Spooky Stories: Halloween Vault 2020 -2021

They're Up to Something (AmbassadorsUK) 🏆

Profile: AmbassadorsUK

Prompt title: The Harbinger (The Ravens)

Prompt: Blackbirds: Whether they be crows, ravens or magpies, bad omens follow these winged devils. (500-1k)

My word count: 940

They're Up To Something

There was something amiss with the ravens in the Tower of London. The Yeoman's Guard rang the department asking for us to send someone down.

"Take this one, Bennett," Dr Knowles said, sweeping past my cluttered desk, aromatic pipe smoke disguising the disinterest in his position he'd been cultivating for years. "They're probably disoriented, or something we can't do much about. Still. National treasures and all."

I slipped on my jacket and stepped out into the drizzly late afternoon, arriving at the Tower as the last tourists were just being ushered out the gates.

"We're not clipping their wings the same way we used to," the Ravenmaster told me, a furrow of worry creasing his brow. "They can fly around outside the walls, but not too far. Except recently..."

"They've been going out more and more?"

The Ravenmaster nodded, the furrow deepening, a hand involuntarily rubbing over one of the gold buttons of his uniform. "And coming back with...souvenirs, I think you'd call them."

I stooped to peer into the large dull metal cages. Piles of shiny objects were neatly heaped in the centres of each one. One of the birds, a smaller one with a blue ring around one leg, cocked its head and fixed me with an intent stare, then hopped so as to block my view of its glittery heap.

"What kind of souvenirs? Bits of rubbish?"

"If it were only that simple."

I looked at him, my eyebrows raised like question marks.

"Merchandise items. Badges, key rings, mini-torches, that sort of thing. But all of them, and this is the crazy part, every single last one of them has the emblem of a company on it. It's as if... as if. . .you'll think I'm nuts."

"I won't. Go on."

The Ravenmaster stared at me hard, daring me to go back on my word, daring me to call him a lunatic. "It's as if they're collecting," he said, weighing each word. "As if they've got a plan. They're damn clever birds, you know."

I didn't think the Ravenmaster was crazy, as I'd heard rumours before now of ravens being spotted in the City, but I did wonder if he were reading too much into too little. Still, they were Tower ravens, as close as animals got to being royalty. And we were obliged to investigate.

The Ravenmaster had given me his private number and I rang him up the following evening to ask for a full list of the companies on the ravens' souvenirs. That was apparently difficult for him to attain, given how jealously the birds were guarding their trinkets, but he told me the ten or so logos he'd recognised.

All multinationals. And all connected to some sort of nasty scandal within the last ten years.

I leaned back in my office chair, staring into space while the water pipes clanked and the secretaries whispered their gossip into the phones.

They're collecting. They're up to something.

I rang up the companies' London offices and was connected to distracted, irritated people who suddenly had lots of time for me once I mentioned ravens.

"Oh Jesus, yes," one man told me. "The damn things keep showing up at the windows, staring in at us. Won't bugger off, no matter what we do. Sometimes four or five of them at a time, the creepy bastards. These windows don't open, so we can't throw things at them. Can you get them to leave, please?"

Another said, "At first they just sat and stared, but since they've taken to making this. . .noise."

"Can you describe, or imitate it?" I doodled pictograms of ravens at windows on my desk blotter.

"Like done, or run. Sounds strange, but that's rather what it does sound like. Some here are very unsettled by it. I mean, imagine an ugly black bird staring at you through your window, croaking done! run! Makes you feel a bit as if you're receiving some kind of divine death threat."

Indeed.

The Ravenmaster seemed to be more right in his assumption than I'd thought. The ravens were up to something. And by the sound of it, they were only getting started.

Dusk was falling outside, streaking the white walls of my little office in reflected shades of luminescent orange and yellow. Then a dark winged shadow appeared in the centre of the colours, and I heard a tap tap tap on the window.

A smallish raven sat perched on the window ledge, the blue band on its leg glimmering in the falling light.

It cocked its head, and seemed to give me the once over. Then it cawed four times, flapped its wings, and departed.

For the longest time, I sat, stunned and silent, staring at where the bird had been. In each of the caws I'd distinctly heard a word, spoken as plainly as if in human language, and in a voice so full of authority, it wasn't to be argued with.

Desist! We! Protect! England!

I rung up the Ravenmaster.

"We're terminating the investigation," I said, my voice trembling slightly.

There was a silence. "May I ask why?"

"You're right. They're up to something." Now it was my turn to sound like a lunatic, and hope he didn't hold it against me. "And they don't want us sticking our noses in."

More silence, and then finally, "Have they spoken to you, too? I mean, in words?"

"Yes, just now."

The Ravenmaster sighed. "I agree. Terminating the investigation would be a wise choice. For all concerned."

"But mostly for England's sake?"

"Yes," said the Ravenmaster, his voice dark with more knowledge than I had. "For England's sake. And let's just hope they're telling us the truth. They're damn clever birds, you know."

Damn clever.