Ravens are my thing. Black as my hair and eyes, black like my soul, black like the night I love to sleep through. They swirl and swoop and dive, wheeling and whirling, chasing each other through the skies. I long to be with them. To be one of them.
It was inevitable that I would come to love them. My own name declares that it should be so. Ravenna. That’s the name my mother gave me on the day I was born, and regardless of any other reason she might put forth for naming me so, she must have looked into my dark eyes and known that I had some connection to the blackest of birds. My whole life I have felt a kinship with them. I am drawn to them. I could watch them for hours. Anywhere they are, my eyes go too.
No other animal could represent me so well.
No image of me could be more accurate.
Though I am the middle child in a loving family, I am alone. I am a raven, soaring alone. At least I want to be.
I know, I know, ravens are not solitary birds. They travel the world in great, noisy flocks. The thing is, when they look to either side they see other ravens. That’s the difference between them and me. I am the only raven I see.
My own flock is full of strange birds. Take my mother for instance. She loves bright colors and floral patterns, even if the law reserves them only for the Cheeters. In the midst of winter, when the wind is coldest, she still sings. If we were avians instead of sloths she would be a tanager or a cardinal.
My father is hard-headed and industrious - A woodpecker.
Emm is hawkish and watchful.
Seph is a magpie. He loves teasing and mocking people. He is closest to me, though not as dark.
Mephi? Who knows what Mephi is. He mostly does whatever Seph is doing, so I guess that makes him a parrot.
And Jinn-Jinn, though she’s small, she’s as stoic as an eagle. She rarely cries and takes nothing personal. Sometimes I think she is the strongest of us.
That’s my flock. But what kind of flock is that for a raven?
“Time to go,” Emm says.
“What?”
“Have you been daydreaming this whole time?”
“I...”
“C’mon. I wanna check out the curio shop we passed on the way in.” She grabs my arm and pulls me along behind her.
The crowd is dispersing. The indulgence is over and I missed it.
“What did it look like when they cut his head off?”
“There wasn’t any blood,” she says, then adds, “I wonder if that matters?”
“Why would it?”
“I don’t know, I was just thinking…to clean his soul or something? I don’t know. Never mind.”
“Mind if we walk with you,” Ma asks. She and Pa fall in step with us, not waiting for an answer. It’s not like we would refuse.
“Hey Rav, did you see that flock,” Pa asks, pointing toward the park.
He turns toward it without waiting to hear me say that, “yes, I saw it.”
I follow. I could care less about curio shops.
Ma and Emm do not turn aside with us.
“So,” he says, when they’re out of earshot, “you’re going to be an adult soon. I just thought we might chat about that.”
“Does it get better?” I ask, stopping him cold.
His eyes dart hurriedly back and forth, searching out my meaning and his own response to it. “It’s not so bad.”
“I have naught to show for all my hard work. I heard you say that. Is it still true?”
“What? When?”
“You came home from building a fence for Mister Stevens. I heard you say that to Ma.”
“Oh, I remember that. He screwed me out of the last half of my pay. I was pissed. That was a long time ago. You remember that?”
“I just don’t know if I can live like this for another fifty or sixty years,” I confess, casting a shadow over the bright morning, baring the darkness of my thoughts.
He is genuinely concerned now. “Live like what?”
“Eating stew three meals a day. Being broke all the time.”
“You think I’m not doing enough?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I just don’t see the upside.”
“You will. One day.”
“I kinda need to see it today.”
“Why the rush?”
“I don’t know.” There was a long moment where neither of us spoke. Then I asked, “Why do you keep working?”
“Someone has to feed you kids. Look, Rav. I love my work. I love my family. I love my life. I want you to love yours, too.”
I do not have love for anything in my life. I would even let ravens go, given the chance at oblivion. “I can’t spend a lifetime like this.”
“If you want a different life, make one. You’re an adult.”
“How, when they won’t let us?”
“Who?”
“The Cheeters.”
“You need to put them out of your mind.”
“What if I can’t?”
“If you start blaming others for the things you can’t do, then you’ll never do anything. Your eyes should be on what you can do.”
“I can’t do anything.”
“You do your best to not do anything, lazy bones. There’s plenty you could do.”
There was another long silence while I chewed on his words. Then he asked, “How’d you like that surprise in your stew this morning?”
“You did that?”
“You didn’t think it was left over from two-weeks ago, did you? You did!” He pokes me in the stomach, chuckling.
“What do I know, I’m twelve!”
“Ah, kiddo. You are a delight. Look, don’t wait for others to tell you when to jump. If you want it, you have to get off your ass and get it. Got it?”
“I guess.”
“You’re not very convincing.”
“I can’t help it. There’s just this darkness in me, and I just want to curl up in it and never wake up.” I can tell I’ve said too much. A second before, he was smiling – the proud father who was getting through to his kid. But with one sentence I showed him that he really doesn’t understand me at all.
***
When we’re alone in the curio shop, Emm corners me. “Why is Pa worried about you?”
I pry my attention from the raven figurine I am holding and turn to face her. “Huh?”
She shifts Jinn to a more comfortable position on her hip. “I heard him tell Ma as they were walking away. So spill it. What’s he worried about?”
“I can feel your desire to be useful, Emm. I appreciate it. I do. Here’s how you can help. Go do something that’s not this!”
She stares at me. I can’t tell if she’s missed the hint, or if she’s weighing the consequences of punching me in the nose. “OK, Rav. I’ll respect your privacy. Seph won’t,” she threatens, “but I will.”
“Rat fink!”
“I’ll be in the big girl’s section when you finish playing with your dolls.”
“It’s not a doll! It’s a figurine!”
“Potato, po-taht-o.”
I imagine the little raven whizzing into the back of her head as she walks away. Then I’d have to pay for it.
Instead, I let her go and refocus my attention on it, getting lost in its black eyes. I sink deeper and deeper into my own thoughts. At the bottom of that well there is only a single realization. Pa thinks I’m going to kill myself.
“Look at this one, Jinn,” Emm says. She is ten feet away, standing in her idea of the big girl’s section. It’s just a rack of bracelets. She dangles one in front of Jinn’s eyes. Naturally Jinn tries to grab it and put it in her mouth. “Don’t eat it, silly!” Emm retracts it to a safe distance, staring wistfully at it.
“Don’t let her slobber on that,” the watchful old wai at the counter warns, prompting a cross look from Emm. “Are you interested in that piece,” she asks in a kinder tone, hoping she didn’t just lose a sale.
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“What does it mean?” Emm has no intention of buying it, she’s just curious. The same symbol adorns many items in this shop. It’s two fish in a circle, each swimming in the opposite direction of the other. One is white with a black eye, the other black with a white eye.
“It’s a symbol of war!” a grizzled old hun behind the counter yells.
“It is not, Herm. Be quiet!” the wai warns her husband.
Herm ignores her. “The white is the power of good, and the black is pure evil! It symbolizes the eternal struggle between those two forces!” he says emphatically.
“Those fish aren’t fighting, Herm,” the wai reminds him. “Now go back to your carving!”
To my surprise, the old hun does as he’s commanded, without another word.
“It’s about family,” the wai informs Emm, contradicting her husband. “The two fish, no matter how different, are still fish, each with a bit of the other in them. Like you and your...?”
“Baby sister.”
“Of course. Like you and your sister. You are both unique, but you have similar features that mark you as related. You’re both sloths, with those lovely dark eyes, but your hair is lighter than hers.”
“Oh,” Emm says abruptly, hanging the necklace back where she found it and walking toward the back of the store, leaving the old wai – mouth in a frown – to count all the seconds she wasted trying to make a sale that was never gonna happen.
“Are you gonna buy that,” she asks, turning on me. Our eyes lock for a moment, then I surrender to inevitability, placing the figurine back on its shelf. For a moment I am not sure which way to go. The air in the store is suddenly heavy. Its weight tips the scale. I choose not to join Emm at the back. My escape outside blocked before I can take a step by the four Cheeter girls as they enter the shop.
Standing still is harder when you have to look down. It’s never been easy for me. My feet aren’t that interesting, and my balance isn’t so good. I nearly topple into the shelf full of figurines four times as the Cheeters mill through the aisles.
Someone has dropped a bronze cross on the floor. It lies near my right foot. I nudge it, trying to focus on it, finding balance in that focus. My own face stares back at me from its polished surface. My dark eyes, my straight black hair, my short gray fur and the black ringlets around my eyes. I am suddenly struck by my own appearance.
We don’t have mirrors. Heathens are not encouraged to waste our time primping and preening. We check each other before we leave the house. It occurs to me that it has been some time since I have seen my own reflection. I’m not as pretty as Emm, but I’m also not as ugly as I imagine myself to be. I am filled with the urge to take the cross home and hang it on my wall. Then I could look at myself whenever I want. Then, maybe I could begin to see myself clearly. If only I had the money to buy it.
“I should get something else,” the small, nervous girl says.
“It’s fine Cilla,” the tallest tells her.
“What’s wrong with what you have?” the third asks.
Each of the girls has picked an item. Cilla is carrying a cross necklace. Cheeters apparently love crosses, because all four of the curios they selected are crosses in one form or another. I don’t think they use them for mirrors, like I would, but I know very little about Cheeters.
“I’ll look like a cheapskate,” Cilla worries. “Look at yours, Miranda,” she says, indicating the statue the tall girl is holding.
“I saw it first Cill,” Miranda reminds her cohort.
“I know, but it’s just so exquisite. There’s nothing else like it in the whole shop, and you always give the best gifts!”
Gifts? Those are gifts? I fume. Gifts for whom? Not me, of course, but for whom?
“There are other shops,” the third girl suggests. She has chosen a wall ornament for her gift.
“We don’t have time. The party starts in four hours, and I’m not wearing this,” Miranda says. From what I can see of her on my periphery, and what I recall from this morning, she is the most stunning of all the girls, and the best dressed in mirror-polished steel plate and a yellow tunic that matches her blonde hair.
“We could go, Tamberlynn, if you want? There’s plenty of time,” Cilla suggests to the girl who suggested it. “You’ll come too, won’t you Bren?”
“I’m with Miranda. I need a bath,” Bren decides. Her gift is a diary with an embossed gold cross on its cover. It is an invitation to its recipient to partake of thoughtful reflection, and the only one of their three gifts I would consider buying for myself, if I had the money, and were allowed the luxury of recording my observations. I could stare at myself in that cross, and write about what I see. It’s a nice dream, but a pointless one.
We Heathens are discouraged from self-examination and writing that isn’t business related. We cannot change our evil natures. We cannot save ourselves. The Cheeters don’t want us bearing our filthy souls to the world or wasting our energy staring into them. For us, looking in the mirror is considered a waste of our time and theirs.
“Be content with what you have, Cill,” Miranda encourages.
“Maybe I should get a second?” Cilla is the only one moving in the store. The floorboards creak under her leather boots.
Bren shakes her head at Cilla’s question. The beads woven in her braids rattle against each other, speaking to me without a word, telling me of her disagreement with her friend before her words can confirm the rift. She says to Cilla, “Then you’d have two. We agreed on one. If you get two, we all have to get two.”
Two? You can afford two without a thought? It’s not fair. It makes my blood boil. My body sways a bit. My shoulder touches the shelf. It rattles but does not fall.
Are they looking at me? Their attention holds more fear for me than a toppled shelf. What is broken glass if a severed head lies in its midst?
“Maybe a doll?” Cilla ignores the warning from her friend about a second gift, wandering toward me, but seeming not to notice my presence. If she’s looking at me, I can’t see it.
What would the old wai say if she killed me in this shop? Could she say anything? Would Cilla even have to help clean up the blood? There’s so much I don’t know about the world they live in.
“She’s entering her hallow year. Why would you get her a doll?” Miranda wants to know.
“A doll’s not fitting for a girl about to become a wai, Cill,” Bren confirms.
Their gifts are for my other fish. She is entering the sea of adulthood like me, but from a very different, much more colorful stream.
“There has to be something,” Cilla persists.
“There is,” Miranda says. “You can be happy with your first choice.”
“I chose that statue.”
“Only after I had it in my hand.”
“It’s a fine necklace. She’s gonna love it,” Tamberlynn says.
“It really is lovely,” Bren confirms.
“Fine.” Cilla acquiesces.
The girls move to the counter to pay. Their leather coin purses jingle. I have never heard so much money.
“Primm’s is on the way home. We could have a look, Tam? If you want?” Cilla asks, as they bustle through the door to the street.
My curiosity gets the better of me. I have to know what it is that makes them deserving of so much. I’m not supposed to look at them, but I can’t help it.
“You don’t have to do that in the market,” the shopkeeper informs me when they’ve gone. “You can move around, and you can look at them, just don’t stare. And don’t hold their eyes. That’ll cost you your head – eyes being the windows to the soul, and all. Lords, If we had to stand still every time one of them came in here, no one would ever get out!” She laughs heartily. She’s withheld this information from me until just now as some sort of payback for not buying anything. Emm’s laughter joins hers, boxing in my shameful naivety. I head for the door.
***
Out in the street the air is just as heavy, laden with smells that nearly knock me down. Someone is roasting a pig. I scan for the source. Lots of pigs. Six or seven, at least, at an outdoor stand. My stomach grumbles under the weight of its yearning – the morning stew I gave it is long forgotten. I can’t recall the last time I ate pork.
“Here, take her,” Emm says, coming up behind me, thrusting Jinn into my arms. “Your turn.” Her nose twitches. “Something smells good.”
“Which way are you going?” So I can go the other way.
“We should find Ma and Pa.”
It’s too early, in my opinion, but the search will take me away from her. “I’ll go this way,” I say, indicating a direction away from the roasting pigs.
“OK,” she agrees. “This road makes a circle. Once you pass the tiger cages you’ll see Primm’s dress shop. I’ll meet you there. Oh, and steer clear of Davidson’s.”
I don’t ask why, I just move. I wonder if the ravens are still in the park?
***
“I should have worn shorts.” Jinn has no response for my admission. She hasn’t a clue what I’m saying, but I think on some level she understands. It is hot. She’s sweating too. The throng surrounds us. The air is thick. “If only I were taller, and you were not so heavy.” I move her to my other hip. The relief is momentary.
I cannot see anything around me but beltlines and buttocks. The further I go the more the crowd presses. I cannot fathom how far we have come. There is nothing to breathe but choking dust. I’ve gone too far. Surely Primm’s is behind us. Wasn’t the park this way? The heat and the struggle have teamed up to push time right out of my head. How long have I been walking? I don’t see any friendly faces. I’ve missed Ma and Pa. I know I have! Even Emm’s face would be a welcome sight.
I am pushed this way and turned that way by the crowd. I do not move, I am moved. I stumble. It is only the buttock of a rather rotund wai that saves me from falling and being trampled under foot. “Sorry,” I say, but she does not seem to have noticed. “I have to get out of here.” Jinn agrees. Her face tells me so. “C’mon eaglet. Let’s find some air!” I duck and push, seeking weak spots in the undulating mass of people. I am repelled here, then break through there. I spy an opening and make for it. My path is blocked. I spin and side-step and annoy with my cutting across the grain, but I am finally free.
“Look at that, Jinn,” I say, finally able to breathe, stepping mindlessly onto a boardwalk in front of a shop. Four large windows stretch across its front, and in the last one is the new apple of my eye. It is a magnificently crafted helm of pure zirconium – the only metal that is naturally black, and the only metal other than gold that I can identify easily at a distance.
As wonderful as that metal is, it is not the medium in which the piece was made that calls to me, so much as the smith’s choice of subject matter.
It is formed in the shape of a raven’s head with a hinged, long beak that covers the wearer’s mouth. An intricate array of engraved feathers swoop back and away from its face. In the middle of that face heavy, brooding brows stick out over open eye sockets. Delicate scrollwork surrounds and accentuates those eyelets, extending down onto the beginnings of the beak.
My nose bumps the wire mesh that screens the open window, pushing against it, squeezing through it. My free hand, as if of it’s own accord, clenches the wire. My eyes dart across every inch of the helm, taking it into my memory, enshrining it there. My heart bows down to worship it.
I desperately want it, but I can never have it. Armor is forbidden for us. Prohibition only serves to strengthen my aching desire.
“Ravenna, come away from there!” Ma’s tone bears an unusual quality, both pleading and commanding. It breaks the spell the helm has put me under. I turn, looking for her.
“What’s your name?” a second voice asks. It’s tone is one of distinct disgust. I find its speaker first, in my search for Ma.
A Cheeter boy nearly my age, but half a head taller than me, stares at me. His eyes catch mine and hold them.
He is the prettiest boy I have ever seen. Gold locks. Golden eyes. A lineless face that could have been carved from stone.
My eye has a new apple, but it’s one I know I shouldn’t look at.
His vision of me is in no way similar. “Tell me your name, girl, and take your eyes off me!” he orders.
I can’t.
“She has not offended you!” my mother shouts, moving between us, blocking his view of me. “My name is Abadonna Brady! She is my whelp! My responsibility! If any offense has been given, it is I who have given it!”
The boy retracts at the sound of her name. That was the purpose her mother had in mind when she gave it to her. Abadonna inspires the memory of Abadon, the Keeper of the Bottomless Pit. His is an evil image.
Personally, I don’t know who he is, or why the Cheeters are so offended by him. It is obvious, though, that they are offended.
Our names, and the reactions they elicit, are our tiny rebellions. At times we simply must poke the bear. My mother carried on the tradition when she named her own children. Emma-O is the Judge of the Dead, or so I’ve heard. Sephtis means eternal death in some language no one remembers. Mephistofeles is a demon, or something. While Jinn-Jinn is the doubly damned.
Of all my siblings, my name is the most tame.
The boy has company now. He is joined by a younger boy and two adults who spill from the shop’s door. His brother and parents, no doubt. Their appearance bolsters him. “My name is Jason King! I am of the Order of Leonis, and I asked you a question, girl!” he says, looking around my mother.
“Never ask a second time,” his father tells him. Jason nods and glides forward, his right hand extracts his sword from its sheath. His motions are so smooth, like a dancer’s. I am mesmerized and cannot imagine what is coming. My mother bends her head and straightens her neck. I realize what she is preparing for. A quick death is better. The dark cloth I am cut from is in her, not Pa. It’s just been hidden behind her bright smile. That smile is gone now. Only resignation remains.
My father is neither enchanted by the Paladins nor inclined to accept the inevitable. He bursts from the crowd and rams the boy, throwing him violently against the wall. Jason falls in a heap, rolling to try and see who has dared violate his person. My father is menacing. He is larger than most hin. Jason is but a doll at his feet.
The second boy has already drawn his sword. Like his older brother, his movements are so swift and smooth and practiced that I did not even see him do it. His blade does not sing as it slices the air. That is something that only happens in the minds of those who write fanciful stories about swordplay. The only sound is the sickening thwack as it buries itself halfway through Pa’s throat.
“Finish it, Kevin,” his mother orders calmly. There is disappointment in her voice, and on her son’s face. “Clean strikes,” she urges.
Kevin tugs hard. His blade does not come out as easily as it went in. Pa stumbles, stunned at the sudden turn his life has taken. We Heathens live on the edge of a razor. Still, we are never prepared when it cuts us.
“Run!” Ma turns and orders me. She doesn’t run, turning back and reaching out for Pa. I don’t run either. I am frozen.
Kevin frees his blade, twirls it over his head, and strikes at Pa’s thick neck from the other direction. This time he is successful. Blood sprays across Ma, Jinn, and I.
I am suddenly, shatteringly awake.
Pa’s head rolls down his torso and thumps on the boardwalk, not resting there, seeking a hole to settle in. It’s path takes it between Ma and I, finally dumping it into the street. His dead eyes tell me there is nothing I can do.
Ma turns on me. “Run damnit!” She moves toward me, reaching out to push me.
I finally understand.
I have to flee.
Jason rises and strikes off her head with one clean stroke. Her body falls back across Pa. Her head joins his in the dust.
I am already gone.