a few familiar things in her expression.

  To distract himself from thinking those kinds of silly thoughts, the raven filled his head with images of his dashing eyepatch and how devil-may-care he must look. He tried to listen to the mass, but he only really cared about the songs. Most of the time he spent scanning the rows of church pews, seeing if there was anything shiny or ornate he might be able to steal. He barely even looked at the girl after that. She had nothing he wanted. Only the glittery shoelaces, and she wasn’t wearing those today.

  The raven practised posing while the boring spoken rituals were performed, and then the wooden bowl was being passed around in which the humans put all their shiny coins. The first few bars of ‘Ave Maria’ rang out into the church and the raven was just letting the strings sweep him away when he noticed a hand creeping into the collection bowl. And then, with the finesse of a spider spinning its web, the hand scooped up some coins and the raven watched as they disappeared up the frayed edges of a man’s sleeve.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The raven did a double-take and shuffled left to look closer with his good eye. He’d been right the first time – someone was making the most of the general disorder that always accompanied the collection being taken up, and was stealing the very coins he was supposed to collect. The offender: Barnabas Brittle, a popular parishioner and one who Father Cadman considered a fine fellow.

  The raven had watched the collection process enough times and he was fairly positive that stealing money was not part of it. The procedure went like so: you stood at the end of every pew, took the wooden bowl as it came around the line, and then passed it on to the next pew. Everyone would nod and smile and keep a tight fist around their money until they’d placed it very firmly on the bottom of the bowl. Unless, of course, it was that paper kind. If it was, you were supposed to waft it into the bowl as though it couldn’t get enough air time.