Rhella slumped onto the worn blue velour couch and poked a finger at the fuzzy hole an old ex had burned into the cushion. At least the edges where the fluff had worn down still had a dignified air of self-respect.
“That’ll just make it bigger,” Jon said without looking up.
She snorted. “Like I don’t know that.”
“Just flip the cushion if it bothers you that much.” He glanced up from his laptop. “How many times have we had this conversation?”
She stopped poking at the hole and flopped back. “I told you, I feel like a liar if I hide it.”
He sucked in a breath and pushed his computer away. “Look, I have a surprise for you.”
She tossed a pillow at him. “We can’t afford surprises.”
He caught the battered throw pillow and automatically smoothed the remnants of fuzz down. “Things have been rough lately, we both know that. But I received an inheritance today.”
Rhella froze, halfway to reaching for the other throw pillow to toss at him. “Wait, what? Like…money?”
“No.” His smile was tight as he looked at the pillow. His fingers clenched around it.
“Sorry, babe. I’m not trying to crush your surprise.” Rhella smoothed back long, dark hair from her face and hoped her expression was apologetic.
She knew he was dreading the day he had to go back to the music store, to beg for his old job again and hope they hadn’t hired someone better in the meantime. All to teach snot-nosed kids scales for forty-five minutes a pop, at barely over minimum wage. All to keep her writing dreams alive, because bouncing between jobs was called freelancing now.
“It’s just some furniture. We can sell most of it.” He was still speaking to the pillow. “But I thought you might like this writing desk my Aunt Alice had. It was supposed to be inspired by that writer. You know, because of her name.”
“Not Alice in Wonderland?”
“Through the Looking Glass, I think it was. Thought it might inspire your writing.”
She leaned over and looked past Jon. “Thanks. How’d I miss that on my way in?”
“You were being dramatic,” he replied instantly, good humor back in an heartbeat. Rhella loved how mercurial he could be, but sometimes wondered if it would be exhausting in the long term. She shied away from the thought. Focus on this month’s rent.
She got up and studied the desk. The antique stood on spindly limbs, criss-crossed for stability. Ebony wood rested atop the supports and a row of drawers, stretched in a carving of outstretched wings that jutted over the edges. A single eye of bright yellow wood in precisely the middle popped against the dark wood.
“Wow. This is seriously intricate,” Rhella said. “Crow, right?”
She heard a caw and looked up, startled. Jon tossed the pillow back at her. “No, raven. Haven’t you ever read the book? The riddle? A raven like a writing desk?”
She shook her head and reached out a hand to stroke the feathers. “So much detail. Every feather’s outlined here. Some are more worn down.”
“Well, it is an antique,” Jon snapped. He put his noise-cancelling headphones back on. She rolled her eyes and lifted the lid, exposing a flat writing surface and cubbies that still held aged and yellowed paper.
She shut the lid and ran her fingers over the carved plumage again. Rhella wondered why some were more worn than others, and stroked each of the faded feathers in turn.
The yellow raven’s eye popped open, rising to stare at her. “Jon?”
There was no answer. Twisting around, she realized he’d only be annoyed at the interruption. Trembling, Rhella turned back to the desk.
The eye and some of the surrounding feathers had lifted to reveal a cubbyhole that held black sealing wax, half-used, the wick a burnt nub smoothed over from long disuse. It also held a seal.
Rhella studied the seal, squinting. She angled it toward the window to get the last of the day’s light. “A raven. Of course.” It matched the writing desk in design, from what she could tell.
Clutching the seal, she let her other hand fall to the raven’s beak.
The world around her disappeared. Streaking through her mind came an overwhelming barrage of noise, light, and color.
Languages she didn’t understand and languages she did, symphonies and electric violin and freestyle rap mixed with Gregorian chant and drums that matched her racing heartbeat. Lemons and skunk and the decay of fall, hot sand and burning stars. Bursts of light flashed at her, strobing at irregular frequencies, visions of men and oceans and battles with blue-streaked warriors.
Rhella tried to cover her ears and couldn’t move. The visions continued, sound and scent and nightmare.
She closed her eyes and surrendered to the madness with a scream.
A cold hand weakly slapped her face. “Jon?”
“You’re awake,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“I do,” she said. “It’s not that.”
“You started screaming. And then had a seizure,” Jon said.
“It’s still not that.”
“What happened?”
Rhella eyed the desk, which showed no signs of a secret compartment. She didn’t see a wax seal on the floor, either. She propped herself up on her elbows, for once happy about the ancient, mossy green wool carpet. It was familiar in ways her brain appreciated more than ever.
“I learned everything.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I wish I didn’t,” Rhella said. “No more. Never more.”
Jon looked at her with confusion. “Look, we don’t have anything in the house right now. Why don’t we go down to the pub and get you a drink?”
“You mean at the Ravensworth Arms?” Rhella started laughing. Jon’s expression only made her hysteria worse.
She dissolved into hiccups. “Yeah. I could use a drink, all right.”
I’ll figure out what to do with all this nonsense knowledge tomorrow. Maybe it would even pay the rent.
She wondered if the vision in her left eye would ever return.
This week’s Odd Prompts challenge came from Leigh Kimmel: “The Mad Hatter asked Alice, “How is a raven like a writing desk?” Poe wrote, “quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’” Could the key to the Mad Hatter’s riddle lie in Poe’s verse?“
My prompt went to Becky Jones: “You’re at a drive-up diner, eating your meal, when up next to you sidles a bison. She gives you a polite nod, and orders a cheeseburger.“
