Raven’s passenger car was at the top of the ferris wheel when it stopped. All the other carnival goers started grumbling and crying and screaming. After peaking over the edge to see the sparks fly, the carnival workers on the ground yelling to each other, and the carnival goers yelling at the workers, Raven slid out from under her restraints. As she stood, the little pod swayed back and forth, but she kept her balance.
It was a crisp, clear autumn night with only one cloud in the sky. That one cloud was covering the moon, her moon. She stared up at it, her long features pulling into a scowl.
“Hey lady, what’re you doing?”
The squeaky male voice came from behind and just below her. She twisted her head and fixed her sharp, black eyes on the teenage boy in the car behind her. His letterman’s jacket screamed jock, but he didn’t have the vapid look she had come to assume all jocks wore. She tilted her head, wondering how he could see her. She had worn all black for the occasion and the darkness of her skin reflected no light in this darkest night. Perhaps it was her hair. Even though it too was black, it was shiny.
He gasped as she leaned over the back of the gondola towards him, causing it to dance. Once it had settled down, she touched a long, slender finger to her lips and breathed a, “shhhhhhhhh!”
With a deep inhale, his green eyes opened wide. On the exhale, his eyelids fell and he slumped forward, asleep.
Raven turned back to the moon. Balancing, one foot on the seat and the other on the bar that closed the pod, she held her hands up to the sky and mimed grasping the cloud. She yanked and tossed it aside. As if she’d actually grabbed it, the cloud skittered across the sky. Her moon was bright and full. She tilted her head, closed her eyes, and smiled. After a few seconds of soaking in the light and power of the moon, she hopped to the floor of her pod and pulled off her clothes.
“What the hell?”
This voice came from the pod in front of her’s. She sighed. The couple in that pod hadn’t stopped making out since the ride started. They hadn’t even come up for air when the wheel stopped, but they just had to look while she was getting naked.
Leaning over the front bar, she put her dark finger to her dark lips and hissed a, “shhhhhhhh!” Both of them, the blonde boy and the raspberry girl, gasped then slumped into each other.
The cacophony of angry voices from below, swelled. Frustration blossomed within her. All these interruptions! How was she supposed to transform when these humans were interfering with her ritual?
Leaning over the side of the gondola, she put a finger to her lips and swung her head from left to right as she exhaled her loudest, longest, “shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Everyone on that side toppled where they stood or sagged where they sat. She repeated it over the other side of her pod. She smiled in the silence that followed. But such a display of magic took its toll on her and she fell back into her seat, very tired.
“No!” She said aloud, shaking herself. She had done too much to prepare for this night to let an energy sap sabotage it all. Grabbing the bottle of reviving elixir (better known as caffeinated soda), she drank it down. With a deep inhale, she stood with her arms stretched out and her eyes wide. The restorative light of the moon would fill her with power.
Soon the intensity of it became too much, so she closed her eyes. She could feel the magic coursing through her body. It was time to begin.
“Raven I am, raven I become. Raven by the moon I shall be. Corvus sum, et factus sum corvus. Corvum lunae fuero. Raven I am, raven I become. Raven by the moon I shall be. Corvus sum, et factus sum corvus. Corvum lunae fuero.”
As she spoke, the blackness of her eyes spread. Her hair rippled and wrapped around her head and neck, changing into feathers. Her nose and mouth elongated.
“Raven I am, raven I become. Raven by the moon I shall be. Corvus sum, et factus sum corvus. Corvum lunae fuero. Raven I am, raven I become. Raven by the moon I shall be. Corvus sum, et factus sum corvus. Corvum lunae fuero.”
Plumage pushed out through her pores as her arms pulled back, her shoulders cracking and reforming. Her back arched forward as longer feathers grew from her posterior.
“Raven I am, raven I become. Raven by the moon I shall be. Corvus sum, et factus sum corvus. Corvum lunae fuero.”
After the fifth repetition, her words became a caw and she spread her wings wide; a raven the size of a human. Two more caws and she flew off into the sky.
Below her, everyone woke.
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