Raven Saga 01 - Raven

the only person he had spoken to in fourteen years. Fourteen lonely years with no company except for the animals that lived within the trees surrounding us.
    He had kept the heartbreak to himself for a long, long time and it would undoubtedly hurt him immeasurably just to say these words, but I didn't interrupt. I knew the benefit of talking about things. Hopefully this would be the start of his healing process, if it was still so raw.
    “I had never known that Neleh was... was different,” he stuttered.
    “Different?” I asked.
    He looked at me, his wings finally slowly closing behind him, while he appeared to wrestle with something within his head. He nodded and asked me if I knew anything unusual about my family. A family secret, he asked.
    It was then that I understood. Neleh had the gene. She could change – the family just hadn't realised because it hadn't happened before she died. At least if it had, she had never had the chance to tell anyone about it.
    “Yes,” I nodded. “I understand what you mean. Could... could Neleh change?”
    “I never knew about it until that day. In fact I'm not even sure that she knew herself. I'd heard tales of such creatures but believed them to be nothing but fairy tales. We'd ventured a little further into the forest. Neleh was so happy because you'd just been born – she'd always wanted a baby sister and so we were just hanging out together, having fun on our own. We'd left the hospital because we thought Serena and Jack should spend some quality time with you. We had taken a different path than usual and decided to investigate the area a bit more. That's when we found the run-down old cottage, well hidden within the forest.”
    “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 spell book, 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.