The Bird Whisperer - Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR
CROW VALLEY


How he endured the rows and punishments that followed his reluctant confessions, Milo did not know. But what they led to was even worse. His parents reached an agreement to transfer him to a third school as a last resort in the battle with Milo's unrestrainable personality. And Milo would have been glad about it had it not been a rather different type of school they were sending him to this time. Just the thought of it made him shudder.

A correctional facility. A school for truly hopeless cases; not mere problem children, like himself, but actual little villains, criminals, lunatics, damaged, vile children. Milo, who'd had a fair shot at being mean, knew he was no match for kids in such institutions. He was troubled, but they were entirely not alright. They tortured and killed animals, for goodness' sake. Even birds…

But that was not it at all. His parents weren't sending him to just any correctional facility. Milo did not know this on the day of his fifteenth birthday, but he was about to find out any moment now.

'Happy birthday, son,' Leopold Swaggers announced joyously, bursting into Milo's room without a warning, and added with a note of uncontainable triumph in his voice: 'I have great news for you.'

Milo was sketching talentlessly on a piece of paper.

'Hmm?' he asked distractedly. His dull, pointless doodling was interrupted by his mother, who planted a juicy kiss on his cheek. Milo didn't react.

'Happy birthday, sweetheart!' she squealed. 'Do come downstairs, you've got to see your presents!'

Milo raised an eyebrow impassively.

'Presents? I thought I'd severely misbehaved for the past… I dunno… ten years?' he answered hollowly. Charlotte waved a hand impatiently.

'Ah, but it's your birthday, sweetheart! Nothing you've done gives us the right to ruin your big day! Come on, downstairs! Hurry up and get properly dressed!'

Milo sighed heavily and headed to the dresser. It wasn't easy living with such parents. He never knew what to expect from them.

The presents he found later by the fireplace were nothing unexpected. The usual endless set of snobbish clothes from his numerous aunts – his mother had about as many sisters as her family could feed – and books, jewelry or money from his uncles. His mother had bought him a brand new formal frock, of which he had about fifteen already. He had always assumed she'd bought one for every year of his life so far – in case, by any chance, her one-year-old boy got invited to a ball at the king's palace. This year's frock looked just as ridiculously overdone as the others.

His father's gift was a special gold watch that counted down Milo's time left to adulthood. Leopold was a champion at picking depressing gifts. The only gift the boy actually nearly smiled at was the one from Aunt Emily, his favorite aunt. Emily Nox, who, unlike Charlotte, had never married and still went by her maiden name, was not looked well upon in the family because she had a serious drinking problem and she was, well, a little bit nuts. But sometimes she had the ability to see Milo for the child he was, which was something neither Charlotte nor Leopold could achieve. This year, although she hadn't been invited to his birthday, she'd sent him a bottle of expensive cologne, a fetching black leather jacket and matching leather biker gloves – to impress the girls with, as she'd specifically instructed on the birthday card. Aunt Emily understood the needs of a boy turning fifteen very well because, in her mind, she was about five.

Milo longed to get a motorbike but he knew he wouldn't be allowed to ride one until he learned to ride a dragon. And that meant never.

He sighed. This would be just another lonely birthday spent with his parents. No surprises.

But he was wrong. The surprise was yet to come.

He was still absent-mindedly reading the birthday card from Aunt Emily.

"…be safe, you little troublemaker," it said. "And be sure to show 'em what you've got at Ravengrave!"

Milo's train of thought hit the emergency brakes.

'Mother?' he called. 'What's that mean?'

Charlotte was busy ordering the servants around with the birthday cake.

'What's that, sweetheart? Aunt Emily giving you trouble?'

But Milo was still frowning at the card.

'Ravengrave?' he uttered in confusion. 'What's Ravengrave?'

He had a bad feeling again. He wished he could ban his gut from warning him about things.

'Oh, nothing, dear,' his mother replied quickly, although a shade of guilt tiptoed through her face for a moment. 'It's probably your aunt just – '

But then, his father walked into the room.

'Ravengrave,' he boomed proudly, 'is the best correctional facility in the British Alterlands which we signed you up for just this morning. I am confident you'll like it there very much. It'll make a man out of you!'

Milo stared stupidly into his father's gleaming eyes.

'I'm sorry? Could you repeat that?' he asked faintly. He should have seen it coming.  

'Ravengrave, boy, Ravengrave! The best place for underaged crooks and scoundrels!'

Milo blushed with indignation.

'I'm not a crook, Father!' he protested. Charlotte disarmed him by placing her hand on his shoulder.

'We already discussed this, sweetheart,' she said in a velvet voice. 'It's not that you've done something criminally wrong… Your father and I have simply decided that it'd do you good to go somewhere where the discipline is at a better level…'

'Indeed,' Leopold nodded, adjusting his glasses, 'I believe what you need to get better is to be kept on a tighter leash!'

Milo said nothing. In his parents' minds, children were like dogs.

'There's no boy on earth that entered Ravengrave and didn't leave a man!' Leopold added reassuringly.

Milo used his right to remain silent again. Ravengrave… The name rang a distant bell. Why, yes… his aunt Emily had been sent to Ravengrave for two weeks in her youth. She hadn't left a man. She'd left a loony and a drunk.

Besides, Milo knew all about how men were made at these places. He didn't fancy another year of constant beatings. He'd grown used to being the kid on the crest of a wave. He'd hate to change that habit to being the kid who got drowned in a river.

'Cheer up, son!' his father smacked him on the shoulder believing that was the way to show affection. 'The place will toughen you up. If you've packed and left by tomorrow, you should be able to arrive in Crow Valley before the week is out…'

Milo would have shouted "What?!", but the words froze in his throat.

Crow Valley… That he'd definitely heard of.    

It was a place far up west of Wingstead. It was cold, rainy and barren. But that wasn't the problem with it. They called Crow Valley "the Valley of Death". Parents would scare kids with this place. "Eat your broccoli or I'll send you to Crow Valley." "When you're feeling down, remember you're not in Crow Valley." "Good boys go to school, bad boys go to Crow Valley." "If you fear going to hell, try going to Crow Valley."

It was a place for the insane, wicked, desperate and dangerous. A place where black magic flourished and corpses surfaced daily in the muddy streams. It was a place where people went to flee from their lives or go to die. That was why they called it the Valley of Death. No person who had something left to lose would ever even consider going to Crow Valley.

And the name of the school sounded charming. He would indeed enter Ravengrave and leave a man, Milo thought bitterly. A dead man.

His silence became much too pointed for his parents to ignore.

'Are you okay, sweetheart?' Charlotte asked quietly, her guilt already showing far too avidly on her beautiful face.

Milo's lips automatically uttered the only possible answer to this question in the Swaggers family.

'What? Oh… yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Really. Maybe it's for the best. In fact, I'll start packing right away.'

Milo could recognize lost battles from afar, so over the years he'd learned not to fight but to flee. He rushed casually out of the living room, to the extent this was possible, shut himself in his own room upstairs, and started crying.

Take a look at fifteen-year-old Milo on his birthday, sobbing quietly so as not to be heard by his parents. He was thin leaning towards skinny, and this made him look taller than he actually was. He had a tender and slightly girly face, a face trained in all the snobbish expression of the high society. If he smiled genuinely more often, he'd be perceived as charming; not handsome, because the word "handsome" usually implied a certain amount of manliness. His hair had grown slightly darker since the day of his birth, and since it had started out nearly white, this meant his current hair color was that of the inside of a banana. Basically, Milford Swaggers looked like a fine young gentleman with good future prospects with the ladies, provided he bulked up a bit. But deep inside, Milo was a sum of his parents' mistakes, a pedagogical phenomenon, in the sad sense of the word. He was certain about nothing, he had no idea what he wanted and whether he had a chance of getting it, and he had nothing and no one to hold onto. As a result, he was now crying restlessly.

Ravengrave… Crow Valley… His life was over before it had begun.

'Everything alright in there, sweetheart?' his mother's voice echoed through the door.
Milo wiped his tears away in shame and cleared his throat.

'Yes, Mother,' he assured her, his voice hardly trembling. 'Absolutely. I'll join you and Father shortly for the celebration.'

'Hurry, sweetheart. You don't want to miss the birthday cake!'

'No, Mother. I certainly won't miss that.'  

* * *

They say, in certain less occult lands, that the morning is wiser than the evening, or, in other words, that one should sleep on a certain late-night thought before undertaking any related actions. This was especially true for Milo, who had cried his eyes out the previous night. Last night, he would have preferred to die. This morning, however, he looked into the mirror with mixed feelings.

He took one look at his tired, stinging eyes and decided he would take another shot at life for now. It wasn't willpower or a thirst for life or brave determination that drove him to make this decision. It was simply the thought of leaving the world that made Milo feel extremely sorry for himself. He was too young to die; besides, there were so many things he knew how to achieve that he hadn't achieved yet. And, pessimistic wusses as they might be, the Swaggers always survived. So, for the sake of survival, Milo needed to stop feeling sorry for himself. He imposed calm and positive thinking upon himself; he was good at self-manipulation, too, when the circumstances required it. It was a rule carved deep into the back of his mind that he had to carry on, no matter what. The world was more than ready to lose Milo Swaggers, but Milo Swaggers wasn't ready to lose himself.
He breathed out slowly in front of the mirror to make his hands stop shaking.
'Okay, Milo,' he said to himself in an unconvincingly cool voice that had to pass as stern in his mind, for his vocal cords were simply not capable of such an achievement. 'Put yourself together. No time to panic now. In about twenty minutes and thirty-five seconds your mother will summon you downstairs for breakfast. By then, you'll have to be dressed, packed and ready to leave for – ' he swallowed the word "bloody" that nearly escaped his lips – 'Ravengrave. That'll take some time. This means you have about thirty seconds to stop being a quitter.'

He attempted a heroic expression his face obstinately refused to produce and started thinking frantically. Evaluate the pros and cons. Consider your advantages and weaknesses. Devise a plan.

The good news was his parents wouldn't be around, and since they were sending him to almost certain death, they probably wouldn't care to write to him, either. This meant he'd have more freedom to unfold his strategy. The bad news was this was Crow Valley he was being sent to. He had virtually no strengths in the aspect of practical survival – save running, which would prove to be useful – and he didn't possess enough wits to make it on his own. He knew well what to expect of Ravengrave: it would be the same as the Academy, only on a rougher scale. The stakes if one didn't fit in were much higher, and that was the only difference; the high school law remained the same. Ravengrave was a school, after all, which was still an option safer than wandering shelterless in Crow Valley, and he'd be safe enough in school as long as he found himself a fearsome enough gang to stick to, if not lead. To prove himself worthy of being a part of such a gang, he had to appear intimidating enough to the low-lifes at Ravengrave. The plan was already sprouting detailed courses of action in his head.

Milo stared at the mirror in deep concentration to see what he had to work with. His mind was working rapidly. When it came to achieving an air of intimidation, his face and physics were completely against him. The tenderness of his appearance was a major drawback. This meant his mission would be extremely difficult. Difficult, but not impossible, Milo thought. He knew all the dirty tricks in the book of high school survival and interaction. This year, he was intending toad a few chapters of his own to it.

Since he could not muster a face of courage, Milo settled for an expression of moderate mid-plotting malice. He packed quickly after his short inner conversation with himself. Apart from the essentials for his survival and hygiene, he carefully picked sets of clothing not overly posh (they threatened to make him stand out unwontedly in the crowds of down-and-outs at Ravengrave) but appropriately rebellious, devil-may-care outfits, to which the most common public definition was badass. He took his sleekest, meanest-looking pairs of boots, along with his black leather jacket and biker gloves from Aunt Emily. He reminded himself to get them appropriately filthy before he entered the territory of Crow Valley. He packed a few books on black magic (heavily illustrated ones), several warm but obligatorily black raincoats, a few pairs of jeans he could bring himself to tear at the knees, a couple of amulets and all of his secret savings. Even if he went down at Ravengrave, he would go down with style.

Twenty-seven minutes later, the plan was nearly devised. Milo was carefully arranging every hair on his head with surgical precision when he heard the call for breakfast.
'Milford!' his mother's strict voice rang from the stairs.

'Coming, Mother!' Milo cooed obediently and braced himself. He needed to be quick, quiet and casual. He took one last vain look at the mirror, in the hope that his reflection would stick two thumbs up in encouragement.

His reflection smirked with satisfaction. So did Milo. He examined himself, his appearance a cross between that of a rock star and a petty criminal, grace and attitude balanced flawlessly in his attire. He looked good.
  
He strolled down the stairs with theatrical apathy, slithered into the bathroom and let the water run to muffle the sounds of his rummaging in his parents' things. From them, he strategically snatched an enchanted box, a pearl necklace, a pair of ladies' underwear, a knife, a two-way mirror, a commandable rope, a cursed candle and his father's secret savings. (The rule was that every Swaggers' home had more secrets than it had servants.) Afterwards, he took a regular shower, stuffed the furtively obtained objects into his bathrobe and came out, fresh as a daisy, back in the clothes that spoke of a teenage catastrophe.

Throughout breakfast, he also managed to steal most of his father's creepy rings, all family relics, for the absence of which Leopold would kill him. But Milo knew he needed to keep his priorities in mind. Currently, the prospect of the posthumous diagnose "death by father" was preferable to "death by Crow Valley."

'You're really quiet this morning, sweetheart,' Charlotte remarked a tad more softly than usual, since Milo had spent the entire breakfast playing his tragically reconciled part like a world-class actor. 'Is everything alright?'

'It's not alright, Mother,' Milo replied gloomily. 'I'm going to Ravengrave, after all.'

His parents said nothing. What his father thought Milo was thinking was that he had realized he deserved his punishment and he was prudently welcoming it. What his mother thought Milo was thinking was that he was feeling betrayed by his family and feared going to Ravengrave terribly, wondering if he'd be forgiven upon his arrival back home for the holidays. What Milo was really thinking was: "Oh, bugger, I hope the ring of Lord Malister the Second doesn't fall out through my sleeve…"

Eventually, his mother walked him to the front door with a heavy heart and kissed him on the cheek goodbye. To Milo, it felt more like a kiss farewell. But he had no intention of allowing himself to die this year.

'Do you have everything you need, sweetheart?' Charlotte asked worriedly. 'Warm clothes? Shoes? Have you packed your formal wear?'

'Yes, Mother,' Milo nodded. He never knew what situations might arise.

'Be safe, sweetheart!' his mother implored, and pressed him tightly to her chest to the point he couldn't feel his bones anymore. His father said nothing at the door, just curved his lips into an imitation of a smile.

'We've ensured that you have a safe trip,' he said to Milo curtly. 'The harpy trolley is waiting for you outside. I'll help you with the suitcase.'

Milo interrupted his theatrical repertoire, caught by surprise. Naturally, the residents of the Alterlands were familiar with the function of cars – even if they'd learned it from brochures on outer-world education, – but the wealthier and more prominent representatives of the population would never consider them a respectable way to get around. In accordance with the traditions, all self-respecting warlocks travelled by magic, lightning, dragons or horse carriages. (Well, or carriages pulled by things that, when not observed in direct sunlight, passed for horses.) Nevertheless, due to the fluctuating and dangerous occult tendencies of the atmosphere around Crow Valley, it had been established as safest to travel by carriages, which was what Milo had expected to get there with. But Milo's expectations were proven wrong.

'Harpy trolley?' he muttered, hoping he'd misheard something.

'We've paid two extremely talented harpy guards to travel with you to Ravengrave,' Leopold nodded to the carriage outside the Swaggers estate gates, and patted his son roughly on the back. 'Dangerous land, Crow Valley. But nothing a man can't handle, eh?' he added with faked cheerfulness. 'Well, take care, son! Make us proud… and good luck!'

"I'm going to need it," Milo thought as he watched the servants carry his luggage into the carriage, and slipped hesitantly in the carriage himself. Harpy guards – this proved to him just how dangerous Crow Valley truly was. Apparently, more dangerous than it was described in the fairytales. Harpies were creatures with numerous abilities, lethally clever and extremely well-trained in combat. They didn't have a very pleasant temper, either.

And his parents had hired harpies to be his guards… As far as he knew, they were more frequently hired as mercenaries, and that was why their services cost a fortune. The fact alone that Leopold Swaggers, the ultimate penny-pincher, had agreed to pay an obscene amount of money to ensure the safety of his son meant his son's safety needed serious ensuring. If Milo wasn't so terrified, he'd probably feel flattered.

'Hi,' the taller harpy said cheekily to him as she sat next to him in the back of the carriage, cleverly concealing Charlotte Swaggers' glistening with tears face from the boy's sight. 'I'm Shirley, and that's Brittany in the front,' she pointed a clawed finger at the occupant of the coach seat. 'Don't worry, kid; while you're with us, no one will harm you.'

'Let them try,' Brittany's voice echoed from the front, accompanied by a wicked snigger.

Milo swallowed hard. Mentally, he agreed with Shirley. Harpies were very attractive, armed and dangerous creatures of the female variety. No, not women; they looked like women most of the time, but one did not want to see them when they were angry or challenged. In these cases, they didn't even need weapons. The rest of the time, their demonic nature showed only in their long, sharp nails (even if they were prettily polished) and in their sinister grins containing teeth slightly sharper than it was generally accepted. They were also said to have hypnotic powers and – Milo tried not to think about that – preyed on the flesh of young men.

Fortunately for him, the harpy guards saw no more of a man in Milo than they saw a decent meal in a strawberry lollipop. That wasn't so much due to his looks as to the fact that Milo failed Shirley's casual interrogation. She attempted to carry out a light conversation with him. It was a disaster.

'So,' she turned to him with a fair amount of indifference, 'you're a student or something? What are you, thirteen? Twelve?'

'Fifteen,' Milo cleared his throat indignantly. It cost him some effort, but he managed not to blush.

'Holy hell, they mature slower and slower. Hear that, Brittany? Fifteen, he says!'

'Fifteen,' Brittany cackled, and flicked a curse at the poltergeists pulling the carriage to make them move faster. 'Yeah, right. They got married at fifteen in my days!'

'So he says,' Shirley flipped her long black hair away, and it whacked Milo across the face. 'Got any girlfriends, little guy?'

'Those on poster don't count,' Brittany added mockingly, clearly getting a kick out of the wretched howls of the ushered poltergeists.

Milo evaluated the situation. He was beginning to feel moderate hatred towards the harpies.

'Haven't settled on a pretty face yet,' he answered coldly. 'Besides, many pretty faces are attached to ghastly figures. But I do have admirers… They prove to be useful, every now and then...'

'Ooh!' Brittany hissed cynically. 'We've got ourselves a little player!'

'Fancy-talker is more like it,' Shirley grunted and gave Milo a belittling smirk. 'How many girls have you hit it with, kid?'

Milo was beginning to feel really exasperated by this conversation which solely aimed to embarrass him.

'Mother says I shouldn't hit girls,' he replied diplomatically. Shirley let out a laugh that sounded more like a bark.

'Forget it,' she stood up, shaking her head, and slid out the window with impeccable physical efficiency and grace. 'He doesn't know what he's talking about. Can I sit with you, Brit? The kid is boring,' her steely voice echoed from above Milo's head.

Milo was more than relieved to be left alone in the back seat of the carriage. He was glad he hadn't passed the harpies' test. From an early age, he'd learned to distrust people and prefer solitude. Being by yourself meant having no one boss you around or put you down.

Milo stifled a smile, unzipped his suitcase and pulled out a velvet pillow and a notebook – both black brimmed with silver, like almost everything else in possession of the Swaggers family, because the Swaggers believed not in chromatic colors or anything suggesting general brightness. Milo was taught house decoration habits similar to those of a funeral agent, and he'd grown accustomed to the absence of bright colors. He therefore wasn't bothered by the gradual color desaturation of the landscape seen out the window through a gloomy mass of fog and drizzle. The trees became fewer; the roads became muddy and went winding through barren fields. But Milo didn't pay any attention to that because what others considered creepy and depressing he simply defined as gothic. The only thing he found creepy and depressing as the trip progressed was the joyless thought that, with every mile the carriage travelled in the direction of Crow Valley, the boy's hopes for a hot shower at a proper hotel seemed less and less realistic.

But, right now, Milo didn't worry too much about the housing conditions upon his arrival. The pillow was pressing soothingly against his back, making him feel comfortable and a bit drowsy. He was writing in the notebook he'd adapted to a diary, enumerating his goals and revelations as the carriage bounced miserably along the bumpy roads of the western countryside.

The subject of the confessional masterpiece was unimaginatively put down as "CROW VALLEY." From then on, past the poorly arranged (and poorly drawn) doodles down the sheet of paper, the structure of the diary went on in the following fashion:

"DAY ONE   
       
Location: a harpy trolley. Posh but lacking proper heating.

Thoughts for the day: Crow Valley must be a bloody scary place indeed. I'm getting chills just seeing the precautions my folks have taken. I really need to come up with a strategy ahead of my stay in the school. Take them by storm, because I sure can't take them by force. The trip ought to last over twenty-four hours, which might be problematic. I might be forced to stay somewhere for the night. I'm not entirely sure if there's a bathroom in the trolley, but judging by the look of it, I think not. By the way, harpies are complete bloody (inappropriate word). I'll be (inappropriate word) damned if I ever get in a harpy trolley again.

Resolutions: Never marry a harpy. I'd have to be a (inappropriate word) nutter to do that. They can all get (inappropriate word)."

Milo stared unseeingly out the window for a while, smoothed his hair distractedly and continued to write with renewed inspiration:

"Things to do:

• get to Ravengrave
• take a shower, preferably a hot one
• get into a gang
• get one teacher at Ravengrave on my side
• but some decent food
• get a girlfriend (very important!)
• get a tatt "

The word intended to spell "tattoo" was abruptly distorted as his hand plunged down the page and a shaky line of ink slit the paper in half. The unexpected jolt of the carriage angered Milo, but he had no more than a moment to mourn the ruined page, because he was considerably distracted by the massive ball of fire that struck the roof of the carriage inches away from his head.