A
warm summer breeze entered the room as I thrust open the dusty wooden windows. Dawn
had barely arrived, and yet I was already wide awake, ready to clean up every
last bit of the household. If I were to stack up any more reagents in this
dump, I was sure to drown. I was hoping everything would go smoothly, what with
the helper I had lodging in my house. I entered the bedroom and ripped off the
sheets from the bed. What had looked like a neat bundle of pillows underneath
the blanket was actually a little girl with curly golden hair. She could have
been five, judging solely by her looks. As the sheet exposed her, she stirred
and greeted me with a hateful glare.
“Ye’ve
quite some nerve, Matoya,” Isolde said to me through gritted teeth.
“Come
now, sister, remember who’s in charge this time,” I said in a sing-song voice.
“My house, my rules, at the very least til yer as big as me.”
Nevermore
was sitting by the window above the bed. Silently watching the argument we were
having, he shifted his gaze from me to Isolde, and back to me as we exchanged
insults. Her voice was driving me insane with its piercing pitch, a quality
possessed by most children’s voices, yet the sharpness of her words gave away
her true age. Nevermore cawed and waved his wings once, which made us both put
aside our bickering and get to some actual tidying up.
Once
the sun was high above our cottage, we were already done with the cleaning. The
interior now seemed much less gray after all that dusting. I began to prepare
to leave for the market in the city. The summer always offered the most
bountiful rewards for my products, and the available goods were also most
desirable. A knock came on the door. Just in time. I opened it and saw Cillian,
a big smile smile on his handsome bearded face. He was looking much better
since the strix incident. Though the paleness of his skin turned out to not be
an effect of the curse, his cheeks were significantly rosier than when I first
met him. The hours he spent chopping wood shirtless in the sun gave his body a
fine pink glow. He was almost a full member of our household now. Turned out
the poor lad was on his way from the Northern lands which had been desolated by
the Lord of Malady. As he had nowhere to go and chopping wood was something I
could never bother to do myself, I let him stay as long as he made himself
useful. And useful he was. He diligently chopped heaps of firewood every day,
rewarding me with not only fuel for my fireplace in the evening, but also a
nice view as he worked in daytime. So eager he was that he built his own shack
right beside the cottage.
“Ah,
Sillian! Right on time,” I knew well how his name was supposed to be
pronounced. The wince he gave me every time I mispronounced it was too
priceless to pass up.
“I
got your firewood, ma’am,” he said as he entered the house. His bright blue
eyes lost some of their sheen in the dimly lit room.
“What’s
that? How many times do I have to tell ye not to call me that! Do I look that
much older to you?”
“No,
not at all,” he blushed ever so slightly, his skin tanned pink seemed so dark indoors
that it almost matched his auburn hair.
“Look
at ‘im,” Isolde uttered as she entered the room. “Such a burly man and he’s shy
as a mouse.”
“I’m
not,” Cillian muttered. “And I would appreciate it if you would say my name
properly for once ma- I mean, Matoya.”
“I’ll
think about it,” I said. “Now, I need you now because I’m leaving for the city
to sell some goods. Last year was quite a mess, so I figured I’d be needing an
escort.”
“Yer
taking him?” the look Isolde gave
Cillian was that of utter contempt, as if someone had just told her a swamp
toad was going to be making her supper.
“No,
I’m taking Nevermore.”
“What,”
Isolde’s jaw dropped as she said it. “How will that be of any help?”
“And
may I ask what my role in all this is?” Cillian muttered.
“Yes,
yer staying with Isolde. I can’t take her, people will ask questions. What’s
more, I don’t trust her. And I know Nevermore spoils her. Don’t let her touch
the biscuits, hear?”
“Y-yes
ma’am,” he sighed as Isolde pouted.
“Like
Nevermore’ll be a good shield against crooks,” she said in a condescending
tone. “Ye should take Gillian here.”
“Ye
forget, sister, some fine details,” I said as I reached out to grab the crystal
eye lying on the table. I called Nevermore and he landed on the floor in front
of me, as if he knew what was about to happen. The ancient spell etched in the
Tome of Clarity echoed across the cottage as I uttered them, light seeping
slowly from the eye down on the large raven. He stretched his wings which
became steadily more elongated. The black sheen of his feathers became uniform,
more reminiscent of a glossy black fabric than bird down. As the light intensified, the form Nevermore
took seemed more and more human-like. The crystal fell to the ground with a
loud clunk. The man standing before me
was tall, dark and slender. His pale face with sunken cheeks and dark, deeply
set eyes was strikingly handsome, his tangled dark hair adding to the image of
a brooding poet. He was dressed in an elegant ebony suit and coat, a cane in
his hand, an equally raven top hat with a single decorative feather on his
head. I’d already managed to forget what he looked like.
“By
the gods,” Cillian whispered.
“Well,
well. Nevermore, yer quite the dashing fellow, I must say,” Isolde giggled.
Nevermore turned to her, smiled an enchanting smile and bowed. “Can he not
speak?”
“Nay,”
I said. “And it best stay that way. The best escort it a silent escort. Come,
Nevermore. We’ve a whole day ahead of us.”
AMAZING......
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