She uttered only two words:

“Oh, dear.”

Chapter 33: Ben

The witch’s look of fright and her refusal to give us even the slightest of explanations was eating away at my nerves. No matter how much we all pressed her, she refused to give us an answer.

“Not until I’m certain,” she said, her hands trembling slightly.

“And when will you be certain?” I asked, no longer able to hide the frustration in my voice.

She didn’t reply to my question as she walked toward the door. She just said, “Both of you stay in this room until I return.”

She slammed the door shut, and we all stared at each other.

As per Corrine’s order, we remained in that room for the rest of the day. When she still had not returned by the evening, even Ibrahim looked perplexed.

“River and I should return to the submarine for the night,” I said. “I shouldn’t sleep on the island.”

Ibrahim shook his head. Then he glanced at my parents, who were still waiting with us in the room. “Derek, Sofia, I suggest that you two return to your penthouse for the night. I will stay here with River and your son. Corrine told them to wait here, and they should obey her. Even I’m not sure what that woman is thinking, but I know Corrine. When she gets into a mood like this, she should be listened to.”

Ibrahim shot me a look as I was about to object again to staying on the island. “I will sit in that chair by the door and make sure both of you remain here. So you need not fear going on a rampage in the middle of the night. I will put a curse on you if I have to, but you will be all right so long as I’m watching you.”

“All night?” I asked.

“All night,” Ibrahim replied.

My parents bid us good night, albeit reluctantly, and left the room.

Ibrahim dragged an armchair over to the door. Since this room was windowless, there was no way I could exit without him knowing. Although the bed I was lying on was narrow, I moved up until my back was against the wall, so River could lie sideways next to me. It still pained me just to look at her. Once she had positioned herself on the bed, she reached up to touch my face, brushing my cheek with her fingers.

“We will figure something out, Ben,” she said, even as I could tell that she held little conviction in her words. “I know we will.”

I couldn’t find it in myself to respond. I just nodded stiffly.

She wrapped her arm around me, holding me firmly, and then rested her head against my chest. She closed her eyes. Judging by her breathing, it took a long time for her to fall asleep, but finally her grip around me loosened a little and she nodded off. I remained holding her as I stayed awake deep into the night.

I had no chance in hell of sleeping. I just fixed my eyes on the clock in the corner of the room, watching the hours pass, my vision slightly unfocused as my mind was elsewhere, reliving the previous day’s events.

I replayed every moment in that Pit back in my mind, every torturous moment, as if in doing so I might discover some detail that could tell me why I was trapped as this beast. As 2am struck, I sensed that even Ibrahim had fallen asleep.

My mind drifted unwillingly toward all the humans who would be tucked up in their beds tonight in the Vale. How easy it would be to smash through their windows and drink to my heart’s content. I shook myself, forcing myself out of the ghastly fantasy.

Almost the moment I did, noises of The Oasis surrounded me, occupying my hearing so fully I was aware of no other sound. It had been a while since those noises had been accompanied by that strange voice, but now that also echoed around my head again.

The voice started softly, as it often did, then grew louder and louder, until it was hard to believe that the whole room was not ringing with the sound.

“Come back, Benjamin Novak. We know who you are, and we know what you want.”

Usually the two lines were repeated one after the other, as if they were a verse. But this night, after the first echo, the voice began repeating only the last line, as if the first line had been forgotten.

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

Over and over again until I began to feel nauseous from the words.

Just as I was about to groan in frustration, something else arrested me.

While I was used to a wall of sounds closing down around me, I’d never had my vision hijacked.

This night, I did.

The room surrounding me disappeared and was replaced with a scene so strange, I wondered if I had indeed finally fallen asleep. But I didn’t feel like I was sleeping. No. Something, or someone, was imparting a vision…

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.