The White Raven

by Carrie D. Miller

  “Don’t even try to threaten me, you pig,” she spits at him.

  He curls his misshapen upper lip at her.

  Patricia closes the distance between them, and he takes an involuntary step back, eyes widening. “I have come to the conclusion over the many years I’ve lived that men like you will never change unless something drastic happens to them. You are a nasty person, Harold Jones, and you have been all your life. I will change that tonight.” She straightens as tall as she can get. His jaw falls open.

  Jo’s body is rigid and radiating heated anger. I place my hand on her shoulder, and she relaxes only slightly.

  “You have doled out much pain in your thirty-eight years, haven’t you? I mean for you to know what that feels like. You will know what you have done because I am going to make you feel it. All of it.”

  Flames rise from her clenched fists; his muscles jerk to run, but he is not fast enough by any means. She grips him by his upper arms and locks him in place. The flames from her hands travel to his chest, forming a mass. She draws out all of the memories of his past deeds—all the pain, terror, shame, and torment experienced by his victims, including his own children and wife. He is quaking beneath her hands, and she is smiling, knowing that the worst is yet to come. The hateful energy is forming a swirling, pulsing orb of fire across his chest. His eyes gape at the sight of his own evil. It is beginning to burn him. He tries to scream, but no sounds rise from his throat.

  “You will be a changed man, Harold Jones, if you survive this,” she says, a vengeful smile full on her face.

  He shakes his head, begging ‘no no’ with his lips. With a push of her own energy, the burning mass plunges into his chest. His body convulses under her grip. She holds him in place as the scalding crimson flame encompasses his body, alive with a mind of its own, coiling around him like a hungry snake. She releases him now, for he is held in place by his own evil. He writhes under the unimaginable agony he has doled out since the age of three. The poor animals he tortured, the little sister he molested, the young boy in school he accused of sodomy in public only to try it on him in private just to see what it was all about, and so much more.

  His body slowly absorbs the heat and flame. Once it can no longer be seen, he collapses. He lies on his side, twitching and whimpering. The energy has not dissipated; it has condensed itself so that it can inflict its torment from within until spent. In his eyes swirl the blazing red flames.

  She kneels down and puts her face to his, unsure if he can see or hear her. “If you survive this,” she repeats, a flash of my face appearing over hers. Patricia Jones leaves without looking back.

  5

  Jo is hunched over, gripping my hands. She’s gasping for breath. I tell her she’s fine, that we are back in the kitchen now and she should slow her breathing.

  She leans back and places her hands on her chest. Her face is ashen, and there are tiny droplets of sweat on her upper lip.

  “I’m so sorry, Jo! I’ve never shared a memory with anyone before.” I never considered how overpowering it all must be—plunged into the life of someone else, especially a moment filled with such emotion. She is adept at vision walking but reliving someone’s memory, being in the midst of all of it, is much different. I didn’t think of how much it would affect her. I feel terrible now. “Let me get you something.”

  She leans her head back in the chair, eyes clamped shut.

  Before us on the table appears Jo’s favorite brand of whiskey and a rock crystal glass with a single, round ice cube. I pour three fingers and hand it to her. It’s still early in the morning, but I know of Jo’s fondness for such a thing and she looks like she could use a bracer. She’s peeked out of one eye to witness the sudden appearance of the bottle and glass. She shakes her head and reaches for the glass, muttering that it’s five o’clock somewhere.

  Half of the amber liquid disappears quickly between Jo’s lips. She leans back again and exhales a long breath. With a little shiver, she finishes the rest in one gulp.

  She puts the glass down onto the table with a thud. She grips it tightly, her other hand trembling.

  Having composed herself to her satisfaction, she looks at me. “Was that real?”

  I nod.

  As she leans forward to put her face in both hands, she mumbles a few colorful expletives followed by a call to the Goddess. I hide my smile with a hand over my mouth. I shouldn’t be finding this amusing but I can’t help it.

  “I’ve never—” she starts, “I mean, that’s just…wow. So much more…intense than my vision walks. Seriously. I can’t—” She stops trying to make coherent sentences and looks up. She huffs out a big breath and falls back in her chair. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

  I laugh out loud and then quickly stop myself, thinking that she might be serious. “When I take over a body, I am inundated with all their memories, their emotions. Patricia’s past overwhelmed me. I couldn’t let him get away with what he’d done. He was a horrible man.”

  She waves a hand at me dismissively and pours herself another drink.

  Drink in one hand and bottle in the other, she stands. “I need some air.”

  “Let’s go to the roof. You’ve not seen the finished product!”

  We head upstairs to my living quarters and then ascend the narrow staircase off the kitchen. The steep incline of the stairs forces Jo to grip the handrail as she pulls herself along, grumbling with each step that her old knees are not liking this.

  I pull open the door and push out the screen door, ducking through onto the roof.

  Jo’s mouth falls open at the sight before her. The terrace encompasses a good portion of the roof, dominated by a pergola made from reclaimed wood that covers a small sitting area. Trumpet creeper vines filled with deep orange blooms snake up the columns of the pergola to form nearly a second ceiling atop it, so thick it blocks out the summer sun. On the right, abutting the steep pitch of the roof, is a long, raised flowerbed made of mortar and river rocks filled with herbs of all varieties, each battling for space.

  The slight breeze wafts the scents of lavender and jasmine in our direction, and Jo closes her eyes to inhale the soothing fragrance. Movement catches my eye amidst the herbs, and I spy the flickering tail of a cat, half buried in the catnip. Dotted around the terrace are many colorful, mismatched pots and tall vases overflowing with a variety of trailing plants and fragrant flowers. A little magickal encouragement has made everything grow in nicely. The harlequin butterfly bush is doing its job perfectly; a dozen butterflies dance around its copious reddish-purple flower spikes—all of whom are being closely monitored by a semi-intoxicated tabby.

  Taking Jo’s hand, I pull her to the sitting area. I plop down on the double chaise. She places the whiskey bottle on the stone coffee table too harshly and winces at the sound.

  “Now, I want answers to all of my questions, understand?” Jo wags her finger at me with the look of a stern mother. “No more messing around—I want the truth!”

  “Yes, ma’am!” I’m taken aback by her attitude but I go with it. I have no experience with how someone would react to such a revelation.

  She settles her large frame into the lounge chair across from me. She smooths her flouncy skirt over her legs. Although it’s late August and the sun has shown itself harshly in the last few weeks, Jo is wearing her typical black, long-sleeved dress. She often jokes that black is slimming so she wears no other color. Today’s ensemble is of lightweight rayon with a lovely embroidered white band around the V-neck, cuffs, and hem. Her long auburn hair, streaked with fetching silver wisps, falls like a curtain down her back.

  As I watch her fuss with the folds of fabric, I smile fondly at the woman who has become my best friend. Of all the people, the witches, I’ve met since moving to Salem, she is one of the few with true power. Most who call themselves witches—or worse, warlocks—are charlatans and outright crooks. Tourists flock to them regardless, caught up in the fervor induced by visits to the famous cemetery or
the various museums that recount the horrific acts of the Witch Trials.

  But Jo is different; she has the vision and a genuine connection to the energy flows. There is true magick in this woman, but I don’t think she realizes just how much.

  She seems lost in thought, looking at something behind me. I sit patiently across from her. Now I wish I had a drink. A highball glass filled with gin and tonic appears beside me on the end table. Jo takes no notice.

  “That is such a gorgeous bird,” she says. Surprised, I turn and don’t see anything, of course. I knew I wouldn’t, but I do hear the flutter of wings.

  “He never lets me see him.”

  Taking note of the forlorn tone of my voice, she focuses on me.

  “Really?”

  I nod, turning back. I take a long sip of my drink. She notices the glass but says nothing.

  “Interesting. I see him all the time.”

  I frown. Why this bird shies away from me I’ve never understood. But it’s always been that way.

  “Anyhoo, I have no flipping idea where to start! So many questions.” She leans back and stares at me, obviously wanting me to offer something up.

  “Okay, well…now where do I start?” Perhaps the gin will guide me. I take a few more sips.

  “As they say, start at the beginning.”

  “Oh my,” I say, shaking my head, “that’s a long way back.”

  “All right, there’s a good place. How old are you?”

  “Pushing a thousand, I think.”

  Jo chokes on the sip she’s just taken. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  I purse my lips and shake my head.

  “Holy crap.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Um, well, you look great, by the way.”

  That makes me laugh. She raises her glass. “To hot older babes. Cheers!” We clink our glasses together.

  “Okay, so how come you aren’t short, red-haired, and freckled like Patricia?”

  I hadn’t a clue where to begin about my lives, so this topic is as good as any. “Long story short, I change the body. It’s quite a painful process, but I like this look. I change the bone structure, skin texture, hair color, and so on. It takes several days.”

  Jo’s mouth could collect flies. She looks me up and down like she’s seeing me for the first time. I extend my arms out and whip my head side to side, exaggerating the flowing of my shoulder-length hair. She chuckles briefly.

  “Why not just use a glamour spell?”

  “Because that would be a spell I would have to constantly put energy into maintaining. I might slip for any number of reasons.”

  She nods in agreement, not having realized this aspect of using glamour.

  “How did you die?”

  “When? Can you be more specific?”

  “Huh? That’s a pretty straightforward question.”

  “Well, I’ve died many times.” I shift in my seat.

  “Are you serious?”

  I nod.

  “Okay, well, um…you’re going to have to explain all that.”

  “Let’s see. This is my thirteenth life, so I’ve died twelve times so far.”

  Stunned into silence, Jo displays only an incredulous look.

  After blinking several times, she takes another sip. “How does that happen?”

  “How does what happen? The dying part? Pretty simply actually. Burned at the stake, beheaded, hanged, crushed, and so on. All the typical ways people think a witch can be disposed of.” I am more flippant in my response than I mean to be.

  Jo’s expression is grim. “Aven, come on, you have got to be kidding me with all of this.”

  “I wish I was, Jo, I really do.”

  “I’m just…I can’t think of what to ask next. My brain is just overloaded.” She sips the last drop from her glass. “I mean really.”

  I’m not making this easy for her but I’m at a loss for what else to say. This is a conversation I’ve never had before, and it’s not going very well.

  “Sorry, I can do better at this.” I straighten my shoulders and take a deep breath, as if preparing a lecture. “So, I’m about a thousand years old, but the years aren’t consecutive. I’ve lived twelve times before, and you have witnessed how I entered my thirteenth. Each of my faces starts out differently, each voice, each pair of eyes. I use magick to alter the body I choose into the likeness that I remember most fondly. Seeing my reflection in the mirror gives me a sort of peace, comfort, at these familiar features. I’ve been in this age for about seventeen years. When I enter a new life, I travel around a lot until I find a place to settle. I’ve learned to adapt quickly to new places and times; that’s a necessity, really—how to talk, how to act, all that. But this age was the most shocking; the technology advances alone are incredible. You can’t imagine my excitement when I learned about indoor plumbing and air conditioning!”

  My little speech gives her a moment to collect her thoughts.

  “You come back each time like that—I mean, the same way?”

  “Picking out a new body? Yes. I select only those that I sense are about to die.”

  “So you reincarnate.”

  This doesn’t seem to be a question, but I nod anyway.

  “And you can select whomever you want to come back as?”

  “Yes…but I would never take a body. The person has to be on the verge of death.”

  “And you remember all your former lives? All of it, everything?”

  “Yes. Well, mostly yes.”

  She is pondering all of this for a few moments, then her face brightens. “That is bad ass!”

  My mouth falls open. “It is most certainly the opposite of bad ass.”

  She sees the cloud fall over my face. “What? What is it you haven’t told me?”

  There is so much I haven’t told her. I fall back into the chaise with a sigh.

  “Let’s continue this another day.” I realize I’m not ready for this conversation. “I need to get down to the shop.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” She jiggles her empty glass at me, the diminished ice cube tinkling around in the glass like a large diamond. “I still have a little ice left, so keep talking, sister.”

  I love this woman. She makes me grin in spite of myself. She’s added a couple of splashes of whiskey to her glass.

  I stare at her for a long moment. Her gaze never falters, only softens as she senses my distress.

  I’m just going to come right out and say it. “I am cursed.”

  Her eyebrows go up, but she says nothing. She patiently waits for me to continue.

  “I live a regular life. My body can be killed or die of natural causes. When that happens, I enter the Veil. For some inexplicable reason, I cannot move on to the next plane. I can stay in the Veil for years, decades, although time has no meaning there. I stay as long as I’m allowed. Eventually I am pushed out—back into this world.”

  Her brow furrows with an unspoken question.

  “There are so many ‘whys’ I have too. Why was I cursed? Why can’t I move on? Why must I come back time after time? And then there are the two big ‘hows.’ How was I cursed, and how do I break it? I don’t know the answers to either of those.”

  I let the silence hang between us. Jo’s brows are knitted together as she studies my face. Emotion is building in my gut. The bitterness and self-pity I bury down deep and try to forget about is a kettle always on simmer, threatening to boil over at any moment. My words spew forth before I can stop myself.

  “I am doubly cursed, you see. Not only must I continue living over and over, but I remember it all, everything. There are so many things I wish I could not remember. So much pain, so much torment. When one has lived for the length that I have and as what I am, hate is no longer simply a feeling thrown at you, but a menacing and tangible force that beats you down until you are dust. I have traveled the world seeking a spell to rid me of my curse. Each time I ascend into the Veil, I spend as much time as I am able searching the ethereal r
ealm for signs or hints of what curse this is, why it was visited upon me, and by whom. I am met with only silence and blank stares.”

  In the distance, a mournful call repeats several times. My elusive shadow is not far away and I suspect has been listening. I lean back and close my eyes, trying once again to reach out to the white raven. And again, there is nothing, like it is not even there, despite the faintest tug I feel against my energy.

  Finally, Jo sets her glass down and leans forward to touch my ankles. “I am so sorry,” she whispers, her face reflecting the gravity of my words. I reach for her hands and give them a squeeze.

  “You mentioned being burned, hanged, and other awful things that I won’t think about. And you remember all of that! I can’t imagine what you went through so many times or how you get through all those memories.”

  I bury it all down deep, but I can’t say this since my throat has gone tight. I can’t feel this anymore. I shake off the welling anxiety and make another drink appear. I take a long draught.

  The raven sounds again and gets Jo’s attention this time.

  “He’s always around you, you know,” she says absently, looking off behind me again.

  “I know.” I don’t turn around; he won’t be there. “But he never shows himself. This has been going on for several lifetimes. I think almost all of them.” I can’t remember a time when the bird wasn’t there.

  “Hmm.” She sits back in the lounger, glass in hand once more, three-fingers filled—but she’s out of ice now.

  “Ice?” I ask.

  “Please.”

  I look at her glass and a rocky orb quickly forms amidst the amber liquid.

  She whistles. “I wish I could do that. Would save me a lot of trips to the freezer.” She lifts her glass to examine the glittering rock. “I’ve seen you do some pretty incredible things, but this ice business is slick.” She looks at me then with raised eyebrows. “Is that something you can teach me? To manifest objects?”

  “I wish it was, Jo. I have tried to teach others in the past but to no avail. You have to be born with this magick already in you. Don’t look so down—you have gifts I don’t have. You see auras and energies much better than I, and I’ve never been very good at incantations or rituals.”