Crow Boy

  Contents

  Title Page

  Book Information & Copyright

  Dedication

  Not Enough Magic

  Is the Ring Safe

  Aleena

  At China Beach

  Water Travel

  Endangered Snails

  Storm Mountain

  Through the Ring

  Tree Spirit

  Into the Earth

  Deep Magic

  The Magic Boy

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  © Maureen Bush, 2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll-free to 1-800-893-5777.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Edited by Laura Peetoom

  Cover design by Tania Wolk

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Bush, Maureen A. (Maureen Averil), 1960-

  Crow boy / Maureen Bush.

  (Veil of magic : bk. 2)

  Print ISBN 978-1-55050-429-3

  I. Title. II. Series: Bush, Maureen

  A. (Maureen Averil), 1960- . Veil of magic : bk. 2.

  PS8603.U825C76 2010 jC813'.6 C2010-900322-5

  Available in Canada from:

  COTEAU BOOKS, 2517 Victoria Avenue, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada S4P 0T2, www.coteaubooks.com

  Coteau Books gratefully acknowledges the financial support of its publishing program by: the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, the Government of Saskatchewan through the Creative Economy Entrepreneurial Fund, the Association for the Export of Canadian Books and the City of Regina Arts Commission.

  For Mark, Adriene and Lia,

  who fill my life with love,

  humour and good stories.

  Chapter 1

  Not Enough Magic

  Can you open the doorway, Josh?” Maddy asked. “I don’t know,” I said. I knew there was a doorway here. I could feel it, almost see it, almost reach out with my fingers and touch it. But not quite. I didn’t have enough magic.

  Maddy and I had hiked to near the top of the trail up the front side of Castle Mountain. We stood at the edge of a small clearing, surrounded by a forest of dark evergreens. Sunlight shone through the branches, and the forest smelled sweet with pine and spruce. A gusting wind tossed the branches of the trees, and crows cawed above us.

  Through the trees we could see mountain peaks across the Bow Valley. The summer had been hot, so there was no snow on the mountains. They looked diminished, somehow, with no snow to outline all the cracks and crags above the tree line.

  I could see Mom and Dad below us on the trail, as it switched back and forth up the steep mountainside. Mom had her black hair pulled back in a pony tail, freckles scattered across her cheeks. Dad walked beside her, the bald patch on his head more noticeable from above, their heads close as they talked.

  My little sister Maddy stood beside me, her bright blue backpack over her oldest, too-small purple hoodie, too-long new jeans sagging over red runners. Her long blonde hair, lightened by a summer in the sun, was loose and already tangled.

  The wind gusted, lifting Maddy’s hair and catching the brim of my baseball cap. I tugged it down over my eyes. My hair was just as dark as it always was, my skin just as pale; only my freckles were darker. Even though I was still small, I’d been growing this summer. My favorite blue hoodie was getting tight, and my jeans were too short.

  I gazed up at Castle Mountain towering above us. I was shocked at how much like a castle the mountain looked from here, with its row of vertical turrets. I longed to paint it, to capture the light and the shadows, and the fine shadings of colour, but we needed to get through the doorway first.

  There’s a veil of magic, like a curtain, between the human world and the magic world. It separates our worlds to protect the magic world from humans. Doorways allow magic folk to cross into the human world when they need to.

  Maddy and I had learned all about them in July, when a green stone ring she’d picked up in a gift shop turned out to be the magic nexus ring, which helps magic folk cross the veil. Once in the magic world, we had to return the ring to a giant named Keeper because it was too dangerous to use. Ever since, Maddy and I had been plotting to find a way back to the magic world.

  It was Maddy’s idea to celebrate my twelfth birthday by camping near Castle Mountain. Mom and Dad said there was no way we’d get a campsite in Banff National Park on the Labour Day long weekend, the last weekend before school started. But Maddy begged and pleaded, and Mom and Dad agreed to come up a day early, to make sure we got a site.

  So here we were, hiking up Castle Mountain early in the morning, while it was quiet. Maddy and I had raced ahead. We were hoping to find a doorway and slip through before Mom and Dad caught up with us. We knew Keeper, the giant at Castle Mountain, could bring us back to the human world before they noticed we were missing.

  After all our planning, our scheming and our convincing, after our long run up the mountainside, we’d actually found a doorway – and I couldn’t open it. I growled in frustration.

  “What’s wrong?” Maddy asked. “You could do it before.”

  “Once,” I muttered. “I opened a doorway once! In July. With the nexus ring to help. I haven’t done any magic since then, and I don’t feel it as strongly. It’s like the magic is still there, inside of me, but really weak. It’s not nearly strong enough to open a doorway.”

  Maddy nodded and glanced down the trail, checking for Mom and Dad. “What now? We don’t have much time.”

  “I know,” I snapped. “But I don’t have enough magic and you don’t have any, so unless someone finds us, I don’t know how we can get in.”

  I sagged in disappointment. We’d so wanted to visit the magic world again, and I ached to learn more magic. The magic that had grown in me in July had faded to just a hint of what it had been.

  I thought about how I’d done magic before. I’d used my fingers to draw, to let the magic flow through my art. I shut my eyes, reached out a finger and began drawing on my pant leg, mist and a doorway. No magic. I tried again, struggling to inhale magic, to pull it through my body into my fingers. All I felt was a tingle, not nearly enough to open a doorway.

  My eyes snapped open as something heavy landed on my shoulder, sharp claws digging in. It was a crow, perched on my shoulder, staring at me. I stared back, not daring to move. He was totally black – his feathers, his beak, even his gleaming eyes. He cawed, I jumped, and the crow leapt off my shoulder, wings smacking my head.

  Maddy stared, open-mouthed, as he flew off, turned and soared straight at me. I yelped and ducked, and he dove, snatching my ball cap off my head. I leapt after him, yelling, while Maddy laughed. Then we both froze as the crow flew to the doorway I’d been struggling to open. A deep patch of mist had filled the space between two trees, with a doorway open in the centre of the mist. The crow flew straight through and vanished.

  “Yes,” I yelled, punching a fist into the air. Grinning at Maddy, I stepped into the doorway. It was like walking into a thick bank of fog. Mist clung to me, cold and damp and impossible to see through. I felt my way forward until the fog thinned. I stepped out onto Castle Mountain, but I knew I was on the magic side now. And right in front of me stood Keeper.

  He was even talle
r than I’d remembered, twice as tall as my dad, huge and blocky like he was carved out of rock, and grey just like Castle Mountain. Grey clothes, grey hair, grey skin. But he wasn’t scary at all, not with that big grin on his face.

  “Josh,” he said, holding out his hands to me. I grabbed one with both of mine, grinning as my hands were swallowed in his.

  Maddy burst through the doorway and Keeper turned to her. “Little Maddy,” he said, his gravelly voice full of laughter. He swung her up in a gigantic hug.

  The crow sat on a branch, holding my baseball cap in one claw, muttering and pecking at the picture of the blue jay on the front.

  “Corvus, give Josh his hat,” Keeper said.

  The bird cawed and flew past, dropping my cap as he passed overhead. A gust of wind caught the hat and it spun, drifting down the mountain. I raced after it, leaping to catch it. Caws mocked me while I ran.

  “You know him?” Maddy asked, watching the crow.

  “He is a friend,” said Keeper.

  “Some friend,” I muttered, as I walked back to them, tugging the cap onto my head.

  “Crows are friends. Most do not talk to not-crows. So one talks for all. That one is always Corvus. This is Corvus.”

  We watched him hop along the ground, strutting and muttering. Maddy laughed, but I didn’t think he was funny.

  “I sent Corvus for you,” Keeper said.

  “How did you know we were here?” I asked.

  “The crows told me,” he said.

  Corvus cawed.

  “Corvus opened the doorway?” Maddy asked.

  “Yes,” said Keeper, his voice low and rumbly.

  “How could he do it so easily?” I asked, as he strutted around us.

  Keeper paused to think. “As Corvus, he is all crows. All crows, together, have much magic.” He nodded, agreeing with himself.

  Corvus kept eyeing my ball cap, intent on the blue jay on the front. After his third fly-by, I snatched it off and stuffed it into my backpack.

  Maddy pointed to where the doorway had been, where the mist was slowly dissolving. “Our parents will be there soon. They’ll be worried if they don’t find us.”

  Keeper nodded. “Later, I will take you back to them. First, we will visit.”

  Keeper had brought us back in time once before, so we just nodded.

  Maddy and Keeper talked, Keeper leaning down, Maddy looking tiny as she craned her neck to look up at him. I relaxed as I listened to Keeper’s deep, deliberate voice. When I first met him, once I had gotten over being really, really scared, I’d wondered if he was slow and stupid. He’s not. He just thinks slowly, and speaks thoughtfully.

  I turned and looked all around. From this high on Castle Mountain, I could see right across to the mountains on the other side of the Bow Valley. There were fewer clouds here, just scattered white puffs making the blue of the sky more vivid. A brisk west wind pulled at the clouds and kept us cool.

  Far below, there was no TransCanada highway running up the valley, no railway line parallel to it, no highway winding past Storm Mountain south to Radium. Sounds were clearer, colours richer, and everything shimmered ever so slightly, radiant with magic. I could feel it seeping into me; I sighed, loving being back.

  Chapter 2

  Is The Ring Safe?

  “Can we visit your cave?” Maddy asked. “We didn’t get to stay long last time.” “Of course,” said Keeper. He leaned down and lifted Maddy up to his shoulder. Then he peered down at me.

  “I’ll walk,” I said, remembering how uncomfortable I’d been high on his shoulder last time.

  He headed east, above the tree line just below where the turrets and vertical crevices began, following a narrow path with a steep drop below. He walked slowly but steadily, with long strides in spite of the rough path.

  I gazed around as we walked, across the Bow Valley and up at the mountain looming above us. From below, Castle Mountain looked mostly grey. Close up, I could see more colours: dark mustard yellow, muted reds, blue-grey.

  Keeper’s long strides quickly carried him far ahead of me. I had to run to keep up. Soon I was panting and in pain, but I wasn’t going to ask him to carry me. “How far do we have to go?” I gasped.

  Keeper glanced back and slowed a little. “The back door is near.”

  He had a back door into Castle Mountain? I grinned and hurried on.

  Corvus flew with us, along with a growing collection of other crows. They surged ahead and then circled back, cawing to each other.

  Maddy, Keeper and I talked, too.

  “Why did my magic go away when I went home?” I asked.

  “Magic weakens in the human world,” Keeper said. “It grows in our world. Your magic will grow again.”

  “Magic doesn’t grow in Maddy when she’s here.”

  “Maddy does not need magic,” Keeper said.

  Maddy looked down at me and grinned.

  I made a face at her, but I understood what he meant. Maddy just seemed to fit in here naturally, like she was one of the magic folk, even though she had no magic.

  “Josh is the weird one,” Maddy said.

  Keeper nodded, agreeing. “Josh has a special way with magic.”

  “I’m glad you sent Corvus to us,” I said. “I couldn’t open the doorway, not like last time.”

  “The human world sucks out magic; the magic world builds it.” Keeper settled Maddy higher on his shoulder. “First, there was one world, magic and human together. Then humans learned to change the world and magic weakened. The Ancient Ones wove the veil of magic to separate the worlds, to protect magic from humans.”

  He sighed.

  “Now human changes reach into our world, draining our magic. It hurts some magic folk more than others – maybe those who are least like humans. I am not sure. The otter-people are sensitive, especially their babies.” His chest rumbled in another deep sigh.

  “What’s wrong with their babies?” Maddy asked, sounding worried.

  I worried too. We’d met some otter-people in July, when Maddy and I had helped rescue an otter-baby trapped in an avalanche. After, they had helped us get the nexus ring back to Keeper.

  “When magic is weak and otter-babies get sick or hurt, they are less likely to recover.”

  “What about Godren?” Maddy asked. He was the otter-baby Maddy and I had helped rescue.

  “He was not badly injured. He is fine. But even Godren is not thriving as he should. Otter-babies are usually very healthy.”

  “Is there anything we can do?” I asked.

  Keeper shook his head. “You brought the nexus ring back to me. That is enough.”

  We walked in silence after that, each of us worrying about otter-babies and magic folk and the magic world.

  ~

  Soon we were stepping into a deep crack in the face of Castle Mountain. Keeper lowered Maddy to the ground, picked up a torch leaning in a corner, and gently blew on it. Immediately flames leapt up. Keeper led us down a tunnel, the torch lighting his way, but his body created such a huge shadow that Maddy and I were mostly walking in the dark. We struggled to keep up, running our hands along the stone walls, stumbling on the uneven ground, until we emerged into a large cave.

  I recognized it right away. Keeper had brought us here in July. We hadn’t had time to explore it then, and I hadn’t seen enough to be able to draw it from memory. Today I was determined to see it all.

  The cave was huge and only dimly lit by the torch, but light was coming in from somewhere. I kept looking until I spotted a hole in the centre of the ceiling, tunnelled through glittering rock. Sunlight at the top of the tunnel was reflected through the crystals all the way down, into the cave. The light was slightly amber, soft and warm. When I stood below the light tunnel, staring up at the crystals, I could feel fresh air drifting down, as if somehow the light was pulling air with it.

  I walked all around the cave, running my hands over shelves carved into the walls. The shelves were covered in piles of gleaming rocks
, scraps of moss of every colour, and bird nests of every size.

  Keeper’s bed filled a corner of the cave. It was covered in a huge pile of blankets in shades of cream and orange and yellow, topped by an enormous red wool blanket with wide black stripes near each end. A large wooden table sat under the light tunnel, and around it were chairs in a multitude of sizes. A huge stone fireplace filled one wall, and wood was neatly stacked along a second wall, in a pile higher than my head.

  While Maddy gently touched the bird nests, I stood near one wall, silently creating a sketch in my head, working out how to manage the deep shadows.

  Keeper selected two long branches and knelt by the fireplace. He laid the wood on a bed of coals, and then thrust in the torch. Flames roared and settled as Keeper rocked back on his heels.

  “Come and sit by the fire,” Keeper said. “Even in summer, a little fire is nice.”

  It didn’t look like a little fire to me – flames filled the fireplace. I couldn’t imagine how much fuel it would need, but in all the time we sat there, I never saw Keeper add more wood.

  Keeper pulled up a little willow rocking chair for Maddy, and sat in his own huge rocking chair near the fire. He gestured for me to choose my own. I dragged over an armchair that was just a little too big for me.

  I curled up in my chair, remembering the last time Maddy and I had been here, when Keeper had given Maddy a silver ring in exchange for the nexus ring.

  Opening doorways in the veil was hard for magic folk. It drained their magic, exhausting them, so they didn’t cross very often. The nexus ring made it easy, but it also damaged the veil. Now the ring was safely hidden here in Keeper’s cave, so it couldn’t do any more harm.

  I thought about how many times we’d used the nexus ring to travel between the human world and the magic world, not knowing that each time the ring tore the veil. Now magic was leaking through the tears, lost into a human world that no longer cared about magic.

  I started listening to Maddy and Keeper when I heard Maddy ask, “Is the nexus ring safe?”

  “Yes,” said Keeper in his slow voice. “I am Keeper. I keep it safe.”