The Crow Talker

“It was my dream,” Caw admitted. “It wasn’t quite the same. That’s all.”

The nightmare forced its way into his mind again. The man with the black eyes. His shadow falling across the ground like a shard of midnight. The hand reaching out, and the spider ring …

Your parents belong in the past, said Screech. Forget them.

Caw nodded, feeling the familiar ache in his chest. Every time he thought of them, the pain was like a bruise, freshly touched. He would never forget. Each night he relived it. The empty air beneath his wheeling feet; the crack and flap of the crows’ wings above.

Since then many crows had been and gone. Sharpy. Pluck. One-legged Dover. Inkspot, with her taste for coffee. Only one crow had remained at his side since that night eight years ago – mute, blind, white-feathered Milky. Glum had been a nest-mate for five years, Screech for three. One with nothing useful to say, one with nothing cheerful and one with nothing to say at all.

Caw scaled the wrought-iron gates, gripped the looping ‘B’ of Blackstone Park, and hauled himself up on to the wall. He balanced easily, his hands stuffed casually in his pockets as he walked along the top of it. For Caw, it was almost as easy as walking down the street. He could see Milky and Glum circling high overhead.

I thought we were getting food, said Screech.

“Soon,” Caw told him.

He stopped opposite the prison. An ancient beech tree overhung the wall, and he was almost hidden by its thick leaves.

Not here again! squawked Glum, making a branch quiver as he landed.

“Humour me,” said Caw pointedly.

He stared at the grand house across the road, built in the shadow of the prison.

Caw often came to look at the house. He couldn’t really explain why. Perhaps it was seeing a normal family doing normal things. Caw liked to watch them eating dinner together, or playing board games or just sitting in front of their TV.

The crows had never understood.

A shadow in the garden snatched him suddenly back to his nightmare. The stranger’s cruel smile. The spider hand. The weird ring. Caw focused intently on the house, trying to drive the terrifying images away.

He wasn’t sure what time it was, but the windows of the house were dark, the curtains drawn. Caw rarely saw the mother, but he knew that the father worked at the prison. Caw had seen him leaving the prison gates and returning home. He always wore a suit, so Caw guessed he was more than just a guard. His black car squatted in the driveway like a sleeping animal. The girl with the red hair, she’d be in bed, her little dog lying at her feet. She was about his age, Caw guessed.

AWOOOOOOOOO!

A wailing sound cut through the night, making Caw jerk up. He dropped into a crouch on the wall, gripping the stone as the siren rose and fell, shockingly loud in the moonlit silence.

From the four towers of the prison, floodlights flashed on, throwing arcs of white light into the courtyard and on to the road outside. Caw shrank back, sheltering under the branches, away from the glare.

Let’s scram, said Screech, twitching his feathers nervously. There’ll be humans here soon.

“Wait,” said Caw, holding up a hand.

A light blinked on in the upstairs room where the girl’s parents slept.

For once I agree with Screech, said Glum.

“Not yet.”

More lights came on behind closed curtains, and a minute or two later, the front door opened. Caw trusted the darkness to shield him. He watched as the girl’s father stepped out. He was a slender but tough-looking man, with fair hair receding a little at the front. He was straightening a tie and speaking into a phone clamped against his shoulder.

It’s the one who walks that horrible dog! Glum said, hissing with disgust. Caw strained his ears to hear the man’s voice over the siren.

“I’ll be there in three minutes,” shouted the man. “I want complete lockdown, a time-line and a map of the sewers.” A pause. “I don’t care whose fault it was. Meet me out front with everyone you can spare.” Another pause. “Yes, of course you should call the police commissioner! She needs to know about this, and fast. Get on it now!”

He slipped the phone away and strode fast towards the prison.

“What’s going on?” Caw muttered.

Who cares? said Screech. Human stuff. Let’s go.

As Caw watched, the girl appeared in the doorway of the house with the dog at her heels. She was wearing a green dressing gown. Her face was delicate, almost a perfect inverted triangle, with wide-set eyes and a small pointed chin. Her red hair, the same colour as her mother’s, hung loose and messy to her shoulders. “Dad?” she said.

“Stay inside, Lydia,” snapped the man, barely looking back.

Caw gripped the wall tighter.

Her father broke into a trot down the pavement.

The spider this way crawls, said a voice, close to Caw’s ear.

Caw jumped. He glanced up and saw Milky perched in a branch.

Glum snapped his head around. Did you just … speak? he said.

Milky blinked, and Caw stared into the pale film of the old crow’s eyes. “Milky?” he said.

The spider this way crawls, said the white crow again. His voice was like the rasp of wind over dried leaves. And we are but prey in his web.

I told you old snowball’s bonkers, cackled Screech.

Caw’s throat had gone dry. “What do you mean, the spider?” he asked.

Milky stared back at him. Lydia was still at the door, watching.

“What spider, Milky?” Caw said again.

But the white crow was silent.

Something was happening. Something big. And whatever it was, Caw wasn’t going to miss it.

“Come on,” he said, at last. “We’re following that man.”

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aw tiptoed along the top of the park wall, keeping pace with Lydia’s father.

This is ridiculous, said Glum. You’ll get us into trouble again, just like last night.

Caw ignored him. They reached the end of the wall, and the man took a right turn towards the prison gates. For a moment Caw panicked. He couldn’t follow without being seen. But then he remembered.