Where The Raven Sits

WTRS Chapter 7

Gale.

Kadie had to remind herself of the name several times. The creature...it...he was now perched on the railing, facing the canyon. Even though he looked human again, she could only see him as the disfigured thing that had intruded upon her in the middle of the night. And in a weird way she felt kidnapped being at the landing with something that was possibly dangerous when she really didn't want to be. The problem was, it was technically her dad that had kidnapped her. And it was her dad who had left her alone with...him to get bottled water from the car. Kadie sat on the hot ground all the way across the landing. She didn't trust herself to stay balanced on the railing as much as she didn't trust this Gale.

Why don't they put benches here? She kicked at a stone. It'd be so much easier to focus on him if I was comfortable. Look at him! How can he just sit there like he isn't some monster walking around out in the open? How could Dad talk to him like he's a person? We shouldn't be here or the same thing could happen to us.

Frustrated, she squirmed around, moving a good two feet one way and another four the other in an attempted to get comfy. The ground was not made for sitting on, putting rocks beneath her wherever she sat. Dirt stuck to her bare legs, scrapping at her skin until she had to brush them off. Getting so busy with that, Kadie failed to notice the shadow come her way until a blanket of thick cloth dropped on her head like a sack of leaves.

"Sit on that," Gale called to her.

Kadie pulled the sweater off her head and stared at it. It was a normal piece of clothing; a size extra large which had to be a size too big for the lean looking boy. But for the ten foot tall creature it was clearly too small.

"Thanks." She folded the hoodie under her. It wasn't the best solution, but it was better than the bare ground. "How do you...um, wear it?" Kadie was surprised she could muster the courage to make noise. Her throat was dry and sore and her voice had been hiding in her stomach. "How does it- AHHH!!!"

Gale rolled his eyes at her scream. He had moved closer to toss the hoodie and decided to bridge the gap completely. His gray body looked even rougher in the brutal sunlight, the sheen of his feathers almost glaring.

"Calm down, I don't want to touch you." He sat down several arms' length away from her. "What were you asking?"

Kadie tugged on a section of the sweater that stuck out from under her. "How do you...wear this?"

Gale shrugged. "This whole body thing is weird. If I look in the mirror then I'm a huge monster that can't fit in anything. But if I don't then I can get dressed easily. I can't look at people face-to-face and bundling up doesn't change what they see when I do, but wearing jackets and stuff makes me feel like they can't see me; like I'm hiding. So I never look at myself, or anyone else, and I can wear anything I want."

"That's weird."

"The last ninety-four years of my life have been weird."

"Ninety–! How old are you?!"

"I'm..." Gale paused to count. "I'm a hundred and nine.... Yeah, 'cause I was just about fifteen when all this happened."

"Holy-! That's young! Younger than me."

"I would ask how old you are, but I was raised with that being taboo."

"You were taught not to ask someone's age but not to kill someone's pet?"

'Oh, don't go there!" the creature snapped. "The world can barely tell the difference between a raven and a crow; how was I supposed to tell a normal raven from a dopple-ghostly one?!" The boy huffed, turning his back to her and changing back into a human. "They could have used any other animal that didn't make so much noise. I've accepted blame that I went out and killed that bird and that was bad. But look at me! I am now housing the raven in its egg with the egg it's supposed to be sitting on. Irony is something and it doesn't need you helping to kick me when I'm down."

Something about that response almost made Kadie smile. In his current form and with his tone, she could imagine a fresh faced kid who was used to pouting. From the way he was slumped with his arms around his knees, she was almost positive he was sulking.

"Do you have any photos of you before you were cursed?" Kadie asked.

Gale shook his head. "We didn't have smart phones back then. And the dopple-ghost who cursed me had me erased from the lives of anyone who knew me personally."

"That's horrible."

"No, it's not all that bad," he said, his voice low. "My parents were the loving smothering kind and my brother was overprotective, so if I had just disappeared or if they thought I was dead, it would devastate them. Forgetting I ever existed was best for their sakes."

"Did you ever get to see them again?"

"Yeah. Once in a blue moon I'd pull them into that pink unconsciousness room – I don't know what it's really called – and make it up all nice and picturesque and make them think they were having some collective dream. It was nice to be able to see them, even if I was just a spectator."

Kadie looked at the ground, trying to imagine what her parents' lives without her would have been like. They would probably be just as happily married, maybe even with a son or daughter that wasn't her. Then she had to correct her thinking; Gale hadn't been replaced. So, shifting gears, Kadie tried to imagine what it would have been like to just pick up and no longer exist. For her that was a little more difficult. The idea of her parents – two people who made it undeniable that they wanted children in their lives – not having a child was strange. And did all her things and the room disappear with her? No, the room had to stay, she decided. But what about all the things they had done together? What about the events and proud moments and hard times? All of the things that had shaped them as a family would be wiped away. And even though they would forget about her, she wouldn't forget them. They would always be on her mind, in her memory, but she would never be able to approach them or talk to them. She would be forced to watch them from afar or not at all for the rest of her – or their – lives. Kadie found herself choking up at those thoughts.

Gale had turned when he heard her sniffing, watching her curiously.

"You don't have anything to worry about," he said. "Don't kill any animals and you'll be fine. Oh, you're...actually crying."