Ravenwood Read online

  WHOOOF! There was an almighty thump and Ark felt the breath punch out of his body. Milliseconds later, this was followed by an earsplitting crack. Ark briefly smelled a whiff of some strange perfume and then everything went black.

  All was well. Ark drifted, feeling a wonderful warmth cover and fold around him. The sensation soaked into him. If this was death, why were Dendrans so worked up about it? He remembered falling from the clouds, something about a king. It wasn’t important now. He could just float here forever. The Holly Woodsmen were spot on. His spirit was definitely making its way down the River Sticks. Eventually, Ark would cross to the other side and walk the woodways of the Far Country. Now that was a journey worth making. He tried to open his eyes, but they were gummed closed. No matter. The blackness was welcoming. He sniffed. A wonderful smell filled his nostrils. Wasn’t that incense?

  “My Ark. My fallen angel!” The voice was tinged with hysteria. “Come back. By Diana, by Corwenna, by all that is holly and righteous, come back!”

  “Ow!” The voice coincided with a sudden shooting pain in his backside. Hang on a second, the dead weren’t supposed to have sore butts. “Ow!” he repeated. It felt like a little fire devil was stabbing him in the nether regions with a pitchfork.

  “Praise the Mother! You’re alive!”

  Ark recognized the voice. He groaned in pain as he finally managed to push open his eyelids. A familiar figure filled his vision. “Yes. I am. I think,” he finally muttered.

  “But where did you come from? I heard a crash that sounded like the kirk was under attack and then something landed on the floor.”

  “Uh. Warden Goodwoody. That something was … me.” Ark looked up and could see the hole in the roof that was his point of entry. But that didn’t explain why he was still breathing.

  “Oh!” she said, her fingers feeling around Ark’s body. “Can you move?”

  It hadn’t occurred to him that surviving the fall might mean broken bones. He quickly flexed his arms and legs. “I think I’m all right.”

  “This is a miracle!” The Warden sighed. Her fingers came away with a handful of dry reeds.

  Ark wasn’t too sure about the miracle side of things. He looked around and saw that he’d landed in the middle of a straw cradle. As he’d punched through the roof, the thatch had also come away, cushioning his fall. “I was trying to grab …” It was coming back to him now. His left hand uncurled to reveal an object shining black in the candlelight. A feather. A raven feather, its quill viciously sharp.

  “What?” said the Warden.

  “Nothing.” How could Ark explain that a feather nearly killed him? It didn’t make sense. Hold the feather, grab the weather, woe betide me, Lady hide me. The chant came back to him. That’s what he was doing. Holding a feather.

  Before he could hide it away, the Warden’s hand shot out, fingers touching the vane.

  “Sky preserve us!” she shuddered, her fingertips recoiling in shock. “This is not possible.”

  “What?” said Ark.

  “A gift. And there was I beginning to lose all faith. But this is a dark matter indeed.” A frown carved itself into the reverend’s brow. “There is danger and death folded within its softness.”

  Ark felt the feather. The quill was sharp, but it wasn’t exactly going to kill him! “If it’s a gift, who did it come from?”

  The reverend ignored the question and fell silent, her blind orbs of white trying to see something beyond her vision. “As you are invisible to me, when the time comes, darkness will help to hide you.”

  “Right …,” said Ark, his head aching. Goodwoody was spouting riddles again.

  “Are you in trouble, my boy?”

  Ark noticed the lining of bright red silk peeking out from inside the Warden’s cloak. For the Holly Woodsmen, such bold color worn inside the kirk was almost heretical. But who else would keep the shrines spotless, the figurines waxed and polished, the candles trimmed and lit? What could he say to her? He’d already told Mucum and put him in danger. “I’m fine,” he lied, continuing quickly, “apart from a few bruises. I guess I’ll be a bit stiff in the morning.” It was the best he could do. “Please. You haven’t spoken with me. I can’t explain now.”

  The reverend smiled sadly. “But the feather has spoken to me! You must trust in your instincts. And know now that you are not alone.”

  That was no answer. He slid the feather silently into his bag, feeling frustrated. “I’m afraid there’s a hole in your roof. You’ll be in trouble.”

  “Never! I shall simply say a bird … maybe a raven … dropped a nut in an effort to crack it. A rather big nut that went to feed the poor at harvesttime.” The Warden smiled at her rather inventive lie. “Now, if you are still among the land of the living, fetch a broom and help me clear up!”

  This was nuts! A minute ago, Ark was about to die, and now he was hobbling toward the broom closet to help sweep a heap of straw away. He winced as the little devil gave him a few more stabs in his backside for good measure.

  Ark returned and began brushing up the straw, feeling a downdraft of cold air from the hole in the roof.

  Warden Goodwoody leaned on her staff, stubborn as a statue, urging Ark to talk.

  He had to give her something. “I was already supposed to be dead. You’ll hear the news. It’s somewhat exaggerated.”

  “I’m glad to hear it!” The Warden’s face crinkled up with delight. “Your company would be most missed. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love the hymns and prayers, but the thought of you scampering up to the sky always cheers me up. I sometimes think you are closer to the spirit of the woods than my most esteemed colleagues. This gift of yours confirms it.”

  A distant clock chimed and Ark suddenly realized he was late. “I have to go. Sorry.” He quickly pushed the straw into a corner. “My family … I can’t go home for a while.” He wrung his hands, hating himself for asking. “Please, would you visit them if you have any spare food?”

  “That’s what harvest is for.” Warden Goodwoody spread her arms to indicate shelves burgeoning with apples, pumpkins, and squash, all scaffield-grown. “Now go.” But before he could, the Warden grabbed his face in her large hands and swooped to kiss the top of his head.

  As Ark was leaving, a rare beam of sunlight found its way through the roof and onto Warden Goodwoody’s upturned face. The boy was in her prayers. What more could an old blind woman do?

  Ark nearly ran straight into a queue of Holly Woodsmen, faces lost deep inside their hoods, bodies cloaked in raven-black cloth as they shuffled in a long, swaying line, murmuring their prayers of protection. The sound they made was like the buzz of bees, haunting and hypnotic.

  Ark quickly pulled his hat down over his face, bowing quickly as the priests swept past him and through the doorway. No one looked up. No one was interested. He hoped the Warden would get away with her story.

  Ark ran, aware of the time, his fall from the platform retreating behind him as he descended endless sets of steps into the forest gloom. Maybe he’d imagined it. How could he fall that far and escape only with bruises? But the feather was real enough. As he sprinted along the woodways, it wormed its way through the stitching of the bag to scratch at his skin.

  He finally reached the meeting spot out of breath, tucking the feather back inside his bag. The day before, they’d agreed to rendezvous at this quiet corner off the main woodway. He was late, but Mucum as ever was even later. Their workplace lay cradled among the leaves barely one hundred yards away.

  This local sewage station was one of many dotted around the country. They were the underbelly of Arborium, hidden deep down in the undercanopy, like dirty washing at the bottom of a basket. Where there’s Dendrans, there’s squit, and where there’s squit, there’s business! went the company motto. The profits obviously hadn’t been spent on this long, misshapen shed and the platform it balanced on. The building was made up of leftover planks and iron, cobbled together and hugging the side of the trunk. Raw sewage, channeled
by gravity from all over the neighborhood, poured into the station via various pipes and wooden channels. Being so badly built gave it at least one advantage. The wind that whistled into every corner provided much-needed ventilation and carried off the worst of the smells. Not that Ark even noticed the stink anymore. You get used to anything, given time.

  “Pssst!”

  Ark nearly fell off the edge. “That’s not funny. Do you always creep up on people like that? “

  “Only the dead ones! Who’d ever thought I could scare a ghost?” Despite his bulk, Mucum could move as silently as a timber goat. “How’d yer sleep?”

  “What do you think?” Ark kept silent about his trip to kirk. Mucum had no time for the mumbo jumbo of Holly Woodsmen. And if he saw the raven feather, he’d probably run a mile. “We need to see the King.”

  “Spot on, mate. I already thought of that.” Mucum scanned the treescape nervously.

  “And stop acting like a villain!”

  “But I am!” protested Mucum.

  “Fine. Can you steal me some tools, then? I lost mine, remember?” Ark without his gear was like a raven without a beak. Unnatural.

  “Yeah. Anyways, Jobby Jones is out for the count. Come and get some yerself.” Their boss, Mr. Jones, was always asleep. It was one of the perks of the job.

  Ark followed Mucum across a perilously swaying rope bridge.

  Mucum briefly looked back. “You look a bit shaky to me. Sure you’re oakey-doakey?”

  “The bridge is moving. So am I!” Ark winced. As they reached the other end, Mucum put his fingers to his lips. Even from outside the door, they could hear the snoring. A sign, etched in stark brown and white into the grain, said:

  EFFLUENT EXECUTIVE STATION

  EMPLOYEES ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.

  Underneath, someone had scribbled, Wot is the point? It’s all a load of … The last word had been crisscrossed out with a knife.

  Ark frowned. “Are you sure about this? Why don’t you go in?”

  “You worry too much, mate! The patter of little footsteps won’t wake the old man, I promise.”

  Mucum eased the handle and they crept in. The room spread before them resembled an enormous and rather smelly kitchen, though it wasn’t food that was on the menu here. Various pipes and mini aqueducts wound their way through the roofs and walls to discharge into two huge troughs that ran the length of the shed. These bubbled away, releasing their noxious gases in the first stage of composting. Large wooden paddles turned the muck slowly, worked by winches and a series of cogs and chains that ran all the way up to sails far above the crown of the tree.

  The troughs had color-coded depth levels marked up the side. If the level went too high, for instance when a bout of diarrhea hit, an alarm went off. Jobby Jones, their line manager, would then run about screaming: “Incoming! Incoming!” and happily leave it to the plumbers to bail out the troughs into what was called “overflow” — a big hole in the floor. The rest of it, once composted, was sent along pipes through the forest all the way up to the high scaffields for the crops that Dendrans relied on.

  It wasn’t the best system in the world, but it worked and it gave them all a living of sorts. Jobby Jones ruled this under-crown empire with a fist of oak, when he could be bothered. Today, at least, his bulbous body was happily ensconced on the daybed in the corner, his twitching nose no doubt dreaming of perfume that only the richest could afford.

  Little Squirt was curled up on the floor next to the nearest trough, grabbing a moment’s peace. It was his task to remove any blockages and help the general flow. Being a squit stirrer wasn’t the best job in the world, but someone had to do it.

  “Hey!” whispered Mucum. “Over here!” He motioned to the tool closet, but Ark was drawn to an old bird’s-eye map pinned up on the wall and covered in familiar stains.

  The castle of King Quercus lay at the center, an ornate H signifying the capital, Hellebore. But his eyes veered off east, west, north, and south, picking out the few still inhabited settlements scattered far from the capital: the carting unions of Cowley, the armories of Moss-side, the bakers of Pudding Lane. And between these carefully illustrated hives of activity, the map had only printed names to denote towns and villages long gone, leaving only rotting woodways and cobwebbed hollows — Ulm, Backwater, Gall, Canker, and the plague towns of the North. These were places no Dendrans willingly went. Who would want to rub shoulders with their ghostly ancestors?

  Ark traced his finger to the left, to the west and the ring of mountains beyond which was supposed to lie a forest undisturbed: the Ravenwood — empty trees, devoid of Dendrans, green holes filled with unlit ways and stories about what happened if you go down to the wood today. What had Goodwoody meant about the feather being a gift from Her? Surely the Ravenwood, with its dark queen feasting on the innards of any Dendrans stupid enough to be caught, was a myth?

  Mucum shoved a plumbing belt into Ark’s hands. “What’s with the daydream? Come on, let’s get out of this squithole before it’s too late,” he hissed, grabbing his friend by the hand and pushing him toward the door.

  Mucum was right. What was up with him? He began buckling up the new belt. But his fingers fumbled and the whole lot clattered noisily to the floor. Disaster!

  Jobby Jones’s nose did more than twitch as two pairs of beady eyes shot open and swiveled around. Jones was awake. What was more, he was staring directly at the two boys.

  “Elms bells! If you weren’t dead before, you will be now!” whispered Mucum.

  9• TIME TO ACT

  Jobby Jones was trying to come to grips with what his eyes were telling him. Just this morning, they’d gathered a paltry collection of coins for the Malikum family. So what was this?

  Ark and Mucum froze. How could it be explained away? The boy who was dead was alive. No doubt their greasy boss would sniff out any potential reward for informing Grasp’s guards of this fascinating fact. Jones’s bed lay near the door and he was already rising off it, blocking their escape.

  Mucum had a sudden brain wave. “Start groaning!” he hissed out of the side of his mouth.

  Not only was Ark trapped, but his best bud had gone barking mad. “You what?”

  Mucum mouthed a single word: Dead!

  A split second of hesitation and then Ark twigged. Though he’d never been known for his acting skills, what did he have to lose? Ark raised his arms up and groaned loudly. “Erghhhhh!” For more effect, he let his tongue hang out and crisscrossed his eyes.

  Mucum joined in with a quavering voice. “Ooooh Diana! It’s Ark’s … ghost! He’s come to haunt us for treatin’ him bad!”

  Their boss’s eyes bulged out. Nothing made sense, so it couldn’t be real. His high-pitched voice squeaked, “Stop being stupid and get back to …”

  Ark wasn’t going to give up the ghost so easily. He stomped slowly toward his hated bully of a boss. The limp from his earlier fall was suddenly an advantage. “Jobby Jo-ones! Jobby Jo-ones!” he wailed. “I have come from the Copse of the Slumbering Dead, crossing the River Sticks to take my revenge on yoooooou!” Ark added a final, throat-rattling “warghhhhhhhh!” for effect.

  By this point Little Squirt was sitting up on the floor, sucking an unsavory-looking thumb, watching the entertainment unfold. He wasn’t too sure if the stinky fumes were making him hallucinate.

  As Ark let a string of saliva dribble from his lips, the dumber part of Jobby Jones’s brain made a decision. Shutdown time. Their boss fainted, collapsing none too gracefully in a heap on the floor.

  Mucum and Ark made a run for the door. “Squirt! I’ll explain later! Do us a favor and tell Jobby he imagined the ‘ole thing.” Mucum shouted as they dived out to freedom.

  As they sprinted away from the sewage station, Ark couldn’t get rid of the smile on his face. “That was —”

  “Brilliant! Forget plumbing, you should be onstage! You’d slay them … every time!”

  “His eyes nearly popped out!” Ark could feel giggles bubbli
ng up. It beat plunging through the roof of the kirk any day. “Warghhhh!” he wailed again, not caring who heard, for a second not caring about anything. He suddenly came to a skidding halt. “Do you think we got away with it?”

  “Listen, Malikum. Old Jonesy ain’t gonna report a ghost, is he? He’d be laughed out of town. And Little Squirt will spin ’im a good tale. Let’s move it!”

  “I suppose so.”

  “By the way, what’s with the limp?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, though his butt throbbed as if it had a life of its own. Not surprising after a fall of over three hundred feet. Maybe Warden Goodwoody was right about miracles, and Ark wasn’t just clutching at straws. “Wait a second.” Ark deftly changed the subject. “You’d better have this.” Ark took his hat off and passed it over.

  “Look, I know you wanna say thanks for gettin’ you out of trouble, but …” Mucum inspected the greasy, stain-ridden cap.

  Ark rolled his eyes. “Your hair stands out like poppies on a pile of poo. Put it on.”

  “Right you are!” As Mucum covered up his orange fuzz, he transformed from being a tall, lumbering brute who could be seen a mile away, to a tall, lumbering brute. “So, will I do for an audience with the King?”

  Twenty minutes later, and after several sets of trunk stairs, they stood before a single rickety door, which was framed with light and surrounded by a high, planked wall that stretched off in both directions.

  Mucum bent over to study the lock. “Got a key?”

  “No.”

  “Thought not. I’ll have to use me other skills.”

  “What? You’re going to pick it?” Mucum and delicate, bent wires somehow didn’t go together.

  “No, stupid. Diana give me this body for a reason, right?” He turned around until his backside was up against the door and shoved, hard. The rusty lock was no match and the door burst open.

  Ark looked around, wild-eyed. “You could get arrested for that!”