Crow Country (4 page)

'I
thought we were going for a walk around Little Lake?' Ellie tapped Sadie's pyjama-clad leg. ‘Come on, you're always complaining that we never do anything. Let's go before it rains.'

‘It never rains.' Sadie stared at Saturday-morning TV.

‘Like my new scarf and hat?' Ellie twirled. ‘Black and white, for the Boort Magpies. Gotta show whose side we're on.'

‘Crows are better than magpies,' muttered Sadie.

‘Crows
?' squawked Ellie. ‘Who are the Crows?' Her phone trilled its cheerful tune and she snatched it from her pocket. Even before she spoke, Sadie could tell from the way she pirouetted from the room that the call was from David. ‘Hello!'

Sadie swung her feet from the coffee table and made a dash for her bedroom. She threw on some clothes and slipped into the hallway. Ellie was sprawled on her bed, phone to her ear. ‘So . . . footy this afternoon?'

Sadie eased the front door shut behind her and set off down the road to the centre of town. The sky was muffled with a layer of grey cloud.

She saw Jules hanging round outside the shops with Fox and the skinny boy who'd played pool with Lachie the night before – Troy. She kept one eye on them as she walked past, pretending not to have seen them in case they ignored her, but Jules raised a languid hand. Sadie gave them a quick wave back, then jammed her hands into her pockets. She marched on, fast and purposeful, down the hill and across the railways tracks.

Lake Invergarry was a mustard-coloured stain, like paint spilled over the landscape. The grey sky lowered over the mud. Dead trees leaned drunkenly from the silt and for an instant Sadie saw them as skeletal hands, groping bony fingers in the air. She halted, feeling lost. She couldn't remember how to find the stones. Had she really dreamed them?

But then a black shadow swooped above her head, gliding under the sky that fitted over the land as snugly as a lid on a box.
Waah – waah!

Sadie broke into a run, stumbling after the crow, a dark speck against the iron-coloured sky. Clods of mud stuck to her shoes and spattered as she ran.

The crow flung back a long drawn-out
waaaah
that echoed across the valley, and Sadie caught her breath. There was the dip in the valley that hid the secret place from view. And there was the circle of stones, tall and proud, glowing orange-red like columns of flame. And a crow was waiting for her.

Sadie stopped, gasping for breath. The crow watched her, its wings folded back, its eyes gleaming like stars. Silence stretched around them.

After a minute Sadie lowered her eyes. What was she doing here? The crow hadn't spoken, but somehow Sadie knew that it was mutely laughing at her.

At last, the crow opened its beak. Again, its words sounded like
waah-wah
, but Sadie understood. ‘This is Crow's place.'

‘Yes,' said Sadie. ‘You told me that already.'

‘Crow has a story for you.'

‘Oh,' said Sadie. ‘Okay.'

‘Sit!' ordered the crow.

‘Um . . .' Sadie looked at the stinking yellow mud. She shrugged off her parka, spread it out and lowered herself gingerly down.

‘This is a secret place, a story place.' The crow tilted its head. ‘Crow's people came to this place. Now they are gone. The stories are always. Who tells Crow's stories now? Where are the dreams when the dreamers are gone? Where are the stories when no one remembers?'

Sadie didn't know what to say, but it seemed the crow didn't expect an answer.

‘Country remembers,' it croaked softly. ‘Country remembers. Crow remembers.'

The bird stepped closer, watching Sadie with its bright, cunning eye. She inched back, away from the sharp talons, the strong, gleaming beak.

‘This story belongs to Crow. And it belongs to you.'

‘To me?' repeated Sadie, startled.

‘Waah!
You come to listen, not to speak!' The crow's eyes closed. Its head dropped.

Sadie waited, her heart beating fast.

At last the crow said, ‘Crow cannot see. This is Crow's own place, but he cannot see. The end of this story is hidden in shadow. This is your story, too. You must finish it.' The crow blinked once, twice. ‘You do not belong to this place. You do not belong to Crow. But this story is your story.'

Sadie couldn't keep quiet.
‘What
story?'

‘
Waah!
' The crow gave a sudden laugh. ‘The story of a clever man!'

‘A clever man?' repeated Sadie, bewildered.

‘
Wah!
You must be quiet!'

‘S-sorry,' stammered Sadie.

‘Crow's people know how to listen! Crow's people know how to be still! Your people cannot be silent. Your people cannot sit quiet to listen. There are stories all around you, and you cannot hear!
Waah!
If you cannot listen, Crow must show you!'

Without warning, the crow unfurled its wings. Darkness streamed from beneath its wings, blotting out the earth, blackening the sky. The bird cried, ‘You must finish this story. For Crow, and for the spirit of the clever man, which cannot rest!'

Sadie cowered. The crow's wings beat where it stood. Its cries drowned out every other sound, they filled the valley like the roar of thunder, and the ground shook beneath Sadie as she struggled to her feet.

Then the crow's scream rang out, and the bird's talon-feet gripped the earth, slicing into the ground.

Sadie imagined her flesh torn by those talons, her eyes jabbed by that pitiless beak, and she ran.

The sudden night was thick as tar; she didn't know if her eyes were open or shut. Wind whistled and roared about her, screaming with the crow's voice. She didn't know if she was running or falling, dreaming or awake. She was plummeting into the darkness, and the dark was choking her, like soft black feathers in her throat.

S
adie was running, her feet striking the ground with a rhythmic
thud-thud-thud
. She could hear her own ragged breath, each gasp tearing into her side like a wound. She was still real, then; she was still
here
, somewhere, though the darkness was thick as porridge all around her.

Then she realised she could see a light ahead, a tiny yellow pinprick no bigger than a solitary star.

She slowed to a jog-trot, shuddering for breath, and held onto her side where the stitch stabbed her. Lights glowed above her, too: the silvery dust of stars, and the thin curve of the moon. The yellow light ahead was larger now, and square-shaped: a lighted window. She could make out other shapes in the shadows, trees and buildings, flares of lamplight.

She slowed to a walk.
Nothing to be frightened of, you silly duffer
, she scolded herself.
What's got into you? Scared of the Hobyahs?

She imagined long fingers reaching out of the dark and quickened her pace. She was carrying a basket; she knew that she should carry it carefully. Even when she'd been running full tilt, she'd been careful to balance the basket. She remembered now that it was full of eggs.

She was wearing boots and a frock and her blue cardigan that Gran had knitted, and her hair was tumbling down out of its bobby pins as usual . . .

And somewhere inside her was Sadie, thinking in amazement,
Who am I? This isn't me! I've turned into someone else!
But somehow she wasn't concerned about this unexpected transformation. She was astonished but not anxious. She walked steadily toward the shop, toward home, the lamplight streaming from the kitchen and the basket of eggs from Mrs Williams on her arm.

She let herself into the stuffy kitchen, warm with the heat of the stove, and set the basket on the dresser. Mum was draining a saucepan of potatoes. John was at the table, bent over his schoolbook, legs wound round the chair legs, tongue poking from the corner of his mouth.

‘Bless you, love, you're just in time.' Mum's face was flushed and a curl of dark hair had escaped from the scarf tied round her head. She wiped her hands on her green-flowered pinafore. ‘Mash these spuds, will you? I can hear the baby.'

She whisked out of the room, and Sadie, without thinking, pulled open the right drawer, found a fork and began to mash the potatoes. She looked round for the milk jug and found that and the butter dish on the table. She added milk and butter to the potatoes, beating them to a creamy mash.
Just the way Dad likes them
, she found herself thinking . . .

Sadie knew that these weren't her thoughts, they belonged to someone else. She wondered, without panic, whose thoughts they were, whose life she had stepped into.

The plates were warming in the bottom of the oven, the mutton and gravy were ready, the beans boiling on the stovetop.
Don't overcook the beans!
thought Sadie, and an echo of Ellie's voice flashed through her mind.
Vegies boiled to death, yuk . . .
 She snatched up the saucepan and drained the water, tipped the beans into a dish and looked around for a bottle of olive oil to drizzle over them.

Olive oil?
Sadie frowned. Whatever put an idea like that into her head? She'd never heard of such a thing. She dropped a knob of butter on the beans and stared at them doubtfully. Mum was going to say they were half-raw.

Sure enough, when Mum bustled into the kitchen with the baby grizzling on her shoulder, she picked up a bean and bit into it. ‘Still crunchy, love! You took them out too soon.'

‘I like them crunchy,' said Sadie. ‘And if you cook them too long they lose all their vitamins . . .'

‘Hark at her!' said Mum. ‘Vitamins indeed. Clear off the table, Johnny, and set the plates.' She leaned out of the doorway and called, ‘Clarry! Dinner! Now then, where's your sister? Betty, if you're hiding again, you come out now, you hear me?'

Clarry
. That name seemed familiar . . . How did she know that name? She shook her head. Of course she knew the name of her own father! What in the world was the matter with her tonight?

As Sadie whipped the newspaper off the table, an upside-down headline caught her eye – something about a person called Hitler. Her heart gave a peculiar involuntary skip. The date was printed at the top of the page.
Friday, June 23, 1933.

Mum took the paper from her hands. ‘What's wrong, love? You look poorly all of a sudden.'

‘I feel a bit faint,' whispered Sadie, groping for the back of a chair.

‘You sit down, I'll dish up. Ran back from Williams's too fast, I daresay. There, can you hold the baby? Betty, have you washed your hands?'

A little girl of about five or six peered from behind a curtain of dark hair at Sadie, who sat with the heavy, drooling baby on her knee, one hand pressed to her forehead. John moved silently around the table, doling out the plates.

‘I can help, I can!' Betty clattered the knives and forks beside the plates; Sadie winced at the noise.

‘Forks on the left, don't you know that yet?' grumbled John.

Mum paused to lay her hand on Sadie's brow.

‘You want to go and lie down, pet?'

‘No – no, I'm fine.' Sadie managed a smile. ‘I think I just need my dinner.' She realised she was ravenous; she remembered that she hadn't had any breakfast before she rushed out this morning, before she saw the crow . . .

The world seemed to slide sideways for an instant as Sadie struggled to match up two sets of memories, two versions of herself. But then Clarry came into the room and everything steadied. Dad seemed to radiate a kind of calm. As he entered the kitchen, the children stopped bickering and sat up straight; Mum looked up and smiled; even baby Philip's grizzling faded and he held up his arms for a cuddle.

Sadie took her place at the table and picked up her knife and fork.

‘What about grace, Sadie?' said Dad mildly, and Sadie blushed as she bowed her head for the prayer. How could she have forgotten about grace?

Afraid of making another mistake, she was quiet for the remainder of the meal. Betty told a long story about an episode of unfairness at school, and baby Philip spattered mashed potato from his wooden high chair. Everyone teased Sadie about the under-cooked beans. John said, ‘You trying to turn us all into rabbits?'

But Dad said solemnly, ‘I don't know that I don't prefer them with a little crunch, after all,' and he winked at Sadie.

‘She's not herself,' said Mum. ‘She needs a dose of cod liver oil, I shouldn't wonder.'

Betty grimaced and gagged.

‘That's enough from you, miss, or you'll have some too,' said Dad, and Betty subsided with a wriggle and a pout.

After dinner and a spoonful of the revolting fishy oil, Mum made Sadie sit in the chair by the stove while she put the little ones to bed. Dad and John washed up, talking about cricket. Sadie let her eyelids droop. She seemed to drift far, far away, to another world entirely, a world of incessant noise and bright lights . . .

And then she was dreaming. She was swept into a place where the night was thick as treacle, a place of fire and song and strange swirling dances. And a black-feathered figure loomed out of the dark, and its sharp beak opened, and its scream rang out.