A raven's secret

The first appearance

I decided not to tell Ashton or any of the others what had happened in Math class today. I may be Little Red, but I was definitely not going to cry wolf.

So during lunch I kept my mouth shut and listened as Scott and Vallerie got into a debate about whether Scott should play at the school's dance this year. The school was looking for a band to perform at the dance, and Vallerie thought this was the perfect gig for Scott's band.  Scott said that the entire band wouldn't possibly come to Rose Hill for a single night, but then Vallerie suggested that Scott did a solo.

"That defeats the purpose of a band!" Scott argued.

"But if you can't do it with the band you can do it on your own. Be a Killer King all on your own." Vallerie folded her arms in front of her chest.

Ashton smirked at them. Scott and Ashton sat at our table regularly these days. Ashton didn't need to sit alone as Scott was dragging him around everywhere. And that included our table. But Ashton didn't seem to mind.

"I'll think about it," Scott finally said and threw his hands up in mock surrender.

"Don't some of your new friends play instruments?" I asked. These were some of the first words I had uttered since sitting down at the table. Luckily I didn't talk much on any given day, so I didn't seem to suspicious. I preferred to rather observe than take part in the action myself.

"None of them are band material." Scott gave me a look that made it seem like EVERYONE knew what band material looked like, and my question wasn't only stupid, but also insulting.

I shrugged, but luckily Vallerie took control of the conversation again and my comment got washed away by the ongoing debate.

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We had a rule in the house that Dad wasn't allowed to talk about his work in too much detail. Mom believed that the cases Dad did was disturbing and that it might traumatize me and Scott. But overall it only fascinated us and Scott and I would ask Dad to tell us what he did everyday when Mom wasn't close by.

But Dad didn't say much to us about this case. And I think Scott preferred it that way. With the Sasha thing that happened last year I wasn't too surprised by his lack of interest in this particular case.

After dinner I was in the kitchen cleaning the table. Dad's case folder was peeking out of the bag which he took to work everyday. The bag rested in the corner next to the side table with the flowers on it. Dad had dropped his bag there and immediately joined us for dinner since he had been working late.

The temptation to peek at the folder was unsettlingly big. If Dad knew something about the kids I wanted to know too. I remember that he withheld the information on Sasha from Scott, and that till this day Scott didn't know all the details. I was the only one other then Dad and Sasha's parents that knew all the gory details. And I'm glad Scott didn't know, because the truth would break him. I guess Dad knew that, and that was why Scott was never told.

I stepped closer to the folder that promised me answers. Quickly glancing around to make sure no one saw me, I pulled the folder from the bag and opened it.

The first few pages were background info on both the kids. I flipped through all the pages and stopped at one that caught my interest. It was the info on a man named Stuart Kelly. He was arrested a few years ago for attempting to kidnap his own daughter from his wife who had gotten custody after their divorce.

"He is our main suspect."

I whirrled around and looked straight at Dad, who was standing behind me with half a smile on his face. "I... I..."

"Relax, I'm not mad. I should have known you wouldn't be able to resist the temptation of looking." He took the folder from me, and picked up the bag.

"Is he the one who took them?" I asked.

"We think so, but we still need some concrete evidence that shows he took them."

"What about an alibi?"

"He doesn't have one." Dad placed the folder back into his bag and walked to the door. He then turned around to face me once more. "You can't tell anyone about this. This information is sensitive and we can't make it public untill we have all our facts straight. You need to keep this to yourself."

I nodded promptly and Dad went upstairs with the bag, probably putting it in his room to keep me from sniffing around for any more clues as to who was the culprit.

I returned to cleaning the table, when something caught my eye. A photo had fallen out of the folder and was laying on the floor under the table. I picked it up and held it in both my hands. It was a photo from the surveillance footage at the bus stop. A little girl walking on her own.

I frowned down at the photo. There was a tree next to the bench in the photo, and on one of the branches was a dark figure. After a moment of closely inspecting the photo I realized it was a bird. It was a raven.

It was Mortifer.

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Oooohhh, things are getting interesting.
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