Silenced Voice

Chapter 31 Moon

Moon was returning to the apartment when she heard someone calling her. She looked around but saw nothing but her guards talking to each other behind her. They clearly hadn't heard anything out of the ordinary. Now it was heard again! A muffled voice, but quite clearly it was calling her name.

She examined the nearby bushes with her gaze and then she realized that the 'voice' had not been heard out loud, but only in her mind.

One of the bushes rustled and she stopped, trying to look like she was just looking at the pond. She hadn't seen the scavengers - that is, humans - or Sky in all the time she'd been in Sanctuary. Wren must be hiding nearby.

"Well, go already", one of the guards grunted impatiently. Moon glanced behind her once more and then stepped inside.

Some time passed as Moon paced back and forth inside, thinking about everything she had heard. She thought of Wren and the rest of Winter's friends here. They probably didn't know what had happened to him. They had to be worried.

Moon! Can you hear me? I am here! Can you open the shutters? Moon hurriedly turned in the direction of the sound, checked the location of the guards, and then hurried to the bedroom window. She carefully opened the shutter and peered out. Wren was balancing on the branch of a nearby tree and grinned widely.
"Hey Moon", she whispered.

"Can you get here?" She whispered to Wren and was about to open the shutters just as she heard one of the guards approach the corner of the house. She gestured for Wren to hide, and had time to see Wren's feet disappear into the foliage of the tree, as she closed the shutter.

The guard seemed to stop at the corner and take a couple of steps to that side of the house where Wren was hiding. Moon could hear him sniffing the air and thinking about the scavengers. Then, to Moon's relief, he turned and disappeared around the corner again.

When she was sure the guard was far enough away at the other corner of the house, she opened the window again and smiled at the treetop, where the long limbs and then the whole girl soon appeared.
"This branch might bend far enough", Wren whispered, and began to inch forward on the branch that grew towards the building.

Moon swallowed. If Wren fell from a branch, the guards would definitely hear the crash. They wouldn't hesitate to eat a human for a snack. However, Wren was so nimble-footed that the slow-moving SandWings could not easily catch her.

She reached out of the window and caught the end of a branch that Wren had already bent down. It didn't take long when the girl jumped in from the window, Moon carefully let go the branch and closed the shutters.

"Phew, something strange is happening here. The Sandwings appeared here shortly after I came with Sky, and fenced off our village. We haven't been able to move anywhere else since then. Food supplies are about to run low. They're so fools, talk about everything, even though I'm next to listen, so I've found out all kind of things. They just try to look menacing sometimes. Where is Winter?" Wren explained, finally asking the question Moon dreaded.
Moon involuntarily looked down and had to fight back tears.

"IceWings picked him up. I mean his sister did it, along with ten other IceWings. I don't know what happened after that." Moon told about their journey down from the mountains, the humans they met in the forest and the restoration of their village.

"Kinkajou and Tsunami have tried to reach Winter with the dream visitor without success", she finally stated, her voice cracking.

"Oh no. Oh Moon", Wren stepped closer and wrapped her paws around her leg. "We should have come with Sky to warn you. I'm sure we would have been able to sneak away if I had guessed that those SandWings were here because of Winter."