A gathering of crows part 2

          She could feel the world begin to sink in upon her, as she heard her name again and again and again.  So she buried herself  into the  darkly dressed  congregation around her.  A steady drumming rain,  fell upon the casket with the staccato of a  rat, tat tat,  that was then  hidden by rumbling thunder, that she felt flow right through her. The drumming, the murmurs’ cawing of the crows. The tapping of the coffin lid.  She searched herself for an answer.  One eventually came. But not from her.
        ‘Murder…’ the word was whispered  by Dorothea week  ago. ‘Murder… they say, though the police cannot prove it.  They think it’s-’
        She suddenly span violently back towards the on-coming crowd, to again  see  the face of Father Douglas  who was standing before her.
       ​‘Are  you okay  Dawn?’
        ‘-Yes… yes…’  Dawn smiled and looked down.  ‘It’s, it’s the bird’s.’
        ‘ –I… I didn’t know that you suffered from  Ornithophobia…’  came the mild reply; and as an  aside  he con  ‘It’s called a murder you know.’ At that he  chuckled to himself.
         ‘-What is?’
        ‘-why a  gathering  of Crows.  It’s a murder… not an apt setting  for a churchyard really.’
          He stared down at Dawn gently.  His moist oval eyes glistening ‘…Rather…’ but he didn’t finish what he was saying.  Instead he simply looked down, his aged face, pensive, before he changed the topic.
        ‘ -you and Dorothea were friends ?’
          ‘- Yes…’ she  faltered and looked down, as a tear began to form. ‘… We were very close. I was the  last one to-‘
          ‘ Oh,  you were?  I, I didn’t know that. Yes..  we  never-‘But  he  was suddenly  cut short.  As suddenly  out of the gloom  came a  wail similar to that of  a small child.  The congregation stared up. Suddenly  a  huge  black  object  plummeted  from the broiling  sky. The congregation stepped back aghast  As a  huge crow  slammed into the  coffin lid  with a violent  thud. The crowd moved away from the coffin  as the  black beast lay prone.  It’s eyes  gouged out.  Its wings outstretched.  Its head  twisted over its wing  in a dark  parody of  the Christ himself .  It lay motionless  upon  the  green wreath and the coffin lid.  Its blood, dark steaming out as it streamed from  the dead  bird, which  slid down like slow  treacle towards  the open grave. For a moment there was silence.  Even the crows had stopped cawing. Then with the strength of some unseen and terrible force; the  crow began to  move, and,  as a harbinger,  it  blindly lifted itself and flew  directly at  Dawn’s face.  Dawn gasped and held back a scream, as the blind bloody crow caught her hood. Father Douglas slammed the bird away with a strike of his hand, just as Dawn started to fall just as Father Douglas reached  for her and held  her in his arms.

         The world twisted away from underneath her feet. She wasn’t at the churchyard any more.  She was at Davey’s  two room flat,  just  above the  old  Butchers place.   Everything was in stark detail. The flowery yellow mottled wallpaper  was peeling at the roof join; where black mottled damp  patches had started to spread.  The red linin curtains  were  pulled away from the window, to bring sunlight in  There was a smell of patchouli oil, to cover the heavier smell of  cannabis resin.   On a little table by the door, Ash  from an incense  stick holder,   blended with the overflowing ash in the tray. Along  the wall  in front of here rested the  bed its dirty linen, yet t be washed. Then  there were  the bookshelves.  The little room was filled with books. Books on healing, on magic and the  occult. Books scattered on the  floor.   Books piled up on the window shelf,  books on nature and on herbs.  Books.  Books.  Books.   The other smell here, the most strongest of all, was that of an old library.
         It was then that she saw, that she was not herself.  She had different hands…older hands… a man’s  hands.  And in one of those hands rested a  small  rubber handled hammer.  She was hot.  Burning up.  She could feel the clammy sense of exertion.  She, he, was holding the hammer, tightly.  She  could  feel him.  Smell him. But she  couldn’t see him.  She was looking through his eyes into this room.  Moreover; she was powerless. Unable  to move.  Unable  to think.  It was like being at the cinema.  Only more immersive.  The monster was in charge .  Then the  images became kaleidoscopic. Slamming buffeting  into one another. Davey moving away. Davey screaming.  Davey being pushed to the floor. Davey shouting NO! NO! PLEASE GODS  NO!  Davey’s head uddenly cracking open like an old walnut.  Each  blow  was heard as a  hard  cracking  crunch  as  the hammer   slammed  down  into his  skull.  Once.  Twice.   Three times.  She screamed but was mute. She could  Just to stare at the  broken corpse of her brother that rested  at her feet. Suddenly the tiny attic  window  exploded  inward  and the  huge crow from the coffin  returned.   It stood on the window shelf.  Looking deep into Dawn’s eyes.  She  was frozen  solidly staring.  From the centre of the crows head, the feathers slowly  peeled away to reveal a final terrifying  third eye. The eye became larger and larger and larger.  Somehow, she didn’t know how, she turned away to see her reflection in the mirror on the dresser behind her.
       But she didn’t see herself. It was   Father Douglas  who glared back at her.   Douglas  her friend.  His face a mask of murderous  rage.  His hands soaked in warm blood. His eyes, wide and as black as midnight.  Suddenly and with a savage  yell  he reached out for her.   NO!
        There was darkness and in the darkness, she could sense swirl of black wings. Then  a  burst  of  iridescent colour, dazzling to her eyes.  The world twisted away once more, then  returned.  Only  this time, she was back in  St  Andrews  Churchyard… only it wasn’t winter….The sky had a strange golden hue.  She felt a gentle summer breeze on the nape of her neck. Butterflies  darted about the stems  of grass as plump bumble bees, rich  with pollen  bobbed about.  The air was clear.  Light was everywhere.  It even emanated from the old grave stones. More importantly, there was Davey. Davey smiling, Davey  reaching out  and in her arms once more…The  Davey she knew and loved.
       ‘-Oh Davey… my little one.  Davey… Davey come here.’ And he did come.  He reached her and gave her a hug and held her tight.  Then he took a step back.
          ‘ -You’re going wake up soon Dawn… but it’s okay… you hear me… its’ okay.’ Dawn smiled and stroked his face. He smiled once, the glint in his eyes shining  and then  he was gone;  turned into a glitter  of mist, lost upon the warm  summer breeze. That sped up into the golden apple  of the sun.
Then  there  was darkness and then pain. When she came around she found herself in the warm surroundings of the church hall.  Father Douglas was standing just a few feet from her.
          ‘So…your back…’ He began gently. ‘… You know you gave everybody quite a scare…’
           Dawn tried not to look nervous. she lay there  as he continued ‘…If it wasn’t for the fact that I know of your condition-‘
          ‘-Condition?’
          ‘-Epilepsy…’ He smiled gently.  Reassuringly, like an old father. An old friend.
          ‘- But…I, I  don’t have  epilepsy.’
            ‘Oh, my dear, but  you do. You had a very nasty seizure just now.  I expect its’ because of the loss and the stress of it all.   Seizures  can happen at any time you know…’ he smiled distantly,  ‘…I’ve seen it before…’ he looked down; and away from her. ‘…in another parish.’  The voice slipped. It became dark.  Apprehensive. Then he smiled; before kneeling down beside her a nervous  tick flicked  his right  eye.
          ‘You spoke… just now…’
            -Did I?’
            ‘Yes…’ he said gently as slowly knelt closer; his face slowly turning menacing. ‘…you kept calling out Davey’s  name… ‘ as he knelt next to her, ‘…I didn’t know you shared his faith…’ he stroked her hair. ‘It was the  crows that gave it away you see… the  gathering  of crows.’  He smiled. His  lips  wet.  Spittle curled down the left side of his mouth, in a line  of drool.  ‘I had to get you inside, away from the crowds, people will talk  you know, and   I can’t have  that…’ he smiled. ‘…people  talking… it’s  not proper. It’s not proper at all. ’
          She stared at him, knowing with a sense of fatality,  the reality of her vision.  Her face became a blank mask before she replied.
          ‘Why did you do it?’
          ‘-Do what?’
           ‘Kill him… kill  Davey… why..?  Betrayal crumbled out of her face.
           ‘-I, I  didn’t kill  Davey…’ he began his eyes  gentle, serene, his jowls giving him the appearance of an aged baby. ‘…My dear… I saved him… I saved  him from himself. It was an act of kindness… the best thing in actual fact’
           ‘-what, what about  Dorothea?’  Was that an act of kindness too?    
           ‘ Poor Dorothea…’  Douglas  shook his head sadly. ‘She had a stroke, bought about by years and years of sustained  alcohol  abuse.  She fell and that was that…. Old people die you know. It’s a sad reality.’  As he  spoke Douglas came closer and closer to Dawn as she lay prone  on the floor.   He knelt closer   by her side. Slowly she tried to get to her feet, but   Douglas pinned  her down in almost a vice-like grip.
         ‘It’s  sad…you see… I thought you, you   were  different… From him…from Davey…. I thought that you… held to the true faith…’  His eyes  became  mirthless  and malign. ‘…But  now…’  his  hands  became  heavy upon her,  as his voice began to  growl ‘… I have to save you,  from the same fate as him.’  With  trembling fingers,  he stretched out with his hands. They surrounded  Dawns’ throat.  He began  to tighten.  To  squeeze.  As he squeezed, he  bellowed  with spittle spouting from his lips:- ‘THOU SHALT NOT SUFFER  A WITCH  TO LIVE!’

Two things happened after that.  First of all, and to the shock of the mourners, the police  and then an ambulance arrived.   Neither of them expected to see Father Douglas kneeling over the prone form of Dawn.  Father  Douglas,  was  arrested and put in the back of the police car, while  the cadaver of Dawn was put in the back of the ambulance, that  slowly drove away, while  the shocked  crowd of mourner’s  slowly  departed. However, that was not the most significant event that late afternoon.  It was the mourners departed, that the crows began to gather  for one final time. They rose into a huge spiral within the  stormy sky. Their  wings, as  black fingers  outstretched  out  upon the rising wind, that hissed and sighed in slow  soft  whispered measures.
         The crow’s gathered as one.   Together they circled above the old village,  then  up  into the wild mists of the rolling clouds  above they flew.   Hidden, within the  mists of the  clouds,  In   sweeps  they   flew in a  circle and as they  flew within the circle,  raindrops  began  to form and then  to  fall.  And  as their made rain fell,  the crows knew that it was time to depart;  So  from  this  a silent sacred unknown pilgrimage, they left.  Some  flew  to the north, some to the south, some to the east.  Leaving a  chosen  few  to fly  to the west;   carrying with them  the  souls  of  both  Davey  and Dawn, to the ancient land of the  elder  Gods, and where, so  it is said, that the  sun and the moon embrace.

Fin

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