The Raven Saga Box Set

Chapter 5

I needn't have been nervous, of course. I was treated like the long lost granddaughter, 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 mothers 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.

"Grandfather," I said, approaching him slowly.

He nodded and took both my hands in his, "We have waited for 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.

"Grandfather?"

"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 blackbird 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 a 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 grandfather 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 the colour of magical power. It is not something you should change unless nature requires it to be changed. 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.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Later, I felt the need to get out of the house and have a look around. Gabriel had told me not to wander too far and, above all, he warned, "Do not venture into the forest."

I had no idea why I was to avoid the forest, but I did as he said and instead took the gravel pathway towards the water. I didn't have to go far.

As I wandered along the edge of the ice-cold blue waters of the Pacific Ocean, I tried not to dwell on the fact that there was still no trace of my parents. Even after all these weeks, there was still nothing. We had been in touch with the British authorities, but it was looking more and more like this case would be shelved. It would continue to be unexplained. An unsolved mystery.

Instead of dwelling on recent life-changing events, I attempted to fill my head with the beauty that surrounded me. From the deep blue ocean to the bright blue of the cloudless sky and the startlingly beautiful green islands off in the distance, I was left genuinely breathless by its utter magnitude. Having little chance to appreciate it before now, I thought of how narrow-minded I must have been while living within London. Why my mother and father had never told me of the awe-inspiring landscapes to be found here, I will never know. It was like stepping foot inside the most magnificent giant oil painting – a true masterpiece that no artist could ever imitate.

Had I grown up here, I would never have wanted to leave, and everyone I knew would have been told of its breathtaking magnificence.

Suddenly something jumped high out of the water and back again with a loud plop. I was startled but curious. I searched for more movement, but there was nothing other than the gentle lolling of the soft waves lapping against the shore.

Finding a huge piece of driftwood on the little beach, I sat and waited patiently for it to happen again. I was determined to see what was capable of jumping right out of the water before my eyes.

I didn't have to wait long. Another splash and a plop, and a large fish revealed itself to me. Having little experience of such things, I had no idea what type of fish jumped like this – actually, I had no experience of fish at all – not to eat, nor to catch or even to look at, other than in school books.

I had never been in the ocean, nor had I even been on a boat before my arrival in Canada. Narrow-minded, lacking in experience of all kinds and naïve is probably how the people here must see me, I thought, sighing. If only my parents knew what I was going through. I didn't blame them, of course, I didn't. I just wished they had been more forthcoming with so many things. And now... perhaps they would never get the chance.

On the other hand, had they not disappeared, I would have continued on that same path. The same boring road with no twists or turns. The only 'fun' I had ever had was with December, and even then that was only ever at school. There had never been any excitement unless you counted the day when some kids had tried to blow up a school toilet. That was the extent of the drama in my world. Until now.

Not even the stories from the fairy tales I was so fond of could match the magic that could be found here in British Columbia. Even though I'd only been here a day or so, I hadn't even realised I was in British Columbia. I had noticed it on the licence plates of some of the cars in the area... 'Beautiful British Columbia'.

So I'd found an atlas in Gabriel's huge book collection and pinpointed Canada and discovered how vast a country it was. A country that was divided into several different provinces. British Columbia was the one the furthest to the west of the country and Powell River, I discovered is right on the west coast, right by the Pacific Ocean. I was also amazed by how close it seemed to Asia and how far from England.

Clearly, had I known when I was younger, I would have taken a lot more notice in my geography class. Now though, I would simply have to learn myself. I decided that I would start with Gabriel's ample book collection, once I had settled in.