Gently, he pressed the end of his finger to the chest of one. He could feel its tiny heartbeat, impossibly fast and frantic, and the slightly clammy warmth of its skin. He imagined the blood surging around its body, getting ready to push out feathers, even as the bird knew nothing of where it was or what it was. It was just a life, waiting to happen.
Michael picked up the baby bird and, carrying it in one hand, climbed down the little hillock to the shadowy bank of the stream. The mud here was soft and only a little stony, and it took only a few moments to scoop out an empty pocket. A tiny grave.
He placed the bird in it, and paused, watching it wriggle. For some reason, his heart was beating very fast—as fast as the bird’s, almost. He pressed his fingers to the bird, pushing it into the mud, and felt very aware of his own strength—how easy it would be to push until tiny bones snapped, until newly formed innards became a paste. The brutal red landscape was very close. If he closed his eyes tight, he was sure he would see it.
Frowning slightly, he picked up a handful of the discarded mud and squashed it down on top of the chick. The peeping stopped. He gathered more mud, packing it in tightly, and then he sat with his hand pressed to the wet earth, counting seconds in his head. When two full minutes had passed, he dug back into the mud. At first, he couldn’t find it, as though the earth had just absorbed the baby bird back into its heart—the idea excited him—and then his probing fingers met a squishy resistance. He pulled it out and was shocked to see that it was still alive; the thing had black mud in its throat and one of its little legs was bent the wrong way, but its head still weaved back and forth pitifully. Michael held it up, both annoyed and full of wonder.
“No,” he told it. “It’s up to me.”
He packed it back into the earth.
When he returned to the house hours later, the sun was just sinking toward the horizon and the man was gone. This wasn’t especially unusual. The man had a car and sometimes he would be gone for hours, returning in time for dinner, or bringing back bags of groceries. Michael did not pay much attention—it didn’t seem important. He slunk back up to his bedroom, where he moved restlessly for an hour or so, unable to concentrate. He looked down at the thick black dirt under his fingernails and thought about how each chick’s heart had stopped. Eventually.
When he heard the man come back into the house, he did not stir from his place on the bed until a sharp bark summoned him downstairs. There, the man looked him over, seeming to take in the mud soaked into his trousers and the dirt ground into his palms. He smiled, his fake eye flashing with the orange light of sunset.
“I’ve something else for you.”
There was a sack on the dining room table—a rough hessian thing that had been printed with the single word: DARTS. It was moving slightly. Without needing to be told, Michael went to the sack and opened it, revealing four tiny kittens, all still with their eyes shut, and all a piebald mixture of black and white. He reached in and picked one up, feeling the hectic warmth of its body against his skin. So alive, and so powerless.
“Michael, lad, have you ever heard of the barghest?”
He curled the kitten against his chest.
“The what?”
“It’s a great demon dog, a wolf really, that haunts lonely roads and stiles. An old legend of the north.”
“Like … a fairy story?”
The man smiled, exposing his long, yellow teeth.
“Not really, lad. The barghest is an omen, but it’s also thought of as a spirit of the land, a symbol of death and rebirth. Where it walks, it makes no sound and leaves no mark, but if it bites you, the wound will never heal.”
“All right,’ said Michael, uncertain of what he was supposed to say.
“The wolf has an important role, lad. You know that? He gives life to the land, because the land is always hungry.” The man went to the sack, where the other kittens were clinging together, mewling at each other. He covered them over with a piece of hessian. “There are people who don’t recognize the power of that. Your dear old mother, for one. Women, lad. They have a different role to play.”
Michael winced.
“But you already solved that problem, didn’t you?” He turned to the boy, and his face changed again; an onlooker would have taken him for a kindly uncle, pleased to be treating his nephew. “The kittens are yours to play with.”
Michael nodded.
CHAPTER15
FEELING A LITTLE shaken and more than a little tired, Heather opened the door to her mother’s house, half expecting more trapped birds. Michael Reave’s reaction had frightened her, but more than that, she felt haunted by dead women—by Sharon Barlow and Elizabeth Bunyon, by all the women butchered decades ago, and most of all, by her mum. Reave, with his scarred hands and green eyes, was connected to all these deaths, and if she could just figure out how … Perhaps she could end it. And that might just ease some of her relentless guilt.
Instead of birds, she was greeted by the gentle sound of the radio and the faint smell of the coffee she had brewed that morning. The normality of the situation reassured her, and she made herself a pile
