When the Crows Call

Chapter 1

Everyone always said to me, "It will all make sense when you're older. When you can hear the Crows calling."

It couldn't have been farther from the truth. Something was different about me, and, as I stood on that chair staring out at the moon, I contemplated everything that brought me here. Here, to standing on a chair, wiping fat, ugly tears off my cheeks. The note I had written sat on my bedside table; I had poured out everything I could never say out loud onto that piece of paper.

I'm starting at the end of my story instead of the beginning, but I guess nothing you could say would change my mind. I held the rope tightly. Now. Come on. Come on.

I collapsed on the floor of my bedroom. Another failed fucking attempt. God, I've always been such a coward. Such a failure. At life; and death now too. Such a failure.

I guess now that I'm not ending my life today, I have time to explain. I think it all started when I found out I was a creature. That's right, a creature. You see, when I turned seventeen, I came into what witches and wizards call a creature inheritance. That's right; I'm a witch.

Not everybody goes through the inheritance, but I was one of the lucky few who woke up in excruciating pain on my seventeenth birthday. I could feel my lower back bubbled and burned, and my shoulder blades twisted and cracked. My ears itched, stretched, burned in pain, my hands breaking as I screamed. My parents burst into my room, and through the haze of my vision, I could see their concerned and shocked expressions, but once they realised what was happening, they looked at me with contempt and jealousy. Did I tell you I was the first of my family to go through the creature inheritance in centuries? Yeah, just my luck.

I stayed in agony for the better part of the day, but after my initial awakening that morning, I had come into my inheritance. My lower back had hurt because I had a tail burst through the skin, and a set of wings came fluttering out my back. My ears had elongated to that of an elf, and my nails had sharpened and grew longer. By the time the leathery skin of my wings and tail had grown feathers and hair, it was nightfall. I hadn't eaten at all that day; the evening was dark and cruel to me in the forms of my parent's reaction. My mother and father had never been the most affectionate towards me, always hating that I had been born a girl. They wanted a boy to carry on the oldest magical family name: Xygen, but instead, they had me, and my mother has been unable to conceive since.

Perhaps I had always known this would happen; I had no one to miss me; I had no one who cared. Except- No, not Ms Finn anymore. Not after what she had done. Ms Finn was as batty as they came, she was old enough to be my grandmother, really, but she was my mother figure. She babysat me often, especially when my parents were off on trips around the world for work where they couldn't take their embarrassment of a daughter, Esmerelda Xygen. "Come now, Esme," She would say. "Let's go in for a spot of tea. You look parched, my dear." But enough about her, there is no one to care for me now.

There had been a war—a war between the Light and the Dark. Cliché as hell, I know... but I guess, either way, it is how it happened. Unless you're on the opposite side, the Light and Dark would be reversed, I guess. Creatures considered extinct for centuries came out of hiding to fight a war dating back thousands of years, Witches and Wizards versus Elves, Cyclops, and Orcs. Some of the creatures fighting against the magical community were supposed to be on our side, with the Witches and Wizards, but the dark faeries modified their memories. Their magic was corrupted by darkness, and they were able to tap into the magic that was forbidden in our world, memory and blood magic.

This magic is perilous; it was forbidden because you will kill the person or creature you were using the magic on if you do the smallest thing wrong. Blood magic is predominantly used for tracking, and you can create very potent poison tailored to a person's DNA through this blood magic. Therefore, blood magic was banned, too many people were corrupted by the power given to them by the poisons. In our history books, some potion masters would brew this potion for their kings, and eventually, they refused to brew them because the tyrant kings craved more and more power. Eventually, the refusal led to what is now known as the witch hunts and the fear of magic and all those born of it. Those dark times never really ended. Witch hunters still exist, though they seldom show their faces around Scotland anymore. We managed to drive them out of Scotland and England, but England has always been the Hunters territory, and Scotland belonged to the magical community. We normally don't cross the border unless in dire emergencies, and mostly now, we stay out of each other's way completely. Almost three hundred years ago, the magical society created a treaty and to prevent the spillage of more blood. This has been renewed every year by the youngest witch or wizard of every family, and their first year signing this treaty begins on their seventeenth year. Every family signed by every family from both the witch hunters and the magical community at Midnight on December 31st.