Raven Saga 01 - Raven

opened my eyes to find Rose had gone. I stood up and turned round, conscious of my nakedness. At first I had felt very warm but soon grew cold.
    Rose appeared from another room carrying a pair of pink pyjamas and some thick purple woolly socks. “I told Gabriel you would stay here tonight. I think it's for the best,” she said as she handed me the warm clothes. I slipped them on, quickly warming up before I thanked her.
    Once dressed, she hugged me long and hard, “It's a tough life sometimes, Lilly. We can never know what's going to happen. But you mustn't worry yourself over Oliver. What's done is done. He will survive.”
    For the first time since early that evening, I broke down in tears. They flowed for a long time afterwards. No matter how hard I tried to choke them back, my cheeks would become soaked once again. Rose was perfect company. She knew exactly what to say and when not to say anything and I was particularly grateful for her wisdom that night.
    When my eyes and cheeks finally became drier, Rose heated up some milk on the stove while I heaped a few teaspoons of cocoa into a couple of mugs. Hours later, we were still talking about love, life, Serena, Neleh, Walter, Lori, Sammy, Oliver, December and everything else that mattered to us both. We bonded more that night than we had ever done before. Rose had become something of a surrogate mother to me.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

    I didn't speak to Oliver again after that. I tried phoning him but he ignored all my calls. My emails bounced back and my letters were returned unopened.
    Gabriel had reasoned with him and thankfully he had agreed to keep our family's secret, but at a price. The price being that he no longer wanted to be a part of our lives.
    I was heartbroken. Not just for me but for Gabriel who cherished him and had done so ever since he was born.
    I was also sad for his brother Ben who was completely unaware about what had happened. Oliver had agreed Ben was better off not knowing the truth that surrounded him. He then left Powell River, out of our lives. I knew that the fault lay entirely with me.
    Ben had attempted to find out the truth behind his sudden departure but we refused to give him any more details than absolutely necessary. All he had been told was that Oliver and I had a huge disagreement, so big that he no longer wanted to live here. Apparently, he'd told Ben he had always yearned for more than being stuck in Powell River, so it seemed the perfect time to get away and explore what he really wanted out of life.
    Ben simply accepted what he had been told. The excuses made sense to him, and so he carried on life as normal. Well, as normal as could be expected considering his beloved younger brother had effectively run away.
    I could tell that it pained him that Oliver had left, but he told me that, regardless of his reasons for leaving, he was also proud that Oliver had decided to stand on his own two feet and was going to have his own adventure.
    After several weeks when I asked after Oliver, Ben told me that he regularly talked to him on the phone but when I asked for more details – how he was, where he was, etc, Ben just said that he was doing okay but that he had promised Oliver not to tell me where he was or what he was doing. His only message to me: 'please stay away and don't try to contact me'. When Ben told me those words, I hid myself away for a while, shed a few tears and did my best to move on, but it wasn't easy.
    Although I blamed myself, I refused to let it affect my life negatively. I still had a life and I intended to live it as best as I could. That didn't mean I didn't miss Oliver though. I missed him terribly. He had been such an important part of my early life in Canada and I wished that things had happened differently with him. He deserved it... and so did I.
    My life continued, not quite as normal as before, but continued nonetheless. With Oliver no longer in the picture, Sammy didn't have as much to worry about because we rarely had any other visitors to our home. The two of us became very close, he was like a brother to me and I loved him dearly and I knew he loved me too. I was the little sister he had never had. There were days we would spend hours in the forest, Sammy showing me how he had lived there for so many years.
    Throughout that lonely time, he'd had no choice but to become totally self sufficient – hunting for food and furs to keep himself warm during the winters, creating shelter, building