Raven Saga 01 - Raven

the river. She must have half frozen to death before she even got there. All she had on was a hospital gown. She didn't even have any shoes on. It was December. It was freezing.”
    I could barely breathe. My mother. My true flesh and blood. The woman who had carried me for nine months and had given birth to me had killed herself just after I was born. I could picture her walking through the snow, barefoot – yet she was probably barely even aware of the cold. Clearly all she could think of was the death of her precious daughter. My sister. Both were dead. Tears rolled down from the corners of my eyes. I couldn't stop them. Soon my face was completely wet.
    Gabriel approached me and crouched down in front of me. He placed his hand on my shoulder and patted me. Looking me deep in the eyes, he said, “I didn't just lose my grandchild and my daughter-in-law that night, Lilly. I lost your father and I lost you too.” He held me close to him then just for a moment.
    There was a knock on the door. “That'll be Rose,” he said as he stood up.
    “I'll get it,” said Wyatt as he stood and went to open the door. “Hi Rose. Thanks for coming,” I heard him say. She whispered something and I heard him respond, “yes, she knows everything up until Serena's death.”
    “Oh, the poor dear,” I heard her say.
    Rose walked in then, removing her warm fur coat and throwing it accurately on the coat hook on the wall. “Darling, Lilly,” she said as Gabriel and Meredith gave her room to embrace me tightly.
    She said nothing for a few minutes. We just sat in silence while the tragic news sank in, making my heart feel so heavy. The sound of the kitchen clock could be heard ticking, almost in time to the beating of my heart. To the beating of all our hearts.
    Rose looked at me then. She really looked at me as if she was looking deep into my soul.
    “You are my sister's daughter,” she said, nodding. “Yes, Serena was my darling little sister. She was the most wonderful person, Lilly. Everybody loved her. When she was born, she was a little miracle. That's what my parents and I had called her. 'Our little miracle'. My parents were getting on, you see. They never thought they'd have another child so when she appeared, it was a huge shock... a wonderful shock, of course, but a shock nonetheless,” she said smiling.
    Gabriel laughed then and I thought what a lovely face he had when he laughed. I hadn't seen much laughter in him since my arrival.
    “It was a shock to the whole community,” he said. “Your mother was nearly seventy,” he chuckled as he spoke to Rose and they shared a smile together.
    I was amazed too. A woman of nearly seventy had given birth, naturally, to a healthy baby girl. Not something you heard much of these days, I thought.
    “She was embraced by everyone here,” said Rose, “and I raised her as my own after mother and father passed away nearly ten years later. I was happy to do it though, with the... absence of children of my own. Serena wasn't your average ten year old. She was so mature and bright. She and Jack were the best of friends from a very early age. We all knew that they were soul mates, so when they told us they wanted to get married, we were overjoyed. It was the most natural thing in the world for them both. She was nearly 16 and Jack was 19.”
    “She became pregnant with Neleh almost immediately and they loved that child. They doted on her. Neleh was exactly like her mother... your mother...” she said, nodding at me, “she was headstrong, beautiful and intelligent. Everybody loved her. So when the cycle started to repeat itself again, nobody was worried. Neleh and Sammy seemed like soul mates too. They had wanted to get married themselves and start a family at a very early age. We didn't worry. We thought it was the most natural thing in the world – Neleh following in your mother's footsteps,” she stopped then and asked Meredith for a glass of water, who quickly poured her a drink and passed it to her, before she continued.
    “Sammy Morton was a very well liked boy here. He was an orphan, raised by a foster family in town. We really thought he and Neleh were well suited. What went wrong between them, we don't know, but that day when he carried her lifeless body back into town, he just looked different. He didn't look like the same person. He looked crazed somehow. And everybody just started believing that he had murdered her. He disappeared that day and nobody has ever