The Raven and the Witchhunter

by H. M. Gooden

  "Stay behind me," Emma Jane hissed.

  Vanessa obeyed without a word, following the hunter's stealthy progress down the hall. Emma Jane paused outside a closed door, sniffing the air again before a growl of frustration escaped her full lips.

  "Damn it. Too late." Emma Jane pushed the door open. Her frustration slammed it against the wall, causing it to rebound off so that she had to stop the door from hitting her as she entered the room.

  Vanessa saw a figure on the bed, half-covered with a duvet, and her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my god."

  Vanessa edged closer to the bed as Emma Jane methodically examined the room. A small shape, dressed in pink baby doll pajamas, lay there almost as though it were resting. The person had dark brown hair, the same as Eloise, but that was where the similarities ended. The body in the bed looked to be at least seventy, maybe even eighty years old. Her face was hollowed out and dry, covered with wrinkles, and slightly grey in color. Vanessa couldn’t look away from the sunken eyes of the corpse, which stood out starkly from the folds of skin draped loosely across her face.

  "What happened to her?" Vanessa whispered, unable to speak louder. She wasn't sure if it was from fear or shock, but a wave of nausea suddenly overwhelmed her.

  Emma Jane looked at Vanessa sharply, coming over to steady her. Emma Jane's hands gripped Vanessa's shoulders tightly as she shook her.

  "Look at me, not her," she ordered.

  Vanessa dragged her eyes away from the dead body on the bed. She was grateful for Emma Jane's eyes because as she looked into them, their swirling opaqueness calmed her. She swallowed and the nausea began to subside as she focused on the magic within Emma Jane's eyes.

  "Thank you. Can you tell what happened to her?" Vanessa continued to stare into Emma Jane’s beautiful eyes as she waited for her to answer.

  Emma Jane shook her head. "No, not now. We must leave this house. The police will be here soon and we can't be found at this house.

  Vanessa blinked, confused. "How do you know that?" she asked, but Emma Jane was already gone from the bedroom. Shaking her head, Vanessa followed her out, careful to avoid touching anything on the way.

  THEY'D BEEN DRIVING for about five minutes before Emma Jane spoke. Vanessa could hear the frustration in her voice.

  "She's beaten me again."

  Vanessa glanced briefly to her right at Emma Jane, before looking back at the road ahead of them. "What do you mean?"

  Emma Jane closed her eyes and Vanessa waited for an answer that was slow in coming. "This is exactly what happened in Los Angeles. I had a solid tip, time, and place. Everything was set, but by the time I got there, it was too late. I should have been there yesterday, damn it!"

  Emma Jane kept her eyes closed, but Vanessa could see a single tear escape her left eye before it was ruthlessly wiped away.

  "I'm sorry. That must be so frustrating," said Vanessa, knowing the words were useless but unsure what else to say, still trying to sift through her own emotions about finding an acquaintance dead.

  "It's not your fault. I thought I had more time, that's all. But this also means things will move faster now. We can't afford to wait any longer." She opened her eyes, looking at Vanessa with an expression of anger Vanessa was glad wasn’t directed at her.

  "Let's go back to your apartment. We need to get your sister. We're going hunting tonight."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  They arrived back at the apartment without speaking further. After Emma Jane's dramatic pronouncement about going hunting, she'd closed her eyes and appeared to have fallen asleep. Vanessa was left to drive with only her thoughts for company and she hadn't enjoyed them much. She couldn't quit replaying the sight of someone she'd known, albeit not very well, shriveled and dead in a pair of lacy pjs, looking decades older than she’d been. It had been so macabre. Another shiver crossed her spine as the image flashed through her head for the hundredth time. When they arrived at the apartment, they walked upstairs silently. Vanessa put the kettle on, assuming Emma Jane would appreciate a warm drink again, then sat down at the kitchen table, waiting for something to happen. She'd already texted Cat, but it would probably be an hour until she got home. Until then, it was just the two of them.

  Vanessa watched as Emma Jane sat down across from her. She looked tired and defeated and Vanessa wasn't sure what made this incident was so hard for her. From the sounds of things, she should be used to death, if she'd really been tracking her adversary for as long as she said she had, but maybe she always took loss this hard. The kettle boiled and Vanessa poured herself a cup, putting in a berry tea to steep.

  "Emma Jane? Would you like something?" Vanessa asked softly, hesitant to intrude on her thoughts when she looked so upset.

  Emma Jane looked up and smiled, still appearing melancholy but with a little more color to her face than she’d had earlier. "Sure. Mint, if you have some. Thank you."

  Vanessa prepared a mint tea bag, then placed the cup on a saucer with a spoon and gently set it in front of her. "Here you are," she said. "Do you want to talk? I can see this is difficult for you, but I'm not sure why. You’ve been following her for a long time. Am I missing something? Or is it always this hard for you to find someone...dead? I know I’m having a hard time processing what I saw back there."

  She sat down and waited as Emma Jane sighed, then looked up at the ceiling.

  "I just feel sometimes like nothing I do matters. When I'm too late, the loss of life is overwhelming. I can feel the absence of the soul in the room, cutting like a knife." She looked at Vanessa again, a tear trickling down her cheek. "I didn't mention it to you when we were there, but there were two bodies in that house. I could feel a second death."

  Vanessa's head snapped back in surprise. "What?" Vanessa said, before comprehension dawned. "No. You can't mean..." Her voice trailed off as she realized that Eloise's aunt had most likely been the other victim.

  Emma Jane nodded, then slumped forward, resting her head on her crossed forearms beside her tea. "It's never enough."

  Vanessa watched as her shoulders began to shake. She'd never been good at comforting people. That was Cat's strength. Vanessa was the entertainment while Cat was the substance, the confidant. Awkwardly, Vanessa reached out and tentatively patted Emma Jane on the hand.

  "I'm really sorry. That makes it even worse. Do you mean that you can feel death?" she asked quietly, curious, but hoping that she wasn’t prying.

  Emma Jane nodded her head on her arms, her hair covering her face completely. Vanessa gently stroked the hair away from her face, as she remembered her mother doing countless times when Vanessa's heart had been broken. Emma Jane looked at her, swirling eyes intense with emotion.

  "That is one of my gifts, or in this case, my curse. It never gets any easier, no matter how long I've been alive."

  Vanessa wanted to give her a hug but wasn't used to showing affection for someone she'd just met and felt it would be overstepping.

  "Can I help with anything? Is there...something...that would make you feel better right now?" Vanessa looked at Emma Jane, racking her brain for something to do. "A movie? Do you want to go for a walk? Or just sit on the couch and talk while we wait for Cat to get home?"

  Emma Jane sat back up in her chair and Vanessa's hand dropped down by her side, feeling curiously empty at the loss of Emma Jane's silky hair.

  "I'd like to sit on the couch and talk, if you're willing to listen. It's...been some time since I've had any one to talk to."

  "Sure. Do you want me to carry your drink?" Vanessa asked, as she stood and picked up her own teacup.

  Emma Jane nodded, so Vanessa carried both cups to the living room, placing them on the coffee table while she sat in her usual spot on the couch. Emma Jane sat perpendicular to her so that their knees almost touched, then she brushed tears from her face. Taking a deep breath, Emma Jane composed herself.

  "I'd like to know more about you, if you’re willing to share," said Vanessa softly, breaking the silence.

&nbs
p; Emma Jane nodded. "Yes, of course. If we’re going to be working together, you should know something about me. You may not believe everything I tell you, but I promise, it's the truth, at least as I know it. Let me start at the beginning. My name is Emma Jane Cooper and I was born in Manitoba, Canada. I come from a town in the north, where it's winter for more than half the year. It's a small place and we didn't have much growing up, but we always had enough. I had a mom who loved me and brothers that drove me crazy."

  She smiled in remembrance and Vanessa thought it was the first time she'd seen her really smile since they'd met, but something told her that the rest of her story wouldn't be so happy.

  "I had a good childhood, until the day I returned from spending the night at a friend’s house to find my home gone."

  Vanessa watched as Emma Jane paused, swallowing tears again.

  "What happened?" Vanessa whispered in trepidation, as Emma Jane took another shaky breath and blinked to clear her eyes.

  "There had been a fire. The fire department was still there and they had to hold me back apparently, as I tried to get inside the house, but I don't remember much else from that day. I went to live with my grandmother after that, but I couldn't get past the feeling it hadn’t been an accident. You see, I felt...something...there that day. I didn't know what it was at the time, just that there was a feeling of darkness around my house that hadn’t been there the day before."

  Emma Jane stopped talking, then gestured angrily at her eyes. "You see these? I wasn't born like this. This happened to me after I turned twelve, after the fire that destroyed my childhood. One night I went to sleep, still drowning in my sorrow, and the next day I woke up with eyes that could no longer see the world I lived in."

  Vanessa was surprised, but on second thought, she guessed she shouldn’t be. Neither her nor her sister had been aware of their powers until their late teens, so it wasn't a stretch to discover that other people acquired them later too.

  "You seem so comfortable with them, I just assumed you'd been born like that," Vanessa said, wanting to hear more.

  "Ha!" Emma Jane said, without humor. "That's because I've had years to get used to them. But when it first happened, I was a mess. There I was, entering my teens with my entire family dead, except my Kokum, my mom's mom. I was just getting used to living with a much older woman who still followed the old ways and then I woke up blind. Needless to say, I almost lost it, right then and there."

  Vanessa couldn't imagine what it would have been like to live through that. She remembered how devastated she'd been when Cat had been in a car accident, even though she'd fully recovered. To have lost Cat and their parents at the same time would have completely destroyed her.

  "I don't think I could have come back from that, to be honest."

  Emma Jane shrugged. "I don't know if I would have been able to if it hadn't been for my grandmother’s beliefs. I can still remember it like it was yesterday," she said, beginning to weave her story for Vanessa. Once again, Vanessa felt herself fall into a world created by Emma Jane's words.

  "I DON'T UNDERSTAND! What's happening to me? I can't see!"

  Her shriek filled the air, causing the elderly woman to come huffing and puffing into her room. She wasn't young any longer and hadn't run anywhere in years, but she knew that sound and had felt her heart stop.

  "What is it? What is it, my awasis? Why are you screaming?"

  The old woman entered the room to find the girl crumpled on the floor, crying as if her life was over. When the girl looked up, the old woman gasped.

  "Oh, my child! Your eyes!"

  The girl looked at her with swirling white eyes. The woman knew that some great event had befallen her granddaughter and crossed herself the way the church had taught her to do. She mostly followed the old ways but went to church on Sunday with the other old women, believing that God was all around and that the white man’s god was just another face of the Great Spirit.

  "What’s happening Kokum? Why can't I see anything?" The girl stopped in the middle of her tears, as though a faucet had been turned off. "Wait, I can still see you. Oh, Kokum, you look so beautiful." The girl looked at the old woman with awe and the woman shook her head.

  "We must go see the onatawehiwew, the medicine man. Maybe he can tell us what has happened to my little one. Get dressed. We'll leave immediately."

  The girl nodded, picking herself up with only sniffles remaining from her crying then slowly making her way to the closet. The old woman helped, guiding her hands to the appropriate attire before allowing her privacy to dress. The drive to the house of the man her grandmother had called the onatawehiwew was silent while the girl looked around, trying to understand what had happened. She wasn't blind, as she'd thought when she first woke up that morning, but her eyes couldn't focus, either. She could only see the blurry grey outline of objects passing outside the window, except when she saw a bird or squirrel, or even the trees. They were clearly defined, with small glowing fires in their centers. She didn't know what any of it meant, but hoped the man her kokum was taking her to could help.

  After a short while they arrived at a small house. Her grandmother guided her to the house and the girl stumbled on the front steps. They knocked on the door and waited a few minutes until an old man with long grey hair in braids answered. When he opened the door, the girl was surprised that she could see him, as clearly as she remembered seeing everything before waking up that morning.

  "I can see you!" She gasped the words in surprise, causing the man to examine her more closely.

  "Ah." The man said only the one word before he stood back, swinging the door open wide. "Come in. We have much to discuss."

  The old woman nodded and shepherded the girl in front of her, taking a last anxious look over her shoulder before closing the door behind her.

  Inside the house it felt warm and the air smelled rich, like being outside after a rainstorm, but the room was still blurry and grey, and the initial joy the girl had felt on seeing the man faded. She knew something was wrong, but still didn't understand what, or why. Her grandmother led her to a chair in the kitchen and she sat down quietly, waiting for one of the adults to speak first, as was proper. Her grandmother sat beside her and she could hear the old man moving around in the kitchen, but didn't look at him again. Instead, she looked outside, through the small window beside her. Just like when they'd driven down the road, she couldn't see things the way she had the day before. Everything was covered by a layer of mist with the exception of the living things which came into crisp focus. Trees, birds, even the occasional dog that passed by were all sharper, although none as sharp as the man whose house they were now inside.

  She turned to look at him again. She knew the man from seeing him around town but had never spoken with him before. He was much respected in the area. Some said he practiced magic and was in touch with the ancestors. Many people went to him when they were sick or grieving and he was known to help. According to her grandmother, he had his own sweat lodge behind his house, but it was a place of healing and not open for just anyone. She wondered if that was why her kokum had brought her to his place.

  "Thank you for seeing us today."

  Her grandmother spoke deferentially, but the girl could hear the worry in her voice. She watched as the glowing man came closer to her, then stopped. He lightly took her chin in his hand, turning her face from side to side as he examined her.

  "Most unusual," he said, after what felt like forever. "When did this happen?"

  "I woke up like this today," the girl blurted, then covered her mouth. "I'm sorry, sir."

  The man let go of her chin and laughed kindly. "We are here for you, my child. You may speak freely in this house."

  He turned back to her grandmother. "Are there any family stories about this? Any ancestors with different qualities?"

  The girl heard her grandmother sigh.

  "I don't know. Our history was lost, the way that many of our peoples' stories have been. There are none
that I've heard of, but I hardly remember my own parents. It was all so long ago. I wonder if the recent loss has...broken something in my girl?"

  The words were spoken softly, but the girl could hear the tremor of unshed tears, which worried her more than the fact she couldn't see. Her grandmother had always been so fierce and stable that any show of emotion was scary to the girl. She patted her grandmother's hand, which glowed just enough for her to see it.

  "I'm okay. We'll figure out what's wrong. Maybe we should go see a doctor? Maybe I got something in my eyes last night." The girl offered the explanation lamely, but even as she did so, she didn't believe it. She knew that this wasn't a normal vision problem, even without her kokum reacting the way she had.

  The man sat at the table next to the girl and her grandmother. He spoke softly, but the girl could hear the truth and the power in his words.

  "This is an unusual occurrence. As you feared, your granddaughter has been touched by the spirit world. I believe this change is permanent and that it is only the first of many challenges she'll have to endure. I've heard legends of people who have been given eyes to see the spirit world in order to defend man. I feel that this girl has been given a great duty in the same way."

  The girl sat in stunned surprise, which was deepened by the sound of her grandmother crying softly. They sat in that still room for several minutes, with only the sound of quiet sobbing breaking the silence until the man stood up.

  "Come. She must go through the sweat ritual to learn to see. She must undergo a quest."

  Her grandmother stood up slowly, touching her on the shoulder. "Come, my child. This is what we have come to learn. You will sit in the sweat lodge and speak to the ancestors."

  The girl was nervous, yet hopeful. She'd never been in a sweat lodge before and didn't know what it would be like. She'd heard giggles from classmates about their weekends with family at events where they'd gone to a sweat lodge. She had a feeling her experience would be very different than theirs had been.