Raven

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.

  Adrenaline pumped through my veins but I took long deep breaths to prevent myself from changing. I needed to know where Gabriel was before I could do anything.

  “Vivian, what have you done with Gabriel?” I asked. “Please tell me that he's okay. Have you hurt him?”

  “I have no need to harm the old man,” she said and I was surprised. The evil things she was capable of made me think that she hurt people on purpose, whether she needed to or not. But perhaps she only did so when she needed something. That was until she continued, “The same can't be said for Charlie though,” and she laughed heartily as if she'd cracked a joke.

  She released my leg and I pulled it back quickly. Charlie slammed the door shut and locked it.

  “Charlie, where is Gabriel?” I asked, hopefully.

  But he just sniggered and said nothing.

  “There's just one important ingredient that I'm missing. I'll be gone a while. Charlie, keep an eye on her – she might try to change into a bird, although the cage should prevent her from escaping,” said Vivian before she grabbed her cape, threw it on and exited the cavern.

  “Charlie... how did you get here? I know she must've cursed you. You're an Englishman that she made into a mountain goat. Isn't there a part of you, hidden somewhere in there, that hates her? A part of you that wants some kind of revenge for what she did to you?” I asked softly.

  But again, he ignored me and sat staring off into space.

  “Charlie please help me. If you can't, please just tell me where Gabriel is.”

  “Shut up, Lilly. Shut up!” he yelled as he bent to pick up a small stone from the floor and then flung it against me. It pinged off the side of the cage and bounced against the wall before landing on the floor by the cave's entrance.

  He wasn't going to tell me so I sat in silence and waited for Vivian to return. My leg began to throb, a dull ache where she had sliced into it. Fortunately the cut wasn't too deep and the bleeding had slowed. I feared that if I didn't escape she would bleed me to death. My father had obviously come close to that but he had managed to get away before death had come. How, I had no idea. He must have been so weak by that time and to get out of that room must have been near on impossible. I wondered if someone had helped him. But why? And how? And more importantly, who?

  I would find out what had happened to him and I would find out where he was. I would also find out why he had deserted me and left me in the hands of an evil witch.

  I pulled my legs up to my chest and rested my head on my knees and before I could stop myself, I began to cry. I cried for Gabriel, I cried for my father and I cried for me. I knew I could escape but I was so scared that Gabriel would end up dead if I did.

  That's when I heard the sound from outside. A soft cooing noise that reminded me of something. The owl. It was the sound of an owl hooting, the same sound I had heard the night before. I recalled how the bird had watched me but had then looked away and flown off into the distance. And then again, while Charlie had been dragging me to the cave, I had seen it but it hadn't taken much notice of me. It was a soothing sound but that's all it was.

  The sound, however, began to get a little louder and then there was silence. As I looked towards the entrance to the cave, I could just about see it perched on the branch of a tree close by. It was looking towards me.

  There were a couple of birds circling above the owl and I gasped when I recognised what they were. Ravens. Charlie looked over at me suspiciously and I coughed to try and hide my surprise. He stood and walked around the cage, before he returned to sit down and just as he let down his guard to relax a little, one of the ravens flew into the cave as quietly as possible. He didn't notice. I watched it surreptitiously as it stood on the floor behind him, waiting. Whoever it was, it had found me. But had it found Gabriel?

  As I waited, wondering what it would do, I heard footsteps and the sighing of an old woman. The simple act of walking left her breathless.

  Vivian had returned.

  The raven was startled, clearly not expecting her to return so soon, so it hopped backwards and hid away in a dark corner while Vivian walked into the cave carrying the final ingredient that would help make her young and beautiful once again.

  “So you're still human are you, Lilly? I'm surprised at you. I figured you might have tried to escape. Not that you would be able to. I raised you not to run away, didn't I? You never could get away from me,” she laughed as she began concentrating on her strange recipe for beauty.

  I listened and watched closely as she read to herself as if from a bizarre recipe book.

  “Let's see, two sprigs of rosemary, Lillian's blood, hair from a horse's mane and the sinew from a horse's leg, the hair from Lillian's head and a few tablespoons of pure spring water from the Pantheon Mountains... yes, I think that's about it.”

  She placed all of the ingredients into a small bowl and mixed it up with a wooden spoon before placing it over the fire that Charlie had been busy preparing.

  It was a surreal experience, watching this old Vivian becoming more and more excited as the recipe developed. She became almost childlike, skipping around the fire clapping her hands in anticipation. This was a Vivian I had never seen. The only Vivian I had ever known was sombre, strict, mean... and beautiful.

  It didn't take long until I could hear the ingredients bubbling away. Vivian removed it from the fire and sieved it into a wooden chalice before picking it up and turning to me.

  “Cheers, Lillian darling,” she laughed, before placing the cup to her lips and drinking it hungrily without taking a breath. She then threw it to the floor and wiped her lips with the back of her long black sleeve.

  “Time to change,” she added before she took off the long black cloak and revealed her naked body.

  The old hag was covered from head to toe in deep set wrinkles, and her skin hung in folds all over her body. This was the body of an ancient woman, not the Vivian I remembered.

  She didn't stand naked for long. She stepped carefully into a crisp white gown that Charlie held open for her. All the time she maintained a wicked smile on her lips. The smile of a mad woman.

  Even though she was barely recognisable, seeing her in white reminded me of the times we had lived together. She had never worn any other colour. She always presented herself, from head to foot, in white. White trousers, white blouse, white pumps, som
etimes even a white head band. Every day, something else white. She had long white dresses, skirts, jeans even.

  She had presented herself so beautifully, while at the same time had presented me in such an ugly way. Dowdy, old, used clothes that didn't fit properly. In yellow, the one colour that did nothing for me. The one colour that made me look ugly. That's what she'd tried to do. She'd wanted to make me look uglier so that she could feel even more beautiful. Me, Mellow Yellow. It had all been done on purpose.

  As she stood there, looking at herself in the mirror waiting for something to happen, I noticed the raven had managed to sneak closer to me. It stared at me and I could see something startlingly familiar in its eyes. Then suddenly, it winked at me and I knew exactly who it was. Jo. She often winked at me. She had finally made the transformation. But how had she known where to find me? Then I thought of the owl. If the owl knew where I was, it would undoubtedly know where Gabriel was. I smiled at her and winked back. Relief flooded through me and I felt as if I could finally make my escape, but before I did, I waited to see what would happen to Vivian.

  She stood smiling at herself in the old mirror on the wall, waiting for her transformation to begin.

  After a few minutes, I could see that it was working. Her saggy skin began to tighten up and the colour of her hair slowly began to change from grey to bright red. Her sallow eyes began to gleam and her lips, and not to mention her breasts, plumped up. All age spots disappeared and I began to see the Vivian that I remembered.

  She breathed in a long happy breath and sighed out in happiness before she began to laugh uncontrollably.

  “I'm back and I'm even more beautiful than before,” she giggled, as she touched her face and her neck and then her breasts and bottom.

  “Why didn't I think of doing this before? I should have used your blood from day one. Instead I wasted years on that father of yours, and before that I wasted years on Walter, when I could have used the blood from his damned daughter. And I let her go. How stupid of me,” she said to herself as she continued to admire herself in the mirror.

  As she said the words, I thought of Rose. How her husband and daughter had disappeared all those years ago, when in fact they had been kidnapped, just like my father and I had been. And they had been used for the one single reason: to achieve her own flawless beauty. It disgusted me.

  But Vivian had just let it slip that she had let the daughter go. Just when I thought I could make my escape, I discovered something new. Something else I needed to find out more about. And I needed to find out the truth for Rose.

  Just as I began to think of ways to investigate what had happened to Walter and his daughter, Lori, Vivian shrieked.

  “What is this?” she cried turning to me, “What is happening to me? Lillian what have you done?”

  I watched, stunned in silence as whiskers began to sprout from her cheeks and out of her ears. Her hands and feet began to mutate and suddenly I knew. She didn't know the truth about my own transformation. She didn't know that I was capable of changing into a mountain lion. The combination of my feline and raven genes must have been affecting her in ways she could never have foreseen.

  I couldn't help but smile at her affliction.

  “How... is this possible?” she sobbed as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Part witch, part cat. Not at all attractive.

  “How could I have been so damn stupid? The girl, your sister. I thought I'd just miscast a spell on her the day I killed her. But I hadn't, had I? She'd really changed into a cat herself. No!” she cried while I nodded, smiling.

  “But that means...” and before she could finish, I transformed myself into a mountain lion, breaking the cage into a hundred pieces right in front of her eyes. I pounced on her and pushed her to the ground, ready to get the revenge I had craved ever since I'd learned the truth.

  “Lilly!” yelled another voice as I saw a very naked Jo had changed back into human form and had managed to throw Charlie to the ground too. He had hit his head on a rock, knocking him unconscious in the process.

  “Lilly... no. Let the Elders deal with her,” she shouted as I held a razor sharp claw close to her jugular vein. “Lilly, you're not like her. You're not a killer,” she said, but I couldn't move. All I could think of was Serena and Neleh, the years I'd spent practically a prisoner in my own home, my poor father and Sammy, Walter, Rose and Lori and what she had put us all through. And Gabriel. Poor Gabriel, wherever he was. She had done all of this damage just so that she could be beautiful and young. I wanted her to die more than anything but, as I looked up at Jo's face, I knew it couldn't be by my hands. She was right, I wasn't a killer. I wasn't anything like her. I wasn't a monster.

  I leaned back away from her and instead pulled her up and pushed her hard against the cave wall, winding her. Jo took over. Finding some rope, she tied Vivian up so there was no way she could release herself. Not even a witch could escape. But Vivian didn't even struggle, she was too busy sobbing about her appearance.

  I made the transition back to my human self, using the breathing techniques Rose had taught me. After a moment, I was human again. Jo and I clothed ourselves with tops and trousers from my rucksack.

  She gave me a long hard hug, while the other raven just sat outside, perched quietly on the same branch the owl had been on earlier.

  “I'm so glad you're okay, Lilly. We were all worried sick,” she said.

  “But how did you know?”

  “Both Sammy and Meredith felt something was wrong so we contacted a close friend, one of the Elders, who sent someone to search for you,” she said.

  “Let me guess, that someone was an owl?” I asked and she nodded, “so you saw him then?”

  I nodded and then remembered Gabriel. I asked her if he was okay and she reassured me that the owl had witnessed everything and had gone to fetch help straight away.

  “Gabriel was in quite a bad way, but he's recuperating with the Elders. They sent one of their raven friends to tell us what was going on. But at that stage, we didn't know that Vivian was involved. So I'm so relieved you're okay Lilly.”

  “Thank you for coming so quickly. But how? When did you learn to transform?” I asked.

  Jo explained that the family's only chance of getting someone here quick enough was for her to change into a raven. “I couldn't wait for it to happen naturally so Rose helped me make it happen for myself, that was this morning,” she said proudly.

  I was amazed at her transformation, and even more amazed that she had taken it upon herself to come and help us.

  “Sammy wanted more than anything to come and help but it's daylight. It was too much of a risk. We practically had to tie him up to stop him from following me,” she said.

  “A few of the Elders are on their way now. They should be here soon. Come, let's wait for them outside.”

  We tied Charlie up and dragged them both out into the sunlight where we sat on a large boulder as we awaited the arrival of the Elders.

  As we sat, I saw that the other raven and the owl were waiting patiently with us and so I stood up and walked over to them. Bowing my head, I thanked them for all their help, “I don't know if you can understand me or not, but I just want you to know how grateful I am.”

  Both birds nodded their heads at me and I knew then that, through some kind of magic, they could understand my every word.

  “I know Meredith can occasionally read minds but I thought that was just when we're close,” I said to Jo as I returned to her side, “how was she able to do it this time?”

  “This is the first time that she's been able to pick up on something so far away. I think the fact that Sammy was picking up on the same feeling helped,” she answered.

  “So were your mum and dad okay with you coming all this way to help?”

  “They were obviously really concerned about you and Gabriel. They were worried sick when I told them I wanted to come but they understood that it was something I had to do. They were really proud that I final
ly changed though,” she said.

  As we sat chatting to each other awaiting the Elders, I was developing a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had been trying to ignore it but it just wouldn't go away. Some of the things that Vivian had said had crushed me and no matter how hard I tried to push them to the back of my mind, I struggled to keep them there.

  As I watched Vivian still sobbing to herself, I thought of the evil things she had done, not just in my lifetime but way before that too. She had taken the two loves of Rose's life and ruined any chance of her finding love again.

  Rose had no idea what had happened to Walter and Lori, but now it seemed that her husband was probably dead and her daughter could be anywhere in the world, probably never to be found again. She was just a baby when she was cruelly ripped from Rose's life – just as I had been when I had been taken, so she would probably have no idea as to the true identity of her real mother.

  Rose would need answers and Vivian was the only person who would be able to give them. Once she was handed over to the Elders, perhaps the answers to these questions could finally be resolved. I hoped so. Not just for Rose's sake, but for Lori's too. Wherever she may be.

  I worked out that Lori would be in her late forties now. Perhaps she had children of her own. I hoped Rose would find her one day. She deserved to know the truth. Just as I had deserved to find out the truth about my life. But my father had escaped Vivian's clutches and left me behind. He'd abandoned me and now I didn't know if he was dead or alive.

  If he was dead, was he finally resting in peace with his beloved Serena and Neleh? If that was the case, wouldn't he have come to me in a dream, just as they had? Perhaps the Elders would be able to help solve the mystery.

  As I sat there with Jo, my mind quietly wrestling with itself, I noticed a small group of people approaching in the distance. The owl and the raven immediately withdrew from their branch and flew towards them. We knew it must be the Elders and so we stood up and waited for them to come closer.