Caged in Darkness (Caged #1)(26)

Savannah





I was restless. I fell asleep before the movie ended and woke up to a cold bed. Ash was nowhere to be seen and the window onto the terrace was wide open. I shivered and climbed out of bed to close it. My bare feet touched the floor and I felt something soft catch between my toes. I lifted my foot to find a large black feather. I massaged it between my thumb and finger, trying to figure out how it ended up in my room. Shrugging, I threw it into the trash.

The window was stuck, but it eventually gave way and allowed me to shut out the cold. The night was beautiful. The stars were more visible than usual and the moon was full. I sighed at the beauty and turned to go back to sleep. The moon shone through the glass to light up the room, but left a corner that drew the darkness from the surrounding area to create a pit.

The shadow straightened and moved to create the shape of a man, which was frightening enough. Then the wings spread to reveal the thing from the secret passage. A silent scream caught in my throat. I wanted to run, but then I thought of Ash and Maye. I couldn’t allow this shadow to harm them. I backed away until I hit the window. I quickly opened it to climb onto the terrace. It followed.

I ran to the edge, but was stopped by the balustrade. I leaned over to see how far it would be if I jumped, but when I tried hands pulled me back. I fought to escape. My fingers clenched and I moved to claw its eyes out.

“S, calm down! I’m not going to hurt you!”

Tears fell before I could hold them back and I curled into a tight ball. Ash knelt and held me as I let go of my fears in his arms. He smoothed my hair away from my face and sang to calm me.

“I’m sorry.” I pushed the words out between fits of crying.

“I know. I know.” Ash carried me back into my room and settled me on the bed. He tucked the covers around my body, but when he tried to leave I stopped him.

“Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone.” He nodded and settled back into his position from earlier that night. I drifted to sleep in his arms.

The next morning I woke to a migraine and the smell of pancakes. On the table, beside the bed was a tray filled with a fresh breakfast. I smiled, knowing that Ash left it for me. Beside the glass of milk, I found some ibuprofen for my headache. I loved that he knew me so well. Only he would realize that I would have a migraine after nightmares.

I thought about the kiss with Liam. I wasn’t sure why we had kissed. I hadn’t known him long enough to develop feelings for him, but when he kissed me it felt right. I couldn’t remember ever wanting to kiss anyone.

Last night had been terrifying. I was used to nightmares, but I never had issues with sleep walking and wondered at the new development. I was lucky Ash caught me. I could have ended up with a broken neck. Sighing, I tackled my breakfast.

I spent the rest of the morning resting in bed and doing homework. When I noticed that I had read the same paragraph several times over the past twenty minutes and still didn’t know what it was about, I pushed the textbook away from me.

My notebook lay open next to me. I grabbed the pen and began to doodle. Thinking back to the secret passage and my waking nightmare from last night, I started to draw the thing and realized that I had drawn an angel with terrifying eyes and black wings. The thing resembled an angel, but with strange symbols across the skin and black wings. Next to the fallen angel was the box from the passage.

I tore the page from my notebook and crumpled it into a ball to toss it into the trash bin. I missed, and got up to pick the ball of paper up. Looking down into the trash, I paused at the sight of a black feather. Taking the feather in my hand, I could feel my heart beat accelerate. The feather felt real. I quickly sent a text to Izzy and Willow, begging them to come over.

An hour later, I sat on my bed with the feather on my lap; books lay scattered around me. The textbook I was currently staring at was about the properties of certain stones.

“Hey, sorry it took me so long.” Willow startled me and I jumped to hug her.

“Wow, okay I didn’t know you missed me that much!” She laughed and sat on the bed. “Um, what’s with the books?” Her hand moved to pick up the feather that lay on the coverlet from when I stood up. In comparison, the feather dwarfed her hand. It was about a foot long and as wide as three fingers.

It took me some time to explain my hallucination in the passage, my dreams, and the feather. When I was finished, Willow sat in silence staring at the feather.

“Couldn’t this me from one of Izzy’s outfits?” She handed the feather back and I stood to place it in my dresser.

“Do you ever remember her wearing anything that had giant sized feathers?” I spoke forcefully, because I needed her to believe me.

“You said Ash put everything from the passage into the attic, right?” Willow stood and led the way towards the attic.

It took us a while to comb through the boxes, because Maye had insisted on keeping almost everything from my parents’ estate. Willow got sidetracked when we found the boxes from the passageway. Once her eyes set on the journals, she was lost to me. Every half an hour I would call Izzy and leave a voicemail for her, but she still hadn’t called back.

“Listen to this, your ancestor says that he sought the dead to learn about your lineage.” Willow turned the page and blew dust from the text.

“What do you mean he sought the dead?” I grabbed the journal and tried to find the section she left off at, but Willow took it back.