Ravensong (Green Creek 2)

I didn’t talk about girls. Not even then.

WE WERE out behind the house, Mark and me.

He was saying, “…and when I shifted for the first time, I scared myself so badly, I shit myself. Surrounded by everyone, I just shit. I squatted down like a dog and everything. That’s when I think Thomas decided he wanted Richard to be his second instead of me.”

I laughed. It felt strange, but I did it anyway.

Mark was watching me.

“What?” I asked, still chuckling.

He shook his head slowly. “Uh—nothing. I just—it’s nice. Hearing you. Like this. I like it. When you laugh.”

Then he blushed furiously and looked away.

I CARRIED the wooden raven wherever I went. Whenever I couldn’t breathe, I would squeeze it until it pressed into my flesh. There would be an imprint in my palm for hours.

One time the wing cut me, and I bled on it.

I hoped it would leave a scar.

It didn’t.

OSMOND CAME back to Green Creek. Men in suits followed him. He wanted to speak to Abel and Thomas. He didn’t want me there.

Abel ignored him. “Gordo, if you please.”

I followed them into Abel’s office.

The door shut behind us.

“He’s a child,” Osmond said as if I wasn’t in the room.

“He’s the witch to the Bennett pack,” Abel said evenly. “And he belongs here as much as anyone. And even if I didn’t insist upon it, my son would.”

Thomas nodded without speaking.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” Abel said, settling in behind his desk, “what brings you to my home that a phone call wouldn’t have sufficed?”

“Elijah.”

“I don’t know any Elijah.”

“No, you wouldn’t. But you would know her by her true name.”

“And I wait with bated breath.”

“Meredith King.”

And for the very first time, I saw something akin to fear on Abel Bennett’s face. “Now that is something I did not expect. She’s… she’d be Thomas’s age, wouldn’t she?”

Osmond looked unfazed. “She has picked up the mantle of her father.”

“Dad?” Thomas asked. “What is he talking about? Who is—”

Abel smiled thinly. “You would have been too young to remember. The Kings were… well. They were a rather aggressive clan of hunters. They believed all wolves were an affront to God and it was their duty to rid them from the earth. They came for my pack. And we made sure very few walked away.” His eyes flashed red. “The patriarch, Damian King, was gravely injured. He lived, but barely. As did his son, Daniel. The rest of his clan did not. Meredith was his other child, but she would’ve only been around twelve at the time. But it seems as if she’s decided to resume her father’s work.” He looked back at Osmond. “Elijah. How curious.”

“A prophet of Yahweh,” Osmond said. “A god from the Iron Age in the Kingdom of Israel. Yahweh performed miracles through Elijah. Raising the dead. Raining fire down from the sky. At Jesus’s side during his Transfiguration on the mountaintop.”