It all started with the raven, who was dead one second and then wasn’t.
She was four; one of her earliest memories. The raven hit the window of her childhood bedroom and she heard its neck crack, saw it fall broken and twisted to the ground. She had only a vague concept of what death was then; her mother had explained it to her, a few weeks earlier when their elderly neighbor had died, as a sort of sleep you couldn’t wake out of again.
She went outside mainly out of curiosity, going to her knees next to the dead bird. Its wings had been crushed against the ground, its head turned at an unnatural angle. She reached out, brushing her fingertips against its ink-black feathers, still gleaming and soft. It seemed a shame to her that a creature so beautiful should now have to sleep forever.
She spoke without thinking. “Wake up. Come on, raven, wake up.”
And incredibly, it did.
The raven returned to her a day later. It sat on her windowsill for hours, looking at her from its dark eyes, never making a sound. She did not go outside; something about its insistent, distinctly un-birdlike gaze sent chills down her spine.
It returned the day after, and the day after that, never doing anything but stare at her through the window. On the seventh day curiosity won over fear; she went over to the window on small bare feet, opened it with a child’s clumsy movements.
The raven, claws out, went straight for her face.
There were others, over the years.
First her childhood cat, who was hit by a car when it slipped out of the window one day. It followed her home obediently after she had woken it up again, but after a few days it began snapping and scratching at them, growling and snarling whenever anyone came to close. When it attacked the neighbors’ son, nearly taking out an eye, her mother had it put down; though she was devastated for weeks, she made no more effort to wake the cat up again.
Then the baby bird, fallen from its nest, still naked and helpless and so tiny as it lay dead on the ground. She was nine then, and knew better rationally, but her heart ached at the thought of leaving it there, broken and alone. It was too small to do any real damage when it, too, became aggressive, but its beak on her skin hurt nonetheless, and so did the sound of its breaking neck when she swatted it away.
Finally the dog. It was her best friend’s and it was her fault that it died, because she had forgotten to close the gate behind her, so there was no real choice there. Everything seemed fine at first until her friend called crying a week later; the dog, a large German shepherd, had somehow gotten out again and turned its sights on a nearby playground. Three children were mauled before the police arrived and shot the dog.
After that, she did not wake anyone again.
Now here she is, stood at a graveside, the hood of her coat drawn deeply into her face. She is not crying, but wants the other mourners to believe she is; it is easier that way, to get them to leave so she can do what she is here to do.
She has made the decision this morning. There is no going back now, even though the scar on her cheek where the raven attacked her, once upon a time, is throbbing.
One by one the others leave, with pats on her back and murmured condolences. It has begun to rain but she hardly notices it; her hands, when she at last reaches up to remove her hood, are steady.
She steps forward. Her mother’s dead face is pale, waxy, hands folded atop her body. She reaches out slowly but unwaveringly, putting a hand to her mother’s cold, smooth forehead.
When she speaks, her voice carries over the whole cemetery, permeating thick layers of wet earth and half-rotten coffins, echoing in the long-dead ears of corpses better left unperturbed.
“Wake up.”