The Raven's Daughter

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Canada, Twenty-Eight Years Ago

“Let’s get out here,” Noshi said as he stopped the old Ford pickup. “If we walk the road, there’s a good chance we’ll find elk tracks.”

The family climbed out of the truck and made their way through the crunchy snow, so deep with each step, the boy sank to his knees. He struggled to keep up with his parents; his brother lagged behind. “Sheshebens, come on. Mommy! Daddy! Wait…”

Northern California, Present Time

As she drank her morning coffee, Maggie mulled over the previous day’s meeting with Jake. “I’m not going through this again. I want to help, but I really can’t,” she said to Samantha. The cat arched her back and yawned. “Anything to do with children getting hurt rips me into shreds.” Then she remembered the dream.

She’d experienced the raven dream since she was a kid. It used to frighten her, but as the years passed, her sleep-time adventures became familiar, sometimes comforting. Mostly her dreams were benign, or even fun. She’d fly among the white oaks, climbing further into the sky above her A-frame along the river and over the town. She observed the people below going about their business. Sometimes it was day time, other times night. Sometimes she was alone, other times she flew among an unkindness of ravens.

Once, flying solo over Main Street, Maggie saw her best friend, Sally Winters, crossing the street from her store, Mama Winters Bookstore and Coffee House, known to locals as Mama’s. She swooped down. “Hey, Sally. How’s business?”

Sally looked up at Maggie, shielding her eyes with her hands against the midday sun.

“Sally, it’s me, Maggie,” but only caws, rocks and clicks issued from her beak.

The particular dream following her meeting with Jake at The Dandelion Café was different. When the image of the one-eyed specter invaded her morning thoughts, her hand shuddered with such violence that coffee splashed over the mug’s rim and scalded her. She dropped her cup, shattering it into a dozen pieces against the kitchen floor and sending Samantha skittering out of the room, tail down, ears plastered to her head.

*

“Danny, I don’t want to alarm you,” Maggie told her brother when he’d called, “but warn your son to keep a closer eye on the girls. I tried to phone him this morning, but he didn’t answer.”

“He’s been out on a job. No cell reception. What’s up?”

“I met with Jake yesterday. No leads on that kid-murdering psycho. He got the O’Malley girls. And, Danny, he targets twins between ages four and eight.”

Maggie’s brother, Daniel Tall Bear Sloan, who she called Danny but everyone else called Bear, looked much like her but stood four inches over her 5-foot-10-inch frame, muscular with darker skin, and a bit more gray in his hair. Although twins, no one ever said they were “two peas in a pod.” There wasn’t much they agreed on, but they both loved Danny’s grandchildren.

“Christ,” Danny said. “Those little girls sometimes play with Flower and Bird. Jesus!” He sighed. “Why don’t you tell Jimmy in person when you see him? He’ll be here all weekend.”

“He will?”

For a moment, Danny was silent. “You forgot again, didn’t you?”

“Oh, God. The Bear Dance. Is Jake going to be there?”

“He comes every year. You know that.”

“I really don’t want to talk to Jake about…he wants me to do something that I don’t want to…never mind. I’ll be there.”

Every year the third weekend in September, no matter sunshine or hail, Danny held the traditional event on his property. As much as Maggie was into “all things Irish,” Danny was into “all things Native.” Bear dancers from everywhere in North America came to Danny’s sixteen-acre parcel downriver. There were talking circles, sweat lodges, medicine wheels and tables piled with food. Some local whites and Natives from different tribes brought meat to share and gifts of tobacco. The Yuroks always brought salmon for the “bears.”

The Hoopa, Yurok and Wintu women grouped together at this event, but Maggie sought the company of the white people. Although every year she attended The Bear Dance she identified more with her daddy’s people, her Celtic Tribe from Belfast.

She wasn’t up for the three day’s festivities at Danny’s, not so much because of the native ceremonies, but because she’d have to talk to Jake. I can’t avoid him the entire damned weekend. Also, she’d be missing her favorite Celtic band, The Ulster Boys, scheduled to play that weekend at The Silverado.

The Ulster Boys, a trio of ginger haired brothers from Derry, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, were the Silverado house band. The family settled in Wicklow when the boys were young, and their mother and father, prominent Irish musicians themselves, made certain their children grew up appreciating their Irish heritage. The boys spoke fluent Gaelic and were skilled on all the traditional Irish instruments. One brother played harp, reed, and uillean pipes. Another was adept on tin whistle, fiddle, bodhrán and bones. The third had become accomplished on the concertina and the tiopan. Sometimes, their cousin, Molly, sat in with them. She played Celtic harp and had a honey-toned voice reminding Maggie of a hybrid between Loreena McKennit and Moira Brennan. Although she loved Molly’s voice, she avoided the Silverado when Molly sat in. It was because of that one night when Maggie walked in the door, and Molly, stopping mid-song, pointed at Maggie. “Fiach Dubh.”

Maggie had just put in her order for a Harp, when Molly stopped singing mid-phrase, and in an unnatural voice, high and tinny like a muted brass whistle, she said something unintelligible into her microphone. Maggie got an eerie feeling, and looked over her shoulder both ways. She wasn’t talking to me, was she?

“Fiach Dubh.” Molly’s eyes glazed over, and the mic slipped from her hand to her lap. She pointed at Maggie. The band paused and her siblings gaped at her, their hands frozen on their instruments. “Molly!” Sean, the brother on the bodhrán said. “Snap out of it. We’re in the middle of a gig. C’mon!”

“Fiach Dubh.”

The bartender handed the Harp to Maggie but she waved him away, and stepped closer to the stage. “Sean, she is talking to me, right? What is she saying?”

“I don’t get it, but she’s saying, ‘Raven.’”

Maggie felt like an ice-cube had lodged in her throat. The room went quiet as a funeral, and all eyes turned on Maggie, who swallowed hard to force down the frigid lump, spun on her foot and pushed her way through the crowd to the door.

The Saturdays when Molly didn’t sing, Maggie could be found at the bar drinking beer and listening to the band. “A hand for the Ulster Lass” they’d say as she walked in, and the patrons applauded as though she were a celebrity. Anyone whose family came from Belfast was a friend of the band from Derry. Maggie felt most at home in the company of these musicians who poured their souls out at The Silverado. But, she always called ahead to make certain Molly wasn’t going to be there.

This weekend, she would be at the Bear Dance, resenting every minute of it. I want nothing to do with this case, nothing. And, I don’t feel like hanging all weekend at my brother’s house with all those people. Is it too much to ask to be left alone on the river with Chester and Samantha, learn Gaelic, and raise a few Araucana chickens?

Maggie had gotten her fill of child killers a long while back.