Episode One: Raven

If you lie quietly in bed in the very early morning, in the half-light before time begins, and listen carefully, the language of crows is easy to understand. "Here I am." That's really all there is to say and we say it again and again.
--Louis Jenkins

Raven made a fresh pot of tea, absently tapping the corner of the envelope on the kitchen counter. She was patient, yet curious. The thin envelope was addressed to Dr. Aveline Otis, a name she hadn’t used in years.

Tea steeped, she sat on the purple couch in the corner of the cabin and slit open the envelope. The letter was short and she read it twice before she set it aside and took a sip from the delicate cup.

Father’s birth mother. Elderly. Dying wish.

She knew nothing of her biological grandmother. Her father’s failed search for answers had pushed him away from his wife and child and into the uneasy arms of abstract art and alcohol. And then death.

She washed her teacup and prepared a checklist. She would need a sitter for the dogs, the chickens and the garden. It wasn’t a good time; it never was. Still, she didn’t hesitate. The letter was urgent. If she didn’t take this opportunity now, it was clear that there would not be another.

Raven was in her early forties. Seven years ago, breast cancer had forced her to reassess the long hours, the stress and the emotional toll of her successful hematology practice. When her cancer was safely in remission, she had moved north, to three acres on Moresby Island, a land of primordial rainforest and Haida legends.

She had felt like a ghost, chemo-thin with soft white hair just starting to curl around her ears. It was the old man at the market who first referred to her as White Raven. He would shield his face with his hand and squint, as if she were too bright to look at directly.

“White Raven is the Wonder Worker,” he said finally, without irony. “The white raven is not our Trickster, but means creation and survival. I see you have survived.”

When the long summer days drew people outside to gardens and beaches and farm stands, she introduced herself as Raven and her neighbors accepted it without question. She had been reborn and given wings.

Now she hoped she would get the chance to learn more about her roots. Her true roots, not the false stories that had been fed to her father by the woman who raised him. Not the lies.

Raven’s first clue was the letter from Camille Browne, attorney with Pearman and Browne, LLC. Ms. Browne wrote of her client, Raven’s grandmother, with obvious respect and affection. This was no crazy old lady, but a woman of substance. A woman with the power to find her granddaughter in the far-off land of mist and call her home.

Thankful that yesterday had been laundry day, Raven packed for her journey.


Look for Episode Two on Sunday, July 5.