Raven comes calling

She was awoken by the sound of a Raven croaking in the cedar above her yurt. Bri rolled over, stretched. She had been dreaming about a raven. Her right arm had been covered in pasta sauce, and blackened to the shoulder, and a raven had been plucking out its feathers and covering her arm in them. Weird, it was so vivid.

She was just changing out of her Pajamas when there was a knock at the door. Weird again, she hadn’t heard the clop of Sylvan’s hooves.

“Just a moment!” she called to the closed door and struggled quickly into her dirty jeans from the day before, threw on a t-shirt, and still sockless opened the door.

Raven stood there. He was dressed in black again - black designer jeans, glossy black leather boots, polished to shine. A black button up shirt and vest, obviously freshly ironed. He had sunglasses perched on top of his head, almost hidden among the shiny gloss of his styled hair. A gold watch sparkled on his wrist as he pulled a bouquet of roses from behind his back and deposited them in her astonished arms.

“Brianna!  I’m so glad I got the right place. May I come in?”
“I,”
“Thank you,” he strolled past her, gracefully stepping around the puddle of Pajamas on the floor, and over the crumpled paper and dirty dishes around her bed - fluidly, making her bed, and then settling comfortably on top of it.

It was only then, with Raven sitting on her bed, and Bri standing, still in the doorway with an armful of roses, that her brain unstuck. Before it had been caught in shock - This isn’t real - but now it registered that it was real, and she had to do something.

“Ah, thanks for coming,” she finally got out.
“It is my pleasure.”
“Did you have to walk far?”
“Not so far as the raven flies,” he said and winked at her, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why. It just made her more uncomfortable.

“I’m, auh, sorry” - she said gesturing at herself, at her room - “I just got up.”
“Oh! It is I who must then apologize. Tell me, have you eaten?”
“Aum, no.”
“I brought these for my lunch,” Raven said, pulling out a lunchbox that Bri was sure she hadn’t seen him bring in, “But I think they would make a lovely breakfast. Do you like Oysters?”
“I, ah, don’t know?”
“Please then,” he pulled out a tinfoil parcel. Unrolled it on his lap, and gestured her to join him. She came over, remembered the roses, still in her arms and deposited them on the far end of the bed, before sitting as far as she could from him. Sitting made her remember to breath.

He plopped the oysters in her lap. They were still warm, and she gently unwrapped them and found garlic bread too. She could smell both in the steam that gently curled up around her.

“. . . Thank you,” she said in wonder.

He flopped down sideways, suddenly ending up behind her with his head poking under her arm. She turned astonished to just see his sideways head poking around her. “Butter?” He asked, holding a little metal cup of melted butter like a waiter and she had to giggle. It came out of her in a rush, and her stomach, which had been knotted since seeing him there relaxed half a breath.

She took it. “Thanks.” Then “Thank you” after she’d chewed and swallowed her first oyster.
She still sat awkwardly - not wanting to lean back into him, but not daring to sit further away either.

“I think your belly says thank you too,” he said, pretending to listen “- But it is so tense!” He leaned his head closer, “Here,” he said kissing her softly on the side, once, twice, three times. “Maybe this will help it relax.”
It didn’t.

“I, ah, you - why did you come?” She gasped, grasping for anything to float on.
“I was invited.” He said, and grinned a full grin that glittered and melted her all away.
“You were?” She said dumbly.
“Well - I took it as an invitation - you did give me your address after all, though I suppose you might have intended that it be used to write old fashioned letters as delivered by escargot.”
“I - what?”
“Never mind - it’s not important.”

They paused, and Bri found herself incredibly aware of Raven’s breath on the section of her sternum her t-shirt didn’t cover. She reached and pulled it down.

“I did mean for you to come,” she blurted out. Just sometime when I was dressed in a magnificent ballgown with my hair all done up. She had not been thinking clearly that night.
“And for this, I am grateful. I am only sorry I could not visit earlier, but the life of a raven is alas, a very busy one - eating roadkill, mobbing Sasquatches, flirting with the lady ravens - always so much to do.”
She giggled again. There was an odd duality to him - so serious and sincere, that when he turned silly she couldn’t always tell.
“It’s okay,” she told him, “We’ve been busy too.”
“And how does the never common Brianna spend her waking hours?”
“I auh . . .” I’m a maid. You probably employ dozens of girls like me. “This and that.” She stopped, that sounded stupid. “I’m still exploring the neighborhood.” She added a little too fast.
“Oh and it is a lovely neighborhood. Full of secrets and surprises - like an easter egg hunt for the uninitiated.”
She half turned, could he mean the magic? But no, that didn’t make sense. It was like Sylvan was always telling her, she saw magic everywhere, even where it wasn’t. “I like Easter eggs too,” she said.
He let out a little huff of air that could only mean he was tired of her and about to leave, and then spoke into the silence.
“Would you like some wine?”
She looked back at him incredulously. “You brought wine with your lunch?”
“Well yes,” he said as if it was obvious. “What do you usually drink with your oysters?”
“I’ve never -”
“Oh but of course, my apologies - let me introduce you to the finest Chablis Grand Cru to wash your oysters down.” He sat up and pulled two wine glasses and a full bottle from his lunchbox. With a flourish he smoothly uncorked it and poured just short of the brim - handing her the glass. His finger brushed hers in the passing, and her hand jerked, splashing wine on her t-shirt. He immediately had a napkin in his hand to help her mop up, that she snatched out of his hands before he could bend in. Then in one compulsive gulp she downed the wine and held out her glass again.

He looked at it, shrugged, and poured for her again before pouring half a glass for himself. “This is one of my favorite vintages - isn’t it exquisite?” He cooed, and she paused to pretend to taste it before letting the second glass slide down her throat. It did actually taste good, but more importantly she could feel her body starting to relax. “It is good,” she said with a little more confidence. “I like the grape flavor.” - Okay, still stupid. She held up her glass and he poured a the remainder for her, which she sipped. She was beginning to feel light headed.

“It is my pleasure that you enjoy it so much,” Raven said, smiling his glittering smile. “You must not enjoy wine very often?”
“Oh I used to steal it all the time,” Bri said, then stopped abruptly realizing what she had said, but Raven was chortling and she was encouraged to continue. “It was at my, auh, second set of foster parents. I was thirteen then. I’m good at making friends, it’s about finding the people who need friends. The outcasts. . . “ She stopped to gauge his reaction, he was leaning forward all ears. “Go on, go on.” He gestured.
“Anyway, this time I fell in with a group who really liked drinking. They taught me how to steal from convenience stores. That was before they allowed hard liquor in grocery stores, so we’d take turns chatting up the cashier while the others would steal as much wine as we could fit under our coats. We had all the camera angles down. They never caught us.”

Raven was chuckling. “So this wine must not taste that sweet - it doesn’t have that pilfered palate. I’ll have to steal some for you next time.”
She laughed at that, this immaculately dressed man stealing anything. If they caught him they’d probably apologize and he’d walk out unscathed.
“Were you ever caught?” He asked.
“Never with that group, but it wasn’t long before I moved again. With the next group it was me who was teaching other kids how to steal - and I got us caught more than once.” She glanced across at him sidelong to gauge this, but he seemed intrigued rather than disgusted.

“And what would happen then?”
“Oh you know - sometimes you could play innocent, promise never to do it again, make big puppy eyes and the security guard would let you off with a warning. Other times they’d call the cops and we’d be put in Juvie. Never for very long - they’re really just trying to scare you in there more than anything else.”
“And were you scared?”
“Nah - in some ways they treated me better than most foster parents did. In jail they don’t expect you to be grateful for putting a roof over your head.”

She glanced over at Raven and this time saw pity in his eyes. She went on in a rush. “It’s not like I didn’t deserve it. I was an awful kid. Disobedient, useless, stupid, willful, angry - I missed more days of school than I attended. They weren’t wrong that I should have been grateful but I wasn’t.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t the case,” said Raven smoothly giving her a look that implied he knew more about her life than she did. Anger started to stir a little.
“I ran away six times, starting when I was ten. I made it two months before they caught me that first time. I set up a lemonade stand in the middle of the city and played it up and made more money than I do now.”
Raven laughed. “What a little rascal! How did they catch you?”
“I was basically living off candy and sleeping outside. I got really sick and someone found me and they tracked down my parents. They didn’t want me anymore, so I was passed on to my third set. The ones who were prepared for a runaway.”

She stopped, closed her mouth, aware then that she was making a fool of herself. The wine might relax her, but it didn’t help her lie - and Raven would never be attracted to her truth. Now she had to play up the punky street kid, the one she had put aside at seventeen when the last trip to jail HAD scared her.

Raven was still looking at her expectantly. “Um, what was your childhood like?” She asked.
Raven blinked at her, and laughed and ruffled his black coat in an almost birdlike way. “I’m not convinced I’m out of my childhood. I still feel like I child. I don’t have to work. I can fly wherever I want and do as I please. Aren’t I a child?”
“No, like, when you were younger!”
“But that’s what I’m saying - when I was younger it was so much like this as to be almost indistinguishable. I don’t mean to be difficult, that’s just the way of it.”

“I, okay.” She remembered the Oysters in her lap and began to eat one - slightly colder now, but no less amazing.
“You must be proud of yourself for making it this far,” Raven said softly. She turned and saw him looking at her again, and again there was the pity.
“So many children have it worse than me,” she protested.

“And most children have it better.”
“Yeah?! That’s okay. We all take what we’re given and live with it. I haven’t done anything amazing. In all my life I haven’t done a single noteworthy thing. We don’t get prizes for just living.”
“I’m sure you’ve done amazing things,” Raven protested.
“Oh?! You know my life that much better than I do, do you?”
He met her eyes with his grey ones. “Yes, I think I see you a lot better than you do.”
Bri couldn’t help herself. “You arrogant b*****d. You waltz in here with your rich a*s clothes without any warning and - and feed me oysters - and talk to me all high and sophisticated - and you don’t think I know what game you’re playing? What men like you do with women like me?”

“What do men like me do with women like you Brianna?” He asked, eyes still meeting hers, grey, grey as storm clouds. She licked her lips.
“. . . They kiss them. . . ” She said it so softly she didn’t think he could hear, but then he was kissing her, and his arms were around her, and she put both hands in his amazing hair and held on for dear life. In his arms she felt suddenly that they were dancing. Lips became legs in some foreign ballroom. She could feel a muslin gown on her skin as he spun her to some tune that grew louder in her head. She could see the lights arching overhead and feel his body pressed to hers. She was so lost in his lips, in this dream he took her into, that she didn’t hear the hooves clopping up the front porch, the soft knock at the door, the turning of the latch, the soft inquiry “Bri? Are you awake?”

She did hear the “Oh.” Then “Sorry.” Then the door close again.