Raven Saga 01 - Raven

didn't feel afraid.
    I approached him. He hadn't heard or seen me so when a few twigs broke underfoot, he jumped and hid immediately behind the large tree he had been leaning on.
    “Who goes there?” he asked.
    The moment the words escaped from his lips, I felt even more at ease and so I rushed towards the fire and sat down, rubbing my poor feet and hands in an effort to warm up as quickly as possible.
    “My name is Lilly Tulugaq,” I responded.
    “You shouldn't be here, Lilly Tulugaq”, he said, “it is not safe for you here. You should be frightened.”
    “Why would I be frightened... of the man that saved my life?” I questioned, recalling that stormy day when I had become trapped beneath an oversized log. Someone had rescued me and carefully placed my unconscious body somewhere safe where he knew I would get immediate attention. That person was the same person that hid behind the tree in front of me. I would have recognised that gentle voice anywhere.
    As he stepped out from his hiding place, although the light did not allow me to see his face, I could see his silhouette and I was not prepared for what I saw.
    His profile was that of a fit man in his early 30s but as he moved to the side, he had something else that should have terrified me. Two huge black wings jutted out from his shoulder blades.
    “What are you?” I whispered, “Are you a raven?”
    He laughed then and shook his head. “I wish I was. I am neither a raven nor a man. Not any more,” he said sadly.
    “I don't understand.”
    “I was once a man but an evil woman cursed me with these wings and now I am neither one thing nor another,” he said, sitting opposite me. It was then that he noticed I was wearing only pyjamas and he stood abruptly, making me jump in the process.
    “Lilly... you could freeze to death like that. What were you thinking walking in the forest with hardly any clothes on? Not even any shoes? Are you insane?” he said as he rushed into what looked like a cave that was well hidden by the trees. Returning, he had old thick socks, walking boots that were several sizes too big and a large woolly blanket.
    As he came closer to me, I caught a glimpse of his face and jumped backwards, suddenly very afraid.
    “You... you're... Sammy Morton,” I muttered, confused and frightened.
    He nodded in response and placed his hand gently on mine.
    “Please don't be afraid of me, Lilly. I am not the killer that some people think I am. Neleh was everything to me. I loved her more than anything in the world. Come, sit closer to the fire and get warm. I will explain. I will tell you the truth about what happened to your sister... and to your mother.”
    His voice was so gentle and soothing, that I believed every word that he said and I instantly found it impossible to believe that someone like him could ever be thought of as a killer.
    As I sat next to the fire, Sammy produced some hot tea for me, made, he said, from herbs he picked from around the forest. Over the years he'd had little choice but to learn to fend for himself – teaching himself all about the different plants and animals. He had to learn how to hide from prying eyes and to defend himself from predators.
    “But before I tell you about any of that, how did you find me here?”
    I explained how I had been led to him by Serena and Neleh. How they had come to me in a dream.
    “I understand now that they led me to you. They want the truth to be known... as I do,” I said, before letting him continue his story about how he ended up in the forest all alone.
    “Neleh and I used to spend a lot of time here in this forest. Although we never dared come this far. Jack and Gabriel would have gone mad. We would just hang out... do what young lovers do,” he said sadly, before going on, “we were going to get married you, know? Neleh and I. But then that awful day happened and our dreams were snatched from us. From all of us. Not just from me and Neleh but from you, your father, Gabriel. All because of that evil witch.”
    Of course that's when things started to click into place. That evil witch. He was talking about Vivian. She had been responsible for a lot more than we had initially thought and I was about to find out just how evil she really was.
    “She killed Neleh,” he said and then he stood in front of me, his wings spread out majestically to his sides.
    I realised that he had probably never spoken about it before. In fact it dawned on me then that I was probably