Realms of the Raven

Lightning
(c) 2008 by Maura Anderson, all rights reserved.

She will die young and without knowing true love. As the storm embraces her, the kiss of lightning will be her death, yet she will be endlessly drawn to her killer.

“Look Mom, I need to concentrate on driving. I’ll call you when the storm has passed to let you know I’m okay.” Even her mother wouldn’t argue with that excuse.

“Okay, Joann. Please be careful. Stay away from the storm. I can’t bear to lose you now.” A hint of tears was obvious in her mother’s voice. Jo knew the pain of her father’s death still hadn’t eased for either of them, even in the three years since he lost his battle with cancer. Her mother was terrified of losing her only child as well.

She hung up the phone and found herself stopping at another light. Only five miles to her house. She certainly should be able to make it in time – she hoped.

The obscure prophecy of her Romani grandmother hung over her head since she was born. All through Jo’s life her mother sought to prevent the curse – for it was really more curse than prophecy – from coming true. Any hint of a thunder storm and her mother would demand that she lock herself in the large guest bathroom, the only room in her childhood home that had no windows.

Jo hated that room. It always made her feel as if she were being suffocated. She tried to avoid it as long as possible, often having to be forced into it by her mother as the storms were breaking.

But the older she got, the more she absorbed her mother’s fears. She didn’t want to die.

Jo pulled up into a line of cars waiting at a stop sign. While she waited for her turn, she found herself watching the storm clouds writhe and twist in the sky. The horizon seemed alive with movement.

A glance in the rearview mirror at the sky behind her instead revealed her own face. Her curly brown hair always reacted badly to humidity and was now a bit frizzy, despite the expensive hair care products she lavished on it. Her face was so pale that the light makeup she had on didn’t disguise its pallor and her hazel eyes appeared huge. She looked frantic. She felt frantic.

When she’d realized the storm was coming in a lot earlier than predicted, she’d told her co-workers that she was suddenly feeling ill and had to leave the meeting early. She could tell by the knowing smirks they exchanged that they were condescendingly amused by their only female programmer’s fear of storms.

But they were wrong. Jo wasn’t afraid of storms. She was drawn to them in an almost irresistible attraction. The only thing that kept her inside in her safe room was the damned prophecy. An avowed disbeliever, she was still afraid that it might be true and had no desire to die.

Finally through the long line at the stop sign, Jo turned down the main road into the area her isolated house was located just as raindrops began to fall. She felt vaguely sick as the rain grew heavier and the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

At last she pulled into her own driveway. If she could just get into the house before the power was released. Before the lighting or thunder started. “Home. I’m home.”

She shut off the car and readied her keys, locating the one to her front door. A deep breath and she grabbed her purse and opened the car door, ready to race for the house.

As she slammed the car door shut, she felt it the raw power and presence of the storm surround her. Her heart pounded in her chest and she tried to force herself toward the house but instead stood frozen in awe, unable to move.

The sharp smell of ozone finally broke her free of her paralysis and she ran across her lawn toward the house. But before she could reach the door, she was lifted and thrown backwards through the air.

A small part of her realized she could no longer feel her heart beat as before the blackness enveloped her.