Oliver, realizing how far out we’d accidentally wandered, started jumping back toward the bank, his laughter floating on the wind. I could not wait to dunk him into the mighty river. He could swim, but not well.
I grinned at the thought of him flopping about on the muddy bank.
A caw pierced our moment and I looked up to see a large raven settle on a drooping branch overhead. It tilted its head toward the sky and shrieked once more.
A memory flickered through me. Elegant, feathered wings, blood dripping from their tips. Blackened feet with the claws of a predator. Equally darkened eyes that shimmered with hatred and fury. I shut my eyes, anxious to be rid of the images I couldn’t exactly recall. They floated through my mind dreamlike and fleeting. And yet, somewhere in the recesses of my memories, I felt as though this had happened once before.
My blood turned to ice.
Perched on a stone with water rushing over my naked feet I heard the creature scream once more, a sound so loud that I paused to stare at it. My arms flailed in my attempt to stay upright.
I had a moment of prickling dread when the raven snapped its head down to meet my gaze. My breath whooshed from my tightened lungs and I thought for a moment that the bird recognized me.
Or maybe I recognized the bird.
I shook my head. Then the bird spread its long, onyx wings and swooped down toward my face.
I screamed and ducked out of the way, but I lost my footing. I was submerged before I could close my mouth again.
I sucked in a lungful of cold water as I struggled desperately to break through the surface. My heavy dress only became heavier in the water. My feet brushed the sandy bottom, but the water moved too rapidly for me to find purchase so I could launch my body upwards.
I fought frantically against the rush of water and my tangling clothes, but I was no match for the fierce current.
Everything grew dark.
The raven flitted from my mind as the need to survive took precedence. There was nothing left to think except, drat.
Pure, raw frustration pulsed through me. This was the stupidest possible way for my life to end.
I should have died with my family eight years ago.
2
I pushed upward in one last great effort and managed to suck in a final breath. A wave smashed into me in the next second and dragged me under the surface once more.
As though its claws could reach down and grasp my attention, I heard the distant call of a raven as the current continued to push me along. The malicious bird bellowed a song of victory.
It must be a dream, I reasoned. Images of my family smiling and laughing and living danced through my mind and I had the odd sensation that I was dreaming while awake. Their deaths haunted me even while I succumbed to my own.
I imagined my family waiting for me on the other side of death. Their familiar arms opened wide in welcome, their smiling faces promising peace and safety, love and warmth. “Tessana,” my father called through the murky haze. “Come home.”
He is calling me to them, I realized.
I didn’t particularly want to die, but it didn’t seem so bad, now. It would be better to be with them. Better to leave this world behind and find them in the great afterlife.
I opened my mouth to tell him I was on my way, only to suck in a great, gasping lungful of water. Fear fought with acceptance. And I decided I wouldn’t be a coward about this. I would face death with courage.
Just as water filled my mouth something wrapped around my arms with biting force. My breath turned into a scream and I clenched my eyes shut in agony. Then I was flying… soaring out of the water in a great upheaval of river and foam.
I choked and vomited and shivered along the bank. I couldn’t control the violent shaking of my limbs.
When I finally stopped heaving, I rolled to my side and collapsed. I blinked up at the sky, surprised to see the bright light of day. It seemed out of place after the darkness of my near death.
My teeth chattered so violently I worried I might crack a tooth.
A figure appeared over me, grim and serious. Father Garius.
“My…” I couldn’t speak through the shivers. I tried again. “My… Father...” He swooped down to hear me better. “Home.”
As darkness wrapped around my mind once more and I succumbed to sudden, overwhelming exhaustion, images of my family waiting with outstretched arms became something grimmer. I stopped longing to reach them. I stopped wishing to see those beautiful faces and wrap my arms around my mother and father. Instead the instinct to flee surged through my racing blood while silent terror squeezed my lungs.
A raven, the same one that always appeared in my dreams, sat upon the windowsill watching. Waiting and watching and listening. It always watched. It always stood by while my family drowned in their own blood. While their lungs shook with wet, stuttering breaths. While their limbs twitched helplessly.
This time, I watched it back.
I watched it watch me. Its black beady eyes focused with calculating interest. I felt its disappointment. Its silent rage.
I felt the sinister spirit inside of it bristle and balk because I wasn’t also dying.
It wanted me bloody.
It wanted me broken.
In my dream, I lifted my chin and dared the bird to do something about its discontent. After the river, I had no patience for games. I stared the raven down and dared it to finish me.
“If you want me dead, come for me yourself,” I whispered. My heart fluttered wildly in my chest. I had never spoken to the bird before. I’d always ignored it. I’d never been able to tear my attention from the lifeless bodies at my feet, from the pool of blood saturating the hem of my sleeping gown. Usually I stared at my father’s blank gaze or my brothers’ limp, useless bodies with a helplessness that clawed at my soul.
Then, for the first time, I noticed a presence looming in the background.
The raven lifted its beak toward the gray sky on the other side of the window and flapped its mammoth wings in a ripple of fury. It opened its dark mouth and screamed at the thing I knew hovered just beyond my consciousness.
The bird’s call shredded the air. I tucked my chin to my chest and pressed my palms over my ears. And still I could hear it. As if it came from my own mind. As if the screaming poured from my mouth and not the bird’s.
As if I were the one to call upon that great evil.
And while I fought against the terrible pain in my head, my father’s voice spoke above the screeching. He had never spoken to me before today. He had never done anything but die.
“It’s time,” he declared. His low, rumbling voice boomed through the room, drowning out the sound of the bird. “Tessana,” he demanded, “Come home.”
The screams from the raven grew louder and louder until even my father’s voice couldn’t be heard. I bent in half, pressing my hands against my ears as tightly as I could, but still the raven screeched and bellowed. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth through the pain, confident the horrific sound would make my head burst before I ever woke.
Just when the pressure behind my eyes became excruciating, the screeching stopped. The raven vanished. The images of my family’s bodies disappeared.
The darkness didn’t relent and I didn’t see my family again. I was finally left alone in the deep abyss of my subconscious. I saw nothing. I heard nothing. I simply slept.
When I woke, I had a niggling feeling that I should be doing something.