Sunwing by Kenneth Oppel Read Free Book Online Page A

breathless.
    “Very good,” Frieda said, and Shade turned in surprise to see her hanging beside him. “You’re getting better.”
    “Well, I’ve got lots of time to practice.”
    She smiled. Shade had always liked the way her gray fur crinkled around her eyes. There was something gently expectant about the way she was looking at him.
    “Is there something wrong with me?” he asked the elder. “I mean, we’ve got the sun, lots of food, and summer even though it’s really winter. No owls to worry about. And everyone seems so happy.”
    “Except you.”
    Shade nodded. “Except me.”
    “What troubles you?”
    He didn’t know where to start. “It’s not like I imagined.”
    “Our imaginations are limited.” He nodded, feeling humbled.
    “You sought the Humans,” said Frieda, “we all did. We believed they were linked to us in some way, through Nocturna’s Promise. We believed they would help us.”
    “I guess I just expected more.”
    “Some kind of marvelous transformation, perhaps? Or a war to defeat the owls and reign over the earth?”
    He looked away, embarrassed, remembering how much he’d wanted to fight great battles and take his revenge on the owls. A big part of him still did.
    “It seems the Humans have done so much for us here,” Frieda said, watching him carefully. “And yet you’re not content to trust them?”
    “But it’s like we’re in a cage,” Shade blurted out. “It’s a nice, big cage and everything, but still, the bugs don’t taste very good, and even the sun is all pale, and I just don’t see the point.”
    “I agree.”
    Shade fell silent. He just looked at Frieda, feeling a smile soar across his face. “You do?”
    “Yes.”
    He’d felt so alone since they’d arrived, thinking he was the only one who didn’t believe they’d found Paradise. And all along, Frieda had felt the same. His relief was boundless. “Then you’ll help me find a way out!”
    Now Frieda sighed. “There’s not much journey left in these wings,” she said. “I think, for me, this might be the last destination.”
    With a jolt, Shade saw her through new eyes, not as the elder of whom he’d always been in awe, but as an aging bat who’d flown countless summers and winters. She looked tired, her shoulders stooped, her fur listless. Only her dark eyes retained their brightness.
    “I don’t think this is the fulfillment of the Promise,” she said.
    “But I don’t understand why—why didn’t you say anything to the others? To Arcadia?”
    “I’m not sure Arcadia would listen.”
    “But you’re an elder!”
    Frieda smiled. “Arcadia has already made up her mind, and I don’t think I could persuade her. She has a strong hold on the bats here, that’s obvious. They believe what they want. And I suspect this place is more powerful than my words. They think it’s a Paradise, and in many ways it is. But not, I believe, what Nocturna meant for us.”
    “I’ve tried everywhere,” said Shade wearily. “The walls, the roof. I’d crawl through those stupid insect pipes if I were smaller.…”
    “You’ll find a way,” Frieda told him simply. “I know you will.”
    “How?” he said tiredly.
    “Sound. It’s the tool of all bats, but it’s also your special gift. Remember, I always said you were a good listener, that you’d hear things no one else could. You’ll listen your way out of here.”
    That night, his dreams were polluted with the sounds of Goth breathing, the beat of his heart, as if Shade were inside his belly. Silvery images, like sound pictures, flared in his sleeping mind, and they were somehow so familiar, he knew he must have dreamed them before. A two-headed serpent with feathers, a sleek jaguar, and then, most horrifying of all, two eyes without a face,just twin slits cut in the darkness, blazing blacker than any night. He wanted to wake up, but he couldn’t.
    His dream was suddenly suffused with a strange smell, sweet and slightly sickening; he fought to