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No way.
This could NOT be happening.
All I had done was to make a single stinking wish to a stupid mountain god.
The shadow raven circled around my Dad.
Closer.
Closer.
At least I think it was my Dad.
Remember, I hadn’t seen him in about ten years, what with him being dead and all and mostly gone before that. And all I really had to go on were a few crappy photos in Mom’s photo album and the stories that she told with each of the photos. I mean, you don’t really remember things like how your Dad looks, if he dies when you are nothing but a teenager.
In fact – if it came down to it I don’t believe that I had actually seen my real Dad for any real length of time since I was seven years old.
Now let me tell you, at seven years old you just don’t really get much of a look at your Dad. All that you really see is just a big set of nostrils floating high above you. All that you really hear is a deep and lofty voice that floats every now and then and reminds you to “sit up straight” and “listen to what your Mother tells you”.
That isn’t all that much to go on.
“Come on, Teller-boy,” the shadow raven cawed out. “There is enough fresh meat here for the two of us.”
He landed on top of what was left of Dad’s chest.
It wasn’t all that pretty.
Especially after that baby carriage full of roofing nails had got done with it.
Dad’s eyes opened.
He looked directly at me.
“You have to tell...” he began to say - and for the life of me I swore that I was hearing my Stepdad Warren’s voice coming out of my dead real Dad’s mouth.
It was getting AWFULLY confusing.
And then the shadow raven beaked down into the chili-con-carne of what used to be my Dad’s chest and Dad’s eyes closed just as quickly as they had opened and he stopped talking like his tongue had been torn out of his mouth.
The shadow raven beaked down and tore something long and wet from out of my Dad’s exploded rib cage. I flew towards the shadow raven, trying to stop him before it was too late but it was WAY too late. The Raven smiled at me and I felt an invisible knife pressing against my brand new crow heart. I knew I had to be imagining the whole thing but I stopped breathing just the same.
I just hung there, hovering in mid-air, not even flapping my wings.
I don’t know if crows can do that.
“So, do you believe in monsters?” the raven asked me, with a long string of Dad dripping down all thick and gooey from his beak. “Do you, Teller-boy?”
I gulped.
I nodded slowly.
The shadow raven smiled and it wasn’t a nice kind of smile at all.
“Good,” the shadow raven said. “It is important to learn something new, every day. And even if you are lying to me - even if you don’t truly believe in monsters - you will, soon enough.”
Then the shadow raven reached out to me, caught hold and pulled me in and through his own self. It felt as if I were diving through the middle of the memory of a rain puddle. I felt wet and dry and hot and cold all at once.
I felt it all rushing in at me, all at once.
I felt that exploding baby carriage going off beside my Dad. I felt what HE felt like when that case of roofing nails tore through what he used to call his body.
I remember screaming.
I remember that shadow-raven leaning down and whispering something into the wind tunnel of my left ear.
I remember hearing the words but not knowing what each of them meant.
Because I was still way too busy screaming.
And then all of a sudden I saw half of Bigfoot – the top half of him anyway – leaning out in thin mid-air. It was like he was standing on a stepladder, leaning out through a hole in the sky. All that I could see was his big fuzzy chest and his head and his long arms floating there above me as he reached down towards me.
“Come here, kid,” Bigfoot said.
Then he grabbed me and pulled me clear out of my dream and into that hole in the sky that he was dangling out of.
Just in the nick of time.