Ravenwings (Imaged + Completed) [1st in Trilogy]

Part II: Chapter 30

"The moment Myra saw me, she screamed, from what her sister told me. She didn't even know she was pregnant, and she was freaked out more by my wings than me myself..." He sighed. "I was born in her bathroom. Myra's sister, Miriam, was a Veterinarian, and so Myra called her for help instead of the hospital because she was...well, ashamed and scared of me. That she'd given birth to something half-bird."

Wow...so this isn't just about Woodman, this... I had no idea about all this, with his mom. We're going really far back here...

"Myra wanted to get rid of me because she didn't want a kid, much less me. Miriam told her a winged boy couldn't be adopted, and it was too late to kill me since I was already born. So Myra begged her to cut my wings off. Miriam refused."

I interrupted. "You call your mother Myra?"

He swallowed. "Yeah. She wouldn't let me call her 'Mom.'"

I looked awkwardly downwards, and he did too, alternating from looking straight ahead and to the floor throughout the story. His mom was crazy like mine. But my Mom had never hurt me.

Raven shook his head. "Myra wanted me either dead or normal. Miriam wanted me alive as a pet bird. Both of them just...it didn't sit right with me, even as a kid. I knew something was wrong even before Miriam had to stop Myra from strangling me."

My throat went dry.

"Growing up, Myra didn't let me go out in public. She kept me locked in a dog cage until she moved me to her walk-in closet that she turned into a tiny bedroom. She wanted to think that I was normal...so she made me a bedroom and fed me normal things. She made it clear I had to hide my wings around her, so I kept them tucked or covered."

Jesus christ... I couldn't even imagine a life like that... Raven had genuinely been locked up his whole life, hadn't he?

"Miriam was totally different. Myra would go on road trips or benders trying to escape for a while, sometimes for weeks on end, and I'd be left with Aunt Miriam. But she had a full time job at her clinic and couldn't spare much time, so when I was a toddler, sometimes she'd hide me with the animals that were boarded there, with the dogs."

Goddamn, how many people have caged him in his life?

"She would secretly take me out in her spare time and maybe take x-rays of me to study, or do blood tests or give me check-ups. She bribed me with sunflower seeds, which could sometimes be kind of fun. That's how I started liking them."

The sunflower seeds. No wonder he liked them so much.

"Whenever she could, after work, she'd drive me to a clearing in the woods and tell me to fly. If I did, I got more sunflower seeds. So...Miriam taught me how to fly. I mean, she wasn't all bad.

"And Myra wanted me to be a smart, perfect little human boy, so she actually homeschooled me. I was onto Freshman high school material by the time I was four, so eventually she bought me textbooks and just gave me those to study on my own. I have to give it to her, Myra made me smarter."

Raven smiled a little. "I only saw her proud of me once...and that was seeing how smart I was. I just...I buried myself in my studies to make her happy... If I could only lose my wings, she would have a perfect kid.

"She nearly smiled when she could give me a complicated question that troubled her, be it mathematical or philosophical, I could always give her an answer. 'Smart as a whip,' she called me." He smiled a little in recollection.

"But she was rarely happy. She was an alcoholic, completely unreliable and unstable. Usually drunk, unemployed and living in Miriam's home and savings, and only allowed to because of me. But to her I was still the root of all her problems.

"She actually...physically attacked me sometimes, when she was drunk," Raven said quietly, his voice and lower lip shaking a little. "You know, throwing things...saying things, punching things...for a while she was pretty intent on chasing me with a kitchen knife. She cut one of my fingers off, sort of by accident, and it grew back within weeks." His eyes were watery as he examined his right pinky finger, which looked perfectly healthy and as it should.

"Aunt Miriam saw Myra's abuse, but she just...she didn't do anything. She never wanted to handle Myra when she was drunk, so she just left me, a damn kid, to deal with her. I tried to ask her for help, or explain it...but I was just a bird to her. My voice didn't mean anything; a lot of the time she just ignored me when I spoke. She didn't really talk to me at all unless she was commanding me, like a dog. When it came to conversing with me, Myra always had a leg up, no matter how drunk she got."

Raven took a deep shaky breath and I put an arm over his shoulder and slowly rubbed his arm.

"Miriam never interfered, even once, until...well...Myra caught me and tried to saw my wings off. Then Miriam tried to stop her, but Myra was always the stronger one."

I gulped.

"She hit bone. She tried to saw through my bone. She literally..." he sighed, suddenly feeling very self-conscious about whatever he was about to say. "Butter knife, bungee cords, duct tape, serrated knife...in that order," he said simply.

My eyes began to blur. I think I really am the first person in his life who didn't mean him harm. "Raven, you don't have to tell me this..."

He turned from staring straight ahead to look right at me. "I...want to," he breathed. "I mean, someone might as well know."

I swallowed. "Come here." I pulled him down so his head rested on my lap, ruffling his hair with my fingers.

He gave me a weak smile and repositioned his wings to a more comfortable position. His tears went from dripping off the tip of his nose to slipping out of the corners of his eyes, and he gave a terse smile as he looked up into my eyes.

He took a moment and regathered his breath to continue telling me about his life of living hell.