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It has been three days since Raven has heard from her sister. This is not normal. This is not okay.
Raven and her sister, Willow, are a package deal. They are Irish twins, born just ten months apart, and not a day goes by that they do not at least speak. They still share a home at nearly thirty years old, but sometimes Willow likes to slip away into the woods to be with nature or practice spell work. Still, though, she always lets Raven know she is safe somehow.
Sometimes she has enough reception to send a text. Sometimes she slips in and leaves a note in the dark hours of the night. Once she even sent an actual raven with a willow branch tied around its leg. Raven giggled hysterically to herself when she received that one. How perfectly witchy and Willow.
But Willow is just amazing like that. She knows her craft well enough to always have a way to signal her safety to her sister that is always by her side.
Now, well into day three, panic is heavily weighing on Raven’s shoulders. Sitting in the tiny coffee shop that she knows Willow loves, Raven alternates between chewing her chapped bottom lip and her already chewed-off fingernails. She continually glances around the busy cafe and out the window hoping to see her sister appear, but so far there has been no sign of her and the cafe owner is beginning to look at her suspiciously.
Sighing heavily, she pulls herself off the stool she has been occupying for at least an hour and walks to the counter. She is sure buying a coffee will earn her another thirty minutes of peace. If she adds a scone as well, she may get another fifteen on top of that.
She hands the cashier her money and ignores the usual look that accompanies telling someone her name. The internal dialogue is always the same, “Yes, Raven is my real name. No, not like Symone. Yes, my mother was kind of a hippie.” She holds in the eye roll she feels building behind her lids and gives a sweet smile instead.
Still scoping out the room and feeling the nervous dread in her gut building to almost unbearable levels, she says a silent prayer to the universe begging for her sister back. In the middle of her internal pleas, she hears her name being called from the counter now behind her. That voice is familiar, one she wishes she could forget but never will.
Her panic rises up the back of her throat and fills her mouth with the taste of bile as she turns around, sure he will be standing right behind her, but he is not. It is just the local boy that always works here in the afternoons.
She shakes her head and grabs her cup, thinking over how much he plays into her fear for Willow. Raven knows he is gone, but he is always there in the back of her mind somewhere, especially this time of year. Even more so this year for reasons she doesn’t yet understand.
On Halloween, in just a few short days, it will be thirteen years exactly since he changed all of their lives forever. Just like all those years ago, the leaves have begun to fall to the ground and the nights are growing longer. Raven feels the familiar comfort of fall, but it seems to be intertwined with the buzz of something darker. Something sitting on the edge of reality that smells of blood and dirt and fear, so familiar that it frightens her.
She takes a steadying breath and looks down at her hands cradling the double shot espresso emblazoned with her name written in black sharpie across the side. She turns the cup nervously in her hands and that’s when she sees it.
Also written on her cup in a seemingly inconspicuous script is the greeting, “Hello again, Little Bird.”
She can hear her heartbeat pounding in her head. She thrusts the cup away from herself like it has burned her skin. She watches as it falls to the ground in slow motion, splashing into a brown and sticky puddle on the floor. Everyone in the coffee shop has turned to stare, but she doesn’t care.
Little Bird.
He is the only one that has ever called her that.
Immediately, she is unfrozen and leaps into action, knowing exactly what needs to be done. She practically runs to the door, grabs the offending cup on her way out, and is on her phone before her Doc Martens even hit the sidewalk.
“Pick up. Pick up. Pick up,” she pleads aloud as she hopes with every fiber of her being that the call doesn’t go to voicemail.
Sam anxiously taps her pencil against the table, glancing down at the screen of her phone to see Raven’s name on her caller id for the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes. She is trying desperately to focus on the speaker in the room. This is an important meeting and she can’t afford to step out for a phone call. She’s right on the edge of being made creative director and it requires her total focus anytime the boss is watching, but the anxiety building in her chest is making it hard to breathe.
Finally, she sees the tell-tale shuffling of notes and the movement of chairs that indicates the dismissal of the meeting. It’s not until this moment that she realizes how very little she even heard of what happened after Raven’s first phone call.
She rises to her feet and has the phone to her ear as soon as she’s out the door. Raven picks up in half a ring.
“Finally, jesus!” Raven breathes into the phone.
Guilt falls heavy on Sam’s shoulders, “I was in a meeting. What’s going on?”
Raven’s heavy sigh fills the silence, “Sam, I… I think he’s back.”
All the air leaves Sam at once and she has to sink her body into a spare chair sitting in the hallway. Here she sits in the middle of a busy office space; cold, pale, and unable to even make it to her own office.
How had she known this would be what Raven had to say?
How was it even possible?
It wasn’t possible, was it?
Panic hangs on every one of Raven’s words, “Are you still there, Sam?”
Sucking in a quick breath she replies, “I’m here. Raven, just… how?”
