Ravenwood: Journey to the Fifth Season

by Sylvia Spicer

Overview

Ravenwood is a place where the emerald magic never ends and also where Topper, a black-and-white cat, is learning most of the important values in life. Topper once lived a comfortable existence with his human owner, but when she died in a car accident, Topper was forced to embark on a lonesome and dangerous journey through the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Now, as Topper creeps along the forest floor and forages for food, he realizes he has a lot to learn about survival.

It is not long before Topper makes friends with Sidekick, a Columbian black-tailed deer, who teaches him how to coexist peacefully with the other forest animals. As they embark on a journey that takes them from the mountains to the ocean and from forest fires to terrifying encounters with hunters, Topper faces many challenges that test his courage, capacity to love, and ability to move on after great loss. As his fortitude is tested over and over again, Topper matures into a wise animal who slowly learns to rely on himself.

In this uplifting story, a cat discovers that of all of his life lessons, the greatest gift he has ever been given is the ability to love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781475934786
Publisher:	iUniverse, Incorporated
Publication date:	09/19/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	164
File size:	2 MB

Read an Excerpt

Ravenwood

A Novel

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By Sylvia Spicer

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Sylvia Spicer
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-3477-9

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Chapter One

Ravenwood

Hope for Tomorrow

Lost and Found

From the grassy knoll in Ravenwood, I could see the gray, billowing clouds of smoke and jets of fire burning everything in their path on the adjacent ridge. The sky was black with birds winging their way to safety, and there was horror in the stampede of bears, cougars, bobcats, elk, deer, and thousands of smaller inhabitants fleeing the heat of destruction. I wondered what caused the fire that now threatened my home and the existence of all that I cherished.

I had not always lived here in the mountains of the gods, but it is here where I learned most of the values important in life.

My life in these woods had begun several years earlier in another fire. I was just a young cat traveling with Maggie, an older woman who lived alone most of the time since her grown son had a family of his own. We were constant companions, Maggie and I. I purred as I listened to her recall adventures from earlier days when she was left alone to raise her son. As she smoothed out my fur and slid her hand under my hindquarters, she would hold me close to her face and look at me through welling tears.

"You are a handsome cat," she would say, "and a joy to my soul."

We had left our home among cornfields of mice in the Midwest to travel a long, bumpy Northwest mountain road that kept me groaning for days. Most road trips didn't bother me, but on this particular occasion the backflips and somersaults in my head and stomach kept me miserable. After four days of dodging flashes of sunlight and shadow cast by the tall forest trees, we turned onto a narrow road frequented by logging trucks. As we traveled along the mountain switchback, my ears plugged up. I was about to voice a few complaining meows and head for safety in the back seat when I was bounced into the air and suddenly thrown forward to the passenger footwell. I heard the screeching of brakes and saw the contents of the front seat head toward me.

In great fear, I scrambled and clawed my way up her leg and chest toward the arms of Maggie, who was gripping the steering wheel with all her might. For a brief moment I was face-to-face with her, seeing the fear in her eyes too. Every inch of her being was at attention, and her repeated gasps frightened me further. I clung desperately to the threads of her sweater. Back and forth I was tossed across her chest with each rapid change of direction, until my grip was broken and I was sent hurtling out of her open window into a patch of sword fern.

The hard landing knocked the breath out of me. I awkwardly rose from my dazed state, shook off a cloud of fern spores, and saw the car burst into flames as it slammed against the hillside. Maggie was nowhere to be found. A few more feet to the left and I would have been greeted by a giant red cedar. So, in this disastrous situation, the ferns were the beginning of my good fortune in this new place. The smell of smoke in the air from the fire now reminded me of the smoke and column of fire that day when I was left alone in a cedar forest, on a mountaintop, in an unfamiliar part of the Northwest as a cold dark fell.

I was still alive, which my mother would have said was a reason for hope in the future. I searched all night for Maggie once the flames burned down, and found her charred remains at daybreak. Gone were her gentle spirit and the security of her love. Without Maggie, there would be no more tasty canned meals, and no more pats of appreciation. Suddenly I was very tired. But sleep was impossible. My mind revisited the horrendous event and I panted frantically. I had to stop thinking about the tragedy, so I thought about other memories. I thought about my mother and siblings.

Like so many cats in the Midwest, my mother had been a pregnant stray when she was taken to the animal shelter for adoption. After two days in the warmth of the shelter, my five siblings and I were born. I was unlike my striped brown siblings. My mother said I looked like my father, a Maine coon cat who lost a fight with a raccoon a few days before I was born. Seven cats in one cage meant a lot of getting stepped on. I made it a practice to wait until the other kittens were settled in their spots before I climbed my way to the top of the cat pile. For this reason, my mother named me Topper.

Living in a small cage with so many siblings required a keen sense of spatial awareness and patience. A cat had to be careful when bathing not to extend a leg into the personal space of another. There was little room for individual expression. There was time for playing, bathing, sleeping, and eating, in which everyone was required to participate on schedule. Those were happy times, but even those memories were making me sad now. While a cat can't live forever in an animal shelter, I wasn't ready to leave when Maggie arrived to adopt me.

My mother was very proud that I was selected, and comforted to know that I would have a chance for a good life, but I was not anxious to leave my already happy life. I pleaded with her not to let me go beyond the cage walls. A dull pain invaded my chest and a lump formed in my throat. I shook my head a few times so that my black tears could not be seen dripping down the white fur on my face. I had never been alone before. No matter how crowded the cage was, it was preferable to the vast unknown beyond its bars. I had been told that curiosity could kill a cat, so I was content to stay where life was familiar. Mother, sensing my great concern, began licking my ears and cleaning my fur, preparing me for departure. She reminded me that the fun times in my past provided hope for more fun in the future.

In this present dark night, as in the past, Mother's early lessons prepared me for future challenges. Because of the affection and confidence conveyed in her words, I knew I would be able to face whatever challenges lay ahead.

"I love you, Mom," I shouted toward the mountains and listened to each fading echo.

"Good-bye, son," came the memory of her whisper as I dozed off to sleep. "Stay on top."

In the morning light, the sound of disturbed air beneath the wings of a large black bird slowly circling overhead turned my attention from sweet dreams toward breakfast. As a domesticated feline, I had caught a few sparrows while Maggie wasn't watching, so I was reasonably confident in my ability to catch this bird too. As it neared me, its silhouette grew larger. I followed it as it passed over me to land on a cedar branch about twenty feet above the ground.

As silently as possible, I crept through the overgrowth of ferns at the base of the tree. I was considering a path up its trunk when the bird spread its wings and soared to a distant tree. Again I approached it, and again it repeated its maneuver, until finally it looked down and scolded me. "Gawk! Gawk! Gawk!" I was uncertain of what the bird was trying to communicate in its brash cry.

Looking about me, I realized that this bird had led me quite a distance into the woods. I could no longer see the road from the previous night. With nothing to lose, I jumped onto the trunk of the tree and started climbing, pausing now and then for rest as I spiraled up the trunk. Finally I was directly beneath the bird and realized it was larger than I had originally thought. Even if I managed to catch it, I would have more meat than I needed in one day. Looking down to see how far up I'd come, I noticed a deer staring up at me.

"What are you doing up there?" Her voice was slow and quiet.

"I'm hunting."

She snorted. "A little thing like you trying to catch a raven? Really? He's much too large for you. You must be new around here." She chomped a long stem of grass that slowly slipped into the side of her mouth. "What's your name?"

"Topper."

"Well, Topper, why don't you come on down before that raven decides you'd do fine for his breakfast?"

I looked down and thought descending was easier said than done. I carefully made my way down backward.

When I finally reached the bottom, I explained to my new friend what had happened the evening before.

"Well, that explains all of the forest activity this morning. Hearing the explosion last night, I wondered what today would bring. I suppose you know very little about life in the big woods. Am I right?"

"I don't even know where I am anymore," I stated. I looked down at my feet and then back up at her.

The doe shook her head, flapping her large ears.

"You're standing in Ravenwood, an ancient forest in the mountains of the gods," she responded.

I observed the area around me, filled with tall cedars, hemlocks, alders, and firs. The ground cover was thick with new shoots of sword and bracken ferns, and patches of stinging nettles. Beyond the clearing I could see the majestic peaks of rugged, snowcapped mountains. It was truly an area of great splendor.

What I had hoped would be my breakfast sat perched on a long overhead limb, chiding me in a loud voice.

"The raven you were hunting is the surveyor of this area. He and his family fly overhead twice a day, keeping the inhabitants of Ravenwood informed. He led you to safety within these woods. You should be grateful to him. Why do you want to eat him?"

"I'm hungry and there's no one to feed me. I'm not helpless. I've caught lots of birds, big birds and fast birds. I've never caught one quite this big, but I'm real hungry, so I'm sure I could," I said as I stood taller than before.

"Young one, you sure have a lot to learn about surviving out here. I'll take you down to the stream. You can catch yourself a fish while we start the lessons ... that is, if you want to learn."

"Lessons? What lessons?"

The doe circled me, sniffed my head and tail, and then introduced herself as Sidekick. She said her beginning in these woods hadn't been so different from mine, and assured me that since she had survived, there was hope for me too.

I followed the doe to the stream before her dust could settle. My youthful agility enabled me to catch a salmon fry very quickly. I offered a morsel to my new friend.

"I appreciate the offer, Topper, but I'm a Columbian black-tailed deer. I prefer a diet of grass, grains, flowers, and twigs. But thank you for offering to share."

After breakfast I followed her through the woods, listening to the story of her early plight.

"I had lagged behind while my mother entered the middle of the road and waited for us twins to cross. As my brother obediently followed my mother, a truck with a full load of western cedars rounded the corner on a downhill grade and changed my life forever."

As a young orphan, her best bet had been to follow the deer herd, to learn from a distance as the does instructed their fawns. For this reason they called her Sidekick. As one who had always brought up the rear and eaten last, she was a study in patience and humility.

"I guess the first thing you should learn is to understand my signals," she stated. "You must pay close attention to my ears, tail, and eye folds, and to the position of my head." She flicked each one in turn. "Since my eyesight isn't as good as my hearing, my ears always turn first toward the direction of a sound."

She pulled off a leaf of salal, chewing it slowly as she explained how she never left her head down very long while she ate. She always kept her ears moving around to detect noise from all directions.

"When I'm startled, my tail stands up and I hold my head high, searching for the source of concern." Sidekick demonstrated and explained how her eyes were good for detecting motion, but not for detecting a camouflaged, stalking predator. Her eyes searched for changes in shapes and shadows.

It was important for me to notice everything in the world around me: sounds, shapes, patterns, and habits. "Observation is essential for survival," she warned. "When I flee, I spring with high leaps off all four legs, bounding over tree stumps and obstacles, spending more time in the air than on the ground to protect my legs. If I flee, don't follow me. Head in a different direction and go to our meeting place. A predator will have to decide which one of us to chase, and that second of indecision may provide both of us with the necessary time to escape. Do you understand?"

I nodded and agreed to help keep watch, since my eyesight was much better, especially at night. With her excellent senses of smell and hearing, we could survive much better working as a team.

As we approached an area with eight grazing deer, she explained deer habits. "Listen, deer have different personalities just like other animals. It's important that you understand the strengths and weaknesses of each one to avoid problems. The tall one on the right is called Queenie. She's the oldest doe in our herd, and everyone respects her wishes. When the bucks aren't around, she decides when and where we go.

"Next to her, with a scarred bump on her right hind leg and elongated hooves, is Matie, and alongside is her fawn, Tiny. They are very friendly and avoid confrontations with the other deer. They'll be good friends to you once they get to know you. Pretty Lady is between her two fawns. She has no physical flaws and is the favorite doe of Young Buck and Starbuck. They duel for her attention each November. Her young son, Tanner, may be Prince of Ravenwood someday. The last one is Madge, the mother of Midge. She often provokes fights if anyone grazes too closely."

"Midge certainly is small," I commented.

"That's right," she agreed, "and Madge fights to protect the food supply, hoping that someday Midge will eat enough and gain stature."

As I watched, Madge raised one foot and brought it down sharply on the back of a fawn who had entered her grazing area.

"Ouch!" I exclaimed. "That must have hurt."

"Madge gives a quick kick as a warning blow. If the offender doesn't leave, she rises up on her back legs and fights with her front feet. Her hooves can easily cut through any hide, so heed her warnings."

"Aren't there any males around here?" I asked. I scratched diligently at my right ear, which had just been invaded by a fly.

"The bucks aren't here today," she replied, "but you should know their warnings too. A buck with antlers will lower his head and use a scooping motion as a warning. After that, a thrust of his antlers into a rib cage is very convincing.

"During the winter, when they have no antlers, they behave differently. You have to watch their ears and the skin fold at the inner corner of the eye. If the head goes up, the ears lie back, and the eye skin folds open wide, watch out. Deer always mean business when these inner skin folds of their eyes open wide."

I observed the characteristics of each grazing deer. "Is this your entire family?" I asked.

"Goodness, no!" she replied. "We number about twenty in all. There are other deer beyond the ridge, but they don't venture here very often. We generally travel in groups of eight to twelve. Once a week we meet up with the other group, and the twenty of us discuss the food supply. If you decide to hang around, you'll meet them in a few days."

As we headed toward the herd for introductions, Sidekick reminded me that to them, I resembled a civet cat in color and a bobcat in shape—two species undesirable to deer.

"When they hear us," she instructed, "sit still and let them approach you. Do not flip your tail or do anything that might suggest a threat. They will approach you cautiously, stretch their necks, sniff the air around you, and then bob their heads in an attempt to flush you. Just remain calm and let them know you pose no threat to them. Lower your head when Queenie passes, and if you must keep watch, keep your head down while you look up."

My introduction to Sidekick's herd went well. I followed her advice to the letter and was graciously accepted. It was good to have a family again, and I wanted to do my part to help protect the herd. At night I stayed close to Sidekick, watching the shadows for potential threats, but even so, I noticed that she always heard the noise before I located its source.

"What's that?" she said one time. "I heard something moving near that thicket. Do you see anything?"

I searched the darkness and initially saw nothing. After a few moments, she said she heard it again, so I strained harder to detect the slightest movement.

"I think I see something!" I whispered.

"Describe it," she insisted.

"It's bigger than I am; has black markings and rings on its legs."

"What's it doing?"

"I don't know. I can't see enough of it. The thicket is too dense." I saw her sniffing the air, expanding her nostrils.

"Do you smell anything?" I asked.

"No. It must not be a civet. They leave an odor when they rub against a rock or tree. Can you see the ears on the animal? What shape are the ears?" she asked more frantically.

"They look pointed like mine."

"Then it must be a bobcat." she surmised. "We'd better leave before it notices us. Stay on my path, Topper."

I followed as Sidekick slowly raised alternate front legs high above the grass line and paused before quietly placing each on the ground. Each hind foot filled the teardrop hoof print of its leader. I stayed low to the ground, just a stride behind her.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Ravenwood by Sylvia Spicer Copyright © 2012 by Sylvia Spicer. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Prologue....................vii
Ravenwood: Hope for Tomorrow....................1
Lost and Found....................3
Hunters in the Forest....................15
Misplaced Pride....................23
Fight, Famine, and Fire....................34
Ravenwood: Follow the River....................45
New Beginnings....................47
Here and Now, Together....................68
New Lessons....................79
River's End....................94
Ravenwood: The Fifth Season....................107
More Lessons....................108
Contract with Life....................119
Black Tidings....................131
The Promise....................142
Epilogue....................153