Jane and the Raven King (2 page)

W
hen they pulled out of the parking lot, their father said, “How many times have I told you not to leave after school? Michael, you should know better—and Jane, I’m very disappointed. You’re supposed to—” His phone rang, and he answered it. “Hello? Yes, okay. Uh-huh…”

Jane waited, and Michael sipped his soda until their father finished his conversation.
We’re in for it,
Jane thought. Dad would probably yell for the entire twenty-minute car ride home, and they might even be grounded. But when their father ended his call, he drove in silence for a long moment, then turned up the music on the radio. Michael frowned at Jane, confused.

“Dad…?” Jane said.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Are you…is everything okay?”

“Hm?” At a stop sign, he smiled into the backseat. “Sure. I’m sorry, were we talking about something before my phone rang? How was school?”

Suddenly pleased with himself, Michael said, “My day was good, but Jane—”

“I’m sorry, just a minute.” Their father answered his cell phone again. “Oh, hi. Yes, I did see that email…”

As she listened to her father’s call, the tension in Jane’s belly worsened until she balled her fists and told herself to calm down. Everything was fine. Look, there was a bird in that tree right there and more in the sky, and there was a chipmunk in a flower patch. The animals weren’t leaving; there was no squirrel with a suitcase; and so what if her dad was distracted? When he put his phone away again, their father began to hum along with the radio, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Michael grinned and enjoyed his soda. Jane rode in silence.

At home, Jane went to her room to feed celery to her pet iguana, Iz. After he’d eaten, she let him out of his tank to wander the bedroom. Jane’s desk and chair were piled with papers, magazines, and softback books, the walls were covered with
National Geographic
posters, and a Chicago Cubs calendar hung beside her window. Lazy cars passed outside. Iz climbed onto Jane’s lap. She stroked his head.

Michael knocked and came in. “What’s the matter?”

“Dad didn’t yell at us,” Jane said.

“I know, isn’t it great?”

“What’s he doing now?”

“Working on his office computer.” Michael smiled. “What will you do if your lizard poops on you?”

“Throw it at you.”

“That’s gross,” he said. “Do you want to watch TV? Come on.”

She started to protest, then put Iz back in his tank and joined Michael on the living room couch. Jane didn’t usually
watch television.
But maybe it will get my mind off everything,
she thought.

Television didn’t help, and after the first program ended, she went back into her room to do her homework.
I’m being silly,
she told herself.
Silly and stupid, that’s all.

Jane stopped by Iz’s tank. The iguana was sleeping against the glass, one eye half-open.

“Michael!” she called. “This isn’t funny!”

There were words scrawled in the sand of the tank: he is coming.

B
ut I didn’t write it!”

Jane slammed the door on Michael, let Iz roam again, and sat at her desk to work.

“You’re so dumb!” Michael shouted from the other side of the door. “I didn’t do it, Jane!”

“I don’t care. Go away.”

Jane hunched over her schoolbooks. Spelling words to memorize, twenty-two math problems on page 165—and she had to get that social studies test signed. What was that noise? She looked up. Iz was scratching the window. He’d never done that before. As she watched, the iguana slipped his claws under the window, jammed his snout into the gap, and began to wedge the window open.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Jane said. She put Iz on the floor, then closed and locked the window. That was strange. Because it was still chilly outside, Jane’s window was always shut. Someone had unlocked it.

Before she could start on her homework again, Iz climbed back to the window and resumed scratching, so Jane put him back in his tank and stirred up the sand to cover the words.
Who is coming?
she wondered. Who had Michael meant? It didn’t make sense. That crazy blind man with his dog? The old man had talked
about someone else—some kind of bird. The Raven King, wasn’t it? That was nonsense, she should just worry about how to spell
capricious
.
C-A-P
…

Jane lost track of the time and was just finishing the last math problem when the doorbell chimed. She went to see who it was and came into the entryway just as her mother and father opened the front door. Michael stood back with Jane.

“Mom?” Jane said. “I didn’t know you were home.” Her mother always gave the kids a kiss when she got home and asked them what they wanted for dinner…

“Yes,” her mother murmured. “Hi, honey.”

Grandma Diana—her mother’s mother—was waiting on the porch. Beautiful and strong like a warhorse or lioness, Grandma Diana wore a navy suit and carried a beaded purse. She was in town for a month, visiting all the way from England.

“There we are,” she said with a slight British accent. “You both look pale. Are you feeling well?”

“Yes, Mother. It’s good to see you,” Jane’s mother said. “Come in please.”

Grandma Diana stepped in, handed her coat to Jane’s father, and nodded approvingly at Jane. “This is how children are
meant
to look. Jane, you are lovelier than ever.” Jane hugged her grandmother, and Grandma Diana raised her eyebrows at Michael. “What have we done now, Michael? Why the guilty look?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I see.” Her arm around Jane, Grandma Diana took them into
the living room and said, “I do not smell anything cooking. Am I early? You did say six-thirty, didn’t you?”

“I am so sorry,” Jane’s mother said. “It completely slipped my mind…”

“Things have been so crazy,” her father said.

“You forgot that I had been invited to dinner?” Grandma Diana asked, suddenly suspicious. She released Jane to examine Jane’s parents. This wasn’t like them, Jane thought. They’d never forgotten to prepare a meal before. Grandma Diana said, “You still intended to eat with your children, didn’t you?”

“I am so sorry, Mother,” Jane’s mother said again.

“We forgot,” her father said. “Honestly.”

His phone rang. When he started to answer, Grandma Diana snatched it away and said, “Yes, who is this? He is busy feeding his family at the moment. You will have to try again tomorrow. Yes, I said tomorrow. Thank you, good night.” She ended the call and drew herself up. “Now, then, I am partial to chicken fried rice. What would everyone else like?”

Jane’s mother said, “Mother, we don’t have the ingredients—”

“It is too late to cook,” Grandma Diana announced. “Therefore, I am ordering Chinese food. Young Michael’s favorite, if I am not mistaken. What would you like?”

Jane’s father paled. “My phone…”

Michael wanted Mongolian beef, Jane asked for vegetable fried rice, her mother chose beef with broccoli, and her father continued to frown at his seized cell phone.

“My phone…” he said again.

“I doubt you could add enough soy sauce to make it edible,” Grandma Diana said, and Michael laughed. “In any event,” she continued, “I know for a fact that your fortune is not hidden inside. What would you like to eat?”

He said, “Shrimp teriyaki please.”

“Right.” Grandma Diana placed the order, returned his phone, and started for the kitchen. “Jane, please help me make tea, will you? Everyone else, have a seat. We will be back in a moment.”

I
n the kitchen, Grandma Diana started rummaging through the cabinets, and when she heard the television come on in the living room, she called, “No TV! Turn it off, please! Thank you!” The television went silent. “Jane, dear, will you get the stove on and fill up the kettle?”

Jane clicked on the electric burner, rinsed out her mother’s green teapot, and waited for the pot to fill in the sink.

“How is school, dear?” Grandma Diana asked.

“It’s okay,” Jane said.

Grandma Diana found three mugs, a can of tea leaves, and an ornate metal strainer. “I didn’t have much use for it when I was your age either. Children see things much more clearly than adults. It’s why adults are so difficult.”

“Why?” Jane asked.

“They are jealous.” Grandma Diana smiled. “That is enough water, dear. Put it on the stove please.” Jane did, and as they waited for the water to boil, Grandma Diana arranged the three mugs on a tray decorated with pictures of cheese and French writing. She said, “Adults forget that they were small once. They forget the things they knew.” She stared at the tray for a long moment, then forced another smile and put her arm around Jane. “You are good,
Jane, and very strong. Stronger than you know. Stronger than any of us, I think.”

“School isn’t
that
bad,” Jane said.

“I am not talking about school. I am talking about
this
.” Grandma Diana nodded to the empty kitchen and gave Jane a knowing look. “Something is wrong, isn’t it? Don’t pretend you don’t understand. You know what I mean. Something is coming, and I feel as though…” She frowned as if she’d forgotten what she was going to say. “I should know what it is. It is familiar…”

The pot steamed and began to whistle. Grandma Diana lowered the heat, unscrewed the lid of the can, and sprinkled tea-leaf debris into the strainer, which she wedged over the first mug.

“When I was your age, the world seemed cruel and magnificent at the same time,” she said as she carefully poured the boiling water through the strainer, filling the first mug. “Does it feel that way again?”

Jane watched her grandmother move the strainer to the second mug. “I don’t know.”

“There is no right or wrong answer, Jane. How does the world feel? Wonderful at times?”

“Yes.”

“But at any moment…” She started pouring the third mug. “Ah, I am sure it is nothing. I am being foolish. Don’t listen to me.” She finished pouring and smiled. “Will you get the honey and milk, dear?”

Jane carried the tea tray into the living room, and Grandma Diana said, “Only the women will be drinking tea today.”

Jane’s mother and father had been staring at their reflections in the television while Michael flipped through a comic book.

“But I want tea too,” he said.

“Are you a woman?” Grandma Diana said.

“No, but—”

“I am sure you would prefer a soft drink. Go ahead.”

As her brother went into the kitchen, Jane arranged the tray on the center table, and Grandma Diana handed a mug to Jane’s mother.

“I’m sorry,” Jane’s mother said. “Did you say something?”

“The tea is hot, dear,” Grandma Diana said. “Don’t burn yourself.”

What is wrong with my parents?
Jane wondered.
It’s as if they can’t even think straight.

“Hold your tea out like this,” Grandma Diana told Jane, raising her cup with both hands like an offering. “You too,” she said to Jane’s mother. When all three mugs were up, Grandma Diana said, “Come what may, let the warmth of this cup protect our dear Jane. Come what may.” She paused. “That’s all. Who would like honey?”

“Why is Jane so special?” Michael asked from the kitchen doorway.

“She is your sister,” Grandma Diana said. “Isn’t that enough of a reason?”

“Were you praying?”

Grandma Diana patted the couch beside her, and Michael came to sit there. “We are a family, Michael. Do you understand what that means?”

He slurped his soda. “Yes. But why were you praying for Jane?”

“Do you ever ask for things inside your head? For a good grade on a test or for a girl to like you?” He looked skeptical, but she continued, “That is all I was doing. I want good things for all of you because I love you very much. Now, where is our food?”