Satin Rose and the Witch Hunters

20. Eye Witnesses

Of course there was the little obvious fact that I didn't even know which direction they went. The natural thought that followed was, Someone must have seen them. Close behind it was, How am I even supposed to ask them? My mind drew a blank here.

The silence stretched on as I thought it out. A light went on in my head when I had a brilliant idea. I couldn't ask any humans where they went, but I could ask birds. Would there even be any to ask though? Well, one way to find out.

You don't realize how tall stairs are until it becomes a problem. I saw this and, one last time, attempted to circumvent it a problem by flying. There had to be something I was doing wrong.

I've been focusing on how my body was positioned and preplanning how my direction with a jump. Looking at my wings, you couldn't actually see how big they were until my feathers spread out. They overlapped each other in three rows, doubling in size the farther out a feather was. At length, it was more than I could have held my cape out and seemed light as, well, a feather. When I titled them it was more pronounced since my down followed the rotation. I could do this, even bird brains could figure this stuff out right?

A second later I barreled up the stairs faster than I had flown before, ramming smack dab into the wall. I splattered, sliding down slowly in a mass of feathers and sadness. Picking myself off the floor, thankful for once that I was alone for that fail, and shaking the dust off.

My room was completely fine and the little hatch to the attic remained close. The thief had probably snooped within the shop as a customer before to have known where all the items were. There was only one window here. Walking over, a few obstacles were in the way and I need to climb an ancient toy-chest to even reach it. Finally when I reached it, the glass was obscured by dust and when my tiny frame failed to open it I remember that it had been jammed shut for a great while.

The cogs in my head turned for a hot minute as I inspected the window. Being this close to it, I could almost count the grains of dust and the fiber of wood itself. It was tens, hundreds, thousand! Of sticks stuck together. And between the window and the wood was a little space that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise that was full of tiny rocks and dust bunnies that had clumped together. Using my talons, I scratched away at it, poking a claw in between. Suddenly the window swung open with a puff of dust and I was mess of feathers trying to not get hit.

Splayed out again, I crawled out from under the glass and found the light outside blinding having spent the whole day inside. Breathing in the cool fresh air, it was quiet the lovely day with blue sky's and the green trees framing everything like a picture book. No time to waste though as I spotted the witnesses.

What were they? Starlings? Entirely black with ruby like eyes, they certainly weren't ravens like me. A good deal smaller too. Three of them were just outside the window perched on the stores roof. It looked as if they were ready to fly off at a moments notice with their plan marred slightly by seeing a bird instead of a human peak out.

"Um, Hello?" I spoke, moving slowly toward their perch. They were silent, frozen in place, and unblinking. One tilted its head.

"W-were you here yesterday?" My voice wavered, the roof seemed higher than normal. Last night was quite different when I couldn't fully process just how dangerous a fall from here would be. My foot lost its grip and my wings fanned out as I regained my balance.

"Did see anyone come out of the," One of the birds was fast. A single feather was out of place on his head, sticking up right, as he zipped up to my wing. "Store?" It pecked at my feather. I yelped and walked back a few steps, tucking in my wings farther back, yet the it pursued and pecked again and again. Jumping back through the window, my feet braced itself to run. After a second of seeing nothing, I peeked up again and saw what was distracting them. It was one of the cake balls that had been inside my cape. The snack was still undoubtedly one that father gave me, albeit a little crumbly. A track of crumbs lead from the outside to right under my feat. Inspecting it, I shuffled around and noticed that more crumbs were falling out of me. I shook myself, ruffling up my feathers until no more fell. How had it gone gotten here? Did the starling pull it out?

It was here that I thought about the magic that transformed me. How did it work exactly. I hadn't heard birds speak before, so would it be normal to assume that magic was making me speak? There wasn't any feeling in my throat other than when I would squawk or squeak. Where DID my voice come from? It was still mine, very different than the owl's or the magician's raven. Was I not talking loud enough? Could they not hear me?

"My name's Satin," I ended weakly as the reason on how I could even speak in the first place dawned on me.

"Dearie, you must know they can't talk," A voice said from behind.