The Raven Saga Box Set

Chapter 2

My calm moments with the cat were cut short by the arrival of two young uniformed male police officers, followed by a third woman. The cat jumped out of my arms like a shot. She was clearly spooked by the presence of strangers and had vanished from our flat, presumably to return to the safety of her home. My calm feeling faded the moment she was gone.

The female police officer was very kind and polite and asked me a few questions about myself and my parents. When had I last seen them? Where did they work? Was it common for them to leave without telling me? Did they have mobile phones? I didn't even know the answer to the last question, although if they did, I never saw or heard them. Technology wasn't a word I heard used in our home. Not that there were ever many words used at all.

More questions were asked of me, and so I answered them as best as I could before the other two police officers managed to literally knock the door down. I wasn't prepared for what I saw, and I don't think they were either. There was almost nothing. Just a simple room, painted black – the floors, ceiling and walls all painted black. There were no chairs, no desks, nothing. The only things to be seen in the room were a small black shelf which contained two glass vials. One was filled with a thick deep red liquid, and the other contained what appeared to be something from the insides of an animal – I couldn't identify it, but it looked disgusting. A pang of fear shot through me. Fear for my parents' safety.

“Do you have any idea what substance this is, Miss?” asked one of the police officers.

I shook my head. “I've never been in here before.”

The two men gave each other a sideways glance that was way too obvious for me not to have seen.

“Right then, Miss, would you like to wait outside while we gather some of this evidence together?” said the first officer as the other led me out of the black room.

Snippets of conversation could be heard as I waited for them to finish.

“This is definitely blood. What on earth do you think has been going on in here then, Pete?”

“Beats me, Dave. I tell you one thing though, it's weird, whatever it is. It's almost like something out of a horror film. Here... look at this.”

The female officer appeared by my side and cleared her throat. The conversation in the black room suddenly became quieter.

“Don't worry, Lilly. We'll get to the bottom of this,” she said, smiling. “We'll find your mum and dad.”

After about half an hour, the officers appeared from the room, carrying the vials in two clear plastic bags.

“Okay, Constable Madley, we've all the evidence now. We'll take them to the lab for tests,” said the taller of the two.

He tipped his hat to me and smiled before carrying everything out of the flat.

Following behind, the other one stopped in front of me and crouched down, looking right into my eyes. His dark brown eyes and the soft laughter lines around his mouth gave him a look of kindness. I hadn't noticed when they'd first arrived. “Lilly, we'll be in touch as soon as we have any information as to the whereabouts of your parents. Don't worry. We'll find them.” He stood up then and patted Constable Madley on the back. They were clearly friends as well as colleagues. He smiled at her, “Thank you, Constable Madley. We'll see you back at the station.”

CHAPTER THREE

My parents' disappearance continued to be a complete mystery. The police had told me that even though they had followed several lines of enquiry and spoken to countless people; they had come up without a single clue to go on. Not one person had seen them. I was the only one that had seen them that day. Well, I had seen her. I hadn't actually seen my father. I had just assumed he was there. I rarely saw him anyway, I rarely even heard him. Every now and then I would hear her speak to him, but I never heard him reply.

It had been a hot and humid summer and, unusual for England at that time of year, it had lasted for quite a few weeks. Naturally, there had been a hosepipe ban as happened every time the sun shone for more than a week there. I had only been aware of it because my teachers were keen to teach us all about current environmental issues.

Not that I noticed the ban. We didn't have a garden, we didn't even have any plants. Our home was a bare flat in London where I had lived all my life – all thirteen years of it. I can't say I was happy, nor can I say I was particularly unhappy because I wouldn't have known the true meaning of either word.

I was very much a loner with no friends until December came along. Luckily, the majority of kids at school were pleasant enough to us, but we didn't feel like we belonged with any of them, so we simply avoided contact. Of course, there were a few that taunted us every now and again, but we took little notice. They seemed to tease a lot of people at school, having silly nicknames for everyone - apart from December. The kids were amused enough by her name not to bother making up another. Mine was Mellow Yellow – probably because I was so quiet and wore a lot of yellow. Not by choice, though. The few clothes that I owned were bought by my mother, and for some reason, they were all yellow, not even a nice shade of yellow. All were second-hand clothes, and none fitted me correctly, but I certainly couldn't complain even if I hated them all. Like I said, my parents and I didn't really talk.

December and I preferred being in our own little world, alone with our thoughts or curled up with a sneaky book under the large chestnut tree in the playground.

At school, we blended into the background. We were courteous to most people, and most of them were polite to us. Yet if you asked anyone about me, even my name, I doubted very much that any of the kids would know. At least that was the case until my parents mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth. Then everyone seemed to know my name. Everyone knew I was Lilly Taylor.

Word had spread rapidly as I walked through the school gates a few days later.

Out of habit, December had waited hidden behind the walls for my arrival. She needn't have, of course. She hugged me tightly but didn't say a word. Somehow she just knew how I felt.

Shame the other kids didn't have a clue. Fingers pointed, people whispered and stared at me. Not a single other person approached me. Had it not been for December, I would have felt even more alone than I had ever felt before. I could easily have cried on her shoulder, but the tears did not come. As much as I wished they would, they wouldn't come, perhaps because I had never really had much of a relationship with either parent. I never felt loved. I never even felt liked. But they were my family.

The closest people to me at that time of my life, other than December, were the kind neighbours who had offered to take care of me until my parents were found. Or, in the event that they did not return; until plans were made for me to travel across the world to stay with my grandfather in Canada. A grand-father I knew nothing about. December would be crushed. I was her only friend, and she needed me as much as I needed her. I would hate to have to leave her, but deep down, I knew that it was likely.

Rather than put me into temporary foster care, Social Services had agreed that my staying with the sisters was the best thing for me. Familiarity, they said, would be better than handing me over to complete strangers. Dorothy and June were spinsters. They had never married but had been happy enough living together their entire lives. They were kind and honest, and they were trustworthy. I couldn't really have stayed with December even if I had wanted to. She didn't have the best relationship with her aunt. What her wealthy aunt gave to December in financial security, she lacked in love. She was as lonely as I was, and her aunt would never have allowed her to take me home with her.

Later that afternoon, I had rushed out of the school gates and looked up at the window to see if my mother had come back. She wasn't there, of course. No vision in white.

As I stood there, it occurred to me that for the very first time in my life I could do anything I wanted. Anything in the world. But I had no idea what to do. I looked around and watched many of the other kids laughing and joking. Some kicked around a football, others sat on the wall sneakily smoking cigarettes, while some of the younger ones were collected by their loving parents. December sadly waved goodbye from her chauffeur-driven car.

Instead of heading 'home', I gingerly walked in the opposite direction, looking back over my shoulder afraid that someone might swoop down and pull me back. Yet for the first time ever, I felt no pull to return to that place. If it weren't for Dorothy and June, I would probably have just carried on walking, but deep down I knew I couldn't hurt them like that. Especially when they had shown nothing but kindness to me.

So I turned around and headed back up those stairs. The ones I had walked up a million times before. Yet this time, I entered the apartment across the hall from my parents' place. As I unlocked the door, the most delicious smell of home cooking invaded my every pore, and the sounds of laughter came from the living room. I followed the sounds, and instead of finding the sisters, I found the television switched on. I sat down and watched for a few minutes, laughing at the silly man who pranced around like a complete i***t getting himself stuck in ridiculous situations. Watching until it finished, I discovered that he was called Mr Bean. It was then that I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for doing something I was never permitted to do. I peered over my shoulder guiltily before getting up and walking into the kitchen.

“Oh, hello, dear. You're just in time for dinner. Come in. Don't just hover by the door. I hope you had a good day at school. I've made us a Shepherd's Pie. I hope you like that,” said Dorothy as she gently pushed her white-blonde curls behind her ears before spooning the food onto a plate for me.

I had no idea what a Shepherd's Pie was, but I nodded enthusiastically nonetheless. It was easily the most delicious meal I had ever had. At home, everything came straight from a tin. Tinned spaghetti, tinned beans, tinned peas, tinned mince, tinned potatoes, tinned soup, and so on. And most of it was given to me cold. Stone cold. I only knew it was all tinned food because of the time I had sneaked in when she wasn't looking and had opened the cupboards to find a lifetime's supply of the stuff.

I had never been allowed to spend any length of time in our kitchen, other than to quickly eat, so I had no idea how to prepare food. I guess back then I had assumed that everybody ate that kind of stuff.

“Did this come out of a tin, Dorothy?” I asked.

“Oh my dear!” she said, “Of course not. We cook everything fresh in this house. Did your mother never prepare you a home-cooked meal?”

I shook my head and told her about the kinds of things I had eaten, and she looked shocked, as did June.

“I take it that means she never taught you to how to cook?”