Weyward(93)

But the sun shone, bright as gold, through my window. I could smell spring on the air: the garden is crowded with daffodils and bluebells now. Even as I write, lambs are being born wet and bewildered, nuzzling at their mothers to get back to that dark, warm place where nothing can hurt them.

Sometimes, I remember that day so clearly that I think it is happening now, that all my life is happening at once and all I can do to take refuge from it is crawl under the bedclothes and sob. I am like a lamb, wishing for a warm place where nothing can hurt me. Wishing for my mother.

My mother. I hope she would have understood. Perhaps it would have been better to be guilty in their eyes, to have swung from the rope even, so long as I could be innocent in hers.

I do not want to write what happened next, but I must.

I moved quickly through that frozen morning. The sky was already pink through the trees, so I had to hurry. I felt something pulse in me, but I do not think it was fear. I could see my breath before me, could feel frost falling into my hair from the trees above, but I did not feel cold. I thought of what I had seen John do to Grace and the blood grew hot in my veins, warming me.

When I reached the oak tree, I saw that great skirts of ice hung from its branches and its trunk had hardened with frost. It would be slippery, I thought, preparing myself for struggle. But my feet found purchase easily, almost as if the tree were helping me up, and before I knew it, I was perched up high with the crows, their wings frosted with ice crystals. And then I saw it. My mother’s crow. It carried the sign – the tracing of white across its feathers, as though it had been stroked by magic fingers. The same marks that my mother said had appeared on the first crow, when it was touched by the first of our line, before the words to describe either existed.

Tears pricked my eyes and I was certain, then, that what I planned to do was right. The crow came to rest on my shoulder, its scaly claws sharp through my cloak.

Together we watched the farm. I felt the coolness of its beak against my ear and I knew that it understood what I was asking of it.

The fields were green and white with snow. A dark spiral of smoke rose from the chimney into the sky. I watched as the door opened and John came out. As he walked to the byre, a small figure moved in his shadow and I realised it was Daniel Kirkby. I had forgotten that he worked at the farm some mornings. I would have a witness, now. But in that moment, knowing not what lay ahead, I did not care. I did not care if the whole world saw me do what I was going to do next.

John opened the byre and the cows came out. They were already agitated; they did not like the cramped fug of the byre, but nor did they like the feel of the winter air, sharp on their flanks. I watched their tails swing and their shoulders ripple, hide gleaming in the morning sun.

It was time.

The crow took flight, wings slicing through the air. I could feel the frozen wood of the oak tree beneath me, but I could also feel the wind singing through the crow’s feathers as it dived down into the field. I saw the eyes of the cows grow white and wide, I saw the fear collecting in froth at their nostrils. Their hooves stamped the frozen ground as the crow flew near, looping around and around with sharp beak and claws, stoking them as one would a fire.

I saw it up close: the new sweat that froze on a flank, the white roll of an eye, John’s face as death bore down on him. And I saw it from afar: the cows a golden stampede, the body crumpling beneath them. The fields: green, white and red.

Then it was over. The morning quiet returned, and I could hear Daniel Kirkby panting in shock, and the soft gurgle of John’s blood into the snow. The crow had returned to its friends in the branches, barely pausing to look at me. I climbed down the tree quickly, in time to hear the creak of the farmhouse door and then Grace screaming.

I ran towards the sound, my boots slipping on the frosted grass, and as I got closer I could smell the body. The sweet meaty stink of blood, of guts and other inside things: things that were not meant to be exposed to the world. Half of the face was gone, disappeared into a red maw. I threw my cloak over it to spare Grace the sight. As I neared the farmhouse, I saw her sink to her knees screaming, again and again. The Kirkby boy stood off to the side, his fists pressed to his eyes as if he wanted to scrub away what they had seen.

I told the Kirkby boy to fetch the doctor and he ran in the direction of the village. I went to Grace. Her breath was sour and I saw that she had vomited down the front of her dress. I brushed a brown smear of it from her cheek and pulled her to me.

‘It’s over,’ I said, leading her inside. ‘He’s gone.’

She shook as she sat at the kitchen table, and her skin had a grey tinge to it. I fixed her tea, to calm her. The fire had gone out and the water took an age to boil in the pot. Once the bubbles rose to the surface I put my face over the steam, breathing it in as if it could cleanse me of my sins.

I made the tea and sat down with her at the table. She did not touch the cup. Her eyes stared ahead as if she were still in the field, looking at his body. I reached my hand across the table towards her, and left it there. After a time, she put her hand on mine. The sleeve of her dress fell back and I saw the bruises on her wrist, as purple as summer fruit.

We sat like that until Daniel Kirkby returned with Doctor Smythson: her clammy hand on my cool one.

So I have set it down, as I promised to. The truth. I will let whoever reads this when I am gone decide whether I am innocent or guilty. Whether what I did was murder, or justice. Until then, I will lock these words away in the bureau, and keep the key around my neck. To save them falling into the wrong hands.