Raven (26 page)

I didn't
even want to think what might have happened, but I couldn't prevent
those negative thoughts from entering my mind. Had a bear attacked
him? Surely I would have heard if something so large and ferocious
had done, wouldn't I? What about a vampire? Or that man who could
change into an alligator, the one Gabriel had first mentioned
months ago? My mind was running riot. I thought of Rose, 'Breathe,
Lilly, breathe. Slowly, in and out, in and out'. I knew that's what
she would be telling me to do.

Charlie
stood looking at me, quizzically, “Lilly, my dear. What are you
doing? We must get out of here.”

“
I
need to calm down, Charlie. I need to think about this sensibly and
not react wrongly. I wouldn't want to rush off only to find that
Gabriel isn't far away. I can't just leave now. Anything could have
happened,” I whispered while I continued to practice the deep
breathing techniques.

“
That's exactly why we need to leave now. We need to get to
the Elders now,” he said authoritatively.

“
You
go and I'll stay here and wait,” I said, standing my
ground.

“
Lilly
you are coming with me and you're coming with me now, young lady,”
he said as his nostrils flared. His face and demeanour changed
suddenly and I began to get the feeling that Charlie wasn't who or
what Gabriel thought he was. I began to think that my intuition the
previous evening had been spot on. Charlie wasn't one to be
trusted.

“
Charlie... where is my grand-father?” I asked. “What have
you done to him?” I asked.

He
turned and laughed a deep laugh, “You're a smart girl Lilly, aren't
you? I thought I had fooled you both last night, but clearly not.
Now listen to me. If you want your grand-father to remain alive,
you had better do as I say.”

I knew I
had no choice but to do exactly as he said. Until I knew where
Gabriel was I couldn't risk losing him altogether. I nodded, trying
hard to keep myself from transforming.

“
Pick
up your bag and walk ahead of me... that way,” he said, pointing in
the same direction where I had seen the owl the night
before.

I
stumbled ahead and tried to think of ways to escape but I knew I
couldn't go anywhere. Because if I did, I might never see Gabriel,
alive, again.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

“
Why
are you doing this?” I asked Charlie after we'd walked in silence
for over an hour. “What have you done with Gabriel?”

“
Be
quiet and keep walking,” he said, while I wondered how my
grand-father had trusted this beast. He was usually such a good
judge of character, how could he have let this happen? But I knew
it wasn't his fault. Being so close to the Elders, Gabriel had
assumed he could trust him. Clearly he had been wrong.

Charlie
was after something. I didn't know what that was yet but I would
find out soon enough.

The fact
that Gabriel was gone and Charlie was kidnapping me suggested I had
something he wanted. I dreaded to think what it was. As I thought
about this evil creature, I began to notice something familiar on a
tree a little further ahead. It was an owl. And it looked an awful
lot like the one from the night before. It was watching me. I
wondered if it was just an owl or if it had special abilities. I
stared at it, hoping that it would somehow swoop down and rescue
me. But it didn't. Like before, it swiftly looked away and then
took flight.

“
Keep
moving!” yelled Charlie and he shoved me causing me to stumble on
the loose stones beneath my feet. As I fell onto my knees, I
contemplated whether I should just change and rip the goat to
shreds.

But I
calmed myself down again, thinking about Gabriel's safety. I pulled
myself back onto my feet and rubbed my hands on the front of my
combats, to get rid of the grit and dirt. In the distance I could
see what appeared to be another cave. We seemed to be heading in
that direction. After another ten minutes or so, as we approached
it, I noticed that we were not alone. Somebody was waiting for
us.

The
person was well hidden by an old black cape that covered them from
head to toe.

Charlie
spoke first. “Here she is, Master, here she is. Just as you
requested. Lilly Tulugaq,” and he pushed me so hard that I fell
once again to the feet of the stranger.

The fall
angered me and I yelped. It was with great difficulty that I stayed
calm.

“
Don't
you mean Lilly Taylor?”

As she
said those words, I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach. I
was winded. I closed my eyes momentarily and then looked up as she
removed the cape from her face. I gasped at the sight of
Vivian.

This
wasn't the woman that I had lived with for thirteen years. This
Vivian had thin greying hair and wrinkles. Her shoulders stooped
forward and her back curled over, like a hunchback. This Vivian had
become an old hag.

“
I
might have known that you would be responsible for all of this,” I
spat. “Where is my father?” I demanded.

“
Now
that's not a very nice way to greet your dear mother, is it?” she
spat as she circled me, looking me up and down with a
scowl.

“
My
mother is dead... and you killed her, along with my sister,” I
shouted, as I became increasingly angry.

Charlie
shoved me down to the floor again and told me to shut
up.

I could
feel the lion in me trying to take over but I knew if I transformed
then, not only would I lose Gabriel but I would lose my father
too.

“
I
raised you and this is the thanks I get,” said Vivian.

“
You
haven't got a clue how to raise a child,” I spat back, adding, “why
are you doing this? Where is Gabriel? And where is my father? If
you've hurt either of them, I swear to god I'll...”

“
You'll what, Lilly? You'll kill me with your bird's claws?
I don't think so, my darling. A little raven isn't going to kill
me. I'm one of the greatest witches that ever lived,” she
announced.

“
If
you're so great, then why do you look like an old hag?” I
asked.

“
How
dare you!” she yelled back, slapping me hard on the side of my
face.

“
You
hit like an old hag,” I said with a glare, knowing I was hitting a
nerve.

“
Get
her and bring her in here,” she ordered Charlie, who grabbed my arm
roughly and pulled me after her. The entrance to the cave was
small, but inside it proved to be a lot bigger than it first
appeared.

“
Throw
her in there,” she said, pointing to a huge bird cage in the centre
of the cavern.

As I was
pushed into it, it dawned on me that Vivian had no idea about my
true self. She thought I had the ability to transform myself into a
raven, but she knew nothing about the mountain lion. I began to
think that I could use it to my advantage.

“
What
are you going to do to me?” I asked her, watching as she read from
a large ornate book that looked centuries old.

“
I'm
going to take your blood and your hair... not that you've got very
much of that these days... and use it to make me young and
beautiful again.” She said it as if it was the most natural thing
in the world.

“
Is
that what you did to my father?” I asked, hoping to find out the
truth.

She
ignored me, instead standing up and walking over to a large shelf
that had been created from an old log, similar to the ones I had
seen on the beach at Powell River. On it were a number of vials
filled with all kinds of creepy looking things. I recognised a few
of them. They were just like the vials in the black room in
London.

“
Is
that my father's blood?” I asked.

Again
she said nothing, ignoring me as she continued to search through
the little bottles. Her eyesight was clearly failing her and she
had to hold things up close to identify their contents.

“
Talk
to me, Vivian. Oh I forgot. You never talked to me before did you?
Years of no conversation. And you think you raised me,” I said,
hoping to irritate her enough so that she'd tell me
more.

“
What
happened to you? Why are you old and ugly, Vivian?” I
continued.

“
Old... of course I'm old. I've been alive for hundreds of
years, what on earth do you expect. Why do you think I became a
witch in the first place? Eternal youth, of course. Don't you know
anything, girl?” she shrieked like the old hag she'd
become.

“
I
can't believe I thought you were my mother. You're nothing like my
mother. She was absolutely beautiful and so was my sister. No
amount of my blood and hair will ever make you beautiful. You'll
never be beautiful, Vivian. Never.”

“
Damn
you, Lillian!” she yelled, throwing a vial at the cage. The glass
bottle smashed and I was spattered with blood. Whose, I didn't
know.

“
Is
this my father's blood?” I asked again.

“
No,
it is not your father's blood. He's all out of that,” she answered
with an evil smile.

I
gasped. Did that mean he was dead? I felt as if my heart had been
ripped out of my chest.

“
When
I ran out of your father's blood, this is what became of me, if you
must know,” she said as she looked at herself in a large cracked
mirror that had been hung on the wall. She touched her face gently,
sadly.

“
He
gave me beauty and then he took it away,” she whispered.

“
Is...
is he dead? Vivian please tell me what happened to him. I need to
know,” I asked, hoping that she might have just a tiny amount of
compassion in her, somewhere.

“
Dead... dead? Does it matter whether he's dead or not? It
doesn't matter any more.”

“
It
matters to me!” I cried, tasting a salty tear as it fell down my
cheek onto my lips.

“
I
don't believe that Jack is dead. Not entirely anyway,” was all she
would say.

Although
it wasn't what I wanted to hear, it did give me a glimmer of hope.
I just needed to know where he was so I could try to save
him.

“
Where
is he? Is he here? Please Vivian. Tell me where he is.”

She
shook her head and looked at me, “I can't tell you.”

“
Please, Vivian, please,” I begged as I shook the bars of
the cage.

“
Lillian I can't tell you because I don't know where he is,”
she answered finally. “He disappeared in London. I tried to find
him but he just vanished. I don't know how he got away but he did.
The second time that has happened to me, bloody men,” she said,
“they always get away in the end,” she added more to herself than
to me.

So my
father managed to escape from Vivian and he didn't take me with
him. My heart had truly been wrenched from the depths of my soul.
He had run away and left me with a witch. What kind of father would
do that? I was at a complete and utter loss.

“
I
have spent months looking for him. Months and months... and
nothing. So now I have to find someone else to make me beautiful
again. Until I can find myself another man, a special man, you will
have to do. You are his daughter. You must carry the same blood as
he. You will have to do... for now anyway,” she said with a
smile.

“
But
why my father in the first place? There are millions of men in this
world, why did you have to choose my father?”

“
Oh
Lillian... are you that dim? I need the blood, and sometimes the
hair, of only very special people. They have special qualities in
their blood. When mixed with certain other secret ingredients and
drunk, by me, returns me to my youthful glow and extraordinary good
looks. You have your father's genes, so you must have that quality,
my dear,” she said as she approached the cage with a small dagger
in her hand.

“
Charlie, grab her hands,” she said as she opened the door
to the cage and pulled me half out. Charlie appeared behind me and
managed to hold both my hands while she cut off a very small tuft
of my hair. I breathed a temporary sigh of relief as she walked
away and dropped it into a small pot. But then she turned and
walked back towards me and pulled my leg so that it hung out of the
cage door. She grabbed my hiking shoe and sock and tugged them from
my foot. Pulling up my trousers, she very gently placed the blade
against my skin and then pressed hard so that blood oozed out from
just above my ankle. I winced, trying hard to stay calm.

She
placed a small bucket underneath my foot and waited for the blood
to drip into it.