One of the jackdaws hopped down and walked all round it, eyeing it curiously. ‘Is it dead?’

‘No, it will come back if I wind it up.’ Seren held out her hands. ‘So that’s not like a normal bird, is it? A real bird?’

The birds murmured doubtfully.

She took a step nearer the Crow.

The ancient owl hooted for silence. It drew itself up.

‘I’m afraid your argument is not at all convincing. You don’t really know if he is human. You say yourself that he tells lies. And all birds sleep, then wake up again.’

‘But…’ Seren said.

‘We’ve heard quite enough. It’s time to take a vote. All in favour of innocent?’

Not a feather moved.

‘All in favour of guilty?’

Every wing rose with a rustle.

Seren’s eyes went wide. ‘Wait! But you can’t…!’

The owl’s voice was not so soft now. ‘The verdict of the court has been given,’ it said mercilessly. ‘Humans are not allowed to pretend to be birds and an example has to be made. This miserable creature will be taken to a secret place and pecked apart, and may…’

‘You can’t! It’s not his fault!’ Seren had lost her temper now, she shouted the words as loud as she could. ‘Anyway, the spell was put on him by a bird!’

‘Nonsense,’ the owl snapped. ‘What bird could possibly…’

Seren took a breath. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she announced, ‘it was the Midnight Swan!’

10

Down the well

Let the moonlight in your heart.

Where the secret journeys start.

There was utter silence.

The Crow opened one eye.

All the birds sat rigid, as if they dared not move.

Then the very smallest, a firecrest, piped up in a tiny voice ‘Did she say…?’

‘Shhhh,’ a thousand birds hissed at once.

And instantly, they all flew. It was deafening and terrifying, the lift-off of a million wings. Feathers and dust rained; bricks fell from the ruined towers. Seren and Tomos had to duck under the up-draught of that panicked flight, the gulls yelping and the jays screeching, all the tiny birds swirling together in terrified packs, the geese honking away in hurried V formations, the peacock stalking swiftly into the wood.

Finally, the screeching and scratching and slither faded out to a distant roar and swirl of wings high in the sky.

Silence came back.

A single feather floated slowly down.

The Crow uncurled from where it lay flat, wings over its head. ‘Goodness.’ It sat up, and brushed dust from itself, ‘That was … er … quite an experience.’

Tomos was looking up into the sky. ‘They were so scared! When you said about the Midnight Swan, they were all terrified.’

Seren nodded.

‘It was a great plan!’

‘Yes,’ she said. Though, actually, that hadn’t been the plan. She had been going to pretend she saw a cat coming through the wood. But maybe that wouldn’t have scared them as much, she thought.

The Crow spat out dust. ‘Well, it was lucky I thought of it, then. Things could have got quite nasty…’