Chapter 12
Quoth
Mina’s voice trembles. “Ashley?”
But, of course, the dead girl very rudely refuses to answer.
I have no love for the girl lying in a pool of blood in our shop.
She’s been horrible to Mina. She stomped on Mina’s dreams and made her doubt herself and her abilities, all so she could buoy up her own career.
But the sadness welling in Mina’s eyes calls to me.
She loved Ashley, despite everything. She would never wish this on her.
Morrie steps over Ashley. He bends down to examine the knife and presses two fingers to her throat.
He shakes his head.
Mina whimpers.
Morrie looks at me then, his eyes narrowing, his silent message clear. You have to run.
I nod, my heart in my throat.
Heathcliff gathers Mina in his arms, crushing her spine with the force of his embrace as he drags her away from the body. “She’s gone,” he whispers.
“I’ll call the brass.” Morrie slides his phone out of his pocket.
And what can I do? What use am I to Mina now?
I swallow the hard lump in my throat. “I’ll finish the tea.”
Heathcliff nods. Mina sobs into his shoulder. She doesn’t look up as I slip back upstairs, stealing away like that shadow I was.
I grip the edge of the kitchen counter, my skin prickling as my feathers threaten to burst through. Downstairs, I hear the faint murmur of voices as Morrie speaks to the police and Heathcliff attempts to comfort Mina.
I want to comfort her, but I can’t. I have to be far away when the police arrive.
Unlike the other two, I can’t live in the real world. I don’t have any of the documentation required. No passport. No driver’s licence. No record of any kind. Morrie has offered to procure them for me, but what’s the point?
I can’t hold down a job. I can’t go to the pub.
I don’t even think I could shop at the market without getting all flustered and feathery.
Heathcliff, Morrie, and I tried to see a movie once.
Crimson Peak. The first glimpse of a ghost and I burst into feathers.
Luckily, no one noticed in the dark theatre.
I watched the rest of the film perched on Heathcliff’s shoulder while he fed me popcorn.
And all of this was fine when I was content to be a shadow – the raven sitting lonely on my placid bust. A curiosity of Nevermore Bookshop who croaks for the children and poops on anyone who quotes that blasted poem.
But if the police come and ask me questions I have no answers to, they will suspect me. They will unmask me.
They will take me away from Mina.
I don’t want to leave her. She’s just seen her best friend murdered. And neither Heathcliff nor Morrie is good at comfort. All I want to do is go to her, wrap her in my arms, and kiss away her tears.
But what good am I doing here? I know I didn’t hurt Ashley. The police will waste time trying to blame me, while the real killer is free. And if someone could kill a young woman here in our shop, then they could hurt Mina.
I know that’s what Morrie’s nod meant. He wanted me to run, and he would take care of everything else. They would convince Mina not to say a word about me, and the police wouldn’t know to search for me. They would focus on the real killer.
I glance over at the kettle. I haven’t even put it on the stove. What’s the point? Tea might be a miracle drink, but it can’t solve this problem.
With a sigh that sends a single tear rolling down my cheek, I relax.
I stop fighting back my shift. The feeling is a release, like when you stop trying to hold in a sneeze.
The shift rushes at me – my arms bending and snapping, my legs shrinking, my ribcage reforming as my organs shift inside me.
Feathers poke through my skin. I gouge huge fissures in the counter as my fingers turn into talons.
My bones crack and snap, remaking themselves into my natural form – a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
When it’s done, I spread my wings, airing out the feathers and stretching new bones that have been folded away.
I swoop through the living room of the flat.
The window facing Butcher Street is open a crack.
I shove it with my beak until the gap is wide enough for me to wiggle through.
As I bend down to make my escape, I hear the voices from downstairs again.
My tiny bird heart hammers in my chest. It feels like it’s about to burst out of my ribcage. I know I should be running, but I can’t. I can’t leave her.
So I flutter into the stairwell and find a perch nearby, out of view of Heathcliff and Morrie. I find that I can hear their entire conversation. And it’s about me.
“The police are going to ask you about finding the body,” Morrie is telling Mina. “You can’t tell them Quoth was down here first.”
“Huh. Why not?”
“Because…because Quoth isn’t supposed to be here. The person who discovers the body is always a suspect. If the police know he found the body, they will look too deep into his background, and they’ll take him away to a very bad situation.”
“You mean jail. Is Quoth a criminal?” Mina’s voice rises an octave.
I hate that she thinks that of me.
“No, I do not mean jail,” Morrie strokes her hair.
Envy joins the complicated emotions swirling around inside me.
“Quoth has never so much as collected a speeding ticket, never mind broken any useful law. This situation is complicated, and he won’t want to burden you with his story right after you’ve just had this shock.
But if the police knew he was here at all, it would be bad for him, for all of us. ”
“You want me to lie to the police to protect this guy?” Mina screws up her face in disgust. I hop back up the steps, disgusted at myself for whatever I did to make her doubt me. “But he was downstairs alone at the same time as Ashley. He could have done this to her.”
“He wasn’t alone, and he didn’t do this,” Morrie says firmly. “I know that for a fact.”
“As do I,” adds Heathcliff.
Thank you, friends.
“How, how?”
“Gorgeous, we don’t have time to give you the full story. I promise that whatever happens, we’ll lend our considerable resources to protect you. And as soon as we can, we’ll tell you everything. Right now, all I need you to do is trust me. Can you do that?”
“Ashley is dead and you’re asking me to lie to the police. No, of course I can’t bloody trust you!” Mina’s face screws up in anger.
“Only to protect an innocent person who absolutely did not commit this crime. But if they know he was first to see the body, they will focus on him instead of going after the real killer.”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me to do this.”
“I can’t either,” Heathcliff growls. “Mina should speak the truth. We’ll figure out a way to help Quoth. We always do.”
“I’m not forcing Mina to do this,” Morrie says. “It’s her decision. But it would be infinitely easier if she left Quoth out of it. If she felt bad afterwards, she could always go to the police and change her story, say the shock affected her and made her forget certain details.”
“You’ve accounted for my eventual betrayal?” Mina sounds half impressed, half terrified.
“All you need to tell the police is exactly what you saw – that we all heard a noise, and you came down the stairs after us and saw the body on the floor, already dead. Just leave out the part about Quoth coming down first.”
“And where will Quoth be in this story?”
“Nowhere.” Morrie waves his hand. “Quoth doesn’t ‘technically’ live here. So just don’t mention him.”
“But he’s upstairs getting the tea!”
Morrie glances at the staircase. His eyes meet mine, and he shakes his head. “No, he’s not.”
Mina glares at Morrie and gets to her feet. I swoop onto a light fixture just as Mina storms past me, completely missing me. I hop onto Morrie’s shoulder, and he pats me on the head as he opens a window for me. “Good birdie. Now, get out of here.”
And like a good birdie, I get.
I don’t go far. I hover at the windows, peering in as Mina, Heathcliff, and Morrie answer questions from the police. Morrie tells me telepathically that Mina hasn’t mentioned me, and I hate how my stomach soars knowing that she would lie for me. I don’t want her to have to lie for me.
Morrie also tells me that DS Wilson suspects Mina.
I shouldn’t be surprised. Mina and Ashley did have a fraught history. And if the murder didn’t involve us, why did it happen in our shop, after hours?
Heathcliff’s raging because they also suspect Earl might’ve been in the shop after hours. And there’s one more thing, Morrie adds. Mina is mad because her lie about you has put her in Wilson’s headlights.
Great, I mutter inside my head.
Chin up, birdie. We’ve been in tougher scrapes than this. At least we no longer have a homicidal knight running about, and the police haven’t found the horse poop. Let me finish talking to Jo, and we’ll come up with a plan.
I rest my cheek against the lamppost where I’m perched. I wanted a plan where I didn’t have to hide, and I didn’t get my friends or Earl or the woman I’m dangerously close to falling for in trouble.
I watch the SOCO team leave, feeling sorry for myself. Not ten minutes later, the door opens again, and Mina exits, pulling her jacket tight to ward off the chill. She leans against my lamppost, peering closely at her phone screen as she struggles with the font on the rideshare website.
“Croak?”
Mina looks up at me. Her broad, friendly smile makes my heart skip. I wish that smile could be for me as I truly am, but I will settle for her seeing me as a friendly animal. I’ll settle for any part of her heart.
“Hey, birdie.” Her face is shrouded in shadow, but I can smell the salt of her tears. “I hope you’re having a better night than I am. Have you caught any delicious mice?”
“Croak.”
“That’s good. I hope your belly is full and your heart is happy.
That would make one of us. My ex-best friend got murdered tonight, and I had to tell a lie about it to the police to help this guy who…
” her voice trails off. “…I think he’s worth helping.
But now the police suspect me for the murder.
And it’s past midnight, and I’m starving, and the only thing to eat in my mum’s house are gross colon-cleansing health smoothies. ”
I think he’s worth helping.
I flutter a wing at her, jumping up and down on my perch, but I can’t make her understand what those words mean to me. A car pulls up at the top of Butcher Street, and Mina heads off with a wave.
“Goodbye, birdie! If I’m not in jail, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Crooooak!”
Goodnight, Mina, I whisper as I take flight, following the car back to her flat so I can stand guard over her tonight. I know you don’t see me, but I will always watch out for you.