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The next afternoon, Raven was attempting to write when she heard singing.
Terrible, off-key, absolutely dreadful singing.
She tried to ignore it at first, assuming it was coming from somewhere down the road. But the noise got louder. Closer.
And then it stopped. Right outside her cottage.
"Books, books, wonderful books, Come and read them in our nooks, Libraries are special places, Full of stories and friendly faces…"
Raven dropped her guitar and stormed to the window.
There, in her front garden, was a small crowd. Annabelle. The annoying woman from the amateur dramatics society wearing what appeared to be a cape. The bouncy postwoman. And about a dozen children, all clutching sheet music and murdering what might have once been a melody.
"You have got to be kidding me," Raven muttered.
She yanked open the front door and stepped out.
"What," she said, loud enough to cut through the cacophony, "the actual h…. heck is this?" There were children present, after all. She had always been uncomfortable around children.
The singing stopped abruptly.
Annabelle stepped forward, beaming like she'd just done something wonderful instead of organizing what was essentially a musical hostage situation.
"Hi! We're demonstrating our commitment to the library fundraiser."
"You're demonstrating that you're all tone-deaf lunatics," Raven said flatly. "That's not singing. That's… that's assault. On my ears. On music in general."
"We're still learning," Annabelle said, somehow managing to sound cheerful about this fact.
"Learning what? How to cause permanent hearing damage?" Raven looked at the children, who were staring at her with wide eyes. "You. Kids. You're all off-key. Like, impressively off-key. I didn't think it was possible to be that consistently wrong, but congratulations, you've achieved it."
One of the children, a small boy clutching his sheet music like a shield, said, "Are you really Raven?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"My mum loves your music. And my dad says that you’ve got an impressive pair of kn—"
"Thank you, Thomas," Annabelle interrupted, quite sharply for her.
"Your mum has terrible taste, apparently, because she let you come here and do… this." Raven gestured at the group. "Who wrote this song? Because whoever it was should be arrested."
Theatre-woman, Gloria, that was her name, drew herself up with wounded dignity. "I wrote it."
"Of course you did," Raven muttered. "Look, I don't know what you people want, but…"
"We want you to help with our fundraiser," Annabelle said brightly.
"No."
"The library is closing," Annabelle continued, as if Raven hadn't spoken. "We need to raise fifteen thousand pounds, and we thought—"
"I said no."
"—that you might want to contribute. Maybe perform, or help organize—"
"No."
