The Deception Dance

The
Deception Dance

By Rita Stradling

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents and
places are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or real
persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright
© 2012 by Rita Stradling.

All
rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or
transmit in any form or by any means. For subsidiary rights please
contact the author.

Rita
Stradling

PO
Box 792144

Paia,
HI 96779

Cover
Design by Rita Stradling

Edited
by Nai’a Newlight (through Chapter 13)

EBook
ISBN 978-0-9887289-0-5

Manufactured
in the Unites States of America

First
Edition December 2012

The author acknowledges
the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the
following brand names and products mentioned in this work of fiction:
Sheraton, Antica Pesa, Lamborghini, Rolls Royce, Vespa, Lincoln Town
Car, Jet Ski and Ferrari.

For my sisters.

Nearly Ten Years Ago

Thick gray fog drapes the graveyard. Crosses, stones and statues poke
out of the mist, like the jumbled teeth of a witch’s smile. I
stick my head through the gate until the cold bars touch my cheeks;
this gate is the only thing that separates Linnie and me from the
field of gravestones, and the chain that locks it dangles loose
enough to squeeze through.

“This place is always so creepy,” Linnie says, clutching
a black metal bar so tightly that her knuckles turn white.

I don’t agree. The morning fog makes the graveyard beautiful,
soft and sad as a voice humming a lullaby, but I don’t tell her
what I think. She’d call me a weirdo.

“I hate it here. Let’s go to the playground, Raven. Dad
said we should go to the playground. I’m going back.”
Linnie says, her teeth clacking together like a wooden marionette’s
mouth as she speaks. She doesn’t walk away, though; she stays,
grasping the bars and watching me.

I wipe my hair off from where the dew has made it stick to my cheeks
and tuck it behind each of my ears before shaking my head. As I slip
through the gate’s opening my sweater and tights protect me
from the familiar kiss of the cold metal.

When I glance back at Linnie, she shuffles her feet and makes a
huffing sound. I think about telling her to stay behind, but I know
if she runs home, she’ll tell on me, as always. So I wait,
watching her pretend to consider not following, although I know she
will.

“You know,” she says, while sucking in to squeeze through
the gate, “the only reason all those birds follow Andrew around
is that he feeds them. People can’t actually talk to birds.
Andrew is a liar...”

“Andrew doesn’t lie,” I say, shaking my head.

She rolls her eyes. “You’re such a baby, Raven. Everyone
lies. Besides, Dad said we shouldn’t hang out with him anymore.
He says we should find
normal
friends, which probably means
not
homeless
friends.”

I shrug so she'll think I don't care what dad thinks, grab Linnie's
hand and drag her down the road. Stone beds stretch out in rows on
both sides of us; flowerpots sit at their feet and gravestones sprout
from their pillows.

“That’s where ghosts sleep,” Linnie whispers, in
the same hushed voice she uses when she tells me ghost stories at
night.

I giggle, and then ask, “Really? Where do they go to the
bathroom? In the flowerpots?”

Linnie scrunches up her mouth, trying not to giggle, but fails, and
her habitually ever-present smile makes its first appearance since we
entered the graveyard.

We skip, arms swinging between us, until I halt to point to what I've
been looking for, black birds rustling their wings. “There!”
I let go of her hand. “Ready, set, go!”

We race down the line of graves to the big stone houses at the back
of the graveyard. I win; I always win. Linnie crumples against the
wall of a stone building; I barely need to catch my breath.

Andrew’s here, throwing seeds to his birds.

His hair, face and clothes are so dirty, he looks as if he’d
rolled in mud, but it hasn't rained. I can barely read the words
printed on his oversized shirt. I read it four days ago, "Saint
Augustine's Youth Group." He told me he'd never even been part
of a youth group. I doubt he has any other clothes, since he doesn't
have a house, or parents. Then, I notice the biggest change in his
appearance: his blackened sleeve, which shows little red burns,
eating up his shoulder.

Linnie jumps toward him, covers her mouth and shrieks, “Andrew!
Your arm!”

Not turning around, he shrugs and grumbles, “I don’t want
to talk about it.”

I tiptoe forward, hoping to look at his arms, but stop when he spins
around. He smiles at me, and then holds out his plastic bag of seeds.

I pause before scooping a handful and throwing them to the ravens.

Linnie steps up beside us. “You should go to a doctor; I'm
serious. You could die… or something.”

Andrew glares at Linnie, looking as if he might say something but
then turns away. He repeats, “I don’t want to talk about
it,” tossing another handful of seeds to the birds.

A crowd of Andrew’s ravens swarms around, pecking the ground
and one another.

His green eyes, the only dirt-free part of his face, brighten as he
turns to me. “I've been waiting for hours; I didn't think you
were going to come."

I grab some more seeds and shrug.

"I'm glad you're here," Andrew says.

"What are we going to do?" Linnie is the one who asked the
question but Andrew's attention is still on me when he says, "Do
you want to break into the mausoleums?”

“Okay,” I say, grinning back, and then I wrinkle up my
nose. “Um, what’s a mausoleum?”

He nods at the row of stone buildings behind us.

Linnie shakes her head, bouncing from foot to foot. “No, Raven.
We're going to get in trouble.”

Andrew shrugs. “You don’t have to come with us.” He
turns his bag inside out, spilling the remainder of his seeds on the
grass, grabs my hand, and leads me to the buildings.

When I peer back, I see that Linnie is following; at first she stops
every few steps, but when we leave her behind, she runs to keep up.

We check the thick metal doors that block up the buildings, they're
all locked. We're about to give up, when I notice one stone building,
the biggest one, hidden way in the back of the graveyard. We run down
the walkway, leading to the furthest most hidden section of the
graveyard.

We reach it, and the big metal door is locked.

“This is stupid!” Linnie kicks a pebble and sends it
skittering down the stone steps of the mausoleum.

I straighten up. “You know what we should do instead? We
should peek into Mrs. Trandle’s windows.”

"No," Linnie says, desperately, "Not Mrs. Trandle!
She's totally and completely insane. Sally Hamel said she escaped
from an insane asylum and she eats...”

“Hey, you!” someone yells.

We all turn around on the steps of the stone building. Not seeing
anyone, I peek around the wall. The sun has lifted the fog, making
the trees that line the back of the graveyard visible; they sway in
the breeze. A tall man, wearing a browned and torn tuxedo, stands
under the outstretched branches of a big green willow.

“You! I know who you are!” he shouts.

Andrew shoves me down the steps. “Run!”

As I recover my balance, I look back to the man; he is charging
straight for us. My fingers wrap around Linnie’s wrist, my
shoes smack the pavement and we sprint down the road.

In seconds, Andrew catches up and passes us. I look for an escape,
but barbed wire shoots out from the top of the metal-linked fence on
my right. On the left, the man blocks any escape, as he sprints
across the field of graves.

The back gate, giant and black, comes into sight, as we near the end
of the fence.

Linnie stumbles.

I pull her forward.

“This way!” Andrew calls, gesturing a few paces ahead,
down a row of graves.

Linnie veers toward Andrew, but she’s not fast enough and she
blocks my way. I push her forward, but as I do, hands grab my
shoulders and yank me back.

Something sharp stings my neck; a hand wraps around my chin and I
can't look to see. I think it’s a knife.

“Don’t move,” the man says, his breath wet and hot
on my cheek and reeking so it stings my nose. A few heavy exhalations
in my ear, then he whispers, “What am I doing? What am I doing?
What am I doing? Don’t talk, girl. Don’t even breathe.”

Linnie keeps running; her brown hair streams behind her as she leaves
out of the back gate.

Andrew doesn't leave me; he stops and spins around. His shoulders
lift and fall with each heavy breath. He tilts his head down and mats
of dirty hair fall over his face, leaving only one visible eye to
glare out. “Let her go,” he says in a low voice.

The man’s fingers pinch my chin, as he pulls my head up and my
body against his quaking stomach. His hand lets go of me to point
into Andrew’s hair-covered face. The man’s sleeve slides
down, showing a squiggly knot of black lines on his wrist. He
screams, “Give it back. The deal is off, or I’ll . . . or
I’ll kill this kid!”

A black bird glides down from the sky, settling into the grass
between us and Andrew. It stops, rustles its wings, lifts up its head
and fixes me with its gaze. And for a moment, there is no graveyard,
no stinging smell of sweat and sour breath, no Andrew, no wind, no
warming day, just me and the black eyes of the raven, fixed on each
other.

Then, as if from nowhere, or maybe everywhere, hundreds of ravens
soar down, showering like giant inky raindrops. Their flapping wings
make a
hush, hush, hush
sound, and claws
scrape, scrape,
scrape
the gravestones and pavement as they land. They perch on
every stone and litter the road, all their beady eyes fixed on me.

“Stop!” the man screams.

It doesn’t stop. The downpour of wings turns into a black
tornado, with us at the center.

The wind is too much; the beady stares are too much. I hear Andrew’s
voice, as if from nowhere. “Raven, close your eyes.” I
squeeze my eyelids shut.

Andrew’s voice screams out a word I’ve never heard
before:
“Ratsakh!”

Wind sweeps round me, as a hundred caws screech out.

I don’t open my eyes.

“No, wait!” the man screams. His fingers clench my
shoulder and then release it. The sharp object at my neck jerks back,
and his chest drops away from my back.

I stumble forward and start to fall, but thin arms catch and wrap
around me.

The man screams again. I hear his cries, screams, gurgles, and then,
silence.

“Don’t look,” Andrew whispers as his fingers comb
through my hair.

For some reason I can’t breathe in enough air. I gasp and gasp
and gasp. When I finally catch my breath, I’m exhausted and my
eyelids slide shut. My head rests on Andrew's earthy, sweaty,
body-odor-smelling shoulder.

Minutes pass; I don’t break away. Andrew holds me up and I keep
my eyelids squeezed closed.

I hear someone running toward us; I don't move.

“Raven,” my dad whispers hoarsely from somewhere beside
us. I don't move.

Andrew’s head jerks away from mine; he still holds me tight. I
don’t look up, and I don’t let go of Andrew.

Dad gasps, “Oh, my God!” Then he makes a hacking and
violent retching sound.

Birds caw, shriek and rustle.

I hear my Dad clear his throat. “Are you Andrew? Wh -- what
happened?”

I don’t say anything and Andrew doesn’t respond either.

“Andrew, let go of Raven, and one of you, please, tell me what
happened to that that...” he makes the retching sound again.

Andrew squeezes me tighter. He makes a strange sound that is almost a
growl.

“Get your hands off her!" Dad yells, as I hear him move
toward us.

Sirens blare over the chorus of bird screeches.

Andrew’s arms yank away.

I fall forward and scrape my palms, catching myself from slamming
into the pavement.

Dad scoops me off the road; he smells like sawdust and paint.

I whisper, "It wasn't Andrew, daddy. It was the birds, the birds
did it."

“From now on, you leave my girls alone, Andrew!” Dad
yells. “You hear me? Leave Raven alone!”

The bird's caws and screeches cease for a moment and the graveyard
stands silent.

I open my eyes.

Andrew has stopped a few paces away, where he glares at my dad. “You
can't keep me from her.” His voice changes, goes deeper,
louder. “Nothing will keep me from Raven. Nothing.”

Like a giant, awakened from sleep, the ground groans and shudders.

My dad’s arms tighten around me and I feel him backing away.