The Raven Saga Box Set

Chapter 21

“Neleh was so excited, so we'd approached it, assuming it to be empty but it wasn't. When we got closer, we heard a woman's voice chanting. I remember Neleh saying the voice was familiar so we'd looked through the window and we'd seen that nurse from the hospital. Vivian. She was wearing a long black robe and was reading from a thick heavy book. It wasn't your average book, either. Some kind of spellbook, I'm guessing now,” he said, sighing as he gently threw some more wood onto the fire.

“What was she saying, Sammy?” I asked.

“None of it made any sense to me. It sounded foreign. Latin, perhaps. We wouldn't have really thought that much about it, but then we saw the photos... all those photos,” he cried. “They were all over the cottage. Photos of Jack, your father. She was clearly obsessed. Neleh became angry and wanted to confront her. I tried to stop her, but it was too late. She burst through the door and shouted at her. She was asking 'What the hell are you doing?' over and over. Vivian was taken aback, but she just laughed, saying 'He's mine'. Neleh shook her head and said, 'Never. He loves my mother. He'll never leave her'.”

“What happened next?” I asked, afraid to hear the truth.

Sammy looked away from me for a moment and closed his eyes, shaking his head. I placed my hand on his shoulder to reassure him. He turned, smiled sadly and continued.

“Vivian's eyes. They ch... they changed – they became completely red, like the devil's and she just said, 'Well I'll just have to get rid of her... and you'. Vivian lunged forward and grabbed at Neleh's hair. She must have pulled out a handful of it because she yelled in pain. Vivian started laughing and laughing. This evil laugh. I'll never forget it. I tried to pull Neleh away, but she suddenly became really strong. Then she changed. Neleh changed right in front of my eyes. She became this... this... big cat. She swiped at Vivian and caught her face. But Vivian killed her. She threw something at her, uttered a few strange words and the cat, Neleh, she just fell to the ground. She was dead. As I picked her up, she suddenly changed back into human form. But she was dead. She was dead,” he cried, devastated.

Tears slowly fell down my cheeks too as I realised that the woman I had thought was my own mother for years had actually been responsible for the brutal murder of my only sister.

“How did she do this to you? How did you get these wings?” I asked horrified.

“I don't remember exactly what she said to me, but I do recall her saying that she had something 'special' in store for me. She lunged at me and pulled at my hair. But I was so devastated about Neleh that I couldn't do anything. I didn't even try. I just picked up her body and walked out of that cottage. She didn't even try to stop me. I carried on walking until I got to Gabriel's house. When he opened the door and saw me there with her dead body, I know he thought it was me. I knew he thought I was responsible. I could tell from his eyes. I laid Neleh's body on the bed, and I left. Gabriel was crying by her side, and he didn't notice me go. That's when I decided to go back and see if I could catch her myself, but as I walked back through the forest, the most horrendous pain started in my back. It lasted for hours and hours, and I couldn't do a thing. I couldn't move. I've never experienced pain like it,” he said.

“You were growing the wings,” I added, and he nodded.

Sammy explained that he knew perfectly well that he could never return to the town, nor go anywhere near civilisation. Already people thought he was a killer, and if they saw his wings, it would have just made things even worse. They would see him as the devil himself.

“Sammy, I'm so sorry about what happened to you. But we must tell Gabriel the truth. He will believe you now.”

“Perhaps he will, but I can't go near the town. Not like this.”

“But you did when you rescued me,” I said hopefully, “Why did you do that?” I asked, not having realised the implications before.

“I couldn't save Neleh, but I'll be damned if I let anything happen to her sister,” he said, with a smile.

I leaned my head on his shoulder, “Thank you”.

Sammy told me that occasionally he would fly or walk a little closer to town, keeping himself very well hidden where he would listen to the conversations of hikers, just to feel human again. One day he had heard two women talking about a young girl who had returned to live with her grandfather in Powell River. “When they mentioned Gabriel by name I knew it was you,” he said.

“Sammy, did you know that my mother had died too?” I asked.

He nodded, “She was murdered too. I think that was the spell Vivian was casting that day. She was trying to get rid of your mother, and she succeeded. I'm so sorry, Lilly. If only I had managed to stop her.”

I reassured him that it would have been impossible. Nothing could have stopped her. Nothing at all.

For the next few hours, Sammy and I talked about what life had been like for the two of us over the years... me growing up in a kind of prison but not realising it until recently and him living in his own prison, hiding in the forest. We felt like life would begin to change again for us both, now that we had found each other. He was an important part of my family, and I had to convince the rest of my family that this was so. But more importantly, I had to convince them that he was no killer. That Vivian was responsible for much more than just taking my father and me away from them.

But first, I had to get home.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

“Hold on tight, Lilly,” said Sammy as he put his arms carefully around me. His wings flared out to his sides, and with a simple jump, we moved skywards. Although terrifying, flying through the dark night was exhilarating.

The higher we flew, the colder the temperature became, and I found myself shivering to such an extent that my teeth began to chatter.

“Don't worry, we're almost there,” Sammy said softly above the sound of his moving wings. I couldn't look down for fear. But soon enough, we were home. He swooped down, staying within the confines of the forest. I recognised the area and knew I was close to home.

As we came to a standstill, he gently released his grip on me. “Are you all right?” Nodding, I hugged him tightly and told him that soon we would all be together again.

“How can I contact you, though?” I asked, wondering how he would know when it was safe to return.

“I'll come back and meet you here again tomorrow night as soon as darkness comes. I'll stay hidden until I see you. Until then, Lilly. Keep safe. Good luck speaking to the rest of the family.”

I nodded as I watched him gracefully leap off into the sky again. I could hear his wings gently beating in the wind and wondered if, one day, I would be able to fly like that. I hadn't forgotten that I might possess the gene that could give me wings of my own. Or furry paws. But I was still waiting, nervously, for it to happen.

“Gabriel, Gabriel... wake up,” I said, gently shaking his shoulders as he slept peacefully, blissfully unaware of what had just happened to me.

As he came to, he suddenly sat upright and asked, “Lilly, are you all right? What on earth is the matter? Did you have another bad dream?”

I told him that I needed to talk to him urgently, but I also needed to speak to Rose, Wyatt and Meredith... and Jo. “We must call them now and tell them to come over straight away. Something very important has happened.”

He turned and looked at his bedside clock. 4.57am.

“Perhaps it might be pertinent to just wait a couple of hours, Lilly. We don't want to worry the rest of the family... unless absolutely necessary. Is it, Lilly? Is it absolutely necessary?”

I thought for a moment and agreed that perhaps it could wait a few more hours. After all, it had waited fourteen years, what was another two hours?

I debated whether I should tell Gabriel about Sammy first but decided against it. I knew how he felt about the man, and there was a possibility that he just might go a little mad at the mere mention of his name. At least with the others there, particularly Jo, they would help calm him down – that was my plan, anyway.

Gabriel wanted to know what was so urgent, but I said I couldn't tell him until the others arrived. He wasn't delighted, of course, but he was understanding. Gabriel was always understanding. It was one of the many things that I loved about him.

We decided to telephone the others at 8am – it was a Sunday morning, and Gabriel had said calling any earlier might have panicked them.

Fortunately, he hadn't noticed my unusual attire by then, so I decided to go to my room and lie down for a while. It gave me the chance to remove Sammy's over large boots and hide them until the truth was revealed later.

Adrenaline pulsed through my body as I lay there, darkness disappearing for another day to be replaced by a gentle light as the sun slowly began its ascent. I thought about Sammy. He had spent fourteen years completely alone. Even though I had felt lonesome during my childhood years, I could have no idea what it must have been like to have had absolutely no interaction with other people during that time.

I wondered how he had managed to hang on to his sanity. Hidden from the world like some kind of freak, when that couldn't be any further from the truth.

This man was a gentle soul who had suffered more than any of us had at the hands of a truly evil witch. It saddened me more than words could describe that he was not part of this family. The family that would have been his had Neleh lived. He would have been my brother-in-law. In my eyes, he was and would always be Neleh's husband.

The others arrived as soon as they could after the phone call. Wyatt had also brought Jo, as I'd requested. The last to arrive was Rose at five to nine.

They all appeared to be consumed with worry, but it wasn't too difficult to get them to calm down. They could see for themselves that I was safe and happy.

I had wondered about Meredith. I knew at times she had been able to read my thoughts, but this time, she seemed totally oblivious as to what was going on in my head. I asked her about it, and she told me that it's not something she can do all the time.

“It only happens occasionally and only when you are very close to me, but I'm not getting anything at the moment,” she sighed, clearly wishing she was.

After I'd made them all some hot tea, and requested that Gabriel bring the box of photos they had shown me before, I asked them all to sit in the living room together.

Gabriel handed me the box, and I emptied it until I found the photograph I was looking for. The one of Sammy and Neleh happily together.

“I don't want any of you to worry, especially you Gabriel,” I said, “and I don't want you to say anything until I've told you everything.”

Gabriel sighed, and I continued, “Please, Grand-father. This is more important than anything. Not a word, okay?”

He nodded and smiled as best he could, unsure about what I was about to reveal.

“A few nights ago, I had a dream, and when I woke up, I discovered that it had caused me to sleepwalk.”

The others all looked at each other with worry.

“It's okay. That night I woke up inside the house and nothing happened to me,” I smiled before going on, “but last night something very different happened. I had the most vivid dream I have ever had, and I sleepwalked... right into the forest.”