‘Bert,’ she rasped, through a pinched mouth, delivering shrill utterances that made him wince. Her once pretty features were locked in a scowl, her colourless skin stretched over jutting cheekbones, exasperated by the tightly wound bun in her hair.
Bert ignored his mother in the hope she would go away. At first he had appeased her, making up sickly sweet words of love, the kind Callum would be likely to say. I love you mummy. I’m always with you mummy. One day we will be together and you can read to me again. But after a while, the words ran dry. The very sight of her made him angry, and he was fed up with her constant need for reassurance. He wanted to slap her, to stare into those misty eyes and tell her that he was her son and he needed her here, looking after him, making him feel his existence meant something. But she was just a shell, filled to the brim with bitterness and pain. She coughed. Bert carried on with his sketch of the woods. He was trying to figure out a way he could make them private. He didn’t know who owned them, but as far as he was concerned, they were his. If he sowed enough thorny bushes, dug enough ravines, it would keep out the campers who sometimes came to explore.
‘Bert. Do you have a message for me, Bert?’ mother said, in rapid bursts of staccato. She crossed her arms, her elbows pointing sharply either side as she waited for her message from beyond the grave.
Bert grimaced. It wasn’t as if he got any special treatment for passing them on. As soon as he’d given her the message, she would snatch away the words, repeating them over as she sobbed to her unseen ghost.
‘Bert. Are you listening to me?’
Anger rose with each syllable his mother uttered. He pushed his pencil into the paper, growling as the leaden point snapped in half. ‘Leave me alone,’ he said, pushing past her to the back door. ‘Just fuck off and leave me alone!’
Mother’s tightly laced leather shoes clip clopped against the bare floorboards as she chased him to the door. ‘How dare you!’ she thundered, her words laced with disgust. ‘How dare you speak to your mother like that!’
Bert laughed wildly as he flung the door open, sending it rebounding against the wall. Still laughing, he mocked her inability to leave the house. She could no longer visit Callum’s grave. Even her steps to the oak tree were unsure and faltering, and always after dark.
‘Callum’s dead!’ Bert screamed as he ran towards the oak tree. ‘And I wish you were dead too!’
But Bert underestimated his mother, and the fire of her fury propelled her out of the house, skeletal fingers extended as she hunted him down the path. Bert’s ear burned as she pinched it hard, swinging him off his bare feet.
‘Don’t you ever speak to me like that again,’ she spat, pulling back her hand to slap him across the face.
‘Ca … caw,’ Bert stammered. ‘Caw, caw!’
His mother froze, her right hand mid-air. ‘What? … What’s wrong with you?’
The words had barely left her lips when the raven drew down on her, slicing the back of her hand with dagger-sharp claws. Mother screamed, thrown off balance as the raven bore down again, slicing and tearing, its cries piercing the evening air.
Bert’s eyes sparkled as his black winged guardian defended him from the sharp sting of the slap that was to come. But as much as his mother annoyed him, he needed her to sustain him. He flapped his feeble arms as he called the raven off.
‘Come away, come away,’ he shouted, and the raven took flight, cutting through the air with long graceful wings as Bert’s mother lay bleeding on the ground.
Chapter Thirty
Jennifer could not hold back any longer. Enquiries with the Facebook group were taking too long. She had to visit the woods, if only to get answers for the questions relentlessly invading her thoughts. Her visit with Joshua reminded her what was at stake. She couldn’t wait for the Raven to make contact, and a quick internet search pulled up exactly what she needed. Haven was a historic town, and many of the original names given during times of folklore had long since been forgotten. The river, once named as ‘Black Water’, had been renamed Blakewater, and Haven was originally called Heaven, many years ago. Jennifer knew that, having lived there all her life. But she was surprised to discover an extended patch of woodlands behind the boathouses, named Raven Woods. She dug deeper, becoming drawn into an internet forum on local history, featuring the little known forest.
User frightgirl95 described camping with a couple of her friends. Stories of witchcraft had drawn them to Raven Woods, where she described the stale air carrying the sour scent of decay. She spoke of their sleep being disturbed by gut-wrenching screams, and their torch beams picking up nothing but bark-stripped trees housing beady-eyed ravens overhead. Stumbling back to their tent, they were horrified to discover the heavy-duty material ripped to shreds. It was all the persuasion they needed to leave.
Jennifer traced the location of Raven Woods to the rear of the river, down a narrow weather-beaten dirt track. Tourists preferred to camp beside the riverside forest, with its picnic benches and BMX tracks. But there were no such paths where she was going, and the only things bordering the long stiff trees were strands of horned barbed wire, flanked by deep ditches and a keep out sign. The fact it was dented with buckshot gave a double-edged meaning. Keep – out – or else. Jennifer took one last glance before driving past. Someone just took a random shot, she thought, trying to keep the tide of dread at bay. She pressed her brakes as she caught sight of fresh tyre tracks in the mud. They veered off to the left and disappeared down a valley between the trees. Pulling her handbrake as far as it would go, she parked on a mound of grass. She had lived in Haven all her life but with acres of dense unexplored woodlands, she was a stranger to these parts. Swinging her legs out of the car, she plodded down the grassy bank, sidestepping the pebbles of rabbit droppings as she followed the tyre tracks. She checked her mobile phone. No signal. A cold breeze touched her skin and her internal warning system piped up as her nephew’s words replayed in her mind. Stay away from the woods. But she had to find answers, before it was too late.
She approached the leafy vegetation, her eyes narrowing as she took in the horizontal branches. Trees with no trunks … Jennifer shielded her arms over her face as she pushed through the undergrowth, nothing more than camouflage for the gap that lay behind it. Enough for a car to pass through, judging by the tyre tracks. She bit her lip as her apprehension grew. The forest held a presence all of its own. If she got into trouble nobody would see her in here, much less hear her screams … Giving one last glance back at her car, Jennifer allowed the dead branches to whip her limbs as she pushed through the makeshift gate, keeping her wits on high alert. Her breath felt warm against her lips, cooled by the drop in temperature. Casting her face to the tree tops, she searched the air for ravens as she made a three hundred and sixty degree circle. The forest was a kaleidoscope of mist and branches. Greasy leaves lined her path when they should have been shooting from fresh spring buds. She wrinkled her nose. This was not a pleasant woodland smell. It smelt meaty, decaying, and anyone venturing this far would be turning back now if they had any sense. She strode onwards in grim determination, her boots rustling through the insect-infested undergrowth. Her eyes shot back up to the trees disappearing into the misted sky. Where are the buds and shoots? Where are the finches and the robins, the squirrels and the foxes? Not even a raven in sight. The only signs of life were the spiders threading thick dewy cobwebs, ready to bait the flies trailing in her wake. The hairs prickled on the back of her neck as she felt the stare of hooded eyes, all holding dark intentions.