The letter was signed Audrey E. Lind.
“I’m very sorry,” her aunt again said as Raven let the letter go limp in her hand.
“You aren’t sorry.” Raven threw the letter at her aunt. “My mother did not want me to read that letter. That’s clear from what she wrote at the end! You were wrong to show it to me! Why have you never honored her wishes? Why did you do that to her mother? I want nothing to do with you! I want you to leave my house!”
Her aunt rose from the couch. “I had to show it to you. You refused to believe she isn’t coming back.”
Raven still believed she might come back. Mama had sent the letter to state her wishes in case she couldn’t find her way back to Raven. She knew she had to be clear in what she wanted because of the wrong her sister had done to her mother.
“Raven . . . ,” Jackie said. “Do you want me to leave?”
His eyes reflected deep grief. The approaching anniversary of his father’s death was magnified by everything he’d witnessed in the last fifteen minutes. And now he knew Raven had been lying to him.
She went to him, and he enclosed her in his arms. “I’m sorry I lied to you,” she whispered.
“It’s okay. I understand why you did.”
He didn’t, really, but she was grateful for his forgiveness.
“Why did Audrey mention a child?” her aunt asked.
Raven spun out of Jackie’s arms. “That’s none of your business!”
“Apparently it is if she put it in a letter addressed to me.” She looked at Jackie and back to her. “Is it true?”
“No!”
“Well, that’s a relief.” She picked up the letter and put it back in the envelope. “I’ve talked to her attorney. Everything is in order. She’s left you the entirety of her estate—which is substantial.”
“I don’t need anyone to be my guardian,” Raven said, “but if that’s the only way I can stay here, I’m willing to comply. Please go now. I want to be alone.”
Her aunt drew in a big breath, then expelled it. Raven knew what that meant. She was preparing for a fight, as she often had done with Mama.
“It’s not that easy, Raven. Your mother can’t just disappear like this. There will be many questions. Police will have to be involved.”
“You will leave her alone!” Raven shouted.
“How can I? I need a death certificate for you to inherit. How could your mother have overlooked that problem?”
“You know the ways of that world. You’ll figure it out.”
“My god, you sound just like her.”
“Just go!” Raven said.
“I will not! My sister has given me the responsibility to fix this mess she’s left, as she has all her life. And so I will.”
“My mother would help,” Jackie said. “I’m sure she’d agree to become Raven’s guardian. She could live with us if she’s not allowed to live here.”
Ms. Danner. It was perfect!
“That’s what I want,” Raven said to her aunt. “Ms. Danner lives right down the road.”
Her aunt nodded. “What about your father?”
“What about him?”
Her aunt looked at her curiously. “He needs to be told what happened. Do you know who he is?”
“No.”
“No hint of who he is all these years?”
Raven shook her head. She didn’t like the way her aunt was looking into her eyes, as if she knew she was lying.
Aunt Sondra came closer. “When you were a baby, Audrey once asked me to come help when you had a high fever. It was the first time I’d seen you. I hadn’t even known she was pregnant.” She looked at Jackie for a few seconds. “She had one of her episodes while I was there—you know what I mean by that?”
“Yes,” Raven said.
“She said something very strange to me. About who your father is.”
Raven’s heart thudded. She could easily see Mama talking about her father the raven when she was immersed in the spirit world. She sometimes lost control of her thoughts when she was halfway between the human and spirit worlds.
“Did she tell you that? About the raven?” her aunt asked.
Raven tried to hide her panic. If her aunt found out what Raven believed about her father, she would put Raven in a place for people with mind sickness. Mama had said Aunt Sondra and their father had tried to put her in one of those places—because she practiced earth arts they didn’t understand. From the time Raven could remember, Mama had forbidden her to speak of her father being a spirit. She had warned of the dire consequences over and over. Raven was terrified she would be taken from her home if she told anyone the truth. Her aunt would say she was sick and couldn’t take care of herself.
She had to say something her aunt would believe. She remembered a man Mama had mentioned recently. “My mother told me my father was someone she didn’t want me to know. A bad man. A senator.”
“A senator!” Aunt Sondra said. “I very much doubt that, Raven!”
What was that name her mother had said the day she was halfway in the spirit world? If Raven said it, her aunt might believe she’d been told about her human father. The senator was somehow associated with Mama’s father—her aunt would believe her sister had known him. And the man would pose no threat to Raven because Mama had said he was dead.
“Bonhammer, I think was the name,” Raven said.
“Bauhammer? Senator Bauhammer?” her aunt said.
“Yes. That’s him.”
Aunt Sondra looked too stunned to speak.
“He’s dead. I have no father,” Raven said.
“I know he’s dead. My father—your grandfather—went to his funeral.”
Raven was relieved to hear her verify that.
“He was a married man, Raven,” Aunt Sondra said. “And much older than your mother.”
“What does
