Hawthorn by Carol Goodman Page A

ofbirdsong. “I think we’ve come back to a time before the airships destroyed the woods—”
    Before I could finish we heard bells ringing—the bells of Blythewood—all six of them! Helen’s face brightened. “I’ll go get help!” she said, getting shakily to her feet, but then her voice changed. “Um . . . Ava, I think we’d better take Raven with us and get out of here as fast as we can.”
    â€œWhy?” I looked up and saw that she was looking up at the treetops, which were bristling with spiky black shapes. Shadow crows perched on every branch, their hard bright eyes fixed on us.
    â€œI . . . think . . . Helen’s . . . right.” Raven bit out each word as if his throat had turned to stone. He was struggling to his feet, his arm clamped around my waist. I tightened my grip on him and rose slowly. The crows cocked their heads in the identical angle, but they made no move to fly at us. Helen came to Raven’s other side and slid her arm around his waist, taking on his weight even though I could tell by her limp that her leg must be bothering her. Together we began walking toward the sound of the bells. Above us the crows fluttered from branch to branch, keeping up with our slow progress but not attacking us.
    â€œWatching,” Raven said to my unvoiced question. “Since you went . . . always . . . watching.”
    â€œFor the way into the vessel,” Helen whispered. The crows cawed as if they had heard and understood her.
    â€œI think we’d better wait until we’re inside before we talk about that,” I said.
    We’d come to the edge of the woods. The lawn was green as the day we left, the flowers as bright, and the castle ofBlythewood standing whole and golden in the afternoon light. Helen sighed at the sight. I, too, felt relieved, but as we crossed the lawn I felt that something was different. Now that the bells had ceased the school was eerily silent. No girls played hockey in the fields or sat on the lawn gossiping. The glass doors to the library, which Miss Corey always threw open on fine days like today, were closed and shuttered. In fact, all the windows were shuttered.
    When we were halfway across the lawn, the front door burst open and something pink hurtled out like a flying shuttlecock. A shuttlecock whooping like a banshee. It flew at us so fast I was afraid Raven would be knocked down, but Helen got in between and met the flying ball of pink with equal force.
    â€œDaisy!”
    â€œYou’re back you’re back you’re back!” Daisy sang, spinning Helen around in a circle. “I knew you’d come back. I knew Raven would get you back!” She aimed herself at Raven but Helen held on to her.
    â€œYes, he did, and it’s half killed him. Someone needs to send to Ravencliffe for his mother to tend to him—and someone needs to do something about these crows. They’ve followed us from the woods.”
    â€œThey’re always around now,” Daisy said with a baleful look at the dozen crows perched on the garden hedge. “But all they do is watch. We have to keep the doors and windows shut or they get in and peck at our hair and make a foul mess. They started the day you left. Maybe now they’ll go. Where did you go?”
    â€œWe fell into a hole and met—”
    â€œMany interesting people,” I cut in, “but we really shouldn’t talk about it here.” We were only a few yards from the door now. Beatrice and Dolores were standing on either side of it, their bows drawn and their eyes on the crows. Miss Sharp appeared in the doorway with her nurse’s bag. At the sight of it I remembered the photograph of her standing in front of her ambulance surrounded by soldiers. And then I thought of her being burnt in the airstrike. But her face was unmarked—and here was Mr. Bellows, whole and sound,