Stuart reached down, picked up one of the shot glassesand bent over the railing. He poured the shot onto the dark ground and Josh stood back as if he were waiting for something to catch alight.I’d not worry about it if I were you. You know what it’s like. Weird shit comes looking for you, you don’t need to worry about finding it.
But weird shit has never really come looking for Josh. He’s not like Romero, with that curl to his upper lip that suggests he can smell the supernatural on you like a dog or a deer, or Michael the violinist with that trick with the mushrooms he pulled this morning. Seven years he’s been here, seven years of standing on stage while whatever beings have turned up in the audience cavort, seven years of rehearsals and classes and petty rules and pettier rebellions and never a whiff of anything interesting, never the slightest hint that the Crow sees him as anything but another boring body to do the show and spit out when the mortal knees start to creak and groan.
He opens the door to the caboose and places the tray on the rough floorboards. He shivers. The night is foggy, illuminated only by the floodlights set up so the crew can pack the front carriages of the Grub with the set and the lights and costumes, all the tools of this oldest of trades. Muffled voices swear as the doors to the cargo carriages of the Grub whine and clank. He takes one of the shot glasses and leans over the railing to pour the viscous liquid onto the wet leaves, leaving the other by the plate like Stuart told him. He almost thinks he can hear a slurp.
Despite the damp chill that seeps through the woolof his jumper, Josh props his elbows over the railings and leans out into the night. He waits, listening to Danny, Zach and Mackie calling to each other through the fog, trying to sense something in the night, something other than his own leaden dread of going back to his cabin to lie next to Greg’s lumpen body and wake up to the faint yellow stain on his pillowcase. He can see the shape of dark trees against the shadows cast by the floodlights and he thinks about how long it’s taken those things to get so big and gnarled and deep. Who cast their seeds into this enchanted mud and when?
One to grow, Josh thinks, and he remembers his grandfather scattering breadcrumbs all around the gate to his plot.They remember those who do them a kind turn, and they tell their friends. You don’t want a crow for an enemy, boy.What would his grandfather say if he could watch the show? He would not be very interested, probably, or would not show it. For a moment Josh fantasises about going back to his cabin and getting out his phone to order seeds online, to have boxes of courgettes and leeks and carrots and parsnips delivered to his parents’ house to sleep in the darkness of their shed until he’s done with this ballet stuff. Done with this show that pickles you inside a timeless, placeless world even while your joints fall apart. Done with Greg and all his gentle, suffocating love. And done with showers slick with other people’s soap. Then he’ll go, and he’ll grow again.
Beside him, the Crow settles on the floor of the caboose, right by the tray. Josh feels hot and cold needles pricklingon his skin. It ignores him, pecks at the sweet potato on the tray and dips its beak into the shot glass.
He would like to say something, but his tongue is heavy and his mouth dry. He has the feeling it’s waiting for him to do something – leave, perhaps – but this is the first, and perhaps last, time he has ever seen this creature so he needs to grab this chance. He puts both hands in the pockets of his jeans, finds a couple of hair grips and an elastic band. Josh puts one of the hair grips onto the tray and the Crow gives it a couple of cursory pecks. It cocks its head and looks up at him, black eyes gleaming in the lantern light. Now it’s listening.
‘If I told him, do you think he’d forgive me?’
The Crow is silent.
‘I just don’t think I can do this anymore.’ Josh rubs his fingertips over the worn denim on the inside of his pockets. ‘I mean, I made a pledge to you, not to him.’
The Crow goes back to its dinner. Josh knows he is dismissed. He pushes himself off the railings and something twinges in the back of his ankle. He circles it a little to release the gunk. White Suitor tomorrow, and as he opens the door to the caboose the first steps of the solo come to his unwilling feet and he starts to mark them as he steps into the corridor and pulls the door shut, leaving the Crow to its feast.
He wanders past the cabins, moving through each carriage in turn, until he gets to his own cabin door. Inside, the bed is creaking as Greg moves around, piling up pillowsaround his knees to get comfortable. Josh puts his fingers on the door handle but he cannot make himself go in. He shuts his eyes, thinking of all the other things he could do instead. Go back to the dining car and get another beer. Pretend he’s got something to tell Romero or Benji. Knock on Stuart’s door and ask to borrow something. Go to Ritchie’s cabin and lurk outside, hoping he’s not planning to join in Mackie’s party. Lock himself in the bathroom, stare at the smudges of black make-up he couldn’t get off his face. Go for a walk among the graves. Try and make it to whatever place Belinda warns you that you don’t want to go to.
He leans his forehead on the door and listens to Greg humming to himself inside their cabin.Did you know crows mate for life?he told Greg once, lying together in a small cabin two carriages over, their limbs entwined and rocking with the gentle motion of the Grub. Greg had laughed.Enough about crows now. You got me, I’m here.
But he is not a crow. Just the bone and sinew and lumpen blood of a man no longer in love. He puts his hand on the door handle to his cabin. He will go inside. There is nowhere else to go. He just needs a little minute to resign himself.
***
Cold as a witch’s tit, her breath pluming into the darkness. The Crow sits on the damp wooden floor-boards of the caboose, wraps the black serge skirts around her legs and pulls the tray onto her lap. An owl hoots into the night and the Crow caws softly in answer.
Hark, she thinks,the owl on silent wing in the darkness, the softly dripping mist from the yews, the crew hauling the Pearl and the rest of the set down from the Grit to stow it in the belly of the Grub. Familiar voices of the Crew, muffled by mist. The wandering man who serves the Grit so well, tending it like a lover; the troll man who Crow brought here to fuck with everyone; the seamstress who carries the chick in her belly and the poet whose words Crow is eating. Of all humans aboard the Grub, the crew are most beloved to the Crow. Because isn’t that who Crow was, once upon a time? Long ago now, perhaps a thousand years. Crow was a fixer, a dealer, a messenger, a half-this half-that, a betwixer. Crow was behind-the-scenes, pulling strings. Now Crow gets humans or sort-of-humans to fix for her. Belinda to hold back Faerie with the force of her father’s blood, before that Percy Montgomery with his charming smile and quick understanding of how it was, how it had to be. Yes, the crew are most beloved.
She belches, and drains the shot glass in one gulp.
Belinda woman will come for the Pearl soon, nestle it into the engine, listen for the little hum of satisfaction from the Grub. A gift from a Fairy Queen long since gone into the West. What were her words? Crow would like to forget but they are engraved on her heart, her feathers, the Pearl itself if you know where to look. We will exile you, shape-shifter, but catch the souls of the dead and you will not starve.
Starve? Fuck you, witch queen, Crow does not starve. Crow feasts. Crow has two nests and moves her treasure from between them each night and day; Crow perches on each gate to Faerie and shits all over the railings; Crow brings the humans here todance the old story ofThe Apple and the Pearlto tease the Fae bastards with what Crow has built to spite them because you don’t want a Crow for an enemy, and surely Faerie has found that out by now—
The snap of a twig, a rustle in the loam. A scuffle of black serge and Crow is in wing again, peering out into the darkness. Hoof-beats, a dim and distant thudding. She caws furiously and takes off from the caboose.
***
Mara knocks on Belinda’s office door. There’s no answer, she must be still in the Grit, and Mara almost goes back down the corridor and away to the cabins. Then the carriage door opens and there’s Belinda, her clipboard poking out of her handbag, her shoulder laden with that medieval-looking sack she carts to and from the Grit each day. She raises her eyebrows and Mara stands back to let Belinda pass and gestures to the office door.
‘Can I talk to you for a moment?’
Belinda unlocks the door to her office and shoves it open with her foot. ‘By all means.’
She sits on the chair, lets the bag sink onto that chest in the corner where it makes a merry clinking noise. Mara hovers in the doorway, unsure. Really, she could come back another day, she tells herself. Tomorrow even, there’s no rush.
But Belinda draws the chair up to her desk and steeples her fingers. Mara knows that she is out of time, it’s now, Belinda knows exactly why she’s here and what she’ll sayand backing away is no longer an option.It’s over, a voice whispers in her ear.Time to go.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘I just wanted to tell you first,’ Mara’s voice is croaky, her mouth dusty dry. ‘I won’t be renewing my pledge.’
As soon as she says it, a warm spread of relief rises from her toes. She wonders if Belinda can feel it too, like a soft, fragrant wind in the room. No more aching calves. No more spooky curtain calls. No more waiting in the caboose for one-sided conversations with a bird.
