A Trail of Echoes(52)

A cloaked figure stood in the center of a veranda surrounded by giant broad-leafed trees and sheltered by low-hanging branches. Her long curly hair and the way her body curved betrayed her to be a woman, though she was anything but human. A set of wings were folded beneath her cloak and as she turned her face to the side, she revealed a black beak with a razor-sharp edge where her nose and mouth should’ve been. And instead of feet, she possessed talons.

She was a Hawk.

She stood looking down upon a wooden cradle. After watching it for several moments, she stooped down and reached into the crib. When she straightened again, she was carrying a dark-haired infant, wrapped in a blanket and deep in slumber. Then she spread her mighty wings and launched into the sky.

She rose higher and higher toward the canopy of leaves. Cradling the baby in her arms, she didn’t stop until she had pierced through the leafy roof and burst out into the open sky, where an orange sun had almost set on the horizon.

Her wings beat heavily, speeding up as she soared over a jungle populated with gargantuan trees.

Even still, the baby slept.

Once the sun had bowed to the moon, the woman’s flight had taken her beyond the forested landscape, and she had reached an ocean. There seemed to be a time lapse as the view changed beneath her several times. Although she flew over mostly water, exotic islands, desert terrains and lush valleys also passed beneath her.

Finally, she let up her speed when the clear sky gave way to thick clouds. She flew right through them, everything blurring as she navigated through the fog. Perhaps hours passed, it was hard to say for certain, but when the clouds got a little thinner and she lowered in altitude, the Hawk and the baby were flying over a landscape unlike any they had passed so far.

They were looking down upon a vast range of black mountains that stretched out as far as they could see. There was not a hint of vegetation in sight, nor any other life for that matter, just miles upon miles of shades of black and grey. It appeared that they had left the sun behind, yet the sky, which was filled with dark clouds, had an eerie reddish tinge.

A strong wind swelled up, forcing the woman to battle against it until she touched down on the peak of a mountain. Her talons gripped the rocks as her wings folded behind her back. Her long hair was a tangled mess as she adjusted the baby in her arms. Her eyes fell on a wide crater about ten feet away from where she stood. She moved toward it, and stopped at the very edge.

Staring down into it, she let out a piercing shriek.

Then she stepped back and fixed her eyes directly above the crater.

“I have the child,” she said, her voice low. She remained staring into empty space.

A breeze blew against her, catching the edge of the baby’s blanket and lifting it right off to unwrap the infant.

The infant levitated from the arms of the woman and began to float in midair, toward the center of the crater.

Its small fists clenched and eyes shut tight, still, the infant slept.

A thin veil of reddish mist manifested, and began to swirl around and around the infant. As it gathered speed, it became denser and denser until the mist turned into thick smoke and enveloped the baby completely. The woman watched, her narrow eyes fixed unblinking on the scene unfolding before her.

As the smoke billowed, gradually, it began to thin again… until there was nothing left but the light reddish mist that had first touched the infant.

Leaving the center of the black crater, the baby floated back into the woman’s outstretched arms. She looked the child over, then wrapped him again in a blanket.

“Is that all?” The woman spoke to some invisible force.

The answer came as a bone-chilling hiss:

“Take him back to Aviary… His time will come.”



The vision disappeared as suddenly as it had shrouded me, and I sat bolt upright, almost sending River rolling off the narrow bed and falling to the floor. My chest heaved as I panted, trying to make sense of what I had just seen.

“Ben?” River whispered, clutching my arm. “Are you okay?”

I barely took in her words as my hearing was hijacked once again by the strange whispery voice for what would be the last time that night:

“We know who you are, and we know what you want…”





Chapter 34: Jeramiah





Looking up and down the length of the dark island’s shoreline, The Shade was more spectacular than I could have imagined.

While Amaya and I had been waiting outside the boundary for Benjamin and River’s arrival at The Shade, I had wondered something that I had wondered many times before. Did The Shade truly live up to its hype?

Keeping the two of us invisible as we hovered over the waves, Amaya had landed us on the back of the submarine just as it entered The Shade’s border. When we arrived inside, any doubts were proven unjustified.