Dr. Pat talked, trying to keep her from hearing, but Raven ignored her. She used the sharp hearing of her father the raven to stay focused on what Mama was saying.
“What do you mean, tough enough for her?” Mama asked.
“You know what I mean! She won’t fit in. You know how that feels! Don’t you want her to feel comfortable in the world when she grows up?”
“I feel very comfortable in the world,” Mama said. “I have since I stopped trying to please you and Father. Mother was the only one who understood. She let me be who I am.”
“Will you let Raven be who she is?”
Raven’s knee felt funny when Dr. Pat tapped it with the rubber hammer, but Raven kept her attention on her aunt and Mama.
“All parents guide their children,” Mama said. “You did with Josh. You took him to Bible school and church. You educated him according to your views. You raised him to sit on the board of our father’s corporation. How is my parental guidance any different?”
“I didn’t raise my son to be part of our company,” Aunt Sondra said. “He showed clear interest in the business from a young age.”
“Are you certain you didn’t pull him into your obsession with Father’s business—your magic, your religion, or whatever it is you call it?”
Aunt Sondra stared at her with stormy eyes.
Raven smiled. Mama had won. This time, Aunt Sondra hadn’t made her into that weak person Raven didn’t recognize.
Mama walked over and helped Raven get dressed.
“She’s healthy as can be,” Dr. Pat said.
“Would you like lunch before you leave?” Mama asked the doctor. “It was nearly done cooking when you arrived.”
“It smells delicious,” Dr. Pat said.
“It’s a deer,” Raven said. “Mama and I cut it up ourselves.”
Aunt Sondra grimaced. “You kill deer on your property?” she asked Mama.
“Tell the story, Raven,” Mama said.
“It got hit by a car,” Raven said.
Now both the doctor and her aunt looked upset. “You eat roadkill?” Aunt Sondra asked.
“It was still alive, and the person who hit it drove away,” Raven said. “When she died, we brought her home in our truck. We took her out back, and Mama showed me how to cut her into pieces. A lot of her is still in our big freezer.”
“Cutting up the deer didn’t upset you?” Aunt Sondra asked.
“It was sad that she died young,” Raven said, “but I didn’t mind the cutting. It’s better to use the meat than waste it. And Mama taught me all the parts of her body. She called it a biology lesson.”
“How do you know how to butcher a deer?” Aunt Sondra asked Mama.
“I have many talents you know nothing about,” Mama said. She gave Raven a secret look, and Raven returned it. Because only they knew Mama could ask the earth for a baby and get one.
“Would you like a venison sandwich before you leave?” Mama asked the two women.
“No, thank you,” they said at almost the same time.
Mama showed them out the door. After she fastened all the locks, she knelt and took Raven’s two long braids gently into her hands, as she sometimes did. “You’ve done well, Daughter of Raven,” she said. “I’m very proud of you. After we eat, let’s walk up the hill trail.”
“Will we ask for something?”
“What do you want to ask?”
“For Aunt Sondra to never come back,” Raven said.
Mama laughed and tugged her braids. “No, Daughter, we will not ask this of the earth. My sister truly cares about you, though she shouldn’t interfere in your upbringing. You have to be careful what you ask for. What if you need her in the future?”
“Why would I need her?”
“If something happens to me, you’ll need her help,” Mama said in a serious voice.
“What would happen to you?”
“All things pass from this life into the life of the earth. You know this.”
Raven’s heart hurt just thinking about it. “Nothing will happen to you. And even if something did, I wouldn’t need my aunt. I’d go to my father.”
Mama smiled. “Oh, would you, now? You’d ask a great and mysterious spirit for help?”
“I would. And he would come, because I’m the best daughter he ever had.”
“You certainly are,” Mama said, hugging her tight.
3
Raven sat in the bean tent made of branches and looked around at her first garden. The once-brown patch was now green. To put seeds in soil and watch the plants grow was almost as miraculous as Mama asking the earth for a baby and getting one.
She flopped down on her belly and watched a beetle crawl up a leaf of lettuce. Ants scurried busily like people she saw in town. A white butterfly floated over the garden like a cloud.
“Raven,” Mama called. “Come here.”
Raven got up and met Mama as she came out of the woods from her walk. She had something in her hand. Mama uncurled her fingers, and there in her palm sat a naked baby bird with a few pinfeathers.
“Steller’s jay,” Mama said. “A raven killed all the babies but this one. It was on the ground beneath the nest.”
“Will we feed it like we did with the baby robin?”
“You will,” she said. “Because your kin made the bird lose her home and family, you will make amends.”
“But won’t my father be mad if I help it when his kin wanted to eat it?”
“I considered that before I helped it,” she said. “But the raven stared at me as if to give me a message. I believe he wanted me to bring this bird to you. Caring for it by yourself will be like getting lessons from your kin. Ravens and jays are in the same family. Do you remember the name?”
“Corvidae,” Raven said.
She nodded. “Maybe the raven wants you to see what it’s like to become a bird, to feel closer to your kin.” She closed her fingers around the bird.
