Raven Maid: Out of the Darkness

by Erik Schubach

  I asked, “So. I... bring the lost souls to where they are supposed to be? What if I don't want to? What if I refuse this curse?”

  She shook her head slowly and said almost wistfully, “My sister, Lisette, tried, but it was such a drivin' force, it nearly drove her mad with need the longer she ignored the call. Until it was irresistible and she had to guide the dead or lose herself inta that madness that was buildin' inside of her.”

  I swallowed hard since I had already determined that I would never touch another one of the revenants I had been seeing. I never wanted to live through seeing their lives through their eyes, through their emotions. Max almost broke me.

  Part of me was still trying to comprehend that all of this was actually real. It felt lik a sick nightmare I couldn't wake up from. But... I swallowed again, it was better than the madness Gran spoke of, the madness I had already started to feel.

  I exhaled and steeled myself, Shannon giving me an understanding look. May Marinette preserve us, I had forgotten that she had experienced the occurrence with Max too. I was immediately sorry for having dragged the girl into all of this mess.

  So I did the only thing I could at that time and asked, “Tell me about Raven Maids. I don't have any idea what I am doing.”

  MawMaw nodded and gave me a sad look and began as I cooked for them. There wasn't much more to say. She explained what I had already pretty much grasped from my surreal experience with Max. With the sense of rightness when I could bring him to the light that held so much joy in it. Though there were some facts that sounded interesting, if not a little frightening, others I couldn't quite wrap my head around.

  I could apparently take on the aspects of the raven, giving me greater speed and strength, this form bled over to the spirit realm, existing in both. I had control over it? It seemed to just creep up on me unbidden when I stressed about my visions and not knowing what to do.

  Then Shannon asked, “Why would she need to do that? I mean, if she is leading the spirits to this final destination, why the extra speed and strength?”

  Bo spoke up to answer that, “Well, if the spirit resists and fights it of course.”

  I heard myself blurting the question, “Fights?”

  Gran nodded and said almost sagely, “Yes.” Then she explained, “Some, especially the wicked, know where they are headin' and will do everything in their power to stay here, wanderin' through the realm between worlds. It is a better fate than what awaits them in whatever their version of hell is.”

  I said on embarrassment as I dropped the mud dogs into the boiling water, “But, I don't know how to fight. And even if I did, I don't even know how to control the Raven aspect, it sort of does whatever it wants, whenever it wants.”

  She nodded again and sat back, spreading her hands and explaining, “That's why Rin has agreed ta come, ta show ya, ta teach ya what your mother would've.”

  Bo looked at her with a sour look on his face, like he had just licked a lemon. “Rin? Really now woman? Couldn't ya have asked anyone else now?”

  She shook her head and seemed to choose her words very carefully as she replied in an even tone, “Non, she's the only Raven I could contact. An' even she seemed on edge.”

  This seemed to sink in for my uncle, and he whistled low as he shook his head, repeating, “The only one?”

  I started dishing up four plates as I asked, “Who is Rin?”

  My gran perked up at that and said with a sly smile, “She's an... unorthodox Raven Maid. But ruthlessly effective at her job.”

  Bo chuckled. “Unorthodox? I think the souls she has had ta bear witnesses to have done messed the girl up.”

  I was wondering how best to form my next question as I set the dishes in front of the three, Shannon looking at the plate like it would bite her. I pointed at her and warned, “You'll eat it, and you'll like it.”

  She poked at the three mud dogs sitting on top of her jambalaya with her fork. Then I grabbed Bo's offered hand and then shyly reached for Shannon's as Gran grabbed her other hand then completed the circle. I sighed, giving the blonde an apologetic look. A blessing was always said back home when I lived with Gran.

  The elder Bourdreau’s lowered their heads, and I shrugged at Shan from where I stood by the table, and she grinned and lowered her head. Then MawMaw spoke, “Lord and Lady, watch over us, and bless us as we eat. Bless this food, this bounty of the earth, we thank you, so mote it be.”

  Then they released our hands and started twisting the tails off the mud dogs and tossing the carapaces on the extra plate I laid out. Normally I would have shelled them myself and put the meat in the jambalaya, but I was more intent on listening to what was being said than cooking.

  Our New York transplant watched them and then me as I leaned against the counter and ate some of that succulent meat myself, discarding the shell.

  I grinned at her and said, “They're essentially just itty bitty lobsters.” I demonstrated, dipping the tail meat into the jambalaya to pick up some of the sauces since I didn't have any dipping sauce.

  She gave it a try then looked pleasantly surprised then she ate it.

  On silent agreement we all ate, sharing small talk and not discussing my plight until after we were done. I had to stop a giggle when Shannon dove on her water after taking the first bite of jambalaya. I teased, “Are all New Yorker's wimps?”

  She fanned her face then retorted with a smile, “Hey now, you could have warned me before I took such a big bite. This is twice as hot as the dish you made the other night.”

  I cocked an eyebrow and shared, “This is proper food, what I made the other night was bland.”

  By the end of the meal, I was ready to continue our discussion as MawMaw got up to do the dishes, shooing Shannon and me off when we offered. So I sat beside the playful blonde and asked my questions, “So, can I... can I get hurt in that between realm you spoke of? If I have to fight some of these... spirits? Can I get stuck there? I don't even know how I brought Max there. What if I don't do this. I just want to be a normal girl, forget any of this ever happened.”

  Bo said softly, sad compassion in his eyes, “Ya feel the need, I can see it in ya, chere. It builds and drives ya to help. It will break ya if ya let it build up.”

  He exhaled sharply and continued. “An' the bad ones can do so much harm to the livin' and dead alike if left unchecked. They are an unnatural abomination that needs to be sent to rest. And would ya let someone pure of spirit suffer in the limbo between worlds, when ya could guide them ta peace?”

  Then Gran asked as she scrubbed the pan in my little sink, “You felt it, didn't ya? When the little boy found peace? Did you feel the warmth?”

  I nodded hesitantly.

  Then she added in a familiar, expectant, warm tone which she had used on me so many times as I grew up, “Would ya have denied him that an' just let him suffer?”

  I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of the leather jacket I was still wearing. It felt so comfortable I had forgotten I had it on. Why was I crying? I shook my head, and she reached over to lay a hand on my cheek as she shook her head. “Non, ya couldn't.”

  She added, “You can call them ta ya, ya know? When ya feel them around ya but cannot find them. Rin can show you.”

  I asked again, “If there are all these other people like me from all the other belief systems, then why can't they do it? And I can just be me?”

  She shrugged. “Ya each have your own calling, Lizzy. I'm not one ta question it.”

  Then I asked, “You said gran and ma were Raven Maids too? What happened to Gran?”

  She exhaled and visibly slumped, a memory playing in her expression. She exchanged looks with her brother, and he nodded once. She turned back to me and said in a faraway voice, “Lisette was a warrior. One of the strongest of the Raven Maids. She had spent the last couple years of her life huntin' down the worst of the abominations, Abigail Truit.”

  Her lips curled into a snarl as she expounded, “She was bound inta the mortal coil by he
r lover, a powerful boko who warped and twisted Voudoo ta do unnatural things. When she died, he grieved, and in that grief, he broke all the laws of the Vodoun, and he bound her soul before it could pass on, animating her from the dead.”

  She shook her head and spoke with a tone of inevitability, “The boko was a fool, he gave her the vessel her soul was bound inta, relinquishing his control over her, giving her free will back ta her. For love.”

  Bo said in a low, warning growl, “When ya go about messin' wit' nature like that, what comes back to you is a dark reflection. Somethin' evil. She was somethin' dark in life already, so imagine her after. An' she killed him, and everyone who knew of her death, and she reclaimed her old life with none the wiser.”

  MawMaw winced and added, “Except the Raven Maids. They knew somthin' wasn't right with Abigail. They were drawn ta her and found out what had happened with just a touch.”

  She shook her head. “Lisette had to meet Abigail, and when she did, she shook her hand and saw her for what she really was. Abigail was no more. Instead, a decaying monster stood in her form. Lisette knew then and there she needed ta put an end to it all. She fought Abigail and the others the woman had made using the rituals she had learned from the boko before she done killed him.”

  Bo said with pride, “Lisette drug them all kickin' and screamin' to hell. But that Abigail, she done escaped.”

  MawMaw looked pained as she shared, “For two years Lisette hunted Abigail, who kept changing her name and taking up with rich men who she killed and then changed to be like her, bending them to her will as she bound their souls into vessels.”

  Uncle Bo growled out, “Then that one mornin', the police done called. They had found Lisette's body in the bayou. Abigail had bested her.”

  He sighed and said with a slight shrug of his shoulders, “We searched, but Abigail had disappeared again. We kep' lookin', but we had more pressing matters, raisin' yer mère, Geraldine. She was jus' three when your grand-mère died, and a strong willed one she was.”

  The two shared a chuckle, and I had to smile at that, imagining my mother as s child. She certainly would have been a handful because she was a handful in life as an adult. My thoughts soured. But apparently, she wasn't the woman I thought she had been. She and my whole family had been lying to me my entire life, about so very much.

  The apologetic looks on their faces told me they were reading me like an open book, and knew the line of thinking I was following. Shannon was clasping her hands in her lap, just studying me but keeping silent.

  Then Bo said, “When yer mère started showing the signs when she was seventeen, it broke our hearts. She had been so scared, an' afraid ta tell us, afraid she was losin' it. We invited other Raven Maids to come explain to her what was goin' on.”

  MawMaw shook her head, her voice full of wonder and pride. “She was a wonder that girl. She became more powerful than Lisette had ever been. She was what the evil in this world feared when her shadow crossed over them. And she spent her whole life huntin' Abigail across the South. She almost had her a couple times, but the ungodly woman got away each time.”

  She sat straighter and assured me, “But mark my words, your mama got a piece of her each time. She told us how black the balance of Abigail's soul was. It sounded even darker than when Lisette had faced her. She has this evil growin' inside of her that feeds on the world as the years go by.”

  Then she whispered, pain filling her voice, the same pain I felt in my heart, “Geraldine told us that she had found Abigail, that she had returned to New Orleans, and that she was goin' ta finish it once and for all. That was the night she vanished.”

  I felt a lump in my throat and couldn't swallow as my chest started aching. A tiny part of me always hoped that mom was still alive, that one day she'd walk back into my life with some extraordinary tale, and everything would be how it was. But now... my mom was really gone.

  I felt rage building inside of me. This woman, Abigail, had killed my grandmother and my mother... I would find her and I would...

  A hand rested on my balled up fist on the table, and I looked up into MawMaw's eyes. She pleaded, “Please chere, leave it be. I can't lose another.”

  I asked in a tight, shocked voice, “What?”

  She shook her head sadly and said in resignation, “I know that look, it the same one your mama had on her face the day she found out about Abigail and what she did to her own mere. There are some evils ya just can't fight, Raven Maid or not.”

  I didn't say a word, knowing she was again reading me like a book, she always could. Then Shannon broke the lengthening silence, and I thanked her in my mind for it. “So this Abigail chick, she's like what, a zombie or something?”

  Bo and Desirada both hissed and Bo said, “Don' use that term. It is just a creature using her form now, whatever good, if any, she had in her soul before that is gone. The darkness took it long ago. It's like Dee said, an abomination.”

  She nodded at him then inclined her head in acceptance and then asked, “But she's... it's human? I mean if she was bound back in her body and all.”

  They nodded at her, and she seemed pleased and said matter of factly, “Well then she shouldn’t be much of a threat anymore. I mean she's got to be what, a gadzillion years old now? If she fought Addy's grandma and all. Won't she just die of old age soon?” Then her eyes widened, and she quickly added, “No offense intended.”

  They chuckled at her as she blushed, I shoved her shoulder as I grinned at her foot in mouth moment. But MawMaw threw a bucket of ice water on that. “Non, what everyone sees is what she was when she died. Never aging. When beneath she is already dead. A rotting corpse. So she will walk the mortal coil until a Raven Maid, or some other sentinel of another belief system can guide her soul to her damnation.”

  I shook my head and heard myself muttering, “Soc Au' Lait.”

  Shannon was nodding, her face pale as she agreed, “Yeah, sack of milk.” Ok, even in the heavy atmosphere around the table, I had to smile at the smartass. She sucked some of the doom and gloom away which had seemed to be coiling around our moods.

  That's when someone pounded loudly at the door, causing my heart to skip a beat as we all gasped. Then I chuckled, feeling like we had been sitting around a campfire telling scary stories or something. I stood and moved to the door and unwound the wire and opened the door.

  MawMaw joined me and looked past me as I stood there in shock, looking at the person who was standing there looking overly agitated. “Adelaide, this is Rin Bastien... the other Raven Maid I told you about.”

  The small young woman standing on my doorstep couldn't have been older than sixteen or seventeen, dressed all in black biker leathers, her long black hair spilling over her shoulders like a mane with black feathers mixed within it the entire length. If I hadn't known they were real, it would have looked like she had decorated her hair with them. And she wore mirrored sunglasses, even though the sun had set while we had eaten.

  Above any adjective I could apply to the girl, only the word dangerous came to mind at that moment. It wasn't the badass look, it was how she held herself, and that I could somehow sense the raw, explosive power that was packed into the slight girl.

  She muttered in a growl with a low raspy voice I'd associate with a chain smoker, “Can someone explain to me why the fuck I had to travel across the country from San Francisco up to this shithole?

  Chapter 6 – Rin

  I squeaked when I dove aside as the dark shadow swooped in on me from above, talons grasping and raking at me. I could feel them sinking in and slashing at my spirit, leaving white hot trails of pain behind. As much as it hurt me mentally, I was glad they didn't effect the physical world. I had grown attached to Shannon's leather jacket which I had pretty much commandeered as my own. I mean, it complimented my dark wardrobe better than hers, so I dare her to say otherwise.

  I saw the scratches on the leather, cursed under my breath, and revised. The talons didn't have much effect on the physical
world, but they did have a bit. I was relieved Rin was holding back so much with me. I complained with a slight pout, “Hey. I sort of love my jacket, ok?”

  The girl was a black blur in the alley she chose to kick the ever-loving shit out of me today. She was silent except the rustling of feathers that gave me the only indication of where she was about to strike at me from next.

  She groused, “Then defend yourself better.”

  Then she added for the umpteenth time, “Some of the spirits will not wish to go to their final destination. You have to be ready. They may have no physical presence, but they can still hurt the Raven in you.”

  Two slashed across my back punctuated her remarks. I hissed and looked up as she flipped over my head then spread her arms like wings, and she alighted on the ground with only a fluttering sound. Her dangerously sharp, hooked beak, not really looking out of place on her.

  Her hybrid form actually befits the friggin' ninja girl. Just as menacing, and I'm sure, just as lethal if she weren't holding back as much as I suspected. She looked to be a half human, half giant bird. More bird of prey than an actual raven. The talons and hooked beak were definitely a predator's not a scavenger's. I'm sure our kind got our name because of the glossy pitch black feathers that cascaded over her head and down her back and seemed to spout across her arm-like wings.

  After the first couple times, I saw her change, I stopped wondering what happened to her clothes, which seemed to be replaced by the feathers along her arms. I was more interested in avoiding her talons that sent searing pain lancing through me. Though I was assured, they were only slicing up my soul. I mean, that can't possibly be a bad thing, right?

  Even though I was assured that it would heal quite rapidly because my spirit was bonded to the life energy of my physical body, I didn't like feeling that pain. And I don't think I liked the isea of my immortal soul being sliced and diced, no matter how fast it healed.