The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

She held out the cloak, turned it so that all the feathers hung downwards, like they do on birds’ wings. She straightened it, tried not to see the black flakes falling to the ground. “You’re my brother, Davey,” she said. Her words seemed wrong in the empty air, too loud. It was for them, she thought. It was because her words were only for the two of them. She put the cloak over her brother’s face. Then she turned and ran back towards the slope.

When Mia got home and looked into her mother’s face she knew that no one had told her. The others must have run to their own homes and she felt a stab of anger. Their mothers knew, and Davey’s mother didn’t. It was unfair. The whole world was like that, out of kilter.

Then her mother ran to Mia and knelt down and put her arms around her, and Mia wondered if she had been wrong, if her mother had known after all. Then she realised her mother was saying something, over and over: what is it Mia, what’s wrong Mia, and she remembered the mud all down her front, and the wood-slime on her face, and knew her mother knew nothing, that she had only seen what she had read in Mia’s eyes, and the next thing was, that Mia was going to have to tell her. And Mia started to cry.

For a moment, Mia wasn’t sure what she’d been saying. Something about birds, and Davey, and the woods, and a rope. She knew her mother didn’t understand. She just kept stroking Mia’s hair and making shushing noises. Mia took a deep breath because she had to tell her, couldn’t let her not know any longer, and she opened her mouth to say that Davey was dead and then the door opened and she saw the thing that stood there and Mia screamed.

It was Davey, but not Davey. His face was white and expressionless; only his eyes stared, dark and bright. His hair was plastered tight to his head. Mia saw that his jaw didn’t stick out anymore and she looked at his arms and saw that they were wings after all; pitch black, inky black, and shining so brightly they looked wet. The wings hunched over his shoulders and hung long and powerful all around him.

Then Davy moved and she saw it was only a cloak, her cloak, the one she had made for him. He threw it to the floor and brushed himself down, his arms shaped as they should be, moving as they should move. And he looked at her. “I’m back,” he said, and that was all she remembered before she fell.

At first, when Mia tried to tell her mother how Davey had been hurt, she listened to her and stroked her head and soothed her. Later she began to tut and brush Mia’s words away; later, she became angry. He’s fine, she said. Your brother’s fine.

Mia knew that Little Davey wasn’t fine. He wasn’t even the same. He was like Davey and yet not like him. He was too pale, his eyes too bright. He didn’t smile.

The others didn’t like to play with him anymore. Mia didn’t really know why because they didn’t tell her, and Mia knew that was because they had always been Davey’s friends and not her own. They had liked his smiles and his bravado, and they were things she didn’t have. Now they were things Davey didn’t have either. He sat around the house, scowling at the television or staring into space. He stared at her, too, if she tried to talk to him, to ask him about the woods or the ravens. He stared at her as if he didn’t really know what words meant.

One day her mother was trying to clean up around them, and she kept darting little looks towards her son. Sharp, hard little looks. At last she stopped and turned on him. “Why don’t you go out?” she said.

Davey stopped staring into space and stared at her instead.

Their mother straightened. She licked her lips. When she spoke again her tone was different: sweeter. “Why don’t you take your sister for a walk?” she asked.

Mia heard this, and thought: I’m the eldest. But she didn’t say anything.

Her mother said, “Why don’t you take her to the woods?” and Mia knew then how much their mother wanted them to go because she never told them to go to the woods, it was somewhere they weren’t supposed to be.

Her brother turned his head and looked at her. “Do you want to come to the woods, Miranda?” he said.

She looked at him and saw that he hadn’t said that to be funny or mean. He hadn’t meant it in any way at all, he’d just said it, and they were only words, things that didn’t seem to mean anything to him.

Mia, she mouthed. She was Mia. Even Little Davey had always called her Mia. But she didn’t say it out loud.

He got up and put on his coat and so did she. When he went out of the front door she followed him. She didn’t try to talk; knew it would be easier that way. Instead she walked at his heels until they reached the woods. The raven wasn’t there but Davey stopped and stared for a moment, at something only he could see.

“What is it?” asked Mia, and he just started walking again and so did she.