Raven (2 page)

My calm
moments with the cat were cut short by the arrival of two young
uniformed male police officers, followed by a third woman. The cat
jumped out of my arms like a shot. She was clearly spooked by the
presence of strangers and had vanished from our flat, presumably to
return to the safety of her home. My calm feeling faded the moment
she was gone.

The
female police officer was very kind and polite and asked me a few
questions about myself and my parents. When had I last seen them?
Where did they work? Was it common for them to leave without
telling me? Did they have mobile phones? I didn't even know the
answer to the last question, although if they did, I never saw or
heard them. Technology wasn't a word I heard used in our home. Not
that there were ever many words used at all.

More
questions were asked of me and so I answered them as best as I
could before the other two police officers managed to literally
knock the door down. I wasn't prepared for what I saw and I don't
think they were either. There was almost nothing. Just a simple
room, painted black – the floors, ceiling and walls all painted
black. There were no chairs, no desks, nothing. The only things to
be seen in the room were a small black shelf which contained two
glass vials. One was filled with a thick deep red liquid and the
other contained what appeared to be something from the insides of
an animal – I couldn't identify it, but it looked disgusting. A
pang of fear shot through me. Fear for my parents'
safety.

“
Do
you have any idea what substance this is, Miss?” asked one of the
police officers.

I shook
my head. “I've never been in here before.”

The two
men gave each other a sideways glance that was way too obvious for
me not to have seen.

“
Right
then, Miss, would you like to wait outside while we gather some of
this evidence together?” said the first officer as the other led me
out of the black room.

Snippets
of conversation could be heard as I waited for them to
finish.

“
This
is definitely blood. What on earth do you think has been going on
in here then, Pete?”

“
Beats
me, Dave. I tell you one thing though, it's weird, whatever it is.
It's almost like something out of a horror film. Here... look at
this.”

The
female officer appeared by my side and cleared her throat. The
conversation in the black room suddenly became quieter.

“
Don't
worry, Lilly. We'll get to the bottom of this,” she said, smiling.
“We'll find your mum and dad.”

After
about half an hour, the officers appeared from the room, carrying
the vials in two clear plastic bags.

“
Okay,
Constable Madley, we've all the evidence now. We'll take them to
the lab for tests,” said the taller of the two.

He
tipped his hat to me and smiled before carrying everything out of
the flat.

Following behind, the other one stopped in front of me and
crouched down, looking right into my eyes. His dark brown eyes and
the soft laughter lines around his mouth gave him a look of
kindness. I hadn't noticed when they'd first arrived. “Lilly, we'll
be in touch as soon as we have any information as to the
whereabouts of your parents. Don't worry. We'll find them.” He
stood up then and patted Constable Madley on the back. They were
clearly friends as well as colleagues. He smiled at her, “Thank
you, Constable Madley. We'll see you back at the
station.”

CHAPTER THREE

My
parents' disappearance continued to be a complete mystery. The
police had told me that even though they had followed several lines
of enquiry and spoken to countless people; they had come up without
a single clue to go on. Not one person had seen them. I was the
only one that had seen them that day. Well, I had seen her. I
hadn't actually seen my father. I had just assumed he was there. I
rarely saw him anyway, I rarely even heard him. Every now and then
I would hear her speak to him but I never heard him
reply.

It had
been a hot and humid summer and, unusual for England at that time
of year, it had lasted for quite a few weeks. Naturally, there had
been a hose pipe ban as happened every time the sun shone for more
than a week there. I had only been aware of it because my teachers
were keen to teach us all about current environmental
issues.

Not that
I noticed the ban. We didn't have a garden, we didn't even have any
plants. Our home was a bare flat in London where I had lived all my
life – all thirteen years of it. I can't say I was happy, nor can I
say I was particularly unhappy because I wouldn't have known the
true meaning of either word.

I was
very much a loner with no friends until December came along.
Luckily, the majority of kids at school were pleasant enough to us
but we didn't feel like we belonged with any of them so we simply
avoided contact. Of course there were a few that taunted us every
now and again, but we took little notice. They seemed to taunt a
lot of people at school, having silly nicknames for everyone -
apart from December. The kids were amused enough by her name not to
bother making up another. Mine was Mellow Yellow – probably because
I was so quiet and wore a lot of yellow. Not by choice though. The
few clothes that I owned were bought by my mother and for some
reason they were all yellow, not even a nice shade of yellow. All
were second-hand clothes and none fitted me properly, but I
certainly couldn't complain even if I hated them all. Like I said,
my parents and I didn't really talk.

December
and I preferred being in our own little world, alone with our
thoughts or curled up with a sneaky book under the large chestnut
tree in the playground.

At
school, we blended into the background. We were courteous to most
people and most of them were courteous to us. Yet if you asked
anyone about me, even my name, I doubted very much that any of the
kids would know. At least that was the case until my parents
mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth. Then everyone
seemed to know my name. Everyone knew I was Lilly
Taylor.

Word had
spread rapidly as I walked through the school gates a few days
later.

Out of
habit, December had waited hidden behind the walls for my arrival.
She needn't have, of course. She hugged me tightly but didn't say a
word. Somehow she just knew how I felt.

Shame
the other kids didn't have a clue. Fingers pointed, people
whispered and stared at me. Not a single other person approached
me. Had it not been for December, I would have felt even more alone
than I had ever felt before. I could easily have cried on her
shoulder but the tears did not come. As much as I wished they
would, they wouldn't come, perhaps because I had never really had
much of a relationship with either parent. I never felt loved. I
never even felt liked. But they were my family.

The
closest people to me at that time of my life, other than December,
were the kind neighbours who had offered to take care of me until
my parents were found. Or, in the event that they did not return,
until plans were made for me to travel across the world to stay
with my grand-father in Canada. A grand-father I knew nothing
about. December would be crushed. I was her only friend and she
needed me as much as I needed her. I would hate to have to leave
her, but deep down I knew that it was likely.

Rather
than put me into temporary foster care, Social Services had agreed
that my staying with the sisters was the best thing for me.
Familiarity, they said, would be better than handing me over to
complete strangers. Dorothy and June were spinsters. They had never
married but had been happy enough living together their entire
lives. They were good and honest and they were trustworthy. I
couldn't really have stayed with December even if I had wanted to.
She didn't have the best relationship with her aunt. What her
wealthy aunt gave to December in financial security, she lacked in
love. She was as lonely as I was and her aunt would never have
allowed her to take me home with her.

Later
that afternoon, I had rushed out of the school gates and looked up
at the window to see if my mother had come back. She wasn't there,
of course. No vision in white.

As I
stood there, it occurred to me that for the very first time in my
life I could do anything I wanted. Anything in the world. But I had
no idea what to do. I looked around and watched many of the other
kids laughing and joking. Some kicked around a football, others sat
on the wall sneakily smoking cigarettes, while some of the younger
ones were collected by their loving parents. December sadly waved
goodbye from her chauffeur-driven car.

Instead
of heading 'home', I gingerly walked in the opposite direction,
looking back over my shoulder afraid that someone might swoop down
and pull me back. Yet for the first time ever I felt no pull to
return to that place. If it wasn't for Dorothy and June, I would
probably have just carried on walking, but deep down I knew I
couldn't hurt them like that. Especially when they had shown
nothing but kindness to me.

So I
turned around and headed back up those stairs. The ones I had
walked up a million times before. Yet this time, I entered the
apartment across the hall from my parents' place. As I unlocked the
door, the most delicious smell of home cooking invaded my every
pore and the sounds of laughter came from the living room. I
followed the sounds and instead of finding the sisters, I found the
television switched on. I sat down and watched for a few minutes,
laughing at the silly man who pranced around like a complete idiot
getting himself stuck in silly situations. Watching until it
finished, I discovered that he was called Mr Bean. It was then that
I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for doing something I was
never permitted to do. I peered over my shoulder guiltily before
getting up and walking into the kitchen.

“
Oh
hello, dear. You're just in time for dinner. Come in. Don't just
hover by the door. I hope you had a good day at school. I've made
us a Shepherd's Pie. I hope you like that,” said Dorothy as she
gently pushed her white blonde curls behind her ears before
spooning the food onto a plate for me.

I had no
idea what a Shepherd's Pie was, but I nodded enthusiastically
nonetheless. It was easily the most delicious meal I had ever had.
At home, everything came straight from a tin. Tinned spaghetti,
tinned beans, tinned peas, tinned mince, tinned potatoes, tinned
soup, and so on. And most of it was given to me cold. Stone cold. I
only knew it was all tinned food because of the time I had sneaked
in when she wasn't looking and had opened the cupboards to find a
lifetime's supply of the stuff.

I had
never been allowed to spend any length of time in our kitchen,
other than to quickly eat, so I had no idea how to prepare food. I
guess back then I had assumed that everybody ate that kind of
stuff.

“
Did
this come out of a tin, Dorothy?” I asked.

“
Oh my
dear!” she said, “Of course not. We cook everything fresh in this
house. Did your mother never prepare you a home cooked
meal?”

I shook
my head and told her about the kinds of things I had eaten and she
looked shocked, as did June.

“
I
take it that means she never taught you to how to cook?”

I shook
my head again and told them I wasn't allowed in the kitchen other
than to quickly eat.

“
Well,
while you're staying with us, we'll just have to change that, won't
we? We'll show you everything you need to know. But first, eat up
and enjoy dear. We'll start to teach the basics tomorrow after
school,” Dorothy smiled kindly as she patted my hand.

As I
enjoyed those wonderful mashed potatoes with the tasty meat
beneath, I felt another pang of guilt. Guilt that my parents had
vanished and there I was, stuffing myself like some sort of
famished orphan. But then, perhaps that's what I had become. An
orphan. And I was hungry. Very hungry.

That
evening, the guilt continued to consume me. So much so that I felt
the need to do something about it. Something drastic. And there was
only one thing that I could do. I secretly borrowed a pair of
scissors from the kitchen and sneaked into the bathroom. After
locking the door, I stood looking at my reflection in the mirror
and before I could talk myself out of it, I took those scissors to
my hair and hacked it all off. As I stared at myself, I wished for
that guilt to disappear. It didn't. I needed to do more. Searching
through the sisters' belongings in the cupboard, I came across a
box with a picture of a woman with the same coloured hair as
Dorothy. Without giving it a second thought, I opened the box,
emptied the contents on the floor and sat on the bath mat as I read
everything on the leaflet inside the box. As instructed, I mixed
the contents of the bottles together and began covering my hair
with the cream. The strong odour made my eyes water as I slowly
began to bleach out the black from my hair.

Over an
hour later, I stood staring at my reflection, a mountain of long
black hair covered the floor by my feet. I inched closer to the
mirror and stared into my eyes. Their usual shade of vivid green
seemed flat and lifeless. Murky. I wished the guilt would
disappear. I wished for tears to come. I wished for the return of
my parents. But it was no good. There was no one to make my wishes
come true.