Never Look Back

“Why did you do this to me?” he asked, sending her into a tailspin.

Heaven help her. Not only could he talk, his voice was strong and masculine, the words articulated deep in his throat. But his tone was raspy, too, as though he hadn’t spoken in a very long time, as though he’d been trying to remember how to form the words, how to accuse her of something treacherous.

She winced. “Do what?”

“This.” He indicated his wings.

“I painted an angel for protection.”

“I’m not an angel.”

She curled her toes. She wasn’t wearing slippers, and her feet were cold, chilled by the linoleum. “You’re supposed to be.”

“But I’m not.”

“Then who are you?” she asked. “Where did you come from?”

He didn’t answer. Her question teetered, like a book that was about to fall. Allie grumbled beneath her breath. They’d only exchanged a few brief words, yet they’d reached a standstill, caught in a challenging moment. He was wary of her, and she was frustrated with him.

He rounded on her. “Why do you need protection? Why do you seek an angel?”

She took a defensive stance. Her toes were no longer curled. “Because my great-grandmother is a soul-stealing witch, and after the spell that binds her magic wears off, she’s going to come after me. She already tried to lure my sister. It’s only logical that I’m next. I thought painting an angel might help.” She held up her hands, raising them toward the ceiling. “Angels hail from the Creator.”

“Usen,” he said, referring to the Apache God. “I prayed to Him when a witch took part of my soul. But it was too late. It happened too fast.” His eyes turned darker, deeper. “I think—I fear—that your great-grandmother is the witch who cursed me. Why else would I be here? Like this?” He swished his wings, creating a gusty breeze. “Your power must be connected to hers.”

She blinked, stunned by his words, by his revelation. “You’re him? The man Zinna claimed to love? The man she punished for not returning her affection?”

He nodded, and thunder cracked in the sky.

Overwhelmed, she reached out to touch him, but he stepped back, away from her. She needed to convince him that she could be trusted, that her magic was good. “It never occurred to me that you were him. That I’d painted…” She turned to look at the watercolor, then shifted her gaze back to him. “I didn’t know it was you. I heard about you from my sister. Zinna told her there was a man she’d cursed. But the details were vague.” She paused, recalling the conversation she’d had with Olivia. “I wanted to save you, but my sister said that you would be dead by now. But you’re not a spirit. You’re not like Zinna. You’re alive.”

“I have lived a long time.”

“That was your curse?”

“Part of it.” His voice echoed in the vast, damp room, making a hollow, distant sound. “There is more. A darkness that awaits.”

“Will you tell me about it?” She walked to the window and closed it, shutting out the storm, dodging the water on the floor.

“Yes. But first you should know my name.” He paused. “I’m called Raven.”

Like the bird he’d become, she thought. She suspected that was another aspect of his damnation, something her great-grandmother had done to him. “And what about your life before you shape-shifted? Will you tell me about that, too?”

“Yes. But where to do I start? There is so much that has happened.”

“You can begin with your childhood.”

“My early life was happy,” he told her. “But when I was ten, I was separated from my parents. Soon after Geronimo surrendered, the Chiricahua Apache became prisoners of war. They were removed from their reservations in the Southwest, even those who hadn’t made war with the government.” He paused. “The adults were sent to a reservation or to a prison in Florida.”

Allie knew bits and pieces of Chiricahua history, but not enough to connect her with that side of her heritage. “What happened to the children?”

“The older ones, like me, were shipped to a boarding school in Pennsylvania. They cut my hair and outfitted me with a uniform.” He stopped to touch his shirt, as though picturing himself as a child. “It was dark blue, decorated with red braid on the shoulder, similar to a military uniform.”

She waited for him to continue. He did, after he took a laden breath.

“Students were forbidden to speak their native languages. We had to learn English, to read and write. To memorize Bible verses. They forced us to say the Lord’s Prayer.” He made a troubled face. “But the environment wasn’t merciful. I was punished many times.”

Her heart went out to him. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t like being told that the Indian way of life was inferior and that only ‘bad’ Indians retained their culture. I didn’t understand how this could be so if the white man’s God had created all men equal.”

Allie believed in Christianity. But she followed Native ways, too. Her father had practiced two faiths. But not her mother. Yvonne had feigned a disinterest in religion, in the battle between good and evil, when all along, she’d been a witch.

“The Chiricahua adults didn’t stay in Florida for very long,” he said. “They were relocated to Alabama, where many of them died.”

“From illnesses?”

He nodded. “But my parents didn’t take ill.”

“They survived?”

“My mother did. My father shot himself. Other warriors did this, too. They couldn’t cope with captivity.”

Stunned, Allie fell silent. Raven’s father had committed suicide. Like her father.

“I was in the boarding school when it happened.” He frowned, his eyes reflecting his pain. “I was hundreds of miles away from my grieving mother.”

“I’m sorry.” She wanted to touch him, to hold him, but he was still keeping his distance.

He kept talking, telling his story. “The Chiricahua prisoners spent five years in Alabama, then they were sent to Fort Sill, a military reservation in Oklahoma.”

“Is that where you lived after you finished boarding school? Is that where my great-grandmother cursed you?”

“Yes,” he said, and began to describe the night Zinna had destroyed his life.

Alone, with dusk coloring the sky, Raven stood in a watermelon field, his boots hard and heavy on the ground. He glanced at the carefully cultivated rows. The planting had just begun, and this was his favorite time of year.

He stopped to breathe in the spring air. At Fort Sill, the government had built houses for the Apache and put them to work, farming and raising cattle. But this wasn’t new to Raven. Farming was in his blood. His family had always grown their own food, even before the government had dictated their lives.

He knelt to touch a seedling. He had lived at Fort Sill since he was eighteen. He was thirty now, and he remained a prisoner of war, a man who barely remembered what it was like to be free.

He stood up, leaving the seedling to fare on its own. Some of the white men Raven had encountered over the years were cruel. But some were kind. He didn’t hate them. He had learned to live in their world. But even so, he had begun to wear his hair long again. It was his rebellion, his way of taking back what had been stolen from him.

The brightest spot in his life was Vanessa. She was his Apache wife, a small-boned woman with sun-warmed skin, long eyelashes and a teasing smile. He loved her with his entire heart. They had been married for eleven years, but they had no children. It was their greatest pain, their biggest disappointment. Someday they hoped Usen would bless them with sons and daughters.

He gazed at the sky. Darkness was beginning to fall. It was time for him to return to his house, to eat the meal Vanessa would have waiting for him. She never scolded him for working late, for remaining in the field after dusk, even though she worried that it was dangerous.

Because of the witch.

The one who had vowed to destroy him.

He took a familiar path with scattered trees. He walked with a strong, steady step. It was bad enough being under military custody. He wouldn’t allow a dead witch to control him, too.

Zinna had died several months ago. She had contracted an illness that had gone untreated. There was not a shaman among the Chiricahua who had been willing to heal her. Everyone knew she was a witch. She had been feared, and shunned, among the people.

He kept walking. By now, the moon was half full, creating diffused light and casting shadows. He stepped on a twig that snapped beneath his foot, but he didn’t flinch.

Not until a small voice stopped him. “Raven.”

He spun around and saw a young girl. She held a lighted candle, and the flame illuminated her face. She was a haunting child, strangely pretty, with hollow cheeks and hair that coiled around her shoulders. He recognized her as Zinna’s nine-year-old daughter, Sorrel.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Home,” he said.

“To your wife?”

“Yes.”

“To fornicate with her?”

Stunned, he could only stare. Children were supposed to be innocent, yet this one was rude and abrasive.

“My mother wanted to fornicate with you,” she said. “It was you she craved, not my father.”

Raven didn’t respond. Zinna’s love spells hadn’t worked on him. So she’d bewitched Sorrel’s father instead.

“Do you know what Mother did to get her revenge?” A wicked smile twisted Sorrel’s lips. “She stopped you from having children. She hexed your wedding night and made your wife barren.”

The pain, the horror of her words, clenched his stomach. He’d heard of ceremonies that made women sterile. But they weren’t witchcraft ceremonies. Some women chose to do them because they didn’t want children.

But Vanessa wanted babies, and he’d never associated her inability to conceive with any kind of ceremony, least of all witchcraft.

He narrowed his gaze at Zinna’s offspring. She was still smiling, still reveling in her mother’s deed. He wanted to crush this young girl, to stomp her to the ground.

“Go home,” he spat. “Get away from me.”

She laughed at his ire, enjoying her devious game.

He turned his back on her, then resumed walking. She persisted, following him, skipping along the way, making his blood run cold.

An owl hooted, and Sorrel dogged his heels. “Listen, Raven. Do you hear that? Mother is talking to me.”

He increased his pace. He didn’t doubt her claim. When a witch died, he or she became an owl.

The bird hooted again, its voice terrorizing the night.

Zinna’s daughter gloated. “Mother says she is going to destroy you.”

“She vowed to do that a long time ago.”

“And now she has the power to make good on her promise. She is stronger in death than she was in life.”

“I don’t care.” But he did. Deep down, he was afraid, especially when the moon slipped behind a tree and everything went black. He could no longer see the path in front of him.

He nearly stumbled on something beneath his boot. And when he looked up, Sorrel stood in front of him, holding the candle.

On her shoulder was an owl.

Zinna.

Sorrel smiled and nuzzled the feathers that tufted around the creature’s foot.

Mother and daughter.

Raven tried to run, but he couldn’t move. His limbs had been paralyzed. Was this what the Chiricahua called ghost sickness? Was this the first symptom?

He stood like a scarecrow, and the owl’s yellow eyes burned into him.

“Mother is going to curse you.” Sorrel unbuttoned his shirt, then reached up and grabbed the amulet he wore, snapping the leather thong that held it in place. The necklace, a flat stone with an engraving of a raven, had been a gift from his wife. She’d given it to him for protection. And now Zinna’s daughter had it.

He knew he was doomed. He should have heeded Vanessa’s warning about walking alone after the sun went down. But it was too late.

The witch was winning. She flew at him and her body grew bigger, expanding right before his eyes. Soon she was a human-size owl. A monster that was nearly as tall as he was.

She clawed his chest with her talons, leaving scars, making him bleed. He could feel her poisoning his veins, drawing energy from him.

“Mother is taking part of your soul,” the child said. “But you won’t die. Not for a hundred years.” She closed her fist around the amulet. “You will live as a raven. A bird that flies through the century in a timeless battle.” She paused for effect. “And then the day will come when Mother will take the rest of your soul.”

He tried to speak, but his voice was trapped, silenced in the wind. He watched the flame on the candle flicker.

Sorrel continued. “That day will be more painful than you can imagine. You will die an excruciating death.”

And Zinna would torture his soul for all eternity, he thought.

He wanted to lash out at her, to tear her apart, to rip the feathers from her body. But he was still paralyzed, unable to move, to defend himself.

So he prayed in his mind, asking Usen to help him. But he had already been cursed. He fell to the ground.

Sorrel stood over him with the necklace. “This is mine now. It belongs to me.”

He glanced up at the amulet and saw colors swirling inside it, making the etching glow. Sorrel tipped the necklace, spilling the colors onto the ground, grinding them with her foot. He knew she had just stepped on the missing part of his soul.

He closed his eyes, and suddenly he was a raven, soaring through the sky.

He tried to fly in the direction of his home, to stay near his wife, to look after her, but his wings forced him in the opposite direction, away from Fort Sill, from the Chiricahua. Being alone, missing the people he loved, was part of his fate, the isolation thrust upon him.

And as everything familiar disappeared from view, he heard the laughter of a child.

Then the dark, deathly screech of an owl.

Allie’s heart filled with shame. What Zinna and Sorrel did to Raven only reinforced the viciousness that marred her ancestry.

But it told another tale, too.

“I think the curse can be broken,” she said.

Raven blinked at her. They still stood in the studio, with rain beating on the roof and a puddle of water on the floor. “Why would you say that?”

She gestured to the painting, to the image she’d created of him. “Because a portion of it has already been broken. You’re human once again. And you’re not paralyzed. You can walk and talk. The ghost sickness is gone.”

“Half of my soul is still missing.” He put his hand against his chest. “I can feel it.” He paused to frown at the portrait. “And I am not completely human. I still have wings.”

“You only have them because I painted you that way.”

He spread the wings in question and they opened like enormous fans, as dark and compelling as the expectancy in his eyes. “Can you unpaint them? Can you make them disappear?”

“I can try. But I’ll need some time to prepare.” To get in the right frame of mind, she thought. To stop thinking of him as an angel.

“What about the rest of the curse? How do I get my soul back?”

“I’m not totally sure, but it seems possible that if someone in Zinna’s family—someone who practices positive magic—returned the necklace to you, it could become a talisman, drawing your soul back and breaking the rest of the curse.”

“Are you offering to do this?”

“Yes.” Her pulse jumped in anticipation. “How many years has it been? Is it closing in on a hundred?”

“In another month, it will be so.” He took a step in her direction. “How will you retrieve the necklace after all this time?”

“I’ll delve deeper into my ancestry, into the witch realm. Sorrel took the amulet from you, and she was my grandmother. She’s dead now, but I’ll track her life, her old belongings.”

“Did you know her when she was alive?”

Allie shook her head. “She died before I was born. But my mother spoke of her from time to time.”

“Does your mother still live?” he asked.

“Yes.” A shiver shot through her veins. “She’s in prison. For three counts of murder,” she added, her stomach clenching. “I’ll have to visit her.”

“And this will be difficult for you?”

“Emotionally, yes. Technically, no. When she first went to prison, she mailed my sister and me the visitor’s forms. I wanted to throw them away, but Olivia said we should fill them out and send them in.”

“Olivia is your sister?”

“Yes. She’s psychic, and she had a premonition that one of us would have to see our mom. She didn’t know exactly why. Sometimes Olivia doesn’t get clear-cut visions or feelings. Sometimes it’s only snippets of information. Things that don’t seem to make sense at the time.” She shifted her stance. “We both hate our mom.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Then why did your mother send the forms?”

“That’s what prisoners are supposed to do if they want someone to visit them. But we knew she’d done it to be snide. To remind us that no matter what, we were still her daughters. Still related to her by blood.”

“To a killer?”

“Yes.”

Raven didn’t say anything else, and his silence was deafening.

She noticed his hair was still dripping with rain, and his clothes remained slightly damp. She reached for a towel, taking it from a nearby shelf. She always kept a supply of linens in the studio.

He dried off and returned the towel to her. She clutched it for a moment, then draped it over an empty easel. “Why don’t we go into the living room? It’s cold in here.” She walked toward the door. “I can fix some tea. And I can tell you about this century.”

He followed her. “I am already familiar with the way the world is now. I have watched it change. I know of its progress.”

Of course, she thought. He’d seen it through the eyes of a raven. She walked into the hall and waited for him, but he couldn’t get through the door.

His wings were stuck.

He struggled in the narrow opening, turning his shoulders, trying to force his way through.

Finally, he made it into the hallway, but the impact of his effort propelled him a bit too far and he bumped straight into Allie, nearly knocking her off her feet.

She teetered, flailing for support. He reached out to help and caught her arms.

And then they looked at each other.

Depth. Warmth. A skin-tingling sensation.

He brushed the bandage under her sleeve. “Is this covering the wound I gave you?”

“Yes.” She swayed a little. His face was only inches from hers. “What’s it like being a raven?”

“Confusing. When I’m in that form, I have the comprehension of a man, but I react like a bird.” He continued to hold her arm. “I didn’t mean to bite you. To hurt you that way.”

“It’s okay. It was instinct.” A conflict of nature, she thought. “I should make that tea.”

“Are you still cold?” He hadn’t released her.

She took a lust-driven breath. “No.”

“Nor am I.” He glanced at the front of her nightgown, at the flutter of feminine lace. A second later, he shook his head and stepped back. “I miss my wife.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” He’d been married to a woman that he’d desperately loved. That he hadn’t forgotten, not even a century later. And here she’d been worried about the bird having a mate. How ironic was that?

They walked into the living room and Samantha darted into a corner to hide.

Raven ignored the wary cat and studied his surroundings, taking a special interest in the mural that covered the wall. He even reached out to touch the dragon.

Curious, Allie watched him.

“In the beginning, the world was covered with darkness,” he said. “The night had no moon or stars. But there were birds and beasts. One of the beasts was a dragon.” He ran a finger down its scales. “Like this. The coating on its skin came in four layers.”

“I wasn’t aware that dragons existed in Apache myths.”

“You were not taught our creation story?”

“No. I’m only half Chiricahua.”

“The witch half,” he said.

“Yes.” Her chest turned tight. “What happened to the dragon? Did anyone ever slay him?”

He nodded. “A young boy whose name was Apache. He shot the dragon four times. The fourth piercing exposed the beast’s heart and killed him. After that, Usen taught the boy how to gather herbs and how to hunt and fight. He became the first chief of our people.”

“Then maybe this is him.” Allie gestured to the knight in the mural. “Maybe I painted him without knowing it.”

“Like you did with me.” Raven made a thought-provoking expression. “You’re a shaman.”

“No, I’m not.” She resisted the urge to step back, to move away from him. “I don’t conduct ceremonies.”

“Your paintings are your ceremonies.”

“But I don’t cure the sick. I was involved in a healing once, but the main source of power didn’t come from me.”

“Not all Apache shamans heal. Some are bringers of rain. Some have medicine over snakes. Others can shoot guns without touching the trigger.”

“And I give men wings?” She pointed to the television, then smiled a little. “There’s an energy drink on TV that claims to do that.”

He smiled, too. The transformation made him look even more handsome. “I know about those entertainment boxes. I have watched them in store windows.”

And he came from the era where moving pictures were invented. “You fascinate me. The man and the raven.”

“You do that to me, as well. The woman and her paintings.”

Another intimate moment passed between them, and she told herself this wasn’t as strange as it seemed. That it was fate. Part of her destiny. Something that was meant to happen.

“I’ll get our tea.” She started for the kitchen, then stopped, turning back to look at him. He’d clarified her confusion about her power. He’d called her artwork ceremonies, associating it with shamanism.

Giving her magic new meaning.

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