Page 1 of Twi-Flight
Chapter One
There’s a chicken in the middle of the street.
Is this a joke? A chicken crossing the road?
I’m collecting the carts from the parking lot after the post-dinner grocery rush when I spot it. The bird is small and white and slowly pecking its way through the street.
She must be an escapee from the Birds of a Feather Chicken Rescue just across the street. The road isn’t busy right now; it’s a lazy Tuesday evening in Ghostlight Falls. There are only a few cars left in the tiny grocery store parking lot, and almost no traffic on the bumpy small town streets.
Surely someone will notice? Someone will come by and do something?
But scanning the sidewalk, there’s absolutely nobody around. The poor little chicken is unaccompanied. With a deep sigh I move towards her.
“Come here, girl.” I coo to the bird.
“Bwak,” replies the chicken.
I crouch down to reach for her. She’s surprisingly docile, letting me scoop her into my arms. A glint of gold around her neck catches my eye.
“Alice?” I read the little letters etched into a small collar. “What are you doing out here all alone?”
“Bwak.” Her answer doesn’t explain anything, but she nestles into my elbow. I think she enjoys being held.
“Sweet thing, I’m sure someone is missing you.” I’m aware of the chicken rescue, but it was established in the last couple of years. It wasn’t operating when I spent every summer between the ages of seven and sixteen with my dad in Ghostlight Falls.
The owner is intriguing, if a bit of a recluse. I’ve seen him around town a few times but he doesn’t even do his own grocery shopping. Despite working across the street from the grocery he has it delivered every week. I glance at the building. Maybe finding Alice is my chance to really meet him?
“Get out of the road idiot!”
The bike barreling down the street is almost on top of us when I finally notice it. There’s no time to react. All I can think to do is curl myself around the chicken, in the hopes of protecting her. Crap, crap, crapity, crap. I am going to die in the middle of the road trying to save a poor defenseless animal. My obituary will read ‘she died like she lived, an idiot’.
There’s more yelling, and just when I expect the bike to hit us, I’m instead surrounded by a sudden feather-soft darkness.
The bike soars over in an arc above my head; it and the rider crash land on the other side of me.
“Are you alright?” The moody voice wrapped around me asks.
I know him instantly. Eggward, the owner of the chicken rescue, is completely unmistakable for anyone else, even though I’ve never been this close to him before. He’s wearing a large strange cape, despite the warm summer weather. His face is obscured by the shadow of the hood that covers his head. His dark, almost black, eyes glint from the depths and the sharp line of his mouth is just barely visible.
“Yeah—I—I’m—okay.” I’m surprised by my tongue-tied-ness. I’ve never been struck so suddenly by a nervous desire to know more about someone.
“What the fuck is your problem! You idiots! This is dangerous! I could have killed you!” The bike rider stands, dusting asphalt from his pants. Despite the circumstances he seems relatively unscathed.
Eggward lifts me, setting me on my feet with an effortless speed I didn’t expect.
“This is a residential area. You’re the one speeding around, there are pedestrians here!” Eggward turns on the rider. I can’t see his face but there is something terrifying enough in his expression, that the other man backs off. Grabbing his bike with a loud grumble and the man sets back out on the road.
Eggward watches him leave before turning back to me. “You should be more careful, you could have been hurt.” His fingers brush softly against my arm, as he plucks the bird from my arms.
“Me? Or the bird?—”
“Both of you.” His eyes glint from under his hood and I lean to the side, trying to see his face better, but he turns blocking my view. That only makes me more curious.
“I saw her out here on her own. I couldn’t just leave her there.”
“Alice has her own ideas about where she should be,” he grumbles. Alice clucks noisily in his arms. He seems chastised. “But, not everyone cares that much about a farm bird. Or my rescue wouldn’t be necessary. Thank you for trying to help.”
“Thank you, the bike definitely would have hit me.”
