One Crow Alone Read online

  She heard his breathing deep and loud.

  Babula told you, Love will grow slowly, like an apple tree.

  Babula—folding the blankets.

  But how will I know?

  You will know, little one.

  Babula opening the big wooden chest and placing the blankets inside. Come. Have a look.

  The chest smelled of cedar, and clean linen.

  My wedding chest, Babula says.

  It had seemed so big and wide and deep then.

  And this thing was not growing slowly like an apple tree.

  * * *

  Thundering heartbeats. His fingers on her face like tangled jolts.

  She could smell him. His hair, his skin.

  “Ivan—” she whispered.

  The sound of his breath was all about her ears. In her hair. On her neck.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered in her ear.

  And she did not tell him to stop when he kissed her then and held her close. In the darkness of that moment it was everything.

  And she could not tell if she was falling. With hope, and a strange longing, with hope of the dreams that young women dream. And the baking road along the river—where the sun caught your hair, and you felt it blow about your eyes like the touch of a hand—

  In the flickering light all that had been lost lay down. And everything to come was uncared of. And it was like that, with nothing said and not much understood, that old familiar notions fell away and were burnt up on the flaming hearth which is called

  Love.

  The girl looked up with big hungry eyes. She was certain now. The crow must be a prince.

  “Climb onto my back,” said Crow. “I will carry you across this dark forest to a Great Hall. It is far away. When you are there you shall sleep on a wide bed by a warm fire. But you must never cry out—whatever spirits may come for you in the night—for if you make one cry of fright, my misery will be doubled.”

  16

  “Get up—”

  Magda felt Ivan’s hand on her shoulder.

  She sat up. Her bare feet cold. The fire just a heap of smoldering embers. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. I heard something.”

  He was standing. Motionless. Hand on the curtain.

  “How would anyone know we’re here?”

  He pointed to the fire, the last twists of smoke wisping up the chimney.

  “Maybe it’s an animal,” she said.

  Ivan put a finger to his mouth.

  And then she heard it.

  The sound of boots, biting in the snow outside.

  She sat so still, and so quiet, that she forgot to breathe.

  The footsteps stopped.

  Ivan bent down, bringing his ear closer to the door.

  The definite sound of voices. Faint outside.

  Behind the door there was a clank, a draft of cold air. Ivan dropped the edge of the curtain like a hot coal.

  A grubby hand held the mail slot open.

  A nose poked in.

  “I know you’re in there,” a voice sang.

  There was shuffling.

  The flap fell shut.

  Silence.

  Ivan grabbed the axe. “Get upstairs,” he hissed, shoving Magda toward the steps.

  She felt with her hands against the walls. Her bare feet cold on the steps. Her heart racing. Eyes wide with fear.

  There was a banging on the boarded window.

  Thud thud thud against the door.

  The smell of smoke.

  Something pushed through the mail slot, and then laughter. Flames licked up around the curtain. Ivan stamped at the ground. Ripped the curtain down. Beat at it.

  Then he was up the stairs. In three strides. Pulling her with him.

  “We’ll climb out of the window.”

  “They’ll be waiting outside,” she said.

  “Just go.”

  He pushed her inside the bathroom. Broken glass cutting her bare feet.

  “Ivan—”

  She heard him out on the landing.

  Boom!

  The outsiders beat at the door with something heavy. There was a crack of splitting wood. Words unintelligible. Grunting with each battering of the timbers.

  For a moment everything was silent.

  Then wood, ripping from the hinges.

  “Yalla, yalla! We know you’re in here,” sang the voice again.

  There was muffled laughter.

  “We told you not to come back,” another voice shouted into the darkness. “Blettin’ told you bluds! We’re gonna get you.”

  “Chewy, Scott.”

  The striking of flint. Krrrk.

  The leader held up a lighter.

  He was tall and lean. Already a man. Flesh stretched taut across his hard cheeks. Dry-skinned and pimpled. A weak jaw. Thin lips and hard cysts on his eyelids. Dangling from his hand was a lump hammer. He was wearing dirty jogging trousers tucked into old army boots. His upper body shrouded in a torn gray and black ski jacket. On his head two black woolen hats were pulled tight over a hooded top.

  Behind him were two boys, breathing in the cold air.

  “This is the blettin’ heath, man,” he shouted. He grinned at his crew. “You feel me? Our blettin’ heath! You wanna come pinch our business sans invite, blud?”

  He beckoned his pack.

  Ivan stood in the darkness at the top of the stairs.

  He saw the light moving downstairs.

  “We’re gonna be havin’ you!”

  The light advanced.

  Fell on the stair.

  Ivan crashed into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. Fumbling in the pitch-black, he turned the lock.

  Magda grabbed at him.

  “The window,” he said.

  There were thuggish footfalls on the stairs.

  “Quick!”

  Hammer blows fell on the door.

  He felt for the edge of the bath, climbed up on it. Grabbing Magda’s shoulder he kicked against the shutter and it clattered open.

  Something smashed through the flimsy door.

  Magda screamed.

  “They’re getting out the window, man.”

  “Get round the back and cut ’em off!”

  “There’s a blettin’ gwai in there too, blud. I heard her.”

  Ivan clambered onto the shed roof, pulling Magda out through the broken window.

  The hammer smashed again, splitting the door. A hand reached in, searching for the lock.

  “My foot. Ivan!”

  Magda’s foot had caught in the window frame.

  Ivan pulled her, his feet slipping on the icy roof, and they fell in a tangled mess, grabbing at the ridged tiles for purchase.

  The courtyard was only a few feet below them. Away over the other side of the shed were the white-topped roofs of the abandoned houses. A steep drop onto the road below.

  The two youths came into the courtyard. One of them clambered onto the water butt with a lump of wood in his hand.

  At the window the bloody leader appeared, shrouded in his hooded coat, clambering through the broken shutters.

  His eyes locked on Magda. “No fucking invite, bitch.”

  Ivan let go of her hand. She saw him silhouetted against the sky, the axe above his head. She was losing her grip. Her bare feet dangling over the drop to the road.

  The leader of the gang came across the tiles. Ivan thrashed out at him with the axe. Caught his outstretched hand.

  “Aaagh!”

  Magda screamed. Her fingers could hold on no longer and she felt herself slide.

  And in the dimness she saw Ivan above her, grappling with the man. His body swayed as if it were in slow motion. His feet slid on the icy tiles. He lost his footing and fell.

  Down, down. Away on the other side.

  “Ivan!” she screamed.

  She felt herself slipping down over the roof, frozen tiles and bricks scratching and grazing her arms. Her legs scrabbling at nothing. An awful moment
as she fell to the bottom of the wall. Half buried in a drift.

  Bare feet stinging in the snow.

  “Ivan!”

  “The gwai’s on the other side of the wall!”

  “Run, Mag—”

  Thwack!

  Ivan’s voice cut short.

  “Blettin’ hold him! I’ll get her.”

  Magda pulled herself up.

  Far off at the end of the street she saw the dark shapes of the trees.

  She turned. And saw him.

  His face hidden in the shadows under his hood.

  He held up his broken fingers. “You’re gonna pay for this.” She saw the whiteness of teeth clenched in his face. “This is our turf. You done a bad choice coming here.”

  The other two youths dragged Ivan out onto the road.

  He raised his head.

  One of them punched him in the guts.

  Vomit choked out onto the snow.

  “Take him back.” The man pointed toward the building looming over the pond.

  “You need help?” one of the others shouted.

  “No. I’m gonna take care of her.”

  Magda scrabbled onto her knees, pushed herself up off the ground with her hands. And ran.

  She could hear him—behind her. Swearing and wheezing and grunting. Her feet, blocks of ice, falling slap slap slap on the sharp, freezing snow. Her coat, baggy and heavy and jumping about her with every footfall. The sound of the boots and that angry mouth so close.

  “Come here, you stupid gwai bitch.”

  Head thrown back, cold wind forcing tears from her eyes. Running. Stumbling.

  And then, up ahead, she saw lights. Just pinpricks dancing among the cobweb of branches.

  The road!

  She forced her legs heavy as lead and burning with pain. On, on.

  Above her, above London, the first glimmers of cold light stole over the skyline, an ashen Valkyrie creeping pale fingers down between the gray buildings and empty streets behind the wire. She came to the fence. Fell against it. It shook and sagged and ridges of snow fell down in a shower. And clinging there, so close, Magda wondered if this was what was left of her, this animal part, and how she would survive it and which bit would die if he got her at last. And whether she had the strength and what would she do with her feet bare in this snow if she got away and how she would forgive herself if she did not go back for Ivan.

  She hauled herself up, legs dangling and kicking, sticking her numb toes into the holes of the chain-link fence.

  The man jumped for her. She felt a hand around her ankle.

  “You stupid cow.”

  She kicked down and felt the side of his face against her bare foot and gripped the wire for her life, kicking and pulling.

  “Help!”

  She screamed it through the fence.

  “Help!”

  She felt the man’s hand slipping around her leg. She stamped down with all her might.

  The fence swayed and the wire juddered and her fingers slipped away. She fell down to the snow, hard on her back.

  The man laughed. He took a knife from his pocket and flicked it open. “We’re gonna have a little tumble now. Best you keep chewysuwy and act sweet.”

  Crow. Wings clapping the air, heavy claws ready, hard beak cawing. Laughing.

  Poking from the snow was a fallen branch. She scrambled back on her elbows and grabbed it. It felt firm in her hands.

  “You wanna play rough?” The man still cawing. Pushing back his hood.

  She rose up. It was a rage. Cowed and sweated and shoeless and trapped.

  She swung the branch with all her might.

  He wasn’t expecting it.

  The branch was short and hard. As solid and heavy and unbending as stone.

  The thud of wood against skull.

  Thok.

  His face. Eyes blinking in disbelief.

  Magda, taut for more fight.

  The man shuddering like a ninepin.

  He fell. Like a rotten tree on shallow soil. Toppled. Roots and all. Stiff and straight, his startled face flat onto the snow.

  Magda dropped the branch. Struggled to her feet with every nerve beating and clattering.

  The man did not move.

  She saw where her bleeding feet had marked the snow. And then she knelt down and with frozen fingers she clawed at the laces of his boots, glancing fearfully over her shoulder. But no one came. And she pulled them onto her bare feet.

  Still warm.

  And then she took a breath. A good hard breath.

  Looked down at the body. Picked up his fallen knife from the snow.

  Better to suffer for what is right, Magda.

  And she turned, and ran. Her small dark shape disappearing back under the trees.

  Better to suffer for what is right, than to do what is wrong, Magda.

  17

  Magda hid under the frost-rimed bushes at the edge of the ice and studied the building.

  Four storys high.

  The entrance—a dark doorway shadowed under a concrete porch.

  Nothing moving.

  She shuffled forward. Soon they would wonder about their friend.

  There was a noise. A Jeep rolled between the trees. The same one they had seen at the hole in the ice. It crunched to a halt by the side of the pond; deep treads in the tires filled with snow. The engine cut and the doors opened.

  Two men got out. The doors smacked shut. The men looked about. One of them went around to the back and opened the tailgate, and a liver-colored dog on a chain jumped to the ground. The other man went over to some bushes and pissed against a tree.

  “How much we take tonight, Artem?”

  The man zipped his trousers and turned around. “Five grand, I reckon. This fat ginger guy, he do thirteen minutes.”

  The dog barked.

  “Hesht!” The man yanked on the chain.

  “Covered in lard like fuckin’ turkey!”

  They laughed. One of them spluttered a thick cough and lit a cigarette.

  “Better give rats their money.”

  The two men made their way up the bank, pushing at branches, stumbling and swearing at the snow.

  Magda watched them go into the building. Disappearing into the dark open doorway.

  She moved forward and crouched down behind a snow-banked wall.

  It was so close. She felt the knife in her hands. Opened the blade. She could hardly feel her fingers.

  Now.

  The entrance hall was pitch-black. Noises echoed down the bare concrete stairs.

  Up above, a door clicked open. Footsteps shuffled on the landing above her.

  She ducked beneath the dank and musty stairwell. Moldering cardboard boxes stacked up in a pile. The stolen boots dug into the backs of her thighs as she crouched down with her back hard against the wall. Heart beating like a drum.

  Bam bam bam.

  The footsteps slapped down the stairs.

  “—to get the shit, man? Always me, you feel me?”

  Right above her head.

  “Chewy, Scott.”

  “Yeah, but it’s proper blettin’ cold out there.”

  “I said shut your chewy muzzle.”

  She waited.

  She heard the door of the vehicle out by the pond slamming shut.

  Footsteps came back into the hallway.

  “—this big! And where’s Yusuf?”

  “Havin’ a bit of fun out on the heath with that gwai bitch! Ro-meo and Joo-liet, man!”

  They laughed.

  But they didn’t go back up the stairs. She heard the footsteps come around beside the stairwell and stop. Right in front of where she hid. She could see their legs. A door opened.

  “Yusuf’s gonna be having him bad when he gets back with that gwai. How much you reckon we’ll get for her?”

  “Come on, man! Laters. Artem’s gonna be cheatin’ us out our share if we don’t get back up there pronto pronto.”

  The door shut.

&n
bsp; The footsteps shuffled back up the stairs.

  Voices fading behind the clunk of a latch.

  Magda slipped out from under the stairwell and reached with cold reluctant fingers for the handle of the door.

  It seemed that the opening of doors led to bad things. Her feet creaking on the rough boards of the abandoned cottages in Morochov. Always things disappearing. Mama. Babula. The truck. The shooting of the pony. Stopko’s stale room in Krakow with the damp socks steaming on the radiator. The metal doors of the container clanging shut and that gold-toothed grin.

  She turned the handle slow and quiet. Expecting the worst.

  “Ivan?” she whispered into the stale darkness. There was a tiny window high up in the wall of the room, dry leaves on a deep sill. She saw an old motorbike resting on its stand in the gloom.

  “Ivan? It’s me. Magda.”

  She saw him. Slumped in the corner. Hands and feet tied.

  “Ivan—”

  Slowly, he lifted up his head.

  She was at his side. Knife in hand. Sawing at the ropes.

  She helped him up, and he steadied himself. Rubbed at his mouth. His face was swollen: a thick eye, blood on his cheek.

  “There’s a car, Ivan. Under the trees.”

  He stumbled on his battered leg. Something clattered to the floor. He leaned against the wall.

  They waited. But no one came.

  And then they were out on the snow.

  “It’s at the front. By the pond.”

  “How many of them?” he croaked.

  “Two men and a dog. Many boys. I don’t know exactly.”

  She supported him, his weight heavy against her shoulder. Limping down the bank. Slipping and sliding on the snowy ground, pushing at branches. Onto the ice.

  The light was growing brighter. Birds beginning to sing unseen in the bare branches of the trees. They bundled along at the margins. To the vehicle. Ivan pulled himself into the cab, and Magda slipped into the driver’s side and pulled the door closed. She felt the cold vinyl of the seat beneath her. The keys hanging from the ignition jangled against her knee.

  It was a very old car. She studied the controls on the dashboard. Dials for speed and fuel and temperature. A radio bolted under the shelf.

  She peered down at the gear stick. You have never driven a car before. Only Stopko’s old tractor. She took a deep breath. In the great sea of everything, driving this car is just a tiny drop. Imagine you have done it a thousand times.