Page 29 of Darkened Wings
One afternoon, I was deeply engrossed in a chapter about one of our forebirds when I learned that I could order dinner delivered to my room. So I did. I settled on my bed with my books and was comfortably studying and looking forward to roast beef and mashed potatoes with apple pie for dessert when there came a knock on the door.
I held onto the book as I stood up and went to the door. Dinner was early, but that was good. I opened the door prepared to thank whoever was out there holding my tray but, in fact, there was nobody. Weird. I stepped into the hallway and looked up and down but not a person was in sight. Usually it was busy out there, but everyone would have been on the dining hall gobbling rare roast beef, creamy mashed potatoes, and everything else that went with it.
But someone had knocked, unless I imagined it? Just before closing the door, I glanced down, my attention caught by something white at my feet.
An envelope.
I bent to pick it up, looking up and down the hallway again before stepping back inside. My name was scrawled across the envelope in what looked like black Sharpie. Odder and odder. Setting my book down, I sat on the edge of the bed to see what someone thought was so important they would write me a note, but instead of the paper with some kind of message on it, I found a much more puzzling item.
A single feather, black and dull and with something crusted on the end that stuck when I pulled it out of the envelope. Setting the feather on my nightstand, I shook the envelope and peered inside as if I might find something else, but of course there was nothing. Just my name on the outside and this feather on the inside.
A feather that while I was not an expert, I believed to belong to a crow. Why would someone send me a feather that had something on it that was so gummy? Really, why would someone send me a feather at all, but I picked up the feather and studied it under my reading lamp in an effort to determine what the substance was.
It was blood.
Or, at least to my inexpert eye it was. And if so, it could be nothing less than a threat. My mind immediately flew to the crow who had met me while everyone was flying. He’d sat and talked with me for a while, and I had actually hoped that he would stop by again, even if it did upset certain people.
My parents had spoken about ravens in a less-than positive manner more than once, but they had not been crow prejudiced. I hadn’t even known about the hostile feelings between us. They’d not raised me to hate people because of things they couldn’t help, like being born one kind of shifter or another.
They raised me to be kind to the neighbors and treat others as I wanted to be treated. Since I’d been here, I realized how different that was from the other ravens, or at least in those who I’d heard speak. They hated crows almost universally.
And looking at that feather again, I had to wonder if it came from the one who spoke to me so kindly at flight practice. Oh, not sweet and adorable kind, but he spoke to me as an equal before flying off. And Raddix was so angry when he found out. Could he have done something to him and left me this feather in order to keep me compliant—to keep me from associating with crows.
Would he have harmed him? Or maybe gotten someone else to in order to keep his hands clean?
“No. Nobody would do that.” I said it aloud in order to convince myself, but no luck. “He left anyway. He should have been fine, he—”
A rap on the door scared me so badly, I slid off the edge of the bed and landed hard on my tailbone. “Oof!”
Another knock. “Hello? Delivering your dinner? Are you there?”
I was so glad it wasn’t another horrible scary delivery that even though my appetite had been scared out of me, I scrambled to my feet and stumbled to open the door. The poor man who was standing there with the covered tray probably thought I’d lost my mind when I kept him talking in the doorway until Astra returned from eating her dinner. Then I took the food and said goodbye.
Dragging her in with my free hand, I rattled off a litany of words that made so little sense, she took my tray, set it on the desk, and pushed me down into the chair before shoving the fork into my hand. “Eat! I think you must have low blood sugar because I don’t understand a thing you’re saying.”
I set the fork down and popped up again to race over to the nightstand and return to her side, holding the feather and the envelope. “This is what I mean. Someone sent me a bloody crow feather and I think it’s from that guy I told you about who talked to me at flight practice.” I waved the feather around. “They hurt him. It’s some kind of message, right? You have to agree with me. We have to tell someone.”
She did manage to get me seated again and to eat enough dinner to calm down while she ate my apple pie herself, nervously nibbling at the crust until all that was left was a small pile of apples in their juices. But no matter how much we talked about it, we still didn’t know what to do. With the general hatred of crows in the school, sympathy would be low. We went to bed with a chair shoved under the doorknob like in the movies, for extra security.
Chapter Seventeen
Astra and I continued to put the chair under the door for the next several nights, but nothing more happened, and eventually it began to feel silly, or maybe we just got lazy, but the chair stayed by the desk after that. The bloody feather must have been a prank. Hazing the new girl. I didn’t tend to think it was anything against Astra because it had arrived addressed to me. And I was glad. She had enough meanness from those who thought her parentage made her less than they were.
My raven had even taken her under his protection. Which was very sweet and surprising considering she’d never noticed any other person. Or at least didn’t mention them to me unless she was upset with them and felt the need to defend me against them. But whenever Astra was around, I could feel her inside me, content and at peace. Sometimes I wondered how the other people felt to her? Or was she just able to shut them out if they weren’t harming me. She was the strong part of our team, for sure.
But I probably shouldn’t make her do it all. I needed to build up this side of me, and not just with the holds I was learning in Raven Defense.
Sunday afternoons were quiet times here at the academy, with students free to do what they wanted, some going into town and others having family and friends visit. Lots were just lazing in the common areas watching movies or playing video games—apparently there was Internet for that. How did all this modern/not-modern stuff work anyway?
But neither Astra nor I had family coming to visit, nor friends, and we had been sitting around for hours doing more or less nothing. Snacking, reading, chatting for moments here and there. We needed more stimulation than this as a reward for our hard work all week. And out of a brain mired in boredom, I came up with an idea.
A brave one.
“Let’s do something.” I sat up on the bed and let the empty chip bags and candy wrappers fall to the side. “Wanna?”
She didn’t bother rising at all, just looked at me, suspicion bright in her eyes. “The way you are saying that and not telling me what you want to do makes me think you have mischief in mind.”
“Not at all.” I stood and peeked out the window. “It’s a beautiful fall day, and we’re trapped in here while the sky is blue and the leaves are turning and the breeze is calling us to get out there. Why don’t we wander a ways from the buildings, find somewhere private and…”
