Rayann

Rayann walked quickly, pacing back and forth on the cool marble of the front hallway.  She was inside her aunts’s giant house, which the two old spinsters shared, waiting to drive her mother home.  Her aunt Bria walked to her, a painful-looking smile on her pointy, drawn face.
“Rayann!” She barked, trying to make her voice sound pleasant.  Then the pleasantness disappeared as she saw Rayann still had her scuffed red converse high tops on.  Then her face darkened, the tight smile disappeared, and it was replaced by her usual expression of anger and impatience. It was the look of someone who had been walking in the dark, and tripped on an out-of-place chair. Only Aunt Bria didn’t just trip on the chair, she yelled at it until it submit to her will.  And Rayann had just become her chair in the dark.  “Take of your shoes!” she barked sharply. “Do you know how much work it is to maintain this house?”
Rayann was about to point out that she was only here for a minute and taking off the shoes was more trouble then it was worth, but she thought better of it. When her aunt got angry, she got very, very angry, and quickly.  She bent down, unlaced them and had just gotten them off when her mother walked around the corner, frail and tired looking, as usual.  The other spinster, Aunt Jane, supported her arm, and helped her to walk.  Aunt Jane was a massive blubbering mass of a woman that always told you her opinion in the rudest way possible.  She led Rayann’s mother over to her and Rayann helped her put on her shoes, as Aunt Jane gave her a once over, and said:
“No wonder you are running out of money Alyss,” Jane said to Rayann’s mother.   “Look at the girl.  Probably never had the decency to get a job, let alone stop growing long enough for you to catch up.”  
Rayann tried to shrink down, but it wasn’t helping.  She was a good 5’9”, with tiny hips and waist, and a tiny bust. Waif-like, as the new fashion term described it.  She had short wispy hair with long blunt bangs, a beautiful rich red, and pale skin, high cheekbones and wide set lips.  Her eyes were her most striking feature, huge in her pale face, blue-green, with a strange orange-yellow hint around the pupil. In short, she was absolutely stunning, and didn’t even realize it.
Jane continued “I mean, look at her. Must be so vain, and stuck up about her looks, and those legs to think about anything else.  Boys all over and she probably can’t resist the lure of what they want from her. No good, I tell you. No good at all Alyss.  And she smells like cigarette smoke.”
Rayann moved her arm to hide the package in her coat pocket.
“Thank you Jane,” her mother said, voice fragile.  “Rayann is a good girl, and she has a job. And she has very good taste in boys, and knows when to draw the line.  I trust her.”
“Ah well, that is the blindness of parenthood will be the downfall of us all,” Jane preached.  Bria nodded her agreement.
Aylss pushed Rayann out the door, her hands a soft but firm pressure on the small of her back.  “Thank you for your hospitality, but we really should be going. Don’t want to be too much trouble.”  
And with that, she pushed Rayann out of the door, pretending not to feel the stinging comments hit her back as they walked to the car.

They drove home in silence, and as Rayann dropped of her mother at their house, she looked at her and asked “Are you sure you are okay?”
Aylss nodded and pushed inside the front door.  Rayann drove away hurriedly to get her shift at the art store where she worked, dodging the little bit of local traffic, and skipping tracks on her homemade CD until she found her favourite Bob Dylan song, the Ballad of Hollis Brown.

“Hollis Brown, he lived on the outside of town”
My aunts are just cynical old ladies. There isn’t anything wrong with me.  She lit up a cigarette, feeling the burn and sting as it light up and soothed down her throat.
“With his wife and five children
And his cabin fallin' down

You looked for work and money
And you walked a rugged mile
You looked for work and money
And you walked a rugged mile
Your children are so hungry
That they don't know how to smile”
Thoughts of her aunts began to fade as she let the sorrow of the story surround her.
Your baby's eyes look crazy
They're a-tuggin' at your sleeve
Your baby's eyes look crazy
They're a-tuggin' at your sleeve
You walk the floor and wonder why
With every breath you breathe
She wondered how her aunts ever got the way they were now.  The photographs from her mother’s childhood showed them so young and carefree.

The rats have got your flour
Bad blood it got your mare
The rats have got your flour
Bad blood it got your mare
If there's anyone that knows
Is there anyone that cares?
She breathed deeply as the story took her away to a time more then seven decades ago, in the great depression.

You prayed to the Lord above
Oh please send you a friend
You prayed to the Lord above
Oh please send you a friend
Your empty pockets tell yuh
That you ain't a-got no friend
A story of a poor man, with no hope.  As Rayann drove, she could imagine, almost to the point of seeing, her car bumping on a gravel road, and all the houses smaller, wooden.  Children that were playing became smaller, dirtier, and more ragged, with more worn smiles.  Adults no longer gossiped, but were bartering on the side of the road.

Your babies are crying louder
It's pounding on your brain
Your babies are crying louder
It's pounding on your brain
Your wife's screams are stabbin' you
Like the dirty drivin' rain
A newspaper in the hands of an old man on the porch has headlines like ‘Shooting in Chicago,” becomes “Stock Market Crash Becomes Nation Wide Emergency” A woman gardening in slacks becomes a timeworn lady in a dirty dress picking vegetables.

Your grass it is turning black
There's no water in your well
Your grass is turning black
There's no water in your well
You spent your last lone dollar
On seven shotgun shells
She almost sees Hollis Brown standing on his lawn, tears on his face as he surveys the mess.

Way out in the wilderness
A cold coyote calls
Way out in the wilderness
A cold coyote calls
Your eyes fix on the shotgun
That's hangin' on the wall
The wail of the coyote chills his spine, and the shotgun calls him.  Rayann can see him pick it up off the wall.

Your brain is a-bleedin'
And your legs can't seem to stand
Your brain is a-bleedin'
And your legs can't seem to stand
Your eyes fix on the shotgun
That you're holdin' in your hand
She feels his panic, and his head pouding.
There's seven breezes a-blowin'
All around the cabin door
There's seven breezes a-blowin'
All around the cabin door
Seven shots ring out
Like the ocean's pounding roar
She can hear the shots, seven all told, and feel the wind lifting her hair as she turns off the highway into the parking lot of the building where she worked.
There's seven people dead
On a South Dakota farm
There's seven people dead
On a South Dakota farm
Somewhere in the distance
There's seven new people born
The tears, as always, sting the back of her eyes as she turned off the car. Stomping out the cigarette, she shook her head, looked straight up at the gray stormy sky for a moment, and then she hefted the backpack to her shoulder and walked to the front door of the store.

Four hours later found Rayann, anxious to get back home, to her mother.  With nothing better to do but think, she watched the rain fall crazily from the sky. Lightning flashed, and thunder rolled, and a bell tinkled.  A bell tinkled? Rayann realized that meant someone was in the store.  What kind of a nutcase goes out on an evening like this?  She looked up to see a tall figure at the door, pulling of a wet black coat made of some strange material that she had never before seen.  He hung it on a hook by the door, and stepped on to the pale hardwood floor, seeming out of place in the quaint little shop.  He was incredibly beautiful, but eerie, and she hoped he would let her draw him by staying in the store long enough.  She began a quick sketch that she would fill in later.  His strong chin, ending in a pointy jaw, full reddish lips, almost to the point of looking lipsticked, but he was too manly in appearance for that.  He had a strong nose, and his eyes, beautiful golden brown almonds that had an asian appearance to them, althought he was clearly not of Asian descent.  His hair was a silvery blonde, and slid like silk across his shoulders as he moved.  He was about six foot, and slender, not too skinny, and obviously in incredible shape, but not built.  She was nearly finished the drawing of his face when he walked over to the desk to pay. She wasn’t really paying attention at this point and was focusing on finishing shading his face.
“That is very good,” a deep voice said.  “But I wish you had asked my permission”
She looked up, trying to hide her embarrassment “Well, I draw what I like, and I would have drawn you even if you had said no.”
“I know that,” he replied with a coy smile on his face, the laughter in the edge of his voice.  
“Are you going to buy that, or are you just keeping it warm?” She asked him sharply, face turning bright red at her audacity.  
He smiled. She melted.  “I’ll buy it, but I want to warm it just a little bit longer,” He told her, “I have some questions for you first.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. First, what is your name?”
“Rayann,” She tried not to turn red as she said it, “my mom thought I was a boy, and had already written Ryan on my birth certificate when they told her I was a girl. So she added the extra ‘n’ and the ‘a’.”
He smiled, and told her “I think Rayann is a lovely name.  My name is Roibeyen, but you can call me what ever you like.  People tend to choose Roy, but I get a feeling you are not like other people.”
“Well it took you long enough,” she replied, but she was smiling.
“Second, how often are you here?”
“Monday, Wednesday, Thursday from 3 to 8, and Saturday from 9 to 4.”
“Thirdly, what is your sires name?”
“I don’t see how that applies.. anyway he died when I was 5.  An accident.”
He sighed, realizing he had pushed the line “Well, I believe my item is warm enough now, and I would like to pay for it.”
“Oh, yea of course.”  She busied herself cashing the item, hiding her face under her long fringe of bangs.  She handed him the item and he thanked her, whirling out of the door.  She sat in a daze for a minute, and then began to close up shop when she realized it was later then she thought.

Twenty minutes later she was back on the road, windshield wipers furiously pumping to keep the rain from obscuring her vision. Bob Dylan was drowned out by the noise of the rain driving on the tin roof and the windshield, the sound of the thunder tearing through the heavens and the booming of Rayann’s own heart.  She was afraid of going off the road, just like her father had done on this same stretch of road twelve years before, when Rayann was about five years old.   She navigated the curves of the road successfully, and just when she was hitting the stretch of road with the 50-foot drop her father had fallen down in his little white ford, the rain began to fall with more intensity, if that was possible.  Rayann drove the car as slowly as she could, and when she got to the curve, began to navigate it.  Just when she knew she was safe, the rain let up for a moment, and a beam of light broke from the clouds, to the stretch of road most dangerous.  Her heart pounded as the wheels slipped on the rainslicked road, and she knew she was going over the edge.  Suddenly she felt as if there were hands on hers, and the car careened back onto the road, the wet surface suddenly giving traction as it shined in the vaguely appearing sunlight that shone down on the side of the road.  She could almost hear the owner of those pale hands she swore she saw murmuring in her ear ‘Now ain’t your time to die.”  But then she knew it was just Bob Dylan, and she paused for a moment, calming the beating of her heart.  And she drove quickly as possible home.

The weeks passed, and March turned into April, and April had begun to turn into May, and the weather was warm and sunny.  Rayann did all she could and although she tried and cared and worked hard, her mother’s mysterious illness just got worse and worse.  May was a rainy month, and the garden of their small house was completely underwater, the eves troughs overflowing.  The landlord came by and complained, but there was nothing to be done.  Rayann had a job, and school, and her mother couldn’t do anything either.
A year passed in limbo, Rayann unable to go out, to have friends, her mother unable to work or to do anything much other than eat and sleep. The doctors didn’t know what she had, and there seemed to be nothing they could do.  
The last week of May, on one of the only sunny days in a long while, Rayann got into her truck after school, driving down the familiar roads she had known her whole life.  Picklington was a tiny town, comprised of the town centre, a few old houses, like hers, and some farms and a trailer park.  The population was about 5000 people total with the trailer park included. She drove down a track off the highway and down to the small house where they lived in the middle of nowhere beside a forest. Her mother was sitting outside on one of the muskoka chairs, basking in the sunlight and the warmpth.  Rayann jumped out of the truck, demanding to know what her mother was doing.  Alyss smiled at her daughter.
“It’s such a beautiful day, darling come sit with me for a while!”
And Rayann did, to make sure her mom was okay. They spoke for a while and Alyss seemed okay.  After about half an hour of small talk there was a silence, and then Alyss spoke.  
“I’m going to die today and I- ”
“Mom what are you talking about?!?!?”
“Shh Rayann you know better then to interrupt me when I am talking.  Darling, let me start again.”
“I am going to die today.  It’s inevitable.  I have one thing to tell you before I do, and that is, when I am gone, my sisters will try to take the house and the things in it. Let them have what they want, except for 2 things.  The necklace that you have always worn, let me see it, there’s a good girl.”
Rayann took the charm out of her shirt where it always stayed on the delicate silver chain. It was a strange coil of silver that contained a small green leaf at the centre, delicate and warm.  When she was littler she had vague memories of it glowing, but she disbelieved them now.
“Lovely,” her mother said. “And the second thing you must keep is that grandfather clock in the hallway.  It contains the truth about your heritage, and you must discover that truth. After it has shown you the map, and the key, then it is of no consequence. You cannot keep it where you are going anyway.” Her mother’s head leaned to the side as she sighed a great sigh. “Rayann, remember whatever happens, whatever they say to you, never ever take off that necklace, and never forget me. I love you, I always have and I always will, and so does your father. I can feel that I am going to go now, my soul aches to leave this earthly body.  Rayann, darling, you were not meant to be here. You must unlock your truths. I cannot speak them to you, so you must find them yourself.  You will not be safe until you do. There are spirits all around, most more powerful then you could ever imagine. Even the weaker ones are dangerous. Be careful my child. Come here dear..” Rayann knelt next to her mother’s arm, the trumpet vine showing it’s first vibrant blooms above their heads. The sun warmed the porch wood into a beautiful honey colour and the rainclouds of the morning were gone, the air moist and the sunset beautiful. There were dust motes in the air, floating like sparkles on the warm breeze. Her mother’s tired, pale hand reached down to weakly grasp her daughter’s youthful strong one. “Never forget us Rayann. Find your path.. I love you… good bye darling.” Her mother’s hand stroked her hair. “Make me proud.” And then her hand weakend, and she was gone. Rayann couldn’t even cry the shock was so great.  She just sat next to her mother’s body, sad and shaken until evening came.  

After she called the undertaker and her aunts, life became a blur.  She spoke to one of the horrible aunts, but she couldn’t be sure which since she had never been able to tell them apart on the phone.
  After she was done on the phone she hid all of her mother’s jewelry and although they didn’t know about her laptop computer, she hid it anyway. They let her keep the car, but made her promise that she would never wear shoes in the house.  They wanted to sell everything. So Rayann gathered up the old stuffies she couldn’t bear to lose, her mother’s clothes, and the special sliver serving forks from her dad’s side. There were photographs, a small TV and a couple of other things she hid in big duffel bags. The rest would be gone in tomorrow’s garage sale. The funeral had been yesterday.  Rayann still couldn’t believe it.   She walked back to her room carrying the last of the stuff to save, numb.  She creaked on the stairs, but she couldn’t have cared less. Her aunts were staying for the weekend, and then she would move into their huge house on the other side of town. She walked up the stairs, careful to step on the side closest to the wall to avoid squeaks.  Halfway up, her black cat Midnight streaked down the stairs, tangling in her ankles, tripping her and sending her straight crashing into the wall of the bedroom where Jane slept.  The crash was loud, and the wall shook for a moment, frightening Rayann half to death. She swore as Jane poked her fat head out of the door.
“What are you doing, young lady?”
Rayann slammed the door in her face, and ran up the rest of the stairs, sliding into bed, unable to think, or sleep.  She just lay there, numb and unfeeling until dawn came.  

And when the sun rose, it was the most breathtaking sunrise she had ever seen.  The sky was pink, and then reds, oranges and yellows.  The clouds were wild looking thunderheads that threatened to burst, the rain exploding from their undersides onto the ground below. But for that moment, they were frozen in time, blue on their bellies, and pink, purple, orange and yellow on their fluffy soft tops.  The birds began to sing, their voices cacophonous in the remnants of the pre-dawn silence.  Skies became blue instead of pink and yellow as the sun rose to become a huge soft orb of bright light low in the sky.  
Rayann sighed, and walked slowly towards the shower. She let the hot water wash away the dirt and sweat and grease of the previous day, and along with it all the tension and sorrow. But it only lasted for a minute, and all the emotions came rushing back the moment her feet hit the soft carpet.  She got dressed, and did her hair and makeup, but she was only going through the motions, barely paying attention.  She tried to get into it like she normally did, but it just wasn’t there for her. So, at 6 she walked down stairs and watched morning talk shows for an hour.  

“What do you think you are doing young lady?” Aunt Bria’s voice cut sharply through her momentary Oprah reprive.
“I don’t want to do anything else.” She replied coldy, without the answering frightened murmur her aunt was hoping for.
“Well you better get up and eat. You are going to school today.”
“What?”
“You heard me.  You are hauling your butt out of that chair, and going to school.”
“My mother just died. Five days ago, and you want me to go to school and act like nothing is wrong?”
“Yes. That is what we do.”
“Well forget it. I’m not going back yet.”

An hour later, she was walking around the corner away from her house, backpack over her shoulder, slightly in awe at her Aunt Bria’s powers of negotiation. She didn’t know how she could handle school, although her semester was light. Art, English, Fashion design and Civics.  
Lockers were a blur, as was English.  Art required slight more concentration, and it was probably good, because it took her mind off of her mother.  She was enjoying her art class thoroughly, and lunch was the same as always.  She went to the Cafeteria, ate the usual gross food, and sat with her friends as they smoked a joint behind the building. She didn’t join in, preferring to watch the birds and the students go by. In civics she slept, and Fashion Design, she worked her butt off.  
Walking home, she could barely lift her feet, and was looking forward to falling into bed.  As she was walking, she noticed out of the corner of her eye, a vague shadow following her every move, hiding behind trees and bushes, and mailboxes.  She ignored it for a while, until it got frightening. Then she ducked into a park about half an hour from her house, thinking to throw off whatever it was that was following her.  Once she entered the park, she felt safer, and all of a sudden, very very tired.  She sat down on the bench, vowing to herself that it was only for a moment, but then her head nodded and the world went black.
Rayann awoke suddenly, feeling like a startled deer, and not knowing why.  She looked out into the growing gloom, realizing it was dusk.  Peering into the fog, she saw a dark shape limping through the fog.  She felt a breath on her shoulder. It was cold, and wet, frightening her as it rasped softly against her bare pale skin. She shivered as she felt a bolt of energy run through her, and she shouldered her backpack, and ran as fast as she could towards the edge of the park.  She passed several dark figures that whispered her name, knew it, spoke it, called to her with it.  Rayann felt implored to go to them, but adrenaline kept her running.  The fog was strange, as were the people in it.  Their voices burned through the fog like a flame through crackling. And their eyes. Despite the layer of thick fog between them, she could see the reds and the oranges of their cat eyes, burning at her, calling her, and with their voices, creating cloying blankets that threatened to pull her in.  She was slowing down, her adrenaline lessening, and she felt the pull of the voices grew stronger.
But she knew now that if she went with them, it would spell her doom.  Her footsteps grew stronger as the fog darkened, and the voices grew louder and more seductive.  But suddenly to her own puzzlement, as much as it was to her understanding, they stopped moving.  She felt the dark figures reach forward with their strange triple jointed skinny fingers mottled with dark splotches of green and brown. They surrounded her, chanting and shuffling around and around. Her heart pounded as a scream rent through the evening fog. It took her a moment to realize it was her own, and it started her feet up again, as she pushed through the circle of the mottled clammy bodies, feeling their cold wispy fingers brush and hold her body, their voices soft and cloying, wrapping her in honey and kind thoughts.  If she just went with them, it would be alright.. No! no it wouldn’t! she tore herself away from the hunched bodies even as one grabbed a lock of her hair, pulling it out at the root. She began to run, heart pounding, tears rolling down her cheeks as she ran as fast as she could out of the fog and away from the horrible terrors.
When she got home, Aunts Jane and Bria were sitting at the table, stoned faced and angry.  They looked up when she came in, disheveled, sweating and they were clearly very annoyed.   She quickly assured them she had to work, and that she had gone for a run around the block after coming back. She told them she worked everyday after school except for Wednesdays and Fridays, and not to expect her home.  Truth was she had been given the week off, but she didn’t tell them that. They rolled their eyes, and fed her, complaining all the while. She shut up and ate the meal in front of her.  It was surprisingly good for the bitterness exuding from each of the older women.  It was then that the shock from her ordeal began to sink in, and she ate the food with a shaking hand, trying not to think of those soft sweet shuffly voices and clammy warm hands. She ate quickly and disappeared upstairs, to think and draw.  

The hands crept closer and closer, contorted and knotted as if by age. But they weren’t. They were young and supple, and they were reaching out for her, stretching and grasping and-
Rayann woke up in a cold sweat and a strange cold breeze ruffled her sweat soaked hair, surprising her.  She looked up, and the fear that was just starting to go away came back in a rush.  Her window was wide open, and the tree outside the window was poking in, its small fingerlike branches reaching closer and closer to her bed.   She felt bile in the back of her throat, rising.  She jumped up, shoved the branches outside and slammed the window shut, heart pounding.  But try as she might, she couldn’t go back to sleep. Finally at about three in the morning she drifted off fitfully, and began to dream vividly again.
‘Come with us Rayann.  We are the only ones who know your true self. The one not even you know.  We need you Rayann, like nobody else does.  Rayann… Rayann!’  They were lithe limbed and blue-gray in colour.  They had the same triple jointed hands that reached towards her as they jumped higher and higher up the dreamy soft clouds towards her, calling to her with their little mouths.  Their innocent eyes called to her, and the pointed ears listened to all of her thoughts and doubts. ‘We won’t hurt you Rayann. We just want to play.”  Their soft scratchy voices beckoned her with their strange honey like undertones, slicked with oil and a soft hint of poison.  It was so compelling.  But the dream changed. As the pixies made faces at her, she began to float away, to a strange black lake. She alighted on the bank, face impassive. She felt hands about her neck, but they were comforting instead of frightening. They had always comforted her, brushing aside a fever of youth, averting a car crash, and now warming her, pushing away the chill that radiated into her bones. The soft hands placed something strange around her neck, and she felt calmer.  She knew she should be frightened, yet she wasn’t.  Then the eerie blue dream sun sank fully in the deep sky, leaving behind only an inky blue glow that shone dim on the black water.  Then the glow was gone, leaving an inky blackness only penetrated by her breathing, and a sound so faint she could barely hear it, but it was painfully obvious. Another set of lungs. And then another, and another, until there were at least 5 extra breaths being taken when it should be just her breathing in.  And then another, more frightening noise began.  Drip, sploosh. Drip, squish. Drip, splat.  Wet foot steps. Then a strange smell permeated the air. Fish, vile and strongly overpowering, and then her skin began to feel wet and clammy.  There was a large amount of water vapor in the black air, and it was condensing on her skin.  But instead of cooling her, it froze her deep to the bone, drawing out her moisture, leaving her feeling starved and parched.  The steps continued, and got louder, as did the raspy breathing. Then she could hear whispering. It was a strange and horrible tounge they spoke with, rushing and hissing, carrying the weight of a thousand leagues of the sea, the terror of drowning and the horrible cold of the life after. She found herself compelled to speak out, to call them to her, to take her away. But she was too afraid, quaking in her skin, bones chilled to the marrow.  And then a new sound, and a real sight pierced the blackness. An ethereal song and a pure voice pierced the horrible silence, and a bright green light, patterned and soft with the feel of a forest  emanated both from her breast.  It was the thing the long fingered comforting hands had put around her neck. A necklace of delicate silver, with a small swirling pendant on the bottom, one she had known all her life, worn everyday. It shone and the voice sang pure above the rasping calls of the horrible creatures that she could now see, fish like and clammy in the pale green and gold lights. They  moaned like the wind over the ocean, and cried like the ship tossed on the high seas.  The light brightened, blinding Rayann momentarily, and then-

Rayann awoke suddenly, shivering.  She was in her bathroom, standing over a full tub. She shook her head, and then as she turned away, she realized the air smelled of fish and salt, and the tang of the sea. She turned, and stifled a scream.  The bathwater was black, with seaweed floating in it. Her hand flew to her breast, where she clutched something familiar, yet totally new.  She looked at it pensively. It was the same as always, but the green leaf at the centre glowed a bit, gold light glittering softly in the centre.   She shook her head, sleepy as hell. She saw herself in the mirror, eyes bright and feverish in a pale face. There were huge dark circles under her eyes, and her hair was damp. She shivered once, and padded back down the hallway to her room.

Sitting at her desk, she promised herself she wouldn’t fall asleep, to keep away the horrible dreams that haunted her, and began to draw. The drawing became her mother’s face, lined and creased, but smiling as it always had been before she got sick, and with the thick mane of hair she had when Rayann was young.  When her mother was finished, the pencil kept moving, and drew a face next to hers. It was her fathers, but she didn’t understand why it was coming out the way it was. The features were more pointed, and the eyes slightly Asian.  Strangest of all, his ears were pointy, and she was drawing but trying desperately to stop.  Her pencil skipped along the page, and she was drawing as if she had seen this face every day of her life.  Finally he was finished, and breathtaking, but not what she wanted.  And then although she tried to do something else, her hand kept drawing. It drew a background, with small shining figures, long limbed, all disproportionate to their bodies, and with those triple jointed fingers, their faces angled, ears pointy.  Some had wings, others, frog legs. Some were simply wild looking, with angled fierce bodies.  The drawing was finally finished, wild and untamed creatures taking up the space where her parents were not. She began to nod off, her head bobbing towards the table. Determined not to sleep, she sat up, and fell asleep right there in her chair.  
The creatures in the drawing began to move, laughing and fighting, dancing, singing, and teasing.  They were innocent, but the kind of innocent that was a little boy burning ants under a magnifying glass.  They played and teased, tortured and fell in love. Danced and sang, told stories, made love, and hurt one another in the ghostly moonlit shadows.  Her father was one too, she saw, but a different kind.  More human, with the pointed ears, and impossibly blond hair.  Her mother’s was the red she always remembered, and her eyes the blue green. But they were intensified where they should have been dimmed in the poor light.  Her father’s eyes were almost as strange as his hair, she saw.  They were moss green, with shocking undertones of red, and orange and yellow weaving in and out of the moss colour, and although slightly dizzying, it was captivating, and calming.  It was then his mouth opened, and he looked at her, the moonlight casting shadows on his face.  His tounge was silver, flecked with gold and green.  “Rayann,” he said, voice ghostly, “I did not die they way they said I did.  I was murdered by the Seelie court for having a child with your mother, and choosing to live with you.  They hunted me down, and I left this message in your keeping for the day you should release it.  I set a spell on you that will always watch over you, keep you safe from harm.  And when you need me most, I will be there for you in what I have left behind. I love you more then anything.  Love daddy.  Ps.. check in the grandfather clock in the hall, behind the swingerdoodle.’
And then she awoke.  The grandfather clock bonged six times.  It was six in the morning, and she peeled her face of the drawing, looking at it. Although it was still, she knew what it had done, and it brought a lump to the back of her throat as she tucked it away in her sketchbook.  
Rayann laid down in her bed, and then realized what the PS had said.  She bounced out of her bed, and crept down the stairs.  The grandfather clock was a big old thing that they used to wind every month as a family.  It was tall, about six feet, and it was soft rosewood, with vines and, on closer inspection, faeries engraved on it.  Now, the fae were moving, the vines squiggling all across the surface of the clock.  And the pendulum, inside the greenish stained glass, hung timing out the seconds.  She and her father had always called it a swingerdoodle, and there was a fat gnome that sat on a rock engraved in the brass.  Today he was laughing and speaking to a small collective of pixies.  Her father had read her stories about all these things, and she remembered when she was very little going out into the garden and speaking to the fae.  But then her father died, and she could no longer access their world. She now guessed that was one if the repercussions of her father’s death, and his protection.  Reaching forward, she opened the leaf shaped hook that held the door shut.  It creaked open, and she bent down, looking into the clock’s body.   The fat gnome on the pendulum looked up at her and said:
“You must be Hedro’s girl then.  Got something for you.”  
He tossed a piece of paper at her, and as it grew bigger, he went back to wooing the pixie, and within seconds of the paper popping out of the pendulum, he began to make love to her as she giggled, and he ate a chicken wing.  He looked up at her.
“This life is paradise, it is.  All the food I want, and the girls too.”
She rolled her eyes, and sat down on the floor, closing the door to the clock.    She looked up at the clock face.  6:23 it read.  The clock hands were shaped like pointing arrows, with vines for stems, and each one had a sylph on it.  They were flying about the clock face, still metal, giggling and teasing the wooden gnomes and pixies on the clock body.  She picked up the paper from where it had fallen on the floor, and as she unfolded it from the tiny size of about a square centimeter, strange music began to emanate from it.   Random notes played in strange instruments, and little high pitched voices singing.  Then light began to appear, and she put it down on the floor, out of instinct rather then fear.  It finished unfolding itself, and became a forest that was about waist high, and nearly a meter in length.  The trees seemed very real, as did the fae flitting about in the branches.  Then as the image began to change, and she was traveling through the forest, she realized it was a map.  Her travel through the forest had only lasted a minute, but already she knew which forest it was.  Then she heard creaking footsteps on the stairs, and the heavy breathing that signified one of the aunts working hard to walk.  She hurriedly folded up the map, and as she was doing it, a message appeared in the air in front of her.
Dare to journey to the land
Where the fae dance hand in hand
Seelie, unseelie, we are all akin
What was once yours is now ours

Should you seek to find
The answers hidden by time
Each leaf and stone
Saturated with truth and lies

The fae dance beneath the full moon
The night of the tithe
A sacrifice of a mortal true
With the sight to see what truly is

So come dance with us, under the stars
Eat not the fruits of temptation
Only claim what is yours
Or the sky will open up for your fears


And that was the end of the poem.  She had no idea what it meant, and wasn’t in the mood to decode it anymore.  She sighed, went back up stairs, and put the map in her art portfolio with the drawing she had done earlier that evening.  Her bed beckoned and she fell into it without a second thought. The dreams stayed at bay, for now at least.
The next morning came, a Thursday,  and she chose to ignore distant memories of strange dreams.  She also chose to ignore the aunts, which pissed them off to no end.  They yelled at her, and she didn’t reply.  She grabbed a granola bar and a pb&j sandwich and left the house. She ran down the street a bit and then slowed to walk.  She was wearing jeans and combat boots with a tshirt and an army issue coat, second hand ware, and she was carrying a bag over her shoulder with cigarettes, a lunch, a hundred dollars, clean panties, and her sketchbook, the things she had drawn the night before purposely left behind.  Rayann made her way down the street, crossing to the park where she had been the night before. She stayed in the park for a while, watching the sad dilapidated and fat pigeons that pecked around the benches. She had always liked this park, the forest that it backed onto and the ponds that it had, that felt kind of wistfully mindful of her father. She sat down at the edge of one of these ponds on a rock and ate her sandwich and smoked a cigarette.  She had some rum out of an airplane bottle that her friend’s mom always scored from her job as a stewardess, who she spent so much time drunk on them that she didn’t notice when some went missing.  In fact she didn’t notice when twenty or so went missing.  Once she had a buzz tingling pleasantly, she began to walk to school, slowly and resentfully.   She felt a cold hand on her shoulder, and she whirled around, stumbling slightly.  
“Hey.”  The man said. He had blonde hair and golden green eyes. He was vaguely familiar, and then she remembered him.  He was the man that had come into the shop so long ago. What was his name? It was something stupid. Ralph or Richard.. no weirder. Roibeyen. That was it.
She rolled her eyes, and began to walk towards school, stumbling on a bench.
“Hey, wait up.  I want to talk to you.”
“Go away stupid.”
“Please?  I  just want to ask you a question.”
“Hmm, let me think. No.” She pushed past him.  
“Rayann?”
“Oh, so he remembers my name.”
“You are drunk, aren’t you?”
“No.” she stumbled, feeling stupid.  “Go the fuck away.”
He hooked his hand under her elbow and walked her over to the park bench.
“I told you, I don’t fucking want to talk.”  She knew her words were slurred, and she couldn’t have cared less.
He pushed her down on the bench and looked her in the eye. “Rayann. I am here for a reason.”
“Yea to piss me off and make me late for school, you asshole.”
“No.  I am here because you need me to be.”
“Bullshit. You just want an excuse to get into my pants.”
He looked hurt, and said, “Fine you can believe whatever you want about me, but you still have to talk.”
Looking at his soft, hurt puppy dog eyes, she was tempted to say she was sorry, but banished the idea before she embarrassed herself.  “Just leave me alone okay?  I don’t need this right now.”  And try as she might, she couldn’t keep the sob out of her voice, the tears out of her eyes.  She couldn’t stop them anymore.  She hadn’t cried yet for her mother, just like she never cried for her dad.  She looked at him, and the tears spilled over, angry, yet soft and tired.  She collapsed into his arms, breathing heavily, and sobbing.  
They stood like this for a while, he stroking her hair, and she cried into the front of his black t-shirt, breathing in the soft scent of him.  Mossy, but warm and slightly reminiscent of apples.  She liked it, and she felt comforted beyond anything that her mother had ever made her feel.  
Finally she peeled her wet face of off his chest and tried to shift the wet makeup under her eyes.  He reached forward and wiped the tears off for her, assuring her that her face was fine, and streak free.  
“I’m really sorry. I, uh should be going. I’m so late for school.”  
He looked at her.  “Would you like me to walk you there?”  
“Not really.” But she wanted him too. Very badly.
“Too bad. You are too drunk to get there on your own.”
She protested, but knew he was right. So he helped her up from the park bench and they began to walk towards her school, out of the park.


                   To Be Continued....