Raven (8 page)

Now that was cool.

He was holding a material sack again and he offered it to her now. She took it with a quizzical look on her face. He seemed to look uncomfortable about it but said nothing. She opened it and saw the same pile of berries he had given her previously.

“Why do you bring me berries?” she asked gently. Her curiosity was getting the better of her. His jaw clenched tightly and she could see he was trying not to say anything. She took his hand in hers and he looked deep into her eyes.

“Will you tell me?” she asked again. He took his hand from hers and ran them through his hair, his features only disappearing now as the darkness of the night met them on the balcony top. 

“I can’t help it,” he said non-committedly.

“Help what?” she asked.

“Bringing you food,” he said, “and defending the area around your house and showing off when I fly around you,” he said. She blushed at his frankness but was still intrigued.

“Why do you do it though?” she asked, still not understanding.

“We, ah…that’s what ravens do when…um…when we find a mate,” he said kind of sheepishly.

“Oh…ohhhhh,” she said, suddenly speechless.

“You don’t need to worry, I’m not about to steal your virtue,” he laughed. It was the first time she had heard him laugh. It was incredible – a raven’s cackle, high pitched and throaty – it made her smile instantly.

“Of course not,” she replied, thinking it was just as well he couldn’t read her thoughts or he would have seen himself undressing her right at that moment. She went quiet then, regretfully remembering the conversation she’d had with Harmony. He perceptibly noticed the shift in her demeanour and gave her a puzzled look.

“We need to talk,” she said, “Come inside where we can talk freely”. He followed without hesitation and looked around her apartment with interest.

“You have a lot of pretty things,” he said admiringly.

“Ah, thanks – I think. You like décor?” she asked surprised.

“I don’t know – it’s a bird thing – I have all these behaviours a raven would possess and sometimes I act on them, whether I want to or not. It’s like it is just programmed for me to act a certain way sometimes. In the wild we would collect things for building a nest,” he said as he swivelled around to face her.

“You saw your sister?” he asked abruptly, leaving several unanswered questions she had for him with regards to his ‘behaviours’.

“Yes. Why did you want me to see her? You obviously know more than I do about everything,” she said.

“I do. But I wanted to give you the chance to hear it from someone else first,” he said.

“Why, so I would believe you?” she said.

“Partly, but mainly because I just wanted you to stay as far away from this whole mess as you could,” he said.

“I thought I could help you, but I can’t,” she said simply. In her mind she knew she would rather the whole population of the ravens stay the way they were rather than have to sacrifice him just to right a wrong that her grandmother had set in motion all those years ago.

He took a step closer to her and held her shoulders in his strong hands.

“I know you know a way to break the curse,” he said.

“I do, but I can’t give you what you want Eilam,” she said.

“It’s not for me I wish you to break it. The others, they grow stronger every day and their numbers grow. Your grandmother didn’t anticipate that the first of our kind would be able to procreate – but they did, and now – their numbers grow quicker than those of the humans,” he said.

“I’m sorry Eilam, but in order to help you I have to hurt you,” she said.

“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make things right. You don’t have much time to decide Aiyana. The ravens, they have eyes everywhere and if they even for a minute suspected that you were the one who could break the curse than you would be marked immediately,” he said, a deep look of consternation written all over his features.

“I can’t,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. She stared at the floor to avert his gaze for she felt sure that if she looked into those eyes that she would do whatever he asked her to.

“You don’t understand, Aiyana. When your grandmother set the curse it was meant to rid the world of these people who were causing such atrocities. The ravens were meant to be like normal birds that just flew away, never to be seen again. But something went wrong. Instead of fixing the problem it got worse. These people suddenly had powers they could only dream of. They were strong, invincible and had the ability to come and go as they pleased, never being caught for all the demonic things they did,” he said.

“But you’re not bad, I know you’re not. There must be others like you also?” she said, still not looking him in the eyes. He lifted her chin so that her eyes would meet his gaze.

“No I’m not bad, as you put it, and yes – there are others like me. We stay in a flock away from the others, but if they knew even for a second that you had the ability to alter their current state then they would come for you and wouldn’t let you go until they had killed you. Don’t you see? The ones of us who are good are willing to do whatever it takes to make this world go back to the way it used to be,” he said as he released her chin from his grasp.

“I think it’s a little late for that,” she said with uncertainty.

He gripped her shoulders again, as though to emphasise his point.

“It’s not too late Aiyana. We can stop them, you can stop them! All you have to do is break the curse – however it must be done, whatever must be done – only you can do it,” he said as he released her.

“I can’t do what has been asked of me,” she said, tears starting to prick her eyes. How could she tell him what really needed to be done?

“At least think about it, I’ll do whatever you ask of me, just promise me you’ll think about it,” he said.

“I promise,” she said, not really believing she would truly consider it. A snippet of conversation she’d had with her sister intruded on her thoughts now and she suddenly was eager to ask Eilam a question.

“Why would my sister tell me to stay away from you?” she asked.

He looked like he had been slapped in the face and turned away from her hurriedly, eager to conceal his expression.

“I have no idea why,” he said flatly.

“Eilam, please look at me,” she begged. He turned slowly, apparently recovered from the surprise he had suffered at her question. “Why would my sister tell me to stay away from you?”

He was thoughtful for a moment before replying. “I had heard through some of the older ravens that a woman named Harmony – a friend of your grandmothers would know of a young woman who would possess the ability to break the curse. A daughter descended from the same blood line as she. This person was you. I’ve been trying to track you down for a number of years now. In my search for you, I first crossed paths with Cybele. It appeared to me that your sister wanted nothing to do with our race at all and she refused to help,” he said.

She sensed he was holding something back, but she let it be for the moment. She had too much going on in her brain right now and she was starting to get a headache. She needed to take some paracetamol before it developed into a full blown migraine and decided to make a pot of tea to wash it down with.

“Do you drink tea?” she asked as she moved over to the kitchenette to fill the kettle with water.

“Yes, only herbal though,” he laughed – again the tinkling cackle of the ravens voice reached her ears.

“Right,” she said smiling to herself as she set about searching the cupboards for some chamomile that she knew she had stashed in there somewhere.

“You can sit down on the couch there if you like,” she offered as she gestured towards it. He did so, but sat perched on the arm of the settee, seemingly unsure of how one would go about sitting on such a thing. She almost laughed out loud, but thought it would be very poor manners and didn’t want to appear as though she were making fun of him.

Once the kettle had boiled she carried the pot and two mugs on a tray over to where he sat. She rested the tray on the floor and then patted the seat next to herself, indicating that he should join her on the cushion. He watched her intently, curious about each and every movement she made.

She was nervous – for the first time in her life she actually cared about what someone thought of her. Gone were the tough exterior and the walls she had built up around herself. One kiss was all it had taken for him to capture her eye. One moment to set her heart on a course, that even she didn’t know where it would end up. She sipped her tea, too hot to just gulp down. He copied her.

She wondered if ravens displayed mimicking behaviours. Not that she would dream of asking him, he would probably die of embarrassment if she’d brought it up. She put her mug back down on the tray and he did the same.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Why a raven? What was it about this animal that made my grandmother choose this as an alternate vessel for their souls?” she asked.

“I think it’s important to remember that your grandmother’s spell didn’t eventuate the way she had intended, but with that in mind, the raven was very much a symbolism of the words spoken as she uttered her spell of witchcraft to the damned. The words spoke of evil flying away, so the world could be rid of their souls. In uttering these words, the spell found a way of working its magic to suit the nature of the beast whilst still adapting a literal context to the words. Hence a raven was born. A creature that could fly, black as night – a symbolism of their dark nature and most importantly, the correlation between the bird and its depiction throughout our cultural history,” he said.

“You mean the negativity that surrounds the bird?” she asked.

“Yes of course. Throughout history people have always thought of ravens as the bearers of ill omen and death, in part because of the negative symbolism that their all back plumage brings. Throughout Europe they have been known to represent the ghosts of murdered people or souls of the damned. Your grandmother’s spell was actually an adaptation in itself, and the flaw of the spell itself was that everything these people were in their human forms translated to an animal known throughout our cultural history to possess the same traits. I’m not saying the raven actually has these traits – it is just the way the spell was interpreted as the curse set in. Culturally a raven had been known to perform great malicious acts and lead people astray, which of course draws a very significant parallel between the two. The flaw was that the spell also represented another cultural depiction, which was that the raven possesses super human strength and powers. I guess in hindsight it would seem like a poor choice of animal with the already dark negativity that surrounded such a bird.”

“She was too weak, my grandmother I mean, to carry out the spell,” she said to herself, “that’s why there were so many flaws with it”.

He nodded now, like he already understood the predicament of the whole mess and why it was flawed. Aiyana realised now with the pitch black sky outside that more time must have passed than she thought and didn’t realise that they had been talking for quite so long. She sensed he was done talking for the time being, but didn’t want him to leave just yet. He too seemed to linger, making no move whatsoever to leave her.

“Can I show you something?” he asked, taking her hand as he did so. She gathered the question was offered purely out of courtesy, although he had to have known that she would have said yes anyway.

She let him pull her up off the settee and walked with her hand in his to the glass doors that opened up on to the balcony.

They went outside, and even though she followed obediently, they both were remiss to let go of each other’s hand. He stopped and closed his eyes – inhaling the night air deeply as he did so – drinking in all the scents that blew across the wind towards him. His ears also strained to absorb the sounds around him and he seemed satisfied that all was well within their proximity for the time being.

He opened his eyes now and looked at her with such a look of wanting that she was sure her heart missed a beat. He pulled her long dark tresses out of the tie that had secured her hair off her face and he shook it loosely down her back. He stroked down her back and pulled her closer to him. That smell about him, so woody and earthy, it made her almost lose her senses as she tried to figure out what he was going to do next. He bent his head towards her and kissed her lips so softly. If she had any manners she probably would have tried not to make the groan that escaped her lips so audible.

Her eyes still closed from the kiss, she felt rather than saw him smile at such a reaction. He moved the kisses along her jaw line and trailed them down her throat. She was shocked when he nipped at her neck, softly biting the skin.

It didn’t hurt her at all, but it instantly put an image in her mind of a bird grooming another. She giggled inwardly at the thought, just as a strange sound reverberated from his throat. It was almost as if he was cooing and she could sense the happiness the emanated from him. Now she really did giggle out loud. She really didn’t mean to, but he was tickling her neck so!

“You’re laughing at me,” he said into her neck as he nipped her again.