Raven (10 page)

“
But
what about Serena? What about my mother?” I asked.

“
Your
mother killed herself, Lilly,” said Wyatt, quietly.

“
How
could she do that? How could she just leave me, her baby. Her own
daughter?” I cried.

“
Again, Lilly dear, we do not understand that either. Grief
is a funny thing. People react to it in such unusual ways. She must
have been so heartbroken and she just couldn't believe that her
eldest daughter was dead. That combined with postnatal hormones. We
simply don't know. We wish we knew what had been happening. Perhaps
we could have stopped her from doing what she did. Serena was my
best friend, Lilly. It was very hard to understand for me too,”
said Meredith as she choked back the tears.

“
Tell
me,” I asked slowly, “tell me how she did it. How did my mother
kill herself?”

Gabriel
stood up abruptly then and turned his back towards me, as if he was
still struggling to come to terms with what had happened all those
years ago. He spoke slowly and quietly, “She just walked out of the
hospital in the middle of the night and continued walking until she
reached the highest point in the forest and she threw herself into
the river. She must have half frozen to death before she even got
there. All she had on was a hospital gown. She didn't even have any
shoes on. It was December. It was freezing.”

I could
barely breathe. My mother. My true flesh and blood. The woman who
had carried me for nine months and had given birth to me had killed
herself just after I was born. I could picture her walking through
the snow, barefoot – yet she was probably barely even aware of the
cold. Clearly all she could think of was the death of her precious
daughter. My sister. Both were dead. Tears rolled down from the
corners of my eyes. I couldn't stop them. Soon my face was
completely wet.

Gabriel
approached me and crouched down in front of me. He placed his hand
on my shoulder and patted me. Looking me deep in the eyes, he said,
“I didn't just lose my grandchild and my daughter-in-law that
night, Lilly. I lost your father and I lost you too.” He held me
close to him then just for a moment.

There
was a knock on the door. “That'll be Rose,” he said as he stood
up.

“
I'll
get it,” said Wyatt as he stood and went to open the door. “Hi
Rose. Thanks for coming,” I heard him say. She whispered something
and I heard him respond, “yes, she knows everything up until
Serena's death.”

“
Oh,
the poor dear,” I heard her say.

Rose
walked in then, removing her warm fur coat and throwing it
accurately on the coat hook on the wall. “Darling, Lilly,” she said
as Gabriel and Meredith gave her room to embrace me
tightly.

She said
nothing for a few minutes. We just sat in silence while the tragic
news sank in, making my heart feel so heavy. The sound of the
kitchen clock could be heard ticking, almost in time to the beating
of my heart. To the beating of all our hearts.

Rose
looked at me then. She really looked at me as if she was looking
deep into my soul.

“
You
are my sister's daughter,” she said, nodding. “Yes, Serena was my
darling little sister. She was the most wonderful person, Lilly.
Everybody loved her. When she was born, she was a little miracle.
That's what my parents and I had called her. 'Our little miracle'.
My parents were getting on, you see. They never thought they'd have
another child so when she appeared, it was a huge shock... a
wonderful shock, of course, but a shock nonetheless,” she said
smiling.

Gabriel
laughed then and I thought what a lovely face he had when he
laughed. I hadn't seen much laughter in him since my
arrival.

“
It
was a shock to the whole community,” he said. “Your mother was
nearly seventy,” he chuckled as he spoke to Rose and they shared a
smile together.

I was
amazed too. A woman of nearly seventy had given birth, naturally,
to a healthy baby girl. Not something you heard much of these days,
I thought.

“
She
was embraced by everyone here,” said Rose, “and I raised her as my
own after mother and father passed away nearly ten years later. I
was happy to do it though, with the... absence of children of my
own. Serena wasn't your average ten year old. She was so mature and
bright. She and Jack were the best of friends from a very early
age. We all knew that they were soul mates, so when they told us
they wanted to get married, we were overjoyed. It was the most
natural thing in the world for them both. She was nearly 16 and
Jack was 19.”

“
She
became pregnant with Neleh almost immediately and they loved that
child. They doted on her. Neleh was exactly like her mother... your
mother...” she said, nodding at me, “she was headstrong, beautiful
and intelligent. Everybody loved her. So when the cycle started to
repeat itself again, nobody was worried. Neleh and Sammy seemed
like soul mates too. They had wanted to get married themselves and
start a family at a very early age. We didn't worry. We thought it
was the most natural thing in the world – Neleh following in your
mother's footsteps,” she stopped then and asked Meredith for a
glass of water, who quickly poured her a drink and passed it to
her, before she continued.

“
Sammy
Morton was a very well liked boy here. He was an orphan, raised by
a foster family in town. We really thought he and Neleh were well
suited. What went wrong between them, we don't know, but that day
when he carried her lifeless body back into town, he just looked
different. He didn't look like the same person. He looked crazed
somehow. And everybody just started believing that he had murdered
her. He disappeared that day and nobody has ever seen him since.
Some people say he still lives in the forest, some people say he is
dead and haunts the forest. Whatever happened, he disappeared
within that forest, Lilly, which is one of the reasons Gabriel
doesn't want you to ever go in there.”

“
But
what happened to his foster parents? Didn't they want to find him?”
I asked.

“
They
couldn't accept what had happened and so they left Powell River a
few weeks later.”

I found
it hard to believe that his foster parents would just up and leave
like that, unless they thought he was guilty too.

It was
so much to take in that my head began pounding harder and harder
and the sound of blood pulsing through my veins became louder and
louder until I could barely hear myself think. I felt hot and
uncomfortable and I just needed a moment to myself. I excused
myself for a couple of minutes and went and splashed my face with
cold water in the bathroom.

As I
stood there, I looked at myself in the mirror, but I couldn't see
myself. All I could see were the morphing faces of Neleh and my
mother.

Again, I
recalled the dream I'd had in the forest. The woman that had tried
to speak to me in my dream had been Serena. Had my mother been
trying to tell me something? I suddenly remembered Gabriel's words
to Meredith that morning: 'I guess I have no choice now but to tell
her the truth. I had hoped the dreams wouldn't have started until
she was at least eighteen. I understand now that it is a sign. She
must be told'.

Were my
dreams real signs? I thought of Oliver and the feral cats and a
cold shiver ran down my spine.

As I
returned to my family, they were whispering among themselves. They
quietened down as I approached them and sat down.

“
I
know there is more... so please go on,” I said bravely, although I
didn't feel so brave.

This
time, Meredith spoke. “Lilly, what we are going to tell you now
might sound fantastical and surreal but we need you to keep an open
mind, okay?”

I
nodded.

“
When
your father left us and took you away to live in England, we
believe that he did so against his own will. We believe that a
witch cast a spell on him,” she said nervously.

It was
like an epiphany to me and it was then that I knew they were
talking about Vivian.

“
Vivian was a witch. Yes, it makes sense to me now,” I
whispered.

I could
feel a weight being lifted not only from my shoulders, but from
those around me too. I could hear sighs of relief. I thought once
again to that strange black room and Gabriel's words: black was a
magical colour.

“
Lilly... why does this make sense to you? Did she ever do
anything to you? Did she ever hurt you?” asked Gabriel.

“
She
never laid a finger on me but she did hurt me in other ways. She
stopped my father from spending any time with me. She tried to stop
him from loving me. Although he withdrew from me, he would never
have stopped loving me, would he?” I said. A few more tears fell
down my cheeks as I began to see Vivian in a totally new light. The
truth hurt.

“
Of
course not, Lilly. You mean the world to him. I'm sure of that,”
said Meredith.

“
How
did you know that Vivian is a witch? What did she do?” I asked,
wondering how it had all begun.

Between
them, they explained how my father had met Vivian at the hospital
when I was born and that she had not left his side after my mother
had died. My father, apparently, had changed instantly and it
wasn't the kind of change that happens after the death of a loved
one. It was an inexplicable change. A change that could have only
occurred through some kind of skulduggery. In this case they
believed that skulduggery to be witchcraft. And the person
responsible was, undoubtedly, Vivian.

“
She
somehow stopped us from seeing you, and Jack,” said Wyatt. “We did
everything we could to see you both but there was some kind of
physical force preventing us from doing so.”

“
We
spent a lot of time at Serena's graveside, hoping that we would see
him there but he never appeared. Not once. That wasn't the Jack we
knew. And before we knew it, we found out that Vivian was taking
you both to England. When we confronted her, she became so angry,
she threatened us. She said if we ever tried to come after her, she
would... she would hurt you,” said Meredith.

“
That's why we've never been able to see you or why we never
tried to call you, sweetie. God knows we wanted to. We desperately
wanted to but we couldn't risk it. We couldn't risk losing you for
good. We managed to track down your address and wrote to you but
we're sure that Vivian disposed of the letters before you ever saw
them.”

“
So
you've not seen my father since my mother died?” I
asked.

They
shook their heads.

“
That
must have been so awful for you all... and now we don't know if
we'll ever see him again,” I cried.

“
We
have no idea what has happened to him... or to Vivian, but I
sincerely believe that they are both still alive. The fact that
they vanished without a trace suggests more witchcraft though. We
have been doing everything we can to find Jack and we have reason
to believe that they are somewhere in Canada,” Gabriel
said.

I asked
him what they have been doing to try and track them down and why he
felt they were still alive but before I could get an answer from
him, Rose spoke instead and I certainly wasn't prepared for what
she was about to tell me.

“
Lilly, dear, for us to answer that question, you need to
learn the truth about who you are.”

Confused, I nodded.

The
truth turned out to completely change my view of the
world.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The
things that I had only read about in fairy tales turned out to be
far from fantasy. According to Gabriel, these things were very real
indeed... a secret world that I had no clue really existed until my
family began to unfold the truth...

Werewolves, werecats, vampires, witches, ghosts... you name
it, it existed within this world. A world that seemed so alien to
me, that would soon become my everyday life.

I was
told all about my father's side of the family, that they were
descendants of ravens and actually had the ability to morph into
the bird. Not just that, but my mother's side of the family had the
ability to morph into cats.

“
Okay... this is just sounding ridiculous... how is this
possible? Surely you're joking with me now? How can a human being
become an animal? It's impossible.”

Rose
shook her head slowly and told me that it was very possible. She
said that it was very real and that there was a strong possibility
that I had the gift myself.

“
W...what gift?” I asked gingerly, afraid of what they might
say.

Gabriel
and Rose both glanced at each other sideways, before telling me
that it was possible that I had the ability to change into either a
cat or a raven... or even both.