A Tale of: Ravens, Scythes and Cherry blossoms

Chapter 7: The Letter

The ravens are watching closely, their heads turning to follow me, and only me. With the rain howling an pounding against the tower, they huddle to a dark window near the top of the tower. The post office could also be called 'The Raven's nest' due to the birds.

Green Hills is isolated by high mountains on every side, so you either have to be a hiker, a pilot, or you use one of the few roads, submitted with papers that are dispatched and approved by the postman, Postmaster. No-one goes in or out without them knowing.

The Postmaster keeps everything working, postal services, maintenance, everything. Green Hills is a bureaucracy, run by the postman. No-one knows who they are, they've never showed their face, but they are everywhere, through the ravens.

The ravens collect the post from around the world, and funnel it everywhere, and they rendezvous at the Raven's nest, before getting it where they need to go. These ravens are more precious than the ones at the tower of London, but way creepier.

The symbols of Green Hills are the Scythe, for death, a Raven, for the Postmaster, and a Cherry blossom, for the relationship between life and death, that's what the town's crest is, a raven carrying a scythe crossed over a cherry blossom. Any of the three symbols are everywhere, like eyes, always watching, benevolent, like a sign that everything is going to be okay. But at this point, you don't notice them, they blend in, they are meant to be there.

I walk faster. Being the daughter of death around the Raven's nest makes me feel so... Vulnerable. The ravens can't hurt me, but, they watch, and an observation of death's offspring is enough to make your skin crawl.

I reach the door to my house, one on the corner, a scythe over a cherry blossom branded on a metal plate ovr the white-painted gate. I wave Layla good-bye as she crosses the street, and walks down the pavement, her umbrella long visible after the other details have disappeared.

I open the gate, hearing it click shut behind me, and I open the front door. The house is quiet, the stone floors natural slate, with an abstract pattern on each tile, that my mind always reads as a story, when others see patterns.

The walls are white plaster, with black skirting boards, and the beams of the house painted black overhead, amidst the white ceiling. I nearly catch my foot on a hidden stair that gets me every time, walking into the kitchen.

I dump my bag on the bench, and run my hand over the dappled marble counter top, turning the coffee machine on to heat up some milk for a hot chocolate. It makes me think of that ridge of my belly again, and I pinch my arm to rip my thoughts away, guilt pricking at me, because I know it's wrong to think like that, and it's wrong for thinking of pain to make it go away, but I focus on the smell of the heating milk.

I grab a cup from the cupboard, dumping three teaspoons of chocolate powder into the bottom, taking half out because I feel guilty. I pour the milk in on top, letting it dissolve and become delicious. I clean off the nozzle of the milk heater, watching clouds of steam pour from it as it cleans itself out.

I push the lever up again, watching clouds of steam build like I'm at the bottom of a waterfall, watching the temperature climb from 71 to 93 degrees C. Soon, my glasses, previously spotted with rainwater, are just disks of steamed-up glass. I put them on the counter, and listen to the hiss. It's so strangely soothing to be surrounded by sounds of water, the natural rain outside, and the manufactured pocket of steam I'm creating.

I hear the machine beep, and stop my pseudo-steam room treatment, refilling it with the rinsed-out milk jug. I'm surprised I haven't burnt myself yet, and I guess I'm just glad that teenage risk taking is this mild for me. I turn off the machine and turn away. Now the windows are all steamed up.

I pick up my glasses and cup, sitting at my end of the table, my back to the kitchen island, and I pick up the letter on the table. I ignore the urge to draw shapes on the window that mum could see. They'd fade away before she got back anyway.

The envelope is black, and silky smooth, and smells faintly of cherry blossoms and fainter of wet bird. It is sealed with a wax stamp of a cherry blossom. The writing is in a white, pearlecent pen, and familiar handwriting. For Hana Gleaner. Another reason my teachers pause when they get to my name on the register. I open the letter, inhaling the scent, a prickle of excitement deep in my bones.

It's from my granny, on my dad's side. She is responding to the letter I wrote last week, about how school wasn't great, and stuff that went well with horse-riding. It's so great to be able to keep in touch with her.

The strange thing is that my granny is dead. And I'm not the only one who will come home to a letter like this. The Postmaster and death have a special relationship. Death collects souls, and delivers them to the Postmaster's domain of the Beyond. The ravens carry post between our world and the one after, and the place where that happens is Green Hills. It's what makes it so special. Because Green Hills receives letters from the dead.