"Down by two, ten seconds left for the game, and I'd just crossed half court."
I had been seated braiding Raven's hair the past hour, in rhythm with every dribble move she described from her last basketball game. Across, under and through, I weaved complimenting her bobbing head in accordance with the wave of an inspirited crowd.
"All my team needed was to sink the three and win."
I blinked then stared at the base of her hair, having lost my concentration and myself in the ebony curls burgeoning from the surface. My vision shifted until Raven turned her head partway, chestnut skin framing her keen right eye to prompt my retort.
"Thanks for spoiling the ending." Raven's giggle had tinkled through the crisp, wintry air, as she briefly took the braid I was working on to feel its quality, then handed it back and turned around. I pulled up my scarf in the moment of respite, exhaling into the warm fabric that reheated my fingers, before continuing to weave.
"Yeah, but it was so funny how we got there in the end. By the way, I didn't take the last shot."
I slowly inhaled as I restarted my pattern of winding hair over then under, taking care from the cold air prickling my nose. To be fair for Raven the storyteller, the predictable twists and turns I had already heard countless times since primary school, she might have cut to the point that time on self awareness. She won basketball games, she always returned a victor, without me bearing witness. Which looking back had not prepared me for any current ironies.
"I kept getting doubled, then finally I saw Gabby be a hero and post up, which Coach told us to never even try. I passed the ball inside to her, but girl, that public high team must have hit the next level of high, because they just flew and doubled on Gabby next. All she could do was pass again, behind the back even, to a wide open Bea. You know Bea can't shoot, but ha--"
Raven's hands clapped together, muffled by her mittens. Then she outstretched them in front, hands splayed while exhaling misty breath through the spaces.
"I swear I saw her close her eyes and pray, ball between her hands, a second before she made that buzzer beater from the corner. Public high's got nothing on a Catholic's home court," she looked back and grinned. But I had been distracted by the sunlight filtering through her fingers, realizing how her hands perfectly encapsulated the sun, as if having taken the shot herself that game. I glanced back at Raven and smiled dazedly, recalling my memory of basketball jargon easier than the college prep vocabulary I studied on my own that other day.
"Was it the corner facing that banner of scripture hanging over the east bleachers?" She shook her head, disturbing the other braids that reminded me to finish my job, "Actually, it was the other corner in front of that wall. Bea probably memorized all those power verses already, that altar girl."
A moment of silence had passed while I performed the finishing touches. Then Raven quietly started again, "So yeah, that's the roller coaster ride of how our school's team made the tournament this year. I'd love the chance to face that public high boys team, or any boys team, before breezing through the rest of our schedule."
"...Then you'd finally come to me after the game all disappointed like, that you lost. And you would get hurt, boys fouling you hard under the hoop." Raven shot me an accusatory look, appearing to crack her muffled knuckles all in bravado, "Bet there's no way I'd lose, if I invited you to that game. It'd be way more important a game than those tournament finals, that I could convince your Mom to let you go. I'd even hit those half court shots you want me to make more of."
I threw up my hands in mock, after donning my own mittens,
"Whatever keeps you away from rough contact. But hey, I told you if you don't get doubled, nobody will expect you to take and hit more half court shots. Though maybe not too many if we're talking boys, or they may get violently jealous of your skills." She smirked, "I bet, if you saw someone start swinging at me, you'd be the first one off the stands rushing onto the court. Can't have any boys spoil our youth and education so she says, am I right?"
That had been my cue. Standing up, emphasizing the tip of my nose scrunching with my index finger and thumb, and squinting in facsimile of my Mom, I shook my other finger of judgment at the void,
"Animals like you can't even squat in front of my daughter's door, not until you come with six figures of your own!" Raven burst out laughing as she also shot straight to her feet, "Just like her every time! Now to bring you everywhere I go, and you could be my public Mom."
I had laughed along, but with a feeling of half my heart in a pit,
"...Sorry, I still can't hang out except on Sundays. Your mother still...? She nodded. It was nothing but watching our breaths condensing into clouds for a while, as darker ones in the sky crept over the sunlight. Then I had tugged playfully on the braid I made for Raven, or had tugged it before the sun could be completely obscured.
"Hey, I have a little more time right now before going home. Looking for a study partner, to hold some flashcards for that history test coming up, you know..." Raven had emitted an "Ow!" before I spoke, swatting away my hand then nursing the other ends of her frizzy hair, "...You sure you didn't braid this too tight? Can't expect every time is just practice--"
"...I couldn't help but notice in class earlier, that was braided in the opposite direction to the other ones, and--" Our words had abruptly halted after simultaneously talking. I pulled up my scarf again, this time to conceal the heat rising up my cheeks.
"...I can't just touch your hair in school, not with all the teachers watching." "Oh," had been her reply, then she replaced the braid with the rest, tidying the cluster as it tumbled down her shoulders. She had given me her radiant smile in the graying surroundings, "Okay, off to the library for study time!"
I had been walking beside her, that day in winter, and on the way she turned to face me one more time, "...Angela, I shouldn't be asking you to do the things Moms could do, even if...that's what you want. You can just be you."
I always listened, but this had been lighter in tone than I recall now.
Often the void was filled by my heaving chest, Mom's finger pressed against it digging a deeper pit.
"Every point marked off this test should have been one more hour of study! How many hours did your teacher say on this class syllabus at least? Huh, and you think I'm too dumb to do math, on how much time you spend and waste!"
I gritted my teeth, my bitten lip long ignored from the days of teary eyes. Mom waved the sheaf of damning papers right in my ear, a din of bloody marks and just misses.
"Every thirty minutes you get home earlier, one half a point more you add to make this score acceptable! Not like today again, I know you always play with Raven late after getting out of school. I thought school and Sunday were already enough fun for you. Now you want to be greedy, ask for a whole extra hour with your classmates after school huh?"
She shoved her finger deeper towards my solar plexus, so I bit back.
"Maybe next time when I pick my new class schedule, study hall will be one of the electives. If you want to count my time like pocket change, then--" I snatched the papers away, and jabbed my own finger into it again and again until the center point creased,
"--I'll just show you my new schedule, like 'yeah Mom look here, saving my study time like the piggy bank, one hour, two hours, now let me spend them with my friends!' And by the way, they're the same friends whose mothers you waste time with at church, and they even give their daughters allowances!" I witnessed fury possess Mom's eyes, and she attempted to tear back away my test papers, though her energy ebbed away feebly in the end. She simply shook her finger in the direction of my room next.
"They give them allowances because of their good grades! Don't criticize me for your own faults! I know, even later tonight when I call you for dinner, you will walk out of your room with a stupid smile, and you think I cannot tell how diligently you really study at home? How dare you afford to have fun--"
"That's enough," Dad finally emerged from behind his laptop, "I'm sure Angela has gotten the point."
Without looking back Mom continued, "--Angela, has gotten this point countless times. Get good grades, maybe you get an allowance. Right now I see that you are in danger, so no more begging and go back to your room, study, study!"
"I only need to listen to you once, Mom," I began to storm off,
"and only I decide when I'm in danger!" Away from those old, overcast eyes always judging me, away from Dad's weak attempts to placate her, back behind a locked door. The atmosphere of home was never open enough to breathe easy though. I found an outlet to diffuse my emotions instead through video games, League of Legends mostly. So yes Mom, that dumb smile was what I needed to cover up the pain beneath.
As my client booted I laid back in my chair, headphones already over ears to leave me in my zone. I had Raven try League before, hoping to connect through something outside of our time constraints. But just like discovering my lack of finesse for basketball, it felt as sheepish to watch my better coordinated friend stumble over a keyboard and mouse. A shame to not have shown my aptitude at something over her, maybe trash talk a bit like she had done in her games to show how strong she was...though only when I'm a one trick Diana main.
First game of the night and Diana's banned. Sighing, I got up to reconsider my choices and close the moonlit window blinds.
"What's wrong?" I had asked.
Raven had been avoiding conversation the whole school day. And it was awkward to confront her after school when her air had felt, settled. Except what had driven me to speak up was its lack of direction. My best friend and star basketball player, just today I noticed she did not even fidget standing at the school bus stop, her body frozen to the pole. I walked up beside her and leaned on the other side, waiting to hear her usual pep.
"Hmm, just Dad gave the usual speech after basketball season ended. Actually, I'm gonna catch the bus today, haven't ridden one in so long. Got a pass yourself?"
Not like I wanted to call her out on anything. Or that the first bus had already come and gone.
"No, but are your legs still sore after the tournament? Is that Father Harlan's latest sermon, taking better care of yourself on the journey between destinations?" "
'The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.' Proverbs 16:9, the verse he used. Oh and the more cliche,
'time flies never to return.'"
It had never occurred to me until that moment, Raven of all people needed that kind of talk from a parental figure. It would sound less strange coming out of my own Mom's mouth. But she had clutched her bus pass all the tighter, and I realized how true her situation was.
"The scholarships have gotta come next year, they just got to."
My hand had slid its way over the cold metal pole hiding our connection, then brushed against her warm touch, unconsciously? She relaxed her grip anyways.
"Um...if you get into the college you want, they'll hold team tryouts anyways right? You're going to graduate as an honor student with your grades, so you have plenty of options." "Ha, I only have the motivation to study that hard because being team captain requires the academic standing too. Around this time of year I start slacking off, so yeah Dad's right to warn me especially as we get closer to applying. Sorry I didn't even show you this side of me before, Angela."
I had shifted my body closer around the pole, to capture a better image of this Raven. She straightened her back in response, the model posture she had to assume in church choir as daughter of the reverend, then lent me her most contradictory smile, sunless eyes drooping. All I had offered her to this point was the attention and chiding her mother, not childhood friend, should be giving, knowing the former was ill long since. I didn't think that's what she wanted to hear.
"Raven...it'll be alright. No matter what, you're going to be at our graduation ceremony. Your name's going to be called after mine, and we'll both be headed to colleges. Maybe even the same one...but don't think otherwise, when you've already worked so hard." She had suddenly become interested in fidgeting with a braid, the braid I had done for her that winter ago. I averted my gaze in embarrassment and assumed my usual tone again.
"B-But, if you think our local university team sucks, go ahead and enroll elsewhere, I-I mean maybe the first game I get to watch you, will be when you visit us again and I cheer on our hometown squad to beat yours--" Raven had grabbed both my hands and brought them together with hers, giggling as everything in me shot straight to attention. "Wow Angela, you're the sister I never knew I had all along. But you know," she leaned in whispering, "if we're gonna be in the same college together, after having been in the same primary, secondary, and high schools, people that know us are gonna start talking."
It seemed my mind had just caught up to how actively hyper focused on Raven my body unconsciously had been for a while. Things like, how her dimples curved about her mouth rounding that area, and an aroma of fragrant tree bark I confused for springtime before, I took in enchanted. Or got high enough to have uttered some bold words.
"Let them talk, they know I can't mother you forever." Raven's face had turned red, and briefly I was in her arms, before she noticed a teacher and went "Oops." But spring began again that year for me, or more like a fifth season I only got to live through once. Maybe Raven had experienced it too.
"Your birthday's coming up right, May the eighth? Oh, same weekend as Mother's Day."
"Jeez, why do you keep forgetting until it's soon to pass? As they say, time flies."
By the time I ended my gaming session, it would be more than four years since I last saw Raven.
She never received an athletic scholarship in the end. We had initially planned on attending the local university together, but then she changed her mind and enrolled at the community college instead. After graduation and summer, I lost all contact with her up to the turn of the decade.
I don't know if she'd disappeared or not honestly, but every time I reached out to that college they said she wasn't attending classes. When I went to Father Harlan at church, and even their home, all he offered was her absence and a somber countenance stating, "The Lord will guide her." I was planning to stop going to church in the meantime, but I eventually earned my bachelor's in social work, and I needed a job to pay for my master's later. The church offered me a position through their charity, so now I'm back to living with my parents, in a role too similar to what Raven warned me about five winters ago.
Late at night, I grabbed a coat and my phone in order to sneak out for a walk, something Raven used to egg me on trying in high school. I imagined I would have attempted some midnight rendezvous with her, a pebble thrown at her bedroom window, or signalling to each other with flashlights, before uniting under the moon. I reconsidered more of my belongings then took my scarf as well, just as much my warm companion.
My neighborhood was relatively safe, though it wasn't particularly affluent. When Raven's family had moved here in my childhood, the local Catholic church had much less influence until her father took over. Besides other faiths, his shepherding aided by the community outreach of charity affected my neighbors and surrounding ethnic circles over time.
Still, while Father Harlan liked mentioning treating his flock as family, I felt uneasy listening to those superficial words, that couldn't reach past the walls of my home. I grew up with Mother behind the closed doors, then opened them on Sunday to join my parish in receiving our Reverend Father. They're the figures whom I grew to emulate, even when I disliked the direction, and my choices post graduation were affected by losing Raven as well, filling the void with my personal capacity, the only role I knew how to act.
A street light illuminated an alley I was passing by until I stepped on a constant stream of red. I instinctively knew it was blood, though I wondered how it flowed so easily on a cold winter night. Then I remembered the recent news about Blood Eye, and shivered in fear. Not even the neighborhood watch could catch a victim being disposed of in their own backyard. I pulled out my phone and hesitantly advanced up the alleyway, rather hoping it was just a dead animal or something. After I called the police once confirming the human body, I closed off any artificial light but knelt closer for examination out of morbid curiosity.
I could see the moonlight in her eyes still, Raven Harlan.
My mind blanked, and my hands began fumbling all over. Was it to search for more evidence of her death in order to swallow my denial, or a memento I selfishly hoped she'd leave only for me to find? I'd find nothing of any sort, but a broken, glinting chain leading towards her clenched hand. Unfurling it revealed the holy cross necklace in her palm, that Raven had worn for as long as I remember.
I covered it and held her hand, weeping until the police arrived.
In the mirror I see Raven beside me, or not quite her.
She wears a strange mixture of clothing from different cultures. From the bottom to her collarbone, a translucent dress falls to the floor, shimmering between dark and light patterns. Its elongated sleeves hang in the fashion of a nun habit, and is secured with a chain cincture. But instead of a headpiece, a wreath of cobalt, gold, and silver colored feathers rests upon her shoulders. A half mask features extended rabbit ears crowning her writhing braids.
"...You're not Raven, are you?" "Nah, but her ancestors know me as Adanko. I've watched over them from the moon for many journeys, fair and harrowing, and stories get told about me whenever some tricky patch they fall into needs my help escaping. Well now, you're some fine patch I've gotten myself mixed into." "Adanko" sidles up and wraps an arm around my shoulder, at least the mirror image of me. While I hear Raven's voice in my head anyways.
"I suddenly feel, culturally inappropriate..." "You must've fancied this girl Raven, to wanna model her like this in your imagination. Her people have had to change their wardrobe with their roles though anyways, so I get your idea from the dress down." "I've never seen her wear anything more out there than a basketball uniform, you don't come from my imagination!" "She" draws back from my aroused defensiveness.
"Really though, I've been in your unconscious for this long, I even booted some boring old double of you way back when. You wouldn't rather be talking to yourself now right," then in Raven's accent, "when you could hang out some more with me, Angela. You like staying close to me, right?"
I squirm at how I unconsciously kick my own ego with the truth so easily. But I cannot accept any further that
"Adanko" can replace Raven in my mind.
"Fine, but the real Raven is dead, because Blood Eye murdered her. That's why we'll have to work together, to put her case to rest." "Okay then, with that outta the way let's enter the contract. I am thou...thou art I...hmm, I'll be the hare to your 'Alice,'
and...from the sea of thy soul, I come..." I, Angela
"Alice" Gong, close my eyes and imagine the rabbit mask being placed on myself. I also hear
"Adanko," or maybe Raven from back then in the church choir, singing.
"It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die/Cause I don't know what's up there, beyond the sky/It's been a long, a long time coming/But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will."