Chapter One: The Girl Who Wasn’t Afraid

Raven met Mira Vale on a rainy Thursday evening, in a library that smelled of dust, wet coats, and old paper.

He had gone there because the town centre was crowded and loud. People were rushing beneath umbrellas, car horns sounded from the road, and the rain kept blowing sideways whenever someone opened a shop door.

The old library stood between a closed tailor’s shop and a narrow alley. Its stone steps were worn smooth, and its tall windows had collected years of rain marks. Most people visited only when they needed to return a book or print a document.

Raven visited because the building made him feel invisible in a way he liked.

Inside, the world seemed to slow down. There were no curious glances, no questions about why he always dressed in black, and no awkward attempts to make him join conversations he didn’t want to have.

He could sit among the books and exist without performing happiness for anyone.

That evening, he was searching through a shelf of forgotten mythology books when the electricity went out.

The lights flickered once.

Then everything disappeared into darkness.

Someone screamed from the other side of the room.

Raven sighed.

“Of course,” he muttered.

He took out his phone and switched on the torch. The narrow beam moved across the shelves, revealing rows of old book spines and the pale shapes of chairs.

Another noise came from the entrance.

Someone was struggling with the door.

“Hello?” a female voice called. “Is anybody here?”

Raven considered pretending he hadn’t heard her.

He had come to the library for peace, and he wasn’t particularly interested in becoming a stranger’s rescuer.

Then the woman kicked the door.

“Ow!”

Raven closed his eyes.

“Brilliant.”

He followed the sound towards the entrance.

A girl stood near the door, pulling at the handle with both hands. She had dark hair that had become damp from the rain and a bag slung over one shoulder. A few strands clung to her cheeks, and she looked as if she was seconds away from arguing with the entire building.

“Are you planning to break it?” Raven asked.

She turned sharply.

“And are you planning to stand there looking creepy, or are you going to help me?”

Raven raised an eyebrow.

“You’re not scared of me?”

The girl glanced at his black coat, his dark hair, and the phone torch lighting the lower half of his face.

“Should I be?”

“Most people are.”

“Most people are scared of things they don’t understand.”

For some reason, that answer stayed with him.

Raven stepped forward and examined the lock. It was an old mechanism that sometimes jammed when the weather became damp. He lifted the handle, pressed the door inwards, and turned the key that had been left in the lock.

The door opened with a loud creak.

Cold rain swept into the entrance.

The girl stared at him.

“Well. That was easy.”

“You were pulling it the wrong way.”

“I was not.”

“You were.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“You’re very annoying.”

“And you’re welcome.”

She looked as though she wanted to argue, but then she laughed.

It was a sudden, bright sound that seemed out of place in the dark building.

Raven looked away first.

Outside, the rain was coming down so heavily that neither of them made any attempt to leave. The girl moved towards a bench near the entrance and dropped her bag beside her.

“Looks like we’re trapped here,” she said.

“We’re not trapped. The door works now.”

“Have you looked outside? I’d rather be trapped in a library than drowned on the pavement.”

Raven glanced through the glass.

She had a point.

For several minutes, they sat in silence while the rain battered the windows. The girl kept checking her phone, which had almost no battery left. Raven returned to the mythology shelf, hoping she would eventually forget he existed.

She did not.

“I’m Mira, by the way.”

He looked over his shoulder.

“Raven.”

She blinked.

“That’s your actual name?”

“Yes.”

“Like the bird?”

“That’s usually what people mean when they say it.”

Mira leaned back against the bench.

“That’s a very dramatic name.”

“I didn’t choose it.”

“Still. If I met someone called Raven in a dark library during a storm, I’d assume he was either a vampire or the main character in a tragic novel.”

Raven almost smiled.

“Which would disappoint you more?”

“Neither. Vampires are interesting, and tragic novels usually have good endings.”

“You haven’t read many tragic novels.”

“Maybe I like believing there’s hope.”

She said it casually, but something about the words made Raven pause.

Hope was a word he rarely used. He had learned that expecting good things was an excellent way to make their absence hurt more.

Mira seemed to notice his silence.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“That means something.”

“It means nothing.”

“You’re going to be difficult, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been told.”

She smiled again, and Raven returned to the shelves before she could notice that he was trying not to smile back.

When the rain finally eased, Mira stood and adjusted the strap of her bag.

“Well, Raven, it was nice meeting you.”

“You say that as if you have a choice.”

“I always have a choice.”

She walked towards the door, then turned back.

“Will you be here next Thursday?”

Raven frowned.

“Why?”

“Because I want to return a book, obviously.”

“You don’t have a book.”

“I could get one.”

He looked at her for a moment.

Mira grinned.

“See you around, mysterious library vampire.”

Then she left.

Raven watched through the glass as she hurried down the wet pavement. He told himself that he was only making sure she didn’t slip on the steps.

He told himself a lot of things that evening.

The following Thursday, he arrived at the library at his usual time.

He found himself looking towards the entrance every time the door opened. When the clock reached six, he felt foolish for expecting anything. He took a book from the shelf and sat beside the window.

Then Mira appeared.

She carried two books and a paper cup of coffee.

“I told you I’d be here,” she said.

“You told me you’d return a book.”

“I did return one.”

She held up the book in her hand.

“And the coffee?” he asked.

“An apology.”

“For what?”

“For calling you a vampire. You look more like a ghost.”

Raven stared at her.

Mira laughed.

“I’m joking. Mostly.”

She sat opposite him and pushed the coffee across the table.

He should have told her he didn’t want it.

Instead, he picked it up.

They talked for almost an hour.

At first, their conversation was mostly teasing. Mira asked about his books, his clothes, and the reason he always chose the darkest corner of the library. Raven answered only half her questions, but she never seemed offended when he refused to explain himself.

She spoke about her studies, her grandmother, and the old house where she had grown up. She told stories with her hands, leaning forward whenever she reached the interesting part. She seemed to have an opinion about almost everything, and she expressed those opinions as if the world had personally invited her to debate it.

Raven found it exhausting.

He also found himself hoping she would keep talking.

When she finally left, he noticed that the coffee cup was empty and that he had forgotten to read the book lying open in front of him.

Their meetings became a habit.

Mira would appear on Thursdays, sometimes carrying coffee, sometimes bringing a ridiculous story about something that had happened during her week. Raven would pretend that he hadn’t noticed the time, even though he had begun arriving earlier.

One afternoon, she found him reading a book about old burial traditions.

“That is cheerful,” she said, sitting down.

“It’s interesting.”

“Do you ever read anything happy?”

“Sometimes.”

“Like what?”

Raven thought about it.

“Books where everyone dies at the end.”

Mira stared at him.

Then she burst out laughing so loudly that the librarian looked over.

“You are impossible.”

“You keep coming back.”

Her laughter softened into a smile.

“Maybe I like impossible things.”

Raven looked down at his book, suddenly uncertain what to do with the warmth spreading through his chest.

He had spent years believing that people approached him only to satisfy their curiosity or because they wanted to prove they weren’t afraid of him.

Mira seemed interested in him for no reason he could understand.

She asked about his childhood. She asked why he lived so quietly. She asked about the strange dreams he sometimes mentioned and why he occasionally stared at shadows as though he expected them to move.

He didn’t tell her everything.

He wasn’t ready.

But he began telling her small truths.

He told her that his mother had died when he was young. He told her that his father rarely spoke about it. He admitted that he didn’t have many friends, although he tried to make the statement sound unimportant.

Mira didn’t offer him pity.

She didn’t tell him he needed to get out more or that he should try being cheerful.

She simply listened.

One evening, as they stood beneath the library’s stone awning, waiting for the rain to stop, she asked him a question he wasn’t prepared for.

“Are you always this lonely?”

Raven’s expression hardened.

“I’m not lonely.”

Mira looked at him.

“Okay.”

He frowned.

“Okay?”

“You said you’re not lonely. I’m not going to argue with you about how you feel.”

The answer irritated him because it gave him nothing to fight against.

After a moment, he asked, “What if I were?”

Mira’s face softened.

“Then I’d hope you knew that being alone and being unlovable aren’t the same thing.”

Raven looked at her.

Rainwater ran from the edge of the roof between them. For a moment, he heard nothing except the steady patter against the pavement.

He wanted to ask her whether she believed that about him.

He wanted to ask whether she could imagine staying around long enough to find out.

Instead, he said, “You talk too much.”

Mira smiled.

“And you don’t talk enough.”

They began walking together beneath the streetlights. Their shoulders brushed occasionally, and each time it happened Raven became uncomfortably aware of how close she was.

At the corner where they usually parted, Mira slipped her hand into his.

Raven stopped walking.

She looked up at him.

“What?”

He stared at their joined hands as though he had never seen anything so impossible.

“Nothing,” he said.

But it wasn’t nothing.

Her hand was warm. Her fingers rested against his without hesitation, and she didn’t look as if she expected him to become someone else.

Raven had spent most of his life trying to make himself comfortable with the idea that he would always be alone.

For the first time, he wondered whether he had been wrong.

Mira squeezed his hand.

“Come on, Raven. You’re going to get soaked.”

He started walking again.

Neither of them noticed the raven perched on the roof above the street.

Its silver eyes followed the couple until they disappeared around the corner.

Then it spread its wings and vanished into the night.