Another jerk of his rucksack gained his attention and Bert pulled it back, spitting the words. ‘I’m not killing anyone, now leave me alone!’
The reply was so low it was not audible, but he felt it just the same.
‘You didn’t mind killing Callum.’
The mention of his brother’s name sent a chill down his spine. ‘What? No … I didn’t.’
The voice from within sneered. ‘Want to hear what he has to say about it? I come from death, I can bring him to you.’
Bert sucked in great mouthfuls of air as he turned down their laneway and caught sight of home. He tried to tell himself the voice was inside his head. It couldn’t hurt him if it was part of him, could it? His panic was coming in waves now, surging, and then ebbing just enough to allow him to suck in air before he was engulfed in the terror again. The thoughts of hearing Callum’s voice were more than he could bear. He threw his rucksack on the porch and ran to his room.
He tried to broach the subject as mother treated his eczema, which had flared into angry red welts on his skin. The house was eerily quiet as he sat at the table, the only sound the ticking of the clock and the wind howling outside. He wished he had a television like other families. Books were fine, but they could not silence the voices intruding in his thoughts. Bert took a deep breath and blurted out what was troubling him.
‘Mum, sometimes I hear voices telling me to do things.’
‘It’s just your imagination,’ she said, as she slathered the cream up his arms.
‘But sometimes it tells me to do things I don’t wanna do,’ Bert said, shivering in his vest.
His mother laughed, but her face was cold and hard. ‘Poor Bert, you’re so afraid of life. Not like Callum. He wasn’t afraid of anything.’
Bert was taken back by his mother’s intense stare. She rarely mentioned Callum any more.
Her desperate eyes stared into his, trying to see any trace of the boy she missed so much. Her grip sent sharp painful darts into his broken skin.
‘You’re hurting me,’ Bert said, pulling back his arm with a gasp.
Mother lowered her eyes and handed him the roll of bandages. ‘You’re old enough to do this yourself now. You don’t need me any more.’
Something shifted that night as Bert felt his passenger grow form. It wrestled with his inner conscience, the one that told him killing was bad. The raven reminded him he was summoned as his protector, and he could not lie dormant forever. Bert knew deep down it was what he wanted, and that night as he stared at the bare branches of the oak tree, a frost crept through his soul.
[#]
On Thursday evenings, Lucy Grimshaw went to book club after school and cycled home alone. Bert was waiting. The timing would have to be right, but the cards had guided him and wouldn’t let him down. Bert hid in the bushes as her bicycle approached. Pulling the black balaclava over his head, he was grateful for the winter nights, which were drawing in. The noise of the lorries drowned out his heavy breathing as adrenalin coursed through his body. Perhaps she would just fall off and scuff her knees, he thought, picking up the pole, his heart hammering a warm beat in his chest. He crouched down into position. The plan was to ram the pole into the tyre of her bike and run like hell. Bert tried to ignore the steady stream of cars, and to stem that nagging feeling that being upended off your bike in heavy traffic seemed an excessive punishment for being a tease. But it wasn’t just that. Bertram's eczema had become unbearable, and school was only going to get worse. Carrying out the raven’s wishes may stem the voice hungry for blood. The doctor had told them his skin condition was stress related, and to Bert, his annoyance over Lucy was never going to dissipate unless he did something about it. Besides, a prediction had been made, and blood would be shed one way or another. A single bicycle headlight glared in the distance, flickering on, off, on, off in time with the dynamo that powered it. Oh shit and fuck, Bert thought, as a lorry came rumbling up behind her, trying to overtake but was hemmed in by the cars passing the other side. Bert prayed his black clothes would protect him from onlookers.
‘Just be quick, a quick jab is all it needs, then take the pole and run,’ the voice said, bubbling within him. Bert’s heart pounded at twice its normal speed.
There was no time to dwell as the bicycle drew near. This stretch of the road was downhill and Lucy was travelling at speed. She was near enough now for him to hear her humming a tune. Bert tried to make it out. If someone was going to die, then the last song they sung should at least be noted. But it was too late for all that now. Rain began to pelt from the skies, and Bert thanked the skies for the blessing of what would cloak him into further obscurity. The voice whispered, reminding him of how he felt the day Lucy humiliated him in front of everyone. ‘Are you going to let people walk over you all your life, Bert? It’s time to be a man, take control. She won’t disrespect you a second time.’ His heart thundering in his ears, Bert jumped from the bushes. Lucy was so busy concentrating on the lorry beside her that she didn’t see the pole catch the spokes of the front wheel of her bike. The motion jerked Bert forward, his arms rattling in their sockets. Clamping his hands on the rain-greased pole, he jerked it back, falling on his bottom onto the edge of the path. Lucy didn’t have time to scream as the front wheel jammed, making the rear wheel of her bike come up. Dismounting its passenger, it threw her into the path of the impatient lorry driver. A horn shrilled and a ker-thunk noise followed as the brakes shrieked, too late for Lucy. Car brakes screeched amidst grinding metal. By the time the drivers got out of their vehicles, Bert was long gone, gasping for breath, snivelling and laughing at the same time and not understanding why.
When he got home and discarded his clothes he felt like he had been through an initiation of sorts. The voice, now satisfied, whispered in its slumber. ‘You’re a man now, Bert. You did good.’
His hometown was shocked, as apart from the bad luck his own family generated, there was not much in the way of deaths in their area. Newspapers reported that it had been raining heavily, visibility was bad as darkness fell, and the young girl just came off her bike into the path of the lorry, who was driving way too close in his impatience to deliver his goods on time. His arrest was little comfort to her parents. The thrill Bert felt at reaching manhood outweighed any doubts in his mind. It was there in black and white, the lorry driver was to blame. By the end of the day, he had relinquished all feelings of guilt. Bert was becoming a master at reconstructing past events to suit himself. A sense of empowerment overcame him as he stretched to full height before the mirror. His eczema had virtually cleared overnight, and he felt like the old days, unencumbered by pain, grief, or feelings of worthlessness.
[#]
Each initiation was Bert’s strongest memory. The first was his earliest recollection, the night he was summoned to the woods. The second was when he lay in the blood of his brother and created a raven onto the soil. The third and final was in his adolescence when he killed Lucy Grimshaw. That was all it took to make him what he was. Many people had crossed his path since then, and with the help of the cards many had come to regret it. He often wondered how he could remember parts of his life so clearly when others were so hazy. He sometimes dreamt of a clinical room, speaking in groups, watching a large-screened television from a paint-chipped wall. The dreams were so vivid he could recall many programmes in his mind when he heard the theme tunes but not how or where he had watched them. Small flashes seeped into his consciousness; nametags waving on clothing, swallowing multi-coloured capsules with thin plastic cups of water that quivered in his hand. But the memories were foggy and the darkness inside him worked hard to keep them repressed. Those memories served only to weaken him. He would have to remain strong for what lay ahead.