Raven Saga 01 - Raven

to cook all kinds of simple recipes. They tried to keep me busy. The police concluded that the blood they had found was my father's, but they neglected to tell me what was in the other vial. However, as they had made no further discoveries, it looked as though the case may well be shelved, unsolved. An X file. I didn't know what to think. A vial of my father's blood? Did that mean he was injured? Or worse? I tried not to let my imagination run wild.
    From conversations with the Social Services, the authorities and Dorothy and June, I knew I would have to move to Canada. My grand-father telephoned me and told me that all the arrangements had been made. We didn't have much to say to each other. Not just because I didn't know the man, but also because I simply wasn't used to talking on the telephone.
    In just a few short weeks, I would no longer live in England. A sense of sadness overcame me but still the tears did not come. I was upset that I was leaving my parents behind... wherever they were. But it was the fact that my life had actually improved since they'd disappeared that made me feel guilty. The guilt turned to sadness and the sadness turned to guilt, like an unstoppable swinging pendulum.

CHAPTER FOUR

    One night as I lay on my bed drifting off to sleep, there was a tapping sound on the window. Opening my eyes, I saw two black birds sitting on the windowsill staring solemnly in at me. Having never taken any notice of local birds before, I wanted to know what they were, so I trundled out of bed and tiptoed into the living room where the sisters kept all their books. There I found an encyclopaedia from which I managed to identify them as ravens. After watching them for a few more minutes, they flew away. Exhaustion soon set in and it didn't take long for me to forget all about them and fall asleep.
    But the following night, they re-appeared. There was a tap on the window and as I looked up from the book I was reading, I saw them both sitting in the same spot looking in at me again.
    This happened every night until my move to Canada. Why they visited me there I had no idea. But there they were, every night, sitting on my windowsill, as if protecting me from something.
    The way they perched there and repeatedly cocked their heads from one side to the other made me giggle, but they also frightened me somewhat and so I soon stopped. I dared not open the window. I never closed the curtains because, although I was fearful, I was also comforted by them. They became a constant in my strange, lonesome life.
    I almost wished they could go with me to Canada, a country that I had few expectations of. I hadn't always known that my grand-father Gabriel was Canadian. In fact I hadn't even known of his existence until my thirteenth birthday, nearly a year earlier. I had bumped into the postman at the bottom of the stairs and so I had taken our mail directly from him, instead of letting him place it in our post box as usual. I hadn't intended to look through it but a Canadian postmark had caught my attention and it was addressed... to me.
    So I sat down on the edge of the step and had almost torn the envelope apart to get to the letter. I started to read it...

    My dearest Lillian
    It is thirteen years since you were born and you are missed terribly.
    I have written to you before but I can only imagine the letters have not reached you. I wish I could see you again, Lillian. I am your paternal grand-father after all....

    But before I had the chance to read on, the letter was cruelly ripped from my hands and torn into shreds by my mother. She had been so angry that I had opened that letter. More so when I told her it was addressed to me. I tried to ask her about my grand-father but she refused to say a word. So all I knew was that I had a Canadian grand-father yet I longed to know more about him. I couldn't ask my father because, on the rare occasion that I did see him, he was never alone. My mother never seemed to allow us to be together, just the two of us.
    All I knew about my grand-father was that he was Canadian. I didn't know what to feel. There was a sadness there. A numbness too. I missed my parents so much that I had a deep ache in my stomach. Yet during those weeks, I didn't miss the life that we'd had at all. But that didn't detract from the fact that they were my parents and I needed to know where they were. Even though I had December, Dorothy and June – and their beautiful cat Iris – I still felt lonely, as if a