The Raven's Apprentice - Chapter 8

"Argh, so close," Mariah groaned theatrically.

"So true," Cassie laughed, her eyes lingering on Gwen's. "But wait... it gets worse."

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Buckingham High School, Willow Creek, 2000

Bella was always very 'protective' of me, insisting that I call and keep them informed of any changes in my routine. I considered it the height of unfairness. She could unexpectedly run off to Senbamachi for work (making me play hostess in her place at some horrible dinner party), but I couldn't go to the park with Carmilla and Molly without calling first.

Edwards usually picked me up every day after school. Dear, faithful Edwards...  he'd waited for what he felt was a reasonable amount of 'chatting with Carmilla and Molly' time before finally deciding to discreetly look for me. 

Once he had determined I wasn't loitering around outside the school, he talked to Principal Prescott. She fairly quickly determined I wasn't on school grounds, and I'm pretty sure that's when she asked Molly, who promptly gave me up. 

To be fair to Molly, it wasn't like I'd sworn her to secrecy or anything. I like I said, this really hadn't been planned out.

Ophilia Villa, Willow Creek, 2000

Anyway, Edwards had updated my father. My father had called the Browns, and Mr. Brown had, politely but firmly, made it clear that he was taking me home. It wasn't like I could really argue with him about it. Especially once Gwen said that since I'd visited her house, it was only fair she visited mine.

I said earlier that, when I'd gone to Gwen's, I hadn't thought about the difference between the Browns' humble house and my family's stately mansion. Standing on those tall steps, looking up at the shadowy bulk of Ophilia Villa, I remember thinking how much I hoped the house didn't put Gwen off.

Edwards met us at the door.

"How you doing, Luc?" Mr. Brown said warmly to Edwards. "I've got a delivery for you. One wayward daughter of the house, returned in undamaged condition."

"Much obliged, Doug," Edwards had smiled back at him. "I hope she wa'n't too much trouble."

"No trouble at all," Mr. Brown laughed. "She's always welcome... but with her parents' permission, next time."

"Maybe you remember that now, Cas," Edwards chuckled. "You staying, Doug? I'm about to put on some of my famous blackened catfish."

"I would, but Lil was getting her chicken and rice going when we left," Doug laughed. "You coming out fishing with us next weekend? The guys would love to have you along."

"The guys want me along because none of you all can cook," Edwards laughed. "Yeah, I'm coming. Fresh fish for the table, yeah? Hey, you all should go through, let Herself see Cas ha'n't been carried off by white slavers. I'll call you about the fishing." 

"Here's our girl, safe and sound," my father announced as he saw us. 

Just like every evening before dinner, Father and Alexander were playing chess and Bella was watching the news. On a regular evening, I would have been upstairs in the music room, practicing.

"I told you, you needn't have worried, Bella," Father continued.

"I'll worry less when she doesn't disappear," Bella replied sharply, as if I made a habit of running off to the City or something.

"Yeah, I brought her back," Mr. Brown smiled. "Thought I'd save you the trip. Maybe give you time to work on your next novel... Mr. Big-time, Best-selling Author who doesn't know the difference between 'your' and 'you are.'"

"That's what I have editors for," Father chuckled, rising to take Mr. Brown's hand. "You know, I should get you to look over my new manuscript."

"I'd be happy to," Mr. Brown said, then added, "Mortimer, I thought I should introduce you to..."

"Yes, of course." Father pushed passed Mr. Brown, a strangely mesmerized look on his face. "You must be Gwen."

"I must be, mustn't I," Gwen smiled back.

"You're Ari's daughter, alright." Father smiled a little sadly. "You have your mother's eyes. I knew her, Gwen. We all did. We're so sorry for your loss." 

"Ari was a good friend," he continued, "most especially to Cas's mother, my dear lost Vickie."

"Wait, you're saying our moms knew each other?" I asked, shaken. 

"They were best friends... childhood friends if I remember correctly," Bella replied from her seat on the couch.

My mother was an almost mythic figure to me. I knew she and father had met at University, but I knew so little about her and almost nothing about her life before University. Finding someone else who had some connection to her, especially to her past, was like uncovering a hint to the location of some lost pirate treasure.

"It must be fate," my father said. "Vickie and Ari's daughters finding each other."

"Wow, our moms knew each other," I said as Father wandered off to talk to Mr. Brown and Bella. "That's amazing. That's..."

"Vickie?" Gwen puzzled over the name. "Victoria? You mother was Victoria Rowen?"

"Yes! Did you know her? Did your mom talk about her?" I asked eagerly. "I mean, I know you wouldn't remember her. She died when I was little..."

"You know you're in big trouble, right?" My little brother, Alexander, on his way to the kitchen I think, picked that moment to interrupt.

"Yeah, I know, dork," I snarked at him. "We're talking."

"I don't know that there's a lot I can tell you... about Victoria," Gwen said. I recognized the sadness in her eyes, even if at the time I didn't really understand all of what was behind it.

"No, I guess not," I sighed. "Still, it's amazing. Father's right. It must be fate, us meeting and being friends, just like they were. That must be why... why I feel so... like we're just meant to be... to be friends!"

----------------

"You didn't!" Mariah groaned. "Please, tell me you didn't!"

"What?" Miranda looked puzzled, then her eyes widen in enlightened memory, "Oh, I get it."

"Yeah," Cassie admitted. "I was seventeen and I was an idiot. I wasn't ready to admit, even to myself, that I was having romantic feelings for Gwen. The intensity of what I had felt not even an hour earlier had frightened me. Besides, I was pretty sure I was straight... at least, like I said earlier, I knew I was attracted to guys in a vague way. The idea that I might be bisexual didn't really occur to me at the time. The thought of us being 'fated friends' felt like a life preserver in the stormy seas of my heart."

"New song title?" Miranda asked with a smirk.

"Bit long," Cassie laughed, "but I'll work on it."

The Raven's Apprentice - Chapter 7

"So, there we were," Cassie said, picking up the story, "slowly coming closer together. It should come as no surprise to either of you that that's when things went a little off track."

"Vampire attack or alien invasion?" Miranda offered.

"That's not really a thing... is it?" Mariah asked, her tough attitude not quite hiding her lurking concern.

"I don't know," Miranda smiled. Turning to her mom she added, "So, vampires or aliens?"

"Worse," Cassie said with a slight grin. "Parents."

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Foundry Cove, Willow Creek, 2000

I don't remember exactly what prompted the impulse, but one day, instead of waiting for Edwards to pick me up in the car, I went home with Gwen. I don't even remember if I asked her if I could go over to her house. I think we were just talking as we left school and kept talking as I followed her onto the bus. 

The truth is, I just wanted to spend more time with her.

I'd been to the Browns' home once before, for some after-school event back when I'd had Mr. Brown as a teacher. The humble, little house in Foundry Cove was about as different from Ophilia Villa as it could be, but I wasn't really thinking about that as I followed Gwen inside.

"How was your day, Gwen?" Mrs. Brown called.

I've always liked Lilian Brown. She's a real artist. She wasn't famous, though even then she was known in local art circles. She certainly isn't pretentious. She's just nice, in that slightly odd, hippy, counter-culture kind of way. Whenever I think of her, I smell paint and brownies. 

She also inspired my first tattoos.

"Oh, hi Cas," she added when she saw me. "I didn't know Gwen was bringing a friend over."

I remember being a little surprised she remembered me. I'd only met her a few times, back then. 

"Hi, Mrs. Brown," I smiled back. "I'm just helping Gwen get caught up on some things." Which wasn't a total lie but had nothing to do with me standing in the Browns' hallway that afternoon.

"Well, it's very nice of you to help her," Mrs. Brown said in a way that made it clear she was happy Gwen had a friend. 

"We're going to work in my room," Gwen said. 

Mrs. Brown hesitated just a moment, before smiling and saying, "Alright. Let me know if you need anything."

"Thank you," I added.

"So, this is my room," Gwen said once we were inside, settling on her bed.

I understood immediately why Mrs. Brown had hesitated when Gwen said we would be working in there. Her room was tiny and crowded with racks of canvases and other painting supplies.

"Lilian used it as a storeroom before I got here," Gwen explained, adding, "She's offered to move all this stuff out, but I actually kind of like it."

"Is this one of hers?" I asked, my eyes drawn to a painting on the easel.

"No," Gwen said. "That one's mine."

I remember her face as she said it, the way her eyes searched mine, looking for my reaction. I remember the painting... one figure, alone in the crowd. I thought about her smile that never touched her eyes, those beautiful eyes that I had thought were a little lost and alone. That was the moment when I understood... truly understood, without being able to put into words... how lost and alone she really felt. 

I took her hands and pulled her to her feet. I looked into those sad, lonely eyes.

"Gwen," I said.

There were so many things I wanted to say, and I couldn't think of the words. I just stood there, holding her hands, looking into her eyes, feeling some feeling I couldn't... or wouldn't... name. Something so intense, so powerful and deep that it frightened me.

I don't know what might have happened...

... but what did happen is that we were interrupted.

"Tell Mortimer I'll bring her home," Mr. Brown's voice came through the walls. 

"Gwen. Cas. Could you come out here, please?"

You see, I hadn't actually told anyone that I was going to Gwen's after school.

The Raven's Apprentice - Chapter 6

"Anyway," Cassie laughed. "Suffice it to say, at the time, my feelings about Gwen were confusing." 

"What about you, Gwen?" Mariah asked.

"Well, at that time, everything was confusing to me," Gwen said. "After all, I was still trying to get a handle on the concept of 'days of the week.'" To a smiling Cassie and Miranda, she added, "Say nothing."

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Buckingham High School, Willow Creek, 2000

I managed to pick up my classes fairly easily, actually. Art and Music, I was comfortable with. Language and Literature came fairly easily too. My mother had frequently brought home books from her 'vacations' in the mortal world for me to read. 

Surprisingly, Math and Science were not that difficult. Math is math, after all... and it seems to me that the principal difference between science and magic is that, in magic, one can argue with the laws of physics. I struggled with Social Studies. I could barely remember what day it was, much less the day or, worse, year of some past event. 

So, the abstract things I could manage.

It was waking up every morning in a strange place, so far from everything and everyone I knew, that was hard. I was surrounded by constant noise, the cars and trains moving outside, the buzz of electricity in the walls, the relentless hum of machinery all around. The smell, the bitter, metallic tang in the air, was inescapable. Worst of all was that pull, the sense of falling that came with the turning of days. It was all so strange and frightening. 

At times I just felt so lost and so alone.

Then, there she would be. Cassandra. My friend.

I remember, those first days we mostly talked about music. The violin was something we had in common, and it gave us a place to start. (I'd already figured out, from talking to Doug and his wife Lilian, that discussing my thoughts about the mortal world was more likely to result in strange looks than a meaningful conversation.)

Conversations with Cas (she wouldn't go by 'Cassie' until later) inevitably led to conversations with Molly and Carmilla as well. I found those a little less comfortable. Carmilla and I didn't really get along at first, and Molly hung on Carmilla's every word.

My new friend's fascination with vampires did make me nervous, but it quickly became obvious (sorry, love) that they didn't know much about real vampires. I was reasonably confident I hadn't fallen in with agents of the Dark Court.

Honestly, I probably should have been more paranoid. I was in hiding, after all. However, I longed for a friend, and I felt a real connection to Cas right from the start.

I also needed her help. There are some things an endless summer spent learning magic, art, music and literature absolutely cannot prepare one for... 

... and a high school cafeteria is definitely one of those things. I mean, I'd never even seen a hot dog before, and the whole concept of 'sloppy joes' is still bizarre to me. 

I somehow managed to explain my ignorance away as cultural differences. I had been mostly home schooled, after all. I could also honestly say (and Miranda will support me on this) that Brookside Academy has a kitchen, not a cafeteria, and to my knowledge had never served hot dogs or sloppy joes.

Without Cas I never would have learned how to navigate the lunch menu. Taco Tuesdays are difficult enough when you've never had a taco before and even worse when you don't really understand the concept of Tuesday. 

One thing about school that I didn't need to learn about from Cas was mean girls.  At Brookside, when I was there, there had been a young witch named Scarlet who delighted in petty cruelty and minor curses. At Buckingham, the mantle was taken up by Elly, a cheerleader who enjoyed the same petty cruelty and seemed to be equally capable of making life unpleasant.

Most of the time, we avoided her (a distinct virtue Buckingham had over the much smaller Brookside), but the occasional cafeteria confrontation was inevitable. Oddly, I took some comfort that some things appeared to be universal, no matter what Realm you're from.

To my great surprise, I was quickly finding a kind of balance. 

I doubt anyone who knew me then would believe it, but I was trying very hard to fit in. Alright, maybe not fit in but, at least, I was trying to hide and not give too much away about my past. I was afraid. Afraid that, if anyone found out who and what I really was, the Dark Court would find me. 

I was still lost, in a world that was loud and smelly and strange... 

... but I didn't feel quite so alone.

The Raven's Apprentice - Chapter 5

"Gwen?" Cassie began, gently laying her hand over her wife's.

"I'm fine," Gwen smiled. "You tell the next part... that first day." 

Cassie continued to look at her, with a gentle, knowing smile of her own, before turning back to Mariah.

"Most of us," she said, her smile warming, "don't know ahead of time when we're about to meet the person who will change our lives. I certainly didn't."

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Buckingham High School, Willow Creek, 2000

I'd started my last year of school a few weeks before. That morning was, I thought, just like any other... get up, put on that truly horrible dull grey school uniform, have breakfast (I actually remember, Edwards made pancakes that morning) and head off to face another day of school.

There she was, fumbling with the locker next to mine, and I distinctly remember thinking: "Who's the new girl with Mr. Brown?"

Mr. Brown was a teacher, so it wasn't surprising to see him giving a tour to a new student. He was also a casual friend of my parents - they'd gone to university together - so I knew him a little better than most of the other teachers. 

I think I said a brief hello to him and I know gave "the new girl" a quick nod, but I was distracted by wanting to catch up with my friends... 

... friends and fellow outcasts - Carmilla LeFanu and Molly Prescott. 

Sometime during our first year, after reading Caleb Vatore's High Fang novels, Carmilla had dyed her hair black and refused to answer to Cameron anymore. By now, even the teachers had given up. Everyone called her Carmilla. Of course, the popular kids thought she was a freak. I thought she was awesome.

Molly was Principal Prescott's daughter. That alone would have doomed her socially even if she hadn't been a little on the heavy side and a member of the chess club. Kids can be so cruel. We'd been friends since first year, when I stood up for her with Elly, the school's chief mean girl. 

Anyway, Carmilla was once again explaining some obscure bit of vampire lore to a fascinated Molly. Vampires are cool when you're seventeen, safe and convinced you're edgy. Yes, of course we were idiots. We were teenagers.

"So," I said into a pause in the conversation, "who's the new girl?"

OK so, maybe the willowy blonde I'd seen next to my locker was on my mind.

"Oh, wow, that's Gwen," Molly replied. I could always count on Molly to know the latest gossip out of the principal's office. "She's from like Windenburg, or near there anyway. She's an orphan. Her whole family was killed in a home invasion or something."

"Grim," Carmilla said.

"Yeah," Molly agreed. "Anyway, Mr. Brown is like her guardian now. So, she's transferred here."

The bell for first period rang before I could get any more out of Molly but, when I got to my homeroom (Molly and Carmilla were in a different section), there she was. The new girl. Gwen. 

If you'd asked me that morning, I wouldn't have been able to tell you why I was so fascinated by her. I certainly wasn't the kind of person who made a habit of cheerfully welcoming new students to our school. Being the Greeters-To-Hell was a job usually left to Elly and her cheerleader crew. 

I just knew that I wanted to go over to her and introduce myself. 

Of course, I didn't. 

How could I? Class was starting.

The morning was instead spent listening to Ms. Coombes drone on about... I have no idea, but I'm sure it was something academic and completely boring. I'm also sure I paid even less attention that morning than I usually did. 

I didn't spend the whole class thinking about her, of course. Honestly, I didn't!

I caught up to her during our lunch period and, when I did, I noticed two things right away. 

One was that her smile, which I'd noticed back at the lockers, didn't touch her eyes. Her eyes, those beautiful, impossible violet eyes, looked sad and a little lost.

The other thing I noticed was that she was softly humming a tune. A familiar tune...

"Banish Misfortune," I said as I sat down next to her. 

"What?" she asked, turning her polite smile and sad eyes to me.

"That song you're humming," I said. "It's called Banish Misfortune."

"I know," she said. 

"I'm Cassandra, by the way," I said, and with an inward sigh added, "Cassandra Goth."

The Goth name and legacy - wealthy, powerful and macabre - had hung around my neck like a weight for my entire life. I guess I wanted to get it out of the way. She didn't react to it, at all. It was as if she didn't know or care. 

"You're Gwen, right?" I continued.

"Yes, I suppose I am," she replied. "Hello, Cassandra."

"So... you like that song?" I asked, feeling totally lame.

"Hmm," Gwen answered. "I was learning to play it... before I came here. I hadn't quite gotten the middle down," she added humming a snatch of the tune. "Now, I don't have a violin to practice on."

"Oh, we have one in the music room," I said, smiling. "Come up, I'll show you. Maybe I can help you with the tune."

Of course, I immediately grabbed the violin and started playing. I told myself I was showing her how to play Banish Misfortune.

I was totally showing off.

I remember her smile as she watched me play. The false good cheer faded away, leaving a smile that was sad, and a little lonely, but also one that showed genuine pleasure in the music. My music.

I closed my eyes and played and played, trying to draw a little more hope into her sad smile.

I don't really know when Carmilla and Molly found us. I just remember suddenly hearing Carmilla's voice.

"If you want to hear real violin music, you should ask her to play Lament of the Nephilim, by Succubus," Carmilla insisted.

"I don't know that one," Gwen replied, sounding a little perplexed.

"Oh, Succubus is great. They're a local indie band," Molly explained as I played on. "Carmilla knows all the best indie bands and Cas can totally rock their music. Hi, I'm Molly and that's Carmilla and I guess you've met Cas and, of course, you're Gwen."

"Of course," Gwen said mildly.

I played until the bell rang for afternoon classes, alternating between traditional music and Carmilla's indie bands, while Carmilla and Molly chatted and a quietly bemused Gwen listened to us all.

Walking back to class, I found myself staring at Gwen. 

At the time, I didn't really know that I was attracted to girls. Carmilla was our little group's militant out lesbian. I was just... confused. I knew I was supposed to be attracted to boys, and I was in the kind of abstract way one is attracted to movie stars and guys in bands, but I hadn't dated anyone seriously, or even casually. I didn't really want to. 

Watching Gwen, with her long, almost silver-blonde hair and the way her willowy body swayed...

-------------

"Mom, we get it," Miranda interrupted. "You don't really need to go to detail about the first time you checked out Gwen's butt. Right?" She added, looking at Mariah for support.

"No, no... go ahead," Mariah replied. "Feel free to go into as much detail as you like."

"Mariah!" Miranda gasped.

--------------

Author's Note: Banish Misfortune is a traditional Irish jig. Lament of the Nephilim is something I completely made up because it sounded cool.

The Raven's Apprentice - Chapter 4

"This all sounds very familiar," Miranda mused.

"There are patterns woven into our lives," Gwen said. "Perhaps the gods do take a hand in shaping events, or perhaps I unconsciously set you on a path that mirrored my own... because, like you, I survived the destruction of my family by the Dark Court and, like you, I fled into the night and found my way to a hermit who would guide the next steps of my path..."

-------------------

The Bramblewood, just outside Henford-On-Bagley, 2000

My hermit was named Lucius Tempest, an old friend of our family who lived - and lives still - in a cottage above Old New Henford. He is a recluse, living alone save for his cat, and generally avoids getting involved with either the affairs of the Council or the mortal world.

My mother had always told me that, if ever I needed a safe place to go, I should go to Lucius.

So, it was to Lucius that I fled.

He took me in and, for a time, gave me a place to rest and to heal.

As I said, I had never before known grief or loss, and sudden they seemed to be all I knew. Almost all. Even in the depths of my despair, I felt an unaccustomed weight dragging me inexorably forward. I felt the turning of the days. 

The rising and setting of the sun outside my window were no longer unchanging. The days were not always golden and the nights not always perfect, but the stars still glittered and the sun still shone.

Lucius comforted me. 

"I've lost everything," I told him.

"Oh, my poor, dear girl," he said. "I know your pain... but, Gwenivar, you aren't alone. You have lost so much, but not everything."

"They're gone," I wept.

"No," he replied gently. "Their memory lives in you, and so long as it does their spirits endure. Death is not the end. There are no Endings. My poor child, you have only ever known Spring and Summer... Autumn follows Summer and Winter comes behind it, but then Spring comes again and Summer returns."

It must seem strange to you that I had no experience of this truth that every mortal child knows. Almost as strange as it was for me to experience it. Yet, I did find some comfort in it.

I don't know how long I stayed with Lucius. I had not yet learned to measure the passing of days. (I think Cassie and Miranda will both tell you I still don't have the knack of it.) Still, despite Lucius's declaration that there are no Endings, my time with him had to end.

We left his cottage, by means of a magic different from the magic I was used to, and traveled to a place... a Place Between.

"Gwenivar, I have to tell you something," Lucius said. "Your grandmother foresaw the coming of the Dark Court and feared that she and Ari might not survive it. So, she made plans to keep you safe. She charged me with seeing those plans through. I am taking you to someone who will protect you."

"Taking me? I don't understand. Mother said I should go to you." I was confused and angry. "Why can't I stay with you?"

"Because I cannot protect you so well," he replied.

"You are the greatest weather witch in the world!" I insisted, because it was - and is - the truth. "Grandmother always said you could be the Sage of Wild Magic, if you only had the ambition to challenge for it."

"Yes, and your grandmother's opinions about my lack of ambition are one of the chief reasons I stopped coming 'round to dinner," Lucius smiled ruefully. 

"Why can't you protect me?" I demanded.

"Gwenivar," he sighed. "I am a simple man, who lives alone with my cat on top of a mountain. It is only a matter of time before someone notices I have suddenly taken to boarding a mysterious young woman. From that, it is only a matter of time before word reaches the Dark Court that Lucius Tempest has taken in what can only be the last surviving Guardian of Glimmerbook Watch.

"They seem content, for now, to ignore you, (more fool them)," he continued, "but in you and me together they will see a threat that must be answered. I am a powerful witch, but it is a long time since I have been a warrior. My cottage is no fortress to withstand attack or siege. 

"Right now, your safety depends on secrecy, not strength... and your safety is all that matters to me. So, I am taking you to a place where you will be safe, and at the same time, a place where you will learn many things that you have not been taught but that you greatly need to know."

So, Lucius led me into the hidden path within the Tree, through mists and along a secret stream until we emerged into a sunlight that was as far from the golden sunlight of my youth as I had ever been. 

There he spoke the words that would forever seal these great changes to my life...

"Welcome, Gwenivar Silveroak, to Willow Creek."

The first words I said at this momentous change were less than grand.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No," he said. "No, this is Willow Creek."

"I can't stay here," I said, appalled. "This is the mortal world! It's loud and ugly and it smells! You must have made a mistake. Misunderstood grandmother's plan..."

"Come along," Lucius replied. I recall he smiled a little, amused at my horror, which did nothing to improve my mood at the time.

He took me to one of the houses just beside the Tree we had emerged from and introduced me to the mortal man who lived there, the man who was to be my foster father, Doug Brown. 

"Hello Gwen," Doug said to me. "Ari... your mother... and I were very close once."

My mother, you see, made a habit of visiting the mortal world. Her little vacations, Grandmother called them. Every twenty or thirty years, she would attend University (she had a number of degrees). I fairly quickly gathered that during her last "little vacation," she had met and had a dalliance with this Doug Brown.

"She asked me to look after you, if anything happened to her," Doug continued. "I... I can't tell you how sorry I am for your loss. We can never replace your family, but I hope, given time, you'll find a home here."

So, I found myself in a new home, with new people, in a strange world so very unlike my own.