by Suzy Turner
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I slept right through the night. Not a single dream managed to wake me from my stupor. The shock of the previous day's events must have taken its toll and pretty much knocked me out. That and the fact that Oliver had come over to have our date at home. Snuggling under the duvet, I slowly forced my eyes open to see rays of sunlight through the window. It soon dawned on me that Gabriel had left me to sleep in the living room. My leg throbbed beneath the covers and as I turned to try and manoeuvre myself off the sofa, I heard voices coming from the kitchen. Gabriel was not alone.
I could easily identify the voices of Gabriel, Meredith, Wyatt and Rose. I came to the conclusion that they had joined forces once again to talk about me or my father. Either that or they were waiting for me to wake to talk further about the news they'd hit me with a few days earlier.
Or were they eager to find out who had rescued me from my close call yesterday?
As I tried to stand up, I managed to knock over a bottle of water with my leg. It crashed to the floor.
Hurrying in, they all made a fuss of me. Meredith offered assistance where I needed it the most. Having a shower with a broken leg isn't the easiest thing to do, so she ran me a bath and helped me in. I was grateful. Although I felt such a nuisance and a hindrance, I also felt a massive sense of gratitude for having such caring people around me. It would have been a very different story had I been in England with Vivian and my father. Goodness only knew how I would have managed.
After I'd struggled to get dressed, Meredith helped me back to the sofa where I lay down, exhausted. Barely a minute went by before Rose whizzed in with my breakfast on a tray. A lovely hot cup of tea and a plate full of eggs and bacon. I was thoroughly spoilt, and I relished it.
The others joined me while I ate and we chatted about general things like the weather, friends and neighbours as well as our plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas which were fast approaching.
But ultimately I knew the conversation would move on to more pressing matters. The unusually large raven's feather was cause for some concern, as Gabriel explained to me. When our ancestors had first changed, they morphed almost magically into the bird's actual size. He had never seen or even heard of anybody having the ability to change into a raven the size of a human. Yet there we were presented with evidence to suggest it was possible. What we didn't know was who in our community possessed the ability to change and why wasn't Gabriel aware of it?
It troubled him as he knew all of the members within the Tulugaq clan and was on friendly terms with pretty much all of the residents of Powell River. It was possible that whoever had saved me came from further afield but why not show themselves?
Gabriel was desperate that I recall exactly what had happened. I wished I could remember but having fallen unconscious made it considerably more difficult.
“I believe the only way to tap into your unconscious mind and find out the truth, Lilly, is to take you on a journey to meet some very unique and special people. But it will be quite a long journey and much of it needs to be taken on foot and you are certainly not able at the moment. Your leg must heal first and then we will travel to the mountains to see the elders. We will do so in the spring. Until then we must not worry about any of this. We must continue life as usual. Although we do not know who this person, or creature, is, we do know one thing. He saved you, Lilly. So clearly he wishes you no harm. You must not dwell on your father's disappearance either. The elders are aware of what has been happening within our family and they are keeping eyes and ears open for any news,” he said while the others nodded solemnly behind him.
“He's right, dear. You haven't been here all that long and look what's happened to you already. You must completely settle in to life in Powell River. When you've recovered and the weather starts to get warmer, you and Gabriel will go and visit the elders. But until then... just concentrate on your studies and making friends. Okay?” Rose said with her eyebrows raised, waiting for my reply. I nodded reluctantly. They all meant well.
But that didn't mean I had to agree with them. Of course I couldn't. My father was out there somewhere and he might be in danger. I didn't want to wait until the spring. But I had no choice. I could do nothing alone, especially with a broken leg. I couldn't even start my part-time job.
There was still a possibility that my memory might be triggered during one of my dreams, but until that happened, I imagined the next few months would include an awful lot of reading and very little else.
Later that morning after everyone, except Gabriel, had left and I'd spent hours with my head in a book, Jo arrived.
As she walked in, her brow was furrowed so deep with worry that she made me laugh. “I'm okay, I'm okay,” I said to her with my hands held up, before she'd even opened her mouth.
“I was so worried for you. Especially seeing as you didn't turn up for school. I've obviously heard from the others but I want to hear from you. What on earth happened, Lilly?”
I told her all about the previous day, and she was relieved that we could finally open up to each other about our family's secret.
“I'm so sorry I couldn't tell you anything before but I was literally sworn to secrecy by the whole family. I really wanted to. It was killing me. I have to admit, finally having a friend, a girl, to be able to talk to about all of this crazy stuff is brilliant. Sometimes it really eats you up when the only people you can talk with are parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts,” she said, barely taking a breath.
I totally understood. Even though I'd only known the truth for a short time, I did feel the need to have a close friend to confide in.
She told me about the time she'd had the 'family of ravens' talk with the rest of the family and, although it came as a bit of a shock, she'd always known our family was special. It was just a feeling she'd had.
“But you've never transformed, have you?” I asked, eager to know more about the physical change.
She shook her head, “No, not yet, but I've had all the weird dreams too so we're just waiting for it to hit me one of these days. I have no idea when it will happen though. It's a bit scary, isn't it? Not knowing how we turn. I worry that it will be painful,” she said, twirling her long hair around her fingers nervously. “But Rose told me that provided you relax completely and just let your body change of its own accord, the pain should be controllable. She said it's all mind over matter. I've been doing meditation and yoga ever since!” she laughed.
“Seriously?” I asked, wondering if she was joking or not.
She nodded enthusiastically and jumped up from the armchair, demonstrating a few awkward-looking poses. “The yoga poses are easy once you've done them for a while. When I first started, my muscles were so stiff, I struggled even with the simplest moves. I'll teach them to you and we can do it together,” she said eagerly.
Looking down at my leg and back up at her comically, she burst into a fit of giggles. “Okay, I'll teach you in a few months when you can actually get your backside off the sofa!” She sat back down on the chair and curled her shoeless feet underneath her bottom.
“So, you didn't see who rescued you yesterday, then?”
Shaking my head and raising my eyebrows, I wished there was something exciting I could tell her. The only way I would be able to identify him would be by his voice, I told her, but I explained that I didn't recognise it. It wasn't a voice I'd heard before.
“You don't think it was your dad, do you?” she almost whispered.
It had crossed my mind but as I explained, even though I'd barely ever heard my father speak, I didn't feel like it was him. Surely I would have felt something. And if it had been him, wouldn't he have stayed? He wouldn't have just dumped me on someone's doorstep. And why would he vanish afterwards?
“It just didn't feel like him, you know,” I added.
She nodded, clearly understanding what I meant. We sat in silence for a while, each lost in our own thoughts about the man who had saved my life. Had I been left there, under that lo
g in the storm, I could have frozen to death. I could have bled to death for all I knew. The thought made me shiver. There were many ifs in this world. I was just grateful to whoever he was.
“So, did I miss much at school yesterday?”
“Not a great deal, unless you count poor Jemima falling flat on her face in front of the basketball team in cheerleading practice. She had a bloody nose and everything. Poor thing. Oh and Mrs Ormond seemed interested to know why you weren't there yesterday. A little too interested really. There's something odd about that woman, but I can't quite put my finger on it,” she laughed.
She asked how my date had gone with Oliver. Sonya had told her that he'd come over and that we'd had dinner prepared for us.
My instant grin answered her question. “That well, huh?” she laughed and, as if on cue, Oliver arrived bearing a box of chocolates for his "patient". It was good to see him.
“Hey Oliver, good to see you,” Jo said as she stood up, put on her shoes and started doing up her shoe laces.
They exchanged a few words before she decided to leave us alone.
“I'll call you later,” she said with a wink, before shouting “Bye Gabriel,” and closing the front door on her way out.
“Ben sends his love and hopes you're feeling better today,” Oliver said as he bent to kiss me on the cheek. As usual, I blushed and smiled as he handed me the pretty black box with a pink ribbon.
“Awww thanks Oliver... that's really sweet. But you didn't have to.”
“I was going to go and start my training with Ben today... so much for that,” I said, as I rolled my eyes and lifted my leg.
He smiled and told me that Ben had said for me not to worry about it. He wasn't overly busy at the moment anyway so it could wait a few more weeks, until I was ready.
“How are you feeling?” he asked as he sat down and watched me rip off the ribbon and delve inside the box to discover which chocolate was which. He laughed at my enthusiasm.
“I'm good thanks. I woke up feeling a bit groggy but I feel much better now.”
“I guess I was right to bring chocolates rather than flowers.”
I nodded with a mouth full before realising I wasn't being very polite, so I offered them to him.
Chocolate wasn't something I was used to eating, but they were delicious. They didn't last long though as we spent the next few hours chatting whilst we savoured them. Occasionally Gabriel would pop his head round the door to make sure we were okay, but he figured I was fine whenever I was with Oliver, so he ended up leaving us alone for a few hours.
Oliver stayed with me the entire day.
“I feel bad about keeping you cooped up indoors for so long.”
“That's okay. You're not exactly in any state to do anything else, are you? But maybe tomorrow we could try and go for a short walk? What did the doctor say about walking?” he asked.
I honestly didn't have a clue. I had been so keen to get out of the hospital that I hadn't even asked any questions. I was sure Gabriel would know though so I promised to ask him.
Oliver scolded me for not talking to the medical staff and he shook his head as if I was in big trouble but he couldn't keep a straight face and ended up laughing.
“Well, I'll come over tomorrow whether we can go for a walk or not,” he promised as he prepared to leave. “Call me if you need anything?” he said as he kissed me gently on the lips. It was my first real kiss and it felt like I'd been given an electric shock. Not the kind that hurts, but a wonderful, sweet, electric shock. I smiled and touched my lips with my fingers.
As I slowly opened my eyes, I saw that he was smiling too. And then before I knew it, he was gone.