I walk all the way down to the hall, where the others are. I scan in, and the chatter drops as the ominous beep of the card i scanned at the door lets everyone know who's arrived. It's raining outside, and the patter of drops isn't as calming as it should be, just damn ominous.
Layla spots me, and hugs me. Her face is damp and she's shaking. There are teachers here, and there is a cacophony of ringtones echoing around the hall. I stare up at the rain-stained ceiling between bits of Layla's hair, like someone has spilled tea upside down all over the vaulted ceiling. It's better considering the possibilities of mould than to look at the distrust stirring in the faces of the rest of my class.
"What happened?" Layla whispers into my ear.
"Miss Decimal died." I reply. Layla stiffens, even though she knew I wasn't joking before. The aura around her is this unsettling dark violet that thrashes like a monster in the deep.
"Are you okay?" She asks. I realize I'm shaking too. I guess you can never be fully desensitized.
"Yes, I'm fine. I just need to eat something. And sit down." I sigh, trying to hide the shaking.
My shoes squeak on the shiny floor as I sit down on a chair in the corner that Layla must have got from one of the giant stacks by the wall when she got in. Layla sits next to me, and I dig through my bag, wincing as the snacks inside rustle.
I find some popcorn-pretzel-chocolate-oat thing and pass a second one to Layla. I eat in silence, reading the ingredients label to avoid talking to anyone. Layla starts talking. I squirm my toes in my narrow shoes. There's something terrible about your parent, death, visiting school when they're death, that makes people stare and go uncomfortable.
I hate talking about it. It removes the veneer of calm, that I know can never be forever, but leaves tension behind. Looks that last for weeks, whispers that chase the hallway like tumbleweeds, and the thick, porridge-like atmosphere that persists, removing any sense of connection I had to the rest of my year group, intelligent conversations aside.
I guess even the daughter of death needs connections, but Layla's the only tolerant one. I'm picky about friends, and I think my class can tell I look down on them. I know they're not the brightest, but they still fear me, and maybe they're right to. I confuse myself sometimes.
"My parents are picking me up on Albert Road." She says. "Are you coming with me? We can drop you home."
"No, I'll walk." I say. Too quickly. Change the subject. "Do you think pine nibs count as nuts?" I crackle the ingredients label for effect.
"I'll walk with you." It's so hard to avoid someone so selfless.
"No! I'll be fine by myself. Besides, you don't have an umbrella." I tell her.
"I have one. My parents need to go the other way to pick up my brother up from karate anyway." Layla seems to be determined not to let me sulk this one off.
"Okay. I'm just being weird about it." I give in.
"No, I get, as much as I can. I get it." Layla pulls a packet of Polos from her pocket. I take one.
They've gone powdery from sitting in her pocket, waiting to comfort me over something. Just the way I like them. I don't even realize sometimes about how good of a friend Layla is to me. I'm very, very lucky.
"Alright then." My heart thrums happily, but like a lead drum, the beats are too heavy to ignore. I'm never going to see my maths teacher again, someone I kind of never see as a person, just a teacher.
We're going home early, and I scan out, grabbing my umbrella. It's blue, so dark it's black, but light slips through it, lightening it like rays of sun through a butterfly's wings. Layla's is a pretty lilac with darker purple abstract shapes on it.
We walk together, like two butterflies side-by side, though I look more like a neon moth. The streets have mini-rivers of rainwater running down them, into the drain with a gurgle. The black, shiny paint of the railings is slick with water, and they send stripes in my vision as I run my hand along them absently.
We've been walking for about ten minutes, when I spy the top of the post office. It's silhouette is moving, constantly, and there are these croaks and craws like grinding stone or scraping metal. The post office is really damn creepy, it's a tower made of rough stone, with a slate roof, and there are protrusions of bricks, and metal hooks poking out of the stones, but none of that is visible because of the creepiest part...
The whole tower is watching us, bristled with black feathers, beaks, and beady eyes. The entire tower is covered with ravens.
YOU ARE READING
A Tale of: Ravens, Scythes and Cherry blossoms
General Fiction'All it takes to consult the dead is a pen, some paper, and a secret you've never told anyone else' Hana is the daughter of death, a hereditary position that has existed for as long as mankind has. She lives through each day with the caw of ravens i...
