Her aunt said, “We need to talk, Raven.”
Jackie looked at Raven. “Do you want me to leave?”
“You probably should,” Aunt Sondra said.
You probably should. That meant bad news. Her aunt was holding a large manila envelope. It was addressed to her aunt in Mama’s handwriting.
“I want you to go,” Raven said to her aunt.
“Raven . . .”
“Go!” Tears burned like fire in her eyes, then dripped like ice down her cheeks.
Jackie took her in his arms and held her against his chest.
“How long has your mother been missing?” Aunt Sondra asked in a quiet voice.
Raven cried into Jackie’s shirt.
When Raven didn’t answer, her aunt said, “Jack, do you know?”
“Raven told me she was with you. In Chicago.”
Raven pulled away from Jackie. “She’s coming back! You’re too blind to understand!”
Tears glossed her aunt’s eyes. “You know she isn’t. She sent me her last will and testament.”
“I don’t care what she sent you,” Raven said. “She’s coming back!”
“She told her lawyer to send this envelope to me on a certain date. I think she waited to have it sent—until she carried out what she wanted to do. But I was on a trip with my husband when it arrived. I didn’t find it until I returned home last night.”
Jackie stared at Raven. Now he knew she’d been lying to him.
But she hadn’t been. Not really. Mama was coming back.
“Please tell me what happened,” Aunt Sondra said. “She’s my sister. I need to know.”
Jackie took her arms and looked into her eyes. “Is that what happened the night you came to my house all wet and dirty? Did she die?”
“No. I don’t know. I don’t know!” she cried.
“You haven’t found her body?” Aunt Sondra said.
“I looked. I looked everywhere. But I didn’t find her. That’s why I know she’s coming back. She wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye if she wasn’t coming back!”
She felt her lunch rise up her throat. She ran to the bathroom, barely making it in time. Jackie wiped her face with a wet towel. “It’s okay,” he said. “Everything will be okay.”
Jackie and her aunt helped her to the couch, sitting on either side of her. Her aunt said, “Raven, I’m so, so sorry. But please explain what happened. Do you think it was suicide?”
“She didn’t kill herself,” Raven said. “She would never leave me that way.”
“She was sick,” Jackie said. “Possibly something to do with her heart. Since last year. She made Raven promise she wouldn’t tell you or get a doctor.”
Aunt Sondra clasped her hand on her forehead. “Audrey! Why? Why would you do that?”
“You know why,” Raven said. She glanced at Jackie, afraid to say too much. “She was trying to work things out.”
“With whom? Those damn earth sprites?”
“Don’t call them that! She knew what she was doing!”
“Raven—”
“You can’t make me leave here! She wants me to wait for her!”
Her aunt sighed. She opened the envelope and pulled out a handwritten letter. “I don’t know if she meant for you to see this, but I think you’d better read it.”
Raven didn’t want to, but her aunt thrust it into her hand. Jackie got up and stood near the window to give her privacy.
Sondra, Mama had written in unsteady script. In this envelope is my last will and testament, all documented by my attorney. I leave everything I own to my dear daughter, Raven. I want her to keep and stay in the house in Washington until she comes of age to live there alone. I know you will find a way to make this possible. If you can’t be her guardian until she turns eighteen, please find a trustworthy person to watch over her. This person will be paid from what Raven has inherited.
She didn’t want to read more. Why was Mama saying these things? Maybe the letter was only a backup plan if she had trouble finding her way back from the spirit world.
The next paragraph read, If Raven has children, they will inherit all that Raven owns. If she is currently pregnant, you will not try to take this child from her. I’m adamant about this, Sondra. Though she’s considered “underage” in this society, she is fully capable of raising a child in the ways she and I prefer to live. Here again, I know you and your attorneys will know how to get her and the child proper care and legal guardianship until she comes of age.
If she is currently pregnant? Why would Mama say that when she was certain Raven’s body couldn’t make a baby?
Raven suddenly understood. She had never confessed to Mama that she wasn’t asking for a baby as Mama had requested of her many months ago. She must have thought the earth spirits would give Raven a baby soon, and of course she would have to pretend a baby that came from the spirit world had come from her daughter’s body.
The letter continued. My final request will be difficult for you, Sondra, but you must understand this is my decision and mine alone. Our mother wanted her death to take place in the Montana mountains. She wanted to draw her last breath there and be left as she was for the earth to recycle. Instead, you and Father forced her into a hospital and made her die drugged and attached to machines. You buried her in a New York grave next to her parents, though you knew she had not once in her life asked for that. I have never forgiven you for that crime. It is a deep wound in me that never healed.
It was also a warning to me. In recent months, I prepared my final resting place on my Washington land. I have carefully chosen, excavated, and sanctified this burial ground according to my spiritual practices. In the event my attorney passed this letter to you, I have been resting there, by my own hand, for a week or more. You must not try to find me.
“No!” Raven cried.
“I’m sorry,” her aunt said.
Raven kept
