Gabriel Finley and the Raven’s Riddle (14 page)

Startled, the young raven glanced at her wound again, but she had preened her feathers to conceal it.

“Remember, you will find your amicus by using what you have learned from me. It's that simple.”

His mother seemed to be preparing him for something scary and terrible. A world without her.

Paladin's Amicus

O
n that very same afternoon, Gabriel was walking home from school with Abby. The sky was grim and dark; a chilly wind rushed them along the street with a peculiar kind of urgency. Abby shivered and buttoned the two layers of cardigans she was wearing.

“So,” she said. “What do you think the next question should be?”

“You mean, for the desk?” replied Gabriel.

“Exactly.”

A look of yearning appeared on Gabriel's face. “There's only one question,” he said. “Where is my father? And I'm going to find out, no matter what it takes. I just know it's all connected to Corax.”

Abby adjusted her glasses. “Interesting,” she said. “Because I've been thinking about the torc mentioned in your dad's diary. Do you think your dad found it? And that's why—”

“He disappeared!” Gabriel nodded. “Wow, Abby, that makes perfect sense!”

By this time, they were walking up their block. Almost at
once, Gabriel felt that something was most definitely wrong. He stepped into the street, which was scattered with broken twigs and sticks. Quickly he glanced up at the oak tree: the raven's nest was gone.

“Gabriel? What is it?” asked Abby.

Endora was in pain, yet she took to the air holding Paladin, determined to get him to a safe spot. She chose one of the wide window ledges of the Finley house.

The moment she landed, a dark bird alighted on the wrought-iron railing a short distance away. Even in the dim light, she could see the empty gap of his missing eye. The other one stared ruthlessly at her.

“So kind of you to bring the young one to me,” he said in a hoarse snarl.

Endora drew in her breath. “You can't have him.”

“I take what I want,” replied Hookeye. He moved toward her.

Endora's neck feathers sprang out in warning and she blocked his way.

“Don't worry,” said Hookeye in a soothing tone. “Corax, Lord of Air and Darkness, will make good use of this young fellow's talents. He seeks the torc, and your precious little one will—”

“You'll never take him!” cried Endora.

Hookeye noticed the bloody wound on Endora's wing. A
smile appeared at the corners of his beak. In a flash, he lunged forward, but Endora was quicker, and seized the one-eyed valraven by his throat.

Up they fluttered, the valraven struggling and scratching with his talons while Endora summoned every last bit of strength to keep her beak clenched on his neck as she prepared one final dive.

At the end of the street, a large oil truck came roaring toward Gabriel and Abby. Its headlights jiggled as it picked up speed.

“Gabriel!” Abby said anxiously, pulling him back onto the sidewalk. “What is wrong with you!”

A sense of tremendous danger had gripped Gabriel; he couldn't speak. Instead, his eyes were drawn to a raven up in the air. She was in pain (he could feel it), and she was struggling against a shabby-looking raven with fierce yellow eyes, barely restraining it by the throat. In a desperate moment, she saw the truck and seemed to resign herself. She swooped down, leading the other bird into the truck's path. There was a terrible impact as a cloud of feathers burst from the front of the truck. As it rattled away, the street became mournfully silent.

A wave of grief engulfed Gabriel. When he missed his father, he felt this way—sad, abandoned, and confused. He wiped his eyes hurriedly before tears appeared, and turned
to Abby. “She was fighting a valraven. But why did she give up her life?”

“I guess it was the only way to protect the little one,” Abby replied. She pointed to a spot on the second-floor windowsill of his house. Alone, in the corner, a small, fuzzy baby bird lay trembling. Its small black eyes blinked at them.

It was on Trudy Baskin's windowsill, so they decided it would be wiser to retrieve the chick from outside rather than risk going into her room. Abby suggested making a pyramid of upside-down trash cans. Gabriel climbed up to the sill. He placed the little orphan gently into the side pocket of his coat, and clambered back down and held it out for Abby to see.

“Sweet little thing,” said Abby. “Its mother wasn't going to let that disgusting valraven get near him.”

The next thing that happened surprised both of them. The fledgling's beak opened, and in a frail, high voice, he spoke:

“What can you take from someone, but never keep?”

Abby and Gabriel stared, astonished.

“What can you take from someone, but never keep?” repeated the bird, looking anxiously from the boy to the girl.

“Take from someone, but never keep …,” said Abby.

“A temperature?” said Gabriel.

The fledgling nodded, and it laughed—a croaky, joyous raven laugh.

“I've answered a raven's riddle,” said Gabriel, his eyes wide with excitement.

The Orphan

I
t was one thing to read about talking ravens in a diary, quite another to be spoken to. Abby and Gabriel pinched each other to be sure they had seen and heard the same thing. Abby's pinch was particularly sharp, and Gabriel gasped with pain.

“Ow!” he said. “Well, I'm definitely wide awake.”

Paladin looked at them with a trembling stare. He was swooning with hunger, grief, and exhaustion, but he hadn't forgotten his mother's last words of advice.
You must seek your amicus.
He looked from the girl to the boy, searching for some link, a shared feeling of some sort. Almost immediately, he recognized it in the boy, the same bond he'd felt in the nest, watching Gabriel walk to school every day—they had the same urgent mission. Paladin spoke it aloud.

“Corax must not find the torc.”

“What?” said Abby, looking at the fledgling.

Gabriel trembled. “Corax must not find the torc. He
knows
, Abby.”

Relieved to see that Gabriel understood, the bird said one last thing: “I am Paladin.” Then, overcome with relief, he closed his eyes and rested in Gabriel's palm.

“Paladin,” repeated Abby. “Wow! This is no accident: your father's disappearance, finding this bird, the riddle, Corax. It's all connected. You have to take him inside, Gabriel.”

Gabriel nodded. As he walked up the steps, he looked at Abby anxiously. “Are you going to tell anyone about this?”

“Are you kidding?” she replied. “I'm still in trouble for painting the toilet!”

She crossed the street to her house, then turned to him and uttered another
yippee!

Gabriel entered the house and hurried down the stairs to the kitchen. He wasn't planning to tell Aunt Jaz that the bird had talked (at least, not right away), but the moment she saw the raven in his arms, she seemed to know. Her eyes crinkled with affection and excitement, as if she had been waiting forever for this moment.

Her first words, however, were restrained. “Oh, the poor little dear,” she said, and turned to show Gabriel that Trudy and Pamela were in the kitchen, too.

Trudy said nothing until her daughter attempted to stroke the chick. “Pamela, don't you dare touch that thing,” she snapped. “It's probably full of parasites. It belongs outside. Gabriel, put it out right now!”

He glared back. “I have to feed him; he's barely alive.” He began searching the refrigerator for leftovers.

Trudy turned to Aunt Jaz. “Jasmine, talk sense into him! What if this creature spreads disease?”

Gabriel looked imploringly at Aunt Jaz.

“Gabriel's father took care of a wounded raven,” Aunt Jaz told Trudy.

“I should have known.” Trudy sighed, and her eyes flashed at Gabriel. “Like father, like son.”

“Actually,” retorted Gabriel, “you'd be surprised who else in my family was interested in ravens—”

“That's enough, Gabriel!” said his aunt sharply. She pointed to the laundry room beyond the kitchen. “You can keep the bird in there, out of harm's way.”

Gabriel placed the raven in a basket lined with an old towel and set it in the laundry room. All through dinner, he had to fight the desire to check on the baby bird. Afterward, he offered the raven some scraps from his plate. The bird did not eat but buried his head in his chest and fell asleep.

Gabriel kept Paladin company for as long as he could that evening. Eventually his aunt came to ask him to go to bed.

“Aunt Jaz? He spoke to me,” he whispered. “He said, ‘Corax must not find the torc.' ”

His aunt's boomerang eyebrows tilted with concern. “Remarkable. He must have sensed that you knew about the whole matter. A good sign that you are evenly matched. Raven and amicus.”

Gabriel regarded her with surprise. “Why didn't you ever say it would happen to me?”

“I wasn't sure. And if it didn't happen, I knew you'd be very disappointed,” she replied. She was solemn for a moment, and it occurred to Gabriel that Aunt Jaz must have been envious of her brothers.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “It's still time for bed, my dear.”

Gabriel returned the baby bird to its basket. He followed his aunt upstairs and said goodnight at her bedroom door.

“One thing, Gabriel?” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“Trudy doesn't know the truth about Corax, and I would prefer to keep it that way.”

“Okay,” he said. “But she talks about my dad as if he was no good and Corax was some kind of hero.”

She shook her head. “Your father is most definitely a hero.”

“I'm going to prove it to her!” he promised.

Aunt Jaz's expression softened. “Gabriel, when your father found a raven, it changed him forever—just as it changed Corax.” She searched his face. “Life may never be so simple for you, either.”