Ravens Gathering by Graeme Cumming Page B

something.  She
was frustrated with him, and that made her annoyed.  But she was also
still frightened.  The birds had continued to gather, landing in the
branches of the trees like an audience arriving.  To watch a performance
of some kind – a play or a sporting contest?  At first she had tried to
keep a count of them, assess how many there were.  Within minutes, she’d
realised it was an impossible task.  There were too many of them. 
Easily dozens, possibly over a hundred.  And they had continued to take
their places as Martin had guided her out of the clearing.  For all she
knew, there could be hundreds of them by now.
    Martin had been expecting something.  His behaviour had
told her that, and now he’d admitted it too.  She wouldn’t have said he
was frightened, but he was certainly on edge.  The light shining down
through the trees had been all but blotted out by the ravens descending through
the opening.  Things always seemed worse in the dark.  She knew that
from her childhood, going to bed after listening to her parents arguing. 
Afraid it would mean they would split up.  Lying in the dark and imagining
the consequences, all too terrible for her to bear.  And when they had
eventually gone on to separate and divorce, it had been terrible – but not as
bad as it had seemed in the darkness.
    In the clearing, with the ravens perched all around them and
the light virtually gone, fear had become an intrinsic part of her being. 
She had felt it building up inside her.  Until Martin took her hand, and
led her away.
    Now the fear had abated, but she was aware of the darkness
creeping into the woods.  She checked her watch.  It took a moment or
two in the half-light, and she was surprised to see it was nearly ten past
six.  How had all that time passed?  She didn’t want to be here at
night, and the sun would set in little more than half an hour.
    “I’m obviously not going to get much more out of you right
now,” she complained.  She tried to sound annoyed, but wasn’t able to mask
her apprehension.  “We might as well go.”
    Without thinking, she reached for his hand, and was
comforted to feel it grasp hers.  For the first time since she’d met him,
she stopped thinking of him as a potential lover.  As they walked back to
the farm, it was like being held by her father.

Thirteen
     
     
    “Take a deep breath,” Ian murmured to himself.  He had
stood well back from the window, but was watching Tanya and the stranger
covering the last few yards to the kitchen door, safe in the knowledge that they
couldn’t see him.  The last thing he wanted was to expose himself for the
coward he felt he was.  Tanya had little enough respect for him these
days.  Seeing him virtually hyperventilating wasn’t going to help matters.
    He did as he’d instructed himself to do.  Inhaled
deeply through his nose, filling his lungs with air, before letting it all out
slowly.  He only managed it twice before the door opened.  It wasn’t
enough to mask his nerves, he knew.  But he hoped it would cover some of
them.
    “Oh, Ian!” Tanya said as she stepped into the room and saw
him standing by the table.  “You made me jump!”  And she did look
startled.  Or was he being generous?  Was it guilt?
    Swallowing, he opened his mouth to speak, but then the blond
man appeared behind her.  He smiled at Ian, but there was an underlying
shiftiness about him.  Again, it could be guilt.  Or was he trying to
hide something?  Maybe both.
    Stepping past Tanya, the stranger came towards him, hand
outstretched, and nowhere near Tanya’s.  “Pleased to meet you, Ian.”
    Without thinking, Ian raised his own hand in response. 
As he did, he realised what a fool he was about to make of himself.  But
he also realised that if he suddenly withdrew the hand, it would seem even more
foolish.  So they shook, the husband and the lover.  It made his
insides curl.
    Having closed the door, Tanya was making her