The Uncanny Raven Winston

by Tammie Painter

  "Now, Ms. Black, I’m aware you’ve been having difficulties with your magic, as is to be expected with taking on so much power so quickly. The Portland community should have been aware of the strain, shall we say, it would put you under, but," and here she spoke with utter sincerity, "I promise we can guide you through this, if you’ll let us."

  Okay, I hate to admit this, but I had that annoying prickle in the corner of my eyes that alerted me to the fact that if one more kind word was spoken, I’d be wallowing in a pool of tears. I know, it makes no sense, but people being nice to me always hits me right in the vulnerable spot. Even if that niceness was being delivered in a cultured, smooth-as-silk accent. I gave a little nod, since I knew from experience if I tried to speak, the tears would Niagara out of my face.

  "Good. Now, I want you to think of me as a sort of guidance counselor. I believe that’s what you call them."

  "Yeah," I muttered, thinking that the only guidance counselor I’d had was in high school and she’d told me I was a moron who belonged in remedial classes because I hadn’t given a cat’s behind about nailing a high score on my PSATs.

  "So, I want to start things off by letting you ask me anything. Three questions. I’m sure you have more, but as this is the first time you’ve traveled so far, you’ll soon be quite tired so we should keep this interview short. Now, don’t be shy in your curiosity. Oh," she exclaimed, and gave a deprecatory smile, "how rude I’m being. This is London, after all." She snapped her fingers and there appeared before us a tray with a silver teapot, two delicate cups with F & M scrolled on the side, and a three-tiered silver tray laden with a variety of sweet treats.

  Okay, maybe she wasn’t so bad.

  "You’re not averse to sugar or gluten or chocolate, are you?"

  "Not in the least."

  "Then let’s tuck in."

  From the tray, she served two slices of a dessert I’d recently been introduced to, and to which I had quickly become addicted. Dense chocolate interior, a thick layer of apricot jam in the center, and a perfectly smooth ganache surface. "Sacher Torte," Olivia said, handing me a plate and fork. "Fortnum & Mason’s isn’t the best in the world, but it’ll do in a pinch."

  She poured a tea whose scent reminded me of Mr. Tenpenny, but with an additional citrus note to it — I told you I was becoming part bloodhound. When she saw me taking in the aroma, Olivia told me it was Countess Grey, a dolled-up version of Earl Grey.

  As she added a heaping teaspoon of sugar to her cup, I took a bite of the cake, and nearly melted into a pool of chocolate bliss. It wasn’t as good as Gwendolyn’s, but if this was bad Sacher Torte, the best must have people climaxing at their tables. I briefly wondered if Sacher Torte was a key challenge in the Magics’ version of the Great British Bake Off.

  "Even non-magics get a little boost from this," Olivia said, possibly seeing the cocoa-induced euphoria in my eyes. "It was invented by a member from the Vienna community when the Magics there had been hit by a plague. Nearly wiped out all of the community’s power until this," she raised forkful, "rallied the few surviving members."

  I put myself at the edge of a chocolate coma, then revived myself with Countess Grey tea before Olivia prodded like the genie from Aladdin’s lamp, "So, questions. Three. Use them wisely."

  I had a question in mind, but didn’t want to blow everything at once. Save the biggie for last, warm her up a bit. Besides, there’d been something niggling at me ever since I started this whole magical journey.

  "Why does Mr. Tenpenny hate Harry Potter references so much?"

  Olivia, the graceful, elegant, sophisticated Olivia, sputtered out the sip of tea she’d just taken and gave a rather horsey laugh.

  "You’ve noticed that?"

  "An elephant dancing the tango couldn’t be more obvious."

  Olivia, her dark eyes glinting with amusement, set down her cup.

  "He used to be acquaintances with the author. She was one of the few Norms who could scent magic on us, and somehow they struck up a friendship. Anyway, she took many ideas from things he told her. Granted, she put a delectable twist on some of them, added in plenty of her own very clever ideas, and the storylines are all her own imagination, but Busby has always felt a bit put out since she didn’t bother to name a single character after him. He couldn’t even find one who resembled him, which really raised his hackles. He scoured every book of the series trying to figure out who he was, but to no avail. He’s been bitter ever since."

  Which explains why someone who hates Harry Potter so strongly understands all my references.

  "Next?" she asked, placing a fluffy, fruit-studded scone on my plate along with a big dollop of lemon curd.

  I really wanted to ask her where she got the snow globes decorating her hair, but didn’t think it would be the best use of my questions.

  "I’m guessing London HQ is the center of magic. So, where did you guys get your magic? I mean, why here?"

  Granted, I was sneaking two questions into one, but that didn’t explain the suddenly tense set to Olivia’s jaw. The moment I asked my question, I regretted it. Not because of her reaction, but because I should have asked straight out what that look had been between her and Busby when she’d mentioned my needing to show improvement within a month. Or, maybe about this person I was being assigned to work with — and Alastair’s odd reaction to the news. Which goes to show you just how distracting sweets can be.

  Olivia shifted in her chair then hid the stain of embarrassment that had crept into her cheeks by sucking down half a cup of steaming Countess Grey. I kept my eyes fixed firmly on her. If she was going to squirm this much, the answer had to be good.

  "Not all magic history is happy history," she eventually said.

  "I’ve gathered as much." I’d learned not long ago that the slave trade may have begun because of a magical greed for sugar.

  "This really isn’t my area of expertise, but I’ll give you the basics. And you mustn’t judge us on how we behaved in the past." I continued watching her with increasingly judgmental eyes just to guilt her into giving the full story.

  "We stole it. People think the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum are controversial, but they’re nothing compared to—" She caught herself, then asked, "You’re familiar with them?"

  I was. The Elgin Marbles weren’t a collection of small, glass balls. They were giant marble carvings that had once perched above the Parthenon in Athens. Lord Elgin, or rather his workers, showed up in the early 1800s, took down about half the friezes, and sent them back to England. You know, as you do when you can’t find just the right postcard for your souvenir collection.

  Elgin claimed the ruler of the Ottoman Empire, which Greece was a part of at the time, told him this bit of redecorating was okay. But when questioned, Elgin could produce no evidence of this agreement.

  Now, personally, I don’t think you’re going to be able to pull down massive hunks of marble from a prominent ancient structure without drawing the notice of someone official. So, either Elgin and his team were some really slick operators, or somewhere along the line he must have gotten some sort of permission. But that hasn’t stopped his taking of the friezes from drawing loads of criticism, especially once the Greeks shook off the shackles of their Ottoman overlords in the 1830s. The newly-independent Greeks wanted to restore their ancient works, but by then the marbles had been sold to the British Museum who really pushed the claim that possession is nine-tenths of the law.

  "The debate about who really owns them rages on, right?" I said.

  "Exactly, but if they only knew the depth of what we Magics have taken from others, those carvings would seem no more questionable than us displaying the Roman coins mudlarkers find along the banks of the Thames." She took a bite of scone and licked lemon curd from the corner of her mouth before continuing.

  "I’m talking about Ireland. It’s referred to as England’s first colony and there’s a reason for t
hat. We had some magic here — remind Alastair to tell you about the Druid Debate some time — but that magic was already dwindling before we could figure out how to make use of it and strengthen it. Merlin knew how, but he was a real curmudgeon who didn’t like to share his knowledge, so all magic in England was at risk of dying out.

  "However, on his death bed, Merlin told of a people in Ireland: the Tuatha Dé Danann. We were desperate, we knew we were losing something that could benefit us and we wanted more, so we went over. We invaded. We pretended we wanted nothing more than to learn from the Tuatha. But as soon as we’d perfected our magic and enhanced it with our own brand of power, we forced them to submit. Some fought. Most lost. The few survivors went underground. The majority of them never came out again, turning their back on the upper world. We’re slowly repairing relations, but magic memories are long."

  She stopped talking for a while, as if contemplating her own part in this history. I moved a tall slice of a seven-layered cake onto her plate, partially to be polite, but also to butter her up and get her sugar drunk for my next question. We ate, we made small talk (not my specialty, but I was swimming in sucrose by this point). Then, just after Olivia told a surprisingly off-color joke about a troll and a pixie, I launched my third question.

  "Can you take me to my parents? Or tell me where you think they are? I know you have information on them."

  Olivia immediately resumed her businesslike detachment and pushed her plate away. She took another long sip of tea before setting her cup back on its saucer so carefully the china didn’t even clink. Then she looked me squarely in the eye and said, "That information was not meant to reach your eyes or ears. Who told you?"

  "I found the letter," I said, instinctively protecting Alastair. "I’m kind of snoopy, so don’t blame Mr. Tenpenny. I’m not asking for anything special. I just want to know what you know."

  "I can’t tell you anything about that until we verify it’s true and that it’s safe for you to know it."

  "You said three questions."

  "I said you could ask three questions. I did not say I would answer them."

  I scowled at her, thinking, "Tricksy Magicses." Still, while she wasn’t directly telling me what I wanted to know, she also wasn’t confirming my parents were dead, which did answer part of my question.

  "Now, I believe we’ve given each other a pair of good first impressions," she said as she stood and smoothed down her eggplant-colored skirt. "You’d probably like to get settled in. Your room will be down that hall." She pointed to a doorway to her left. "Head up the stairs then go to the left. Room forty-two."

  Knowing a dismissal when I heard one, I got up, grabbed another scone, and trudged up what felt like ten stories worth of spiraling staircase, all the while wondering what Magics had against elevators.

  When I opened the door to my room, I literally could not move. And not because of all the damn stair climbing, but because of pure and utter shock.

  Keep in mind, this was the White Tower, built by William the Conqueror himself way back when the year 1200 seemed like the far distant future. Hundreds of years of history supposedly surrounded me, but there I was, staring at what looked like your standard-issue hotel room with nondescript, easy-to-clean carpet, a side nook for coats and luggage, a small table with two stiff-backed chairs that looked painfully uncomfortable, and a door just within the entryway that opened onto a small bathroom.

  My bag had been left at the foot of a crisply sheeted, single bed that was situated underneath a bland landscape print and opposite a low dresser topped with a tea service. I picked up the bag, moved it into the bathroom, and as I unpacked a few things, I wondered how hard it would be for an American with no passport and no money to get back to Portland. I felt very far from home and very out of place, and I already missed Pablo using me as his own personal sleeping cushion.

  Despite having left Portland well before lunchtime, the grounds of the Tower were empty of tourists, and the London skyline outside my window reflected the warm glow of the sun being closer to setting than its zenith. It would seem that even a magic portal couldn’t get around time zones. I wanted to explore the city, but Olivia had been right. Even though I’d just had enough sugar to send most Norms into diabetic shock and which should have left me bouncing off the walls, I was exhausted.

  I stared at the view. Below was a small expanse of lawn. Through the gap of a couple trees were the Tower’s inner and outer walls with the River Thames flowing past. A raven hopped amongst the branches of one of the trees, even though it seemed late enough for the bird to have returned to its enclosure for the evening. The bird paused in its gymnastics, looked my way, dipped his head toward me, then took off, heading up and over the White Tower.

  I wanted to go out, maybe wander the grounds, but my eyelids suddenly felt like lead weights had been stitched into them. I closed the curtains and crawled into my narrow bed.

  15 - SOLAS CHARM

  THE NEXT MORNING a tapping on my room’s door woke me. I say woke, but I’d been awake since about three in the morning. Apparently even magic travel results in jet lag as my body tried to figure out why it had been suddenly thrown nine hours into the future without being consulted about such matters. And, with sugary treats not being the most substantial of meals, I’d also been kept awake by a stomach grumbling for proper nourishment.

  Dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts, I answered the door and was immediately hit by a sharp aroma that reminded me of lightning. What stood before me was a very small woman, the skin of her cheeks so pale I could see veins inking their way underneath it. She was dressed head to toe in a gown of some sort of floaty material, big Audrey-Hepburn sunglasses nearly covered the entirety of her tiny face, and in her hand she clutched an umbrella that shaded her from I don’t know what.

  "It’s bad luck to open an umbrella indoors," I told her.

  "It’s bad luck to open a door to a stranger without asking who it might be," she said, her wispy voice bouncing with a melodic Irish accent. "And rude not to invite a guest in."

  "Are you a guest, then?"

  "I’m Banna. I’ll be overseeing your instruction." She looked past me. "Ah good, you remembered to keep the curtains drawn."

  I stepped aside and she drifted past me as she pulled in the umbrella and took off her sunglasses. I had my hand on the string to pull open the curtains, but Banna shrieked in fright and I jumped away. When I turned to ask her what in the world her problem was, I met her eyes. They glowed with a blue-green light that made me think of pictures I’d seen of glaciers brightened by an eerie sort of internal illumination.

  "You cannot open the curtains," she insisted.

  "Why? How are you supposed to teach me in the dark?"

  As if in answer, she opened her hand. A heartbeat later, an orb about the size of a softball appeared in her palm. The orb glowed with the same cool, aqua luster as her eyes. Then, like some sort of magical MacGyver, she gave her umbrella a little jerk. From the handle popped three legs. She stood the umbrella on its end and balanced the orb on the tip. With a little wave, the orb shone more brightly to light up all but the farthest corners of the room.

  "I’m very light sensitive."

  "So I gathered." Luckily she lived in a land known for rainy days and cloudy skies.

  "Now, if you’d like to get dressed, we can begin our first lesson."

  The orb’s light didn’t extend to my windowless, ensuite bathroom. Once I shut the door, I could see nothing. I was tempted to turn on the light, but I worried some photons might escape under the door. How sensitive to light was Banna? Her reaction when I’d wanted to open the curtains gave the impression that light could cause her pain. I certainly didn’t want to kill or maim my mentor.

  At least not on my first day.

  So, I literally got dressed in the dark. I knocked over the drinking glass housekeeping had placed by the sink as I fumbled for my toothbrush,
it took two tries to get my tights on the correct way, and my underwear felt off kilter the rest of the morning. But, once suitably attired, I sat down across from Banna who had conjured up a pot of tea. Well, she either conjured it or the White Tower had room service.

  "Do you have any questions for me before we begin?"

  "Only about a million."

  "You may want to limit that as we have only an hour this morning."

  "Okay, not to be rude, but what are you?"

  "I’m one of the originals." She stared at me and I thought of what Olivia had told me. My eyes went wide.

  "The Tuatha Dé Danann?"

  "Yes, I was brought here as a prisoner, but that’s since changed and I am free to come and go now."

  "Now that your people are extinct," I said, recalling Olivia’s quick history lesson.

  "Are they?" Banna said in a coy way that told me she might have more up her gauzy sleeve than she was letting on. "But that’s a topic for another day. Next question?"