When Thomas got home, his Nan was waiting tea for him. She didn’t scold him for being late. She wasn’t that sort. Unlike his mother, who always ran on a tight time-line, and got upset when he lagged behind or fought to fit into her schedule, Nan never said a thing. She wasn’t doing it because she was angry. She honestly didn’t seem to care if he got home in time to eat, or not. To her, the food was there, and he could have it or not.
She was reading, sipping on something like a gin and tonic, or sherry. He wasn’t sure. His mother didn’t drink and didn’t have friends who drank, and didn’t think much of people who did. She looked up as he came in, and switched on the parlor light. “What you got then?” she asked, her grey-blue eyes seeing the feather in his hand. She laid down the book and stretched out her hand.
Thomas handed it over, worried that she would toss it.
“Corvus corax,” she said holding it up to her eyes, as though reading the name written on the spine of the feather itself. “Part of the crow species, that’s odd” She handed the feather back. “Raven,” she said.
“What’s odd?” Thomas asked, taking the feather back, which seemed oddly warm in his hands, though it was no longer attached to a body.
But his nan had her head back in her book. He put the feather beside him on the table, and at his meal, with only the turning of the pages of him grandmother’s book to keep him company. When he was done, he cleared his dishes, as well as his nan’s, who had since left the table to go her bed, he supposed. He set the dishes in the sink, and took his feather upstairs to his bedroom. He set it on his bedside table, and lay down his bed, but it was to early to sleep, so he pulled out his drawing book.
It was not his first drawing book, but the one he had started working in before he left Redding. He had several cartoon stories in there, and ideas he was amusing himself with, that he might draw on the computer at some point, and put up for his old friends to see, but right now he just wanted to draw what he had in his head, the girl he hadn’t quite seen.
He fell asleep drawing, leaving the light on all night, something his mother would have admonished him for. It wasn’t quite dawn, when her heard the tapping. At first, he thought it was a tree branch, but there was no tree right outside his window, so he finally pulled himself out of bed, and walked out to look out the window.
As he opened the pane, a ravon flew in. It stared at him.
“I don’t have a bust of Paris”, he said. He was quite proud that he remember whose bust it was in the poem by Poe. He didn’t often remember lessons once summer started, unless that had been really cool. He had to admit Poe’s poetry was just that. “and I don’t have a lost Lamor” he added. He thought it would have been cooler if he had been able to quote the bells, but it was a Raven. Oh well.
The bird ignored him, and just walked back and forth in front of him as though looking for something.
Thomas knew the bird was looking for the feather, but he wasn’t about to give it to him. He went to the door, that lead to the back steps, down to the back garden, ” Go on, tell her to come herself if she wants it back.” He had come up with a theory, of sorts, that this was a magic feather, that she needed it or something. Didn’t really matter. Probably the raven couldn’t understand him at all.
The raven walked to the door, without a word, and he followed it outside, intent on saying something more. The morning was still cool, the sun not up yet, but it was quite light, as summer dawn often is. “Civilian twilight,” he said to himself, some other schooling that was still in his brain during the summer hols.
That’s when he saw the movement at the bottom of the steps. He thought it was Nan’s moggy, or the raven, but then he realized it was the girl.
She seemed to be rippling in the breeze, but there was no breeze. “You have something of mine,” She said, as she came up the steps. She was beside him, and held out her hand. Were her eyes now green?
Nan’s cat, Tim, was on the bed, and when the girl saw him, she paused in the door way, considering her next move. Tim, who had been asleep, looked up, fixing on the girl. He began to make little squeeking noises, and lashing his tale about side to side. The girl backed out of the door, and Thomas went out on the back stoop, closing the door quietly behind him, not wanting to wake his nan.
She still hadn’t spoken, but he knew she wanted her feather. She stood there, with her private breeze, waiting. If she was a silkie, or something like that, well, giving her the feather back would send her away, but keeping it, that would bind her to the earth, or something like that. It had been a long time since he had read fairy tales, or seen The Secret of Roan Inish.
“I have it, yes,” he said, “but I’ll have to look for it, ok?”
Here eyes were gray now, like the clouds. He thought she was waring a cape, but when he thought back later, he couldn’t recall what she was wearing at all.” She sighed, and he feared she was about to vanish again. He held out his hand, as if to shake her hand. He wasn’t sure why, it just seemed like the right thing to do. “My name is Thomas, but you can call me Tom.”
“Mornenna,” she said, though her voice came from her body, rather than her mouth. It was a soft voice, with a touch of gravel. The accent sounded…he didn’t know. Familiar, but odd.
“Can I bring it to you when I find it?” he asked.
He thought she smiled, but it was hard to focus on her face. Then she turned, and started to float down the stars. Tim had gotten out, and was at the bottom of the garden. Perhaps Nan had let him out. The girl paused half way down the steps, eyeing the cat, who was once again making little squeaking noises.
“Tim,” Thomas called. As he spoke, he heard the sound of breath he had heard before, and the girl was gone. Tim had sprung on the empty spot, twitching his tail, not happy to have lost his prize.
