Chapter Seventeen

Nevermore

E arly morning sunlight began softly filtering through the high windows, offering long shadows instead of darkness. Another night had passed with no visit from their captors, but also no hint of rescue. With a soft click, the door cracked open, drawing their attention, and Ravyn could immediately smell the terror emanating from the young wolf. Toby had slept for hours and hours, barely waking to mumble delirious words, pleading for help from a mouth so dry it would surely crack. Ravyn had listened to his slow breathing for hours, counting the seconds between each breath, while praying to any gods that listened to keep his strength up.

The door slowly swung open, the first sound they’d heard in hours. Their heads shot toward the doorway in panic, but instead of a monster it was the tiny wisp of a woman, the same one who had served them their tainted drinks that evening. Although the wendigo had said it would send his Lilith to tend them, it had been ages since it uttered the words. It didn’t appear the creature recognized the passage of time clearly, or perhaps it simply got derailed with chasing the darkness, if Ibis could be believed. Either it had awoken after its long nap or Ibis had sent her in herself.

The wisp floating in was once again covered from head to toe in navy linen that reached down past her fingertips, as well as a hood that wrapped along the bottom side of her face like a shawl.

Ladened with a bucket that emitted a strong bleach smell and a low, sloshing sound, the woman appeared to not even see them as she scurried around the room gathering supplies into a pile on the floor.

Ravyn eyed her suspiciously as she moved toward a spigot on the wall, filling the bucket to the brim with water before struggling to carry the full bucket closer to Ravyn, liquid sloshing over its edges onto the floor. Something about the woman made Ravyn want to avert her eyes, most likely a spell placed on her to avoid visitors examining her too closely. But Ravyn fought against the compulsion to look away, instead keeping her eyes focused solely on the approaching woman.

“Help us. Help him!” Ravyn frantically whispered toward the woman, praying to both her goddess and Fenrir that she had the compassion her master and mistress lacked.

Setting the bucket down, the woman held up a single thin, knobby finger to her own gray lips, miming quietness. Ravyn realized that this woman was missing several fingers; her struggles with the bucket weren’t necessarily due to its weight but her own handicap, more than likely imposed on her by the wendigo. The longer Ravyn looked at the bedraggled woman, the easier it was to remain focused on her. The magic that had been laid on her was light enough that if one chose to, they could push through it, but Ravyn suspected that by the time a visitor pushed through the magic it was much too late for them.

Using the same hand, the little woman pushed her long, gray hair back out of her face, tucking it consciously behind one ear. With horror, Ravyn realized that the missing fingers were only one injury that had been inflicted on the woman. This one-eyed woman was the scryer Ibis had discovered and used, the one the wendigo had called his Lilith and Ibis had claimed had a gift for divination.

The wendigo’s threat of popping an eye from her head hadn’t been made in vain, and even with Ibis’s description, Ravyn wasn’t prepared for the sight of the bedraggled creature before her. This poor woman’s eyelid had been stitched together crudely and healed roughly, poorly. Another scar followed along the side of her face, and Ravyn suspected with horror that she’d been forced to care for her own injuries. Her scarred face was impassive as she began sponging the dried vomit from Ravyn’s dress. She scrubbed and scrubbed, spending a bit of extra time running her fingers through Ravyn’s soft, black hair once the mess had been cleaned away. Each time Ravyn opened her mouth to speak, the woman would place a finger against her own lips, silently shushing her even as her single fearful eye darted toward the door. Finally, she opened her own lips, showing her missing tongue before shamefully hanging her head, tightening her lips once again before continuing on with her slow, methodical cleaning.

Refilling the bucket with fresh water and more bleach, the woman called Lilith lowered Ravyn’s chains slightly to loosen her arms. Gesturing toward the ground, she pantomimed lowering herself. Ravyn hesitated. Could she grab the woman and demand freedom? Even if she killed her, it didn’t leave her any closer to freedom. Once again, Lilith urged her downward, followed with a desperate, one-eyed glance toward the door. Ravyn complied for now but regretted her decision when the woman dumped the entire contents of the bucket over her head. The bleach burned her skin and eyes as it trickled down her, the fumes heavy in her nose as she gasped to breathe around the toxins.

“Please,” she gasped as the woman made to gather the items and leave the room. “Help him,” she pleaded, looking toward the half hanging wolf.

Hesitantly, the woman considered, her broken face furrowed, pondering in a mixture of fear and uncertainty as she looked at him sadly. With a fervent glance around the room, her mind made up, she complied, lowering the chain that pulled his bloody, maimed hand up and away from him. Once the tension was released, with a pained, animalistic growl, he clutched his mutilated hand against himself, pressing away from her as far as the chains allowed.

With another apprehensive perusal of the room, Lilith impatiently slapped his good hand down, quickly pulling his injured hand free. With unwieldy movements, she roughly held up his bleeding hand to examine it for a moment with her one good eye. Tutting gutturally with her broken tongue, she patted his hand roughly. With efficient and somewhat awkward movements, she wrapped the same towel around the appendage that she’d used moments before to clean Ravyn.

With rough movements, she once again put water in the bucket—this time without adding bleach—and placed it before the trapped wolf. Cupping a gnarled hand, she dipped it into the water before placing it next to the youth’s mouth. She repeated the process several times as Toby frantically gulped the drops of water down his parched throat. Lilith glanced fearfully between the door and the wolf before she pulled away to examine her makeshift bandage.

“Thank you,” Ravyn whispered as the broken woman applied pressure to staunch the bleeding a bit more, before settling her own fragmented hand ever so gently and briefly on the wolf’s tear-stained face before snatching it back.

Soundlessly, Lilith scurried across the room toward the door as if running from the good she’d just done. Once at the doorway, she paused as if considering her next move. Ravyn watched as the woman drew her slight shoulders back, bringing her hunched body up just a hair, as if a decision had been made. Turning quickly as if not wishing to second guess herself, she scuttled as quickly as she could back toward Ravyn until she stood directly in front of her. Her one eye stared at Ravyn with a defiance that had Ravyn shrink back a bit. Maintaining eye contact, she brought her wrist up to her own mouth, viciously tearing into her thin skin with her teeth and drawing blood. Gasping as the scent hit her starving, drained body, Ravyn’s fangs burst painfully through her gums. Lilith shoved her thin wrist toward Ravyn’s mouth and Ravyn drank deeply from her.

Ravyn felt the woman pushing on her head as she drank. It took several long seconds for her to battle the beast inside her who wanted to drain the woman dry. Panting, she reluctantly released her hold on the woman, who stood before her even paler than before.

Gripping her wrist to staunch the bleeding, Lilith ran from the room, leaving behind her meager cleaning supplies.

And just like that hope returned, flaring up in the knowledge that not all was lost. Licking the last dredges of blood off her lips, Ravyn could feel the woman’s gift strengthen her body as it rolled through her veins.

The wendigo faced the same fatal flaw as her: its ego overwhelmed all. Even its most broken lackey offered kindness to her fellow prisoners.

Slowly, Ravyn twisted her hands in the cuffs that bound her to the beams, cutting into them. As the blood began to flow, she meticulously began working one wrist through the narrow cuff, ignoring the pain.

Toby was silent. Perhaps he slept again; perhaps he simply watched her working herself free in the silence.

As she twisted and turned her hand, Ravyn began speaking as if he could hear her.

“My entire lifetime I’ve been a bird. Some have known me as Little Bird. I’ve had variations of Crow and Raven both throughout my life.” Twisting and turning, slowly bending tendons and smashing bone, she continued working her way free.

“I even had someone write a poem about me. I mean, I’m certain I’ve had many poems and stories written about me over the years, but this one might be my favorite. A little-known writer at the time wrote about me. Poe. You’ve heard of him, right?” Ravyn glanced in the direction Toby lay.

He’d been forced upright for so long that he quite possibility collapsed with exhaustion when his chains had been loosened and the water coursed through his body.

“I think they teach about him in school nowadays.

“I used to visit him in the night and sit in a corner talking with him. Edgar intrigued me; such a quandary of emotions. First, he was afraid of me. Certainly, as one should be when a strange woman all dressed in black comes in through your bedroom window to watch you. But that fear passed and we chatted to pass the time. He thought me an angel or a demon and asked questions about the afterlife, questions I couldn’t answer, but together we could guess and wonder. He’d lost a great love and wanted assurances he would see her in the afterlife. He would grow angry with me when I said I didn’t know.”

One hand free from the deviled silver bindings; not so bad. Ravyn found it easier to ignore the pain and tearing of her flesh while reminiscing. Her storytelling continued after a deep breath, stabilizing her mind and body. She twisted and turned the second hand as the first one knitted itself back together. “Some nights, he would call me Death. because only a beautiful woman could be Death, of course. Some nights, he would cry and beg me to tell him that his love was safe. He both hated and loved me. And he hated himself for loving me. I suppose he felt like he couldn’t love more than one.”

Ravyn could feel the sun making its path across the sky. Even with the blood given to her, she was still going to be subject to the weakness it caused. She needed to hurry. Time was of the essence and Toby’s heart rate had slowed even more while she worked to free herself.

“Sometimes I was an angel, but he settled somewhere in the middle and decided I was his Raven. We talked about things other than life and death. We spoke of love, of war, of peacetime and if it existed or was even possible. As a man at war within himself, he understood conflict all too well. The push and pull between caring too little and caring too much. Poe understood the frailty of mankind or, I suppose, humankind. His work reflected his life, his fears, and his killing of those fears and shortcomings over and over again, attempting to bury them away. But that’s not possible; our sins always come back to haunt us.”

More wiggling as the wrist band slick with blood slid back and forth. “Almost there,” she murmured without looking toward Toby. The best she could do for him right now was to free herself.

“Almost there, Toby.”