* * *
Monday morning was a riot in our house, as usual. I packed a lunch and grabbed my backpack, squeezing out the front door right before Jack and Joey started throwing cereal at one another. The morning was foggy once again, that nice thick fog that rolled in from the Pacific Ocean and nestled itself in the lower areas of the coast.
I strolled along the side of the road, making my way down to Tully’s. A group of middle school kids waited for their bus on the corner of the street. Today they stood huddled around the street sign, the older kids trying to look cool while the little kids picked up acorns and launched them at one another.
As I watched, something caught the corner of my eye. I turned and glimpsed the dark sweep of a bird’s wing disappearing into the redwood that stood behind the wide stone barrier wall that denoted our neighborhood. I stared at the spot where the wing had disappeared, thinking it was just a crow. As I watched, however, the bird edged closer to a gap between the drooping branches.
I sucked in a breath. The thing was huge, nearly as big as an eagle, and it stared, no, glared right at me. Not for the first time that week, an icy chill prickled up my spine. No freaking way. It was the raven from last week. I knew it without a doubt. Unless, of course, there happened to be huge ravens lurking about our area lately, and I highly doubted that. I cast another wary glance at the bird. It appeared to be thinking, calculating, deciding whether or not it wished to eat my eyes or my liver first.
“Meghan!”
I nearly screamed. Instead, I jumped and let out a pitiful noise that sounded closer to a Chihuahua yelping. All the kids at the bus stop turned and looked at me. Most of them started to laugh and point.
Feeling my cheeks turn pink, I turned towards Tully, who also had a big grin on her face.
“Get out much in this wide world?” she teased.
I grumbled at her and marched to her driveway where her mom’s car waited. She had the flu or something, so Tully was allowed to drive the car to school. Despite our advanced ages, we still didn’t have our own cars. Vehicles were necessary in a rural town, but they were also expensive. I understood that. My parents weren’t destitute by any means, but having all us kids took a toll on their finances. Luckily, I had friends to bum rides off of.
I threw my backpack into the back seat of the silver station wagon with Tully’s and we climbed in. As we pulled up to the stop sign, I looked back up into the redwood tree. I told myself it was to avoid eye contact with the kids I had embarrassed myself in front of, but I really wanted to know if the raven was still there. To my great relief, or perhaps disappointment (I honestly couldn’t say which), the unnerving bird was gone.
Just another hallucination, I told myself as the car chugged along, just another figment of your imagination.
When we pulled into the high school parking lot five minutes later, I found myself scanning the edge of our campus.
I had no idea I was doing it until Tully asked, “Whatcha looking for?”
“Nothing,” I said automatically, leaning back into the seat and basking in the warmth of the car’s heater for a bit longer. The day would warm up, once the fog wore off, but at the moment it was cold and damp.
I sighed and glanced back out the window. What had I been looking for? As we found a place to park, I reached into the back of the seat and grabbed my backpack. Through the rear window I could see the bench where the local public bus stopped. I froze, my hand clutching the strap of my backpack to the point where my knuckles turned white. It was then that I became aware of what I had been searching for. The homeless man was back, sitting hunched over on the bench as if he were asleep.
Why in the world had I wanted to find him? An image of a tall man dressed in a hooded trench coat flashed before my eyes. I felt my face drain of color and my palms go clammy.
“Hey Meghan, you don’t look so good. You’re not feeling sick are you?” Tully asked.
I swallowed, only to find my mouth had gone dry as well. “I’m fine,” I managed, sounding somewhat normal.
Tully shrugged and smoothed out her skirt and pulled up her neon-striped leggings. Most people would call her sense of style flashy or a bad reproduction of the Eighties, but I couldn’t imagine any other style that would reflect her personality so well.
“Hey girls, what’s up?” Robyn called from across the parking lot.
The majority of the student body made way for her. Considering they all dressed and acted like they lived inside some high end fashion catalog, I was never surprised when they got out of Robyn’s way. I grinned.
Just then, the bell rang, signaling the start of school. We all grimaced.
“Well, time to get another Monday underway!” Robyn proclaimed.
Unfortunately, I didn’t share her enthusiasm.
Faelorehn - Book One of the Otherworld Trilogy Page 3
