Echoes of Forgotten Wings

Chapter 3 - The Feather on the Doorstep

The dawn broke, permeating the rooftops, but the village was still enveloped in a dense fog that refused to budge. To Ivo, the stillness felt very much more familiar, more acute, as though he was the one who had gotten out of place. Everything about Alma in the woods was in shades, including his consciousness which made everything appear different, as if the universe had been rotated from its usual position. He had turned and twisted in bed the whole night, trapped in a dream, or rather nightmare – each phrase of Alma reverberating in his ears like a broken record.

He eventually got out of bed as the sunlight had already filled the room on his last look out of the curtains. He watched the ceiling, while inside the house warmed up in the morning sun, he could hear the usual knots and cracking noise from every corner of it. But there was also something more, something beneath them that reverberated with a low intensity in that quietness, like a distant sound forgotten long ago and struggling to break free from the depths of silence.

Only when he opened the door to step outside did he make any note of it.

By then, on the already time-worn stone doorstep, there lay a black feather looking brand new.

Ivo glanced further, an unusual noise filled his heartbeat as he caught sight of the appendage, one out of many avian quills. It was massive, much bigger than any native appendage. It had awe-inspiring ray fading at its edges seeming to bend light at such an angle that it would have appeared unreal. The plume vibrated sending conflicting sensations, both hot and cold, as if the object were pulled in two different directions.

He crouched down momentarily before wavering and retracting his hand. There was something almost vibrating inside the feather and when his fingers came in contact with it's rim, warmth began to flow within his hand and arm as though it was a fan turned high. It was soothing yet disquieting – it felt like a soft hint of something buried deep within his subconscious.

He raised it, noting its mass within his hand. The feather was full of mysteries, secrets, and thoughts which he couldn't explain, and he thought that it was given to him for some purpose.

Looked to the side, there was nobody present. The village was calm, a layer of mist wrapping the buildings like a veil, and there were no people on the roads. Nonetheless, he shared a feeling that was being scrutinized, there were eyes looking at him from the dimness, waiting for him and observing how he made a single motion. He grabbed the feather and pressed it hard against his chest.

He returned to his room and scrutinized the feather with a keen interest. It was black, not just black. It was void, a cellular void that absorbed all light that penetrated its surface walls. There was a drone in the air, barely there, that seemed to imply that the feather emitted energy that only he could feel.

"What are you?," he whispered, carefully outlining the fine lines on it with his finger.

He realized that wings from his dreams were almost real, and they were enormous, majestic, but tormented and thrashing in the face of a relentless storm. Could that be the reason why this feather existed? Those wings of the beings that fought within him most violently?

He remembered Alma's quote: The wind knows what the men have forgotten.

Was this what she intended? Was this feather part of some spoil that the tribe had concealed, a fitting of lost eternal wisdom?

The concept both excited him and caused him anguish. He had, of course, always believed that the village had its share of mysteries, that there were aspects which lay underneath; something in the quietness, the pregnant pauses between ideas and the void that enveloped the atmosphere. But for the first time, being a part of that secret was not just an imagination, it was as if the bygone history of the village was beckoning him.