Here’s a memory:

Corvin plays with a small figure of the Raven. It is whooshing around, saving people from all the monsters in the world and bringing them back home and making everyone together again. Around him are all the other boys and girls, children he has known since birth, and the nice Uncle and Aunt. The other Uncles and Aunts are nice too, sometimes, but sometimes they change and get mad or sad or strange. He likes it here better than with Mumma and Dadda, because sometimes they change too.

A chubby hand snatches away the figure. Corvin is surprised. He looks up at one of the bigger, older girls, turning the Raven over in her hands.

“I was playing with that,” he says.

She looks at him and scoffs. “We’re meant to share.”

Corvin doesn’t know what her tone means, but it’s mean and he doesn’t like it. She’s right, though, because all the adults share and they’re also meant to share. He doesn’t like that she’s right either.

“Can I have it back?” he asks, because it’s important to ask. Otherwise sometimes the adults get confused and scared, and Corvin knows it’s not nice to be confused and scared. The nice Uncle says it’s because you can’t know what someone is thinking unless they say it out loud.

“No,” she says, and there’s a little dip in her refusal that makes him feel like the girl is calling him stupid. “Go get another one.”

“But I was using that one!” he protests.

“Now I’m using it.”

Corvin, small face twisted in anger, gets up and carefully walks around children chasing one another and playing with toys and talking. He reaches the Aunt; she is talking with a crying little girl – more a baby than anything else – about something. The girl’s face is very red – one of the adults probably changed and hit her.

Corvin tugs at the Aunt’s sleeves, but she shushes him. He tries to tell her the injustice of what just happened, however the Aunt shushes him again. Corvin breathes out heavily. If there were any problems, he’s supposed to tell her. The Uncle is also busy talking to some other adults outside room, and the children get in very big trouble if they disturb the Uncle then. Corvin doesn’t like the Uncle as much anyway – he never plays Gods and Monsters with Corvin like the Aunt does.

Corvin toddles back to the bigger girl, half-heartedly playing with the Raven toy. She doesn’t even look like she’s having fun.

“Please can I have my Raven back?” he says. Sometimes, adding ‘please’ is all that’s needed.

The big girl grins malevolently. “No. It’s not yours - it’s ours.”

“No.” The denial slips out, because even if she’s right, he doesn’t like her enough to admit it.

“Are you not going to share?” she giggles, then continues in a sing-song voice. “Chi-LD, Chi-LD, don’t know how to share. Chi-LD, Chi-LD, Avri pecks you bare!”

Corvin knows the song well, and he knows that if it goes on for any longer, all the kids will be singing it. Even if they don’t know why. He stops it the only way he can think of: by shoving her to the floor. She gets up and slaps him across the face, and it’s all downhill from there.

Corvin and the older girl are in trouble. Big trouble. They managed to hurt two other kids during the scuffle, both bruised by blocks flying everywhere, but their worst crime was scaring the adults outside. One started hitting a child, and the other curled into a ball and started crying. Corvin apologised, but it wasn't enough. The nice Aunt and Uncle weren't nice anymore. They were angry.

Saying sorry isn’t enough this time, they had told the two of them. You’re going in the Pit.

Corvin sobs as he and the girl stride across an expansive cavern. Every few steps, a hole is carved into the ground, at least three times as tall as the Uncle. The only way out is up. He doesn’t want to look down, yet even if he closes his eyes, he can still hear the incoherent mutterings of the people trapped in each pit. The big girl reassures Corvin as the Uncle lowers her down into one of them. She has been in the Pit two times before, and it’s okay as long as he doesn’t bother whoever he shares a hole with. He might have felt more reassured if she wasn’t trembling.

The Uncle takes him to the other side of the room. They walk in almost-silence, though occasionally yelps or laughter will echo, sometimes seeming right next to him. Corvin feels bad for being scared: these are heroes, the beaks of the Raven, the ones who will bring the people home. He just wishes they were happier about it.

The Uncle lowered Corvin down, into one of the quieter holes. He keeps his eyes closed the whole way down, and doesn’t even open them when his feet touched the floor. But shutting his eyes made him feel like a scaredy-cat. He isn’t a scaredy-cat, even if he did cry sometimes, no matter what the other kids said. He’s brave. He had to be brave, Dadda always said in his better moods, because Avri asks a lot from its apostles, and saving people is hard work. So Corvin opens them, and stares at the person huddled in the corner.

Corvin doesn’t know how old the boy is. Not an adult, but still older than Corvin, but beyond that he has no clue. It’s hard to guess, because the only part of the boy’s body exposed is his face. He has the same traits as all the best apostles do: black clumps of hair that look almost like feathers, onyx veins throbbing under skin, and deep, dark eyes that seemed very, very lost.

For a little bit, the two inhabitants of the hole look at one another. The larger boy speaks first, his words like a puzzle fitted with all the wrong pieces. “Hi, hello, greetings, young man. Why are you down in this sanctified-” he narrows his brows, repeating ‘sanctified’ over and over again. Corvin doesn’t know what that word means.

The older kid looks up, expression panicked. He springs upright and lunges. Corvin shrieks and presses his back against the wall, only for the big boy to trip over his own feet and topple to the ground. He rolls over quickly. “Child!” he yells up at Corvin, sprawled across the stone floor. “Please leave. Please! I can’t watch another die to those wretched…”

He trails off, confused by his own words. “What’s going on? When can I go home? Do ya-" His eyes squint, concentrating on something Corvin can't see. “I have ta’ get back. My kid’s ‘bout yer age, real quiet, jus’ like you. Who?” Corvin tries his best to hide, but the only things in the hole are him and the crazed boy. Corvin shuffles around the sides of the hole, doing his best impression of a wall. The big boy stares at the wrought stone beneath his feet for a few moments, then begins mumbling.

“I gotta-“ he says, and then he keeps saying it. He doesn’t stop. Corvin slumps to the floor, sure that he’s not going to die anymore. Not as long as the boy remains trapped in that loop, anyway.

He waits to be rescued. The Uncle never said when he would be back, but he wouldn’t just leave Corvin here. Maybe. Time passes, slower than a candle melting on skin. He hopes it’s nearly over.

Then the older kid shrieks a piercing “No!” and begins bashing his head against the rock wall. Corvin startles, then closes his eyes and covers his ears, but through his hands he can still hear the cracks of the boy’s skull getting wetter and wetter.

Someone leaps down into the hole. It’s an adult, her hands wrapping around the maddened child’s neck. Her back faces Corvin, but her clumpy black hair was familiar. The older boy gurgles and flails, but he’s just a smidge too little to make a difference. “Shh,” the woman whispers, “shh, baby, shh. You’ve done so well, my son. I’ll take you home, now, to be with your father.

“Let’s meet Avri, now. Don’t be scared; I’ll be along shortly.”

The boy’s struggles slow, then cease. His face is blue. Is he dead? Corvin stares as a rope is dropped in the hole, the woman tying the boy’s limp form to it, for a shadowy figure to hoist it up. She follows shortly after, leaving the same way as her son. Corvin stays in the Pit, alone, until he falls asleep.

The Uncle collects him when Corvin is hungry and thirsty. After that, he always shares, he always says ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, he stops bothering the adults, and he never, ever causes any trouble. But he stops playing with the Raven. And he starts thinking that maybe he doesn’t want to be saved by Avri.

After all, the big girl was saved. The Aunt said so. Corvin never saw her again.

As the cycles of eating, playing, sleeping, and learning continue, Corvin sometimes thinks about that boy in the hole. For some strange reason, despite the distance between Corvin and the mad boy increasing every day, the more time passes-

-the more familiar he becomes.