It was strange for Raven to occupy her cell with someone else after so many years spent in solitude. That it was her daughter who lay beside her on the bed was an added bonus.
She stroked the girl’s hair and thought of reaching inside her mind to see her dreams and learn more about her life. It would be easy to do, but Raven also felt that it would be a terrible invasion of privacy. Better to wait for Salem to wake and then talk. There was certainly much to discuss.
She rose from the bed, careful not to disturb her sleeping daughter, and walked over to the thick glass panel at the front of the cell. She placed her hands on the glass, turned her head, and moved her ear close, hoping to catch some sound bleeding in from outside.
There was nothing.
Raven turned around and slid to the ground, her back resting against the glass. She sat and watched her daughter sleep, amazed at how much the girl looked like her. She took great relief in seeing none of Thorn’s features poke through. Having any of his likenesses show up would have been akin to seeing a tear on the canvas of a masterpiece.
Time ticked slowly past, the shallow breathing of Salem the only sound to fill the space. Even the water in the toilet tucked away in the corner of the cell had ceased to drip the way it always used to. It seemed odd to Raven that someone would take the time to fix the plumbing in the short time that she had been gone. Thorn was indeed a peculiar, little man.
She thought of the man who had fathered her child and could feel her blood begin to boil. Anger had been her downfall so many times, but Raven had failed to rein it in, choosing instead to unleash it in displays of power and strength that only ever led to trouble. Perhaps her child could teach her restraint.
Salem began to stir once more, turning over in the bed and throwing the covers off her body. “Too hot,” she mumbled.
Raven went to her side and pushed Salem’s hair away from her face. Feeling how hot and clammy the girl was, she moved to the sink beside the toilet and held her hands under the cold water, keeping them until her fingers went numb. Returning to the bed, she dabbed at Salem’s face and kept her wet hands in place when she tried to squirm away.
Caring for anyone other than herself was something foreign to the witch, yet it felt natural now. Raven didn’t believe that the girl needed her, such was her power, but she hoped that Salem would want her help. The thought of not having the child at her side now brought an almost unbearable pain to her gut.
Feeling as though her heart might explode if she continued to look at her daughter, Raven went back to the sink and wetted her hands once more. When she turned around, Salem was sitting up in bed, staring out through the glass.
“How do you feel?” Raven asked.
“Angry, but mostly thirsty.
“I can help with that.” Cupping her hands under the faucet, Raven scooped up a handful of water and walked carefully back to her daughter, determined not to spill a drop.
Salem lapped up the water and gasped as she wiped away the excess from her chin.
“More?” Raven asked.
“Please.”
After two more trips, Salem raised her hand.
“That’s good. Thank you.”
Raven wiped her hands on her tattered dress.
“Anything for you, child.”
The girl turned away, as though embarrassed at the attention. “Are we back…is this where Thorn kept you imprisoned.”
“It is.”
With a sigh, Salem turned and faced her mother. “How could you stand it? This place is, well, it’s awful.”
The witch stood and moved to the front of the cell, staring off down the long, bricked corridor. She tried to see beyond the bars of the cells that lined either side, but the creatures contained within were playing shy and lurking in the corners of their personal prisons. “I imagined killing him,” she finally said.
“Thorn?”
“Yes, and whichever fools he brought with him on his daily visits. I imagined slowly stripping the flesh from their bodies or tearing off their genitals and forcing them to eat. I imagined a thousand ways to torture them before killing them as they begged for mercy.”
Salem pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around herself, suddenly feeling very cold again.
Catching the movement in the reflection of the glass, Raven turned to her daughter. “Do I horrify you?
“No.” Salem pulled the blanket tighter and closed her eyes. “Before all of this, the idea of intentionally hurting anyone would have horrified me, but Thorn is a man that is easy to hate.”
Raven hung her head, her red hair dropping across her face like a blood waterfall. “It is others who have made me as I am. Their lies condemned me to a life on the run, always fearing for my life.”
Salem patted the mattress beside her. “You promised to tell me about your life. Will you do it now?”
The witch sighed. “I’m not sure where to begin, or what to tell.”
“Let’s start with the highlights. How about that?”
“If you wish.” Raven moved to the bed and sat beside her daughter, who stretched out her arm and pulled her close under the blanket.”
“How about you begin by telling me your name and where you were born.”
“I was born the youngest of three girls on a small house sitting on stilts. My mother died giving birth, cursing me as she drew her last breath. My father, hearing the curse believed that my mother was naming me Baba Yaga, so that is what he called me.”
“When was this?”
Raven held her hands out and shrugged.
“Time means very little when you are granted so much of it. Hundreds of years. Long enough to see empires crumble and to have been both a slave and a queen.”
“A queen?” Salem asked, wide-eyed.
“You won’t find me in any history book. It was a short reign that ended in bloodshed. That is something that has followed me. My whole life, people have wished me dead, including my father.”
“Why would he wish you dead?”
Raven pressed her thumbs into her eyes and sighed heavily. “My father would vanish for days at a time, hunting food and more often than not coming back empty handed and stinking of alcohol. He began to beat me, blaming me for the death of my mother. The truth, though, was that he turned to violence when my hair turned red. His was black as pitch, as was my mother’s. I assume he believed me to be someone else’s child.”
Salem pulled her mother in close, feeling the pain and anger flowing out of her in a torrent. “I’m sorry.”
“One time, when I was around ten or eleven, he went on one of his hunting trips and stayed away longer than usual. My sisters and I were hungry, starving. Ivanna, my oldest sister, succumbed to the hunger, and…and…”
Feeling as though she had taken a blow to the gut, Salem put her hand to her mouth and choked back a sob.”
“Aniya and I had to eat. We didn’t know if father was ever coming back. When he finally did, there was nothing left of Ivanna but bones.” Raven shrugged off the blanket and stood, beginning to pace back and forth. “He threw himself upon me, but before he could land a blow, I threw him across the room simply by thinking about doing it. I tore him limb from limb with my mind, and my sister and I feasted for weeks.”
Sitting slack-jawed, Salem wanted to tell her mother to stop, but she knew that there was no way to end it.
“Aniya grew ill shortly thereafter and passed. I gave her a proper burial. I saw no reason to inflict any more pain on her.” Raven looked at her daughter out the corner of her eye. “The dead still scream.”
“I don’t…”
“Some men, who my father owed money, came looking for him. They found me coated in blood and eating a rabbit that I had caught in the woods. They fled and told everyone that I was eating children. More men came in the night, looking to burn down my home with me inside. No one else came after word spread about how that ended.”
Salem rose from the bed and went to her mother, placing an arm around her shoulder. The witch resisted at first, but then relented and fell into the embrace. “I think that’s enough for today. We have visitors.”
Lifting her head, Raven looked down the hall and saw Thorn approaching, followed by Drake and two other men, all of whom were heavily armed. She hissed as Thorn wiggled his fingers in a wave. “Death is coming, little man. So…much…death.”
So good