"Do you believe in magic?" Tat had asked me once.
It was a starry night after a successful day of filching and escaping the cops. We were on the roof of our favorite spot–the score-decker building on the East side of town still undergoing construction.
Tat laid on his back, his left hand propping his head and the other draped on his forehead. Whorls and swirls of black lines and drawings ran the length of his hands. He was just 15, a year older than me yet he had experienced so much. Each significant story of his life had a place in his body, told in ink against skin.
Most of these stories I knew, but those that ran into the hems of his clothes, were foreign to me. I had seen his chest once, when we had to dispose our clothes so that the cops wouldn't recognize us.
The length of his back and chest were inked with names, places, symbols and inscriptions. Each person, each place, each symbol and words were mementos of his past and present. A chapter in his life.
The newest one had been the one on his wrist, it read 'Aria'. Inked in cursive writing with two arrows crossed. It was the name of the last girl he was with, the girl who broke his heart and left him for a rich brat.
It might have been inked months ago, but he still ran his hands unconsciously on it from time to time. Just as he was doing before he asked me that question.
We had been laying in silence, the night breeze caressing our skin as we watched the stars. His question was sudden and it took me moments before I could answer.
"Don't be ridiculous, magic and fairytales are just ideas and concepts cooked up by the minds of the derailed. No offense, but only a fool would believe in something that unrealistic."
With his elbows propping him, he rose few inches from the blanket, gave me an incredulous look, then he shook his head and laughed. The sound carrying into the night.
I didn't care what he thought, my life had thought me that hope, wishes and magic were surreal. Some people may despise reality, but at least it's not as cruel as wanting and wishing for something only for it it to remain forever impossible and out of reach.
I pitied girls who believed there was a knight in shining armor who would save and give them their happy ending. Or people who believe in miracles and magic, they deserve a spank from life to remind them that those only happen in books.
Settling back on the blanket after minutes of laughing his heart out. He mused,
"Sometimes I forget how messed up you are. How the cruelty of your life had turned you, dark. Of course you wouldn't believe in all those things, but it's real. Magic is real. Wishes come true and hopes can be achieved. I was once like you, until I met Aria and she showed me that all these things are possible. She once said that magic comes from the stars and I think it's true. Why else would spheres of light just hang like that…"
" I really don't have time for this", I cut him off "all I wanted was to come here and relax a bit, not to be entertained with bullshit. For heavens sake, Aria is gone, she left you. The sooner you start realizing that, the better." I dusted myself and left not even bothering to give him a glance and see how hurt he was by my words.
That was a year and some months after I joined the gang after running away from the Sams. The truth was that, I loved him then. I ached for him and it hurts that most of the time when I was thinking about him, he was thinking about her.
Now, I don't know what else to qualify that thrum I felt when we drove past the 'Welcome to RavenHurst' sign. It felt like we drove through an invisible forcefield and I felt the power deep in my core.
Could it be magic? Could this place prove me wrong?
I glanced at Helen again to see if she also felt it, but she was busy trying to reach my supposed aunt. I looked back at the sign and nothing was amiss, just an old rusty billboard of a cartoon character welcoming people to the town.
I couldn't shake out that hum, like there was something beckoning to me. A song calling out for me. And the last thing I needed was a touch of weirdness to my already messed up life.
Tall trees and dark woods lined both sides of the road, and as I watched I saw something move. Something with golden eyes.
"Um… Helen I don't think this place will be good for me. Can we go back, put me in the foster house and I promise to be on my best behavior, please let's just go back" I pleaded.
A genuine look of surprise masked her face as she glanced at me. She has never seen me scared not even once all those times, she was called back to take me. But then again, she didn't just see what I saw and she couldn't sense the wrongness of this place.
Her eyes back on the road, she said," I'm really not going to fall for that. Surely you know me better than to. Whether you like it or not, which is still very early to tell, this is it. This is the last stop for both of us, so please don't go running off again because you won't be as lucky as the last time."
Wind whipped at me as I tried not to think of how I was supposed to be in juvie now if not for her. I guess I truly owed her and if staying put was my way of repaying, then I will have to stomach it all.
We drove past the woods into the town proper, passing a gas station and another stretch of trees then cafés, malls, bodegas, dealerships, firms, offices. We drove past them all and it seemed my fear was in the rear mirror and the song calling out to me had gone silent, as we drove into the residential area.
Italianate, gothic and colonial revival styled houses flanked on both sides as we drove on. It was a Saturday and residents were mowing the lawn, children were playing with sprinklers, a boy was playing catch with his dog, a mother was hanging clothes on the rope near her garden, a man sat on his porch reading the town's daily, everything was normal and I wondered why I was scared before.
I have been in neighborhoods that were far worse and RavenHurst looked nothing except ordinary.
Helen had gotten tired of calling Sarah and was relying on her navigation to get us to the house number my supposed aunt gave her.
At a point, she decided to stop and ask for directions the old-fashioned way. I sat in the car and watched her plaster that glowing smile she often used when dealing with guardians, parents and strays like me. I watched as she effortlessly got directions and gathered intel on the friendliness of the town. The woman she asked was beaming and waving even after we left, who knows what Helen told her.
We drove past more houses, most of them with a 'For sale' sign on the yard. Some looked decrepit and abandoned. My fear almost rose again, but then we rounded a block and there were people going about their activities like those abandoned houses weren't there or it didn't bother them.
I noticed something else about the town… unkindness. It was weird since ravens weren't social and always seen alone or in pairs. Seeing them in a group on rooftops, electric lines, lawns, croaking as we passed brought back my initial fear. It wasn't just odd, it was unheard of and like their collective name, it was… unkind.
I tried telling Helen about it, but she didn't find it weird instead she commended my efforts on trying to leave by making things up. She even joked on how I managed to make up something so smart about ravens when I've never liked going to school. But I didn't learn that from school, I got it from a TV show I used to watch with Collins. That was before the incident.
Despite my fear and how odd the ravens were, people still smiled and waved at us as we passed, Helen was so busy waving and smiling back when the bloody-ripped clothes boy ran out of the nearby bush straight into us.