She took the dagger, still dripping with the blood of her victim, in her beak and flew away silently through the open window, into the night…
For two hours she perched on a branch in the middle of a large oak tree, contemplating what she had done. ‘Finally, justice has been done’ she thought to herself. ‘No more sleepless nights now that those murderers have had a taste of their own medicine’. She felt a shiver run down her spine. ‘Here we go, back to human form and reality’.
As nimbly as a cat, she climbed quickly down the tree and ran back towards the house where her parents had been murdered. It hurt going back there, but where else was she to go? After all, she needed to be able to carry on with her life so no-one would suspect was she got up to. Peaceful days, nights of blood.
****
Sat in Ms. Burnswhich’s form room at 8:45am, she felt like resting her head on the hard, wooden desk, and falling asleep. “We have a new student joining us today!” Explained Ms. Burnswhich in such excited tones, anyone would have thought that she wasn’t entirely satisfied with the rest of her class. “His name is Jamie Cole and I want him to sit next to you, Miss Lawson.” Ms. Burnswhich came and stood next to her. “I hope that won’t be a problem” and without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel, and stalked towards the door and opened it. In walked a boy who had charcoal black hair and deep brown eyes that made you feel like he could see every single one of your most private thoughts.
He scraped back the chair next to her, dumping his bag on the floor and sitting down.
“Hi. I’m Jamie. Jamie Cole, though I suppose Miss has already told you. What’s your name?” He sounded casually excited as he looked her in the eye, something that most people avoided. “My name”, she explained sharply, “isn’t something I share with everyone.” “Okaayy” he sounded slightly confused that someone spoke to him like they didn’t care about how effortlessly cool he was. ‘Good’ she thought. ‘It doesn’t do anyone good to be too cockey.’
As it turned out, Jamie was in most of her lessons before break but he didn’t talk to her, though she did catch him staring at her a few times. ‘Let him stare’ she thought. ‘It won’t do him any good.’ When the bell rang to signal time for break, Jamie rushed out the classroom door before she had even finished packing her books into her bag.
She felt slightly dumbstruck by Jamie so she walked casually over to the huge beech tree at the far end of the field, and took the three poppy seeds from her pocket and swallowed them one by one. She felt herself shrinking back into a raven. When the transformation was complete, she fluttered onto a high branch of the beech tree. A crow came and settled next to her, a crow that had the same deep brown eyes as Jamie…
“I knew there was something different about you!” Jamie’s voice emerged from the crow’s beak so suddenly that she almost fell out of the tree! “H-h-how did you know it was me?!” She stammered. “I’ve been watching you this entire break, I watched you swallow those three poppy seeds and I watched you fly up here. Are you going to tell me how you use your ability to turn into a raven to your advantage?” A single tear dripped from the raven’s eye. Suddenly, everything came tumbling out. About how here parents were murdered because they owed money to a loan shark and how she killed the three men that had killed them by stabbing each one with a dagger with a jewel-encrusted handle. She told him of the peaceful days, and nights of blood.
“And my name” she said softly, “Is Ebony. Ebony Lawson.” The she flew away, and didn’t once look back.
So beware, the next raven you see,
Could be Ebony Lawson, and maybe she thinks that
You were involved in her parents’ murder. . .
