Hood locks the door and after cleaning the day’s grime from himself with a soft towel and a bowl of water provided, he pulls from beneath his robe the gift that Grumpini gave him, and lying down on the bed places it between cupped hands and closes his eyes.

[Hood lying on the bed]

He can still hear the sounds of Hy-Jinx, laughter, and the increasingly loud thumping of tankards on tables.

(aside) Now at this point our tale turns tragic

For Barry’s not been trained in magic

And yet with mind altered by drink

He’s lead a certain way to think…

Snatches of verse disturb his concentration but Hood is adept at clearing his mind, has been training himself relentlessly.

(aside) …Now rumour went about the town

As rumours do and people frown

And people talk and point and mutter

‘specially when about a nutter

And rumour was that:

Barry Beerpots liked to drink

but he also liked to stitch

That he’d sewn his hands on to his arse

and woke up in a ditch. Hey!

Did you not wonder why Hood did not temper the weather on his walk south? No? Well, he was carefully practicing the full day, saving his energy, waiting for this moment…

Barry Beerpots had in fact

drank so much ale that

out he’d blacked

And woken up quite out his mind

With fingers stitched to his behind.

Surely not, it cannot be

Oh yes indeed! Look can’t you see!?

But how..and why? Hush here he comes!

It’s all eight fingers, and his thumbs!

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How he’d done it none could say

It was in fact pure mystery

Some put it down to pure bad luck

Whilst others blamed the pixies.

[A picture from above of the thatched roof of the Inn, some trees etc seen from over the shoulder of a crow.]

Now, it’s not that one has to push aside distractions, more let them pass by like mist, and as they pass become aware of the breeze that clears them for you. And as Hood does this, suddenly he is rising, silently into the night. The rain has ceased and the wind lessened, and as he rises, he can see the inn beneath him, smoke curling from the chimney, the slight glow of the fire and candles emanating through the thatch. Again he can hear Hi-Jinx’s voice, blended with the notes of her mandolin, but it is different this time, it’s below him…

Barry to the doctors went

In hopes of finding some relief

But viewing his predicament

Caused consternation - disbelief

“In all my time

I cannot lie, I’ve seen the best and worst

I don’t think this an accident

Most likely it’s a curse.

No surgery can I thus perform

For the manner of the stitches

Are manifold and crossed and bound

And fused onto your britches.

One thing though that I’d recommend

And heartily advise

At no point try to laugh or clap

It would be most unwise.

For vigorous shaking of the hands

Will cause your cheeks to part

And bowing too, do not do that

Undoubtably you’ll…”

…and as he glides into the night, he begins to appreciate his new perspective, begins to see the world as a crow sees the world. The world is aglow with a faint white fire and where it is not there is only darkness. Smell is not smell but colour, which extends like gossamer threads that weft and weave with the wind. Sound is different too, an echo within an echo, as if frozen by and melted by time simultaneously.

A thin red line pulls Hood’s attention and as he follows it, snaking between the dark forms of trees, highlighted with the ever present white flames, he alights on a branch, beneath which lies the small red glowing body of a dead rodent. An overwhelming feeling of hunger grips his stomach and tingles his beak? The crow’s stomach, the crows beak...Hood has to remind himself, for he feels these almost irresistible urges to peck and pull and feed as if they are his. The crow has a will of its own and Hood must wrestle with it for it to do his bidding. With a loud screaming caw the crow takes flight again, against its natural desire. Up over the fields, circling higher and higher, the colour draining from the wind, Hood climbs into the fluid darkness of the night sky, a landscape of forces that ruffle and push, squeeze and flow across his wings and through the nasal holes of his beak. He feels the sharp claws tucked beneath him, lets them flex and scratch the face of the night as he banks silently and, following his instincts, flies towards the chaotic sea, a jumbled scape of fractured shapes and jittering colours that crash against one another to birth the same jumbled landscape again. If there is one thing that represents mystery for a crow then this must be it. A dizzying melange of abstraction coupled with a dredging roar that churns the senses. It is a difficult environment in which to maintain control but Hood welcomes the challenge. Even though his perception suggests otherwise, the sea is relatively calm and, in amidst the merging and emerging shapes, Hood makes out a darker shape from which a single light source burns, and it is to this that he flies.

Swooping over the edge of a cliff and diving down, the wind changes as he approaches the water, the pressures contained in the air seem to dissipate and drop and it is more difficult to maintain the steady beat of his dark feathered wings but he uses the speed he has gained in his descent to help him. He feels the air cool as he skims the waves, waves that look like crystals forming and reforming, coalescing then shattering until the dark shape that moments ago was simply a speck is suddenly in front of him, to which he rises gently and alights on the edge of its wooden sides. With a blink and a quick preen and an almost mechanical twitch of the head Hood hops down onto the deck of a large fishing boat.

His instincts were correct. For there, crouched in the shadows, a smile carved indefinitely upon a face, is Madeleine.