Ravenswynd Legends

   The sound of blood rushing past my eardrums echoed the roar of my pounding heart. What the flaming hell was I thinking? My only solace came from knowing I wasn’t the only i***t waiting on a dark pier on Friday the thirteenth at exactly seven-thirteen. There were twelve others. Had anyone else noticed all the thirteens? Although I hoped that this was only a series of coincidences, an icy chill coursed through me as I tied it in with everything that my best friend, Fiona, had been saying all along about the secret party. Without question, something strange and frightening was about to take place. The air bristled with a weird intangible energy. And this weirdness was only a taste of what was to come – the party is the main entrée. I didn’t even want to think about dessert.     The three of us had arrived at the Marina just before sunset, but drove around the block twice before finding a parking spot. By the time we had joined the small group of people already gathered on the dock, all traces of daylight were gone. None of us spoke, but more than a few of the people shifted about, tugging at a zipper or fiddling with a cell phone, waiting to be ushered onto the boat. The water lapping rhythmically against the creaking pier rippled through the otherwise eerie stillness of the night. My twin, Melinda, linked her arm through mine, making me wonder if she felt as uneasy as I did.      “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” I whispered, leaning my head toward my friend Fiona and fighting the urge to grab my sister and run back to the car.     If Fiona felt any similar impulses, she hid them well as she shrugged. But of course she didn’t. Fiona was glad to be here and she smiled at the person next to her, a young man she had dubbed Random Guy because he had invited her as if on a whim. She had no idea who he was. I had accepted her invitation with little forethought – quite an uncharacteristic move on my part. And I had allowed her excitement to blind me to any possible risks involved - something she completely disregarded.     “Lizzy.” Her tone was soft. “Everything will be fine. Just try to enjoy yourself for a change.”  Her fearlessness baffled me.     I kept both of my trembling hands in my pockets - a good place to hide my jitteriness. We stood silent for about ten more minutes. A gentle breeze blew through our hair, damp and briny and, fortunately, warmer than usual for this time of the year. My legs would have been frozen in my short dress if not for global warming. I glanced at the time on my cell phone and then peered over my left shoulder just past Fiona’s Random Guy and, in the faint light of the rising moon, I counted again. Yep, thirteen idiots.      This so-called party was by invitation only, and invitation was by word of mouth. Even the location was undisclosed to most, if not all, participants. All we knew was that the only way to get there was by boat and that we were supposed to know the person who invited us. We were each allowed to invite one guest, and once I had decided to go, nothing could stop me from asking my twin sister - not the strangeness surrounding the invitation and not even the possibility that the local vampire legends might be true. And if those legends were true, as Fiona had believed her whole life, we could be opening the door to an unimaginable outcome. Or - in my sister’s crude way of putting things - we might end up in some deep s**t.      Melinda and I had been inseparable all of our lives, and even if my decision to go was misguided, I knew she would’ve been forever angry if I hadn’t invited her in the first place. And the keyword here: forever.     I glanced toward the boat docked at the end of the pier, now realizing by its size that it was, in fact, a yacht. There was just enough light at the bow to see the name: Aeternus Corvus. I certainly wasn’t fluent in Latin, but I could make out a few words. While musing about the name, thinking it had something to do with eternity and crows my thoughts were interrupted when I noticed someone climbing aboard a smaller boat docked directly to the front of the yacht. I stifled a low chuckle - we weren’t the only mindless idiots preparing for a nighttime boat trip.      I gazed up into the night sky. A thin cloud passed in front of the full moon, and I spotted the silhouette of a large bird flying through the shadow of the cloud. It was a beautiful autumn evening, and if I forced myself to believe that everything would be fine, perhaps I could truly enjoy it. I took a few deep breaths, willing my body to relax. It worked for a bit, but the false sense of peace was momentary at best. A voice coming from aboard the yacht jolted my reverie and drew my attention to the strange sight ahead. Electrified goose bumps prickled my skin, topped off with a tingling shudder.      A woman stepped off the yacht and glided down the pier, phantom-like. Surely my mind played tricks on me now. I turned my head to Lindy. Her wide-eyed gaze told me my mind was fine, but my churning stomach said that we had, indeed, made a colossal mistake. I looked back at the woman. Following close behind her came a short man dressed all in black - also gliding. He held in his arms what appeared to be a long, shiny, red over-coat.  The way he hung behind and kept his head low and eyes downcast suggested he was some sort of servant.     The woman came closer. Her eyes gave off a vacant look as though she was quite bored. Although she never referred to it, she carried a large notebook hugged tight to her chest. Her dark brown hair was slicked straight back, wet looking, as though she had just stepped out of the shower. She stopped directly in front of Melinda. The woman stared into Lindy’s eyes, took a deep breath, licked her lips, and began her interrogation.     “Tell me who invited you and state your full name.” Her soft voice did not match her look in the least.     With an easy nod toward me, Lindy said, “My sister, Elizabeth, invited me. My name is Melinda Anastasia Rose.” The woman sighed, still straight-faced, and Lindy flicked her long hair back - an obvious attempt to appear unimpressed at the woman’s deliberate, yet impassive demands.     The woman edged in front of me and repeated herself.  Here under the streetlight I could see all of her tattoos and piercings and a thick highlight along the side of her hair - the color of a bright copper penny. The ring in her eyebrow was glossy red and the one on her lip was silver and red. Just above her high cheekbone, to the right of her eye, was a tattoo of a tiny red spider. Silver skull and cross-bone earrings with glaring red eyes dangled from her ears, and the Gothic black and silver setting of her necklace held a huge garnet. Her full lips were painted such a dark red that they looked black and her skin was beautiful - not pale like I had imagined. The woman was tall - I had to look up to make eye contact. The thick blackness outlining her blue-gray eyes made them appear nearly white.     “My friend, Fiona, invited me,” I said, pointing to Fiona with my thumb. “I am Elizabeth Amarande Rose.”      Except for a slight raise of one eyebrow, her face continued to be without expression, but this time she said, “Indeed.”      She touched a finger to her nose, a finger with a super long and brilliant red fingernail. I would have expected to see them painted black. And if she had allowed a smile to part her lips, I was quite positive that I would have spotted a set of fangs. Perhaps that was why she remained so indifferent. Why take the chance of frightening your next meal away? Another chill shot through me as she lingered a moment longer - her eyes fixed on mine.     Frantic whispering came from my left just before the woman pulled her gaze from me, and she stepped in front of Fiona.      “And, who invited you?” she asked, with a slight mocking tone.     Fiona’s shudder reverberated onto my arm when she leaned into me for a second, and her voice came off shaky as she said, “My friend, Steven.” She cleared her throat and hurried on loud and clear: “My name is Fiona Ameretat O’Conner.”     It dawned on me then that, until the whispering had taken place, the harsh reality was that Fiona had no clue what his name was. She had called him Random Guy for a good reason. No wonder she was so nervous; this small technicality could have gotten her booted off the pier. Fiona breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the woman said, “Very well, then.”     Before the woman moved to the front of Random Steven, I was able to get a closer look at her other tattoo - a gigantic red serpent which wrapped around her upper arm. As it twisted and turned from her shoulder to her elbow, its under-belly was visible, a lighter shade of red. I couldn’t help but wonder if her preference to red was that it reminded her of blood.      She then continued down the line asking the same questions of the rest of our newly formed coven. Letting my imagination run amok, I envisioned our group now being inducted into the army of the thirteen immortals, and Red here would be our captain. I hoped we weren’t too dressed up for our covert operation into the murky waters of the Providence River. Muffling a nervous giggle, I thought that since we were about to board a boat, this would make us the Navy of the thirteen immortals. It was good I was able to make fun of all of this. If not, I would be screaming b****y murder.     It was no one’s fault but my own, I reasoned as we stood there under the one lonely streetlight. I certainly could have said no to Fiona. But I was intrigued by the possibilities she had placed before me. And I was tired of the routines of life, always choosing familiar things and making choices that included no surprises. I wanted something new, something different. I suppose, now looking back, this had been my intention when I had made up my mind to attend the party in the first place. Little did I know, that even before being invited or deciding to go, the gentle winds of change were billowing into raging storms that would ultimately alter my destiny.      What had started off as just another casual celebration turned out to be the catalyst for a chain of events which led to the most monumental turning point in my life. As I stood on that dark pier waiting for who-knows-what to happen next, I thought back to all the events that had led up to this evening.   * * *       About a month prior to my invitation to the party, Melinda and I had decided to celebrate our birthday by making a day of it: shopping, dinner and a movie, though not in any particular order. Our best friend, Fiona, even managed to get the day off to be with us. It had been ages since the three of us had had the chance to get together. We knew it would be a fun day, and we were excited. However, when I first realized I was running late, I should have known it was going to be “one of those days.”     “Elizabeth!” Melinda called through the door. “Let’s go already!” Her tone left no doubt of her increasing agitation with me.     I wasn’t quite ready and, just like everyone else I hated to be late, but even more so, if it meant arriving after the coming attractions started.     “Fiona is here!” Melinda called once more, even louder.     I opened the door a c***k and said, “Give me a minute!” I felt rushed and now wished I had followed my own advice to get an earlier start.      I heard Fiona say, “It’s a good thing she wears her hair straight, or we’d be waiting another fifteen minutes.” Her loud chuckle echoed into the bathroom. She was well aware of how often my sister had been late for appointments and events.     “Bite me!” Melinda came back in her most irritated tone. “You know I only made us late one time since I started curling my hair. This time it is not my fault!” I imagined Fiona’s cheeks flushing now. She was so easily intimidated, and sadly, it sometimes came by way of sharp words hurled by my twin.     They both flashed a wide grin when I finally came through the door - an obvious pretense; I knew it bugged them that I had taken so long. As it was, it hadn’t been easy to talk them into this outing, and now because of me, we’d be late. Sometimes trying to get those two to cooperate was like pulling teeth. And I hated dentists.     “Ready!” I said cheerily. I gave a bright smile back and took a quick glance at their outfits, hoping I wasn’t too overdressed in my favorite leprechaun green sundress. The look on my sister’s face showed me her impatience and nothing more as she picked up her purse.      Fiona, on the other hand, reacted exactly the way she always did. “Lizzy! How cute! I didn’t know we were dressing up.” She looked down, putting her hands into the pockets of her black Capri pants and asked, “Do I look okay?      She was so insecure. I sometimes felt like I had spent all my time in high school building her self-esteem and here we were in our final year of college and she was still at it. I always had to be sure to compliment her outfit.      “Yes, you look great, Fiona!” I said with a smile, eyeing her cranberry tank top.     Melinda edged closer to the door. “Come on, you guys,” she said. “Who cares how we look anyway?” She could be such a phony at times.     “Get real, Lindy,” Fiona snapped. “You know how good you look.”      Melinda liked to be the center of attention and she sometimes wore quite revealing outfits. Her tiny, red, low-cut top and her tight fitting jeans were no exception.     “Look at your hair! It’s perfect as usual,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re not fooling anyone.”     Melinda rolled her eyes at me, flipped her head back and opened the door.     Fiona drove as usual, and after speeding up and down several aisles we found the whole parking lot jam-packed. Melinda, annoyed and frustrated, pointed toward the street and belted out, “Just park out there, Fiona!” Finally parked way out at the farthest point of the lot, we grabbed our purses, and ran. Dodging cars and people, we arrived at the glass doors slightly out of breath.     “I hate being late too, you guys,” I said with a short gasp, “.... I’m really sorry!”       “We should have bought the tickets online.” Fiona’s voice was breathless. She cleared her throat and said, “At least that would have saved a few minutes.”     After buying our tickets we hurried to the concession stand. I sighed and rolled my eyes when I realized there were only two people behind the counter waiting on dozens of customers, and the two at the front of our line couldn’t seem to decide what to order. Why they never seemed to have enough staff working was beyond me. I shook my head in disbelief after glancing at the huge clock on the wall. Only 5 minutes before the movie started.     “Flaming hell!” I muttered angrily, feeling my cheeks flush. “Why can’t they get more people behind the counter?”     Several minutes later, our arms loaded with popcorn, candy, and drinks, we hurried down the hall to find the number four movie screen. I pushed open the swinging door with my backside and turned into the theater. Holding the door for Lindy and Fiona, I then followed them into the darkness. We had to move slowly due to the temporary blindness, inching our way down the aisle while our eyes adjusted. It was nearly impossible to see anything, but somehow Melinda spotted three seats in the row we had just passed and when she stopped short, Fiona bumped right into her, stubbing her toe on the metal base of a seat.     “Ow!” Fiona yelped a bit louder than necessary, quite agitated at spilling some of her popcorn.     Someone in the next aisle said, “Shush!”     “It’s the coming attractions!” Melinda hissed, turning to the shushing person and added in a sharp, disgusted tone, “Get a life!”     Uneasy laughter came from a few people in the area, and even though Lindy was right, I was a little embarrassed at her short rant. The movie had not started; that person was completely unreasonable. But I heaved a sigh, wishing for once Lindy could control herself.     We edged into our row sideways, trying not to step on any toes or spill our popcorn and drinks. When we finally arrived at our seats, I was hot and sweaty and quite agitated. I sat down hard only to hit my head on the back of the seat.      “Oh, that’s just great!” I grumbled through clenched teeth, wondering if anything would go right this day.     “What’s wrong?” Lindy asked, leaning forward on the other side of Fiona. Always the motherly type, she watched out for me like a hawk. Being ten minutes older than me, she never let me forget it. I shook my head as I rubbed it, nearly dropping my popcorn in the process.      The movie might have been more enjoyable if the people in our area had been more considerate. The couple in front of us talked continuously, and the people behind us left the theater several times, somehow, always pushing into my seat with all their comings and goings. Every now and then, the person behind me would rhythmically kick my seat and I had to resist the urge to turn around and tell him to knock it off. At one point, someone behind Melinda got up to leave, and right as he edged along behind me, something sharp poked the back of my neck just below my hairline. I’d had enough and couldn’t contain myself any longer.      “Flaming hell!” I snarled, jolting forward in my seat and grabbing my neck.     “Sorry,” came a soft, deep whisper.     I mumbled a few curse words under my breath while rubbing my neck. I had taken all I could stand and was ready to confront a few rude people, but when I turned around I was surprised to see most of the row was empty. I took a quick glance toward the exit thinking I’d catch a glimpse as he left, but there was no one in sight.     I watched the rest of the movie feeling strangely agitated, and was relieved when it finally ended. We decided to wait until the theater emptied out before getting up to leave. This was a mistake. As we sat there waiting, at least three more people either bumped my head or snagged my hair, but I bit my tongue to keep from saying things I’d only regret. I couldn’t get over how rude and clumsy everyone seemed to be.     “You’d think people could keep their hands to themselves and watch how they swing their purses in the wind!” I whispered to Fiona.     She giggled and said, “Yeah, there sure was a lot of commotion in here today.”       Finally, the t*****e was over and, as we left the theater, we deposited our trash in the receptacles near the exit and headed into the mall.     “Let’s go shopping!” Melinda called out with a giddy laugh. Apparently, she was as happy for that ordeal to be over with as I was.     After wandering around the mall for a few hours, we’d worked up an appetite and headed for the food court. All the different smells wafting through the air made my stomach growl. We chose the taco place, though this may have been another mistake. As luck would have it, the napkin container was empty and we three girls had to share one little piece of tissue between us. After a while, it actually started to be comical, and our giggles echoed in the huge dining area. We had bits of tomatoes, lettuce, and taco sauce flipped and dripped all over the place, and at one point Lindy spilled half of her lemonade.     “Oh, that’s just wonderful!” Her sarcastic remark was loud and she jumped up, knocking over her chair. The surprised look on her face was hysterical. Fiona and I burst out laughing when Melinda became even more animated as she stood her chair upright with a loud clang.      “Between taco sauce and tomatoes, I’d say you should think about wearing a bib next time, Fiona,” Melinda said snickering as she settled back into the chair.     “I wouldn’t talk, Lindy,” Fiona said with raised eyebrows. “At least I didn’t spill my drink!” Her comeback was good, but now Fiona’s face matched her red hair.     “I can’t believe you two!” I said, shaking my head. “You can barely act like adults.”            Watching the two of them making faces at one another, I chuckled, “You guys always c***k me up. And look at this mess!” We all started laughing at once.     It looked like we just had a food fight at our table, but it felt good to laugh with my best friend and my dear sister. We picked up as much of the bits of lettuce and tomatoes we could without the benefit of napkins and threw our wrappers into the trash.          “Yuck.” Lindy let out a groan, wiping her hands together and said, “Let’s go to the ladies room so I can wash my hands.”          Our laughter echoed as the three of us walked through the long corridor side by side- Melinda in the middle. I tilted my head to the right and, as I started to say something, someone swept by my left side, brushing my arm with a strange electric tingle.      I turned to look - and my breath froze. It was a man. A beautiful man. An astounding man. I stopped dead in my tracks. My feet were iron; the floor a magnet, holding me in metallic silence.  I couldn’t blink, couldn’t pull my gaze away. Time solidified. I could only focus on him as he walked away. Away from me.     “Lizzy?” Came a quiet question.      I couldn’t answer. I just kept watching. His gait was smooth and refined and effortless. His long dark coat drifted, weightless. He held his head high and steady. I never saw his face. Just the back of him, but it was enough to leave an impression. An impression of grandeur. Of elegance. And his hair! It flowed far past his shoulders. Long and straight and shiny and black. It was breathtakingly beautiful.     “What?” Melinda’s voice broke in loudly. They were back at my sides again. “Put your eyes back into their sockets, Elizabeth!”     Still mute, I raised my arm and pointed at the precise moment he turned the corner and disappeared from view. I took a deep breath and let out a slow sigh.     “Wow.”      “There’s no one there, Lizzy,” Fiona said glancing down the hallway.     She eyed Lindy with a puzzled look and asked, “Did you see anyone?”     “Nope,” Lindy’s voice snapped after a quick glance.     I couldn’t believe they had missed him. His hair was nearly as long as mine was. There was an absolute resplendency about him.     “Are you two blind?” My voice was subdued by unexplained sadness.     Melinda raised her eyebrows and shrugged, saying, “I wasn’t paying attention. I gotta get this stuff washed off my hands. I’m all sticky.” She took a few steps backwards, pushed open the door to the ladies’ room and left us standing alone.      “Who did you see, Lizzy?” Fiona asked. “Close your mouth, you look silly like that. And stop pointing!” She reached over and with a soft touch, eased my arm down to my side.     More often than not, my friend was kind beyond measure. I wondered why she acted so mean now, and why they seemed to think I had been seeing things. I knew what I had seen.      “I don’t know,” I said, still gazing into the empty hallway. “But…he…was… amazing.” I sighed. “It doesn’t matter; he’s gone.” I closed my eyes trying to shake off his image from my mind, but it didn’t work. He was there to stay. I glanced at Fiona. She looked puzzled and her eyes narrowed in confusion. I glanced down the hallway again. It was more than empty now; it was hollow. What the flaming hell was wrong with me? And what was it about him anyway? I hadn’t even seen his face!      I stood there for a few more minutes, dazed, waiting. But for what? I started to feel a bit foolish. Finally I said, “I guess he’s gone. Let’s go. I have to get up early tomorrow.”     My brain did not agree with my mouth. I turned and we went into the restroom, but the whole time we were in there, all that was on my mind was how I hoped that we would catch up to that man before we left the mall. I had to get a look at his face. If it was at all like his presence, or his hair, it would be magnificent.     I did not get my wish.