Black Feathers Read Online Free PDF Page B

to get me alone and far away from the village. Far enough that I’d be easy prey for that… man. That… thing.”
    Mr Keeper taps out the used herbs from the bowl of his pipe into his hand and places them into one of the many pockets of his boilasuit. Megan frowns at him.
    “Ash can be sacred too,” he says, as if that is some kind of explanation. “Now do tell, little thing. Tell me about this man. This thing that you saw. Leave nothing out, mind, or you’ll be breaking your very important and significant promise.”
    “I’ve told you. I won’t break my promise. Otherwise I wouldn’t have made it in the first place.”
    Mr Keeper nods. Almost a bow. She finds, to her surprise, that she is happy to have pleased this man who, until a short time ago, had been no more than an odd character in the village. Not a stranger exactly but an unknown force. And he is powerful, she realises now that he is sitting so close to her. She also realises that much of his power comes from his ability to hide it from people. Now, Megan feels quite sure, he is allowing her to see what he’s really like. It makes her feel special.
    “So. Tell me what you saw and then we’ll know, won’t we, little thing? We’ll know how we must proceed.”
    That’s the first time in all of this – since the dreams, since the walk, since seeing what she saw and even since being alone with Mr Keeper – that she’s felt all this has some inevitability about it. Things have been set in motion and now she must deal with the outcomes. What they might be she can’t imagine, isn’t sure she even wants to. From inside her a tiny voice says, This is what it means to grow up.
    She doesn’t really know if it’s her voice but she knows it’s true. No wonder she’s afraid. She had no inkling when she woke up this morning that she would be taking her first steps into womanhood before the day was out. Her tone is suitably affected by the possibility.
    “A cloud must have passed over the sun because the wood turned dark. The heat went out of the day. But I didn’t even have time to shiver before that cloud passed and the sun was back, pouring into the wood through every crack in the canopy. But it was different afterwards. Things weren’t on fire from the inside any more. Nothing glinted. Everything magical had fled. All that remained with me was the swollen feeling behind my breastbone, and that was just uncomfortable.
    “And then he… it… appeared.
    “He arrived like a player stepping from the wings of a stage. And for a few moments I wasn’t frightened. I just watched him. He could have been a fool or a character in a comedy.
    “He was there for me. That much was clear. He faced me, took off his tall, flat-topped hat and bowed my way. Bowed very low he did, as though mocking my thoughts of being a princess. I thought I was in my own little world but I wasn’t. Not at all. I suddenly felt like it was his world I’d stumbled into, made myself at home in, elevated myself in. I was embarrassed and I was angry.
    “He stood in a patch of brightness, a shaft of sunlight just for him. And the more I looked and the more I realised what I was seeing, the more my anger and embarrassment turned to fear.
    “It was a man. At least, I thought it was to begin with. He was tall and thin with a proud chest. He wore black from head to foot: the black hat, of course, and about his shoulders a coat of black plumes which dropped to below his knees. The coat was open, though, and I could see his tight black trousers over his slender legs. The bottoms of his trousers splayed out over his boots, making them seem huge. At his cuffs, too, sprouted sleek black feathers and the sun, gone cold somehow, caught them and twinkled there like quartz on velvet. The feathers obscured his hands. His black hair was long and silky, like it was wet. And his face…”
    Megan puts a hand over her mouth as she remembers.
    “I imagined all this, didn’t I, Mr Keeper? I fell asleep