4.

Fear the darkness and nothing more, there is a dark bird, a raven at my door, as it is ... there is nothing to fear but fear itself, in itself a warning, a reason to expect fear, feel its essence, its very core ... quote the Raven as it is said, never more ... yeah, someone or something has come knocking at another door.

Phillip Colt, the day he discovered that he was to become a father was exactly the day which marked the beginning of a downward spiral with which his life would take. Almost right from the very moment of discovery, a pregnancy brought with it an illness. Less than six months after the birth of his only child, Darkness got to Phillip himself, Darkness directed him to violently take the life of his sickly wife. A stabbing it was, a vicious stabbing. Seconds away from going on to take out a resting child, Darkness intervened, and Phillip's own life came to an end.

A similarity hugely different from something else still seven months away from occurring ... In this instance an infant daughter is left behind, on her own yet not completely alone, both not taken and completely taken by another. She is one of the daughters of Darkness and in time she will take her rightful place.

It is ever so easy to adopt an infant child, a child of Darkness, when you know nothing of that darkness or of its relationship with said child. Six weeks after a child, a child who would go on to become known simply as Raven, became an orphan, foster parents were found for her. A mother and father who would swear to look after this child to the best of their ability.

They would give her all they could to ensure her life would get off to the best start any life could, such is the plan though even the best laid and most well-intentioned plans can change. The child may not biologically be theirs; still, as any good adopting people would, they intend to take care of her as if she were. Little could they have known of what they had walked themselves into.

The signs were there from the get-go. Upon arrival home for the very first time as a new family unit there would be a single blackbird waiting by the front door. It would not go very far either, it would go no further than the front garden wall as this new family unit indeed made their way into their waiting home. It watched as if studying those who live here, studying the grownups who have chosen to care for this child.

The child may only be seven and a half months old though she is free to have a start over, a new beginning and she is free to have all that may come with a new beginning. A new identity and her new foster parents are free to choose a brand-new name for their foster daughter. Frank and Sarah Osmond name their child Emma, Emma Osmond. A name can be as unimportant as it can be important, whatever name is given she is not their child, is she?

A constant presence of blackbirds goes a long way in reminding Frank and Sarah of how Emma came to be with them. Yeah, there may have been just the one bird awaiting their arrival though that soon changed, and that change would remain constant.

Frank and Sarah Osmond, they know, or at least they believe they know of how the child came to be an orphan. Still, they do not discuss such with anyone other than each other, if even that. At that people do talk, people always seem to have an interest in discussing the business of others. So, if and when the Osmond's are ever being referred to by others then those others just have to mention the constant attachment of birds and whomever they are speaking to know right away as to whom is being referred to.

Everything was done, or at least tried, to rid the Osmond property of the birds but more and more blackbirds kept on coming back. A large scarecrow set up in the center of the garden is picked apart and destroyed. Exterminators were called out and they could do nothing, even poisoning the ground done very little to deter the winged creatures from arriving.

A dog, a Rottweiler is bought, ready trained and left chained out in the front garden of the family home with enough of a leash that he can roam the garden as he sees fit. But even he, a breed of dog usually thought of as being fearless, is afraid. The crows, blackbirds or ravens, however they can be known, keep on coming. The come as if they are feathered cousins to any plague of locus that currently may be in action.

The Rottweiler scatters arriving visitors for as long as he can but these visitors soon home in on an attack. They attack relentlessly and even a dog as fierce as a Rottweiler is only one dog and is no match for what he faces. He soon cowers in a corner not being able to retreat due to being restricted by his steel chain leash and the multitudes of birds get the better of this one dog and his life is lost before his new owners can come to any kind of rescue.

As preposterous as it is for Frank Osmond to comprehend, there is nothing else he can point his finger at other than the child he brought home with his wife. There must be, he is sure, a curse upon that child though before bringing home the infant there had been no noticeable gathering birds. Such is what they believe happened to the biological parents. These birds are connected somehow with the child but surly this is a crazy thought to be having. His wife cannot accept this, no matter how strongly a point Frank put forwards.

How could an infant child create anything of the likes that have been going on? She cannot yet in any way think for herself so then to bring so many same species creatures to wherever she so happens to be ... impossible ... improbable ... yet a dog is dead at the behest of something that usually does not kill, nor does kill in packs.

The infant rarely cries, rarely appears anything other than happy though on one particular occasion she is uneasy, and in this uneasiness Frank Osmond's suspicions are strengthened. The child, Emma as indeed she is being called, barely in her new home one month, is not settling at all. New foster mum, Sarah, tries everything to settle the child and nothing is working. Little Emma is not feeding on this day; she is nowhere near taking on a moments sleep and will not take any pacifiers.

Sarah is at her wits ends, especially with all that has occurred over the past month and as she attempts to settle the child Frank does little other than observe those birds. He barely pays any attention to his wife or fostered child. As the child's cries louden the bird activity heightens. It is as if they are reacting, as if they want to get in, into the house as if they want to get to that child in some sort of protective capacity.

There is a connection between the child and these birds; Frank Osmond has never been as sure of anything in his life as he is of this. Are they like worker bees trying to aid their queen? But Emma is just a child, an infant. They appear to have a want to get to her in her moment of distress.

The more Emma cries and the more uneasy she is, the more the birds want to get in, they more than appear to have a want to protect her. The windows are being tapped at. Sounds are coming from the fireplace, are they trying to come down the chimney?

'This is ridiculous, we have to sedate her' Frank tells Sarah.

'What? ... Are you Crazy?'

'No, I am deadly serious. The blackbirds, we need to calm them, and we can only calm them if we calm her ...'

'Frank ...'

'Look around Sarah ... they are trying to get in ... they want to get to her.'

This is crazy. This is seriously crazy. Sarah looks her husband in the eyes. She knows he believes what he is saying. Soon she is at the medicine cabinet and five minutes later Emma is asleep. Outside the house, the birds are no longer raring up, they no longer are tapping away at the windows, they no longer are trying to get into the house either via the chimney or the window.

If Sarah ever needed proof of her husband's suspicions it would seem as if she has it now, it is more than difficult to dispute his claims. If the infant and the birds have some sort of simian relationship, then what the hell do Frank and Sarah Osmond do about it? It is not as if they could simply just hand her back to where they got her.