Memory fades with time.1
What is real? Did it actually happen? Or was it all just a child's lonely dream?2
I sometimes think that night was but a dream; just a hazy, surreal and childish fantasy of wish fulfilment. Perhaps it was just how I had dealt with missing my two best friends in the whole world.3
I laugh now at my foolishness, for believing in fairytales, for believing in avengers of innocence from beyond death itself.4
It can't have been real. Any of it. No...5
________________________________________________________6
"People once believed that when someone dies a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it, and the soul can't rest.7
Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right."
8
October 30th9
Devils’ Night
10
I remember…11
12
It had been a year to the day.13
Had it really only been that long? Just one year? A mere three hundred and sixty five miserable, empty, lonely days?14
To a child, a year is like a lifetime. Back then, it had felt like forever.15
16
Shelly...17
At first I hadn’t really known what had happened. I’d just arrived at your building, excited and eager to help with the last dress fitting before the big day. I got there a little late and saw the flashing red and blue, the bustling forms in the street. I heard the mournful wail of sirens mixed with the clamour of urgent voices all around.18
I got scared.19
I soon found out what had happened.20
I found out exactly what they had done to you.21
That night, Devils’ Night, I watched as they carried you out in to the cold and drizzle filled gloom, lying on the stretcher, whimpering through your struggled breaths. Busy cops surrounding you, hurrying along with the nobly concerned paramedics.22
I saw you….heard you ask for Eric.23
I heard you ask them to tell him to take care of me.24
That was you, always thinking of others…even as you were clinging on to life, struggling in agony.25
Thank you.26
I love you.27
Always.28
29
Eric...30
I didn’t see you that night. But later, I found out what had happened, how you were found. The cop, Albrecht, he told me. He didn’t want to. He tried skirting around the details, his face an ever-shifting portrait of discomfort, pain and anger.31
But I made him tell me.32
I wanted to know.33
I HAD to know it all.34
You’d been stabbed once; shot twice, then sent through the loft window. They found you lying on your back down on the street. Your poor body twisted and broken; crimson rivers of a life now gone mixed with the slithering rain all around you; cold, lifeless, finished, done.35
What kind of evil is that?36
What kind of senseless cruelty lives in men, allowing them to do such things to ones so loving, to those so full of hopeful dreams?37
Sometimes I hate this world.38
Sometimes I hate it so much I just want to reach up to the sky and scratch and claw at the absent face of god for making things this way. Or for just allowing it to become like this.39
Even now, on a gloomy, rainy night, just like that night all those years ago, I’ll raise my face to heaven and ask40
"Why?"41
But he never answers.42
I know better than most that evil is everywhere,. It's deep down in the heart of every man and woman, lurking, waiting. It resides in every decision, every choice. It waits on a street corner with the strung out junkie, a shaking knife in hand, desperate for cash for a fix. It lives in the parent who neglects or abuses their own child. It fuels the man who wages war and murders the innocent in the name of conquest, religion, freedom…whatever.43
It is always the innocent who suffer the most.44
The ones who have no voice; The ones who have no power.45
Until that night, I’d always thought that the innocent were truly powerless, that they existed only to be corrupted and ruined. But that night, Devils’ Night, three hundred and sixty five miserable days after you were both taken away from me, I discovered that I was wrong.46
There is a force out there, as old as time, as old as the oldest star in the heavens. It is a force that gives a voice, a power to innocence, a power that reaches out beyond the veil of death to bring vengeance down upon those who deserve it. It sends its messenger, its totem of retribution, the great black bird as black as death itself, back to the land of the living, bringing with it the soul that cannot rest, giving that soul one last chance to do what must be done.47
To put the wrong things right.48
And that was how you came back to me, Eric. Just for that one single, scary, wonderful night.49
You saved my life, twice. First by pulling me out from in front of a car in the pouring rain.50
"It can’t rain all the time," you said.51
"Eric?"52
I knew it was you. It was impossible. But I knew.53
But you couldn’t be my friend anymore, because I was alive. You had a mission. You had vengeance to unleash. Evil to punish. And you had. For Shelly and your lost life together; For the future happiness that never was.54
And then it was done.55
They had all felt your wrath. They had become the forever damned, every one of them. Payment in full.56
But you couldn’t stay.57
The time had come. The eternal mystery beckoned you back across the sea of night.58
Back to Shelly.59
She was waiting for you.60
I’d thought I’d seen her, walking towards you from out of the misty grey night. She was dressed in perfect white. Her eyes smiling with the same kindness I had always known. I thought I saw her reach out and touch your head, stroke your hair, kiss you once. I thought I heard her call your name, faint and sweet, carried on the wind.61
"...Eric… "62
I had only blinked once...and there was nothing.63
Just two lonely grey headstones rising sorrowfully from the cold wet earth. Together forever with two names carved in to the ageless stone of each.64
Eric Draven65
Shelly Webster
And there, on Eric’s headstone, was perched the great black bird. Motionless, a glistening feathered statue, watching me with keen, knowing eyes, bidding me to come forward.66
So I did.67
And in its savage beak I could see something glitter in the dimming light.68
I held out my hand and the crow dropped Shelley’s wedding ring in to my small, open palm.69
"Thanks" I murmured.70
And it flew away.71
And I went home.72
***73
Oh, so many years ago, now.74
Was it real? Was it all a dream I'd had? Or was it all just a dream I thought I'd had? Perhaps the song is right, perhaps life is but a dream.75
Sometimes, all these years later, as I try to live a good and happy life, I do think that that night was but a dream; just a hazy, surreal and childish fantasy of wish fulfilment. Was it how I had dealt with the loss of my two best friends in the whole world? The outlet for my feelings of such raw, bitter anger and resentment at their having been stolen from me before what should have been the happiest day of their lives?76
Sometimes, while doing the mundane: the laundry, cooking the dinner, doing the shopping, I will laugh at myself for my foolishness, for believing in fairytales, for believing in avengers of innocence from beyond death itself.77
But then, sometimes, just sometimes, when doing those wonderful, beautiful things: playing with my granddaughter, tending the roses in my garden, kissing my husband goodnight, I will glimpse from the corner of my eye a tiny movement, a fleeting shadow. I’ll feel a comforting warmth then come about me and I’ll hear two voices gently whispering to me through the noise of life, calmly stroking at my doubting mind.78
We are with you, Sarah. We love you. Always.79
And I take out the ring I wear around my neck; I cradle it in my palm, and I remember. I remember the love, the happiness, the fun we had. But I also remember the horror, the pain, the loss, and the grief. And then I remember the truth.80
For just one night, Eric had come back to me.81
He had returned to our world.82
He had put the wrong things right.83
And then I smile, for right then I know that neither of you have ever really left me.84
I have lived my life as well, and as full as I could. I can honestly say that I have been so very happy. I have a wonderful husband who adores me. I have a loving son who has given me the most beautiful little granddaughter, with a new grandson soon to join her.85
It is perfect.86
I’ve lived it for me, but I’ve also lived it for the both of you. The happiness you should have had together, you have had through me.87
Shelley Webster, Eric Draven, I love you both.88
Always89
***90
The grey haired woman crouched down slowly before the two old, weathered looking headstones. They stood so close together, almost touching, as if nothing could ever pull them apart.91
She reached out and carefully placed a single red rose against each one; two blood red tokens of love resting against two grey monuments to loss.92
The day was fading fast.93
The warm, reddish light was slowly leaving the world to the mercy of the coming October night. The sun was falling from the sky, heading down to hide behind the great dark church beside her.94
Carefully, she raised herself back up. She was slightly stiff in the bones now as the ever advancing years were starting to take their toll on her. She was no longer able to move quite as quickly or as easily as she once had.95
The woman came to this place every October 30th without fail.96
But every year, for the past few years, it had been getting gradually harder and harder to make the long journey back here.97
Back home.98
But she knew deep in her heart that, for as long as she was able to move her aging bones, she would never stop coming here.99
"Nana Sarah…look."100
A small, excited voice came from behind her.101
Sarah turned around, searching out the source of those words.102
And there it was.103
She smilled down at her little six-year-old granddaughter. Cute little tufts of dark blond hair could just be seen poking out from the hood of the childs sweet looking brightly red winter coat. She had slipped from her grandmother’s side just as Sarah had crouched down to place the two roses.104
Her granddaughter was looking up and to the right, leaning back from her knees, her right arm outstretched, index finger pointing insistently upwards.105
"What is it, Katy? " Sarah asked through a gentle smile.106
"A real big bird, Nana Sarah. Big and black. He’s watching you," the little girl told her excitedly.107
Sarah’s eyes followed the aim of Katy’s pointing finger, slowly upwards, towards a long, twisted branch that extended from the old knarled tree whose grey-brown and cracked trunk stood only about ten feet away from them.108
There, perched on the end of that branch, as still as a stone gargoyle, looking down at her, was a large, darkly familiar shape. Fading sunlight slid over the shining black feathers. The huge, brutal beak pointed down at her as if signalling her position to some unseen force. Those careful, knowing eyes that saw through all worlds and through all souls watched her so very closely. Waiting for what she might do next.109
"Big birdy…" she heard Katy whisper with a childs innocent wonder.110
Suddenly, Sarah felt that old and warm blanket of love begin to wrap itself around her. She moved slowly forwards, towards Katy. Her eyes never once leaving the crow; It’s eyes never once leaving her.111
Reaching out, she gently took Katy’s little hand in hers.112
She gave it a reassuring squeeze.113
"It’s ok, he lives here. He’s the night watchman."114
"What does he watch?" the little girl asked in a hushed, reverent tone.115
Sarah's eyes remained fixed on the still unmoving crow.116
"He watches over the ones who have passed on, darling. He watches over the ones we love…and the ones who love us,"117
Then, in a slightly louder voice, Sarah addressed the giant crow.118
"Isn’t that right, night-watchman?".119
The great black bird let out a single, loud CAAAW in response. It stretched out its long graceful, glistening oil-black wings, and dipped its head once – almost as if bowing to her in acknowledgement.120
Sarah gave a little flinch at the sudden noise and movement from the bird.121
Much to her surprise, Katy didn’t.122
Infact, the little girl began to giggle.123
"I like him. He’s a good birdy," she cooed.124
Sarah couldn’t resist a smile and the small chuckle that followed. She looked down at the little girl next to her. Katy’s face peered up at Nana Sarah from out of her big red hood, a few blond locks framing her happy, wide and twinkling blue eyes.125
"Yes, darling. He is," Sarah agreed with another short chuckle.126
"Time we were going. Mommy and daddy will be wondering where we’ve got to."127
The grandmother and granddaughter turned and began to walk slowly away, hand in hand, back towards the busy world outside of the peaceful churchyard.128
As they neared the old rusty metal gate that marked the exit, a single loud CAAAW came from behind.129
Sarah and Katy both turned back around, looking towards the two now distant graves.130
The night watchman had moved.131
He had abandoned his perch in the old tree.132
He now stood proudly atop one of the two grey headstones they had just left. The two red tokens of love that Sarah had placed there could still be seen resting against them.133
Sarah knew which headstone the night watchman was perched on. The only one he could have perched on.134
She smilled back at him.135
"I’ll see you next year."136
The purest of pure love coated her softly uttered words.137
She looked down to Katy, reaching out a hand to brush against the little girls’ cheek.138
"I have to tell you a story, Katy. About two very special people who loved each other so much that nothing could ever keep them apart. He was a handsome musician who loved to write songs and play his guitar. She was a beautiful angel who cared so much for others that she always thought of them before herself. Even when things got to be so very bad, and they were parted, and she was hurt…"139
"Nana Sarah, does it have a happy ending? It has to have a happy ending," Katy interrupted, a worried frown attacking her little face.140
"Oh yes, Katy. You see, if the people we love are kept apart from us, if they ever get lost, then the way to always keep them with us is to never stop loving them…"141
Sarah paused for a moment. The faces of Shelly Webster and of Eric Draven and all the joyful memories of her time with them danced around in her mind.142
She started to feel that familiar and comfortingly warm blanket of love pulling itself tighter around her, around little Katy too.143
"Because, my darling, real love is forever. "144
For those torn from us145
Nothing is forgotten.146
Nothing is ever forgotten147
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