Never Look Back

by Sheri WhiteFeather

  "It's okay, Sam," she said, even though things didn't feel all right. Last year, when Allie's great-grandmother had cast her dark magic, the earth had been flooded with rain.

  She lit a candle and took a deep breath, filling her nostrils with the cookielike scent of vanilla. The flame made a curvaceous sweep, swaying softly, reminding her of a lone dancer, a lost lover.

  Allie sighed. If only she wasn't such a dreamer. As a child, she'd thrived on Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. And now she wanted to drift in the arms of an angel, to let him keep her safe.

  She walked down the hall and into her studio, hoping to find him there. But all she encountered was a puddle of water on the floor.

  Weary, she closed the window, grabbed a towel and sopped up the water. Afterward, she walked over to the painting she'd created, gazing at the angel, looking for answers in his eyes.

  If she tried to cast a spell, if she used his feather in an incantation, would it draw him near? Or would she be tempting fate? Allie didn't know what to call herself. She wasn't a witch. Native witches used their power to perpetuate sickness and death, to do harm unto others. But by the same token, she wasn't a shaman. Shamans used their power to conduct ceremonies and cure illnesses.

  So what am I? she wondered. A grown woman who believed in fairy tales? Who thought Prince Charming wore tattered clothes and big, dark wings?

  Unable to stop herself, she reopened the window. A little water damage was better than the raven barreling into the glass.

  Finally, she went into the kitchen to feed Samantha and fix a snack. She opened a can of cat food and scooped it into a bowl, but Sam didn't come running. The animal approached her meal warily, still smarting over the weather. Water pounded on the roof like a thousand angry fists.

  Dark and heavy. It was a male rain, Allie thought. Or so she'd been taught. And since that knowledge had come from her mother, she battled a quick chill, rubbing her arm and disturbing her bandage.

  Trying to focus on food, she diced an apple and cut bite-size chunks of cheddar cheese. A glass of wine came next. She needed something to pacify her nerves.

  Then she got the urge to call Daniel, to ask him what ravens ate. It might help to leave some food out for the bird. She glanced at her cat. When Samantha had been living on the streets, Allie had earned the stray's affection by feeding her.

  She looked up Daniel's number and punched out the digits. The phone rang and rang. Finally, she left a message on his voice mail. It hadn't occurred to her that he wouldn't be home. Where would he go in the rain? Allie intended to stay put.

  She finished her wine, then poured another glass. She deserved to get tipsy. She was alone on a stormy night with powers that confused her.

  Screw it. A third glass of wine did the trick, giving her a nice buzz. Who cared if she wasn't a witch or a shaman? Who cared if magic—her supernatural gift—didn't make any sense? It was part of who she was, of what made her special.

  The phone rang and she grabbed it on the second ring. "Hello?"

  "It's Daniel."

  "Oh, hey. That was quick. Where were you?"

  "In the shower."

  "Oh." She wasn't about to envision him without his clothes. He wasn't the naked type. Fogged glasses, maybe. Bronzed and bare, no way.

  "What's on your mind?" he asked.

  She popped a piece of cheese into her mouth. "I want to know what ravens eat."

  "Damn, woman. You're obsessed."

  "Yep. So what's their diet like?"

  "They're omnivorous. They eat animal and vegetable substances. They're attracted to carrion, too."

  Hmm. She couldn't recall what that meant. She blamed it on the wine instead of her scattered mind. Allie usually had a zillion thoughts going at once. "Carrion?"

  "It's dead and putrefying flesh. Like a deer that's spoiling."

  Her stomach roiled. "That's gross."

  "You think so?" He chuckled. "They eat the insects that feed on carrion, too. Mostly maggots and beetles. Oh, and they'll chow down on the afterbirth of ewes and other large mammals."

  Now her stomach was turning something awful. "Let's discuss the kinds of non-animal foods they prefer."

  "What for?"

  "Because I'm a vegetarian." She set her empty wine glass on the counter. "And I'm fresh out of maggots and afterbirth."

  "You're going to try to lure the raven with bait?"

  "That's the plan."

  "I forgot to mention that they eat spiders."

  "That's not funny." But she laughed anyway. "Come on, Daniel, be a pal."

  "All right. Fine. Berries, nuts, corn, grains. Whatever you can scrounge up. They're not picky."

  "I can do that."

  "Ravens take their food from the ground and store it. So leave it in a place that seems natural. No fancy plates. No silverware."

  "No kidding," she said, enjoying his sense of humor. She wondered if she should set Daniel up with one of her friends, with someone who thought quasi-geeks were sexy.

  "Do ravens have special mates?" she asked, pursuing the question he hadn't answered earlier.

  "Some do," he responded, still sounding hesitant. "They stay together for years, maybe for life. Females incubate the eggs, but both parents care for their young once they hatch." He paused. "I think you're getting too attached to that bird. You can't become part of its life. It's not like a stray dog that's going to adopt you."

  What about a stray angel? she wondered. "I know. I understand."

  "Okay. Be good, Allie."

  "You, too. I'll talk to you later." She hung up the phone and suffered an instant pang of loneliness. Suddenly the rain seemed even stronger, more tumultuous.

  Ignoring the temptation to call Daniel back, she gathered food for the raven and carried it into the studio. The procedure felt familiar. Sometimes Allie left meals for her dad. The Lakota believed in feeding ghosts.

  She set an ear of corn down and hoped her father didn't think she was putting his food on the floor. Not that he ever ate what she gave him. But she knew the gesture mattered.

  After making a floral pattern with sunflower seeds, something Daniel would have admonished her for, she wrote her name in blueberries. Just in case the raven wondered who she was.

  She stood there for a moment, realizing how silly her effort was. She decided to sober up, to let the buzz from the wine fade away.

  Determined to unwind, she closed the door and headed for her bathroom, peeling off her clothes along the way. The loft had two bathrooms, one for her and one for her sister. Allie's was decorated with butterfly wallpaper and gold fixtures.

  Finally, she soaked in the tub, adding her favorite scented oil, making herself feel soft and pretty.

  Even if the rain was pounding like tears from hell.

  When the water turned cold, she dried off and slipped on a long-sleeved nightgown, something to keep her warm, something to give her comfort.

  After that, she treated herself to a pedicure, painting her toenails a shimmering shade of pink.

  And then she cursed a little, putting a damper on her feminine mood. She couldn't quit thinking about the raven. Yet that damned bird wasn't going to show up on a rainy night. He was probably snug in a cozy nest somewhere, wooing his mate, feeding her maggots and cawing love sonnets.

  So close the window. Forget about him.

  Taking her own advice, she headed to the studio and opened the door. Then she stopped dead in her tracks, her heart somersaulting to her throat.

  Dear God.

  There he was. Her angel. Her protector. As big as life, as glorious as her watercolor, with his clothes clinging to his body and his hair dripping with rain.

  She gulped, and his wings swooshed, making a powerful sound. Beneath his work boots were crushed berries. He stood in the center of her studio.

  Allie didn't know what to do, what to say. His eyes, the same pitch-brown eyes she'd painted, were staring straight at her.

  Chapter 3

 
He didn't blink. He didn't move a muscle. He just scrutinized her in the way Daniel had.

  Yet unlike Daniel, everything about him was familiar, every angle of his face: his slashing cheekbones, his razor-sharp nose, lips that thinned and slanted slightly downward at the corners.

  Being this close to him seemed surreal, like a twisted dream. His feathers caught the light, glimmering beneath the studio lamps, creating a violet sheen, a velvetlike softness. She itched to touch them, to absorb their midnight texture.

  But she wouldn't dare.

  She took a chance, introducing herself. "I'm Allie Whirlwind." She gestured to the floor where she'd written her name, and he shifted his feet, squishing the blueberries even more.

  She waited for him to respond and got nothing in return. Now what? In some early Native cultures, it was rude to ask someone his or her name. And unless it was spoken in an emergency, it was impolite to say a person's name to his or her face.

  Allie decided that a painting coming to life constituted an emergency. "Do you have a name?" she asked. "Or should I give you one?"

  Once again, he said nothing. Maybe he didn't understand English. Or maybe he didn't have the capacity to talk. She tilted her head, analyzing him. What if he was missing the parts that she hadn't painted, things that weren't visible, like vocal chords or—

  She dropped her gaze to his fly. What if he was a big, beautiful, winged eunuch?

  God forbid. She'd made jokes about boffing his brains out, wisecracks about having raw, wicked, holy-heaven sex with him.

  When she looked up, she caught him frowning at her. But she could hardly blame him. If she were in his situation, she would be scowling, too.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  This time, he squinted at her. Rain was still falling violently from the sky and blowing in through the open window. The floor behind him was soaked.

  "I can alter my work." She motioned to the easel. "Give you what you don't have." Of course, that would mean doing a series of renderings, an entire study, sketching him from the inside out. But she'd done anatomy depictions before. It was part of her training, what she considered the da Vinci side of her education. "What do you think?"

  More silence.

  Allie sighed, and he moved his hands, turning them outward, the way they were in the portrait. She noticed how rough they were. Just like the image she'd created, he had calluses on his palms and dirt under his nails. Did he know that he was a farmer?

  Probably not. If he didn't have vocal chords, or a penis or testes, then he probably didn't have a brain, either.

  Then again, that raven had seemed pretty damn smart. Hadn't Daniel told her how intelligent the species was? How highly evolved?

  She looked at the angel again. She could see him taking in air, letting it out. Apparently he had a fully-functioning respiratory system. So how could he be missing parts that weren't visible? That she hadn't painted?

  Allie resisted the urge to move closer. If she placed her hand against his chest, would she feel his heart?

  A sturdy wind blew, rustling his ragged shirt. Although his clothes were damp, she realized that he hadn't flown into the loft in his present form. As the angel, he was too big to fit through the window. His wings would have gotten stuck. He must have come in as the raven and shifted afterward, the way he'd done before. Yet the rain he'd encountered clung to him. In a scientific sense that seemed odd. In a supernatural sense, it proved how connected he was to the bird.

  "Why did you do this to me?" he asked, sending her into a tailspin.

  Heaven help her. Not only could he talk, his voice was strong and masculine, the words articulated deep in his throat. But his tone was raspy, too, as though he hadn't spoken in a very long time, as though he'd been trying to remember how to form the words, how to accuse her of something treacherous.

  She winced. "Do what?"

  "This." He indicated his wings.

  "I painted an angel for protection."

  "I'm not an angel."

  She curled her toes. She wasn't wearing slippers, and her feet were cold, chilled by the linoleum. "You're supposed to be."

  "But I'm not."

  "Then who are you?" she asked. "Where did you come from?"

  He didn't answer. Her question teetered, like a book that was about to fall. Allie grumbled beneath her breath. They'd only exchanged a few brief words, yet they'd reached a standstill, caught in a challenging moment. He was wary of her, and she was frustrated with him.

  He rounded on her. "Why do you need protection? Why do you seek an angel?"

  She took a defensive stance. Her toes were no longer curled. "Because my great-grandmother is a soul-stealing witch, and after the spell that binds her magic wears off, she's going to come after me. She already tried to lure my sister. It's only logical that I'm next. I thought painting an angel might help." She held up her hands, raising them toward the ceiling. "Angels hail from the Creator."

  "Usen," he said, referring to the Apache God. "I prayed to Him when a witch took part of my soul. But it was too late. It happened too fast." His eyes turned darker, deeper. "I think—I fear—that your great-grandmother is the witch who cursed me. Why else would I be here? Like this?" He swished his wings, creating a gusty breeze. "Your power must be connected to hers."

  She blinked, stunned by his words, by his revelation. "You're him? The man Zinna claimed to love? The man she punished for not returning her affection?"

  He nodded, and thunder cracked in the sky.

  Overwhelmed, she reached out to touch him, but he stepped back, away from her. She needed to convince him that she could be trusted, that her magic was good. "It never occurred to me that you were him. That I'd painted…" She turned to look at the watercolor, then shifted her gaze back to him. "I didn't know it was you. I heard about you from my sister. Zinna told her there was a man she'd cursed. But the details were vague." She paused, recalling the conversation she'd had with Olivia. "I wanted to save you, but my sister said that you would be dead by now. But you're not a spirit. You're not like Zinna. You're alive."

  "I have lived a long time."

  "That was your curse?"

  "Part of it." His voice echoed in the vast, damp room, making a hollow, distant sound. "There is more. A darkness that awaits."

  "Will you tell me about it?" She walked to the window and closed it, shutting out the storm, dodging the water on the floor.

  "Yes. But first you should know my name." He paused. "I'm called Raven."

  Like the bird he'd become, she thought. She suspected that was another aspect of his damnation, something her great-grandmother had done to him. "And what about your life before you shape-shifted? Will you tell me about that, too?"

  "Yes. But where to do I start? There is so much that has happened."

  "You can begin with your childhood."

  "My early life was happy," he told her. "But when I was ten, I was separated from my parents. Soon after Geronimo surrendered, the Chiricahua Apache became prisoners of war. They were removed from their reservations in the Southwest, even those who hadn't made war with the government." He paused. "The adults were sent to a reservation or to a prison in Florida."

  Allie knew bits and pieces of Chiricahua history, but not enough to connect her with that side of her heritage. "What happened to the children?"

  "The older ones, like me, were shipped to a boarding school in Pennsylvania. They cut my hair and outfitted me with a uniform." He stopped to touch his shirt, as though picturing himself as a child. "It was dark blue, decorated with red braid on the shoulder, similar to a military uniform."

  She waited for him to continue. He did, after he took a laden breath.

  "Students were forbidden to speak their native languages. We had to learn English, to read and write. To memorize Bible verses. They forced us to say the Lord's Prayer." He made a troubled face. "But the environment wasn't merciful. I was punished many times."

  Her heart went out to him. "Why?"

  "Becaus
e I didn't like being told that the Indian way of life was inferior and that only 'bad' Indians retained their culture. I didn't understand how this could be so if the white man's God had created all men equal."

  Allie believed in Christianity. But she followed Native ways, too. Her father had practiced two faiths. But not her mother. Yvonne had feigned a disinterest in religion, in the battle between good and evil, when all along, she'd been a witch.

  "The Chiricahua adults didn't stay in Florida for very long," he said. "They were relocated to Alabama, where many of them died."

  "From illnesses?"

  He nodded. "But my parents didn't take ill."

  "They survived?"

  "My mother did. My father shot himself. Other warriors did this, too. They couldn't cope with captivity."

  Stunned, Allie fell silent. Raven's father had committed suicide. Like her father.

  "I was in the boarding school when it happened." He frowned, his eyes reflecting his pain. "I was hundreds of miles away from my grieving mother."

  "I'm sorry." She wanted to touch him, to hold him, but he was still keeping his distance.

  He kept talking, telling his story. "The Chiricahua prisoners spent five years in Alabama, then they were sent to Fort Sill, a military reservation in Oklahoma."

  "Is that where you lived after you finished boarding school? Is that where my great-grandmother cursed you?"

  "Yes," he said, and began to describe the night Zinna had destroyed his life.

  * * *

  Alone, with dusk coloring the sky, Raven stood in a watermelon field, his boots hard and heavy on the ground. He glanced at the carefully cultivated rows. The planting had just begun, and this was his favorite time of year.

  He stopped to breathe in the spring air. At Fort Sill, the government had built houses for the Apache and put them to work, farming and raising cattle. But this wasn't new to Raven. Farming was in his blood. His family had always grown their own food, even before the government had dictated their lives.

  He knelt to touch a seedling. He had lived at Fort Sill since he was eighteen. He was thirty now, and he remained a prisoner of war, a man who barely remembered what it was like to be free.