In the woods,
by the river,
at the edge of the faerie realm,
a raven hid from Death.
The raven called himself Lucky-I-Ain’t. None of his friends did, however, because he didn’t have friends. Back then, you see, it was bad luck to pal around with a Death Raven.
Which, for Lucky, was just a symptom of the real problem, being of course the fact that he’d never actually asked to be a Death Raven. No, no. He’d been chosen for the job by Lady Death herself, and couldn’t have gotten a different life any more than he might have picked the length of his feathers or the shape of his beak.
In protest of this general unfairness, Lucky-I-Ain’t avoided human beings at all costs. If he never saw them die, the bird reasoned, he wouldn’t have to escort their eternal souls to the various afterlifes and other mysteries of the Great Beyond.
As such, his soul count was zero. Zip. Zilch. Raven’s egg.
Which all started to change when a girl ran screaming right underneath his tree.
What in the Sam Hill Heck? thought Lucky. How’s a bird supposed to sleep in like this?
Is that a… a human? What does she think she’s doing out here? In my woods? I mean besides running like as if she’s being chased by a panther.
The raven squinted into the underbrush to see what had given the girl such a fright. But the sun was tricky this time of day and he would have had to move to a different tree branch. No, no. He decided he was doing his best right where he was.
Lucky watched, transfixed, as the girl made it to the edge of the cliff overlooking the river. It was a long way down. He almost called out that she should really watch her step. But his throat had been scratchy recently, perhaps a sign of an oncoming cold...
So he said nothing.
And the girl slipped and fell.
Ouch! Lucky-I-Ain’t winced. That looks like it hurt.
It’s okay, he told himself. She just needs to dust off them shoulders. Maybe straighten out that neck. She’ll be picking herself up any second now.
Any second.
The seconds turned to minutes.
Probly just taking a quick doze.
The minutes turned to an hour. And then two.
By late afternoon, the vultures began to land.
The Death Raven was faced with a most bothersome choice.
I should just pretend I ain’t seen nothing, he tried to convince himself. But he knew deep down that would be really, REALLY against the rules.*
Or maybe, he thought, another raven will come along. And seeing as how my wing still hurts a bit from that squirrel what threw the acorn at me... Nobody’d blink if I needed to pass on this one.
Cleverer and more creative excuses filled Lucky’s mind as he circled the body. By the time he was just overhead, he had convinced himself to take a quick peek and then quickly flap away.
Instead, he landed on a ghost.
Well, more in it than on it. How had he not seen the ghostly goo before? It was all over the ground and now all over him. He would need a good dirt bath just to get the smell out of his feathers. He sighed at his own misfortune.
Well, I guess there’s nothing for it now, Lucky thought.
This was going to be one hell of a day. The raven poked at the pile of ghost goo with a long, black claw.
“Hello,” he cawed in monotone. “On behalf of Lady Death, allow me to welcome you to the next exciting stage of your existence.”
The goo that was Miriam did not respond.
“You may be experiencing some difficulty in sensory and functional movement. It is my –cough– pleasure to assist you through this transition.”
He thought maybe the ghostly goo wobbled a bit.
But it could have been the wind.
“Hearing usually comes quickest. Most ghosts find they can hear instinctively and even wiggle their ears a bit. If you can hear me, do try to wiggle.”
The shimmering goo definitely wiggled.
So did something inside of Lucky-I-Ain’t. He had never helped someone to the wiggle stage before. It felt almost, well, good. “Wow. Okay, then. Next up is talking. If you have any trouble with these instructions, just wiggle some more.”
The goo went still.
“The trick to talking is to think about your ghostly particles like wind chimes or strings. You’re not pushing air anymore. You’re bending it. You got to hold yourself tight to bend the air, and the bending air produces the sound. The tighter you hold, the higher the pitch.”
The goo screeched like a thrift store violin.
“That’s almost it! Now, picture the shape of the words in your mind’s ear.”
Strangely, this advice worked.
“Who’s there?” came a wheeze like a dog’s squeaky toy.
Lucky-I-Ain’t felt his tiny heart thumping in his chest. He was actually sort of good at this.“See, there you go!”
“I can’t see anything,” came the voice.
“Right! Right! The seeing is a bit harder, even though it’s kind of the same thing except different.”
“What do I do?”
“You’ve got to squint,” said Lucky. “Like you’re looking for a shiny button on the ground from a thousand feet up. But you’ve also got to pick yourself up so your face ain’t in the dirt.”
“Like… this?” the voice asked. A form began to assemble itself from the goo. It looked an awful lot like the girl laying dead on the ground.
Same hooded jacket. Same stringy hair. Same rigid mouth and sad eyes.
The eyes blinked.
The mouth opened.
And screamed.