Satin Rose and the Witch Hunters

17. Long Road Home

I had flung myself into a roofs gutter and the lasting thing I remembered was shouting from down below before the world went dark again.

When I woke up stars were overhead and a full moon bathed the world with a soft light. My body ached all over, as if I had been beat up the day before.

I might as well have, I thought. The pounding in my head, felt as if my brain had been taking the front of the beatings, but I didn't forget. I remembered being chased by that hunter through the crowd, smashing myself into walls and people in an attempt to fly. I remembered the dust rising up as the wizard's raven got crushed by boulders falling from the ceiling. I remembered the eyes that looked at me as the world seemed to invert itself around me.

Walking to the edge of the roof, I looked down. The cobble was almost pitch black in the moonlight, but I could see it. Climbing down would have been easy before. Now it seemed that the house was higher any chasm I could imagine. A chilly blast swept through the air and I shivered as it cut through my clothes. I waved a hand in front of my face. Feathers.

My brain was stopping myself from thinking too much. I jumped down., my wings flapping wildly to stop kissing the ground. It didn't work as well as I hoped and I landed heavily on my side, my beak rattling and my feet out. Maybe should have thought that through more.

There's nothing quiet like being alone. No one to talk to, share your thoughts, tell your troubles. When I was little, I used to look out the widow imagine what it was like being on the streets at night. The open sky overhead and the freedom that came with being able to go anywhere you wanted with no one awake to stop you. Reality was a little bit darker. A his in the alley, a rustle in the trees, a tap through the window. Suddenly all the little noises of the night were hammers that struck against the worlds silence, dangers that seemed unknowable and the only answer was to run. Being alone is frightening.

I held myself at a distance though. All that fear inside and the emptiness around me would disappear when I got home. I would run, yes, but there was somewhere I could run towards. Home.

My father would ramble on at times that there were important things that could not be learned from the schoolhouse. This was one of them. As I walked back home it seemed as if the eyes and the creeping darkness had come for me again. Yet I felt detached, as if these things weren't happening to me. I held onto that one hope, that when I got home Dad would be there to help.

So I walked, I jumped with a single flap of my wings when a ledge that was to high, I got over confident and tried flying again only to crash into a window that sent a shout from inside and I was quickly back to walking again.

The path back wasn't that far actually. Most of the time we had spent that morning had been our group getting distracted by the festival and gawking at the all the people that had come for the festival. Now though, it seemed like miles on my tiny feet and useless wings. Trash littered every corners and the absence of the crowds was a disturbing contrast to the days festivities. Where were Phinion and Christopher now? Maybe I wasn't so good at this detaching thing.

I don't know how long I walked like that, but eventually I came to the house. The move had grown brighter as the night darkened and the building looked like a stone, cold and colorless. What was I even going to do when I saw him? Shutting the thought out, I tried the front door. Locked and unbreakable, especially since I was a bird. Circling the house though, the window to my fathers bedroom was wide open and my heart sank. A vine had been creeping up the outside wall for a few months and as I scaled it like a ladder my tiny heart was beating faster and faster at the thought of the worst.

My beak reached the windowsill and as I pulled myself up my eyes the night became icy. The house was empty, ransacked, with clothes strewn across and chairs and cabinets toppled. A mirror lay smashed on the floor reflecting the moonlight in uncountable pin pricks and the fear in me was eating me alive.