Raven

CHAPTER SIX

  It wasn't until the following day when some home truths finally started to trickle into my head. It turned out that my father and my grand-father hadn't spoken to each other for years. This explained why we never had anything to do with Canada, or why my parents never even spoke of it.

  “You need to sit down and have a proper talk with Lilly, Gabriel. She is totally in the dark. She's been through enough recently. Don't you think she deserves to hear the truth?”

  I could hear the voices through the thin walls. I guessed that both Ben and my grand-father assumed I was still jet lagged. Actually I had barely slept a wink. I had found it difficult to fall asleep with no noise surrounding me. The silence had kept me awake for hours.

  “There is a reason why things happen in this life, Benjamin, and my son must have had a reason not to have told his daughter about our life here. I do not feel that I should break his silence,” replied my grand-father.

  “But she's nearly fourteen years old, Gabriel. What if Jack never comes back?”

  “Don't you say that, Ben... don't even think it.”

  When Ben and I had returned from our five-hour journey the previous day, I felt so nervous about meeting my grand-father for the first time. But I was in for a huge surprise... there was much more to my family than just a grand-father. In fact I soon found out that I had a much larger family than I could ever have dreamed of.

  I needn't have been nervous, of course. I was treated like the long lost grand-daughter, cousin and niece that I was.

  As soon as we pulled into the long gravel driveway, a group of people bundled out of the house and stood on the porch, awaiting my arrival. All looked more nervous than me, if that was possible.

  “Don't worry, Lilly. This is your family. They won't bite. Come on. Come and meet them,” said Ben with a smile and a gentle pat on my shoulder.

  Tentatively, I climbed out of the truck. Ben collected my bags while I walked up to these strangers who suddenly burst into smiles and rushed over to me and began hugging me enthusiastically. I noticed that one person remained behind them all and stayed quiet while they all made their noisy introductions.

  “Hi Lillian. I'm your Aunt Meredith,” said a rather short cuddly middle-aged lady with long black hair, and a tear in her eye.

  “And I'm your cousin, Cormac. Meredith is my mum,” said a shy chubby, spotty boy in his mid teens.

  “Hello Lillian. I'm John. I'm Meredith's husband. It's a pleasure to finally meet you,” said a tall grey-haired man with glasses as he shook my hand energetically. “We have two other sons, Shayne and Bailey, but both are away studying at the moment and couldn't be here, I'm afraid,” he added.

  An attractive man with an uncanny resemblance to my father stepped forward next. He had long black hair tied at the nape of his neck and was probably in his early forties. He patted me gently on the back and said, “Lillian. I wish this had been under other circumstances but it is a great pleasure to see you at last. I wish that you had been able to visit us long before now. I am your father's brother, Wyatt. This is my wife, Sonya.” A beautiful slim woman with long bright white hair took my hand in hers and smiled kindly.

  “I am so happy to meet you, Lillian. I believe we will be friends,” she whispered in the most angelic voice. Instantly, I felt the same way. We would be friends.

  “I would like you to meet our daughter, your cousin Josephine.”

  “Mum... please don't call me that! Hi Lillian, you can call me Jo. All my friends do,” said a girl a little older than me with a scowl at her mother. The scowl was given with a laugh so it was easy to see that this mother and daughter shared a close bond.

  Jo was the image of her mother. Beautiful with long hair that was as black as her mother's was white. Both of them carried themselves with confidence yet neither seemed aware of the incredible beauty that emanated from them.

  “And this old boy here is your grand-father, Gabriel,” said Ben with a smile. As he said the words, the group parted to reveal a broad old man with short greying hair waiting patiently to be introduced.

  “Grand-father,” I said approaching him slowly.

  He nodded and took both my hands in his, “We have waited many moons for this day to come. Lillian Tulugaq, welcome home. Welcome home,” he said pulling me towards him. He hugged me tightly just for a moment before we all bundled indoors out of the cold. My hands and feet were freezing.

  As Ben talked to my grand-father the following morning, I jumped out of bed and rushed into the kitchen where they stood, eager for them to see that I was not asleep and that I had heard every word they'd said.

  “Oh... you're awake, Lilly. I'm sorry if we woke you,” said Ben, blushing slightly.

  Gabriel just shook his head as if to say, 'Well, now look what you've done.'

  “I just popped in to have a quick word with Gabriel about... er... Oliver's party. Yes. Well, I'd better be going now. I hope to see you tomorrow, Lilly,” he said as he put on his thick coat and gloves, adding with a wink, “but I completely understand if you'd rather give it a miss.” And he was gone, leaving the two of us standing silently in the kitchen.

  “Lillian...” said Gabriel. I waited.

  “This is your home now. You must treat it as your home. Everything that is here, is now yours.”

  I waited for the crunch but it didn't come.

  “Grand-father?”

  “Lillian?”

  “Please call me Lilly. Nobody has called me Lillian since... since before I can remember. But last night you called me something else, after my name. I didn't understand. My surname is Taylor... isn't it?”

  Shaking his head, he said, “Tulugaq is the name of our forefathers, Lilly. It is your name, it is my name. It is your father's name as well as his brother's and sister's. It is in you. It is in here,” he said, placing his hand over his heart. “It would do you well to remember this. This is where you come from, Lilly.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “Tulugaq?” he asked, and I nodded.

  “It is the great black bird of the sky. The Raven.”

  “It means raven?” I gasped.

  “You are surprised, child?” asked Gabriel.

  Unsure whether to tell him or not, while at the same time a little irritated at being called child, I walked over to boil some water to bide my time. Maybe he'll think I'm totally mad, I thought. Although I got the strange impression that nothing would shock him. I decided to fill him in on what happened on those lonely nights in England.

  “Just before I came here I was... visited... by two big black ravens. They appeared at my window every night and frightened me a little bit. It wasn't just because they were there, it's because they knocked at the glass and looked at me. Really looked at me, you know. Almost as if they knew me. As if they were trying to tell me something. I don't know. I can't really explain it... I know it sounds totally crazy...”

  But it turned out that I was right, he was not easily surprised.

  “The ravens in London were our ancestors looking out for you in your hour of need, my dear child. There was no need to fear them. They were simply there to watch over you. To protect you. Fear not. They are a part of us.”

  It was difficult for me to know how to react to that. Clearly I couldn't believe that my ancestors had come back from the dead, in the form of ravens, no less, to watch over me. Why would they watch over me? Why was I so special? Surely, if anybody needed to be watched over, it was my parents. Certainly not me. But ravens? Ancestors? Please.

  My grand-father took my reaction rather well actually. I guess he knew that I wouldn't, couldn't, believe something like that. Me, a teenager who had lived her entire life cooped up in a tiny room within an apartment block in a big city on the other side of the world. Nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened to me.

  “My dear Lilly... must you keep your hair this way? Black is a colour of magical power. It is not something you should change unless nature requires it to be chan
ged. You are beautiful. You look very much like my son. Your father. Embrace it. Do not hide from it.”

  “Oh, and another thing... Lilly.... you can call me Gabriel. Everybody else does.” He smiled then, and placed his hand on my shoulder before leaving me alone in the kitchen to my thoughts.

  I had hoped that he would have told me whatever it was that was being hidden from me, but he didn't. I would have to wait.