Anna Peregrine--Hollow City

Chapter One

I could not take my eyes off of Cairnholm as it faded away behind us. It was the island I lived on all of my eighty nine, soon to be ninety, years of life, despite being eighteen, soon to be nineteen.

I learned to walk on that island, fly, and most importantly, how to be an Ymbryne someday, taught by the greatest Ymbryne in the world.

That might be a biased opinion since, said Ymbryne, is my mother, and also my Ymbryne.

And now me and all her wards, who were practically my brothers and sisters, were on a journey to get her to another Ymbryne to nurse her wing back to health so she can turn into human again.

The time went on, and Jacob was still rowing the boat despite all of us telling him to rest. Emma and I had begun to look over a map, trying to figure out where the hell we were going exactly.

Someone calling me Eyass, my nickname, which meant baby bird, made me turn around to see Horace looking at me from one of the boats behind us.

"How much ocean is left?" he asked.

I looked out towards the water, seeing a little bit of land in the distance, "Seven kilometers?"

"Eight and a half," Millard whispered in my ear.

I sighed with a frown, "I mean, eight and a half."

I looked down at the birdcage to see my mum looking up at me. I could tell the late summer heat was getting to her. I grabbed the blue blazer I had borrowed from her before throwing it over the cage, giving her shade.

I had been lucky enough to have grabbed a white short sleeve loose blouse from the wreckage of my room, but I was still not alright with the heat. A dark blue calf length tight skirt was not the best with black tights and dark blue heels. Let alone my black into blue hair was not allowing my body any mercy from the sun.

We kept on going, I could tell Jacob was starting to get exhausted from rowing and the heat. I managed to make my way over to him, "You're exhausted, let me have a go at the oars before you melt away."

He reluctantly gave them to me, and allowed me to row for twenty minutes before making me give them back to him.

When I got back to where the birdcage was, I lifted up the blazer a little bit to find my mother had fallen asleep. Good, she needed rest after the number her brother put her through.

"Look!" Enoch said from the boat next to us, pointing to the distance where a cloud of fog was enclosing Carinholm. "It's disappearing!"

"Say goodbye to our island," Emma said.

"We may never see it again," I added quietly.

"Farewell, island. You were so good to us," Hugh said.

Horace sat his oar down and waved to the land-form, "Goodbye, house. I shall miss all your rooms and gardens, but most of all I shall miss my bed."

"So long, loop. Thank you for keeping us safe all these years," Olive said.

"Good years, the best I've known," Bronwyn said.

You and me both Wyn.

* * * * *

The fog caught up to us as we sailed through the water. The sun faded to white as we lost our sense of direction. We stopped, floating in the water now. The cold night air caused me to pull back on my blazer.

"I don't like this, if we wait too long it'll be night, and we'll have worse things to reckon with than bad weather," Bronwyn said.

Just then, the wind picked up. It was like the weather had become her peculiarity. The waves picked up, and soon we were being thrown around like toys in a bathtub.