Soul Music

asleep on my skull, next minute he had a grip on my leg. Being a raven, as I said, I’m naturally an occult bird—”
    “Sorry,” said Susan. “I know this is all one of those dreams, so I want to make sure I understand it. You said…you were asleep on your skull ?”
    “Oh, not my personal skull,” said the raven. “It’s someone else’s.”
    “Whose?”
    The raven’s eyes spun wildly. It never managed to have both eyes pointing in the same direction. Susan had to resist trying to move around to bring herself into range.
    “How do I know? They don’t come with a label on them,” it said. “It’s just a skull. Look…I work for this wizard, right? Down in the town. I sit on this skull all day and go ‘caw’ at people—”
    “Why?”
    “ Because a raven sitting on a skull and going ‘caw’ is as much part of your actual wizarding modus operandi as the big dribbling candles and the old stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling. Don’t you know anything? I should have thought anyone knows that who knows anything about anything. Why, a proper wizard might as well not even have bubbling green stuff in bottles as be without his raven sitting on a skull and going ‘caw’—”
    SQUEAK!
    “Look, you have to lead up to things with humans,” said the raven wearily. One eye focused on Susan again. “He’s not one for subtleties, him. Rats don’t argue questions of a philosophical nature when they’re dead. Anyway, I’m the only person round here he knows who can talk—”
    “Humans can talk,” said Susan.
    “Oh, indeed,” said the raven, “but the key point about humans, a crucial distinction you might say, is that they’re not prone to being woken up in the middle of the night by a skeletal rat who needs an interpreter in a hurry. Anyway, humans can’t see him.”
    “ I can see him.”
    “Ah. I think you’ve put your digit on the nub, crux, and gist of it all,” said the raven. “The marrow, as you might say.”
    “Look,” said Susan, “I’d just like you to know that I don’t believe any of this. I don’t believe there’s a Death of Rats in a cowl carrying a scythe.”
    “He’s standing in front of you.”
    “That’s no reason to believe it.”
    “I can see you’ve certainly had a proper education,” said the raven sourly.
    Susan stared down at the Death of Rats. There was a blue glow deep in its eye sockets.
    SQUEAK.
    “The thing is,” said the raven, “That he’s gone again.”
    “Who?”
    “Your…grandfather.”
    “Granddad Lezek? How can he be gone again? He’s dead!”
    “Your…er… other grandfather…?” said the raven.
    “I haven’t got—”
    Images rose from the mud at the bottom of her mind. Something about a horse…and there was a room full of whispers. And a bathtub that seemed to fit in somewhere. And fields of wheat came into it, too.
    “This is what happens when people try to educate their children,” said the raven, “instead of telling them things.”
    “I thought my other granddad was also…dead?” said Susan.
    SQUEAK!
    “The rat says, you’ve got to come with him. It’s very important.
    The image of Miss Butts rose like a Valkyrie in Susan’s mind. This was silliness .
    “Oh, no,” said Susan. “It must be midnight already. And we’ve got a geography exam tomorrow.”
    The raven opened its beak in astonishment.
    “You can’t be saying that,” it said.
    “You really expect me to take instructions from a…a bony rat and a talking raven? I’m going back!”
    “No, you’re not,” said the raven. “No one with any blood in them’d go back now. You’d never find things out if you went back now. You’d just get educated.”
    “But I haven’t got time ,” Susan wailed.
    “Oh, time ,” said the raven. “Time’s mainly habit. Time is not a particular feature of things for you .”
    “How—”
    “You’ll have to find out, won’t you?”
    SQUEAK.
    The raven jumped up and down excitedly.
    “Can I tell her? Can I tell her?” it squawked. It swiveled its eyes to Susan.
    “Your grandfather,” it said, “is…(dah dah dah DAH )…Dea—”
    SQUEAK!
    “She’s got to know sometime,” said the raven.
    “Deaf? My grandfather is deaf?” said Susan. “You’ve got me out here in the middle of the night to talk about hearing difficulties ?”
    “I didn’t say deaf, I said your grandfather is…(dah dah dah DAH )…D—”
    SQUEAK!
    “All right ! Have it your way!”
    Susan backed away while the two