Never Look Back

by Sheri WhiteFeather

  He stood up, leaving the seedling to fare on its own. Some of the white men Raven had encountered over the years were cruel. But some were kind. He didn't hate them. He had learned to live in their world. But even so, he had begun to wear his hair long again. It was his rebellion, his way of taking back what had been stolen from him.

  The brightest spot in his life was Vanessa. She was his Apache wife, a small-boned woman with sun-warmed skin, long eyelashes and a teasing smile. He loved her with his entire heart. They had been married for eleven years, but they had no children. It was their greatest pain, their biggest disappointment. Someday they hoped Usen would bless them with sons and daughters.

  He gazed at the sky. Darkness was beginning to fall. It was time for him to return to his house, to eat the meal Vanessa would have waiting for him. She never scolded him for working late, for remaining in the field after dusk, even though she worried that it was dangerous.

  Because of the witch.

  The one who had vowed to destroy him.

  He took a familiar path with scattered trees. He walked with a strong, steady step. It was bad enough being under military custody. He wouldn't allow a dead witch to control him, too.

  Zinna had died several months ago. She had contracted an illness that had gone untreated. There was not a shaman among the Chiricahua who had been willing to heal her. Everyone knew she was a witch. She had been feared, and shunned, among the people.

  He kept walking. By now, the moon was half full, creating diffused light and casting shadows. He stepped on a twig that snapped beneath his foot, but he didn't flinch.

  Not until a small voice stopped him. "Raven."

  He spun around and saw a young girl. She held a lighted candle, and the flame illuminated her face. She was a haunting child, strangely pretty, with hollow cheeks and hair that coiled around her shoulders. He recognized her as Zinna's nine-year-old daughter, Sorrel.

  "Where are you going?" she asked.

  "Home," he said.

  "To your wife?"

  "Yes."

  "To fornicate with her?"

  Stunned, he could only stare. Children were supposed to be innocent, yet this one was rude and abrasive.

  "My mother wanted to fornicate with you," she said. "It was you she craved, not my father."

  Raven didn't respond. Zinna's love spells hadn't worked on him. So she'd bewitched Sorrel's father instead.

  "Do you know what Mother did to get her revenge?" A wicked smile twisted Sorrel's lips. "She stopped you from having children. She hexed your wedding night and made your wife barren."

  The pain, the horror of her words, clenched his stomach. He'd heard of ceremonies that made women sterile. But they weren't witchcraft ceremonies. Some women chose to do them because they didn't want children.

  But Vanessa wanted babies, and he'd never associated her inability to conceive with any kind of ceremony, least of all witchcraft.

  He narrowed his gaze at Zinna's offspring. She was still smiling, still reveling in her mother's deed. He wanted to crush this young girl, to stomp her to the ground.

  "Go home," he spat. "Get away from me."

  She laughed at his ire, enjoying her devious game.

  He turned his back on her, then resumed walking. She persisted, following him, skipping along the way, making his blood run cold.

  An owl hooted, and Sorrel dogged his heels. "Listen, Raven. Do you hear that? Mother is talking to me."

  He increased his pace. He didn't doubt her claim. When a witch died, he or she became an owl.

  The bird hooted again, its voice terrorizing the night.

  Zinna's daughter gloated. "Mother says she is going to destroy you."

  "She vowed to do that a long time ago."

  "And now she has the power to make good on her promise. She is stronger in death than she was in life."

  "I don't care." But he did. Deep down, he was afraid, especially when the moon slipped behind a tree and everything went black. He could no longer see the path in front of him.

  He nearly stumbled on something beneath his boot. And when he looked up, Sorrel stood in front of him, holding the candle.

  On her shoulder was an owl.

  Zinna.

  Sorrel smiled and nuzzled the feathers that tufted around the creature's foot.

  Mother and daughter.

  Raven tried to run, but he couldn't move. His limbs had been paralyzed. Was this what the Chiricahua called ghost sickness? Was this the first symptom?

  He stood like a scarecrow, and the owl's yellow eyes burned into him.

  "Mother is going to curse you." Sorrel unbuttoned his shirt, then reached up and grabbed the amulet he wore, snapping the leather thong that held it in place. The necklace, a flat stone with an engraving of a raven, had been a gift from his wife. She'd given it to him for protection. And now Zinna's daughter had it.

  He knew he was doomed. He should have heeded Vanessa's warning about walking alone after the sun went down. But it was too late.

  The witch was winning. She flew at him and her body grew bigger, expanding right before his eyes. Soon she was a human-size owl. A monster that was nearly as tall as he was.

  She clawed his chest with her talons, leaving scars, making him bleed. He could feel her poisoning his veins, drawing energy from him.

  "Mother is taking part of your soul," the child said. "But you won't die. Not for a hundred years." She closed her fist around the amulet. "You will live as a raven. A bird that flies through the century in a timeless battle." She paused for effect. "And then the day will come when Mother will take the rest of your soul."

  He tried to speak, but his voice was trapped, silenced in the wind. He watched the flame on the candle flicker.

  Sorrel continued. "That day will be more painful than you can imagine. You will die an excruciating death."

  And Zinna would torture his soul for all eternity, he thought.

  He wanted to lash out at her, to tear her apart, to rip the feathers from her body. But he was still paralyzed, unable to move, to defend himself.

  So he prayed in his mind, asking Usen to help him. But he had already been cursed. He fell to the ground.

  Sorrel stood over him with the necklace. "This is mine now. It belongs to me."

  He glanced up at the amulet and saw colors swirling inside it, making the etching glow. Sorrel tipped the necklace, spilling the colors onto the ground, grinding them with her foot. He knew she had just stepped on the missing part of his soul.

  He closed his eyes, and suddenly he was a raven, soaring through the sky.

  He tried to fly in the direction of his home, to stay near his wife, to look after her, but his wings forced him in the opposite direction, away from Fort Sill, from the Chiricahua. Being alone, missing the people he loved, was part of his fate, the isolation thrust upon him.

  And as everything familiar disappeared from view, he heard the laughter of a child.

  Then the dark, deathly screech of an owl.

  * * *

  Allie's heart filled with shame. What Zinna and Sorrel did to Raven only reinforced the viciousness that marred her ancestry.

  But it told another tale, too.

  "I think the curse can be broken," she said.

  Raven blinked at her. They still stood in the studio, with rain beating on the roof and a puddle of water on the floor. "Why would you say that?"

  She gestured to the painting, to the image she'd created of him. "Because a portion of it has already been broken. You're human once again. And you're not paralyzed. You can walk and talk. The ghost sickness is gone."

  "Half of my soul is still missing." He put his hand against his chest. "I can feel it." He paused to frown at the portrait. "And I am not completely human. I still have wings."

  "You only have them because I painted you that way."

  He spread the wings in question and they opened like enormous fans, as dark and compelling as the expectancy in his eyes. "Can you unpaint them? Can you make them d
isappear?"

  "I can try. But I'll need some time to prepare." To get in the right frame of mind, she thought. To stop thinking of him as an angel.

  "What about the rest of the curse? How do I get my soul back?"

  "I'm not totally sure, but it seems possible that if someone in Zinna's family—someone who practices positive magic—returned the necklace to you, it could become a talisman, drawing your soul back and breaking the rest of the curse."

  "Are you offering to do this?"

  "Yes." Her pulse jumped in anticipation. "How many years has it been? Is it closing in on a hundred?"

  "In another month, it will be so." He took a step in her direction. "How will you retrieve the necklace after all this time?"

  "I'll delve deeper into my ancestry, into the witch realm. Sorrel took the amulet from you, and she was my grandmother. She's dead now, but I'll track her life, her old belongings."

  "Did you know her when she was alive?"

  Allie shook her head. "She died before I was born. But my mother spoke of her from time to time."

  "Does your mother still live?" he asked.

  "Yes." A shiver shot through her veins. "She's in prison. For three counts of murder," she added, her stomach clenching. "I'll have to visit her."

  "And this will be difficult for you?"

  "Emotionally, yes. Technically, no. When she first went to prison, she mailed my sister and me the visitor's forms. I wanted to throw them away, but Olivia said we should fill them out and send them in."

  "Olivia is your sister?"

  "Yes. She's psychic, and she had a premonition that one of us would have to see our mom. She didn't know exactly why. Sometimes Olivia doesn't get clear-cut visions or feelings. Sometimes it's only snippets of information. Things that don't seem to make sense at the time." She shifted her stance. "We both hate our mom."

  His eyebrows furrowed. "Then why did your mother send the forms?"

  "That's what prisoners are supposed to do if they want someone to visit them. But we knew she'd done it to be snide. To remind us that no matter what, we were still her daughters. Still related to her by blood."

  "To a killer?"

  "Yes."

  Raven didn't say anything else, and his silence was deafening.

  She noticed his hair was still dripping with rain, and his clothes remained slightly damp. She reached for a towel, taking it from a nearby shelf. She always kept a supply of linens in the studio.

  He dried off and returned the towel to her. She clutched it for a moment, then draped it over an empty easel. "Why don't we go into the living room? It's cold in here." She walked toward the door. "I can fix some tea. And I can tell you about this century."

  He followed her. "I am already familiar with the way the world is now. I have watched it change. I know of its progress."

  Of course, she thought. He'd seen it through the eyes of a raven. She walked into the hall and waited for him, but he couldn't get through the door.

  His wings were stuck.

  He struggled in the narrow opening, turning his shoulders, trying to force his way through.

  Finally, he made it into the hallway, but the impact of his effort propelled him a bit too far and he bumped straight into Allie, nearly knocking her off her feet.

  She teetered, flailing for support. He reached out to help and caught her arms.

  And then they looked at each other.

  Depth. Warmth. A skin-tingling sensation.

  He brushed the bandage under her sleeve. "Is this covering the wound I gave you?"

  "Yes." She swayed a little. His face was only inches from hers. "What's it like being a raven?"

  "Confusing. When I'm in that form, I have the comprehension of a man, but I react like a bird." He continued to hold her arm. "I didn't mean to bite you. To hurt you that way."

  "It's okay. It was instinct." A conflict of nature, she thought. "I should make that tea."

  "Are you still cold?" He hadn't released her.

  She took a lust-driven breath. "No."

  "Nor am I." He glanced at the front of her nightgown, at the flutter of feminine lace. A second later, he shook his head and stepped back. "I miss my wife."

  "I know. I'm sorry." He'd been married to a woman that he'd desperately loved. That he hadn't forgotten, not even a century later. And here she'd been worried about the bird having a mate. How ironic was that?

  They walked into the living room and Samantha darted into a corner to hide.

  Raven ignored the wary cat and studied his surroundings, taking a special interest in the mural that covered the wall. He even reached out to touch the dragon.

  Curious, Allie watched him.

  "In the beginning, the world was covered with darkness," he said. "The night had no moon or stars. But there were birds and beasts. One of the beasts was a dragon." He ran a finger down its scales. "Like this. The coating on its skin came in four layers."

  "I wasn't aware that dragons existed in Apache myths."

  "You were not taught our creation story?"

  "No. I'm only half Chiricahua."

  "The witch half," he said.

  "Yes." Her chest turned tight. "What happened to the dragon? Did anyone ever slay him?"

  He nodded. "A young boy whose name was Apache. He shot the dragon four times. The fourth piercing exposed the beast's heart and killed him. After that, Usen taught the boy how to gather herbs and how to hunt and fight. He became the first chief of our people."

  "Then maybe this is him." Allie gestured to the knight in the mural. "Maybe I painted him without knowing it."

  "Like you did with me." Raven made a thought-provoking expression. "You're a shaman."

  "No, I'm not." She resisted the urge to step back, to move away from him. "I don't conduct ceremonies."

  "Your paintings are your ceremonies."

  "But I don't cure the sick. I was involved in a healing once, but the main source of power didn't come from me."

  "Not all Apache shamans heal. Some are bringers of rain. Some have medicine over snakes. Others can shoot guns without touching the trigger."

  "And I give men wings?" She pointed to the television, then smiled a little. "There's an energy drink on TV that claims to do that."

  He smiled, too. The transformation made him look even more handsome. "I know about those entertainment boxes. I have watched them in store windows."

  And he came from the era where moving pictures were invented. "You fascinate me. The man and the raven."

  "You do that to me, as well. The woman and her paintings."

  Another intimate moment passed between them, and she told herself this wasn't as strange as it seemed. That it was fate. Part of her destiny. Something that was meant to happen.

  "I'll get our tea." She started for the kitchen, then stopped, turning back to look at him. He'd clarified her confusion about her power. He'd called her artwork ceremonies, associating it with shamanism.

  Giving her magic new meaning.

  Chapter 4

  Allie made a pot of mint tea. She poured the hot beverage into two sturdy mugs and added honey as a sweetener.

  The rain hadn't let up. If anything, it had gotten stronger. Raven had said that there were shamans who brought rain, but this violent downpour hadn't come from a medicine man.

  She carried the tea into the living room and handed him a cup. He thanked her and took a sip. She glanced at the scars on his chest. They were marks from Zinna, from where she'd clawed him.

  Allie caught his gaze. "Before we knew Zinna's name, my sister and I called her the Owl Lady. Her reflection was in Olivia's mirror."

  "Olivia lives here, too?"

  "Yes. But she's out of town. She won't be back for about three weeks, maybe a little longer."

  "Did you see Zinna's reflection?"

  "Yes, but when I saw her, she looked like a woman, the ghost of a person, not an owl." And as much as Allie hated to admit it, Zinna had been young and beautiful, with exotic-shaped eyes and two
streaks of silver in her long black hair. "Olivia crossed over into the mirror."

  Rain slashed against the living room windows, nearly rattling the blinds. "Where did it lead?"

  "To a haunted dimension. To a place Zinna created. Olivia's FBI lover was there. Our great-grandmother had taken him." But it had been their mother who'd infected him with an object-intrusion spell, a witchcraft tool inserted under his skin, making him deathly ill. But she, too, had eventually been stripped of her magic. Only unlike Zinna, Mommie Dearest would never regain her powers. Or so Allie hoped.

  Raven didn't respond. He simply drank more of his tea. Behind him, shadows shimmered on the wall, making portions of the mural seem watery.

  Like Zinna's ghost.

  Allie rubbed the goose bumps on her arm.

  "What is wrong?" he asked. "Does your wound hurt?"

  "What? No." She hadn't realized it was her bandaged arm she was rubbing. "It's fine."

  "But something is wrong."

  "Just dancing shadows." She indicated a backless stool that would accommodate him and his wings. "Do you want to sit?" They'd been standing all this time.

  He shook his head. "No, thank you. But you can."

  She perched on the edge of a chair, where she could keep an eye on the mural. Just in case, she thought.

  Finally, she shifted her gaze to her companion. Raven looked big and strong, powerfully tattered, with his rough-hewn trousers and fraying shirt. But he looked lost, too.

  "In some ways, our lives have been similar," she said.

  He clutched the cup, his callused fingers wrapped around the handle. "How so?"

  "My father committed suicide, too."

  "You understand this pain?"

  "Yes. Our mother abandoned us. She disappeared for many years. During the time she was gone, my father shot himself."

  "When my father did it, I had nightmares about him," he said. "About the rifle he used. About the bullet shattering his skull. I was twelve years old, living in that boarding school, afraid they would punish me if I mourned him openly, if I grieved the Indian way."

  Suddenly she pictured him as a child, alone in his dormitory bed, trying to conceal his emotions, the ache that was still hidden in his eyes. "My dad didn't use a rifle. He put a handgun in his mouth."