Bleeding Bird

-PROLOGUE-

Unlike most prologues, this one is important.

The carriage shook as she was slowly driven to her Auntie Jude's estate in the country. Helen leaned her elbow against the window, running a hand over her face. She no longer recoiled at the bumps and ruts from the scars across her skin. But she thought daily of the beasts that gave them to her. That's what she was supposed to be escaping from. Father could no longer promise protection in his state.

She sighed and leaned harder against the cool wall. She would miss father dearly, but moving away from his night terrors and his regret would help. He used to hunt the beasts—before it happened.

The beasts traveled in packs generally. They weren't found alone. Unless, they were lone predators in which case they would most likely scratch your eyes out and tear your skin off before you knew it...or if they were diseased. She shivered, thinking of the great raven statue on top of the carriage. Everyone knew the rule: the birds were only scared of bigger birds. And therefore, to keep the beasts at bay, monuments of great birds were set up everywhere. Everyone feared the bids.

Except father. He had never feared them—not since he nearly killed one as a child. The crow was only a hatchling at the time, and knowing the destruction it would bring, he had thrown a rock at it like any boy would have. Why let the murderer breathe just to do what murders do? When the bird had begun croaking for its mother, however, and not a single bird came, father had rescued it. It had been a secret at first, and then his one family had been horrified. They never accepted him, but when Ramses—the bird—protected grandfather from another crow, they allowed it. Father had always been an outcast however, quirky in all his ways. But he'd met mother and they'd married, and moved to the outskirts of the city...

And there father completed research, studying the beasts, trying to connect with them. And they would never hurt them as long as Ramses was there. But Ramses wouldn't always be there. And father wouldn't always work for hope. And mother wouldn't always be around. And Helen wouldn't always be safe. People said to try to connect with the beasts was a fools errand—that it couldn't be done. Nothing could stop them.

She had heard stories, however, that by her Auntie Jude's house, the beasts did not attack. That she had a house with one million glass windows that never shattered. That every so often, there is a great storm, and the birds rage, tearing about the property in a rare burst of fury, and bodies turn up, and dark things happen...but then all returns to piece for years and year and years. Helen needed peace. She hoped this peace-spell would remain.