Jack of Ravens

6

Ruth held her breath and thought that she might die. In the dark the presence hovered behind her, all around her. Any second it would attack, she knew, and then it would tear her soul apart.

She bit her lip and tasted blood, forcing herself to hold on. And then she glimpsed a firefly moving far away. After the intensity of the gloom, she thought it might be a hallucination. But it stayed, and drew closer, and she realised it wasn’t a firefly but a distant light. Hope flared in her heart.

Tentatively, she began to move towards it. She felt the malignant presence surrounding her fill with rage, rise up ready to strike, but she kept moving, focusing on the light ahead and not what lay at her back.

Her pace increased. She could scarcely believe it after so long amongst the horror and the dread; it felt as if she’d been there for a thousand years.

As she neared, she could see it was the light from a lantern, but it was blue. The malevolent presence made one final, futile effort to drag her back, but Ruth was moving too quickly now. All she could see was the light.

Briefly, she passed another presence, but this one filled her with the sense that everything would be all right. And then, without reaching the lantern, she was stumbling out of the wardrobe and into the light of her bedroom, blinking.

It took a moment to ground herself, but the dark presence in the wardrobe was already receding so fast she could barely recall it. There were voices coming from her lounge.

She peeked through the gap in the door and saw the back of a man with a knife who was clearly holding prisoner the two others who were there. A third, an elderly man, lay unconscious on the floor. Disoriented, she leaned against the wall, one hand over her face. What was going on?

The man with the knife was saying, ‘Don’t worry about Jack Churchill. He’s a prisoner in a gold and ivory casket in the middle of a forest way out there in Fairyland. You’ll never see him again.’

Ruth opened the bedroom door a little more. Shavi and Laura noticed the movement, and Ruth motioned to them not to draw attention to her.

Veitch agonised over what he had to do. Finally he jumped to his feet, holding the knife tightly. ‘I’ve got to do it, I’ve got to do it,’ he said to himself. He advanced on Shavi. The look in his eyes left no doubt that he was going to kill them.

Ruth crept into the room, unsure of what she could do. She was still dazed, but her heart was thundering fit to burst. Veitch drew back the knife. Shavi closed his eyes.

Ruth snatched up a metal box in which she kept her keys and phone. She stepped quickly forward and smashed it into the base of Veitch’s skull. He crumpled instantly.

‘You are Ruth!’ Shavi jumped to his feet. ‘He implied you were dead.’

‘Somebody needs to tell me what’s going on.’ Ruth was distracted by a flapping at the window. An owl was now sitting on the ledge, staring at her with its eerie eyes. Strangely, she felt comforted. ‘Why was that man trying to kill you? And what are you doing in my flat?’

‘Better sit down,’ Laura said. ‘It’s a trip and a half.’