The rest of the day was spent gaming in my room and occasionally being pelted with Cheetos. Sometime close to midnight there was a knock at the door. Seb, being the brave gentleman he is, answered. He came back shaking his head in confusion.
“Whoever it was didn’t wait around.” he signed before grabbing a handful of Cheetos and shoving them all in his mouth “Maybe it was Jehovah’s Witness, or a witch, or-”
The lights flicked out leaving the rest of the sentence lost in the darkness. Moving to find each other he found my handwriting out “What” on my palm.
I wrote “? “Before a crash at the kitchen window made me jump “ Kitchen, sound, go?”
Tensing he moved his hand to my shoulder and we went to the kitchen.
Looking around the dimly moon-lit room nothing was out of place. The clouds drifted across the sky momentarily blacking out the room. In a blinding flash, the lights came back on, and on the faucet sat a black raven.
“That’s the bird you saw last night?” Seb signed inching back.
“I Will let you know that bird has a name! You may refer to me as a master or oh great feathered lord of shadow.”
“The bird is thinking in my brain! How is the bird thinking in my brain!” Seb signed looking the way I feel.
“What do you want from me?” I signed, figuring it had understood Seb so it would understand me” If you want the ring you can have it. I don't want it to begin with.”
Cocking its head though? Maybe projected? “The ring is yours. He chose you. Jack, we need to start your training. The balance is off and more and more departed are left in the cold. Unable to move on not knowing who they are. Only vaguely remembering who they were.”
“What are you? Who is he? Why me?” I signed frantically noticing Seb reached slowly for the broom.
In a flash lightning broke the sky, Seb grabbed the broom swinging it down on the faucet as thunder growled like a very large very hungry wolf, and the raven swooped out of the window. Staring at the now broken window and the now broken broom I tried to make sense of what had just happened. “That was real right?” I finally signed, looking over Seb for cuts from the glass.
“I don’t know if it was real but it happened.” He signed numbly.
“ your face is bleeding everywhere. Leave it to the ears to be checking on the unharmed one when he’s hurt.”
“I didn’t feel it.” Everything came crashing in all at once. The fear, the pain, the confusion the bottle broke and I felt the stress, the exhaustion, the inadequacy, and self-hate. I started to cry, the tears mixing with the blood.
Face softening Seb picked up a hand towel blotting at my face. “There, it’s not bad. Maybe it'll leave a cool scar. Then you’ll be handsome and =” I didn’t recognize one of the signs. He took four fingers on his right hand splayed but slightly bent pushing them forward across his left palm before bringing both hands up towards his chest and making fists.
After that, the night ended quickly with both of us falling asleep on the couch to some cheesy rom-com.
