Raven Calloway's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Raven Calloway crossed the town line past the last streetlight of Pine Hollow, sketchbook under her arm, chasing the one thing her small Minnesota town could never give her. New York design schools wanted a portfolio no one had seen before. The forest behind her house was all she had. No one else dared sketch it. That made it hers. Her toy poodle trotted ahead, fluffy and spoiled, nose to the frozen ground. "Slow down, you drama queen," Raven said. The dog ignored her. It always did. The trees swallowed the daylight fast. Mushrooms glowed faint blue along a stone path she had never noticed before. Strange marks were carved into the gravestones beside it. Raven should have turned back. Instead she pulled out a pencil. A designer used what the world handed her. Her poodle dug at the roots of a huge tree and whined. Raven knelt and brushed the dirt away. A book lay buried there, its cover cracked leather, a crescent moon stamped in gold above a ring of symbols. She wiped it clean and opened it. The pages weren't English. But as her finger traced the words, they rearranged themselves. They became readable. The book named three kinds of blood that hid in this forest. Vampires. Werewolves. And witches, who could wake power in old things by touch. The ink warmed under her hand. Raven laughed once, nervous. "Okay. That's enough weird for one day." She reached for her bag. The pencil in her hand lifted on its own and spun above her palm. She dropped it and stumbled back. The book had warmed because of her. The thing she had always felt, the difference she could never name, had a name now. Witch. She was one of them. A branch cracked. Her poodle growled low and backed against her legs. A boy stepped from the dark trees. Black coat, black hair, eyes the color of melted gold. He moved too smoothly, like his feet never quite needed the ground. "You shouldn't be able to read that," he said, soft and certain. "Which means you're exactly what I thought you were." Another voice came from the opposite side. "Stay away from her, Vale." A second boy pushed through the brush, broad and wild, a brown jacket torn at one shoulder. His dark hair stuck up like he'd been running. He sniffed the air and his eyes flicked yellow. "She smells like power. And she's already got your kind sniffing around." Raven clutched the book to her chest. Two strangers. Two sets of inhuman eyes. Both staring at her like she belonged to them. "I don't know who either of you are," she said, voice steady though her hands shook. "But I'm leaving." Neither of them moved aside. The gold-eyed one smiled. "That book chose you. Now the whole forest knows you're here." Behind him, more shapes shifted in the dark. Raven's small dream of leaving town had just collided with a world that would never let her go quietly.