Summer, Ontario, 1917.
Raith did not live in the provincial park, his home being in a more isolated location in rural northern Ontario. However, he often visited an aboriginal friend at a reserve on the other side of the park. The quickest route is to fly over the park. He often used the Kayak River as a guide to his destination. One year, in early July, he was making the trek back in the form of a raven when he saw people leaving the inn near Kayak River with painting brushes and canvases in hand. Curiosity caught the better of him and he flew below, hiding the clothes he was carrying, and flew about, investigating and wanting to learn more. He saw a large man, over six feet, and of ample girth, with curly, brown hair and a well-shaped nose. Raith somehow thought artists were more fragile, but it was obvious this person was not averse to physical labour and likely did a lot of it. He followed him until he found a place where he wanted to sketch. There were some trees and lake and clouds. Raith thought it was a mundane location though he knew he did not have the aesthetic of artists. The beauty that nature offers could not sway or excite him as it did others.
As he thought he would be, he was thoroughly unimpressed by this person’s work. Of course, there was much of the typical human experience that he looked at with apathy or disdain. He was about to leave when out of the corner of his eye, he saw another man with a rifle: a poacher. He took aim in the direction he was looking, the target being a young deer. Quickly, Raith transformed, every aspect of the raven growing outward with the body elongating and the form becoming bipedal, five-and-a-half feet tall, with an eight-foot wingspan. He heard a gasp and turned his head to see it was the artist who made the noise. There was nothing he could do at that moment. Raith flew swiftly towards the poacher, disarming him and knocking him unconscious within one motion. He knew the artist could not see his attack but also knew that he saw too much already. He hid the gun and ammunition in a location that he would later retrieve. He clasped the lifeless poacher’s body with his talons and flew him to a wide, well-travelled trail. His hope was that the warden would see him, or others might and report him to the warden.
After that was resolved, he turned his attention to the bulky artist. What did the artist see? Either him transforming to this raven-human hybrid creature or simply this monstrosity of a creature before his very eyes and quickly disappearing. This never happened to Raith before since he was very careful not to do or be seen doing anything suspicious. There was a protocol that his father had taught him. He wished he could contact his father for his counsel, but he was away. His mother was home, but the distance was far, and the caretaking of the forest was a male responsibility so she and his sister could offer very little help. He tried to piece together all the details from memory as very little was written down. Recalling everything he could, what he needed to do was not something he looked forward to and actually dreaded. However, if his father did it this way in the past, it was most likely useful, and he will defer to that.
“Greetings,” Raith said.
“Hello,” Robert replied, surprised to be meeting anyone new out here in the woods.
“You might think you saw something fantastical near dusk yesterday, but it was just a trick of the light,” he said, getting straight to the matter at hand.
“How do you know I saw something strange?” the artist asked.
“I was behind you. I saw it too. I’ve seen it before, thinking it monstrous and mystical, but it is an optical illusion, an imperfect brain deluding you,” the dark-haired man said very calmly.
“The three shots I had after dinner didn’t help either,” Robert joked.
Raith laughed at that. “Did you tell anyone what you thought you saw?”
“No, not yet. They will think I am mad. What did you see?”
“Something shadowy, human-like …”
“I saw a beak.”
“Yes, I might have seen that too or what looked like a beak.”
“And wings, definitely wings.”
“If your mind thinks it saw a beak, it is very likely to think it saw wings as well.”
Robert listened to the man talk and he made sense, but his trying to change the narrative of what he saw annoyed him. “It was black, a crow or a raven. But it wasn’t a large raven, it was a raven-being, a cross between raven and man. I saw it for only a few seconds, and then it vanished behind the trees, likely toward the nearby valley.”
“Of course, such a creature does not exist.”
“I saw it, but my vision being mistaken is much more likely than something like that being real.”
“Very true, now we don’t want gossip and rumours to spread about this and have a lot of people who do not appreciate or belong in the park to flock here to try to see it,” Raith reasoned.
“I guess not.”
“Good, good. Listeners will only look down on you for telling such a story anyway. It is very important that we keep quiet about this. It is my utmost priority, and I would go to great lengths not to have these tall tales out there.”
Robert looked at him, reading between the words, and stood tall against the short, thin man. Raith stared coldly at the artist with his different-coloured eyes. “I, as you, do not want conflict. It’s been a congenial conversation so far, but this I must express. You did not see anything extraordinary, and it is best to just forget about it. Simply put—you talk, you die. That is not a threat. It is simply a fact. The people you tell will die. If you make a deathbed confession, the person who heard it will die. If you are drunk and talk or talk in your sleep and someone hears it, you will still die. I don’t want to hurt anyone. All you have to do is forget, put it out of your mind, and never speak of it again … and nothing will happen. Of course, this very conservation and us ever meeting must leave your thoughts as well.”
