Raven Black

Catherine wasn't frightened now. Or perhaps it was just bravado. 'But he's there, all alone. We should go in and wish him happy new year!

'I've told you. He's soft in the head!

'You're scared,' Catherine said, almost a whisper. I am, shit-scared, and I don't know why. 'Don't be dumb!

'I dare you! Catherine reached into Sally's bag for the bottle. She took a swig, replaced the cork and handed it back.

Sally stamped her feet to show how ridiculous this was, standing out in the cold. 'We should get back. Like you said, my folks will be waiting!

'We can just say we've been first-footing the neighbours. Go on. I dare you!

'Not on my own!

'All right. We'll both go: Sally couldn't tell if this was what Catherine had intended from the beginning, or if she'd boxed herself into a position she couldn't escape from with her pride intact.

The house was set back from the road. There was no real path. As they approached Catherine shone her torch towards it and the beam hit the grey slate roof, then the pile of peats to one side of the porch. They could smell the smoke coming out of the chimney. The green paint on the porch door rose in scabs over bare wood.

'Go on then,' Catherine said. 'Knock!

Sally knocked tentatively. 'Perhaps he's in bed, just left the light on!

'He's not. I can see him in there! Catherine went into the porch and thumped with her fist on the inner door. She's wild, Sally thought. She doesn't know what she's messing with. This whole thing's crazy. She wanted to run away, back to her boring and sensible parents, but before she could move there was a sound from inside and Catherine had the door open and they stumbled together into the room, blinking and blind in the sudden light.

The old man was coming towards them and Sally stared at him. She knew she was doing it but couldn't stop herself.

She'd only seen him before at a distance. Her mother, usually so charitable in her dealings with the elderly neighbours, usually so Christian in her offers to go shopping, to provide broth and baking, had avoided any contact with Magnus Tait.

Sally had been hurried past the house when he was outside. 'You must never go there,' her mother had said when she was a child. 'He's a nasty man. It's not a safe place for little girls! So the croft had held a fascination for her. She had looked across at it on her way to and from the town. She had glimpsed his back bent over the sheep he was clipping, seen his silhouette against the sun as he stood outside the house looking down to the road. Now, this close, it was like coming face to face with a character from a fairy tale.

He stared back at her and she thought he really was like something from a picture book. A troll, she thought suddenly. That's what he looked like, with his stumpy legs and his short, thick body, slightly hunchbacked, his slot- shaped mouth with the teeth jumbled and yellow inside. She'd never liked the story of the Billy Goats Gruff.

When she was very small she'd been terrified to cross the bridge across the burn to get to her house. She'd imagined the troll living underneath, his eyes fiery red, his back bent as he prepared to charge her.

Now she wondered if Catherine still had her camera with her. The old man would make some picture.

Magnus looked at the girls with rheumy eyes which seemed not quite to focus. 'Come in,' he said. 'Come in! And he pulled his lips away from his teeth to smile.,.

Sally found herself chattering. That was what happened when she was nervous. The words spilled out of her mouth and she didn't have an idea what she was saying. Magnus shut the door behind them, then stood in front of it, blocking the only way out. He offered them whisky but she knew better than to accept that. What might he have put into it? She pulled the bottle of wine from her bag, smiled to appease him and carried on talking.

She made a move to stand up, but the man had a knife, long and pointed with a black handle. He was using it to cut a cake which had been standing on the table.

'We should go,' she said. 'Really, my parents will be wondering!

But they seemed not to hear her and she watched in horror as Catherine reached out and took a piece of cake and slipped it into her mouth. Sally could see the crumbs on her friend's lips and between her teeth. The old man stood above them with the knife in his hand.

Sally saw the bird in the cage when she was looking round for a way out.

'What’s that?' she asked abruptly. The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them.

'It's a raven! He stood quite still, watching her, then he set the knife carefully on the table.

'Isn't it cruel, keeping it locked up like that?'

'It had a broken wing. It wouldn't fly even if I let it go!

But Sally didn't listen to the old man's explanations. She thought he meant to keep them in the house; to lock them in like the black bird with its cruel beak and its injured wing.

And then Catherine was on her feet, dusting the cake crumbs from her hands. Sally followed her. Catherine walked up to the old man so she was close enough to touch him. She was taller than him and looked down on him. For an awful moment Sally was afraid that she intended to kiss his cheek. If Catherine did that she would be obliged to do it too. Because this was all part of the same dare, wasn't it? At least that was how it seemed to Sally. Since they had come to the house, everything had been a challenge. Magnus hadn't shaved properly. Hard, grey spines grew in the creases in his cheeks. His teeth were yellow and covered in saliva. Sally thought she would rather die than touch him.

But the moment passed and they were outside, laughing so loud that Sally thought she would piss herself, or that they would collapse together into a heap of snow. When their eyes got used to the dark again they didn't need the torch to show them down the road. There was a near-full moon now and they knew the way home.

Catherine's house was quiet. Her father didn't believe in new year celebrations and had gone to bed early.

'Will you come in?' Catherine asked.

'Best not! Sally knew that was the answer she was supposed to give. Sometimes she could never tell what Catherine was thinking. Sometimes she knew exactly. Now she knew Catherine didn't want her going in.

'I'd better take that bottle from you. Hide the evidence!

'Aye!

'I'll stand here, watch you to your house,' Catherine said.

'No need!

But she stood, leaning against the garden wall and watched. When Sally turned back she was still there.

Chapter Three

If he'd had the chance, Magnus would have liked to explain to the girls about ravens. There were ravens on his land, always had been, since he was a peerie boy, and he'd watched them. Sometimes it was as if they were playing. You could see them in the sky wheeling and turning, like children chasing each other in a game, then they'd fold up their wings and fall out of the sky.

Magnus could feel how exciting that must be, the wind rushing past, the speed of the dive. Then they'd fly out of the fall and their calls sounded like laughter. Once he'd seen the ravens in the snow sliding down the bank to the road on their backs, one after another, just as the boys from the post office did on their toboggans until their mother shouted them away from his house.

But other times ravens were the cruellest birds. He'd seen them peck the eyes from a new sickly lamb. The ewe, shrieking with pain and anger, hadn't scared them away. Magnus hadn't scared the birds off either. He'd made no attempt. He hadn't been able to take his eyes off them, as they prodded and ripped, paddling their talons in the blood.

In the week after new year he thought about Sally and Catherine all the time. He saw them in his head when he woke up in the morning, and dozing in his chair by the fire late at night he dreamed of them. He wondered when they would come back. He couldn't believe that they would ever return but he couldn't bear the idea that he would never talk to them again. And all that week the islands remained frozen and covered in snow. There were blizzards so fierce that he couldn't see the track from his window. The snowflakes were very fine and when the wind caught