Raven Sisters (Franza Oberwieser Book 2)
Read Raven Sisters (Franza Oberwieser Book 2) Online
Authors: Gabi Kreslehner
ALSO BY GABI KRESLEHNER
Rain Girl
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 Gabi Kreslehner and Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH
Translation copyright © 2016 Alison Layland
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Previously published as
Rabenschwestern
by Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH in Germany in 2014. Translated from German by Alison Layland. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2016.
Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503934504
ISBN-10: 1503934500
Cover design by Shasti O’Leary-Soudant
CONTENTS
1
She glanced at the clock. She had two hours. It was enough time—plenty of time. Should she?
She had seen the little bottle reflecting the shop’s display lights as she’d walked past. Her eyes had briefly lingered over the shelves, but she had not allowed herself to stop and give in to her impulse. Now her heart began to beat faster, and she closed her eyes to intensify the feeling. She liked the feeling, the prickling. The stirrings of excitement. She felt hot and cold all over and forgot all fear. Every fiber of her being was drawn into the shop, to the shelves of perfumes, surrounded by the silent, glittering bottles.
She paused for a moment, all her senses alert. She listened and watched. Sniffed the air. She finally reached out a hand.
She loved it as she always did. Loved the feeling, the prickling. The coolness of the bottle sent a current through her fingers the moment she touched it. It passed through her hand and burned into her skin like a brand.
That was why she did it. Again and again. It was not too often, but whenever her eyes fell upon the subtle sparkle of a bottle, whenever the sparkle of a bottle gently touched her heart, whenever it spoke to her in a suggestive whisper:
I’m a possibility
. Then she could not help herself.
She looked round, sniffed the air like an animal, eyes alert, ears pricked, heart thumping madly, taking in all there was to be taken in
. . .
Voices, movements in the aisles, gazes brushing over her
. . .
dangerdangerdanger . . .
Once her heart was calm, once its beat had returned to normal, then she took her opportunity and stepped into the breach between the untouched bottles. She was a tigress, a lioness, a predator stalking her prey, following a scent. A scent she believed she remembered from her childhood, one that had completely eluded her, leaving her in despair during her years of adulthood, those years when certainties had still failed to become certain and she had fallen into a pattern of searching and failing to find.
Later, in the peace of the bathroom, she opened the little bottle with trembling fingers, let its scent flow out, and immediately
. . .
the spell was broken and it lost the magic that just a moment before had set her heart alight. Not the evocative scent she had hoped for—no, never.
The disappointment grew less with time, with experience and detachment, but it was always there, forcing itself into her memory as a bland taste, a misunderstanding.
She left.
She moved quickly, broke into a run, the image burned into her retina of the bottle she had dumped in the trash, still trying to give out a last sparkle, a final spray from among the cigarette ends, half-eaten sandwiches, apple cores, and crushed cola cans that finally buried it.
Sometimes she imagined how it would be if someone caught her red-handed as she haunted the aisles, approaching her with rapid footsteps and determined eyes. She knew she would defend herself. All she had learned in her self-defense classes in the sports center would finally pay off, and she would bring her assailant up short with a perfectly aimed kick, the toe of her shoe precisely targeted at privates that were protected by nothing but a thin layer of fabric, defenseless against a sharp-toed shoe and its devastating effect.
Lilli wondered how it would feel when her shoe landed in that spot; she wondered whether the cry of that unfortunate scent-bottle guardian would freeze her blood as the pain froze his.
She knew that she would run away then, despite the pain that flashed through them both. No, no one could snatch them from her grasp, the sparkling bottles, the dispensers of relief, the trophies of her intrepid quest.
Lilli smiled shakily and breathed deeply. Still thinking of the bottle in the airport bathroom trash, she leaned back to look at the departure screen. She would be home in a few hours. Home, whatever that was.
She smiled, a little lost, a little shocked by the thoughts that sometimes fluttered inside her like ghosts, vague and translucent but clear enough for Lilli to recognize that there was an abyss.
She thought of how her hand had wrapped around the bottle, how she had felt the pointed top digging into her palm, how the coolness faded into a faint warmth, a warmth that did not penetrate into her fingers.
Suddenly she was freezing. Shivering, she drew her coat tighter around her. The dark purple velvet was really too warm for the season, for the warmth of the early September afternoon, but she felt cold and she loved the coat. She loved its straight lines, which were beautifully softened by the supple velvet. She had discovered the coat at the end of the London summer in the tiny Soho boutique of a still-unknown designer. She had pressed her face against the sleeve and was immediately absorbed by the softness and security of this dark purple haven. She had to have the coat whatever the cost. It had not cost that much, t
idy sum though it was. But the money didn’t matter. She suspected she would wear it until it hung from her body in rags.
Various other items in the shop had caught her eye, but none interested her as much as she interested the designer. The moment he saw Lilli, he assumed a rapt expression, reflecting the very same fascination she felt for the coat.
Would she stay and be his muse, he’d asked. Her features, her hair, her figure, her legs
. . .
ohhh
. . .
it was all so
. . .
Would she stay?
What is your name, miss?
She’d smiled with a hint of pride mixed with a hint of perplexity, pretending not to understand. She was a tourist, she explained, and
very bad in English
.
By the time she finally left the shop, he’d added a pair of boots to the coat. They were dark gray and soft suede, high heels, over the knee. They fit so well, so lightly, that she walked as though her feet were winged. She’d turned back once and saw the designer at the door, giving her a bow and then raising his hands in applause. He’d called after her,
Stay! Please stay! Come back, my dear!
Lilli laughed and began to run, waving to him with the full force of her good fortune, jumping into the air, imagining the world turning beneath her—unstoppable and continuous—and sensing the pulse of life all around her.
Back home in her tiny apartment, she’d twirled before the mirror in wonder, thinking,
Wow! Such elegance! If Mr. Greenow saw me like this at the office, he would bow and say, “My
dear, you’re the best!”
and for once actually mean it.
That evening she knew with certainty that she didn’t want to become a lawyer. A small feeling of satisfaction had mounted in her, coupled with delight at the thought of flying home soon.
Her internship had been good. But the city had been even better. Huge. Loud. Glittering. Simply London. She had immersed herself in the city, in its strangeness and its freedom, and it had felt good. Three months had passed quickly, a series of flying visits, every morning starting with the shimmering of the dark coffee she brought to Mr. Greenow’s office, which was received with a sigh of gratitude and the same words every day,
You’re the best, my dear.
Mr. Greenow had studied with her grandfather, and it was to that fact she owed her three-month internship in his office, where major cases were handled—revenue matters, business affairs, homicide investigations—the type of cases that made the life of an attorney so varied and exciting.
She had smiled as she participated in negotiations, sitting next to the tough young lawyers—all of them tigers—and listening to their confident voices. But every day she became increasingly aware that it had absolutely nothing to do with her.
It didn’t make her sad. On the contrary, it gave her certainty. That surprised her. The consequences would be bitter—three years gone up in smoke.
A waste of a degree course,
she thought as she sat in the departure hall at the airport, London Stansted. Mr. Greenow would now be saying those same words—
you’re the best, my dear—
to someone else.
But her internship had been good, and the city even better. She’d have to tell her grandfather that being a lawyer was just not for her. It was really not her thing at all. There would be something else, although she was not yet sure what it was.
She sighed. She wished she knew what the future would hold. But there was one thing she did know. She knew what her grandfather would say, the aging attorney who had wanted her to succeed him, to be the one to inherit his law firm since his own daughter had disappointed him:
You’re like your mother,
he would say with a hint of contempt in his eyes.
You don’t know what you want. You get carried away by stupid ideas.
No,
she thought, and couldn’t help grinning. She was not carried away by “stupid ideas.” In fact, there were no ideas at all for the moment. She felt
. . .
light. And she also felt a connection with her mother, which surprised her since they were, after all, so different.
She was hungry and wandered through the rows of counters that lined the airport in a cheerful array. Outside, airplanes landed and took off. She thought of the exhibition she had seen a few weeks ago. It was of a German photographer’s work, titled
People at the Airport
or
Waiting Photos
or some such. Lilli had been unusually touched by the photographs, as if they were familiar. Perhaps it was the way in which the camera had portrayed the faces—the eyes—as though it recognized them. Lilli wasn’t sure why, but she hadn’t been able to forget the photographs or the photographer. But of course she wouldn’t forget the photographer—she already knew her name, Hanna Umlauf, which she had always found strange-sounding and beautiful. She also knew her face. Her portrait hung on her grandparents’ wall next to that of her mother.
Her cell phone rang. She took it out. Her mother.
Not now,
she thought as she slipped it back into the pocket of her velvet coat.
I’ll be seeing you soon enough.
The ringtone stopped, to be followed a short time later by a beep announcing a text. Lilli sighed.
