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One for Sorrow… Two for Joy
by Alyson Faye 

‘It comes when there’s a death due…’ Matty whispered to me, as we stood stock still, silent in the manor’s woods.

We shouldn’t be there. Matty and me. It was forbidden. We were forbidden.

‘It looks sad, and tatty winged,’ I said.

‘They’re fighters are ravens. Like me!’ Matty flexed his scrawny arm, laughing. ‘I’d fight for you any day, Luce.’ His voice serious now.

He bent down to kiss me, and his breath plumed in the chilly air, his lips tasted of the mulled wine stolen from church.

I shivered, pulling my long skirt and shawl round myself. ‘Pa will kill me if he finds out we were here.’

Matty’s face clouded over. He picked up a stone and threw it at the raven, ‘Bugger orf!’

The bird stared at us from its beady orange eye, undisturbed by the missile whistling past, and, after a measured minute – flapped away.

‘You shouldn’t have done that. It’s bad luck.’ I tugged at Matty’s arm. ‘Let’s go. C’mon.’

***

Matty wasn’t in church the next day, just his Pa and older sister. I asked after him, formal-like, in front of my Pa, as you would after a fellow congregation member and village neighbour, not like he was the love of your life and every moment without him was agony.

‘Sickening,’ his Pa said, brusque, blunt as was his way.

His sister whispered to me, ‘We dunno what’s wrong with our Matty, but he’s right bad. In bed. Sweating, crying out.’

My stomach clenched.

‘Come along now Lucy,’ Pa commanded and I followed, good little lamb that I be.

***

That night there was a scratching outside my window, persistent and irritating. In my nightgown I tiptoed over the bare boards, avoiding the squeaky ones, and peered out. The raven from the woods was perched on the window sill, facing me, tapping with its beak on the glass pane. It stopped when it saw me.

‘What do you want?’ I hissed. ‘Haven’t you given us enough trouble?’

It turned its scrawny neck, plucked at its plumage and, to my surprise, pressed a blue-black feather at the window.

‘You want me to take it?’

I opened the window high enough and grasped the offered feather. It was smeared in something sticky and dark.

Raven blood?

I blinked, and the bird had gone.

***

It was part of my duties, as daughter of the lord of the manor, to visit the sick and elderly in the village. I thanked goodness for this excuse to call in on Matty and his family. I slipped the raven’s feather into a clean linen cloth. I wasn’t sure what I’d do with it but I felt compelled to take it.

Matty’s sister let me in to their cramped, chilly cottage. Her face was sombre, her lips thin.

‘He be worsening,’ she told me.

I nodded, trying to appear calm.

I gasped in shock when I saw my Matty, lying grey-faced, scrawnier than ever, on the sweat-soaked sheets. He held his gut and clearly was in pain.

‘I’m here,’ I whispered. ‘I love you.’

His face was contorted, cheeks flushed and eyes glazed.

‘L…Luce…’

I wiped his face, dampened a moist cloth to hold to his lips, changed his bedding and chamber pot and sprinkled strands lavender and rosemary on the stone floor. Then I pulled out the raven’s feather, as a last desperate hope.

I held it to Matty’s lips, and asked him to lick the sticky substance and swallow. He did as I asked, though it was a struggle. He grimaced.

Then, within a moment he fell into a blessed sleep. I sat holding his hand, until the light left the day outside and I knew I’d have to go back to my home. And Pa.

Matty laughed in his sleep, smiled and opened his eyes.

They were clear, grey and normal, his cheeks were cool. He sat up and hugged me.

***

One year later . . .

We visit the woods often now, as a married couple, taking our first born with us, to pay homage at the raven tree and give of our blood.

And when the moon is high, and the night birds’ song calls to him Matty takes flight high above our village, soaring and diving, free and full of joy.

My raven boy.

Fiction © Copyright Alyson Faye
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from Alyson Faye:

The Lost Girl & Spindleshanks

The Lost Girl
A nailed-up door. An inheritance which comes with a ghost. A missing girl. A fifty-year-old mystery. Parapsychologist Berkley Osgood is hired to investigate. What he uncovers reveals secrets the living want to hide and the dead will never forgive.

Spindleshanks
Adam is having nightmares about a skeletal shadow figure, who he calls Spindleshanks. Soon his whole class are sharing the same nightmare. Adam’s dad, Rob, knows that Spindleshanks can’t be real. But is he? One terrible night Rob has to face his son’s nightmare creature and fight for his son’s life. What would you sacrifice to have your child back safe?

“A decent two-for-one. Alyson Faye brings the engaging and eerie in equal measure.” CC Adams – horror / dark fiction author

Available on Amazon!