Johnny awoke the next morning to the sun shining through his window and the birds tweeting outside. The skeleton was lying in bed beside him although he didn't remember putting it there last night.

He sat up as cold realisation hit him. He had fallen asleep instead of staying watch and the bird creature had been here again! Where was his stepmother? Feeling slightly sick, he jumped out of bed, ran along the landing and hammered on his parents' bedroom door.

He heard his dad; "what is it, Johnny? Your mother's not well."

"Let my son in, Henry," murmured Steffi's voice. She sounded so tired… so weak.

Dad opened the door and Johnny hurried straight to Steffi's bedside. Dad was dressed but she was lying in bed, eyes closed. She looked paler and wearier than ever. He leaned closer. "Mum?"

"Fetch a cup of herbal tea," began Dad, but Steffi groaned and tried to sit up, shaking her head.

"Stay with me, darling."

"Alright, I'll fetch it."

"Thanks, Henry."

Dad left the room and Johnny sat on the side of the bed as Steffi lay down again and reached for his hand. Her hand felt very cold, so he rubbed the back of it. He felt a sense of guilt gnawing at him. She had already been ill, he had failed to keep watch last night, the bird creature had taken her away again and now she was worse.

Steffi mumbled something in German. He leaned close to hear. "What is it, mum? Will you be alright?" His agitation was showing in his voice.

Steffi lifted a hand and gently stroked his cheek. Her fingers felt cold. "Don't fret, mouse."

"I can't help it. I'm really worried that you're so ill."

She struggled to a sitting position and hugged him to her. "There, there, my snail."

'Snail?!' She must be unwell. He should have done more to prevent the bird monster from intruding…

He buried his face in her pink silk nightgown and sniffed as she gently rubbed his back, giving her small contented sigh. "I love you, Johnny."

"I love you, mum. What would I do if I lost you?"

"That will never happen." She kissed him and the tip of her long nose brushed his cheek. Her face really did feel cold and there was that musty smell again... "I want to take care of you and that is what will happen."

Something had fallen from her hair onto the duvet and Johnny felt a chill as he recognised a bright green feather.

He picked it up. "Mum, what is this?"

"A feather? I'm sure I don't know where it's from, darling. Can I hug you again?"

Johnny dropped the feather and she put her arms round him again singing something softly to herself.

His dad arrived with herbal tea and toast and took Johnny down for breakfast.

"I think I should read to her. Wouldn't that help her get better?"

Dad was reading the paper. "She certainly likes having you around, so yes, try it out."

But to Johnny's consternation, a lot of his books were not on their shelves and were in fact nowhere to be found. He picked up an issue of the Nutter comic instead and re-entered his parent's bedroom. Steffi grinned at him as he clambered back onto the bed beside her and she struggled back into a sitting position. "I wanted to read to you, mum, but this is all I could find. The characters in it are so silly…"

He flipped open the comic at a page entitled the Narcissist. The Narcissist character went around boasting a lot. It seemed that he was a patient in some kind of hospital, but he was certainly self-confident. They pored over the third to last panel. The Narcissist appeared beside a new patient and began to boast. Johnny read his words aloud: "Welcome to the hospital. Whatever's wrong with you, I'm the one who will help. I'm the only one who's any good. The psychiatrist? I warn you, he's really conceited. And alright, the tractable young psychologist is pretty, but she's nothing on me of course. Look out for the Narcissist! I will be your mentor, if you wish it." Then the last two panels showed the Narcissist's head swelling until it exploded.

Steffi burst out laughing, scrunching her nose and collapsed back onto the bed, shaking with mirth.

Johnny began to laugh too. "You laugh at the strangest things, mum."

Steffi sat up, pulling a funny face. "Do I?"

He put his arms around her and looked up, pulling a funny face as well. "I think so." Feeling silly, they rubbed their noses together. Johnny pointed at the last panel again. "Look out for the Narcissist… or he'll blow up?"

Steffi burst out laughing again, pointing at the panel. "As if he could be anyone's mentor doing that."

"What's he doing in this whole story, mum? He's so strange."

"I suppose he wants reactions from the other characters, even if they are angry reactions. So he annoys and makes fun of everyone."

"Oh. He's not very nice then."

Steffi was grinning and her blue eyes were shining. "Indeed he is not."

Johnny laid the comic aside. "The other characters in this are also stupid, but they're not even as funny. I think a game would be more relaxing. Wait a minute…"

He ran downstairs and searched through the games cupboard. Steffi had enjoyed playing Escape the Blob, but he couldn't find it anywhere. In fact, where were all the games he had played with her? They were all missing, like his books. Could the bird creature have stolen them when it broke in the previous night? It had made his stepmother ill and taken away the games she liked! His indignation increased.

In the end he had to take an old Draughts set upstairs and spread it out over the bed. It was easier than playing Chess and Johnny was OK at it. As they played Steffi pointed out the tactic she had used each time she took one of his pieces and how they could be used. It had been she who had first told him that a game ends when the other players pieces are either taken or trapped in a square and unable to move.

He felt a prickle of unease as though he were being watched and looked up. That ugly green doll was hanging over the bed, its beady black eyes fixed on him. He scowled at it. Why would Steffi suppose it helped with her insomnia? She was able to make him fall asleep just by singing that lullaby without words.

"Why don't you sing that lullaby to help you sleep, mum?"

"Oh darling, it's a light magic spell - I can only cast it on someone I love, not on myself. It's to refresh their spirit." She pushed her blond hair away from her face. "It is a spell of de-stressing and can also possibly be used to help them handle pain."

"I'd like to sing it to you. Can you teach me?"

She beamed at him. "I'd love that, darling." She hummed a snatch of the haunting melody for him to try and repeat. He found it difficult, but after some attempts he was able to imitate the first part. He could not make it work they way she did however. Was his heart not in it?

When Johnny was about to go down to lunch, Steffi put an arm round his shoulders. "I'm sorry I've been too ill for our real plans today, but we still must take a walk. This afternoon I'll be strong enough for that."

00O00

Over lunch Dad had the paper out and Johnny noticed there was an article that claimed a man had been attacked by a huge bird.

He felt a prickle of unease. "Dad, could that bird have broken in here last night?"

"No Johnny, I expect the bird only attacks drunks. It's the same with alien encounters."

But a huge bird creature had broken in last night and had even been in Johnny's room, although it had only stroked his cheek and hair. Johnny wondered what Dad would think of the feather he had found upstairs. Where was it? Johnny remembered he had dropped it on the floor. Well he was going upstairs to fetch it. Johnny stood up, but at that moment, Steffi entered the dining room fully dressed and in her leather coat, wearing her sunglasses.

"You dears, I really need to take a little walk, get the cobwebs out of my brain." She beckoned to Johnny. "Do you want to come, darling?"

Johnny hurried up to her. "Yes! Round the park?"

"Yes, I think so."

Dad shook his head. "I have to shop for the new TV this afternoon. I'll be setting off soon."

Steffi blew him a kiss. "See you soon, Henry."

"I'll be a few hours. You know what the service in that shop is like."

00O00

They walked along, side by side. Steffi held herself back to Johnny's pace and smiled at him each time he looked up at her. She pulled her leather coat tighter. "Cold today."

Johnny thought she was feeling the cold because she was ill, but he did not say so. He noticed a snowdrop flower on the grassy bank beside them as they walked through the park gates. "Look, the first snowdrop. Winter is ending."

Steffi nodded. "The first snowdrops are so pretty."

There was a harsh cawing and Johnny saw a flock of crows milling around on the grass nearby.

"What was the name for a lot of crows, mum? It's something strange isn't it, like an unkindness of ravens."

"It's a murder of crows, darling." Steffi grimaced. "The English language shows wild imagination at times."

She pushed him on the swings for a while higher and higher so that it felt like the wind was rushing through his hair. "Feel as if you're flying, my little love," Steffi crooned.

Later she wanted to sit on a bench while she tried her trick of attracting birds to perch on her gloved hand, but this time, none would alight near her. "I can't do it." She sounded more agitated than Johnny thought the situation warranted.

"The birds are probably timid today."

"But are they nervous of me?"

"Why would they be… oh!" He suddenly noticed the hooded figure from the bus previous day, standing nearby, silent and sinister.

Steffi gasped and her blue eyes widened and she swept him up in her strong arms and ran, taking great long bounds. Johnny shared her obvious terror, his heart fluttered as he clung to her.

But silent as a shadow, the figure glided round, encircling them his feet not seeming to touch the ground.

Steffi placed Johnny on the ground and crouched over him protectively. She turned her face to the figure and screamed; "Back! Get back!" She screamed something even louder in German that Johnny didn't catch and reached into her pocket, took out a handful of glittering powder and flung it at the shadowy form.

There was a flash and he seemed to melt away.

Steffi put her arms round her stepson. She was breathing hard and her eyes were wide and scared, her yellow hair in disarray.

"Was that magic?" Asked Johnny, but then a shadow fell over them. Johnny looked up and saw a pitch black shadow above that unfurled to form the outline of a pair of huge wings. A stench of rotting meat invaded his nostrils and he heard a harsh man's voice croaking out the words: "There's no escape, witch. You have dabbled in dark magic and on the third night there will be no road back."

Then the shadow melted away, like a nightmare at sunrise it was gone.

"What in the world, was that?" asked Johnny, eyes wide.

Steffi's bottom lip quivered. "Back to the house, darling, quick." She picked him up again and ran to the house. When she opened the front door, she called for dad, but there was no answer.

"He's still shopping?" said Johnny, his voice betraying his unease.

"Oh what can I do?" wailed Steffi. "We must stick together, Johnny. We must hide - in my bedroom I think."

Steffi cast off her leather coat and led Johnny upstairs to the bedroom where they sat on the bed.

"Mum, what was that shadow in the park? A ghost? A demon?" He looked her in the eye.

Steffi opened and closed her mouth. She did look pale. "We saw a psychic projection."

"Psychic projection?"

"An evil magical being can send a picture of himself over great distances. Remember the Eye of Sauron in Middle Earth? We just saw a psychic projection of a practitioner of dark magic who calls himself 'the Raven.' The Raven is far away and it's his minions I am worried about right now. I have got you into this. I-" Tears shimmered in her blue eyes. Outside the sun was setting, lighting up her face in glowing red. "But the Raven was a man to begin with, not a demon. We do have one chance."

"So the Raven stole our games and books? Are his minions coming to get us?"

At that moment, there was a horribly harsh cawing sound from far off. The cawing grew louder and louder - much louder than the cawing of mere crows and disturbingly like human voices…

Steffi breathed hard through her long nose, her nostrils dilating. "They won't ever take my son from me. I'd stake my humanity on it."

Johnny saw a small movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and saw the night doll twitch. "The doll – it moved!"

"Darling-"

The night doll's string snapped and the ugly little thing flung itself at Steffi, its twig like arms seizing at her hair. Steffi screamed and Johnny yelled in shock, his heart fluttering. Steffi screamed again and again, the sound terrible, her pale face turning lily white and her lips turning blue. Johnny leaped up and standing on the bed, pushed her hair out of the way, finding the doll which was stuck to her neck. He tugged at it, but it was welded to her. To his horror, dark green feathers were bursting from her skin, surrounding his hand. Feeling sick, he began to sob.

Steffi screamed even louder, a terrible unbroken sound and jumped onto the floor with a thud that rattled the room. With an awful splintering sound, her body became rigid and she stood motionless, continuing her chilling scream, her pearly white face beginning to turn green and then brighter green - a livid green. Her yellow hair was thickening and darkening, becoming tangled knots.

Johnny was crying. "Mum please…"

Her screams altered, becoming deeper and harsher. With a fresh surge of horror he heard her stockings rip and saw huge claws protruding from her feet… but her legs had become thinner and scaly green… huge green bird legs. Bird legs…? Steffi was a bird monster!

Johnny tore from the room, the sound of husky yells following him down the stairs. He raced for the front door, but a huge dark shape swooped over him and landed right in front of the door… It was Steffi, but she was very different... Her entire body was covered in thick, dark green feathers except for her head, neck arms and shoulders which were now a bright, livid green. Her legs were gone, replaced by the clawed feet of some giant bird. Her long hair was now a tangled, dark green mess, cascading down her green shoulders. Her blue eyes glared at him with frightening intensity. She reached for him and he saw that her fingernails had lengthened into talons. She spoke in a low, husky voice; "Why run from me, darling?"