Shadow Lives

Chapter 3

My paws race over the wet grass, zigzagging among the narrow trees. Freedom in my fur, the scent of green and nature in my nostrils. My way of freedom, my only freedom.

Tom may be a nice man who means well, but he remains a fearmonger. My ... condition is a closely guarded secret, and Tom does his best to keep it hidden from me and the rest of the world.

It used to be easier to keep it under control. Liza helped me restrain myself by locking the doors. My wrists bound to the edge of the bed. It was the only way, especially during full moons, to keep me in check.

As I grew older, it became harder to keep the beast in its cage. It's a force within me that always wants to fight its way to the surface, tearing through my skin. An endless itch that sometimes becomes too much, a fire that slowly breaks through.

There have been plenty of times when too much oxygen fueled that fire. I've often clawed my way out of class, destroyed toilets, and then vented my endless aggression on the first animal I could find.

Don't get me wrong, I understand Tom's choice. After attending four schools and being rejected from five jobs, I had no options left. People go mad when they know what I really am. There is magic in our world, I'm aware of that. But in this village, in Runcast at all, it's never spoken of. The hatred for magic users is great, and it's not a favorite topic of conversation. The lessons we get about it in school are minimal, and I can count the actual encounters I've had with magic users or other supernatural beings on one hand.

If anyone knows how much misunderstanding people have, it's me. I can thank Tom on my bare knees for taking me in when I was four. The moment the beast tried to force its way out was the moment the people who once dared to call themselves my parents began to distance themselves from their own child.

Mandy and Mitchell clearly didn't know what to do with a daughter who transformed into a feline at night. Their way of dealing with it was to lock their four-year-old daughter in her room. Not like angry parents do for an hour. No, it was seven full months. I was there with my outdated children's books, a wooden window frame, and a window overlooking a busy city where I didn't fit.

They managed to keep me locked in that room for months. Terrified, they slid my food through the gap in the door before locking it again. Mitchell sometimes found the courage to come into the room for a few minutes to ask how it was going. A question to which he received a simple "mmm."

On the night of the notorious full moon, the two fools decided it was the right time to have a discussion about the current state of affairs with their daughter. It was not a good time. Mitchell will not forget that night soon due to the scratches on his arms and face. Mandy screamed and fled the room, to a destination I still don't know.

The next evening, the limit was reached. When I heard the two shouting downstairs that they'd better send me to a convent, I knew I had to leave. Using the only chair my narrow bedroom possessed, I broke the window through which I had so often stared at the view. I jumped out the window, ran, and eventually ended up with Tom and Liza.

Was the single farmer expecting a four-year-old child alongside his own five-year-old daughter? No, absolutely not. When the man found me soaked from the rain in that infamous tree late at night, he took me in out of pity. I was given a cup of tea, a piece of bread, and dry clothes. What was supposed to be a one-night stay resulted in a second daughter.

Liza and I became instant friends. As if we had always been sisters. The single father simply couldn't bring himself to take that away from his daughter. He tried when my true nature became apparent; Liza just wouldn't allow it.

A lingering fear has always remained with Tom, and more often than not, he doesn't know what to do with me. He does his best, that's what matters. It's something Mandy and Mitchell never did, both before and after my departure. People are simply shocked by something they don't understand.

Unlike people, I'm more scared of a large black raven, literally. As soon as the black creature flies precisely overhead, I lose my balance, fall into the grass, and roll on my back from side to side.

Dazed, I stay in the grass. There are few ravens here due to the temperate climate. It's never really cold or warm, usually damp. Perfect for crops, bad for everything else.

As quickly as my body found the grass, I'm back on my paws. In my fall, I lost my dress a few meters away, now dirty and wet. Dazed, I look around, expecting the raven to have already announced its departure.

To my surprise, the large black bird appears in the tree to my right. The leaves are just beginning to come out on the branches, leaving a large part of the brown-green tree bare. It doesn't seem to bother the raven, though. Its black wings are pressed tightly to its body as the creature looks at me with its bead-like eyes.

I haven't seen many ravens in my life, but I can say with certainty that this is the largest I've encountered. The pitch-black wings don't release their span in this position, although they're clearly larger than the average crow. Its talons dig into the tree bark like knives, slicing through the surface.

The arrogant creature looks at me as if it expects something from me. If it wants it, it can have it.

I dig my paws deeper into the ground, let my tail slide a few times over the grass, and push my hips back slightly. The raven turns its head questioningly to the right just before I turn away from the damp ground. My claws grip the bark of the tree as I bite my jaws towards the raven.

The creature takes off from the branch, oddly enough in a controlled manner. With a wingspan of two meters, it flaps its wings through the air and keeps a meter away from me. The bird shows no fear, no discomfort. As if it can think, reason, and distinguish danger on a human level.

It also doesn't seem inclined to help as my claws slowly lose their grip on the bark. I try to dig my claws higher into the tree to leap to the branch, but the raven has other plans. The creature lands shamelessly a few inches from my head, and before I can bite in its direction again, it pecks firmly at my left paw.

Automatically, I pull my paws away immediately. Unfortunately, I seem to forget that I was hanging in the bark of a towering tree at that moment. I stand no chance before I'm back on my back in the grass. This time, I let myself stay longer in the grass. I could swear I hear the raven laughing from that branch, but then in my head.

Slowly, I turn my head towards the raven and show it my razor-sharp fangs. In response, I get a shrill caw and a single flap of its wings.

I've determined with this encounter that I'm not fond of birds when I can't eat them. Ravens seem like those alpha males. Blood irritating, arrogant, but in the end, it's mostly a lot of screeching.