The Raven

Chapter 6 - Elleya

The night my father was taken from me, I cried till I was sure there was no tears left to cry.  Whether grief, shock, of pain was to blame, I will never know.  As soon as the monsters had taken my father out the front door and into the night, I'd lost all sense of who I was.  I stood, staring at the empty doorway, to shocked to do anything else but cry.  Alrien wasn't much better.  He'd tried to follow the strangers, but they'd simply disappeared into the night, along with Morin. 

I was still weeping when my brother came back.  His eyes were wild with fear and his usually tidy hair was sweat soaked and full of leaves from the outdoors.  He had screamed curses at the walls till his voice had gone hoarse and deserted him.  I don't think any of us slept the night, or had wanted to.  The image of the pale skin and cold, bottomless eyes was burned into my mind, and flashed beneath my eyelids every time I closed them.  Who or what were those things?  I'd heard enough about the Gorglins to suspect, but were they really here?  And what on earth did they want with my father?  Their riddles made no sense to me.  Why did they call Morin Phoenix?  And what had my father stopped after my mother died?  Did it had to do something with her death?  These questions seared themselves into my brain.  I could think of nothing else.  

My brother, on the other hand, seemed to be thinking of nothing.  After he'd searched the night and had come back fruitless and had yelled at the wall, Alrien had settled himself on the floor in the middle of the main room.  The cut on his cheek was still dribbling blood, and the red stained his nice shirt, but he didn't seem to care.  He had sat, staring into space, for the whole of the night.  The sword my father had made as a model of his craft lay beside him.  The boy had carelessly picked at the sharp edges.  My brother's fingers were scarred and scratched from that wretched sword.  

I'd gone to bed that night in my father's bed.  The pillow still smelled of his rose water bath.  The smell was faint, but still brought more tears to my eyes.  As I lay down to sleep that night, I'd come to a conclusion.  The world was cruel and pitiless.  The Gorglins would not go unpaid for their troubles.  I would make sure of that.  I tossed and turned in the moonlight.  At every noise, I jerked away and slid my hand between the mattress and the wall, where I knew my father had always kept a knife for emergencies.  Thankfully, I didn't need to use it.  Only a few hours before dawn did I finally fall asleep, and it was not restful.

I awoke to the first light of the day greeting my through the window.  As I sat up, I glanced down at my hand.  There was a knife in it.  The knife wasn't that sharp, but it certainly wasn't something I should be sleeping with.  I frowned, trying to remember why I needed, because I knew I did.  For some reason, I just couldn't figure out why.  I glanced around and was surprised when I wasn't in my own room.  Why was that?  Had I gotten sick and my father had let me sleep with him?  Was that why he had let me sleep in so late?  Then it came down on me like a waterfall of grief.  

My father had been taken from me by creatures of the night.  He was most likely gone forever.  That was why I had slept in.  There was no one here to wake me.  I brought my knees to my chest and wailed into the blankets.  My eyes were still puffy from crying the night before, and they ached from trying to produce more tears.  After a few minutes of sobbing, I got myself together enough to crawl out of bed.  

Everything in Morin's room was still in place.  His boots were still on the windowsill, and random socks hung everywhere, even from the rafters above.  I could almost hear him at the water basin, humming his odd tunes.  I hauled myself from the warmth of the covers and stumbled to the door, knife still in hand.  I at least had Alrien.  I shuffled into the main room.  

My brother was still sitting in the middle of the room.  His eyes were still staring into space, but they were completely red and puffy.  Dark bags hung under them.  His shoulders stood slumped and his mouth hung slack.  Even his fingers were still working at the blade.  I gasped when I saw them.  They were a bloody mess.  Countless scratches covered them and gashes of all sizes oozed.