Wings of Fate: The Lost Ones
Chapter 13

The next morning dawned sooner than Raven would have liked. She was never getting enough sleep anymore. Last night, exhausted, she lay down curled around Austin’s body and fell asleep as soon as her eyes closed. That seemed only moments ago -- she was prepared for either irascible dreams or blood-curdling nightmares, but there hadn’t been a single image in her mind after closing her eyes.

Austin’s voice carried across the room to where she lay, giving evidence to the theory of childlike resilience. A full nights rest followed by waking in the same place he fell asleep gave Austin the childlike effervescence she was looking for in him the last few days. Few days? Raven wondered. Had it already been that many days? Mentally counting back, starting with the day she met Austin, it was exactly four days.

There were times it felt like mere seconds passed since the moment he grumbled about ghosts and the afterlife. At other times it seemed like she already knew him for months. The seriousness he cloaked himself with during the last four days was, currently, nowhere in evidence.

“Yeah, it was scary. I wasn’t sure what was happening but figured it was bad. When Raven came looking for me I was glad because it was better than being alone. I thought we were going to die, but we didn’t. I don’t know why we didn’t. I was lucky she was there with me.” Raven’s smile went unseen.

“You were lucky she was traveling with you?” Ruth asked.

“No, I wasn’t really traveling with Raven -- she was just sitting next to me.”

“So what happened to make the plane crash, do you know?” another quiet female voice asked.

“No. I went to the, uh -- bathroom and that’s where I was when the plane started falling. I don’t know what happened, you know, if we hit something or there was a storm or something -- I just don’t know.”

Raven peered at the table where Ruth stood beside her usual chair with three other women, who could only be the Moirai, seated with Austin. One of the women had her back to the living room and so Raven was unable to see her face, but her cropped white hair swayed each time she moved her head.

Through the slats in the chairs’ back, the woman’s white outfit peeked through, and the only other visible parts of her body were the tall red boots crossed at the ankle. Austin sat between her and another woman whose face was, again, difficult to see because she sat across from the other Moirai sister. That particular woman wore a white dress and tall red boots, as well. The third sister was the only one whom Raven could see well.

The woman’s dress straps were hidden beneath long white hair curling over her shoulders. Red boots, too, Raven noted, wondering if the women were in uniform. Ruth told her Atropos came to visit with her many years ago but these women appeared young. Smooth, tanned skin stretched across the woman’s friendly face with a small nose and wide mouth.

Deciding she spied on the women long enough, and not learning anything from their inconsequential conversation with Austin, Raven sat up and pulled her hair away from her face. Yawning and stretching, she blinked at the five sets of eyes staring at her before rising to join them.

Austin slid out of his chair, offering her a place to sit, and she smiled in appreciation. The remainder of his breakfast lay crumbled on the table where he picked apart a muffin while talking to the women. Glancing into his empty teacup, Raven sighed and bid him good morning.

“Morning.” He replied. Unsure of the quantity of food made for breakfast, she covered her stomach in hopes of quieting it, and glanced at Ruth who, though wearing the same frayed dress as before, appeared bright-eyed and in a much better mood than the somber one overtaking her last night. “Is there anything left of breakfast?”

Ruth nodded and gestured towards the kitchen. Turning the corner to the kitchen, Raven paused, noticing the differences between the room she was standing in and the kitchen in her apartment back home. They were definitely a hundred years or so in the past in regards to technology advancement.

The room was subtly lit by a half dozen white candles, placed around the kitchen, one of which sat on a wooden shelf built into the wall to hold plates and cups. Two more candles sat on a small wooden ledge built into the wall above the stand-alone metal sink. There was no sign of a microwave, oven, dishwasher, or refrigerator -- all of which required electricity, which was noticeably absent as well.

Sighing, she took two palm-size muffins from a wooden bowl on the counter and, grabbing a small, chipped ceramic cup from the shelf, poured some peppermint tea -- obviously Ruth’s favorite. Juggling her breakfast, she walked back to the silent group waiting at the table and set everything down, with a brief glimpse at the three women at the table.

It killed her to wait so long to pay attention to them because her curiosity was demanding she get on with it. But an overwhelming sense of dread lingered and she hoped to avoid the unavoidable for as long as possible.

All three women watched her. “Hi,” Raven said, brushing her bangs away from her eyes to smile at the lady across from her. “It’s -- interesting meeting you, I’m Raven.”

“Raven, it is nice to meet you, as well.” The woman replied. “My name is Lachesis. This,” she said waving her hand towards the woman on her right, “is my sister Atropos, and this,” she turned her hand to the other, “is my sister Klotho.”

Not bothering to hide her rude stare, Raven did a once over of the Moirai sisters -- seeing at once how much alike they were. With varying heights and hair length, the real physical differentiation between the sisters was their eye color: Lachesis was gifted with an unusual shade of lavender, Atropos’ were pastel blue, and Klotho’s were Jolly Rancher green. Turning her attention to Atropos, because this was supposed to be the woman with all the answers, Raven launched into the mountain of questions she mentally prepared.

“Ruth has told me very little about you,” Raven said. “Something about you expecting me to lead some war -- why am I here?”

When Atropos met her eyes it was clear she was holding back, though she spoke frankly, and Raven knew there was something she wasn’t saying. “You are here because of the war Raven, because you were specifically mentioned in a prophecy, and you are meant to lead the people.”

That answer only dumped more questions into Raven’s head. “What prophecy?” Neither Ruth nor Bael mentioned a prophecy, though she was certain she knew the reason why. Prophecies were magical -- all pretend stories included them but they were never real. Any so-called prophecies on Earth were misguided, misleading, or hoaxes. Who were these Moirai women? Why were they following a prophecy? “And how do you know it has anything to do with me?”

Atropos looked to Lachesis to fill in these blanks and Raven wondered about that. Did the women have specific roles, she wondered. If Atropos was mentioned with more frequency than her sisters, did that mean she was the leader? Or the grunt worker? If Lachesis was to answer questions about the prophecy, did that mean she was a prophet of some kind? Or simply more knowledgeable about the prophecy? Trying to shake her mind free of the unspoken rambling questions, Raven met Lachesis eyes’ and waited for an answer.

“Prophecies -- while we may be involved in them, we are not the prophets, and therefore we do not have answers to all the questions you may ask.”

Did anyone have the answers? Ruth told her the Moirai would have the answers and now the Moirai told her someone else would have the answers. Trying to convince herself it didn’t truly matter -- the answers -- wasn’t as easy as she would have liked. Her mind whirled and twisted around what they each told her: Bael, the sailors, Ruth, and now the Moirai. No one seemed to know what was going on.

Glancing at Austin, Raven met his eyes, almost on a level since he stood beside her chair, but his face was blank. He was listening but wasn’t angry and didn’t appear frustrated at all. Was he waiting for her to decide? God help me, she thought, turning her attention back to Lachesis.

“Okay, how about something simple like, how am I mentioned in the prophecy?” she asked.

With a nod, Lachesis continued. “The black bird is supposed to join our forces, bring destruction to the enemy and hope to the people.” The Moirai sister’s hands were folded on the table and though one of her fingers tapped against the wooden surface, she otherwise remained immobile and her eyes never shifted from Raven’s. As such, Raven felt drawn to stare back at her in some ancient lets-see-who-blinks-first game.

But this was no game. “Go on,” she invited.

“That’s the part that mentions your name, Raven.” The tapping finger halted and Lachesis broke eye contact, turning to Atropos who nodded regally at her as if to say well done.

“I don’t understand,” Raven objected, turning to Atropos, “which part refers to me?”

“You are the ‘black bird’, of course.” Atropos responded, tilting her head quizzically.

“Well, that’s a stretch isn’t it? Who says the black bird isn’t, in fact, a black bird? I’m not black and my hair isn’t black, I’ve never even painted my fingernails black. Simply because ravens are black birds doesn’t mean I’m your girl. Seriously, do you have any idea how many other ‘Raven’s’ there might be on Earth?”

“Twelve-thousand, seven-hundred and thirty-four.” Klotho said, rattling the number out rapid-fire. Raven swung her head to the heretofore silent Moirai sister and gaped at her.

“How do you know that?”

“Please, Raven, do you think we would not have done some research before hauling you in? We don’t need some random girl named Raven -- we need the one who will win the war.”

“Haul in through the Bermuda Triangle you mean, how did you know there was a portal linking us?” Though she figured if the sisters knew the exact number of Ravens on Earth then replaceing out about the Bermuda Triangle was no mean feat. Almost thirteen-thousand girls shared her name -- why couldn’t the prophecy have been about one of those Raven’s?

“The portal has been there for longer than you realize, Raven, many people know about it-”

“But no one on DeSolar talks about them, it is important we do not discuss these things within the hearing of others as we make our way to Treis-Soarta.” Atropos interrupted Lachesis’ response, barking the command in an effort to override her sisters’ loose treatment of the subject. “There has been enough talk for today, now it is time for us to leave. We have a long trip ahead of us.” Atropos continued, directing the comment at Raven, with a quick nod at Ruth who began clearing the table.

The Moirai sisters moved to the door, their red boots silent on the wooden floor, the sway of their white dresses as muted as the rest of the room. Raven, glancing over her shoulder, called a farewell to Ruth before leading Austin outside.

The sun’s heat blasted the little village, pouring waves of steaming light through the opening created by the circle of trees. The village was as empty as it was the day before, too early, perhaps, for the people to be moving about. She wondered if the children would come looking for Austin when they woke or if they were, by now, accustomed to the mysterious comings and goings of Ruth’s visitors.

Taking a moment to glance in the direction where the plane was, or should have been, Raven bid farewell to her old life. Whatever chains bound her to their arrival were fast slipping -- the Nicaru Village was their first stop on a long road, and the name itself would harbor lingering memories of home. Behind her, the cabin waited for newcomers, its walls whispered of things no one had a right to know about. They kept secrets, too.

Austin tugged on her arm and whispered. “The ladies brought only four horses Raven.”

“Well, perhaps they mean for you to ride with me.” Raven suggested, seeing there were indeed only four horses -- and an amazing sight they made. All four horses were solid white with long white manes hanging to the ground. Four sets of large, liquid brown eyes watched the approaching group, unconcerned and unfazed. Raven was concerned about the horse problem but not for the same reason Austin was. She never rode a horse before -- had never even been near one. The Moirai climbed onto their horses in one lithe movement and sat watching them.

“The boy cannot come with us.” Atropos said. The woman’s short, cropped hair flicked in the wind as she stared hard at Raven, who stared back with her chin raised.

“I’m not leaving him here.” she said, unwilling to leave Austin in the middle of the wilderness, what if they took him to that place where they took everyone else? Who knew what that place was like? Lachesis and Klotho glanced at each other before moving their horses away.

Atropos heeled her horse’s flanks, encouraging the white beast toward Raven. “He cannot go where we are going because it is not safe. The boy will be fine here with Ruth. We can return for him at some later time.”

“I am not leaving him.” Raven argued. “If he can’t go with you then I can’t help you either, and aren’t I supposed to be an integral part of this? You need me? Well, so does Austin.”

Atropos was shaking her head. “If you cannot leave the boy here then we will end his life.” Raven sucked in a breath and pulled Austin behind her, hiding him from view.

“Perhaps I can help?” A low voice carried over Raven’s shoulder as he walked up behind her. Bael. “I was just heading home to my people, and I could use the company...”

“I’m not leaving him here Bael.” Raven ground out, deadlocking Atropos’ glare. It was written on the woman’s face she would not hesitate to end Austin’s life, but Raven promised Austin she would not leave him -- promised he would stay with her. Bael stepped into her line of sight and she spared him a glance before returning her gaze to Atropos.

“Think about it Raven.” He whispered. “You cannot protect the boy when doing so will get him killed. At this point, leaving him with me is protecting him. I can keep him safe for you until you come back for him. I give you my word I would protect him with my life.” Bael was silent as Raven weighed her options. What options? She thought, angered by Atropos’ highhandedness.

“Raven?” Austin’s voice was muffled against her back. She loosened her grip on him and he pulled away from her. “I can go with Bael, if you promise to come back for me.” Raven stared down at him, searching his face for the answer to their current problem, and realized he didn’t seem afraid. He trusted Bael to keep him safe and trusted her to come for him. The insight made her want to cry.

She didn’t know if she would be able to keep her end of the promise because she did not know where she was going or what would happen. Raven shifted her attention to Bael, who waited with patience for her to make the right decision.

“Where is home Bael?”

“Home for me is Allegora. I am sure,” he suggested, looking up at Atropos, “that someone can show you the way when it is time.”

Raven glanced at Atropos and the woman inclined her white head. “When it is time.” She agreed. Raven turned her back on the woman and squatted down so her face was closer to Austin’s. Reaching behind her neck, Raven unclasped her Angel of Hope necklace.

“I will come for you, Austin, do you believe me?” The look she gave him was steady as she waited for his nod. Putting her necklace around his neck, Raven closed the smooth, metal clasp, and explained. “When I was a little girl, I was getting ready to go on stage at school for a play and I was worried I would forget my lines or trip and fall. My mother gave me this necklace to remind me that, though I may be afraid, I should always have hope.

I want you to wear this always so you will remember me and that there is always hope.” She ran a finger across the metal face of the angel pendant, thinking about the part of the prophecy claiming she would bring hope to the people. The thought was sobering. “When I see you again, you can return it to me, okay?” Tears filled his eyes but he blinked them back and nodded. She stood then and, with Bael on her heels, approached the remaining white horse.

“Do you believe me?” Bael asked. Resting her hand on the side of the horse, she peered up at him, searching his dark eyes. “Do you believe me when I say I’ll protect him with my life until you return for him?” Raven felt nauseous at the terrifying unknown.

“I have no choice but to believe you.”

She was grateful when he leaned in to help her onto the horse. Grasping handfuls of the silky mane, Raven wrapped her fingers in it and held on tight as the horses stepped away. She glanced over her shoulder at Bael and Austin, hoping, with all her heart that, unlike the plane, this would not be the last time she would see them.