81 today.

The Cuckoo In Winter (Extract & Synopsis)

This extract and synopsis is of an unpublished book, and is included here as part of an online writing portfolio.

THE CUCKOO IN WINTER - EXTRACT

It was advisable not to disturb the moths in the cupboard, April had always found. When agitated they could make some very hurtful remarks. But she could bare it this time, because it was the last time. She was leaving, things just weren’t normal in this house. The cupboard door closed, and the very personal and weight related jeers of the moths inside were muffled as April stuffed the clothes into her bag. She already had money, and food, and something to read. Did she need anything else?

Oh yes, her inhaler.

Behind her, the moths shouted louder as she left the room. Reverting, as they often did when trying to really upset the girl, to outright racism.

Downstairs she surveyed her collection, travelling light was the key, but the girl still wondered if this meagre collection was really enough. When she looked around the room, she saw all the things she was used to, could she really manage without all of them? Any doubts were dispelled when Molly padded in from the back room.

She seemed a friendly little thing, small for her breed with eyes like the kindest of angels, but April hated that dog with everything she had.

No-one else seemed to see it. They laughed when she caught things, when she toyed with them like a playful cat. But April could hear what the dog was saying, when she did those things, the shrill taunting that bordered on the psychopathic. It had been a recurring nightmare for years now, one in which she was so small, and the friendly family pet had found her, she would run but could never escape those paws or those teeth. Every time April neared a safe place she was batted away with the merest flick, played with, her terror an amusement for an impulsive bully.

And then she looked up into those eyes, the wide eyed puppy gaze which everyone fell in love with, and she saw the crowing contempt that one of the big people was so reduced.

And then she’d been eaten. If she was lucky she would wake up at that point.

Initially April had intended to travel alone, be a strong and independent woman, like the women in the bingo adverts. But she was not overly fond of her own company, and remembering the boy who lived under the house next door, she decided he would like to come along. It would certainly be nice for him to get out of his basement.

You needed company on a bonafide adventure, April decided.

It only took ten minutes to free Matt. His keepers had the cellar well secured, but it was only fortified against escape. She’d had conversations with him often enough, lying in her room at night; normally people didn’t respond, he’d just been glad of the company. And she had listened in wonder and terror as he told her of the dark things there, and the terrors he had seen alone in the dark.

April had told her parents until her face was blue, and theirs an unpleasant red, about the boy the Camerons kept locked under their house. With strained patience they had ex- plained to her such concepts as separating dreams and imagination from real life, and also the legal ramifications of making libellous statements about potentially litigious neighbours.

Patronising individuals her parents. They truly were small.

There were no keys to the Cameron’s back door, they weren’t the kind to leave spares with the neighbours. A screwdriver did the trick and she knew the alarm code; Mr Cameron had told her in a dream, when his normally guarded mind wandered free in a para- dise of parks and playgrounds.

To get to the cellar door you had to move the fridge, she was careful to make sure she was as quiet as could be. They were out for the weekend, and she knew the house was empty, yet caution was still needed. This was a twitcher street in deepest, darkest Darras Hall, an estate so rich it attracted salaries between quite successful legal professionals, very successful criminals, and premiership footballers. Alert eyes and ears lay behind every curtain.

Behind the tall fridge was the thick door, soundproof. A screwdriver wouldn’t work here, but Mrs Cameron had told her where the key was kept, as her dreaming mind cowered from the ogreish silhouette of her husband.

The key turned, the door opened to darkness.

“Hello,” she called, hoping he was awake, it was hard to talk to people’s dreams when she was standing up and away from her bed. “Hello? Matthew?”

He didn’t respond, he just approached her hesitantly.

A light flickered on, and she stared down at the pale, thin boy in his cellar, it really was as dank as he had said. She wondered if there were rats, he said he’d never seen any, but she reckoned they were there. April was sure she would like rats, if she ever had the opportunity to speak to one, they would be more down-to-earth than moths, they wouldn’t have such a problem with buckled shoes.

She stared curiously into the cellar itself, expecting a cavern full of supernatural horrors. But it was a small, slightly dank place, a shell of exposed brick that contained little aside from the boy’s ragged bedding, and a locked metal door. Slightly disappointing almost. Neither child spoke, it didn’t seem right. They knew so much about one another to be almost embarrassing. The boy was staring at her, eyes full of disbelief. She couldn’t blame him, it was years since Matt had met anyone who wasn’t a Cameron.

He looked to the open door, and the expression on his thin face told her she had done the right thing.

He looked like he wanted to hold her, or wanted her to hold him, but she had been warned about that; here was a boy who did not like to be touched. She would need to re- member.

Ten minutes later and they had left the street. By the time the fire caught the two way- ward children had disappeared into the night. She’d brought him a coat and shoes, but she didn’t have any boy clothes in his size, so underneath it he wore the same raggy pyjamas he’d worn in the Cameron’s cellar.

The pair hurried through streets with a fixed mindset. They lived in the suburbs, and the suburbs had proved themselves a very different kind of hell for each. That left two options, rural or urban, no more halfway.

They settled on rural. The idea of being homeless in a city seemed a touch more intimidating. And a childhood spent reading many idealised children’s books from the fifties had left April in no doubt that the countryside was a haven of cottages and barns to sleep in, friendly and ruddy faced farmers to buy ham and milk from, not to mention kind and mysterious gypsies to travel with. Everyone was kind and welcoming to outsiders in the countryside, if you read The Famous Five.

So to the countryside they went. It was still early, they were able to catch a bus most of the way. April had a little tent, she was very much looking forward to their adventure.

Later that night they were lost in what was clearly a jungle.

Neither of them had been to a proper wood before, and the trees that lined the muddy banks of the river Allen seemed as tall and exotic as Latin-American rain-forests.

Keeping a decent distance from one another they passed through the trees in wonder, along the craggy, river strewn valley. There was some light, from the sky, but April was scared, she had never known country dark; to her night should be a comforting electric- orange, not this starlit void.

Matthew was an old companion of darkness however, and he liked this darkness. This was the darkness of an absence of light in a wide space, not the darkness of enclosing walls, there may be no sun but there was wind, and a sky, and no bricks. Deeper into the forest they went, the peculiar little couple.

Occasionally April heard the thoughts of the animals. They had a more primitive tongue here, different in the wild to the animals of her house. All around she heard their calls and voices, from below the stone and soil, from the grasses and the trunks, from the branches and the air above. Some were distant, some startlingly close.

Food and mating, mating and food. Occasional strands of death and violence. They had had that intense clarity of mind that all animals did at first impression. It was only after a certain amount of time in April’s presence that their thoughts and words would change, would start to resemble those of people, and that was usually worse.

But they soon faded away, and she was grateful. It wasn’t that April didn’t think to question why, it was that she didn’t want to. This was a mistake.

Because they were wandering where they shouldn’t, because people didn’t go into those parts of these woods at certain times on certain nights.

No-one would have been able to tell them why, perhaps just that they had a feeling, an uneasy feeling, and it was a sign to leave. Hurriedly.

But these two children didn’t know what it was like not to have an uneasy feeling, so they didn’t notice.

However they eventually noticed the bushes, they couldn’t fail to. Eventually.

Their fruit shone with reflected moonlight, and when both looked up they saw that the moon had moved. Indeed, the entire sky looked different.

Before the sky had been real, distant and vague, April hadn’t seen the romance in it she had been told was there by many a book and film. It had been a small night for the moon. Now it was different. It was a painted thing, a clear dome of the heavens. It was wide and deep, the sky had never been that big before, and yet, as a definite object rather than its usual vague consistency, it was also that much smaller.

April didn’t like the fact that the moon had changed. When the shadows of a man and a woman began to dance across it, whirling in an endless waltz, she became positively alarmed.

The berries glimmered silver in the bright moonlight, and they realised the bushes that produced them were suddenly everywhere. When they turned and looked back they saw the faint silver trail for miles, though neither remembered passing so many. April was positive they had been standing in a valley, but they appeared to have mislaid it.

And from ahead they heard singing.

It sang with itself, it was a voice whose clarity betrayed its age, it was a voice that needed no accompaniment, from instrument nor fellow singer.

It was the voice of a dangerous woman.

The voice demanded their attention, and they followed it through thicker trees than they had yet seen into a sudden clearing. Here a tall woman with short, dark hair, wearing an intricately embroidered blue dress, was picking the plump, silver berries. In turn she would drop one in her woven basket, then pop the next into her mouth, to savour slowly.

She turned to face them, and tilted her head to one side. Neither had ever been told about her, but even without her mythic reputation the once nameless Queen of Elphame needed no introduction.

The queen, and her distant sisters, had been most irritated and perplexed to find the whole breathing world had imposed the name Titania upon them, all as a result of the scribbling of one irksome, balding little playwright.

So any lost soul unfortunate enough to meet this Titania in her own lands, knew her.

Those lands were ostensibly named Elphame, but this varied according to which little branch of folklore a person listens to. So Elphame could also be called the silver lands, or the underworld, or the star lands, or the other world, or the twilit lands, or the dark lands, or the dream world, or the land of fairy, or the land of the sídhe, or the barrow lands, or the death lands, or the shadow lands. Or countless more. But still, she remained Titania, the Queen of Elphame.

It is not often your kind enter my realm, even the halfway places.

The queen addressed this to Matthew. Her voice was as rich and deeply sweet as dark honey.

To April she said;

It is even rarer for your... breed. But your company is all the more welcome for it.

Then to both;

Come, do you like my fruit?

They heard the words, though the tall lady’s mask like face did not move, her perfect lips remained still. “Can we have some?” asked April. The girl was irritated by the ‘your breed’ comment, which she suspected carried some sexist implication (though Mummy had yet to really explain what that meant) or outright racist. But she wanted oh so much to try one of those silver berries.

You may.

Titania did not smile physically, but they felt it all the same. Both took a single fruit, and slowly ate it, to rush would seem sacrilegious.

The amaranthine fruit are only for my folk and my guests only. To take them without consent is a crime.

Titania watched them eat.

At night they are silver, for that is when me and mine eat, through the day they are the richest red, to warn foolish mortals from them.

Titania paused, and watched as they swallowed. She indicated for them to take a second.

But recently some thief has been taking my berries.

The queen plucked one of the smaller fruit, and delicately placed it between her lips, which moved for the first time. April noticed Matthew shiver when the lady did this, though she suspected he didn’t know why.

She didn’t know why herself, but this still irritated her.

They come under the sun, which my kind can no longer tolerate, and they take what is not theirs; they remove them and keep them. In itself that alone is an insult.

Titania dropped another into her basket.

Eating another, she stared at the two children intently. They felt the smile again, had it appeared on her lips an observer might have thought this smile was almost sly, but neither did it appear on her lips, nor was there any mortal observer to observe, so such speculation may be a little irrelevant.

You two are hungry I see, hungry for food, and hungry for something else.

Neither really knew what she meant, but they nodded. It sounded right to them, and their heads were telling them that she was such a nice lady that it didn’t really matter if she was talking over their heads.

Other parts of their heads were saying different things about this Titania.

Poor children, forced to run. Do you like my berries, children?

They nodded, this time there was no confusion.

So sweet of you to say.

The queen bestowed them another smile, her lips unmoving.

Would you like more?

They nodded very eagerly this time.

Ah, so sad, if only there were enough for you, alas with this theft I fear there are barely enough for my family.

The two children looked around the vast groves of berries, the glint of silver lasted as far as the eye could see. The forest shivered with it for many miles.

It is a large family.

They looked down with regret. Both were hungry, and both felt the urge for more of the fruit that tasted so sharp.

If only there were some way for me to find out who was taking my berries, then perhaps tomorrow I could give you your fill.

Even the skilful enchantments woven in to the Queen of Elphame’s voice couldn’t stop April getting annoyed. She hadn’t left two overly sarcastic parents, who spoke down to her day after day, not to mention the fashionista insects of dubious political leanings, just to spoken too like this by a woman in a bonnet.

“You mean you want us to find out for you?” she asked. Her voice was mockingly sweet, imitating shrilly Titania’s own voice which suddenly seemed so grating.

The briefest feel of a scowl was swamped over by the touch of a delighted and surprised smile.

Why my dear, what a kind suggestion! I would be ever so grateful.

She looked down to the pair of children.

You have three days.

Her voice was imperious now, demanding.

What kind of woman, April wondered, went from sweetly requesting a favour to grimly ordering them around as servants, in the space of a sentence?

The first experience of the nature of royalty, can be startling to many.

You may eat a reasonable amount of berries during those days, you may not leave the half-way place even though you cannot truly see it through the day. You shall reveal to me the true identity three nights from now.

April stared, actually gobsmacked.

“No!” She folder her arms and glared up at the woman who was, she suddenly realised, intimidatingly tall.

I beg your pardon?

“No!”

You made an offer.

“No I didn’t.”

And yet, a compact has been formed. You may come from savage stock, but do not be- lieve that such an offer can be made and then withdrawn. You may not leave these woods without my consent, and you must fulfil your compact within three days. My guards shall ensure this.

“What guards?” scoffed April, but she choked as she looked around.

They were everywhere, tall and slender men and women in mismatched silver armour over white, red and violet silks, and pale skin. They held blades which basked in the moonlight, with the same silver gleam as the amaranthine fruit, and the eyes of the sídhe. You will sleep now, I shall return in three days. My guards shall be watching you.

The Queen of Elphame had departed, her voice lingered suspiciously and then followed. As they looked around the children saw the guards had vanished. They couldn’t help but look at the trees that stood in their place with some suspicion.

Sleep drifted over both children, and they lay down amongst the cool, silvery grasses and slept the soundest sleep of their lives.

When they woke, things were a little different.

There was mud for a start. Under the elfin glaze the forest had been a dark and seductive hall of tall and slender trees, the bushes were thick and glittered silver, the ground had been manicured and carpeted with thick and comfortable grasses, the sky above painted and low.

Now it was bleaker, and colder, and wetter in the morning. And the ground was a thin carpet of muddied leaves. The forest was a different place, not just in feel, but in geography. In the far distance they heard cars, and could see fields which had palpably not been present the night before. In the other direction the steep banks had returned, as had the river Allen some distance below. April and Matthew looked to one another, and each saw a shivering feral child. If it hadn’t been so cold one of them might even have cracked a smile. But it was very cold.

Not much time had passed when a thin and sharp rain began to patter around them, the water of which took care of the mud on their faces and hands, but turned the mud on the ground into a shallow swamp.

They realised that they did not know where their tent was, in the silver lands of the elves they had not felt the need.

Now the British climate had returned, they felt the need.

It seemed as though the only bright thing in the entire world at that moment was those berries, in the day they almost burned, and the thick fruit looked tantalisingly red and juicy. It took some time for the pair to dare to try one (their memories of the sídhe, with their blades of silver leaves, were still sharp) but when they did, well, the world simply seemed a nicer place.

The air wasn’t cold, it was fresh. The woods weren’t muddy and skeletal, they were bleakly and hauntingly beautiful. The rain wasn’t thudding and freezing and unwelcome, it was caressing. The pair relaxed into blissful euphoria, their minds swimming with wonderful and previously unknown feelings of intimacy and affection for one another.

However, the day was still quite dull.

They sat for most of it, staring down at the river at the bottom of a valley that had not been there the night before. April would occasionally say something, Matthew would occasionally neglect to reply, sometimes one of them would sleep, both of them giggled a lot.

April particularly liked it when Matthew slept, he would talk to her then.

But they saw nobody, and the next night came.

Eventually the painted moon rose and under it the berries began to glitter silver once more, and the woods were transformed. But they remained alone in the halfway place.

They slept, and the next morning rose. Not so dismal as the previous day, but still, only bearable thanks to the amaranthine berries.

Time passed strangely, afterwards the three days combined felt like only a few hours had passed. Matt remembered very little of the second day, aside from a startling moment when he wandered to the valley's rim and stared down at the river Allen beneath.

The valley was a moderate, English, distance. Much of the vista consisted of gentle slope coated in a patchwork of wet leaves, bare trees, and mossy rocks. Matt idly popped a berry into his mouth, and as the tingly feelings washed through him and seemed to surge upwards from his stomach, he was startled when he looked downward again to find the valley now seemed to stretch to several times its previous depths. He felt like he was hanging from the sky, staring down for a depth of miles.

And then Matt looked to the side, and the illusion was shattered. Once again they didn’t see a soul, and the pair began to become quite worried. The next night passed with thankful sleep.

And then it was the final day, and every time the children thought about running one of the trees would sway in a way that could almost have been a warning.

So, when that afternoon they finally met somebody, Matt and April could have screamed in relief. But they did not just meet one person, they met three.

They were sitting in one of the few clumps of grass left when they heard the voices.

“I know what you said, but since what you said didn’t work I’m not convinced you know what you’re talking about,” it was a somewhat bullying voice, “those couldn’t have been the seeds, not a single one has taken hold. Now we had an agreement, but if I can’t grow them myself then it’s off.”

April and Matthew looked at one another, and grinned. Then their faces fell, they were going to have to betray these people to Titania and her elfin-folk. How were they going to do it? And what if they were nice people?

Their second fear was remedied when they met the people in question.

Coming first was a man with the wearied expression of somebody who had spent many consecutive hours ignoring the shrill berating of the woman behind him. He was a big man who had a massively hairy face, his beard caught somewhere between long stubble and short hedge. He wore an old waxed jacket and a manky hat, the hat had space for a feather, but instead carried a squirrel’s tail.

The first woman was next, she was the one complaining. She was tall, and blonde, and bullying. She made a distinct comparison to the next woman who was less tall, and brown haired, and bullied.

“Now I need these,” the bullying woman was wearing a plasticy rain coat and wellies over a fitted suit, “and I need them soon. I can’t keep coming here every few months to pick them, I have smoothies to make!”

She stopped talking as all three began to stare at the two mud covered children, who were staring right back at them.

“Good grief, it’s Indiana Jane.” snorted the talkative woman.

“Err, can I help you kids?” asked the bearded man in the waxed green coat.

“You can’t take these berries,” said April decisively, rattled by the sneer at her hat.

“Oh really, why not?” The bullying lady's voice was colder than the weather.

“They don’t belong to you.”

“They don’t belong to anybody, dear.”

“Oh they do!” April looked to Matthew for support, but he was staring downwards, not saying a word.

“Actually, they technically belong to...”

“Nobody’s asking you,” the bullying woman snapped at the bearded man.

“Listen, dear, these bloody smoothies are fast becoming the biggest thing in health foods since cous-cous. If things go as they are we’ll have Britain’s biggest brand, but they can only do that if I can find out how to grow them. Because right now, they only grow here every three months, for no apparent reason whatsoever, and won’t take anywhere away from this god- forsaken little valley.”

April understood, as she stared at the sun in the big sky, and realised how fast darkness would come over these woods in winter, that she was in a definite them or us situation.

And for all that she didn’t know it, April was a cuckoo, and cuckoos have very little diffi- culty deciding what to do. It was one of their common traits, that and the thing with the eyes.

She warned them what would happen, but it wasn’t for any merciful reason. She warned them in a bad way. She warned them in a way that made her sound a bad liar. April made them think she desperately wanted them away before nightfall, and the woman fell for the bait.

April stared, wide eyed and lips trembling, as she relayed the entire truth in the most flat and stuttering of fibber's voices. She added a level of forced cuteness guaranteed to make the toes curl of all but the most twee of elderly, tartan clad ladies. “You’re a nasty little liar,” the bullying woman said in a quiet but angry voice, “and nasty little liars get what’s coming to them. You don’t want me to see what happens to the ber- ries at night.”

She paused, stooping so she was eye to eye with April, and failing to notice the streaks of violet that were marking the young girl’s pupil for the first time.

“I’ll find out what it is that happens,” she hissed sourly, “I’ll copyright these bastard smoothies yet.”

April did her best to look upset, Matthew looked on uneasily, treacherous doubts in his mind as to April’s sincerity. But there were people around, he didn’t speak when people were around.

Twilight snuck up on them, vain as twilight was she could not resist showing off a spectacular sky of shredded red. And as she did this, the uneasiness that means elves (or other predators) are nearby began to fall.

The woman’s PA, being the easily intimidated sort, noticed it first. The poor woman be- gan to shake, and stare nervously from side to side, until eventually the bullying woman told her in very forthright terms to pull herself together.

The rips of red across the bloodied gash of the horizon began to darken as the three picked samples of berries, and searched over several of the nearby bushes. April and Matthew looked on, and as twilight began to cover the woods the first twinges of silver be- gan to sparkle from the fruit. And guilt began to wash over both.

The three adults were picking fruit and putting them in a basket, and April realised she couldn’t let them go through this. Whatever that Titania woman was going to do to them it wasn’t going to be nice. She didn’t seem like a person who abided by the fine details of the Human Rights Act.

“Look, please.” April almost screamed. “You have to leave now!” She wasn’t trying any double bluff now, she tugged on the woman’s sleeve almost pathetically.

“Look you little witch,” hissed the woman, “just go away, or I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

The children looked up, the stars were appearing, they looked painted and full, there was no moon yet but it could only be a matter of time. They looked to one another.

Inspiration hit Matthew.

He didn’t speak, he just grabbed the basket, now two thirds full of the red and silver amaranthine fruit. He ran, and suddenly April was alone with them, but she reacted faster than them.

“Can’t pick berries without your basket!” she shrilled, and then pelted after him. It almost worked.

“For God’s sake... Get that back!” the woman snapped at the bearded man and the whimpering PA. As they hurried away she pulled a plastic bag, covered in garish super- market logos, from her pocket and continued to pick the fruit.

A few moments later she looked up, a statuesque, marble faced woman holding a large, woven basket frowned down at her. And then the slender trees began to twist, and looked for all the world like silver blades.

Later that night the Queen of Elphame stood in her woods, the humans now gone.

Mab.

The nervous fairy stood at her side. “You called, your grace?” He gave a nervous giggle.

I did Mab, how long is it since you were last in the waking world?

“Many years, my queen.”

And would you consider returning there, braving the sun as a boon for your queen? The cringing Mab would never have dared disagree, Titania graced him with a brief smile of thanks that snapped away, seconds later, like a guillotined head.

Do you remember Old Jen?

“Jen, your worship?”

Mab looked puzzled for a moment, and then a look of horrified realisation crossed his face.

I see that you do.

“Yes,” he nodded, “your majesty.”

I have a message for her, you have uncommon wiles, even for one of my folk, I am sure you shall find her and survive her. My loyal, elfin knight. You are to procure Old Jen's services, and instruct her to find two pact breakers.



THE CUCKOO IN WINTER - SYNOPSIS

The Cuckoo In Winter is a young fantasy novel, aimed at readers in their pre and early teens. It as been completed and redrafted several times, and has a word count of approximately 33,000 words.

The book is a standalone novel, but also intended to be the first in a sequence of stories with the collective title A Northern Wind Is Blowing (a sequence of connected but independent stories in the tradition of Ursula K le'Guin's Earthsea Quartet, or Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising).

Written in the form of a modern fairy tale, The Cuckoo In Winter is set around Northumberland, using a number of real life locations (Staward Peel, Allen banks, Lindisfarne and Hexham) as well as a fictional town called Huxton-on-the-Hill (which is a composite of places from around the region). It combines figures from regional, national and international folklore and myth and religion - including Titania the Queen of Elphame, Spring Heeled Jack, the Green Man, the Elfin Knight, Jenny Greenteeth and the angel of death Samael.

It is the story of APRIL (a talkative girl of fourteen, who can hear the minds of the animals and people around her), and MATTHEW (a prisoner for reasons unknown, of similar but unclear age, who cannot speak when others are present), the boy she rescues from her neighbour's cellar. Together they stumble in to a world of manipulative elves, murderous swamp hags, talking crows, spring heeled killers, sociopathic angels and gun toting feminist wizards. Pursued, and undergoing intimidating supernatural changes, April uses wits and resources she did not know she possessed in order to counter the most dangerous of all her pursuers, a young god with a mind to conceive a messiah.

The novel opens with April deciding to leave her home, a suburban north-east estate, because she can no longer tolerate listening to the thoughts and minds of the animals around. For company she frees Matt from his captivity in her neighbour's cellar. They be- come lost in remote Northumberland, and on Allen Banks are drawn in to the court of TITANIA (the Queen of Elphame, an imperious and cruel leader of the sídhe).

The children are tasked, under threat, with discovering who has been stealing Titaniaʼs silver amaranthine fruit, the euphoric properties of which have addicted her people. They discover three thieves - a bullying woman who makes health drinks, a bullied woman who works for her, and a local guide. April and Matthew try to save the thieves from the sídhe, succeeding with the guide and the bullied woman, however the bullying woman is taken by Titaniaʼs subjects.

Afterwards Titania declares that the elf MAB (a fawning but treacherous servant) is her elfin knight, and tasls him to locate a woman named OLD JEN (a murderess and swamp hag, later revealed to be the mythical Jenny Greenteeth) to hunt April and Matthew, who have departed the elf-lands without her consent.

In the town of Huxton-on-the-Hill, April and Matthew witness a murder at the hands of a pack of KOBOLD (rat like goblins from overseas).

Buried instincts within April react to this, the same unknown nature that allows her to hear the thoughts of animals (later explained as coming from her true father, a cuckoo), in a trance she slaughters many of the crea- tures before waking in Huxtonʼs abandoned library. There she finds JULIA (a local girl with goblin blood who the kobold consider to be their mother) and THE GOD OF THE NORTH- ERN WINDS (a young, fierce, and pitiless god) who wants to force Julia to bear his child and messiah.

Julia offers April to the god, her cuckoo nature making her a more suitable mother for a messiah, and so diverts his attention. Unable to run, Aprilʼs instincts make her place a part of her consciousness into the earth, her body now useless to the god who retreats. April then collapses, and Matthew carries her from the town. The god sends CAMILLA (a wiz- ard who has been enslaved) and two servants (a ginger moustached man, and a ham faced woman) to find them, but Camilla is tricked by Matthew into eating one of the amaranthine berries, which breaks the enchantment enslaving her and they escape together with April.

Lost in the wilderness, a song leads April, Camilla and Matthew to a wooden church, in- side which a sword is set in a stone. Matthew takes the weapon, and is possessed by a being named SAMAEL (a sociopathic angel of death, a merciless and judgemental destroyer). A group makes an intervention, but are slaughtered by the possessed Matthew, only when the unnamed woman leading the group shoots him in the arm is Matt freed. The unnamed woman claims that she is Samaelʼs intended host, then references a deal. Possessed by Samael, she declares April to be 'a worm on a hook', but refers to Matthew and Camilla as 'running slaves' who can be claimed as sinners.

The God of the Northern Winds intervenes and April flees the church, alone she finds THE MURDER OF THE ROOT (a murder of crows, some of the few whose members still have true intelligence). As talking birds they owe a debt to cuckoos, who originally gave such birds the ability to talk, and they agree to keep her safe from the god.

Camilla calls a friend to help Matthew, badly hurt by the gunshot. Once Matthew is well, the man (the guide Matt and April saved from the sídhe) questions him about the missing woman, the man grows angry when Matt canʼt answer, he and Camilla are forced to leave.

Elsewhere, the killer known as SPRING HEALED JACK (a renowned Victorian killer, like April he is a cuckoo) hears rumours of April slaughtering the kobold. Jack comes in search of this rival cuckoo, and in April's home realises she may be his daughter. He fol- lows their trail and deciding he will probably kill the girl as cuckoos do not like to have rivals.

The crows SEPTIMUS, TEEAR and VYSE (Septimus is old and crafty, the other two his young apprentices) guide April to the coast, taking her to Bamburgh. There they bargain with NIMUE (a talking foxes, mother to a brood of changelings) and she and her son COBB (a silent and taciturn youth) guide Tearr and April across the sea channel to Lindisfarne/Holy Island to hide her. Tracking April, Spring Heeled Jack tortures Septimus and other talking crows, this rouses the murder against him.

Jenny Greenteeth and Mab catch up with Matthew on the bank of the river Tyne, but is held back by Camillaʼs gun and hit by a car. Camilla and Matthew follow the thousands of crows filling the sky, themselves in pursuit of Jack, to Lindisfarne.

At the island Jack finds April in the ruins of Lindisfarne Priory, but when he reaches his daughter he becomes overcome with unexpected sentiment. When Old Jen comes for April, Jack defends her, and Jen violently kills him. Jack tries to save himself, as April did, by placing part of himself in the earth, before the murder of crows descend and consume him.

Jen reaches her quarry by Lindisfarne Castle. Trapped on the island, April restores her soul from the earth for protection. Mab calls his kin, and the sídhe appear. Titania reveals she ordered Matthew and April brought to her to officially close their compact.

Having been waiting for April to restore her soul, the God of the Northern Winds comes for her. The sídhe retreat and the god casts Jen into the sea. The god traps April in the air, so she cannot touch the earth. Samael appears on the island and wordlessly strikes the god down. The god dies on the island, this saves April though she is badly burned by the ichor from his wound. The nameless woman departs without explanation.

The crows and foxes in conversation discuss the strangeness of the events, resolving to keep quiet on what has happened for the time, and meet later to discuss further. Camilla is left with the children, and contemplates placing them in the care of an organisation re- ferred to only as 'the library' and a woman called EURYALE (the only surviving gorgon, a character in the later books). The book closes with a final section, an American business- man meets a nameless woman, claiming to be a demon but who is actually Samael (here in the aspect of seducer). The American offers to perform tasks, hoping to guarantee his soul will be well treated when it is eventually taken to hell.





Copyright John Conway - 2013 - john.charles.conway@googlemail.com