Human Feathers: Black and White

Chapter 9: Captured

“John! Oh, John!” Hannah yelled through the house, running down the stairs. “I heard something at the door!”

With a whoosh and a gasp, Hannah flung open the door and held her breath, hoping it was good news. But there was nothing there. Not a single thing. Not even a dead, brown, crunchy leaf on the doorstep.

She could feel her heart start to prickle with disappointment again as she closed the door, feeling the wave of tears coming on. Two whole months, and not a single sighting of her son anywhere.

It seemed like she was doomed to lose all of her children the same way. The whole experience was making her relive nightmarish memories of the past. Back before Damien could have remembered. This had happened before. It just wasn’t fair.

John came darting down the stairs and ran to the door, almost knocking into her. “What was it?!”

Hannah had her head hung down. “It was nothing. I keep hearing things…” tears began to fall from her eyes.

John tenderly pulled her into an embrace, crying with her, but not letting her see.

“Where could he be, John? What did we do to bring this fate upon us?!” Hannah sobbed loudly. “Where is our little boy?”

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

John stood straight up as Hannah pulled away quickly, shocked. She barely hesitated before she ran back to the door and pulled it open.

“Hello?” Hannah said, wiping tears off her cheeks. She stared at the strange young man on her doorstep. She didn’t recognize him at all, with his silver loop-earing in one ear and the blue dye in his hair.

The man examined her with innocence in his eyes. “Is your husband home?” he said politely.

Hannah nodded. “Yes, just a moment.” She turned around in the doorway, preparing to call out, but before she could, she felt the man place his hand on her back. She turned back around, insulted, but before she could react, she saw stars and fell over. Everything faded to black.

#

It was a cold day. The dull, blue afternoon light was shining through the trees onto the pebbles and sticks of the river bank. Damien hadn’t asked permission to leave the city, but he had his eyes peeled for anything that moved, ready to teleport back to his room if reasons called for it.

Yeah. He could do that now.

He’d come out here to get a breath of air and to clear his head. It’d been a solid four weeks since any Willow activity, partially why he wasn’t scared to death to be out and about. Ever since he’d been killed, he’d been overly cautious, but as time went by, he regained his mental sanity and peace bit by bit.

Deep in thought, Damien sat cross-legged on the rocks, staring into the rushing river. It had a serine beauty about it in the gray air of the day. He took a long, deep breath, letting go of a few worries he’d been having before moving to the next point of focus.

Tomorrow, something important would happen. It was a special day for someone he cared about. Rebecca’s birthday. She’d be turning seventeen.

But the worst part was that he was completely broke, so he couldn’t afford to buy her a present, and that bothered him. So here he sat, trying to figure out what he was going to do. He couldn’t just do nothing. Rebecca deserved way more than that.

Damien stared down at the pebbles as the cloud in front of the sun shifted, allowing a small amount of golden sunlight to illuminate the patch of ground where he sat. The pebbles sparkled brilliantly, suddenly giving him an idea.