Page 2 of Raven in Midwinter

Gently, I cleared my throat. “Yesterday, I shifted and flew the entirety of Corvus. I saw nothing of note.”

“It’s always so cool, seeing you turn into a flock of ravens,” he said with a slight smile.

“Not the point.”

“I know, but it bears repeating that it’s amazing.”

As long as he thought so, I was happy, though I tried to keep the flying to a minimum in winter. The ravens I became stood out sharply against pale winter skies, which was not the safest. “I’m not suggesting you’re seeing things. You get that, don’t you?”

“I do,” he grumbled, and put down his cup and walked toward the front door.

“Ghosts walk across Corvus quite a bit.”

“I know that.”

“So is it at all possible…?”

“No.” He was adamant. “Whatever it is, it’s lurking, and I don’t like it.” He grabbed his beanie from one of the hooks by the front door.

“What are you doing?”

“That should be fairly obvious,” he retorted, sounding a bit surly as he pulled on his parka, then his fleece-lined boots, yanking them to mid-calf and shoving his sweats down into them.

“Well, wait for me to go with you.”

“Why? You’re not seeing anything.”

“But as you suggested yesterday, maybe whatever it is hides when I look.”

“Which sounds even stupider than it did when I said it the first time.”

“Please wait,” I insisted.

“Why?” he asked petulantly.

“Because I don’t want you traipsing around outside by yourself.”

He glared at me. “You’re a witch. Our home is a magical cottage that’s practically sentient, and the land we live on is enchanted. In what realm of the imagination could I be in any danger here on Corvus?”

But the fact of the matter was, he’d been seeing something for several days, and every single time I tried to spy whatever he’d gotten a glimpse of, I was disappointed. That in itself was disconcerting.

“Let’s—”

The wind chimes on the porch started making various noise then, the bigger ones sounding like bells, the smaller ones tinkling, which startled me, as there was no breeze at all.

Lorne turned for the door.

“Don’t you dare,” I ordered, rushing across the room to stand in front of it, barring his exit. “Check and see what’s outside, but don’t go.”

He squinted at me like I was nuts. “There’s probably someone on the porch, and they bumped them when they were walking around.”

That was my presumption as well. “Yes,” I concurred without budging.

He gave me another assessing look, but then went to the window to the right of the door—a window that had appeared sometime in early fall. I had always wanted one so I could see out toward the road, as well as to see the entirety of the porch that had widened over the years. There had always been the tiny peephole you had to open to see out of, protected with small, ancient wrought-iron bars, always letting in hot air in the summer and cold in winter. Lorne had agreed with me that a window would be a good addition and was poised to begin construction when the cottage had manifested exactly what I imagined. It was there the following morning, the double-hung window, with lovely moss-green curtains with hooks on the side to tuck them into during the day.

“That’s weird.”

“What’s weird?” I asked, joining him to gaze out at an empty porch.