Read Online Nightingale Girl by M. R. Pritchard - Free Book Online Page A

smoke and hot air Clea transforms into a giant bird. My mother can shift into an Argentavis, a strange mix between a vulture and a crow and as massive as a dinosaur—Sparrow thinks it’s awesome.
    Clea motions for me to climb on her back.
    “Hold on,” she warns, once I’m settled.
    In a forceful thrust we are airborne, flying over sepia forests and writhing shadows. I grip the feathers on her back, holding on tight while her giant wings flap, sending us higher and faster.
    She’s done this before, taken me for a ride as distraction. It’s soothing, like a mother rocking her child. Something I never got to experience since Clea died the day I was born. Strangely, I am calmed by the heated wind blowing past my face and the hearty thrum of her beating wings.
    “I birthed you on a forbidden plane, so you are unaware of these things,” she says as she soars. “Sparrow is special. His soul is pure. He needs this. He needs to be tainted by darkness so that he can be a great leader one day.”
    Everyone keeps saying the same thing. It’s annoying.
    “I like his soul the way it is,” I say.
    “We know.” She flaps her wings, thrusting us higher and faster.
    We know? Who else knows this? Who is we ?
    “Calm your mind,” she soothes.
    I grit my teeth.
    “Have you ever watched a sparrow and a hawk in flight?”
    “No.” I couldn’t give a crap about a sparrow and a hawk right now. I want my Sparrow.
    “The sparrow will fight a creature ten times its size to defend its nest.” She pauses for a moment, gliding through the thick, heated atmosphere. “Have you ever watched a sparrow and a crow? You know what the difference is?”
    “I have no clue.” I never paid much attention to birds in the past. Never really cared about bird fight club.
    “The hawk is out for blood. The crow is simply antagonizing.”
    “And?”
    “Don’t turn this into a bloodbath. Sparrow will protect you at all costs. It’s in his nature. Give him time to recover from the change.”
    I say nothing.
    “You will be invincible together,” she adds.
    Flapping her powerful wings, she takes me farther and farther away from where I want to be.
    . . .
    By the time Clea returns me to the burning caves, it is dark, and the dead lie in sleeping piles on the ground. Clea lands. I slide down her side, feeling centered when my feet connect with solid ground. In a gust of wind she returns to the form of my mother—nearly my dark twin, the princess of the underworld.
    I am tired from traveling between realms and from gripping so tightly to Clea’s feathers. My fingers ache.
    “I’ll take you to your room.” Clea holds out her hand.
    She is strangely solid yet ghostlike. Her skin feels cool as I put my hand in hers, which reminds me that she’s actually dead down here—nothing but a soul in its final resting place.
    When we step inside the burning caves, I am reminded of the pleasant smell of this place: woodsmoke and pine. I inhale deeply. It’s warm here—not as warm as Heaven, but the heat from the forever-burning fires deep under the caves keep the temperature ambient.
    This place shadows Centralia, Pennsylvania, in the earthen realm. When humans in the earthen realm set a landfill on fire in Centralia, little did they know they were igniting fires that mimicked the burning caves of Hell, and these fires would never extinguish.
    My footsteps make muted sounds on the carpet-covered rock. Clea leads me down the main hallway. I shiver as I pass the wooden door that leads to the Hellions’ lair. I was there a few weeks ago. Jim had me strung up like a turkey, ready to drain my blood for him and his Hellions so they could escape Hell at will. That’s what my blood does. Sparrow says it’s worth rubies and jewels to the souls down here. A little bit can get them out; a lot can keep them out for good.
    “They won’t bother you,” Clea promises as we descend a wide stone staircase.
    The deeper we go into the cave, the more castlelike it