Satin Rose and the Witch Hunters

19. Detecting Time

The soft chirping of the outside world stirred awake.

After the owl had left I was still distressed. I hadn't really let myself feel the weight of events and heart had sunk to the deepest pit of my stomach. Alone once again, I hopped into the house, climbed a sheet that was hanging from the bedside, and buried myself under the pillows where I thought I would stay forever.

Still groggy I pushed myself out, meeting a ray of sunshine that was streaming through the open window. I stared into nothing for a while. So many problems clouding my head that it was hard to even know where to start. Everything seemed unfixable. As the silence stretched on the day didn't stop moving and soon it was midday and clouds had rolled out to cover the window's sky.

Hunger and thirst eventually came. Waddling out of the bed, I landed heavily on my side from dropping at the bed's edge. There were clothes everywhere, mindlessly I went to pick them up only to stop just before. Wings. Going to the door, it was caught on the uneven floor and didn't take much to push open. It led directly to the kitchen where a chair was already propped up to the counter and sink. Climbing wasn't that hard anymore, my claws were quite sharp and my beak could easily grab and pull myself up after some flailing with my wings. Would need to get used to this? A cup of water had been poured out yet was undrunk. Using a beak was quite weird, inflexible, I couldn't just lap the water but had to catch it in my lower jaw and tilt my head back. Cool on my tongue, there wasn't any food out and instead I had to jump to unlatch a cabinet that was above me.

Flying was quite unimaginable for me. Whenever I tried to flap my wings they seems to only push me one way and more often than not flipping me as my wings pushed more than I could handle. By jumping and flapping at the same time though, I could gain some height without having to rely too much on my wings force. It took a few tries, but I finally latched my beak on the curved handle and pulled it open, a loaf of bread falling out and onto the counter. I pulled my head back, delighted at the luck, only to realize that my feet were holding onto nothing and falling again heavily.

The bread was stale and dry as I tore chunks of it out. In the cup I looked in again for a drink and caught a glimpse of myself. I had never paid to much attention to birds before. Not much reason too, now though I could see that the feathers on my face were much bluer than anything I had ever seen on a bird before. My eyes and beak weren't pitch black either but a dark grew that gave me more color than I thought I had. The door to my fathers room creaked and had slowly swung to be wide open and I could see the little pillow cave that I had buried myself in the night before. I shook my head. There was work to be done. So, I sat down and thought of a plan.

There were seemingly quite a lot of urgent happenings that needed to be addressed. After some thought though only two of them were truly important. First, I would need to find my father and second, I needed to change back into a boy. These didn't have to separate things. I imagine that once father would discover what I had changed into he would be adamant in helping find a solution. Somewhere deep inside me a question was asked on if my father COULD help and I did everything in my power to reject it.

I had no idea how I even transformed in the first place. I'd need to get either Phinions or Christophers to help me track down the Dark Wloran again and that would be without the help of a cryptic note and with possibly the entire Hunter Guild looking for us. In addition to that Christopher was probably halfway across the sea by now and Phinion lived at the forest edge.

One problem at a time. I took a deep breath and asked a simple question. What happened to dad?

Hopping down from my perch, I carefully descended the chair and went back into his room. The window had been wide open since nighttime, garments of different colors and styles were strewn across the room, a mirror laid broken next to a fallen cabinet that had probably smashed it when it toppled. There was a break-in, a struggle? Dad didn't have any enemies that I knew of, but it was possible that yesterday, someone had tried to break in thinking that my father was at the festival. He wouldn't go down without a fight though and as I scanned the room something occurred to me. Other than the mirror on the floor there wasn't anything else broken. Toppled over and disarranged sure, nothing else was smashed though. Did they try to steal something?

I prodded around inside the cabinet and then the bed side drawer. Dad had kept a secret stash inside here of gold pieces and treasure. In the dark I could actually see fairly decently, easily finding the secret hatch. Pulling the string that kept it closed the secret compartment was now empty. A thief then. Maybe someone had broken in and dad had chased after them. The door to the kitchen had been unlocked perhaps it wasn't the only thing open. Hopping out of the room the kitchen had three entrances. The door to father's bedroom, the stairs to my room, and the door to the shop. There wasn't anything of real value in my room. They could probably find something from dad's old travels in the attic, but they'd have to have had dug deep for anything worthwhile there. Pushing against the store door, my theory was correct and it swung open easily. Unsuspectingly I went inside and found horrors. At the top shelf, just above where the gowns had been displayed on the window, the boxes of my fathers prized dresses were missing.

That was it then, someone must have snuck into the house thinking that it was empty. The girls, Carmilla and Gretel, probably never came into the shop because of the festival, but Dad found them. They dashed to the bedroom where they must have toppled the cabinet and the thief had jumped out the window. Dad probably when out running after them. Why wasn't he back yet? Something wrong must have happened. I had to follow!