Read Raven Saga 01 - Raven for Free Online Page A

not stop my thoughts from once again returning to my parents, and I felt a little pang of guilt. Guilt for enjoying myself.
    Shivering, I stood up intent on walking a little more to warm myself up. I continued along the same stretch, carefully climbing over gigantic pieces of driftwood, clueless as to how such immense logs of wood could find themselves washed up here. Where had they come from? Had they drifted for hundreds of miles, thousands of miles? Or had they just come from around the corner? Probably the sort of question that every Canadian would know the answer to.
    Canadian. That was me now. Actually, that had always been me. My father was Canadian, I didn't know about my mother. I was just born in the UK, wasn't I? Suddenly I had doubts about everything. I remembered that photo Ben had shown me at the airport. I was just a baby. I had never seen it before and if I recalled correctly, the background certainly didn't appear to be London. Could I have been to Canada before? Could I have been born here? These were questions that needed answering.
    Yes, I had an English accent that everybody absolutely loved here (they couldn't get enough of it, which was difficult for me, being such a quiet girl) but I was Canadian.
    Another splash revealed yet another jumping fish to my side as I turned away from the water and headed towards a dirt track that I presumed would take me back to the main road to lead me back home. Home. Weird that it didn't feel wrong to call it that after so little time.
    I was just a few metres down the track when a grey cat suddenly appeared from nowhere. It approached me and began to purr gently at my side. I bent down to stroke it and it stayed put for just a moment while it stretched regally before it began walking away from me, towards the sound of some softly playing music that took me by surprise as I hadn't noticed any houses nearby. Although the music sounded foreign, it was beautiful. Slightly eerie.
    I approached, tiptoeing towards the sounds. Leaning against a huge tree almost twice the width of me, I carefully peered around it to get a better view of the property. The cat had left me alone and had wandered up towards the house.
    Even though it was the chilliest day since my arrival, on account of the cloudless sky, I guessed, I saw an older lady standing outdoors with her back to me. She was painting. What she was painting, I couldn't quite see. She was humming loudly to the music as the cat positioned itself at her side.
    Her grey and white hair was tied up in a bun, revealing an elegant long neck. She wore a woolly grey poncho that ended in a point just below her bottom. She was slim and sleek and as she moved, she did so gracefully.
    “Come on over, child. I won't bite or scratch you,” she yelled above the sound of the music. She didn't turn, instead she continued to sing and paint as if I wasn't there.
    I came out of my hiding place and slowly walked towards her, wondering why she would say that she won't bite or scratch me.
    As I approached, she finally turned to reveal perhaps one of the most beautiful faces I have ever seen on a lady of her age. But even with such beauty, I was startled by her apparent feline appearance. The way the colours in her hair intertwined with each other reminded me of the cat that had led me there. Her ears, although small, appeared to have a slight pointedness to them. And she had the brightest of light blue eyes. As she looked at me, she smiled a big hearty smile.
    “I'm guessing you're Lilly?” she said with a voice that could melt chocolate. She must have every man in Powell River after her, I thought.
    Nodding, I held out my hand, “How do you know?” I asked.
    “You look just like your grandmother when she was young,” she said as she took my hand, kindly holding it in one and stroking it with the other. “Plus... you have the same scent,” she added, smiling. “She, however, didn't have dyed hair!” she said with a laugh. “I'm Rose. I