The Last Storyteller (Ravenscar Shifters Book 1)

by Michelle Dutton

“Yes.” She repositioned her cloche hat with its ridiculous, foot-and-a-half long purple feather and batted her eyelashes at him. In a sultry voice, she said, “See you tomorrow, boss.”

  From a distance this afternoon when he saw Miri near Jonas’s car, he thought he’d felt the old stirring in his blood. Sunlight now gleaming in her dark hair caught his breath. She stood six feet away, and he knew without a doubt she was still the only one for him.

  He dumped the soaked paper towels in his trash can along with the report. “You want something to drink?”

  “You mean there’s coffee left?” At her grin, he shot her a rueful smile.

  “Yeah, but I gotta warn you—I use Hyacinth’s coffee to degrease tractor parts.”

  Her giggle tingled down his spine. “I’ll pass then.”

  “Sit…” he gestured at the chair at the same time she said, “Trey, about you and Elise …”

  Which wiped the amusement from his face. She sat hard in the chair. He eased slowly into his own and watched her warily.

  She fiddled with the hem of her sundress. That was new. She used to play with her hair when she was nervous.

  As if she couldn’t bear to look at him, she said to the file cabinets. “Jeffrey’s not your son?”

  He knew what she was asking, so he answered carefully. “Jeff’s not my bloodline, but I adopted him. He is my son.”

  This time, her dark eyes met his. “You and Elise never …?”

  “Elise and I never,” he said gently.

  “Why …?”

  “Because I was in love with you.”

  Her gaze dropped to the floor. “Was in love…” With an effort, she switched to something safer or something more dangerous. “Why did you adopt Jeffrey?”

  “Andrew McVey was the father. He asked me to adopt the kid. Elise was too young and your dad wasn’t able. Andrew said I owed it to the McVeys.”

  She looked up again, and he was caught between thinking that he’d loved her gangly teen-aged self but he couldn’t stop staring at the sleek beauty she’d become. Not exactly pretty. Her luminous eyes, gamine spirit, and how she moved like a song made her beautiful to him.

  He worried about her next question.

  When it came, it wasn’t what he expected. “Why wouldn’t my father take him?”

  So she didn’t know. “You best ask him.”

  She exhaled in a huff. “You sound like the sheriff.” Which just confused him.

  Still glowering, she said, “McVeys been foisting their children on other families for generations. Romeros probably raised a half dozen themselves. You didn’t owe them anything.”

  He felt his lips thin, but kept silent.

  Still irritated and misreading his silence, she said, “Not like a McVey raised you anyway. Andrew’s dad abandoned his kids too. Just ‘cause his wife raised you with Andrew and his sisters doesn’t mean you had to go all noble …”

  “Jeff’s Corbin too. Same as you.”

  She froze, and her dark skin grayed.

  Trey said harshly, “Heard enough?”

  She flinched as if he’d struck her and then turned sharply when Jeff rounded the file cabinets, his eyes narrowed, and his fists in his pockets.

  “You told me to come here.” He spoke to Trey but his gaze was on Miri.

  “I told you to be here thirty minutes ago,” Trey said. “Jeff, this is your Aunt Miriam. The woman you almost killed this afternoon.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Jeff nodded politely, spoiling his urbane manner with adolescent irony gleaming in his eyes.

  “You look like Elise,” Miri blurted. Then she bit her lip. “I didn’t mean that you look like a girl. Elise looked like a Stevens, romantic and gorgeous. You could be one of those avenging angels that Jean paints with swords, chiseled cheekbones, storm clouds and trails of ivy … Gee, I just made it worse, didn’t I?”

  Jeff’s condescending smile relaxed into a natural grin. “Grandma Jean said you were a storyteller. She didn’t say you told fantastical tales.”

  A cloud shadowed Miri’s face and she said shortly, “I don’t.” Then belatedly realizing she sounded curt, she added, “I mean, I’m pleased to meet you too, Jeffrey.”

  Trey decided it was time to intervene. “You should apologize to your aunt, Jeff.”

  Both turned puzzled looks on Trey. He prompted his son, “…for nearly killing her this afternoon.”

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Miriam,” Jeff said promptly. “I didn’t know you were in the car with Sheriff Stevens.”

  Trey closed his eyes and counted to five. “You’re missing the point…”

  “Are we done here?” The boy’s voice went ominously quiet.

  Trey gritted his teeth, and wrestled with anger and frustration before nodding. “Done for now. We’re still seeing the sheriff after dinner. Wear something clean for afterwards. We’re going to the wake at the Corbins’ house.”

  “No.” Jeff pitched the word high, his hands balling into fists. Involuntarily Trey looked at Miri, hoping she wasn’t frightened at the violence in her nephew’s voice. He was surprised to see her calm, watching the boy with interest and compassion.

  “It’s not up for discussion,” Trey said evenly. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

  “Dad …” Looking suddenly deflated, Jeff took a half step towards Trey. “Please don’t make me…”

  Trey cut him off. “Trust me, kid. If you don’t go to the wake, you’ll regret it later. Now get cleaned up for dinner.”

  Jeff stuffed his fists into his pocket and slouched from the barn. Moments later, Trey heard the front door of the house slam shut.

  Trey grunted. “Sorry you couldn’t meet him under better circumstances. He’s not a bad kid. He won’t talk about it, but he’s taking Elise’s death hard.”

  “I expect he would,” she said. “Even if she wasn’t a great parent. Or maybe especially because she wasn’t.” She studied him thoughtfully. “You handle him well.”

  “Really?” Trey’s eyebrows rose. “Lately I only seem to be angry with him.”

  “At the school …” She hesitated and then continued with a determined tilt to her chin. “I thought you were angry with me.”

  He shook his head. “I was angry about how close you came to being hurt.” He leaned forward, his thumb lightly touching the purpling bump on her forehead. “… or hurt more than you were.”

  She drew back, studying him curiously. “Why aren’t you angry with me? I believed you were cheating on me. I accused you of it. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

  Now she asked the dangerous questions. “Because you wanted the lie.”

  She straightened. “No! I wouldn’t give up my home…and you…unless I believed …”

  “And you wouldn’t have left Ravenscar unless you could believe that lie. You wanted to go.”

  She started a loud denial, but he talked over her. “You did, Miri. I saw it every time you got a letter from your dad’s sister. You wanted to go story collecting like she did. But because she did, you felt trapped here because you were the last storyteller.”

  “That’s not true,” she whispered.

  Something twisted in Trey’s chest. He saw the pain in her eyes. He repeated softly, “You felt trapped. You were relieved when you thought you’d been betrayed by Elise and me. It set you free.”

  She scooted from her chair and backed away. “It’s not true.” On the last word, her voice broke on a sob. She wheeled and fled from the barn.

  He thought about going after her, but what else could he say? The past couldn’t be repaired. She’d leave Ravenscar again so why mend things now?

  Miri left the barn only moments ago, and already he missed her. That didn’t bode well for the future.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Her body tight with grief, Miri ran down the long driveway. Before she reached the road, she cut through the side yard, climbed the pasture fence, and slowed to a swift walk between the old horses grazing there. She didn’t recognize any of the
m. Only two raised their heads to watch her as grass tickled her ankles.

  The pain of Trey’s words created a storm within her. She felt her bones thin. Her skin prickled, and her dress grew heavy. She ran again till she passed a moment of no return. Only then did she veer into a thicket of aspens and scrub oaks rising where the fence ended.

  At the base of a wild walnut tree, the encumbering clothes dropped to the dirt. She shook off one trailing strap and surged upwards, automatically sensing and reaching air currents, rising till the sundress looked like a small, flowered puddle beneath her.

  Grief and guilt fell away as the raven in her took command, the sun warm on her wings, the overwhelming exultation of flight. Territory lay like a map below—trees and telephone lines for perching, the winding creek for bathing, and fields filled with prey. She reached the hill where the rookery stood in the scar of the old quarry. The air changed. She saw the sea and smelled a squall building there.

  Feeling impossibly light, she somersaulted in the air, riding a current on her side before righting herself. She flapped for the forest again. Flying burned an appetite in her, and she didn’t fancy field mice.

  She followed the road, wondering at the line of cars and people streaming to a yellow house. Something niggled in her, a small alarm. Instinctively she swerved away from the forest, abandoning the clothes she’d shed there. As she swooped for the open porthole below the yellow house’s roofline, a female in the backyard looked up and waved rose clippers at her.

  She shivered as she translated from feathers and claws to skin and fingers. Her toes curled into the rug crocheted by a village woman: blue for sky and white running through it for air and clouds. All handmade rugs in Ravenscar were the same.

  The bedroom she’d shared with Elise had new wallpaper and new angel paintings on the walls. The quilts Grandma Corbin had made for them still covered the beds.

  Jean had arranged fresh sweetpeas and hydrangeas in the bureau’s vase, and hung her clothes in the closet, the small suitcase also stashed there. Hearing the sounds of people below, she hurriedly plucked dark pants and a white tunic from the closet, underclothes from the bureau, and black sandals. She momentarily regretted the flats left in the forest, and then shrugged. It wouldn’t be the first time she had to retrieve shoes sodden with dew a day after flying.

  Jean met her at the bottom of the stairs and bundled her into the kitchen. “Eat your dinner before going out there,” she said. “You can face anything with a full stomach.”

  Miri picked up the plate of tuna pie and heaped-up green salad, and thought of how Jean solved every family drama with food. That was fine with her. The longer she delayed being bombarded by questions, the better.

  Before seeing Trey at the barn, she’d confronted Jean about Jeffrey’s parentage. The door still hung open and she’d scarcely set down her suitcase before she asked the question. Hovering at his study door, her father answered her.

  “Jeffrey isn’t of the Romero bloodline.”

  And she moved so fast, their next words blurred as she ran for Trey’s farm, needing to see him, and ask him why he’d let her believe Elise’s lie.

  After finishing dinner, she stood in the corner of the dining room where she could see from the back window of the kitchen (now that the door was propped open) to the front window of the living room. Plate glass sliders ran the length of the dining room and she lurked in the corner next to a spiral of silk purple morning glories twining around a pine tree. Not an actual pine tree but a birch carved from pine wood. Another instance of her people’s humor. Most homes in Ravenscar had carved trees in at least one room for perching and keeping children occupied in bad weather.

  A wake in Ravenscar was not unlike an Irish wake or sitting shiva, both of which Miri experienced while living among humans. Visitors brought bowls and plates of casseroles and sweets. Everyone shared happy and sad remembrances. Photo albums on the coffee table ignited conversations about the dead.

  Throughout the seven days, the town storyteller would confer with the story collector and the story keeper. She would sit with the family and when the room went quiet, she would tell stories of the one who died.

  This was the first evening of Elise’s wake. Ravenscar’s story collector was somewhere on the east coast, recording stories of raven people in Canada. The village’s story keeper was dying in her cottage. Miri had been destined to be Ravenscar’s storyteller and had even assumed some of a teller’s duties when she turned twelve. Elise’s bitter, false words had changed everything.

  “Come, dear.”

  Feeling like an outsider among the morning glories, half-hidden by the birch tree made of pine, Miri nearly wept at her father’s voice, hoarse with grief. Instead, still dry-eyed, she took his proffered hand.

  He led her to Jean’s backyard garden, a riot of vegetables, flowers, herbs, shrubs, fruit trees, and trellised vines. Drawing her to a bench beneath a grapevine arbor, they sat, his arm warm against her back.

  “I’ve missed you, Mir,” he said.

  She rested her cheek on his shoulder. “I missed you too, Da.”

  “You brought a small suitcase.”

  It wasn’t a question, but she confirmed anyway. “I’m not staying past the funeral.”

  He sighed. She wished she needn’t add more sorrow on his grief, but she wouldn’t lie to him.

  “You talked to Trey?” he asked.

  “Yes. I met Jeffrey too. He looks like Elise.”

  Even through her hair, she could feel his unshaven cheek rest on her head and his brief smile at the mention of his grandson.

  “And they both have the look of your great grandfather Roman. He was gone long before you were born. Big casket. I’ve a picture of him in my bedroom.”

  The old custom of saying big or little casket as a remembrance of whether they died as human or raven reminded Miri that Elise died raven.

  She gently pulled away from her father so she could see his expression, her heart constricting at his haggard face.

  “Da, how did Elise die?”

  His gaze strayed to the bees in the lavender. “We’re not sure. After Darby was born, Elise suffered from melancholy. In her last months, she shifted mostly raven, leaving the baby’s care to Jean, flying to the sea during storms and to the mountains where the winds draft strong. She died in a squall. Ben Dyson found her on Skellars beach the next morning, her neck broke.”

  Miri’s hand tightened on her father’s. “Oh, Da. I’m sorry.”

  He sketched a look at her, and then his gaze fixed again on the lavender near the back door.

  “She seemed restless. Always looking for something. I thought at first it was just being around a newborn, and a crying one at that. Darby was colicky like you were as a babe. Have you seen her yet? She looks a bit like you.”

  Miri shook her head.

  Her father glanced to the second story of his house. “She’s probably napping. We put Elise’s casket in the study. The mortician did his best but her little body got mighty shattered in the storm. We figured the neighbors didn’t need to see that.”

  “Where’s Andrew?” She didn’t mean to sound abrupt. And she didn’t mean where was Elise’s husband, Darby’s father, at the moment. She wanted to know where Andrew had been since Darby’s birth.

  “He’s with his cousins. Told Jean he needed to grieve his own way.” And then because he knew what she was really asking, he added, “He liked her well enough to marry and to give her what she’s been wanting of him since she was a girl. But he’s a McVey. He’s not a staying kind of man, and she couldn’t make him one.”

  “Was it him she was looking for when she wasn’t home?”

  Her father’s eyes met hers, and he touched her cheek. “No sense in blaming him, sweetie. I don’t. And I don’t think she was looking for him. I don’t think she wanted to find him in the spots he’d be.”

  He hesitated but then took both of her hands in his. “Mir, I don’t like to ask it of you, but the keeper has th
e store of all Elise’s stories. At least till Belle took sick. For the wake, if you think you can manage it, maybe you can find the why of her passing there. And maybe you can tell Ravenscar when you do.”

  She tried to pull away, but he held on. Her voice shaking, she said, “Da, I can’t.”

  Hope died a little in his face, but he tried once more. “Could you at least look at Belle’s records? Maybe just tell me and Jean what you find? Jeffrey is asking Trey. Someday someone will have to tell Elise’s story to her daughter too.”

  And who would that be, she thought in despair. Ravenscar had no storyteller.

  Her father took jagged breaths and his lips went blue. Sharply, she said, “Da! Are you okay?”

  He fumbled for his pocket and slipped a pill beneath his tongue. Still wheezing, he finally released the death grip on her hands and leaned back. “Fine. I’m fine.”

  “I’m getting Jean.” She leapt to her feet, but he stayed her.

  “Leave her be. She’s enough to do today without fussing over me. It’s just one of my spells.”

  “What spells?” And remembering what Trey said about her father, she sat. “Is this why you couldn’t raise Jeffrey?”

  He took a few more breaths and then nodded.

  “What’s wrong, Da?” Her voice trembled.

  “Be easy, girl. I’m not dying today. Got me a dicky heart from that landslide when you were little.”

  “The one that killed Trey’s parents?” She remembered the storytellers’ tales of it, she was barely two when it happened. Ravenscar lost nine people that day. She’d told that story so many times, and never knew that her father had been hurt too.

  He nodded. “Lotta people were hurt worse than me. People lost legs. Some so brain damaged they had to leave off working. George Fuller never could fly again.”

  Trust her dad to list the worst one last. Though … “I can’t remember you flying much either. Is it because of your heart?”

  “More the shift than the flying. Doc told me to watch it. Your mother and then Jean had a conniption fit every time I sprouted feathers. Or walked to the store. Or carried a flat of begonias across the yard.”